, and the mystic page of cracked and
crumpled palimpsest; from the rocks of earth, the depths of the sea
and the heights of heaven--and from the latest discoveries of
science, there arise amazing witnesses, which speak in tones that
cannot be hushed, with facts that cannot be denied, and bear
testimony beyond all possibility of dispute to the truth and
accuracy of the book; so much so, indeed, that such an one as Sir
John Herschell, the great astronomer, has said: "All human
discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more
and more strongly the truths contained in the Sacred Scriptures."

Consider the vitality of the book.

In less than ten years a text-book is out of date, a cyclopedia
worthless, and a library a cemetery of dead books and dead ideas;
but this book keeps living right on--keeps abreast of the times, has
a testimony for every day, and every day borrows its youth afresh as
from the womb of the morning.

Science has laughed it out of court. Two hundred and fifty years ago
Voltaire said: "Fifty years from now the world will hear no more of
the Bible." Self-elected scholarship has pronounced it out of date
and dead. Again and again its funeral services are held. Kind and
condescending eulogiums are uttered over its past history and its
good intent. With considerate hands it is lowered into its grave.
The _resquiescat in pace_ is solemnly pronounced and lo! before the
critical mourners have returned to their homes it has risen from the
dead, passed with surprising speed the funeral coaches, and is
found--as of yore--in the busy centres of life, thundering against
evil, revealing the secrets of the heart, offering consolation to
the sorrowing, hope to the dying, and flashing forth from its
quivering, vital pages the wonders of coming glory.

While copies of the classics--Virgil, Zenophon, Caesar, Sophocles,
Pindar and Martial--are to be counted by a few thousands, and are
cast aside by students as soon as they have graduated, and are
forgotten in a twelvemonth, this Bible goes on printing every year
millions of copies in all languages and dialects of earth; so far
from casting it aside, when once read, men take it up and read it
again and again, study it through life, dig into it as for hid
treasure, and make it the pillow on which to lay their dying head.

With each succeeding year the demand for it increases and voices are
continually crying--give us _The Book_.

It is the supreme b