s ago, were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter cross.--Shakspeare.

Your little child, on Christmas day, may give you a
beautiful copy of the history of "those holy fields." But a few hundred
years ago, it might have cost a throne. To-day we may have either
Testament printed in our daily newspaper and put upon our table before
breakfast. So free is the word of God that only the mere wish to have it
is necessary to secure at once the greatest of spiritual boons and the
most perfect piece of writing in our language, or in any other tongue.
The beauties of the Bible have charmed the critical of all ages. The
young have departed from its simplicity of speech only to return in
riper years for rapt tuition. The wise have lingered over its perfect
sentences, striving to catch the art which was showered upon those
unassuming translators who gave its pages to the English-speaking world.
One of the brightest wits of his time was Sidney Smith. His love of the
Bible, not only as his guide and his strength, but as the greatest of
all literary works, was passionate. He once impressed a circle of
friends very deeply with this noble veneration: "What," said he, "is so
beautiful as

THE STYLE OF THE BIBLE?

what poetry in its language and ideas!" and taking it down from the
book-case he read, with his clear, manly voice, and in his most
affecting manner, several of his favorite passages; among others: "Thou
shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of an old man;"
and part of that most beautiful of Psalms, the 139th: "O Lord, thou hast
searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine
uprising; thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my
path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. Whither
shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell,
behold thou art there; if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in
the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me and
thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover
me, even the night shall be light about me; yea, the darkness hideth not
from thee; but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light
are both alike unto thee." And thus he would charm his hearers, visiting
their ears, perhaps, with the first true knowledge of Biblical beauty
which had ever sounded upon them. Listen t