THE FIRESIDE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 243, 15 September 1883, Page 2

THE FIRESIDE.

THE BIBLE.

It has been strikingly said that were Shakspeare's , works destroyed, every line that he ever wrote could be recovered frbm'the pages of Other authors and the" people. So, every text m the Bible has been quoted by somebody as proof or illustration, to point a moral or adorn a tale. Even our secular literature iB sweetened and elevated by, .thoughts -and expressions from the Scriptures. It would be as impossible to subtract the Bible from our modern English literature, which is read by everybody, as to unbraid the sumbeams, and extract the yellow or violet rays from the tides of light that fill the solar system with warmth and cheer. And people do not now read the Bible as a book as they did m former days, because they do read what constitutes its spirit and its life, the very substance and esS6ric6 of it, m every book and pamphlet, m every Btpry and newspaper they take up; We no longer go to the well with our! pitcher to get water as m the olden time, for the water has been' brought into our houses, so that we have only to touch a knob m any room to have our wants supplied' If the -Bible to-day is. ; leas read everywhere, it is very largely because that which makes the reading of it j serviceable and edifying has gone m to all other bookstand is unconsciously absorbed by all who read anything.