Those holy fields
     Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
     Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed
     For our advantage on the bitter cross.—­Shakspeare.

Your little child, on Christmas day, may give you a beautiful copy of the history of “those holy fields.”  But a few hundred years ago, it might have cost a throne.  To-day we may have either Testament printed in our daily newspaper and put upon our table before breakfast.  So free is the word of God that only the mere wish to have it is necessary to secure at once the greatest of spiritual boons and the most perfect piece of writing in our language, or in any other tongue.  The beauties of the Bible have charmed the critical of all ages.  The young have departed from its simplicity of speech only to return in riper years for rapt tuition.  The wise have lingered over its perfect sentences, striving to catch the art which was showered upon those unassuming translators who gave its pages to the English-speaking world.  One of the brightest wits of his time was Sidney Smith.  His love of the Bible, not only as his guide and his strength, but as the greatest of all literary works, was passionate.  He once impressed a circle of friends very deeply with this noble veneration:  “What,” said he, “is so beautiful as

THE STYLE OF THE BIBLE?

what poetry in its language and ideas!” and taking it down from the book-case he read, with his clear, manly voice, and in his most affecting manner, several of his favorite passages; among others:  “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of an old man;” and part of that most beautiful of Psalms, the 139th:  “O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.  Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; thou understandest my thoughts afar off.  Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.  Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence?  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there; if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me.  If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me; yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike unto thee.”  And thus he would charm his hearers, visiting their ears, perhaps, with the first true knowledge of Biblical beauty which had ever sounded upon them.  Listen to

THE MERITED EULOGY