God's Word the Preserver of Nations

1 Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.” — xiii. 13.

THIS word has a private and personal, as well as a public application; but it is in the providential government ot the nations that its truth has been most conspicuously displayed. The kingdoms of the world in these days prosper or pine in proportion as they honour or despise God’s word. Show me a land where the Bible is degraded and interdicted, and I will show you a land whose history is written in blood and tears: show me a land where the Bible is valued and spread, and I will show you a country prosperous and free. Nor does the civil war which has scourged the States of North America present any real exception to this rule; for beyond doubt slavery is the ultimate cause of the conflict, whatever the immediate and ostensible occasions may be; and, alas! in order to preserve that system, as it exists in America, from destruction, the Bible must be either legislatively forbidden, or theologically explained away. Number the nations over one by one, and see where property is valuable and life secure; mark the places where you would like to invest your means and educate your family; you will shun some of the sunniest climes of earth, as if they lay under a polar night, because the light of the truth has been taken from their sky. Traverse the world in search of merely human good, seeking but an earthly home, and your tent, like Abraham’s, will certainly be pitched at “the place of the altar.” Scotland is a kindlier home than Connaught. The Irish Papist abjures the Bible as an unintelligible or dangerous book, and implicitly submits to the spiritual guidance of his priest: the British Protestant holds God’s word in his hand, at once the standard of his teacher’s doctrine, and the rule of his own life. Hence chiefly the difference, moral and material, between the two peoples. They who despise the word are a prostrate race. A nation of beggars starves at our doors, on an island that might become a garden. The map of the world is sufficient evidence that God is, and that he has revealed his will to men.

This country has been preserved safe in many convulsions, while others have been rent asunder. It has grown great, while others have wasted. It has been gradually growing more free, while other nations are robbed of their liberty, or retain it at the price of their blood. We should know who makes us to differ, and what. The Bible has made us what we are; it is dark ingratitude to despise or neglect it. It is often observed that when a man rises in the world, he no longer knows the person by whom he rose. This is the mark of a low, ungenerous mind. Symptoms not a few of this vulgar vice may be seen in high places of our own land. The preserved do not care to know their preserver. A summer tour on the Continent does not afford a sufficient lesson: the power of Britain shields her subject during his travels, and the iron of Popish despotism does not enter into his soul. But a year of subjection to Roman rule, such as the Romans feel it, would teach politicians a truth which they are slow to learn. They might discover the worth of the Bible as the preserver of liberty, if they felt