"And His name shall be called Wonderful," is the prophecy concerning the Christ which was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. The truth of Christ, "God manifest in the flesh," is too wonderful for our feeble powers to grasp. Man cannot fathom this "great mystery;" faith alone can make it real to the soul. We can but believe it and worship.
And so also with the Bible. It is wonderful. There is nothing like it in all the world. It is indeed as the palmist says:"Thy testimonies are wonderful; therefore doth my soul observe them." And when one comes to see the wonderful things in this wonderful book, then he also understands what the psalmist meant, and is able to use those words for himself.
The Bible is wonderful in its antiquity; in its preservation ; in its contents, its doctrines, its revelations. It is wonderful in its authorship; in its claims; in its prophecies. It is wonderful in its continuity of thought, seeing its writing has covered so many years and was done by so many and diverse authors. It is wonderful in its depth of truth; in its subject matter; in its structure.
No book has received so much study, and been so loved and so hated. None has so baffled the " wise and prudent" and refused to be penetrated by the learning of the learned. Yet none has brought such light and intelligence to the " poor in spirit." No book has been the subject of such malignant attacks, and none has ever beaten and thrashed its enemies as this one. No book has been more constantly defamed and none more strenuously defended. The world offers no record of a book which has successfully withstood all the hostile attacks of criticism except the Bible. It confounds the critics when they think they have triumphed. It puts them to shame just at the time when they boast of victory.
The Bible is wonderful in its influence upon individuals and upon the world. It has produced multitudes of martyrs and its teachings have strengthened them in their cruel sufferings; its promises have comforted the bereaved ones; its assurances have given courage to the hearts of all who believe it. The Bible has brought the joy of sins forgiven to countless multitudes of all nations, climes and conditions -an innumerable host of men, women, and children; it has dried up the tears of the sorrowing; it binds up the broken heart; it makes the bed of affliction lose its pain. The hope it sets before those who believe its teachings causes the trials and cares of this life to vanish as the mist before a rising sun; a hope that makes all the treasures of this whole world seem as moth and rust eaten; a hope that enables men to look upon the things that are eternal instead of the things that are temporal; a hope of glories that transcend all man can ask or think; a hope that is based upon the immutable word of God, who cannot lie and who changes not.
The influence of the Bible has made and undone kingdoms; it has introduced mighty changes in the course of this world. It has erected schools; founded hospitals, built everywhere asylums of mercy; it has stayed the hand of crime; it has bettered the condition of whole communities. It gave us the reformation ; it broke the tyranny of Popery. The Bible rebukes sin, it condemns wrong, it encourages the feeble, it cheers the faint, it preaches glad tidings to the lost. The Bible brings light and dispels darkness. Its influence is eternal.
O reader, do not these things mean something to you ? Can you be passive before this wonderful book ? Our own soul has been stirred to its depths by its mighty and wonderful contents. And we ask you to search it with us, search it prayerfully and humbly until you too have felt their power and preciousness, and can say reverently and truly, "Thy testimonies are wonderful; therefore doth my soul observe them." F. H. J.