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Education
commonplace matters only, becomes dwarfed and enfeebled. If never
tasked to comprehend grand and far-reaching truths, it after a time
loses the power of growth. As a safeguard against this degeneracy, and
a stimulus to development, nothing else can equal the study of God’s
word. As a means of intellectual training, the Bible is more effective
than any other book, or all other books combined. The greatness of
its themes, the dignified simplicity of its utterances, the beauty of its
imagery, quicken and uplift the thoughts as nothing else can. No other
study can impart such mental power as does the effort to grasp the
stupendous truths of revelation. The mind thus brought in contact with
the thoughts of the Infinite cannot but expand and strengthen.
And even greater is the power of the Bible in the development of
the spiritual nature. Man, created for fellowship with God, can only in
such fellowship find his real life and development. Created to find in
God his highest joy, he can find in nothing else that which can quiet
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the cravings of the heart, can satisfy the hunger and thirst of the soul.
He who with sincere and teachable spirit studies God’s word, seeking
to comprehend its truths, will be brought in touch with its Author; and,
except by his own choice, there is no limit to the possibilities of his
development.
In its wide range of style and subjects the Bible has something
to interest every mind and appeal to every heart. In its pages are
found history the most ancient; biography the truest to life; principles
of government for the control of the state, for the regulation of the
household—principles that human wisdom has never equaled. It con-
tains philosophy the most profound, poetry the sweetest and the most
sublime, the most impassioned and the most pathetic. Immeasurably
superior in value to the productions of any human author are the Bible
writings, even when thus considered; but of infinitely wider scope, of
infinitely greater value, are they when viewed in their relation to the
grand central thought. Viewed in the light of this thought, every topic
has a new significance. In the most simply stated truths are involved
principles that are as high as heaven and that compass eternity.
The central theme of the Bible, the theme about which every other
in the whole book clusters, is the redemption plan, the restoration in
the human soul of the image of God. From the first intimation of hope
in the sentence pronounced in Eden to that last glorious promise of
the Revelation, “They shall see His face; and His name shall be in