flight as the printing an entire Bible, and executed it with astonishing success. It was Minerva leaping on earth in her divine strength and radiant armour, ready at the moment of her nativity to subdue and destroy her enemies." After all these centuries of the press sending forth copies of the Word that none can number, it yet remains true that the book most profitable for the publishers is the Bible, because the demand never ceases. The book cannot die.

The testimony of Sir William Jones, who was familiar with the greater part of the best books in twenty-eight languages, is borne out in all history: "This 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."

History, science, philosophy and religion all unite in giving it a name—THE DEATHLESS Воок.

The shining suns of all the universe have never dimmed its light. Geologists have never found the strata or the fossil that will invert, or controvert, the statements of the first page of this oldest book. Archæologists have been compelled to admit

the truths of its history. "If we dig up Nineveh," says one, "we only dig up testimony to God's word." The old Egyptian tombs and temples are verifying its records. Babylon and Tyre and Sidon are commentaries upon its trustworthiness. The nations it has touched all render it tribute. It met the superstitions of Persia. It confronted the philosophies of Greece; and has its own epistle to the Romans. From Eden to Patmos was its path, and all that path bears evidence, even in ruins, of its life and power.

The Egyptians had their pyramids; but there is nothing in them except the silence of unrevealed mysteries. Sphinxes gaze out upon the desert wastes with eyes that blink not in the storms of sand; beasts and reptiles crawl among the ruins of cities long since dead; the site of the " daughter of Sidon" is mostly swept by the sea,-her glory has departed. The soliloquy of the great German scholar Max Müller, in his "Chips from a German Workshop," will do for the whole: "What do the tablets of Karnak, the palaces of Nineveh and the cylinders of Babylon tell us about the thoughts of men? All is dead and barren; nowhere a sigh, nowhere a jest, nowhere a glimpse of humanity. There has been but one oasis in that

1

vast desert of ancient Asiatic history, the history of the Jews."

Great nations have come into being; shone in splendor, and then died. The brightest minds of Greece and Rome have left us works that are classics indeed, yet powerless in giving life. Over the funerals of nations, keeping watch above the declining greatness of the highest uninspired thought, there has stood and still stands the DEATHLESS Book. Such is its character; but since it is adapted for all peoples, and has proven its power in all ages, the past makes known what shall be its the heritage of the race; the WORLD'S

future Book.

II.

THE BOOK OF CIVILIZATION.

THE death of nations is a startling fact. The paths of history are choked with the ruins of great peoples. Nation after nation has risen, flourished, and then died.

Between ancient Egypt and the Egypt of to-day there is no tangible connection. The Greece that the world knows, is dead; its language is dead. Italy has her Tiber; her Appenines still keep their silent watch; her coasts provide harbors for the world's fleets, but the mighty empire has fallen. Her Augustan age is of the past. Rome's seven hills could not save the people from their own destruction. Carthage long ago met the doom of destruction decreed against it by vengeful Rome, fading forever from the sight of men. Persians and Medes have left scarce a vestige of their splendor and power. Babylon, that once queen of the nations, has become an utter ruin, according to

the prophecy; never inhabited, never rebuilt. No Arab has planted his tent where the proud city sat; herdsman and shepherd have never driven thither their herds and flocks. Its palaces and gardens and plains have been "swept with the besom of destruction." Scorpions crawl where men slept; dragons dwell in her palaces; the silence is broken only by the cries of beasts and birds of the night

all is perfect desolation. What is true of one people or nation is true of all. The grave of Assyria is as deep as that of Egypt. The light of Athens is put out, and the marks of Roman power are covered by rubbish.

What meaning is there in all these deaths of nations? It was not the form of the government that crushed out their lives; nor was the true reason in the invasions of hostile hosts. Nations have become suicides. Destruction comes from within. No nation has ever been destroyed for being too good; on the contrary, what is universally acknowledged of Rome obtains as to all the rest — they died "because of their own vices."

Turn to the history of Greece and read in tersest language the story: "The later Greeks degenerated from their great forefathers;" "the rapid growth of Greek culture and Greek political ideas was