it, how blessed it is to build up a pyramid of texts, for instance,
all about God's love to us, and the names he calls us by; it makes
his love such a reality. Theft there are the promises, soft pillows
for weary heads, and there are directions for all perplexities. I
tell you there is nothing like the Bible. I have tried all the rest.
Like Solomon I have found it all vanity. 'Oh, how I love thy law!'
'How sweet are thy words unto my taste!' When this becomes our
experience, life will be a different thing to us; it will not be dull
and empty. You know how we get absorbed in other reading, perhaps a
novel, and it leaves a gloomy, unsatisfied feeling when it is done,
but the Bible is never done, and the studying it grows and grows
every day. When the Lord comes, I'm afraid we shall not feel
comfortable if he finds us studying hard on every other book and his
laid by covered with dust. If I were to ask you what book you would
advise me to spend the most of my time on, the few years that I live,
whether the Bible or the current literature of the day, you would
probably say, 'The Bible by all means, because you have but a few
years left to you at most,' but the truth is, that many in this room
may die before I do. Not one of us knows what day the books will for
us be for ever closed; and did it never cross your minds that the
Bible is the only book we will want to take with us away down to the
edge of the river? When I lie down to die I feel sure that I shall
not wish for a page of mental philosophy whispered in my ear, nor the
finest passage of Shakespeare; but, 'Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; Thou art with
me,' and 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love.' 'Thou art
mine, I have called thee by my name.' 'I will never leave thee nor
forsake thee.'"

"Let us compromise this matter," suggested Mrs. Parker. "Let every