The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1915-05-26
TIE VALUE OF TIE BIBLE
Contributed by Jno. P. Thames.

Xsc VALUE " 4dG 6to4E-
Contributed by Jno. P. Thames,
The value of the Bible is not
only the revealer of the un-
known God to man. but his
grand interpreter as the God of
nature. In revealing God, 1t
has given US the Key that un-
locks the profoundest mysteries
of creation. the clew by which
to thread the labyrinth of the
universe, the glass through
which to look Esfrom nature up
to natures God"
It is only when we stand and
gaze upon nature, with the Bible
in our hands, and it's idea of God
in our understanding, that ma
ture is capable Of rising to its
highest majesty, and kindling in
our souls the highest emotions
of moral beauty and subIimity.
Without the all-pervading spir-
itual God of the Bible in our
thoughts. natures: sweetest mus
ic would lose it's charm, and the
universe it's highest significance
and glory.
Go, and stand with your open
Bible upon the Areopagus of
Athens, where Paul stood so
long ago. In thoughtful silence
look around upon the site of all
that ancient greatness; look up
ward to those still glorious skies
of Greece, and what conceptions
| of wisdom and power will all
these memorable scenes of ma
ture and art convey to your
mind, now, ten fold more than
they did to the ancient worship
er of Jupiter or Apollo? They
will tell of Him who made
worlds, by whom, and through
and for whom, are all things.
To you, that landscape of ex-
ceeding beauty, so rich in mon
uments of departed genius, with
Its distant classic mountains, it's
deep blue sea, and its bright
bending skies, will be telling a
tale of glory that the Grecia n
never learned; for it will speak
to US no more of thirty thousand
contending deities, but of the
one living and everlasting God.
Go, stand with David and Isaiah
under the star-spangled canopy
of the night; and as We look
|away to the grange of planets,
|suns and adamantine spheres
wheeling mistaken through the
void universe" take up the
mighty questionings of inspira.
| ton.
| Go, stand upon the heights at
Niagara, and listen in awe-struck
Hence to that boidest, most
searnest and most eloquentof all
natures orators; and what is
Niagara, with its plunging water
and mighty roar, but the oracle
of God, the whisper OF His voice
who is revealed in the Bible as
sitting above the water. foods
forever.
Who can stand amid scenes
like these, with the Bible in his
hand, and not feel that if there
lis a moral sublimity to be found
on earth, it is in the Book ot
lGod, it is in the thought of God:
For what are all these outward,
visible forms of grandeur but
the expression and utterance Of
that conception of Deity which
the Bible has created in our
minds, and which has now be-
come the leading and largest
thought in all civilized nations?
The oldest reliable histors is
that given by Moses, land God
said let there be light, and there
was light And on down for
four thousand years tie Sacred
Volume follows the fortunes OF
Gods chosen people, and Incl
dentally, it gives US at the same
time light on the contemporary
nations of heathendom. See
what it has done for science.
| True, it does not unfold to US
| the mysteries of geology, astron