The Bible

— —

The Bible

BY BEULAH M. WORLD, A. B.

[At the M. I. A. Oratorical Contest held in Salt Lake City, June,

1914, therewere five Church districts represented at the finals in advanced

senior orations. Miss Beulah M. World, with "The Bible," for her

subject, won. Editors.]

The Bible! How much it has meant to millions of people,

more to many than life itself! How many have clung to it in

their darkest hour of grief and despair, and have found in it, a

helping hand of God tenderly and compassionately stretched to

them in their misery!

Yet today, in spite of all

the glorious history of its

past, in spite of the countless

numbers who have reached

God through its inspiration,

today, the Bible is made the

subject of sharp criticism.

These scientific critics would

no longer call the Bible "holy"

but "history;" they would di-

vest it of all magnificence and

inspiration for righteousness.

Let us forget for a while

the holy nature of the Bible

and look at it only as a piece

of literature. To one thorough-

ly acquainted with the Bible,

it opens up a field of marvelous

resources, for it embraces all

literature of the highest type.

If we wish to read history, we

BEULAH M. WORLD. may find here the grandest

epic history ever recorded

the history of a people struggling through darkness, to the bright,

the eternal, the unchanging truth, "Behold, there is no other God

—

before me" a triumphant belief and worship of one eternal Be-

ing. While other nations were blindly worshiping graven images

and bowing themselves before gods of iniquity, Hebrews were

seeing the great light and the Bible records their glorious strug-

;

gle to climb from the engulfing pit of ignorance, into the clear,

:

936 IMPROVEMENT ERA

bright sunlight of God's eternal truth. A wonderful, matchless

history, is it not?

Then again, if we want poetry we need only turn to the

Bible to find the highest. The Psalms of David, to mention only

one instance, are the purest, most sublime poetry unsurpassed in

all time, because they are the outbreak of an inspired heart pour-

ing forth praise to God. The sonorous rhythm, the exquisite

beauty, the tender, yet proud abiding faith of the twenty-third

Psalm are unequaled in all the annals of poetry.

Suppose we wish to read a short story, all we need to do is turn

to the story of Ruth, of Esther, of David and Jonathan, of Joseph

—

and his brethren to mention only a very few. These are per-

fect short stories lacking none of the essentials of a short story as

given by our most learned literary men. They go far beyond the

modern short story, for their purpose is not merely to amuse,

but to aid and inspire the human mind, to show the way to a life

of holiness, of happiness, of love.

Even Shakespeare could not have composed a drama of

—

such awesome grandeur as that drama of dramas the Book of

Job. It is a poetic drama, full of action, of deep feeling, of a

supreme struggle in which faith triumphant overcomes great

bodily suffering and gives utterance to that magnificent cry,

"I know that my Redeemer liveth." Even those thousands of

years ago, ages before the birth of Christ, that thought was ut-

tered by a man in extreme physical agony, with family and home

all lost, with streaming eyes and arms outsretched to God.

Only mentioning briefly the great prophecies which have been

fulfilled, the marvelous truths which have stood the test of the

time of the ages, the old, old story of Christ and his mission

which revolutionized the world, not for a time but for all time,

can we not see that the Bible is the Book of books? Even if

we do not believe that the Bible is directly the w*>rd of God, still

the more we study, the more we read, do we find that it was writ-

ten bv men filled with the glory and the inspiration of God.

But the Bible does not stand alone by its content. It has

over a thousand years of glorious history. Through it, countless

millions of people have not forgotten God but have turned to him

with pure and worshiping hearts through it, the sin-stained soul

;

has found salvation, and with a heart full of repentance, with tear

dimmed-eves, has stood upon the verge of the valley of death, and

stretched his hands in prayer to God through it many have fol-

;

lowed Christ through martyrdom, unflinchingly secure in the

eternal kingdom of God through it we may live pure and upright

;

lives, safely escaoe all the temptations of the world,

and with

supreme trust in God, say as did David

"The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.