It is voiceless;
it speaks not to them its story of love. In your own home it may lie
closed and silent. Visitors come and go, but it helps them not. Your
children hear not its voice. Your neighbors receive not its counsel,
warnings, nor promises. How helpless it is! Oh the many dumb Bibles in our
land! If they only had tongues, what messages they would speak to the
people! You have a tongue. Do you not often use it in a way that is of
little profit either to you or to others? The Bible has no tongue to use.
Will you lend it yours? Will you let it speak its message with your
tongue? Must your neighbors be lost because your Bible has no voice? O
brother, sister, let your Bible be no longer dumb. Give it a tongue. There
are hearts all around you needing its truth. Will you speak for it? A
silent and voiceless Bible--what can be more helpless?

Again, if a tongue be lent it and its message be spoken and repeated again
and again, what can it do if it is not believed? It is the power of God in
this world only to "them that believe." If we will not believe it, it can
do us no good. It can not save or comfort or heal unless it is believed.
Will you give it a believing heart? Unless you do, it is absolutely
powerless to help you. Oh, how helpless is an unbelieved Bible!

And though it have a voice and speak ever so clearly, what can it do if
the ears be closed against it? If "having ears, we hear not," but close
our minds and hearts against its voice, it will profit us nothing. It can
help not the least. Oh, give it a listening ear and heart!

The Bible has no hands. It can not reach out to the needy nor go about
doing good. It can not clothe the naked nor feed the hungry. Why not give
your hands to the gospel's use, that it may not be longer helpless?

It has no feet. It can not go from place to place, but must remain supine
wherever it is put. It is a poor "shut-in." Who will pity its helplessness
and give it feet, that it may go to the nations?

It has no money. It is as poor as a pauper. It can not pay its way to the
yearning, hungry souls that await its coming. It needs its way paid to
India, to Africa, to China. It needs to go to the ends of the earth. You
can send some of its messages afar for a few cents, and perchance thus
help it to reach a soul ready and waiting that will otherwise be lost.
There are tongues ready to speak for it; there are feet ready to run with
it; but who will pay its fare? Have you money and h