spices, of roses and lilies, of gold and jewels, of pomegranates and palms: its imagery is oriental in its richness. On the other hand it is also a book of mountains and snow and ice; its atmosphere is affected by the winds from Lebanon and snow-capped Hermon, as well as by breezes from the City of Palm Trees.

6. The forms of literature found in the Bible are numerous and varied. Do you want biographies? Here you may find biographies which in directness of narrative, vigor of movement, interest, and in faithfulness to life are superior to any that were ever written-certainly more faithful in telling the truth and the whole truth. Or do you want to study love stories? Here you can find stories of such genuineness, naturalness, noble simplicity, and straightforward truthfulness that they put to shame the multitude of sickly, silly sentimental novels of to-day. Or do you want to read annals of war? Here your blood may be stirred with accounts of battles, sieges, deadly encounters, ignoble treachery, noble patriotism, galling defeats, glorious victories, and remarkable bravery, records not surpassed in the history of any nation. Or do you want to study law literature? Here you can find a system of jurisprudence to which the best countries of the civilized world must acknowledge themselves indebted; and these laws set forth in statutes so simple, so plain, and withal so unmistakable in their meaning that you will begin to feel pity for our own lawmakers who use vain repetitions as the heathen do, and write their statutes in language like Samson's riddles.

Or do you want to study fiction? Here you will find the wonderfully effective parables, the instructive fables, and the warning dreams, all with a moral lesson so forcibly put that you need hardly ask why there should be fiction in the Bible, or why the imagination may not be inspired as well as the reason and the judgment. Or do you want to read poetry? Here you may find poems of transcendent genius, some of the noblest poems of the world, poems breathing such lofty piety, such fervent devotion, such noble sentiments, and all expressed in imagery so beautiful and sublime that you

can not choose but be entranced by their beauty and their power.

It is profitable to study the Bible because it contains the best forms of literature in satisfying perfection. The English historian James Anthony Froude wrote:

"The Bible thoroughly known is a literature of itself -the rarest and the richest in all departments of thought or imagination which exists."

Dr. Robert South, the great English divine, says:

"In God's word we have not only a body of religion, but also a system of the best rhetoric; and as the high-, est things require the highest expressions, so we shall find nothing in Scripture so sublime in itself, but it is reached and sometimes overtopped by the sublimity of the expression. So that he who said he would not read the Scripture for fear of spoiling his style showed himself as much a blockhead as an atheist, and to have as small a gust of the elegancies of expression as the sacredness of the matter.'

Sir William Jones testifies:

"I have carefully and regularly perused these holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that the volume independent of its divine origin, contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books in whatever language they may have been written.'

Do you ask for tenderness and devotion expressed in faultless rhetoric?

And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.

Do you ask for pathos and elegant simplicity?

And Cushi said, Tidings, my lord the king; for the Lord hath avenged thee this day of all them that rose up against thee.

And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is. And the King was much moved, and went up to the chamber

over the gate, and wept; and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!

Do you want eloquence of appeal, gentleness of warning, depth of yearning, and glorious promise united with beauty of poetic form, pleasing imagery, and most picturesque metaphor? Hear Isaiah:

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. For ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing; and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree; and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

...

Do you want the most practical wisdom set forth in sentences of the utmost vigor, terseness, and rhythmic beauty?

My son, forget not my law; but let thy heart keep my commandments;

For length of days and long life and peace shall they add unto thee;

Let not mercy and truth forsake thee; bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart;

So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. . . .

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding;

For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.

She is more precious than rubies; and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.

Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left riches and honor.

Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her; and happy is every one that retaineth her.

7. The study of the literature of the Bible is worth while because it is a literature of power; it has shaped the thought and morals of the Christian world.

De Quincey divided literature into two classes, the literature of knowledge and the literature of power. The Bible belongs peculiarly to the literature of power. We know that it is the most powerful book that ever spoke to man. The literature of power is always the great literature; it is the only literature that has an unending lease of life. The literature of knowledge will live only until some one else embodies the old facts in a partially new form. Literature of power can never become obsolete because it deals with things eternally true; and the deeper and truer the message of a book, the more inevitable will be the form in which this message will state itself. The literature of the Bible is so surcharged with power that virtue goes out of it whenever it touches the people. This virtue influences their thoughts, forms their governments, frames their laws, shapes their morals, molds their characters, and fashions their lives. All modern thought, ethics, culture, art, law, literature, conduct, and the dull, common round of life, find here most of the materials out of which they are shaped, and by which they are inspired. Thought finds here its problems; ethics, its standards; culture, its rich materials; art, its most inspiring subjects; law, its fundamental ideas; literature, its spirit and ideals; conduct, its primary sanctions; and the multitude of common relations and activities of life find here those elements of mystery, hope, and exaltation which make them at all endurable.

Matthew Arnold, poet and critic, and profound student of the Bible, says:

"As well imagine a man with a sense for poetry not cultivating it by the help of Homer and Shakespeare, as a man with a sense for conduct not cultivating it by the help of the Bible."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, philosopher, and theologian, says:

"For more than a thousand years the Bible collectively taken has gone hand in hand with civilization, science, law,-in short, with the moral and intellectual cultivation of the species, always supporting and often leading the way."

Indeed almost an unlimited number of illustrations and opinions might be offered in evidence, but let a particular and concrete testimonial conclude the list. It is an account of the influence of the Bible on a particular nation at a particular time. In his "History of the English People," John Richard Green says of the time when the English Bible so powerfully stirred the life and conscience of England:

"So far as the nation at large was concerned, no history, no romance, hardly any poetry save the little-known verse of Chaucer, existed in the English tongue when the Bible was ordered to be set up in the churches. Sunday after Sunday, day after day, the crowds that gathered around the Bible in the nave of St. Paul's, or the family group that hung on its words in the devotional exercises at home, were leavened with a new literature. Legend and annal, war song and psalm, state roll and biography, the mighty voice of the prophets, the parables of evangelists, stories of mission journeys, or perils by the sea and among the heathen, philosophic arguments, apocalyptic visions, all were flung broadcast over minds unoccupied for the most part by any rival learning. But far greater than its effect on literature or social phrase was the effect of the Bible on the character of the people at large. The Bible was as yet the one book which was familiar to every Englishman; and everywhere its words as they fell on ears that custom had not deadened to their force and beauty, kindled a startling enthusiasm. The effect of the Bible however dispassionately we examine it, was simply amazing. The whole people became a church. The problem of life, and death, whose questionings found no answers in the higher minds of Shakespeare's day pressed for an answer not only from noble and scholar, but from farmer and shopkeeper in the age that followed him.'