26 BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

helpfulness of the Sacred Scriptures was a matter on which
all sensible men were agreed.

One of these writers told a very interesting story. He
said that when he was young he was very poor, books were
dear and money was very scarce; newspapers were not
much known and magazines were hardly known at all. By
dint of great self-sacrifice this poor boy secured a second-
hand copy of a classical dictionary. A strange choice, this,
you will think for a boy whose days were passed amid the
quietude and monotony of farm life. And so it was.  Per-
haps, however, it was more a matter of accident than choice,
or it may be that the few crude illustrations had something
to do with his selection.

The writer goes on to say, that he found this old, worn,
classical dictionary to be a perfect enchantment—a source
of endless delight. It opened a new world to him. The
dull life of the farm was never so dull after he began to
read the stories of the classic age, the wonderful stories of
the gods and goddesses of the old mythology; their conflicts
by land and sea, and in the upper air; their victories and
defeats, the awful nod of Jove and the trembling of Olym:
pus. It seemed as if his whole life was filled and peopled
with romantic thoughts of them and their heroic deeds.
The old dictionary lifted him up into a region of heroism
and courage. The classic companionships of his early youth
helped him his whole life long.

This illustration will serve to show, in part, what is
meant by the Bible being the book of all books for boys,
by reason of its real helpfulness. The Bible cannot be other
than a helpful friend to every boy who will study it; not as a
task book, but as a book full, from Genesis to Revelation, of the
grandest object lessons tobe found anywhere in the world.