rable President of Amherst College, that could the greatest among
the great men of his day add a codicil to his invaluable legacy, it
would be, "Teach your children early to read and love the Bible. Teach
them to read it in your families; teach them in your schools; teach them
everywhere, that the first moral lesson indelibly enstamped upon their
hearts may be to 'fear God and keep his commandments.' 'The fear of the
Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.'"

[29] John Quincy Adams, during his long and eventful life, was
accustomed to read daily portions of the Scriptures in several
languages.

How few are aware of what the Bible has done for mankind, and still less
of what it is destined to accomplish. "Quench its light, and you blot
out the brightest luminary from these lower heavens. You bring back
'chaos and old night' to reign over the earth, and leave man, with all
his immortal energies and aspirations, to 'wander in the blackness of
darkness forever.' It was by constantly reading it that our Puritan
fathers imbibed that unconquerable love of civil and religious liberty
which sustained them through all the 'perils of the sea and perils of
the wilderness.' It was from the Bible they drew those free and admired
principles of civil government that were so much in advance of the age
in which they lived. It was this book by which they 'resolved to go till
they could find some better rule.'"

The Bible has built all our churches, and colleges, and school-houses;
it has built our hospitals and retreats for the insane, the deaf, and
the blind; it has built the House of Refuge, the Sailors' Home, and the
Home for the Friendless. To it we are indebted for our homes, for our
property, and for all the safeguards of our domestic relations and
happiness. It is under its broad shield that we lie down in safety,
without bolts or bars to protect us. It has given us our free
constitutions of civil government, and with them all the statutes and
ordinances of a great and independent people, whose territory extends
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is the industry, sobriety, and
enterprise, which nothing but the Bible could ever inspire and sustain,
that have dug our canals, and built our thousand factories, and "clothed
the hills with flocks, and covered over the valleys with corn;" that
have laid down our railways and established telegraph lines, bringing
the East into the neighborhood of the W