any hesitation assert that in the long run it has never been found to support any kind of wrong. It gradually raises its friends from ignorance, sin, and folly; and, step by step, as its teachings are observed, we find gross sins and errors fall from their place in the heart, until purity and peace reigns in their stead. Facts in abundance might be quoted in illustration of this great truth. Take the following, as examples selected from the lives of some who are well-known as the friends of purity, goodness, and order; showing the kind of tendency the teaching of the Bible had upon their lives and hearts :

It is recorded that Bunny's 'Resolution' roused Richard Baxter to concern, and Sibbes' 'Bruised Reed' led him to the Saviour. Baxter then wrote the 'Call to the Unconverted,' which was blessed to Philip Doddridge, who afterwards wrote the 'Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.' This book gave the first religious impressions to Wilberforce, who wrote the 'Practical View of Christianity;' that was blessed to Legh Richmond, who in his turn wrote the 'Dairyman's Daughter,' and 'Young Cottager,' which has been blessed to thousands. The 'Practical View' was also blessed to Dr. Chalmers' conversion; and who can estimate the effect of his eloquence and the worth of his books?

What other book has inspired men or women

to such deeds of usefulness? Truly an able writer says:"When we reflect how large a part of our present knowledge and civilization is owing directly or indirectly to the Bible; when we are compelled to admit, as a fact of history, that the Bible has been the main lever by which the moral and intellectual character of Europe has been raised to its present comparative height: we should be struck, methinks, by the marked and prominent difference of this book from the works which it is the fashion to quote as guides and authorities in morals, politics, and history. In the Bible, every agent appears and acts as a self-subsisting individual; each has a life of its own, and yet all are one life. The elements of necessity and free-will are reconciled in the higher power of our Omnipresent providence, that predestinates the whole in the moral freedom of the integral parts; of this the Bible never suffers us to lose sight. The root is never detached from the ground; its God is everywhere."*

"The Bible is a book whose words live in the ear like a music that can never be forgotten— like the sound of church bells which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things, rather than mere words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory of * Coleridge.

the dead passes into it. The potent traditions The of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. power of all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that has been about him of soft and gentle and pure and penitent and good; and speaks to him for ever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed, and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of religiousness about him whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible."

VII. The Bible has given man the Sabbath, -the "pearl of days," as it has been beautifully styled. How many blessings are brought to man by this great boon-the Sabbath of rest? Health of body, of mind, and of soul, may be reckoned among them. In this matter, as in all others, the influence of the Bible has always been beneficial to man. Physiologists tell us that man needs a Sabbath of rest to recruit his health, and in the Bible alone man finds the blessing anticipated. In no nation but where this blessed book is found and honoured do we find man enjoying this blessing. Everywhere the selfishness of man strives to wrest it from us, but hitherto, thank God, without success; and God grant that we may never forget to observe the commandment, "Keep holy the

Sabbath day:" if we do that, men, workingmen especially, will learn that they have seven days' work without extra pay: the stress of continued toil will give them such a strain in mind and body, that they will lose health, liberty, and every other blessing. Without the Sabbath, man's life would be wretched indeed. As Dr. Chalmers, speaking of the Bible, well observed:

"The proudest of her recorded distinctions is, that she is the religion of the poor; that she can light up the hope of immortality in their humble dwellings; that the toil-worn mechanic can carry her Sabbath lessons away with him, and, enriching his judgment and his memory with them all, can bear them through the week in one full treasury of comfort and improvement; that, on the strength of her great and elevating principles, a man in rags may become rich in faith; and looking forth through the vista of his earthly anticipations, can see, on the other side of all the hardships and of all the suffering with which they are associated, the reversion of a splendid eternity."

VIII. The Bible is the source of all real benevolence. While it may with truth be said that the main work which the Bible has to accomplish is to save souls, yet, in doing this, experience amply testifies to the fact, that by its influence those who are taught to care for the soul, sooner or later are found to be alive to the

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importance also of taking care of the body. “It has the promise of the life that now is, as well as that which is to come." By the teaching of the Bible men are led to see that whatever has a tendency to make people happy for this world, is also in harmony with the desire for making them happy in that world which is to come; and that whatever has a tendency to render people miserable and unhappy for time, will also pave the way for a similar state in eternity. It is therefore owing to this genial and benevolent spirit that the Bible has made itself a power in the world. This fact has often been recognised, even by those who have not been willing to accept its teachings altogether into their hearts.

If any additional proof of the genial character, of the social influence, of the Bible be required, we need only to look around us on the multitudes of public monuments of charity which have been erected in our land through the benevolence which it has sanctified. Infidelity in all ages has never been remarkable for building hospitals or providing homes for the destitute and fallen. The coming of Christianity found the heathen world without a single house of mercy. "Search the Byzantine chronicles," says Dr. Harris, "and the pages of Publius Victor; and though the one describes all the public edifices of ancient Constantinople, and the other of ancient Rome, not a word is to be found in either of a charitable in