Our Day | Page 4

letting down of the vital forces of the soul? Ah, in the hurry of life we have neglected to feed upon the living bread. We can no more sustain spiritual vigor and health without feeding daily upon God's Holy Word than we can maintain physical power without eating our daily bread. Eat of the life-giving word. The taste for it grows with the partaking.
There is life in "every word." The psalmist found the Lord's testimonies "sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb," or, as the marginal reading has it, than "the dropping of honeycombs." Ps. 19:10. We get the picture of the honeycomb inverted, the cell caps broken open, the sweetness dripping down. Just so every word of the Lord is a cell full of sweetness and life for the soul that feasts upon the Holy Scriptures.
The Source of All Doctrine
The Bible is the complete and perfect rule of faith and doctrine. Here every doctrine of salvation is found. Inspiration has declared it in the words of the apostle Paul to Timothy:
"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, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 2 Tim. 3:15-17.
The divine command is, "Study." For every generation there has been a message borne by this living word, making call to reformation of life, or giving warning and comfort. "The Bible is not a collection of truths formulated in propositions," said Dr. Samuel Harris, of Yale, "but God's majestic march through history, redeeming men from sin."
In every age God has been ruling and overruling, witnessing by His Spirit through the living word. The experiences recorded of past ages have their special lesson for the present time:
"Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." Rom. 15:4.
"Let vs therfore all with feruent desyre," as the Old English of 1549 spelled the exhortation of Erasmus, "thyrste after these spirituall sprynges.... Let vs kisse these swete wordes of Christ with a pure affeccion. Let vs be newe transformed into them, for soche are oure maners as oure studies be."
The Book for All Mankind
It speaks in every tongue to the human heart. Its power to transform has been shown through all the centuries in every clime and among every race. One of the Gospels was put into the Chiluba tongue of Central Africa. After a time a Garenganze chief came to Dan Crawford, the missionary, changed from the spirit of a fierce, wicked barbarian to that of a teachable child. Explaining his conversion, the chief said: "I was startled to find that Christ could speak Chiluba. I heard him speak to me out of the printed page, and what he said was, 'Follow me!'"
Of the Bible's universal speech to all mankind, Dr. Henry van Dyke has said:
"Born in the East, and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible walks the ways of all the world with familiar feet, and enters land after land to find its own everywhere. It has learned to speak in hundreds of languages to the heart of man. It comes into the palace to tell the monarch that he is the servant of the Most High, and into the cottage to assure the peasant that he is the son of God. Children listen to its stories with wonder and delight, and wise men ponder them as parables of life. It has a word of peace for the time of peril, a word of comfort for the day of calamity, a word of light for the hour of darkness. Its oracles are repeated in the assembly of the people, and its counsels whispered in the ear of the lonely. The wise and the proud tremble at its warnings, but to the wounded and penitent it has a mother's voice....
"Its great words grow richer, as pearls do when they are worn near the heart. No man is poor or desolate who has this treasure for his own. When the landscape darkens and the trembling pilgrim comes to the valley named the Shadow, he is not afraid to enter; he takes the rod and staff of Scripture in his hand; he says to friend and comrade, 'Good-by, we shall meet again,' and comforted by that support, he goes toward the lonely pass as one who climbs through darkness into light."--The Century Magazine.
[Illustration: RAISING JARIUS'S DAUGHTER
"In Him was life; and the life was the light of men." John 1:4.]
In the days of His life on earth, Jesus was a welcome guest in humble homes in Judea and