THE PRICELESS TREASURE;

OR,

Thoughts and Stories about the Bible,

CHAPTER I.

THE BIBLE A DIVINE REVELATION.

HE BIBLE, the book for all people! Yes; the Book of books! The Book of God. Surely a book claiming

to occupy such a position must be worthy of a calm and serius examination. Let us therefore take it up for the purpose of finding out if we can what is its mission, and what it proposes to do for man; for all must feel that no accident could have led to the production of such a Book. Its writers must have had some distinct object in view when they sat down to compose their separate portions; for the Bible. could not have come together by chance. There must have been an idea of some kind in the minds of the writers of it, just as we find to be the case with every other book that has been written. Many books we know have been composed simply to amuse,-some to instruct in the 34

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arts and sciences,-while others are devoted to history, biography, poetry, etc. But, whatever may be the character of a book, of one thing we may soon be quite sure;-that its author had some object in view when he wrote, and which he intended to accomplish as far as his ability would enable him to do. So of the writers of the Bible; they also must have had a distinct object in writing. The words they wrote could not have come together without some special effort of their minds. They did not write merely to amuse, nor to satisfy the morbid curiosity of any human mind. Nobler and loftier purposes than these prompted them to their work. Yes; we believe, and shall endeavour to prove, that "holy men of old spake and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." On no other ground can we account for these wondrous writings.

Let us then (I.) say a few words about ITS WRITERS. The Bible is a collection of tracts or books; and it seems to us impossible that the forty or more writers, from Moses who stands at the head of the list, to John at the end of it-and whose productions are now bound in one volume, -could, during the 1,600 years over which their writings extended, unite so harmoniously in the general scope of their utterances, each one in his own way following out his own thoughts and using his own style, unless they were under the special guidance and control of some one mind. To

do this would require the working of a greater miracle than that which we claim, when we contend that they each received the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit; as Mr. De Quincey observes, "all the writers combine to one end, and lock like parts of a great machine into one system." In spite of all their diversities we recognise the Bible to be one book. Nor need we be surprised that so many persons were employed by God in the production of such an important work; for as one of our most thoughtful writers has said :—

How inevitable was it that He, the sun of the spiritual heaven, should find no single mirror large enough to take in all His beams-should only be adequately presented to the world, when many, from many sides, did, under the direct teaching of God's Spirit, undertake to set Him forth."*

The glory of the Bible is due to the reflections from these mirrors, which enables the Book to allure all kinds of people in every variety of ways; as Dr. Hamilton, says :-" For the pensive, there is the dirge of Jeremiah and the cloud-shadowed drama of Job. For the sanguine and hopeful, there sounds the blithe voice and there beats the warm pulse of old Galilean Peter. And for the calm, the contemplative, the peacefully-loving, there spreads like a molten melody, or an abysmal joy, the page-sunny, ecstatic, boundless-of John the divine. The most homely may find the

* Dean Trench.

matter of fact, the unvarnished wisdom and plain sense, which are the chosen aliments of their sturdy understandings, in James's blunt reasonings; and the most heroic can ask no higher standard, no loftier feats, no consecration more intense, no spirituality more ethereal than they will find in the Pauline Epistles. Those who love the sparkling aphorism and the sagacious paradox are provided with food convenient in the Proverbs; and for those whose poetic fancy craves a banquet more sublime, there is the dew of Hermon and Bozrah's red wine-the tender freshness of pastoral hymns, and the purple tumult of triumphal psalms. And whilst the historian is borne back to ages so remote that grey tradition cannot recollect them, and athwart oblivious centuries, in works of brightness and in oases of light. sees the patriarch groups, clear, vivid, and familiar as the household scenes of yesterday,—there is also a picture sketched for the explorers of the future. For, whilst the apocalyptic curtain rises slowly, whilst the seven thunders shake its darkness palpable, and streaks of glory issue through its fringe of fire, the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven; and gazing on the pearly gates and peaceful streets and bowers of sanctity, our planet can scarce believe that she is gazing on herself that this is old Mother Earth grown young again, that this vision of holiness and bliss is nothing more than Paradise restored

that 'new' but ancient earth in which dwelleth righteousness.'

There is another general remark it is needful to make, and it is this: The reader of the Bible should bear in mind the intellectual character of the writers of the various books, and also the state of the age in which their books were written. With very few exceptions, they were only ordinary men of toil; some of them were rich, and some of them very poor; some of them were kings, and some of them subjects; some of them were legislators, and some of them tax-gatherers; some of them were fishermen, and some of them were shepherds; some well-informed, but for the most part illiterate as well as humble in their circumstances; and yet they will be found on investigation to have written as men, however highly trained or gifted, have never written in any age of the world's history. On themes of boundless extent, the most thrilling interest and the grandest conception they write and never fall below their lofty theme.

"As a skilful musician, called to execute alone some masterpiece, puts his lips by turns to the mournful flute, the shepherd's reed, the mirthful pipe, and the war trumpet; so the Almighty God, to sound in our ears His eternal word, has selected from of old the instruments best suited to receive successively the breath of the Spirit. Thus we have in God's great anthem