words shall judge you in the last day." We should not forget that God gave his word to man in his fallen and condemned state, and that it was his design to adapt it to all his spiritual wants. In the clearness of this pure light, the primitive Christians sincerely rejoiced, and triumphed amid persecutions and the severest trials. The timid were made strong, even in prison, and the consuming flames.

In trusting frail man's opinions, there is always doubt; but the poor wanderer of earth, who regards the Bible as "The light to his feet and lamp to his path," can say, "I know if this earthly house of my tabernacle were dissolved, I have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens."

This point admitted, we shall be encouraged to believe that, the Bible is not a sealed book-that it is what it purports to be a volume of revelations from Heaven. True, there are things, "hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable, wrest to their own destruction,"

yet the great and cardinal features of the Bible are so plain and so impressive, that "he that runs may read." Children need not err in the practices of the Scriptures. No one should blind his eyes to the meaning of sin, and its deplorable consequences. "All unrighteousness is sin ;" and while we look into the Bible as a mirror, that reflects perfectly our moral features, we may be changed into the image of our God, "From glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

If parents, in sending their children to school, should be so unfortunate as to select teachers who would impress the young mind with the idea that, their books were incomprehensible-too difficult to be mastered,discouragement would press heavily upon their young and timid hearts, and the confidence so essential to success, would be taken from them. No threats or stripes can enable them to surmount the obstruction. The child is at least half educated, when it becomes fully inspired with the idea, enforced by Napoleon upon a young man

who hesitated at his task, by telling him that, "A youth should regard nothing as impossible."

When, therefore, we open the divine volume, we should not only consider it as God's book to the lost, but sufficiently plain for all to read with marked advantage. With such encouragements we may gather rich jewels from every page.

RULE II. In reading the Bible, the study of words is not to be disregarded.

In reading a plain history, we often, by neglecting the meaning of a few simple words, soon find ourselves bewildered and discouraged the book becomes tiresome, and we lay it aside, either in disgust, or with the saddening thought that, we are not competent to grasp its meaning. Too often, we read in such haste that, we can make nothing our own. Far better would it be, to read a passage, or chapter, two or three, or even a dozen times, than to glide over it, without properly digesting the matter contained in it. The great and learned men of the world agree that, each word has one,

and but one, literal meaning. No word, in its introduction, was ever used figuratively; but was intended to express a thought; and hence, words are said, rightly, to be signs of ideas. If the word is employed to express an action, the action is one, and never two. Thus run, always carries with it a single idea, whether the object is to express the running of a man; the running of a horse; the running of a steamboat, or railroad-car. If the writer intends by a word, to denote an object, we must bear in mind, if the word is appropriate, it gives the full image of the object to the mind, or it gives nothing. Thus, the word boat, invariably presents to the mind a water craft, of some kind, and nothing else. It is proper to say that, words are frequently employed out of their literal use, and then, they are said to be metaphorical.

But we must not infer that, a figurative use of the word gives a new and original meaning. True, the learned Ernesti tells us that, "A metaphorical meaning sometimes, by use, becomes the literal significatin of the word." Use has also changed

its relations to other words. We should not forget to impress the reader with the thought expressed by Archbishop Whately that, "Metaphysical meanings, as long as words retain their original meaning, must conform to their literal signification."

Although words in the same book, and on the same page, are applied differently, they still center in a single root meaning. In examining a word, therefore, we should endeavor in the first place, to get "its heart, from which, as from a fruitful seed, all the others unfold themselves." We will introduce to the reader's attention, the authority of the very learned and accurate thinker, R. C. French, Professor of Divinity in King's College, London. He says, "A word has originally but one meaning, and that all others, however widely they may diverge from one another, and seem to recede from this one, may yet be affiliated upon it, may be brought back to the one center meaning, which grasps and knits them altogether; just as the races of men; black, white and red, despite of their present diversion and dispersion, have a central point of unity in