Book of Life

“ If by faith we receive into our hearts the instruction in righteousness as given by the Scriptures, it will make us perfect in this life. O reader, if you would know how to live, study the Bible. It points out the way clearly and plainly. Let its truths in all their power reach to the depth of thy heart. Let thy soul seize upon the Bible and drink its strength and sweetness as the bee sips the sweetness from the flower. As the animal eats the plant and by assimilation converts it into animal life, so eat the Book of God and convert it into human life. It is the food of angels. ”

“ Wouldst thou write a living book? Thou must first live; thou shalt draw around thee the mystic garment of a manifold experience, and shalt learn, in enjoyment and suffering, gladness and sorrow, conquest and defeat, that which no book and no teacher can teach thee. Thou shalt learn of life, of thy soul; thou shalt tread the Lonely Road, and shalt become; thou shalt be. Thou shalt then write thy book, and it shall live ”

“ I answer that, The book of life is in God taken in a metaphorical sense, according to a comparison with human affairs. For it is usual among men that they who are chosen for any office should be inscribed in a book ”

“ For the stories told by their artists formed, they fully believed, a Book of Life; and every man of real genius took up his function of illustrating the scheme of human morality and salvation, as naturally, and faithfully, as an English mother of to-day giving her children their first lessons in the Bible. ”

“ By those books, then, which he first mentioned, we are to understand the sacred books old and new, that out of them it might be shown what commandments God had enjoined; and that book of the life of each man is to show what commandments each man has done or omitted to do. If this book be materially considered, who can reckon its size or length, or the time it would take to read a book in which the whole life of every man is recorded? Shall there be present as many angels as men, and shall each man hear his life recited by the angel assigned to him? ”

“ The book we need is a living book, to make Christ more living, to set Christ the Ever-Living with loving vividness before the eyes of living men, to make us feel Him as actually and eternally present in our lives. ”

“ The argument for its inspiration is the life that it inspires. If the Book gives power and purity to all departments of life, the Book defends itself against attack and makes its own conquests. Does the Bible rightly exalt man? Does it sanctify the home? Does it promote education? Does it glorify work? Does it save wealth from greed, pleasure from excess, sorrow from despair? These questions reach the center of the problem. ”

“ Words fail me to express the blessing that reading has been to me—strengthening my conviction as to the integrity and plenary inspiration of the whole Book, enlarging my mental vision as to the divine plan along the line of dispensational truth, purifying my life and lightening my labours in the ministry until that which before had often been a burden and weariness to the flesh, became a continual joy and delight. ”

“ But apart from and above all others is the book, the Bible. Alone it has civilized whole nations. Be our theories of inspiration what they may, this book deals with the deepest things in man's heart and life. ”

“ That the three books which have been so widely read, and which have exercised incalculable influence upon morals and politics,—The Imitation of Christ, The Whole Duty of Man, and the Letters of Junius,—are of unknown or disputed authorship. That the Bible,—incomparably the wisest and best book, the Book of books, the guide of life, the solace in death, the way to heaven,—is so little read by the many and so little understood by the few. ”

“ That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best—I'm sure it is the most religious—for I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second. ”

“ There is no end to the illustrations that we might find proving the spiritual common sense of the New Testament and, if by working first in that way, we can get through this fog of tradition, of sentimentality, and of religious emotion, and find the living power of the book itself, then we can get a more and more clear comprehension of the laws it teaches, and will, every day, be proving their practical power in all our dealings with life and with people. ”

“ If the Divine mind inspire a book which shall be worthy of its infinite authorship, it must teach us concerning God and his nature, concerning eternal life as distinguished from earthly life, and concerning the means of reaching and enjoying the highest blessings which that life affords. ”

“ It may, notwithstanding, be questioned whether, except his bible, he ever read a book entirely through. Late in life, if any man praised a book in his presence, he was sure to ask, "Did you read it through?" If the answer was in the affirmative, he did not seem willing to believe it. ”

“ No other book, he says, but the Scriptures, teaches {216} man "with assured knowledge of all the things which concern the soule, the eternal part of man," for other writers have written from the observation of their outward senses, but these writers had "inward senses—their eyes saw, their ears heard, their hands handled the Word of Life." ”

“ God’s pattern, not man’s pattern, is the command we find running through all the scriptures, and the Bible is a book dealing with the science of the mind. ”

“ The deep experiences of the soul are the {115} stuff of which literature is made; and in language whose appeal is alike to the wise and the simple this Book dramatizes the life of the soul. Though struggling much between right and wrong and falling often, the Old Testament heroes groped their way upward to better things, and established their belief in one God upon a firm foundation. ”

“ If thy heart were sincere and upright, then every creature would be unto thee a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine. ”

“ The book of Nature is the book of Fate. She turns the gigantic pages, — leaf after leaf, — never returning one. ”

“ To listen to it, to obey it honestly and unreservedly, without fear or equivocation,—this is my true vocation, the whole end and purpose of my existence. My life ceases to be an empty play without truth or significance. ”

“ I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: Just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing, — the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: For this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri. ”

“ With dew, or listen with enchanted ears,
From the dark dingles, to the nightingales.
But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!
For strong the infection of our mental strife,
Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;
And we should win thee from they own fair life,
Like us distracted, and like us unblest.
Soon, soon thy cheer would die,
Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd they powers,
And they clear aims be cross and shifting made:
And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,
Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours. ”

“ To sunshine we fly from too piercing an air;
But love's ardent fire burns always the same,
No winter can cool it, no summer inflame.
But see the pale moon, all clouded, retires;
The breezes grow cool, not Strephon's desires:
I fly from the dangers of tempest and wind,
Yet nourish the madness that preys on my mind.
Ah, wretch! how can life be worthy thy care? ”

“ Now our whole activity is devoted to God, and our whole life, since we are bent on progress in divine things. ”

“ With carbuncles do shine;
Thy very streets are paved with gold,
Surpassing clear and fine.
Ah, my sweet home, Hierusalem,
Would God I were in thee!
Would God my woes were at an end,
Thy joys that I might see!
Thy gardens and thy gallant walks
Continually are green;
There grows such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen.
Quite through the streets, with silver sound,
The flood of Life doth flow;
Upon whose banks on every side
The wood of Life doth grow.
There trees for evermore bear fruit,
And evermore do spring;
There evermore the angels sit,
And evermore do sing. ”

“ Always as she advanced, he encouraged her to look for the life that is more than meat, and always, while they read and talked together, there was opened before them the great book wherein God has written, in the language of mountain, and tree, and sky, and flower, and brook, the things that make truly wise those who pause to read. ”

“ As mine were to thee;
The free life of thy living,
Be the gift of it free;
Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou give thee
to me.
O children of banishment,
Souls overcast,
Were the lights ye see vanish meant
Alway to last,
Ye would know not the sun overshining the shadows and stars overpast.
I that saw where ye trod
The dim paths of the night
Set the shadow call'd God
In your skies to give light;
But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless soul is in
sight. ”

“ Drive the fleet deer the forest through,
And homeward wend with evening dew;
A blithesome welcome blithely meet,
And lay my trophies at her feet,
While fled the eve on wing of glee—
That life is lost to love and me. ”

“ The general conclusion of the book which the reader has before him is that religion is something eminently social. ”

“ We are writing a Bible with our own lives to-day, a Bible which may never be read in its fulness by human eyes, but every letter of which is known and read in heaven. Every noble life is a word of God to the world; every brave, unselfish deed is a ray of eternal truth. ”

“ In preparing a guide to immortality, Infinite Wisdom gave, not a dictionary, nor a grammar, but a Bible—a book which, in trying to reach the heart of man, should captivate his taste; and which, in transforming his affection, should also expand his intellect. ”

“ You believe that the only and ever-present God begot a Son whom he sent to reform the world, and to propitiate its sins; you believe that a book, called the Bible, contains a true account of this event, together with an infinity of miracles and prophecies which preceded it from the creation of the world. ”

“ And what is the Bible, the most sacred and impressive of all books—the educator of youth, the guide of manhood, and the consoler of age—but a series of biographies of great heroes and patriarchs, prophets, kings, and judges, culminating in the greatest biography of all, the Life embodied in the New Testament? How much have the great examples there set forth done for mankind! How many have drawn from them their truest strength, their highest wisdom, their best nurture and admonition! ”

“ And Faith an anchor gained:—that holy Book is thine.
Behold the Book,—whose sacred truths to spread
Christ's heralds toil beneath a foreign sky,
Pouring its blessings o'er the heathen's head,
A martyr-courage kindling in their eye.
Wide o'er the globe its glorious light must shine,
As glows the arch of Heaven:—that holy Book is thine. ”

“ My friends, I feel peculiarly happy in thus being the instrument of putting into your hands that volume which contains the records of eternal life, and which points you to 'the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' If you faithfully read it, and imbibe its glorious and precious truths, and obey its precepts, it will render you happy in this life, and happy during the endless ages of eternity. ”

“ I hold in my hand a copy of the New Testament, and I wish to say that in this little book, only a quarter of the Bible, you will find a clearer light on man's nature, and character, and destiny than may be read in all the ancient books of the world taken together. ”

“ In my judgment the Bible should be read and studied precisely as we read and study any book whatever. The good in it should be preserved and cherished, and that which shocks the human heart should be cast aside forever. ”

“ The hour has struck; a sublime opportunity is before her; for the God of nature has Himself opened up before His Church the long-sealed chapters in His larger book, and is now pointing out the marvellous agreement between His book of nature and His written record. ”

“ Here was the needful book for man to read, the full revelation, the detailed story of that one universal mind, struggling, emerging, through shadow, substance, manifest spirit, in various orders of being—the veritable history of God. And nature, together with the true pedigree and evolution of man also, his gradual issue from it, was still all to learn. ”

“ So I conclude here by saying, live upon the Word of God, desire the sincere milk of the Word, and you will be an epistle of Christ. We should feel the responsibility that is upon us, remembering that all the Bible some will ever read is what they read in your life and mine. ”

“ As there are scriptures for the revealed will of God, the letters-patent, which are published to the world, so there are scriptures for the secret will of God, the close rolls, which are sealed among his treasures, the book of his decrees. ”

“ The foundation of all religion being laid in our relation to God as our Creator, it was fit that that book of divine revelations, which was intended to be the guide, support, and rule, of religion in the world, should begin, as it does, with a plain and full account of the creation of the world—in answer to that first inquiry of a good conscience, Where is God my Maker? ”