A MATCHLESS TEMPLE,

where I delight to contemplate the beauty, the symmetry, and the magnificence of the structure, and to increase my awe and excite my devotion to the Deity there preached and adored.”  “There never was found, in any age of the world,” says Bacon, “either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good as the Bible.”  “It is the window in this prison of hope,” says Dwight, “through which we look into eternity.”  “How admirable and beautiful,” says Racine, “is the simplicity of the Evangelists!  They never speak injuriously of the enemies of Jesus Christ, of his judges, nor of his executioners.  They speak the facts without a single reflection.  They comment neither on their Master’s mildness, nor on his constancy in the hour of his ignominious death, which they thus describe:  ’And they crucified Jesus.’” “Men cannot be well educated without the Bible,” says Dr. Nott.  “It ought, therefore, to hold a chief place in every situation of learning throughout Christendom.”  “I am of the opinion,” says Sir William Jones, “that the Bible contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they have been written.”  “I will answer for it,” says Romaine,

“THE LONGER YOU READ THE BIBLE

the more you will like it; it will grow sweeter and sweeter; and the more you get into the spirit of it, the more you will get into the spirit of Christ.”  “The greatest pleasures the imagination can be entertained with,” says Sir Richard Steele, “are to be found in the Bible; and even the style of the Scriptures is more than human.”

THE BIBLE IS AUTHENTIC.

It is old.  It is beautiful.  It is the only hope we have.  If we cast it away we become as the brutes of the field, both in spirit and in body.  The strong take from the weak and perish into nothing—­this is all that is offered us by those who reject and revile the Bible.  Such have exceeding deep ignorance, exceeding ill manners, exceeding bad taste, and exceeding great folly.  “I find more sure marks of the authenticity of the Bible,” says Sir Isaac Newton, “than in any profane history whatever.”  We use the word “secular” nowadays where “profane” was formerly written.  “Profane” meant “before” or “outside” the “fane,” or “temple.”

THE BOOK OF JOB

is older than any other writing on earth.  It antedates the Chinese Empire.  It is lost in the mist of years.  The histories of Moses are as old as the pyramids, and the pyramids and obelisks proclaim the integrity of the Hebrew leader and chronicler.  So let us prize this greatest gift of God to man.  Let us humbly thank Him for the liberties and comforts it has brought us—­for even the Atheist himself refrains from robbing us of our property through the influence of the Christian religion.  Let us thank God for the schools, and the hospitals, and the charities which have