"
The old family bible! What an inheritance from a Christian home! Clasp it,
child, to thy heart; it was the gift of a mother's love! It bears the
impress of her hand; it is the memento of her devotedness to thee; and when
just before her spirit took its flight to a better land, she gave it as a
guide for her child to the same happy home:
"My mother's hand this bible clasped;
She, dying, gave it me!"
And the spirit of that sainted mother shall still whisper to me through
these sacred pages. In the light of this lamp I follow her to a better
home. With this blessed chart I shall meet her in heaven.
"With faltering lip and throbbing brow,
I press it to my heart."
Every Christian home has a family bible. It is found in the hut as well as
in the palace. It is an indispensable appendage to home. Without it the
Christian home would be in darkness; with it, she is a "light which shineth
in darkness." It is the chart and compass of the parent and the child in
their pilgrimage to a better home.
"Therein thy dim eyes
Will meet a cheering light; and silent words
Of mercy breathed from heaven, will be exhaled
From the blest page into thy withered heart."
Like an ethereal principle of light and life, its blessed truths extend
with electric force through all the avenues and elements of the
home-existence, "giving music to language, elevation to thought, vitality
to feeling, intensity to power, beauty and happiness.
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