Who can forget the family bible? It was the
household oracle of our grandfathers and grandmothers,--of our dear
parents. It bears the record of their venerated names; their birth, their
baptism, their confirmation, their marriage, are here; and
"Though they are with the silent dead,
Here are they living still!"
How joyfully they gathered around the cheerful hearth to read this book
divine. How often their hearts drew consolation from its living springs!
What a balm it has poured into bleeding and disconsolate hearts. It has
irradiated with the glories of eternal day, the darkest chamber of their
home. What brilliant hopes and promises it has hung around the parental
heart! And here too are the names of our parents,--long since gathered with
their fathers. Here too are our names, and birth, and baptism, written by
that parental hand, long since cold in death!
"My father read this holy book
To brothers, sisters dear;
How calm was my poor mother's look,
Who loved God's word to hear.
Her angel-face--I see it yet!
What thronging memories come?
Again that little group is met
Within the halls of home!"
That old family bible! Do we not love it? Our names and our children's
names are drawn from it. It is the message of our Father in heaven. It is
the link which connects our earthly with our heavenly home; and when we
open its sacred page, we gaze upon words which our loved ones in heaven
have whispered, and which dwell even now upon their sainted lips; and which
when we utter them, there is joy in heaven! We would, therefore, say to the
infidel, of this "family tree," as the returning child said to the
woodsman, of the old tree which sheltered the slumbers and frolics of his
childhood, "I'll protect it now.
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