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minds, that it is equally fitted to rouse the barbarian from savagery, and to uplift the civilised into the foremost nations of the world. In the Bible Society's offices may be seen a copy of St. John's Gospel, beautifully written out in 1820 by King Pomare II., King of the Pacific isle of Tahiti, because he could not procure a printed copy. The Bible redeemed his people from savage wickedness to reverence and honour.

7. In New Zealand, when an unbeliever was sneering at the Bible to a native chief, the chief pointed to him a great stone, and said, 'My fathers and I were once bloodthirsty cannibals. On that stone we slaughtered and

roasted and devoured our human victims. We are Christians now. What raised us to what we are from what we were? The Bible at which you scoff.'

8. The late saintly Bishop of Moosonee told me that once, in a small gathering of North American Indians on the coast of Hudson's Bay, he found that there was scarcely one of those present who had not, according to their cus tom, murdered his own mother when she became too old to work; 'and now,' he said, 'if you visited their wigwams you would find each of them in possession of a Bible, and each of them a humble reader of it.' Yes! because it came from true human hearts, it will ever thrill like electric flame into the hearts of men who are men indeed. That is because the Bible contains God's words for all the world. That is why in century after century it renews its youth as the eagle. That is why 'the sun never sets upon its gleaming page.'

9. Let us now turn to Japan. Christianity was first introduced among the Japanese in 1549, by Francis Xavier, and for a time Christianity spread considerably

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among the people. But soon, through the meddling of Jesuits, there arose very serious quarrels and disturbances, and at last many Christians were cruelly put to death. Persecutions went on more or less for a long period of time; almost all the remaining Christians in Japan were murdered; and in 1637 Japan was closed 'for ever' to foreigners and to Christianity. There was a public inscription put up to the effect that anybody who taught the 'vile Jesus doctrine,' as it was called, should be executed. Who was it who reintroduced Christianity into Japan? It was a Japanese nobleman. One day he saw in the Bay of Yeddo something floating on the water, which proved to be a Bible. He did not, however, know what it was, but was told that it was a book which had been dropped from some English or American vessel. He became interested in it and anxious to know more about it. He then sent it to Shanghai to have it interpreted for him. His study of the truth was sanctified to him; he was converted, and, in 1857, was the first Japanese who was baptised. Two others were baptised with him, and from that time Christianity has been a living and growing power in the empire. The first great impulse was given by that single Bible.

10. One more instance only out of many, to show that this efficacy of the Bible is not due only to its human expounders. Let us look at a lonely and once desert island, only discovered in 1767. In 1790 the crew of an English vessel named The Bounty mutinied, mastered the vessel, and turned their officers adrift. Nine of the mutineers, with six men and twelve women of Tahiti, landed on this uninhabited Pitcairn's Island. One of them unhappily learned how to make spirits from an indigenous root, and

that little spot, only seven miles in circumference, became at once, in consequence of the drink, a hell on earth. Drunkenness made its Paradise a scene of devilish orgies and bloody massacres, till, by the year 1800, all the Tahitian men, and all the English but one had perished. That one English survivor was John Adams. He found a Bible in the wreck of The Bounty; read it; was struck with remorse for his crimes, and from it he taught the Tahitian women and their children. He became the head of a patriarchal community, which, though half-caste and the offspring of mutineers, murderers, and savages, became, through the teaching of the Bible, renowned throughout the world for the kindness and gentleness of their character, the simplicity and virtue of their lives.

In that desert island was re-enacted the immemorial story of the human race: the story of Eve and the tree of the Knowledge of Evil; the story of Cain, his brother's murderer; the story of Noah's intoxicated shame; the story of a community plunged into destruction by drink and sensuality, saved, ennobled, regenerated by the simple Word of God.

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11. I need not give any further instances. But this is certain so far as, and so long as, England remains true to that simple, unadulterated Word of God which has been purchased for us by the misery of exiles and the blood of martyrs; so far and so long as she stands fast in the freedom wherewith God has made her free, and is not again entangled with the yoke of bondage-so far and so long as she refuses to be either driven into indifference by disgust, or seduced into delusion by false religion; so far and so long will she maintain the honours of this great people. All else-call itself by what sounding name it will-will prove to be but booming brass and tinkling

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cymbal. Let England cling to her open Bible; 1 let her learn from it the broad truths of primitive Christianity, and be faithful to them; let her teach it to her children, and her children to their children, and their children to generations yet unborn, and then no wind that blows, no storm that beats, will shake her invincible foundations, for she will be founded upon a rock! But let her apostatise from its pure lessons into humanly invented falsities, and I would not give fifty years' purchase either for her greatness or for the stability of her Church. The world has no other trumpet of peace save Holy Scripture for souls at war; no other weapon to slay terrible passions; no other teaching to quench the heart's raging fires. This book alone makes mortals immortal, makes immortals gods.'

The Bible will ever continue to be a lamp to our individual feet and a light to our individual paths. It has often saved nations in their decadence, and Churches from their corruption. 'If it be a crime to make known the Scriptures,' said the Bishop of Cloyne, 'it is one of a very singular nature; for our Saviour set the example: the Apostles followed it, and God Himself has commanded and sanctioned it.'

Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss;
This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.

1 The Council of Trent said: 'Indiscriminata lectio Sacræ Scripturæ interdicta est.' So the Pope in 1816 said: 'Si Sacra Biblia vulgari lingua passim sine discrimine permittantur, plus inde detrimenti quam utilitatis oriri.' Pope Pius VI. spoke of the Scriptures as 'fontes uberrimi qui CUIQUE patere debent,' but Pope Pius VII., opposing the Bible Society in Poland, expressed his 'horror at this most subtle attempt to undermine the very foundation of religion.'

CHAPTER XXIII

CONCLUSION.

'And with that he held his peace. And all the people then shouted and said, GREAT IS TRUTH, AND MIGHTY ABOVE ALL THINGS.'-1 Esdras iv. 41.

'Ama Scripturas et amabit te sapientia.'-ST. JEROME.

'It is the king's best copy, the magistrate's best rule, the housewife's best guide, the servant's best directory, and the young man's best companion.'-HUNTINGTON.

To point out all the ways and the extent to which Scripture has been a priceless boon to the race of man would be a task without end. The ways are manifold, the extent infinite. When Bishop Watson published his 'Apology for the Bible,' George III. remarked 'that he did not know the Bible wanted any apology! The Bible needs no apology, for humanity has set its seal thereto, and can never be robbed of its treasured blessedness. Securus judicat orbis terrarum.

'What truth, what saving truth without the Word of God?' ask King James's translators. 'What word of God whereof we may be sure without the Scripture?'

And, again, "The Scriptures being acknowledged to be so good and so perfect, how can we excuse ourselves of negligence if we do not study them? of curiosity if we be not content with them?'

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