THE BIBLE IN ODD-FELLOWSHIP

The Bible is a book for the understanding; but much more it is a book
for the spirit and for the heart. Many other kinds of learning are
found in the Bible. It is a manual of Eastern antiquities, a handbook
of political experiences, a collection of moral wisdom as applied to
personal conduct, a mine of poetry, a choice field for the study of
languages. The Bible is the book of God, and therefore it is the book
of the future, the book of hope. It pierces the veil between this and
another life, pointing us on to the realms of light. In sorrow, in
sin, and in death we may, if we will, find in the Holy Bible patience,
consolation and hope. The Bible opens the widest, freest outlook for
the mind into the eternal, enlarging a man's range of spiritual sight,
and enabling him to judge of all things in both worlds in their true
proportion. The Bible gets into life because it first came out of
life. It was born of life at its best. Its writers were the tallest
white angels literature has known. No other literature has five names
equal to these: Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul and John. These men and the
others wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The messages of the
Bible are the loftiest in the range of human thought. There have been
many magnificent periods like the age of Elizabeth, the time of the
Renaissance and the age of Victoria, but no other single century has
ever done anything equal to the production of the New Testament in the
first century. The Bible has a sound psychology. It seeks to
influence the whole man. It pours white light into the intellect. It
grapples with the great themes upon which thinkers stretch their minds.