put together, and that is, it imperils the immortal souls of millions of
our fellow-beings by keeping from them the Word of God.

Next to the Saviour, and the Holy Spirit, the most precious gift God has
bestowed on man is the Bible. This volume contains our only perfect rule
of life, and is our only guide to heaven. It teaches us our character
and our destiny; it alone raises the curtain between time and eternity,
and dissipates the darkness that otherwise would forever enshroud the
grave; it reveals to us another state of being, in which we shall be
happy or miserable, ages without end. On this Book alone do we depend
for our knowledge of the way of salvation by Christ. It is here we read
the story of the manger and the cross, and the wonderful plan of
redemption through atoning blood. What could we do without the Bible? It
is of infinitely greater value than houses and lands, silver and gold,
and every earthly good beside. To take from us the Bible, would be like
blotting out the sun in the heavens, and enveloping the universe in the
gloom and darkness of eternal night. Take from me riches, honors,
pleasures, comforts, and even liberty itself; and give me instead
thereof poverty, disgrace, pains, affliction, hunger, cold, nakedness,
and a dungeon; tear me from my friends, bind me with chains, scourge me
with the lash, brand my flesh with hot irons, deprive me of every source
of earthly good, and inflict upon me every kind of bodily and mental
anguish which the utmost refinement of cruelty can invent;--but give me
my Bible--leave me this precious treasure, which is the gift of my
heavenly Father, to teach me his will and guide me to himself. Torture
and destroy my body, if you will, but O! give me facilities for saving
my soul. Turn me not adrift on life's troubled ocean to seek alone a
far distant shore, exposed continually to storms, breakers, hidden
reefs, whirlpools, and shoals, with nothing but a few verbal
instructions to direct my way. If I am to make this fearful voyage, (and
make it I must,) take not from me my chart and compass. Your verbal
directions I shall be likely to forget when I most need them. The
polestar, which you tell me may be my guide, is often for a long time
concealed by impenetrable clouds. There are fearful maelstroms, near the
verge of whose deceptive and destructive circles my course lies, and ere
I am aware of it I shall have passed the fatal line, from which no
voyager returns. Between m