Divine, and with the eternal heraldry

And signature of God Almighty stamped
From first to last--"

was intended for all classes of mankind.

The

minds of the young as well as the old need to be enlightened with its sacred truths. It is our solemn duty to see to it that the children of the masses are furnished with a knowledge of the word of life. This fact was fully recognised and insisted upon by the Almighty in his instruction to the Israelites :

แ "Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates."

Here it will be observed that the children were, by the direct command of God, to be taught the Scriptures everywhere—in all places where they might chance to be. Here is posi

tive authority for reading them to our children gathered in our public schools; for here the

greatest number can be reached in a given

time. No reason can be given why the Bible should not be read in our public schools that would not apply against it being read to children anywhere. Timothy was commended by Paul because that from a child he had known the holy Scriptures. And so if we would have our children's minds, like Timothy's, imbued with the sublimest system of virtue and morality that is to be found anywhere on earth, let us give them the Bible; and let us see to it that this greatest and best of books is not banished from our system of general education.

CHAPTER XI.

The Literary Character of the Bible an Additional Reason why its Use should be continued in our Public Schools.

THE Bible should be continued in our public schools not only because it is far superior to any other book in the variety of its precepts, the sublimity of its truths, and the purity of its morals; but also because of its high character as a literary work. The historical portions of the Scriptures are justly regarded as unsurpassed either in ancient or modern literature. They open up a long vista in the hoary past where the light of other histories never shine, save by the light of this blessed Book. Here by its sacred pages we are led back to the beginning of time to creation's mighty work-to the great First Cause; to the mighty Architect of the skies, who with matchless power and wisdom constructed and arranged the vast and complicated machinery of our planetary system, wheel within wheel, in almost endless variety and beauty, and yet in most surprising harmony and adaptation. Here only is to be found an account of the origin of our race, of the primeval condition of man, of his subsequent fall and

degradation, of the increase of wickedness that followed his moral corruption, of the great Deluge, of the preservation of Noah and his family, of the repeopling of the earth, of the confusion of tongues, of the founding of ancient empires, etc. Even Professor Huxley is constrained to acknowledge its claims to special recognition in consequence of its high literary character. "Take the Bible as a whole; eliminate, as a sensible lay-teacher would do, all that is not desirable for children to occupy themselves with, and there still remains a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur. And then consider the great historical fact that for three centuries this book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village, to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of a great past, stretching back to the farthest limits of the oldest nations in the world. By the study of what other book could children be so humanized and made to feel that each figure in the vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between two eternities?

"On the whole, then, I am in favor of read

ing the Bible, with such grammatical, geographical, and historical explanations by a layteacher as may be needful, with rigid exclusion of any further theological teaching than that contained in the Bible itself."

Indeed no one who has the least candor can help but admit that the mightiest events that have ever occurred in our world's history, are narrated with a surprising simplicity, faithfulness, and majesty. Where is the book to be found that contains stories that equal in touching tenderness and beauty the stories of the Bible? The impressive narrative of Abraham and Isaac, of Jacob and Esau, of Joseph and his brethren, of Naaman the Syrian, of Elijah and Ahab, of the three Hebrews and Nebuchadnezzar, and a host of others equally romantic and impressive. These stories will ever continue to fascinate the young and instruct the old, while the human heart shall love the sublime and beautiful. Said Daniel Webster: "I have read through the entire Bible many times. I now make a practice to go through it once a year. It is the book of all others for lawyers as well as divines, and I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought and of rules for his conduct. It fits a man for life. It prepares him for death."

It contains the biographies of the most illustrious personages that have ever lived. It con