19. Holy Scriptures

Holy Scriptures

WILMOT’S TESTIMONY.—When Wilmot, the infidel, lay dying he placed his hand upon the Bible and said: “The only objection against that Book is a bad life.”

WESLEY’S ASSERTION.—Wesley said, in substance: “I am a poor sinner wandering through this world of sin. There is a Book that points the way to Heaven. Give me that Book.”

FATHER’S WILL.—In the days of martyrdom a band of persecutors met a young woman on her way to a secret meeting. They demanded where she was going. Her apt reply was: “They are going to read my Father’s will (The Bible), and I am on my way to hear it being read.”

HEATHEN’S PROOF.—A black prince arrived in England from Africa in 1791. The one to whose care he was intrusted took great pains to convince him that the Bible was the Word of God, and he received it as such, with reverence and simplicity. “When I found,” said he, “all good men minding the Bible, and calling it the Word of God, and all bad men disregarding it, I then was sure that the Bible must be what good men call it—the Word of God.”

TESTED COMPANY.—A woman asked what she ought to do, there were so many worthless characters who came in to sit with her husband evenings. “Put the open Bible on the table and that will drive them off.” She was not troubled with them any more.

NOW I SEE THE SUN.—A Hindoo had been brought to forsake idolatry through a leaf of the Bible that came into his possession, and upon which was the 51st Psalm, David’s prayer for cleansing. This was his gospel for twenty years. When a missionary gave him a New Testament, he exclaimed: Twenty years I walked by starlight, but now I see the sun!

SPIRA’S TESTIMONY.—Spira, the apostate, on his deathbed, declared: “Take heed of relying on that faith which works not a holy and blameless life. It will fail. I tried it. I presumed: I preached it to others. I had all places in Scripture in memory that might support it. I thought myself sure, and, in the meantime, lived impiously. Now the judgment of God hath overtaken me to damnation.”

IT WARMS ME.—An Italian fruit-seller had received the Word of God into her heart. Seated at her little fruit-stand at the head of a bridge, she spent her spare moments in reading the Bible. One day a gentleman customer said to her: “My good woman, what are you reading?” “It is the Word of God,” replied the woman. “The Word of God, who told you that?” “He told me so Himself.” “Have you ever spoken to Him?” Looking upward, she replied: “Can you prove to me, sir, that there is a sun up in the sky?” “Prove it!” he replied, “why, the best proof is that it warms me, and that I see its light.” “So,” she said, “the proof of this Book being the Word of God is that it warms and lights my soul.”

SKELETON FINGER MARK.—After the battle before Richmond had been over some days, a man was found dead, with his hand on the open Bible. The summer insects had taken the flesh from the hand, and there was nothing but the skeleton left; but the skeleton fingers lay on the open page, and on this passage: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.”