books of Moses, the writings of the prophets, and the Psalms.

Of these books we are taught that, "Holy men of God wrote them as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." We claim for them a plenary inspiration; not in the sense with which the poet is inspired, but with a direct influence from God himself, dictating to his servants truths which human wisdom could not reach, foretelling events which no prudence could foresee, and offering blessings no mortal can bestow. To the writings of the Old Testament we add the writings of the New (rejecting all writings of a doubtful authority); being evidently written under guidance of the same Divine Spirit by whom the prophets wrote and spoke. Of these united writings the affirmation is true that, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good word and work.” What other book on

earth can fulfil such purposes as these? Its morality is the most excellent-its doctrines are evidently Divine. This is the one book that will elevate and refine, and regenerate the entire race of mankind. It will civilize the savage-refine the civilized—and render godlike the whole race of man.

This is the book we would open in the sight of all the people of every clime. Not the Koran-not the Shaster-not the lying books of Mormon, but the Bible. This is the book. Its excellency is beyond all comparison-its importance is momentous as eternity. It teaches us what God is-it shows in what relation we stand to God. It speaks of God's love-it directs us to a Saviour. It brings hope and life, and immortality to man-it converteth the soul-it leads to heaven,

"Holy Bible-book divine,

Precious treasure, thou art mine."

"God's kindest thoughts are here express'd,
Able to make us wise and blest;
The doctrines are divinely true,
Fit for reproof and comfort too."

II. THE OPENING OF THE BOOK.

"And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people." Ancient books being written on scrolls of parchment were rolled on rollers. Ezra, with one roller in one hand, with the other hand unfolded the venerable manuscript in order to read. He did not present it to them as a rolled volume not to be opened; that would have been a cause of chagrin and disappointment. We read of the grief once occasioned by an unrolled volume. "I saw," says St. John, "in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within, &c. And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon." But the Lamb of God obtained the power to open that book and to reveal its mysteries. The volume of God's decrees may remain a closed volume to all eyes, save the eye of Omniscience; and no other book but that of judgment

ever had been opened to us had not the Lamb prevailed to open for us the book of life. The Book of Revelation has been sent to man, that he may read the words by which he may be saved. God himself has opened the book. The book which Ezra opened had been for a long time closed to the people by their dwelling in a strange land, and by their use of a foreign tongue. They needed an interpreter to read to them the original Hebrew in which the book was written. This book had aforetime been shut up in the ark, but it was the priests' duty to open the ark and read the book from time to time to the people. Scribes also were appointed to copy the Scriptures, and thus to open them to public benefit. But these things had been sadly neglected before the captivity, and very few copies were in the hands of the people. It was, therefore, a great benefit when Ezra resolved to open the book publicly; and to make the people better acquainted with the law of the Lord. They afterwards enjoyed a better knowledge of this book than their fathers had done before them; and in their synagogues on every Sabbath they heard the words of Moses and the prophets.

The book which we possess, containing the completed canon of Sacred Scriptures, has suffered many vicissitudes in its history. It has been proscribed and persecuted, and sought to be destroyed; but a Divine Providence has watched over it, and preserved it. It has not always been publicly read; its copies have been few, and few persons have sought to study it. Persecutions frowned upon it, and superstitions supplanted it. It has been in the condition of the volume described by the prophet, "the book sealed which men deliver to one who is learned, saying, Read thus, I pray thee; and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I am not learned." Isaiah xxix. 11. Many durst not read it, and many could not read it. In the dark ages it lay concealed in monkish cells; and lying tales and dark puerile traditions supplied its place. But Luther found it, and read it, and opened it in the sight of all the people. Some suppose that the vision of John refers to this when he saw the mighty angel with a countenance like the sun, and feet as pillars of fire, having in his hand a little book open. Glorious, indeed, has been the light that has emanated from that little open book. Luther durst break the seals and defy the Popes, who have kept back that book, and in the sight of Europe he opened it, and made the hearts of the people to rejoice. Wickliffe, Tyndale, and Coverdale have opened the book, and have translated it, that we might read in our own vernacular tongue, the wonderous words of God. The authorised version has long been open in our land; and our liberties and privileges have been enlarged thereby. The Bible Society has taken up the noble work-has so multiplied copies of the Bible that it may be opened and read in every house; and in the last fifty years it has been opened in numerous languages, and has spread into many lands. And surely we will not suffer this Society to rest in its benevolent operations until it has held up, in the sight of all the people under heaven, that Book which God has designed for all the nations to make them enlightened,

religious, and free. Wherever it is closed, tyranny and anarchy by turns prevail; and a curse rests on those rulers who deprive the people of their righteous inheritance. We are free this day through the possession of an open Bible. In enslaved states the Bible is not freely allowed to be read. It is the book of freedom.

"It calls on the nations; it tells them the story

Of mercy and love from the fountains of light.
To the God of the Bible, thanksgiving and glory,

That the word of his truth has gone forth in its might.
'Tis the sound of the trumpet that bursts on the ear-
The voice that announces the jubilee year."

III. THE STANDING UP OF THE PEOPLE TO HEAR THE BOOK.

"And when he opened it all the people stood up."

This act first of all betokened respect and reverence for the authority of that book then to be expounded unto them. It was an act of reverence paid to the Divine Being, who, by that book, was again about to speak once more unto Israel. They had disregarded his statutes and broken his covenant, and justly might God have taken his book from them, and have given it to another nation. But he was still willing they should be the depositaries of his truth. It was reverential, therefore, that they should stand up when God spake unto them the words of his law. Their fathers had stood before the Lord when the Lord spake unto them from Sinai, but so terrible was that sound that even Moses did fear and quake: and they that heard it desired that he would speak to them in that manner no more. Therefore God commanded Moses to write his words and put them in a book. It is in pity to our weakness that God has written to us, that he may not terrify us by the terribleness of his majesty and power. It is, moreover, in consideration of our mental condition that God gives us his book for our careful study. Truth to convince our judgment, gain our affections, and incline our wills. Hence it is more convincing and powerful, in calm and tranquil whisperings that permit our reflective powers to be exercised, than when it comes in the imperative and overpowering thunderings of majesty and authority. We may be startled into obedience; but are likely immediately after to relapse into indifference and disobedience; but the deliberate conviction that arises from meditation may insure a permanent compliance with the requisitions of God's law. God has, therefore, directed his revelations to be recorded, that we may attentively peruse them-compare them and examine them-embrace them, and "ever hold fast his most holy Word."

"All the people stood up" to hear God's words; not in thunderings and with the sound of a trumpet exceeding loud, but in the tones of Ezra's voice. Yet it was God truly speaking to them, as though they had heard his voice from heaven. "God, who at sundry times, spake unto our fathers, by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." We ought, therefore, to show our respect and reverence to God when we are reading the Scriptures. Not in mere forms,

as bowing the head, or standing up to hear the Gospel, and sitting down to hear the epistles, as though there were more authority in the one than the other; but with true reverence of spirit, and that becoming posture which shall prove that we listen to God's word, not as to an idle tale, or a dramatic story of human device. Yet many do heedlessly regard the opening of the book of God. They are irreverent and indevout, when God is speaking to them his words of warning and his promises of love. The Bible claims reverence. It is God speaking to us; and when God speaks, all the world should hear. This book has authority over all other books. We listen to them not as to the words of men-on them we pass our judgment-but when God's book is opened it passes judgment on us. By its words we shall be justified, and by its words we shall be condemned.

This standing up of the people implied attention; they were anxious to hear; they did not remain lounging about in idle groups, gazing upon every passing trifling object, and diverting each other with talkative nothingness and empty words. Their ears were all attention to the word of God. Deeper attention is needed whenever this book is opened, that we may not, through heedlessness, lose those things which make for our peace.

But that which we principally regard in our observations upon this Jubilee year, is the increasing reverence and attention that has been awakened by the aid of the Bible Society, within the last fifty years, to the revelation which God has given to the world. It is true, infidelity is abroad, and is seeking to destroy faith in the inspiration of the Bible; but the Voltaires and Paines, of the former part of this century, have miserably failed in their attempted overthrow of the authority and reverence paid to this book; and their successors and imitators will find, that all their myths and reasonings will fail in shaking the general confidence of men, that God has spoken intelligently to men, and that the truths He has revealed, are written within this book with an immortal pen.

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Engrav'd as in eternal brass,

The mighty promise shines;

Nor shall the powers of darkness raze,
Those everlasting lines.

"All flesh is grass-the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever." A host of Bible readers in all lands shall yet stand up to outvote infidelity from the face of the earth, whilst they reverently bow their heads and worship the Lord.

"All the people stood up." This denoted a moral elevation and a manly freedom. They were now a free people. They had been slaves in Babylon-their fathers were slaves to idolatry; the former had corrected the latter, and now God had restored them to the liberty of his worship, and the unrestricted privileges of their native land. They had been seated by the rivers of Babylon in abject grief; but now they breathed the consciousness of religious liberty, and they stood up fearlessly to enjoy the privileges of hearing the unrestricted word. They were politically elevated; but above all, they were morally

elevated, A false religion no longer debased their minds-nor did a corrupt superstition vitiate their moral sense. They stood up the freemen of the Lord.

The Bible will morally elevate the minds of the nations; it will set them free from Papal, Pagan, and Mahometan superstition. It will bring them from the authority of the priest to the authority of God's word; and the priest-ridden nations shall burst their shackles, and stand up to hear God's truth, and assert their right to have God's open book. Yes, the people shall stand up to hear God's word from God's own book! All the people of every land shall stand up— elevated in moral power-conscious of their manhood-free from every shackle-ready with heart and voice to praise the Lord, and to render homage and obedience to Jehovah, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.

IV. THE DEVOUT ACTS OF THANKSGIVING ON BEHALF OF THE Book.

1. The act of Ezra. "And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God." Ezra was a devout man of God, ready at the remembrance of his own sins and for those of his people, to humble himself most deeply before the Lord. Hear his language, chap. ix. 5, 6; "I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God, and said, O my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up to heaven. And now for a little space, grace hath been showed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage, &c." A man with such sentiments as these could not but be most deeply impressed with a sense of the greatness of the Divine mercy, that had spared him and his people to see this day, the opening of the book of the law of the Lord.

"Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God." He extolled the perfections of Jehovah ; he acknowledged Him as the Ruler of the universe by whom kings rule and princes decree justice. God it was who had overthrown Babylon, and raised Cyrus and had given his people deliverance. It was his high arm that brought them out of bondage, and which had conducted them to Jerusalem; and now on this occasion, the whole assembled house of Israel gathered together to hear and receive the words of the covenant which their fathers had despised; this called forth the devoutest feelings of this good man's soul, and he poured forth with the deepest emotion, the overflowings of his heart in the sublimest ascriptions of praise. His words, indeed, are not recorded, but the effect produced upon his deeply sympathising, and intensely affected audience, lead us to conceive they were in "the sublimest strains that reach the majesty of Heaven."

"Stand up," said they who echoed his strains, "and bless the Lord your God for ever and ever; and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise." It is good for us also to