Over the river they beckon to me,

Loved ones who've crossed to the farther side,
The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide.

Yes, we all live to God!

Father, Thy chastening rod,

– N. A. W. PRIEST.

So help us, Thine afflicted ones, to bear,

That in the spirit land,

Meeting at Thy right hand,

"Twill be our heaven to find that He is there!

-JOHN PIERPONT.

BIBLE.

We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us, and therefore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions should be tried.

BAPTIST CHURCH MANUAL.

The Bible is God's chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars.

The Bible, as a revelation from God, was not designed to give us all the information we might desire, nor to solve all the questions about which the human soul is perplexed, but to impart enough to be a safe guide to the haven of eternal rest.

- ALBERT BARNES.

It is not simply a theological treatise, a code of laws, a religious homily, but the Bible-the book-while the only book for the soul, the best book for the mind.

The Bible is a window in this prison-world, through which we may look into eternity. - TIMOTHY DWIGHT.

The Bible abounds in plain truth, expressed in plain language; in this it surpasses all other books.

- WHELPLEY.

The Bible alone of all the books in the world, instead of uttering the opinions of the successive ages that produced it, has been the antagonist of these opinions.

- STUART ROBINSON.

The Bible has been my guide in perplexity, and my comfort in trouble. It has roused me when declining, and animated me in languor. Other writings may be good, but they want certainty and force. The Bible carries its own credentials along with it, and proves spirit and life to the soul. In other writings I hear the words of a stranger or a servant.

In the Bible
Other books

I hear the language of my Father and my friend. contain only the picture of bread. The Bible presents me with real manna, and feeds me with the bread of life.

You will want a book which contains not man's thoughts, but God's -not a book that may amuse you, but a book that can save you— not even a book that can instruct you, but a book on which you can venture an eternity—not only a book which can give relief to your spirit, but redemption to your soul a book which contains salvation, and conveys it to you, one which shall at once be the Saviour's book and the sinner's. JOHN SELDEN.

The life-boat may have a tasteful bend and beautiful decoration, but these are not the qualities for which I prize it; it was my salvation from the howling sea! So the interest which a regenerate soul takes in the Bible, is founded on a personal application to the heart of the saving truth which it contains. — J. W. ALEXANDER.

The Bible is the treasure of the poor, the solace of the sick, and the support of the dying; and while other books may amuse and instruct in a leisure hour, it is the peculiar triumph of that book to create light in the midst of darkness, to alleviate the sorrow which admits of no other alleviation, to direct a beam of hope to the heart which no other topic of consolation can reach; while guilt, despair, and death vanish at the touch of its holy inspiration.

ROBERT HALL.

The Bible is a treasure. It contains enough to make us rich for time and eternity. It contains the secret of happy living. It contains the key of heaven. It contains the titledeeds of an inheritance incorruptible, and that fadeth not away. It contains the pearl of great price. Nay, in so far as it reveals them as the portion of us sinful worms, it contains the Saviour and the living God Himself.

-JAMES HAMILTON.

The Bible is a warm letter of affection from a parent to a child; and yet there are many who see chiefly the severer passages. As there may be fifty or sixty nights of gentle dews in one summer, that will not cause as much remark as one hailstorm of half an hour, so there are those who are more struck by those passages of the Bible that announce the indignation of God than by those that announce His affection.

- T. DEWITT TALMAGE.

The Bible is not only the revealer of the unknown God to man, but His grand interpreter as the God of nature. In revealing God, it has given us the key that unlocks the profoundest mysteries of creation, the clew by which to thread the labyrinth of the universe, the glass through which to look from Nature up to Nature's God.

L. J. HALSEY.

I cannot look around me without being struck with the analogy observable in the works of God. I find the Bible written in the style of His other books of Creation and Providence. The pen seems in the same hand. I see it, indeed, write at times mysteriously in each of these books; thus I know that mystery in the works of God is only another name for my ignorance. The moment, therefore, that I become humble, all becomes right.

RICHARD CECIL.

The Bible is the most thought-suggesting book in the world. No other deals with such grand themes.

- HERRICK JOHNSON.

Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law,

One gem from that ocean is worth all the pebbles from earthly streams.

ROBERT MCCHEYNE.

I have carefully and regularly perused the Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that the volume contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have been written.

It is impossible to look into the Bible with the most ordinary attention without feeling that we have got into a moral atmosphere quite different from that which we breathe in the world, and in the world's literature.

-THOMAS ERSKINE.

This Bible, then, has a mission, grander than any mere creation of God; for in this volume are infinite wisdom, and infinite love. Between its covers are the mind and heart of God; and they are for man's good, for his salvation, his guidance, his spiritual nourishment. If now I neglect my Bible, I do my soul a wrong; for the fact of this Divine message is evidence that I need it.

A. E. KITTREDGE.

The Old and New Testaments contain but one scheme of religion. Neither part of this scheme can be understood without the other.

RICHARD CECIL.

The Saviour who flitted before the patriarchs through the fog of the old dispensation, and who spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets, articulate but unseen, is the same Saviour who, on the open heights of the gospel, and in the abundant daylight of this New Testament, speaks to us. Still all along it is the same Jesus, and that Bible is from beginning to end, all of it, the word of Christ.

Throw away the Old Testament! What part of. it will you throw away? That which I do not understand? Take down then yonder blood-stained cross; for there is a love there "which passeth knowledge," and a Divine hatred of sin which shook the solid earth.

- A. E. KITtredge.