24 BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

have often thought the Bible was the best of all books for the
sorrowful and troubled; we have thought of that beautiful text
that describes God’s word as ‘“‘a lamp to the feet” and “a light”
to the path, and then it seemed as if the Bible was the very
book of books for the perplexed. When that divinely tender
invitation, ‘‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-
laden, and I will give you rest!” has been repeated, it has
seemed as if the Bible was of all books the book for the sin-
weary and the sad. The Bible is a book for all, for all peo-
ples, all nations, all ages. Of this we are sure beyond all
question, that the Bible is the best of all books for boys.

What a wonderful book it is! By far the most wonderful
book in the world; a book that is really a library in itself.
It is made up of sixty-six different books, and has between
thirty and forty different authors. Kings, and priests, and
poets; fishermen, farmers and physicians, have all had a hand
in this book. Very learned men, such as Solomon and Saul,
of Tarsus, have written many pages in it, and others, who
never knew the advantages of a careful education, wrote sim-
ply what they had seen and heard of the mighty power of God,
in the person of Jesus Christ.

This marvelous bcok deals with the history of thousands
of years, from the earliest records of the human family to
the advent and history of the Son of God. From the gar-
den-home of Eden to the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, in
whose unhewn sepulchre Jesus of Nazareth was entombed. If
it were not for this book the world would know very little of
the history of the ages. Even modern history comes to us
in fragments. Much of the history of the old world, by which
we mean the world before the days of Greece and Rome, is
absolutely lost. If it were not for the Bible, the early history
of the world would be almost entirely a blank.