The Bible in Rome: St Paul's Testimony to the Authority of Holy Scripture

“And that from a child thou hast known THE HOLY Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.’5 — 2 Tim. hi. 15-17.

“But the Word of God is not bound.” — 2 Tim. ii. 9.

“And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.” — Acts xxviii. 23.

IV.

{Preached at the Porta del Poftolo, March 12, 1871.)*

2 Tim. iii. 15, 16.

“The Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”

T AST Lord’s Day, I directed your thoughts -■ — ’ to that sacred relation in which St Paul stood to Timothy, and the hallowed memories, alike scriptural and traditional, in regard to both, which hover over this city.

There is much in the great Apostle’s letters to his son in the faith, and especially in the later one, penned in his Roman dungeon, of

* It was a remarkable coincidence, that the very time I was engaged in preaching this sermon in Rome, several thousands of the new National Guard of King Victor Emanuel were being sworn in; and the oath of allegiance was taken, not (as had been the immemorial custom), with the hand laid on the crucifix, but on the Holy Bible. Two copies of the Scriptures were placed open on a table; the Jews took their oath on the Old Testament, the Christians on the Old and New together.

momentous practical import. There would seem to be a special appropriateness, at this time and in this place, in selecting for consideration, among its other themes, St Paul’s testimony to the divine obligation of the Holy Scriptures. We have surely arrived at a wonderful juncture and crisis of Rome’s history, when, after centuries of proscription, that blessed Book is once more free to enter within its gates — when God’s ambassadors can unlock its long-sealed fountains, and without let or hindrance can proclaim, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters!” On receiving the crowd of inquirers in “his own hired house,” it was from these Sacred Scriptures, during the livelong day, the Apostle enforced the claims of his great mission; for. we read, “there came many to him into his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God; persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening” (Acts xxviii. 23). It was these Sacred Scriptures, as God’s own honoured instrumentality in the world’s conversion, which gave comfort to the chained prisoner himself, as he looked to his bonds, and thought for a moment with sadness of the arrest thus put upon his labours: “I suffer trouble as an evil-doer, even unto bonds; but the Word of God is not bound.” He could then verify words he had inserted in his letter to the Church in Rome, long before he had personally set foot within the city, “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Rom. xv. 4). It was with these Sacred Scriptures, as with the Sword of the Spirit, Timothy was to fight the battles of the faith as his great spiritual father had before him — “I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, preach the Wordr When he exhorted him to be a workman, needing not to be ashamed, it was by “rightly dividing the Word of truth;’’ and through these Sacred Scriptures, as the man of God, he was to be “perfect, thoroughly furnished.” There are few themes, moreover, which, at the present period, demand more earnest and faithful handling. We cannot close our eyes to the fact, that, in varied ways and under specious pretexts, not a few are tempted, in these times of rampant and reckless speculation, to tamper with the authority of God’s Word, and are thereby digging a mine underneath their feet. By a surrender of their old child-like belief in its inspired utterances, they are making “shipwreck of faith,” That of “a good conscience” may speedily follow. For alas! there is too often a fatal connection — that of cause and effect — between the infidelity of the head and the infidelity of the heart. Considering, as British Protestants, that the Bible is the most precious of inheritances, it may not be unsuitable that I refresh your memories, not with any new truths, but with a few old and familiar thoughts on the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures; — the obligation laid on us to search them, and to value them as the very Oracles of God. They have made every Christian, and every Christian nation, what they are. May the Holy Spirit vouchsafe us His presence and blessing.

The words I have read as a text, embrace manifold topics. Let us limit ourselves to three.

I. The statement regarding the inspiration of the sacred Volume, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God!’

II. The design of the Holy Scriptures, “which are able to make wise unto salvation?

III. The medium by which this is effected, “Through faith which is in Christ Jesus”

I. What do we mean by Inspiration? Inspiration is literally “a breathing into.” There was a divine, God-breathing;* a supernatural influence brought to bear on the souls of the writers. So that what was dictated to them, and written by them, was the very mind of Deity. St Peter says, “The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” It was not they who spake, but the Spirit speaking in them and by them.

And here the words of St Paul written from

deoirvevGTOsy Rome to Timothy, lead me specially to observe (as meeting one more recent and prevalent phase of modern infidelity), that the Old and New Testament are of equally binding obligation. There are those who assent to the inspiration and authority of the latter, who would reject and repudiate that of the former, — those very Scriptures to which the Apostle in the text alone could refer; — for, I need not say, it must have been with the writings of Moses and the Prophets, and the Psalms, that Timothy’s grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice stored his young and susceptible mind in the early home at Lystra. Observe, St Paul here makes the remarkable statement, that these ancient oracles (independent of the augmentation they were to receive from his own inspired utterances, and, above all, from the four Gospels, containing the words and sayings of the Great Master) were “able to make wise unto salvation.” These Old Testament Scriptures, you do not require to be told, are constantly alluded to in the course of the New, not only by the Evangelists themselves and the other sacred penmen, but, what is more to us, they are also frequently, in the form of quotations, cited by the lips of the Lord of evangelists. In the mysterious years of that divine youth and boyhood — in the quiet nurture and training of His Nazareth home, or amid the deep seclusion of its surrounding green hills and valleys, He seems to have garnered His divine-human memory with these holy treasures, many portions of which were in due time to receive a new and higher consecration, if this were possible, by being among the u gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth.” Again and again does He make reference to the entire canon of the Old Testament as “the Word of God:” moreover, investing it, as the arbiter in all questions, with peerless authority. He honours it; fulfils it; yields to it unquestioning submission; sets upon its inspired utterances His imprimatur and seal. Even in one of His parables, though He puts the saying in the lips of father Abraham, yet in reality it is His own, — “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.” When He confronts the father of lies in the hour of the desert temptation, what were His weapons? They were taken from the same armoury. Thrice He spurns back the tempter, by an appeal to the Old Testament Scriptures, “It is written? To the money-changers, carrying on their flagitious traffic in the temple-courts, He delivers the withering rebuke, “It is written, My house shall be called an house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.” When, in the lowly Galilean village of which we have just spoken, He commenced His ministry, what were the opening words He selected as His text? As if He wished, in this interesting hour of His great mission, to stamp His own signature on Old Testament scripture, He takes into His hand the holy writings, and reads from the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach glad tidings to the meek: “and when the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on Him, He says,” This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears,” Step by step in His mysterious pilgrimage of love, in instances too numerous to dwell upon, He seems consumed with zeal to fulfil the sayings of Holy Writ; for it is always added, He did such and such things, u that it might be fulfilled which was spoken.” With the Scripture, He braced Himself for His cross and passion: “He took the twelve aside, and said, Behold we go up to Jerusalem, that all things which are written may be accomplished.” Old Testament quotations were among His last expiring utterances. Perhaps more remarkable still, when the

risen Conqueror met His disciples at Gennesaret, and they partook of their simple feast on its strand, it is the fulfilment of the Hebrew Scriptures which seems uppermost in his heart:” These are the wTords which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. Then opened He their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures? Daring intellectual pride, captious questionings, may well be rebuked, when we mark the estimate thus put upon these sacred oracles by Him who was

Truth incarnate. He never regarded them as the fabulous legends of an early age, a worn-out Book, which the world and the Church in wiser times can lay aside. He never considered some portions as inspired and some not — like the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, partly of iron and partly of clay. No! it is an entire Volume. He interjects in one of His discourses the remarkable assertion, “The Scripture cannot be broken,” Every link of this golden chain was sacred and necessary for the strength and cohesion of the rest. No stone of the divine edifice can be wanting. Like His own garment, these divine words are one, — “woven without seam throughout from the top to the bottom.” Well, surely, may we love the Book He loved, read the Book He read, trust the Book He trusted, honour the Book He honoured; which comforted Him in His sorrows, and supported Him in His strong temptations, and with whose utterances on His tongue He breathed away His spirit. He taught its truths, He sang its hymns, He prayed its prayers, He drank its solaces. It is a souvenir of the Great Master.

It wears on its every page His image and superscription. The footsteps of the Lord of glory are there, and no tidal wave of irreverent modern criticism and infidelity can sweep them away.

Another question suggests itself. It is here said, “-4// Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” What is the extent of that “all?”

In answering that question, we must carefully guard ourselves from any misapprehension, by the employment of phrases having an ambiguous meaning. But we shall not be misunderstood when we affirm, that, in the generally accepted use of the term, the theory of minute “verbal inspiration” seems now, with common consent, to be abandoned. In other words, the sacred writers seem to have been left to clothe the divine communications in their own garb. Isaiah has his own elevated dramatic imagery, Jeremiah his plaintiveness, Ezekiel his reiterations, Nahum and Habakkuk their vehement rushing numbers: while in the New Testament, John and Luke, Paul and James and Peter, all similarly retain their peculiar style, phraseology, and idiomatic expressions. They were not tied down to mere words. They were not mere passive machines in the hands of the Great Inspires Hence, too, we see that the narratives of the Gospels, though giving substantially the same facts, clothe these in different language, and describe them from different stand-points. The writers were each and all divinely inspired, and yet they were human agents. The inspiration did not cancel their humanity, neither did their humanity eclipse the divinity of their record. In stating this, there is a beautiful analogy often employed between the written Word (the Scripture) and Him who is called the Word of God, the Man, Christ Jesus. In His case (to use the theological phrase), we have the hypostatical union of the two natures in the one Person. He was Divine, yet human. The real humanity did not detract from the reality of His Godhead, yet neither did the Godhead and supreme Divinity diminish the actuality of His manhood. He was the great Jehovah, the Creator of all worlds; yet He was true Man, in all His feelings and sympathies and innocent infirmities, though in these absolutely faultless. So with the written Word. It is divine; it is the declaration of God’s own sacred, unchanging mind to His Church. But it finds its way through human instrumentality. The voice is from heaven; the river, clear as crystal, is from before the throne; but the channel through which it flows, with its windings and scenery, is all human. The golden oil of the candlestick is distilled from above, from the two everlasting Olive-trees; but the pipes which convey it to feed the lamps are human, and may vary in shape, and size, and lustre (Zech. iv. 2, 3). Hence there may be diversities of gifts and temperaments in the writers; the verbal narratives of the Evangelists may vary; there may be apparent discrepancies in these tints in the divine picture; but the mind of God is faithfully conveyed notwithstanding. Each inspired historian can say with David, “My tongue is the pen of a ready writer,” — that ready Writer being the Spirit of God. “Holy men of God spake,” but yet (to repeat the assertion of St Peter, already quoted) they “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” We have “not the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” * That Bible would be incomprehensible on the theory of mere human authorship. Many of its writers, the compositors of this great repertory of divine life and love and consolation, were illiterate, uneducated men, — strangers to all the learning and culture of the schools. They were separated from one another by hundreds, indeed thousands of years. And yet what a unity in their books! Peasants, Herdsmen, Pilgrims, Fishermen, Shepherds, Vine-dressers, Physicians, Lawgivers, Philoso-

* This is well put in the words of an excellent writer and theologian: “As a skilful musician, called to execute alone some masterpiece, puts his lips by turns to the mournful flute, the shepherd’s reed, the mirthful pipe, and the war trumpet; so the Almighty God, to sound in our ears His eternal Word, has selected from of old, the instruments best suited to receive successively the breath of His Spirit. Thus we have in God’s great Anthem of Revelation, the sublime simplicity of John, the elliptical, soul-stirring energy of St Paul, the fervour and solemnity of St Peter, the poetic grandeur of Isaiah, the lyric moods of David, the ingenuous and majestic narratives of Moses, the sententious and royal wisdom of Solomon. Yes, it was all this; it was Peter, Isaiah, Matthew, John, and Moses, but it was God” (Gaussen).

pliers, Priests, Kings. And what diversity of subjects! Psalms, Prophecies, Canticles, Proverbs, Laws, Ethics, Biography, History, Letters. Yet what concord, homogeneity! and that too without the possibility of collusion, or preconcerted plan. The Temple with one Altar and one God, yet with a thousand windows all shedding the same mellowed divine light. They have weaved one beautiful, consistent pattern, one harmonious whole. They point to one and the same glorious method of salvation, and one too beyond the ken of human reason. “Built upon the foundation of Apostles and Prophets,” we have here a building “fitly framed together,” It is more than man’s work. It points to its own high original. It bears the seal and signature of Heaven.

How wonderfully, too, has God preserved the Bible amid surrounding error and corruption, causing it to come down unmutilated and uninjured, and to float like a sacred ark in the midst of the waters. No Book has been in such jeopardy. And no wonder; for its precepts are so holy; in this respect presenting such a contrast with the impure systems of Pagan religion and philosophy, — the mythologies of Greece and Rome, the Shasters of the Brahmin, the writings of Confucius, and the Koran of Mahomet. Running counter to all the corruptions of fallen humanity, it yet still outlives all assaults. The philosophic pen of Gibbon assailed it; the polished shafts of Bolingbroke; the subtlety of Mirabeau and Rousseau; the blasphemy of Voltaire. The bush has burned with fire, but the living God is in the bush, and therefore it is not consumed. So that we can say of His Word, what the Psalmist said of His Works in the firmament of heaven, “They continue this day according to Thine ordinance, for all are Thy servants.”

II. Let me pass now, in the second place, to note, in the text, the object of the Scriptures: “Which are able to make thee wise unto salvation” In reading a book, we either have, or ought to have, its object in view. We do not look to it for information on foreign or extraneous subjects. We are content if each writer handles, ably and well, the matter on hand. How many a querulous and captious mind would reject the Bible as not inspired, because its writers have not anticipated the discoveries of modern science, or because, in some embarrassing phrases, they seem to run counter to its conclusions and deductions. We answer, — The Bible was not written to be an authority, or book of reference, on cosmical subjects; to instruct on geological epochs and primary strata, nor to anticipate the philosopher — the High priest of nature — in the discovery of those great laws which regulate alike the formation of the raindrop, and the revolution of the planets. It was written, not to solve physical problems, but to “make wise unto salvation.” Moreover, even when Science and Revelation are apparently in antagonism, it is our duty not precipitately to accept, by any rash induction, plausible theories, until these are fully tested and confirmed. With the profoundest reverence for our great explorers of nature, we have had experience that oracular responses from the Temple of science are not to be received, in all cases, as final and infallible, and that what sometimes has been boldly inserted in the category of ascertained data, has been nullified and negatived by subsequent discoveries. “He that believeth in this, as in more important things, should ‘not make haste.’” Nay, more; we make bold to say, there is no such real and formidable antagonism, as is often alleged, between science and inspiration. Some of the most distinguished votaries of the former have received, writh the simplicity and docility of children, the lessons of the sacred page. They have attested, alike in their living and in their dying hours, that (to use the words of one of the master intellects of the age) “the most daring speculations as to nature, may be accompanied with the humblest faith in those sublime doctrines, that open Heaven alike to the wisest philosopher and to the simplest peasant.”

My brethren, let us look to this blessed Bible as a great personal blessing. I am warranted to each individual here to say, ‘It is a message from God to thee! It is the very message you need. It comes home to the great heart of humanity. How it speaks to the conscience! What a discerner of the moral being! Like the wheels of Ezekiel’s vision, it is “full of eyes before and behind.” How it ransacks the halls of memory; penetrates the labyrinths of the soul; — a faithful mirror reflecting and exposing the chambers of imagery. And then, when it brings you and me as poor, helpless, needy, condemned, lost, to yearn after some 1 Daysman ’ to ’ lay his hand upon us both,’ it presents us with the object of our search. It meets the longing necessities of our natures — “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” It offers us a complete salvation; a salvation not only from the guilt, but from the power of sin. It comes to us, independent of all churches and conventional distinctions. It meets us on the common ground of humanity; as sinners carrying the same burdens, subject to the same weaknesses, grappling with the same temptations, bowed with the same sorrows, travelling to the same goal of death, having the same reversion of an eternal destiny. Never book spake like this

Book. You can say of it, as David of Goliath’s sword, “There is none like it.” It is a volume suited for all, designed for all; — young and old, rich and poor, learned and unlearned. In the well-known words of Tertullian, “It is like a great lake, in which some places are so deep that an elephant may swim in them, and other parts so shallow that a child can wade through them.” And, last of all, it opens, as no other Revelation ever did, or ever can, the gates into the Celestial City. It is a glorious fiery pillar, lighting the van of the true Israel of God through every stage of the journey, till it brings them to the heavenly Canaan. And is not this an object worthy of the Great Father of all? — to prepare this missive of love for His sin-stricken, diseased, captive, dying children; that with it in their hands as an infallible directory and guide, they may go up and on through the wilderness to the Eternal Home, gladdened with hopes which are full of immortality!

III. Let us note, finally, the way or medium by which the Scriptures make wise unto salvation. It is u through faith which is in Christ Jesus!9 The whole plan of salvation is therein clearly revealed, but we require to put forth the hand of faith to appropriate and make it our own. The Divine Word contains the remedy; but you must apply it by faith, if you would experience the healing power. And it is “through faith which is in Christ Jesus!’ To Him the Scriptures ever point It was His own assertion, when unfolding the work of the Holy Spirit — the Inspirer of these sacred penmen,” He shall glorify ME, for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you!’ To Him every street in this Bible city conducts, as its Great Centre. John’s exclamation forms the key-note to all the music of the inspired canon with its varying harmonies “Behold the Lamb of God!” “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” It is not likely that I address any such on this occasion, but if there be even one here, in this sceptic age, who may have been hitherto a neglecter of his Bible, — perhaps secretly calling

in question its verity as an inspired Book, — I

o would say, “Go, read that Bible; not with a querulous, captious, cavilling spirit, warped and biassed with foregone conclusions, seeking only to find fault, and to discover flaws and blemishes; but read it” as you would a letter from the father you love in a distant land;” read it with a candid, honest, open, unprejudiced, child-like mind, and you will find it contains the very message and the very salvation your needy soul requires: li The meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His way,” We do not undervalue the external evidences of the Bible’s genuineness and authenticity; but we dwell much on the subjective evidence. It addresses itself to the heart. It discovers its secret maladies. It offers a blessed panacea and cure for its deepest wounds and most inveterate ailments. It only asks us to test their efficacy by immediate application: “If any man will do (or willeth to do) His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God” — “The entrance of Thy Word giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple,” You will be best certified that this is the true light by admitting it, the true bread by eating it, the living water by drinking it. To adopt, in substance, the simple but apposite illustration of a great modern champion of the faith: — “Suppose a heavenly canopy was let down from the sky on the earth; that there were protuberances here and there on the earth’s surface, and that this supernal canopy exactly fitted these, what would you infer? Would it not be that He who made that canopy knew all the earth; — in other words, that he was God? The Bible is that canopy, which He lets down on the human heart. Who can doubt that the Creator of the heart was the Author of the Book.” * See how it fits it! how it speaks to your deepest experience, telling you all things that ever you did! See how it rebukes your corruptions! See how it addresses you (as you feel yourselves to be), guilty, helpless sinners in His sight! See how it imparts mysterious peace, — tells you of a Friend, a Saviour, a Sanctuary, a Heaven! See how it points to rest for the weary, a home for the pro-

* Dr Chalmers* Evidences of Christianity.

digal, salvation for the lost! How these great words of comfort, in prophecy and psalm, which Timothy possessed — how these Gospels and Epistles which have been bequeathed to the Church since his day, have from their storehouses of consolation and promise dried your tears when you have sat by the deathbed, or come broken-hearted from the grave! Could this be the book of impostors? Could this have been written by designing men? Could this be a lie of the Jews of Palestine, or of the priesthood of the Middle Ages, palmed on the credulous? Could this be any other book than the Book of God? Oh! in our times of sorrow, sickness, death, “if these foundations were destroyed, what would the righteous do?”

And then, let me ask again, if there be any here (I hope not), drifting out in the infinite of darkness, to whom I can put the question — Has infidelity solved for you the great problems of aching humanity? Has it moored you to a safe and peaceful anchorage? Has it spoken the needed “Peace, be still!” to your tempest-tossed spirit? You are advancing year by year, day by day, nearer eternity; and when yoij take at last that infinite leap, where will you alight? Alas! you know not. Go and test for yourselves, by a faithful and reverential perusal of God’s Holy Word, whether we are only mocking you with idle tales, when we speak of it as offering a safe — the only safe footing. But have you read it? I find that is the pertinent question put by a faithful servant of God, who himself once sat in the seat of the scorner. Speaking from his own experience, he well adds, that the most unreasonable and unphilosophical of all sceptics are those who reject this Book of books, yet who have never almost opened it — never examined the testimony they despise. “Read, read the Bible,” said Wilberforce on his death-bed; “through all my perplexities I never read any other book, and I never felt the want of any other.” I ask you, moreover, to read it with prayer. Other subjects of study do not require to be mastered thus. Books of history or science need no such divine accompaniment to make them plain. But God has told us that the veil of the heart — the veil of unbelief and prejudice — must be rent away. Prayer is the hand which removes the obstruction. Prayer is the sacred ploughshare which lays open the furrows of the soul for the reception of the heavenly seed. Prayer is the divine telescope which reveals the glories of the inspired firmament. “Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law,” When the once infidel Lord Lyttelton came to peruse the Scriptures in this teachable, devotional spirit, see how he believed and trembled and rejoiced, and built up the faith which he once sought to destroy; so that he could have been sooner convinced that no sun blazed in the heavens by day, or no moon shed her silvery glory by night, than that this Holy Book and its Author were not divine. Cling to it through life’s morning and midday, as the man of your counsel. At life’s sunset, let its glorious truths, like the Alpine summits, be illuminated to your spiritual vision when the valleys are in shadow. Be able then to say, with good old Dr Marsh of Beckenham, after a life of lofty consecration, as the glories of the New Jerusalem were dawning upon him — “With this staff have I travelled through my pilgrimage, and with this staff shall I pass through Jordan.”

And what this precious Bible has proved to individuals, may it prove (or rather, has it not by God’s blessing proved, and will it not still further prove), to nations — to the world? Those kingdoms are now the few exceptions which have not already listened to its sublime messages. Traverse what climes we may, to earth’s remotest shores, there is no speech nor language where the voice of the Holy Oracles has not been heard. Their u line is gone to all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world,” We behold the Esquimaux and the Laplander in the frigid zone, gazing, through them, on the better Sun of Righteousness. We behold the Gospel Temple gleaming amid the fogs of their eternal winter; we hear the Gospel Anthem chanted by their hardy sons. Under the teachings of Scripture, we behold the slave forgetting his chains, in the consciousness of a freedom of which the tyrant that galls him knows nothing.

2 1 6 THE BIBLE IN ROME I ST PA UL ’s

We behold the degraded African — the type of mental imbecility, weeping over his Bible, and exulting in the wisdom that cometh down from above. We behold the swarthy Indian of the Far West, hanging the trumpet of war mute on the walls of the Gospel Sanctuary, and, leaning on his reversed spear, listening to this Word of life from the Ambassador of peace. We behold the bloodthirsty cannibal, as he reads the blessed page, shedding tears over the victims of past ferocity, and exulting only in the blood which cleanseth from all sin. We behold, under its unfoldings of a nobler philosophy, the Pagodas of India tottering to their base, and the subtleties of the Hindoo yielding to the sublime simplicities of the faith of Jesus. We behold, through its revelations of the true “Celestial,’’ the Chinese renouncing hereditary superstitions, exulting alone in those walls which are salvation, and those gates which are praise; a response (feeble yet it may be, but which will one day become as the voice of many waters), given to the dying missionary’s noble battle-cry — “China for Christ!” Nearer home, we behold Spain — Spain, so rich in material resources, — the country, above all others, on which Nature has poured her bounties with most lavish profusion, rising from the tyranny of ages; and as she claims her place among the nations of u the free,” asserting her right also to freedom’s best heritage — liberty of conscience, and an unclasped Bible. And, more than all, this ITALY — the most magnificent of earth’s inheritances, from the Alps to the Adriatic, can now hear and read the Word of life. We know too well, that while the Apocalyptic Angel, with the little Book in his hand, had, for half a century, winged his way unchallenged to the remotest wilds of heathenism, — to Roman Christendom that everlasting Gospel was an interdicted and forbidden Volume. It is so no longer. Two Bible depots, as you are aware, are now opened in two of the principal streets in this capital. One of these shared, a few weeks ago, in the common disaster caused by the sudden flooding of the Tiber. But let us accept it, in the old city of omens, rather as the emblem and prophecy of coming blessing, when the Spirit of the Lord shall descend u as floods upon the dry ground,” and like the swollen river of Ezekiel’s vision (bearing on its bosom the great message of love and mercy), “wherever the river cometh, there shall be life.” Yes! the God of the Bible is appearing to stand by the gates of this glorious land, and saying to all Churches and all Bible Societies, “Behold, I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it.”

Who that has visited the recent excavations at the Palatine Hill, can have failed to note that remarkable ilex-tree, whose root and scarred stem, though long buried among the ruins, has not only survived, but survived to rend the old palace walls, and shoot upwards in a mass of living green, overtopping the desolation around? It alone has apparently outlived the Caesars, — triumphed over the wreck and decay of palatial residences, which their imperial builders deemed to be immortal. May we not take it as a type and symbol of the triumphs in reserve for God’s Word, long buried in this country by the apostasy of ages? The day has come when the true

TESTIMONY TO ITS AUTHORITY. 2ig

Living Tree has rent the superincumbent walls, and is now sending its roots downwards and its branches upwards, reading the great lesson to the oldest kingdom of the world, in the midst of a city which called itself Eternal — u The erass withereth, the flower fadeth, BUT the Word of our God shall stand for ever!’ May the leaves of the Tree be more and more for the healing of this nation! May there be many faithful men raised up from among all the true Churches of Christendom, to sound forth, in its midst, the silver tones of this true Trumpet of Jubilee! May there be earnest effort, simple faith, faithful prayer, abundant blessing! May the Lord Himself give the word, and great shall be the company of them that publish it!