Its golden clasps and beautiful
binding make it an attractive appendage to the parlor. Hence they buy the
bible, but not the truth it contains. They place it upon the table as such;
and indeed many do not even give it that prominence, but, yielding to the
taste of fashion, place it under the parlor table, and there it rests,
unmolested, untouched and unread even for years. In many professedly
religious families this is their family bible! Ah! it is not so heartsome
as that well-marked and long-used old bible which lies upon the table of
the nursery room, speaking of many year's service in family devotion! The
other unused bible seems like a stranger to the home-heart, and lies in the
parlor just to show their visiting friends that they have a bible! Go into
the nursery and other private apartments of that home, and you see no
bible, while you behold piles of romance and filthy novels,--those
exponents of a vitiated taste and a corrupt society, suited to destroy the
young forever;--whose outward appearance indicates a studied perusal by
both parents and children, and shows perhaps that they have been wept over;
and whose inward substance must ever nauseate healthy reason, as well as
poison the heart of youth, leading them from the sober realities of life
into a world of nonentities.
But upon the family bible you cannot trace the hand of diligent piety. It
is shoved back into some part of the room, as a worthless thing, obsolete
and superfluous.
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