sick novel, and the run-mad poem, is coming in upon us like a flood. It would do much to rescue the rising generation from that deluge of fiction, which now threatens to overlay the learn ing of this boasted nineteenth century with a deeper detritus of trash than that of all the geological epochs.

Now, the Bible, regarded as a model of classical taste, is the great antidote and corrective for this evil. We must teach our youth to look upon it, not only as a book for the Sabbath and the Sanctuary, but as a book for the family, the school, and the college. We must set it before them as worthy of the most honored place, alike in the cottages of the poor, the palaces of the rich, and the libraries of the learned. We must not let them forget, that it is, at once, the most ancient, the most sublime, the most wonderful of all the classics. We do not discard Homer and Virgil from the classics because they contain a religion, even an absurd, fabulous religion; why, then, should we underrate, or disparage the classical claims of the Bible, because it contains a religion, and that, the only true religion? Does the Bible cease to be a classic, because, in addition to the inspiration of human genius, it has the higher inspiration of God? Does its learning cease to be learning, its eloquence to be eloquent, because it is sanctified and animated by the breath. of Divinity? No; the Bible is as truly a classic as Homer or Virgil, Xenophon or Cicero, Milton or Addison. It fills a place in ancient and modern literature, which no Greek or Roman author ever filled, or can fill. It has done, for the literature of all civilized nations, what no Greek or Roman book could ever have done.

As a Hebrew book, for more than fifteen centuries, it comprised almost the entire literature and learning of a whole nation, As a Hebrew book, it exerted an influence which no other book,

not even the Koran of Mohammed, has ever attained over any people. And, notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of states and empires, the removal and extinction of nations, it has never lost its original supremacy. It acquired the same place of power over the conquering, classical Greeks and Romans, which it had held so long over the Jews. It then did, successively, for the conquering barbarians of Northern Europe, what it had done. for the Greeks and Romans. A classic to the Hebrews, it became a classic in the languages of Demosthenes and Cicero ;. and it has become classical in the vernacular tongue of every European nation. And that which it has done for these, it is now loing in every pagan nation on earth to which the Protesta it missionary has been sent.

It is not too much, then, to claim for the Bible, that, as a class 'c, it stands without a rival at the head of all human literature. It is not too much to say, that it has eventually controlled and impregnated, with its own immortal spirit, the literature of every people, into whose vernacular it has been translated. And at this moment, there is not, perhaps, in the whole world of letters, a more important and effective work goi g forward, than that work of translation, which, under the sile at but sublime labors of the missionary, is making the Bible a classic book in every human tongue. There has been no such transmigration from land to land, and from language to language, of the Koran, or the Shaster, or any other book claiming to be a Divine revelation. The Bible, therefore, whether we red it in its original tongues, in its manifold ancient and modern versions, or in our own admirable English translation, bears upon its face the very aspect of majesty, of high classical antiquity, of inherent undisputed superiority. Translate it, however badly, dilute it, however much with paraphrases; still

it is almost impossible to hide the native beauty of its imagery, or the original lustre of its thoughts. They will still break out, like sunshine through the clouds, or spring-buds from the cells in which winter had bound them.

There is a richness of conception, a universality in its spirit, a range and amplitude of thought, a power of illustration, a truthfulness to nature, an insight into character, a familiarity with the unseen and eternal, a fund of information, a variety of incident, and a consciousness of authority in all its utterances, which give to all the words and images of the Bible, the charm of originality, the impress of genius, and the force of an endless life. No book ever did speak, or can speak to the heart of the individual man, and to the great heart of the world, as the Bible has done. It alone has a voice which can reach all the depths of the human spirit, and awake the slumbering intellect from the stupor of ages. It alone, of religious books, has a largeness of view which makes it congenial to humanity everywhere; classical and indigenous on every soil, in every era, beneath the stars of every firmament. It is as much at home with man amid the splendid capitals of Europe, the snows of Greenland, the islands of the South Seas, and the wild woods of America, as it was in the streets of Jerusalem, or the hill country of Judea. You feel, at once, on reading it, and you can never cease to feel while you read, that, if it is anything, it is everything; it bears its own credentials; it carries a selfevidencing power, not only of religious truth, but of classic beauty. It is true to nature and true to man; it describes to the life, the world within, and the world without. It speaks of that which we know already, so truly, and with such graphic power, as to impress us with the conviction of the truth of every. thing else which it tells us, about things which we did not know

Moreover, everything in it, and about it, is on a scale of magnificence and grandeur. Everything bears the stamp of a more than regal, more than mortal greatness. Everything is in accordance with the character of its infinite author; everything is represented as it stands related to him; so that what is insignificant in itself becomes great from its connection with the Deity. And no mind can come fully under its influence, for any length of time, without partaking somewhat of its own intellectual and moral greatness. Does a man seek for great thoughts, fitted to enlarge the intellect? Here are thoughts as vast as the universe of matter or mind. Does he crave burning words? Here are words that glow with the fires of immortality. Does he love poetry, and ask for images of beauty? Here are angelic harmonies, and forms radiant with all the tints of earth and heaven. Does he love to read the records of the great? Here are the most wonderful characters in historycharacters that lived a thousand years-characters, "without beginning of days or end of years."

Now, let any child read this book in the nursery and in the school, and then read it on through life; let the poor laborer study it nightly after his daily toil; let the humblest cottager in the land make it the companion of his thoughts from the cradle to the grave; let the young man make it the guide of his youth, and the old man the companion of his declining years; and it is as if he had been associated with the most exalted scenes and characters in the universe; it is as if you had taken him out from his humble dwelling, and sent him to school to patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; it is, as if you had given him converse and familiar fellowship with kings and nobles of the earth, and with the angels of God; it is as if he had been caught up to that third heaven of unutterable things, where, in

the visions of God, he might learn the true dnsions of man Let any man of ordinary intelligence be thoroughly initiated into the great things of this book, and it shall be

sible guaranty, that his estimate of all other things will be correct; to borrow the phraseology of Chalmers, he can never more forget the relative proportion of two magnitudes-the littleness of time, the greatness of eternity.

The constant reading of this book cannot fail to form a true taste, because it cannot fail to inspire a love of truth and beauty-a real heart-felt appreciation of the sublime and beautiful both in nature and art. And this taste, if early formed, becomes an effectual safe-guard against all false, meretricious writings. If you educate your child so as to give him an early fondness for such models of poetic art as the Iliad or Paradise Lost, there is not much danger that he will acquire a relish for trash and bombast. Even so it is with a mind, early imbued with admiration for the Bible as a model of classic beauty. In correcting the judgment and elevating the taste, a constant study of the Bible has much of the same effect on the mind, as that which would be produced by an observation of the works of nature and art in all lands. It is, as if one had become a universal traveller-had seen man in all his moods, nature in all her aspects, grandeur in its most stately steppings, and beauty in her loveliest charms. Yes, of all books, the Bible is the truest Cosmos. And of all students, the Bible student is the most thorough cosmopolite. Its variety is endless. Its scenes and characters are diversified and infinite, like the universe.

In illustration of this boundless variety of subjects contained in the Bible, the following words of Mrs. Ellis, at once comprehensive and glowing with the poetry of real life, may be cited: "From the worm that grovels in the dust beneath our feet, to