A Living Book and Its Story
Caroline J. Ladd
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: A Living Book
MY Bible has a wonderful story to tell, so has yours, dear young reader; a story that I am not afraid to promise, if you will only give it an attentive hearing, you will agree with me is as interesting as it is wonderful. In the first place, it is all true, because God is its Author. I heard the other day of a little girl who wanted to give her father a birthday present. A Bible was decided upon, and bought with her own pocket money.
“What shall I write in it?" she asked her mother.
“To my dear father, from his loving little daughter," was the reply.
She ran off to her father's study, where she was sure of finding pens and ink, but seeing upon the table a book that had been sent to him by its writer, she turned to the fly-leaf and read, "Presented to Mr. M— by the author.”
“That will do!" she exclaimed delightedly, and wrote in her large round hand, "To my dear father, from the Author.”
Now if we remember that our Bibles come to us from their Author, GOD, we shall, I feel sure, give a reverent hearing to the story "The Grand Old Book" has to tell.
A friend, speaking of one of the Lord's servants, said, "I am told that Mr. K—can preach in eleven languages." A great many, is it not? But to-day the Bible is telling the wondrous story of redemption in about seven hundred and twenty-five different languages and dialects, though we must not forget that in some of these only a small portion of scripture, perhaps one or two of the gospels, have as yet been translated.
In some parts of Africa the first missionaries found that the people had no written language, so of course the work that lay before the messengers of the cross was very slow and uphill, and one that needed great patience and perseverance.
Perhaps I had better tell you about the one I myself know most about, how the New Testament was translated into the language of the people of Incongo, a place on the shores of the great African river, the Congo.
Some few years ago the Lord laid it upon the hearts of two young men who were enjoying the sunshine of His love to carry the gospel to those who had never heard it. Many difficulties stood in the way, but in simple confidence in God they went forward, and after a long journey by land and sea reached the Belgian Congo, not knowing a single word of the language of the people among whom they hoped to live and labor.
But the Lord who knew all their need put a desire after Himself into the heart of a native youth, who willingly engaged to be their servant (his wages being paid in beads and salt), and gave them all the help he could in learning the language. At first it was very slow work. Every word when learned had to be written down, with the best guess they could make as to its spelling; but in a short time they were able to begin work with such short sentences as "God is good to all"; "God loves you"; and when they were able to preach and begin a day-school, the Lord blessed the work, and now there are in Incongo quite a number of baptized Christians, who read for themselves the New Testament in their own language, the whole having been translated for them by the patient, plodding work of the missionaries.
The Bible is a living book. A Chinese scholar said to a native colporteur, "Our books are very old, and very learned, too; they tell us what we ought to do, and yet you ask us to give up our books and follow the teachings of your book. If you can show me that your book is better than ours, I will buy a copy, and I will not only buy the book, but I will read it.”
“Your books," replied the colporteur, "tell men and women what they ought to do, but those who love my book and follow its teachings, receive what your books cannot give, power to do right. I can tell you of some who were living careless, and even openly sinful lives, they were gamblers, and opium-smokers, but my book by the teaching of the Holy Spirit has changed their lives. They no longer gamble or smoke opium: ‘Old things have passed away,' they are living happy, useful lives, their homes are comfortable; their families are not only well cared for, but they are being taught to serve and love the true God.”
“If what you say is true," exclaimed the scholar, "your book must be alive. Give me a copy, for it is what I have long wanted, a living book.”
Yes, that is what the Bible is to all who humbly seek to be taught of God, to love and value
“God's holy Book of truth,
The blessed staff of hoary age,
The guide of early youth.”
Chapter 2: How the Book Grew
MY dear old Bible is near me as I write, and the more I think of the story I have attempted to tell, the more wonderful it seems and the more I feel my need of being cast upon the Lord for the grace and wisdom He alone can give to enable me to tell the story of THE BOOK in such a way that the dear young people may be so interested that they may desire to know more about THE BOOK and its history.
We are all so used to think of the Bible as one book, that we forget that it is really made up of sixty-six parts, some longer and some shorter than others; and that between thirty and forty different men, all taught and inspired by the same mighty Spirit, were employed by God as its writers.
Think of it for a moment! If the sixty-six parts were printed separately in large, clear type, upon good paper, and bound in leather, they would fill a good-sized bookcase. A Bible in Braille-type for the blind requires about thirty-nine good-sized volumes; if placed side by side they would require a bookshelf seven feet in length, while the entire Bible in Dr. Moon's type, which though not so largely used as the Braille, is read by many blind who have lost their sight late in life, or after the tips of their fingers have been hardened, and so the sense of touch partly destroyed by hard work, requires more than sixty volumes.
The Bible was not all written at one time; for about one thousand five hundred years of the world's history there was, as far as we know, no written Bible. When the children of Israel went into the land of Canaan only the five first books of the Bible were written; when King David sat upon the throne, a few more parchments had been added, but about another fifteen hundred years were needed before even the Old Testament was complete. To-day we often see Bibles containing the whole sixty-six books so small in size that a little child can hold the entire Bible in its tiny hand.
A father went into the nursery one day; the nurse was reading aloud to his little girl.
“What are you reading?" he asked. "I am reading the story of Joseph out of the Bible," she replied.
And the child looked up and said eagerly, "Oh, papa, please don't stop her; it's so beautiful!”
The story the child was listening to with such interest was written three thousand years ago.
But perhaps the story of how the New Testament grew is more wonderful than that of the Old. The Jews were not a writing people. Though Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each wrote of Christ, they did so in different ways. While Matthew wrote of the Lord as the King of Israel, Mark wrote of Him as the Servant-Prophet; the Gospel by Luke brings the Lord before us as the Son of man, and John seems to crown all by writing of the same glorious Person as the SON OF GOD.
For nearly fifty years after the birth of Christ there was not, as far as we know, a single line of the New Testament written.
Another wonderful thing about the Bible is the way in which God has watched over and taken care of His book, though its enemies have done their utmost to destroy it. As long ago as the year 303 the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered a search for Bibles to be made through the whole of his vast empire. All the Bibles and Christian books that could be found were burnt, and hundreds of Christians rather than deny their Lord laid down their lives as martyrs.
We all know something of how the popes of Rome and their friends, knowing as they did full well that the teachings of God's word were opposed to their own, burnt not only THE BOOK, but those who loved and followed its teaching.
And even during the last fifty years attacks less open, but not less dangerous, have been made by those who wanted us to believe that the grand old book was not all it claimed to be, the word of God; that only some parts of it were inspired.
To-day the Bible is stronger than ever. Millions of Bibles are printed every year; and another of its wonders is that all those Bibles are wanted and circulated. A bookseller in a very large way of business was asked not long ago, "What book do you find has the largest sale?" His reply was, "The book that out-sells all others is the book called THE BIBLE.”
I hope these few facts about the Bible will lead us all to love and value the word of God more than we have ever done. Remember it is
“The voice that speaks a Savior's love,
And calls us home to God.”
Chapter 3: The Book in Many Lands
MANY of us have been interested in hearing or reading of the travels of Dr. Livingstone, Stanley and others, but no traveler has visited so many countries, or found himself at home amongst peoples of so many strange languages as the Bible.
If we could take a peep into the printing and publishing department of the "British and Foreign Bible Society," Queen Victoria Street, London, we should, I think, be surprised to see the amount of work that is always going on. When the scriptures have been translated into the languages of China, Africa, or India, and most of the translations have, as we already know, been the work of missionaries, then the real work of the printer begins. A great many different kinds of type are required, and the work requires great skill and care; the first, or proof sheets, are, when it is possible, sent to the translator to be read, and if needs be corrected. When they are returned the work of printing goes steadily on. But the printed sheets are not ready for binding until they have been folded and sewn; this part of the work is usually done by women and girls.
From the hands of these busy work-women, the books will go to the binding department. But all is not yet done; the packing-case makers, who knew just what would be required, have been hard at work, and the packing rooms are busy places. Many of the cases have to be lined, or strongly cased with metal, to protect the books with which they are to be filled from the ravages of white ants and other destructive insects, and though the cost of the wood and labor has increased so greatly during recent years that many of the cases cost three times as much as they did a few years ago, still, in the goodness of the Lord, the work of the Bible printing and circulation has not been allowed to stop.
Shall we follow one or two of these cases on the long journey that lies before them? Here is one, ready packed and addressed to a mission station in Central East Africa. The portions of scripture it contains will be wanted and welcomed there. In the early spring the missionary in charge wrote to say that he had already received two thousand copies each of the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John, which, though he had not been giving them away, but selling at a low price to the people among whom he worked, were all gone, and many had been greatly disappointed at not being able to buy even a single copy; he should be most grateful for a grant of five thousand copies of each gospel.
Not only gospels, but even New Testaments are often found in unlooked-for places, hundreds of miles away from the mission station to which they were sent. Only a year or two ago a party of Dutch missionaries wished to explore a part of the country that had not been visited, as far as they could learn, by any messenger of the gospel. After traveling for many days they camped one evening near a native village, and as was their usual custom, decided to seek the hut of the chief and ask his permission to remain for the night.
On entering the village they saw a man sitting on a stool outside his hut reading. As they drew nearer they saw it was a New Testament printed in one of the many languages of West Africa. It was the chief! who in answer to their surprised questions, told the story of his long journey on foot to work in the mines of Johannesburg, and how while there he heard of a wonderful book, "a talking book, that could speak to people in their own language." Really anxious to know more, he learned to read in an evening school, and better still, learned to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. Buying a New Testament in his own language from a colporteur, he took it with him to his home; where the visitors found him reading it eighteen hundred miles from the place where it had been bought. He gave the missionaries a warm welcome, and set native food before them. To-day his village is the headquarters of a new mission station, from which the light is spreading far and wide among the tribes of Central West Africa.
A Negro sailor, who had been badly wounded during the war by a shell fired from a submarine, was landed in Ireland, and at once taken to hospital, where he was nursed. He could not speak or understand half-a-dozen words of English. His native speech was Yoruba; he had been taught to read in a mission school, and to his great delight a New Testament in his own language was got for him by a friend who wrote to the offices of the Bible Society.
In Egypt alone during the Great War, in one year, nearly twenty thousand New Testaments were sent to the various hospitals to be distributed among the sick and wounded.
Chapter 4: The Bible in Wartimes
LET us now see how the Bible has been used in war-time. On the 4th of August, 1914, war was declared between England and Germany, and in a very short time millions of men were called into "active service." Day after day, week after week, there were sorrowful, tearful partings between husbands and wives, parents and their sons, and sisters and their brothers. Some, they knew, perhaps very many, must fall upon the battle-fields. All would be in places of danger, and surely none could stand in greater need of the word of God than the men of the army and navy; and though many a loving mother or friend gave a Bible to the beloved one who was leaving home, perhaps never to return, all were not so provided for, and it is good to know that with the help of many friends, "The British and Foreign Bible Society" came forward to meet the need, and during the first years of the war published rather more than eight millions of Bibles, New Testaments and scripture portions in seventy-five different languages. Large numbers of the testaments were of pocket size, strongly bound in khaki, and sent out in such numbers that no soldier who cared to accept one as a free gift need be without one.
But did the men really care to have the testaments and gospels? Many letters from the front tell how gladly the books were received. One Christian officer wrote, "It has been my privilege to give away hundreds of copies of the New Testament in France. It would do you good to see how eagerly the books were accepted. Never have I had enough. When I offer testaments at the close of a meeting the men are round me like a swarm of bees, holding out their hands for a book, and I have reason to believe that the reading of these scripture portions has been made a blessing to many of our men.”
Military and naval hospitals were soon filled to overflowing with the sick and wounded, and many a suffering one welcomed the little testament and read and re-read it during the days that would otherwise have seemed to pass so slowly. It was noticed by doctors and nurses that in nearly every case when a wounded man had lost his testament he asked for another.
Behind the fighting lines in France were thousands of men forming the "labor battalions." There were brown and yellow men from Asia and black men from Africa. They spoke, it is needless to add, many languages; but for all who could read there was a gospel or testament in their own language. At one time there were about eighty thousand coolies from China. Several missionaries who, having worked in China, spoke Chinese fluently, rendered valuable service by acting as interpreters, and took care that they should be well supplied with Chinese testaments, many of which were, on the return of the coolies to China, taken to their far-away homes, sometimes at great distances from any mission station.
In a military hospital at Leeds a wounded soldier told how at Festubert, during a heavy bombardment, a Christian soldier from Scotland had both his legs blown off. As he lay dying, he begged his friend, a stretcher-bearer from Sunderland, to read Psa. 27. So in that blood-stained trench, within thirty yards of the German lines, the words were heard, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?.. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord." The patient who told this story in hospital was near enough to hear the words.
The Scotch soldier died a few minutes afterward, and in less than a quarter of an hour the stretcher-bearer himself was killed.
A German Red Cross nurse wrote: "I have just received five hundred German testaments, also a number of Russian gospels, for which I am grateful. I write to let you know the blessing the word of God is bringing. Many of the men when they were wounded lost their whole kit and begged for fresh copies of the testament. I wish you could have seen how eagerly the men about to start for the front came round me asking for testaments; not only private soldiers, but quite a number of officers.”
Prisoners of war were not forgotten in the distribution of gospels and testaments, and perhaps by none were such gifts more needed; and many, there is reason to hope, learned for the first time in their lives how to find in the scriptures the courage and strength that helped them to be patient and hopeful through the long, weary months of imprisonment.
Perhaps on no part of the battle-field was greater interest shown in Bible reading and Bible study than by British soldiers in Palestine. Bibles with maps were in great demand. How many memories of home teaching or of Sunday school lessons must have been revived in the minds of many of the soldiers by such names as Bethlehem, Joppa, the Mount of Olives, and the Brook Kidron. And to many it seemed almost too good to be true that they could see for themselves places so connected with the life and ministry of our Lord, and that after the entry of Lord Allenby and his staff into Jerusalem, they could walk about the streets of the city over which the Savior wept.
A few dried flowers gathered upon the Mount of Olives, or in the fields near Bethlehem, are among the most cherished possessions of many a wife and mother in the homelands.
Chapter 5: At the British Museum
SOME of the boys and girls I know call the British Museum "a dull, sleepy old place." Harold says he has been twice, and there was nothing to see but old stones, and Elsie adds that before the glass cases filled with such lovely stuffed birds were, with all the animals, removed to South Kensington, she used to think it interesting, but she quite agrees with Harold that there is not much to be seen there now.
Perhaps one reason why my young friends found so little to make the museum worth a visit was that they did not know just what to look for, and another was that they forgot to take their lamp.
“Our lamp!" What can I mean? Their last visit was paid upon a lovely summer's day, and the sun was shining brightly. The Bible lamp is the one I mean, and we shall, I think, be not only interested but surprised to find how many of these "old stones," as Harold calls them, may help us to understand and, I hope, to love our Bibles better.
But our talk has brought us to the very doors of this great national storehouse. So we will begin with the Roman gallery. We linger for a few moments before a large bust of Julius Caesar, whose conquests led him to Britain even before the birth of Christ.
Elsie, who is fond of history, says softly:
“In 43 B.C. a Roman host
From Gaul, invade our southern coast.”
And Harold, who begins to think that the British Museum may not be such "a dull place" after all, looking at a long line of the busts of Roman emperors, asks if I can tell him which of them was reigning when Christ was born at Bethlehem. Our Bibles will answer his question, and as Elsie and I have brought our pocket testaments, we turn to Luke 2:1 and read, "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." There are four busts of him in the gallery. He reigned from 20 B.C. to A.D. 14. How little he knew that by bringing Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem he was fulfilling the prophecy of Micah, written hundreds of years before the birth of our Lord, that the Son of God should become the Babe of Bethlehem!
The reign of Tiberius was from A.D. 14 to 37, so he must have been living at the time the Lord was crucified, and perhaps between three and four years later, though his name does not occur in scripture; but as the names and likenesses of Roman emperors were always stamped upon the pieces of money, of whatever value, coined during their reign, the image of Tiberius would be upon the penny handed to the Lord Jesus when He was asked, "Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." (Matt. 22:17-21.)
Caesar seems to have been a title borne by a long line of Roman emperors. When the Lord stood in Pilate's judgment hall, it was to Tiberius Cæsar that the Jews referred when they said to Pilate, "If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar.... We have no king but Caesar." (John 19:12-15.) And to prove that he was Caesar's friend he delivered the Lord of glory, the King of kings, to be crucified.
We need not linger over the short and unhappy reign of Caligula, as he does not in any way come into the gospel narrative, and seems to have been remembered only for his cruelty.
It was to Nero, who filled the Roman throne from A.D. 54 to 68, that the Apostle Paul appealed when he said, "I appeal unto Caesar." (Acts 25:11.) This was most likely during the early part of the reign of Nero, when his real character had not shown itself. He began his reign by seeming to wish to be on friendly terms with every one, and so made himself the idol of the Roman people.
We cannot forget the sufferings of the Christians during his reign, when he accused them of having set Rome on fire. Great numbers of them were burnt to death in the public gardens, the clothes of the martyrs being soaked in something of the nature of petrol, so that the blaze of their burning lit up the dark and guilty city.
We do not know, but they may have sought to comfort each other, as they were led to the stakes which had been prepared for their burning, with some such words as were said in England centuries afterward, during the reign of Queen Mary, by Latimer to his fellow martyr Ridley, "We shall this day, by God's grace, light such a candle as I trust shall never be put out.”
Paul's first imprisonment was at Rome, and lasted for two years; during those years he seems to have been allowed a good deal of liberty, as he was able to receive all who came to him.
His second imprisonment seems to have been much more severe, as we read that Onesiphorus, who was not ashamed of his chain, had to seek for Paul very diligently before finding him. (2 Tim. 1:16, 17.) In the same epistle Paul tells us something of his first appearance before Nero, "At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.... Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me... and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion." (2 Tim. 4:16, 17.)
Chapter 6: Athens and Ephesus
HAROLD and Elsie are quite ready for another visit to the British Museum. To-day there will be an addition to our party, as Elsie has brought her school friend, Connie, who says she is reading the Acts of the Apostles, and would like to know a little more about the cities visited by Paul.
In the Ephesus room we shall be able to see for ourselves shattered fragments of the temples and statues on which Paul must have looked when he visited that city. But we linger a moment in the small ante-room leading to it to notice some small Greek statues. They are believed to be among the oldest known, and were carved between two and three hundred years before Christ. Among them is one of a mother and child, so like many of the carvings and pictures that may be seen now in any Roman Catholic church. In China exactly the same kind of pictures representing "The Goddess of Mercy" are known to have been painted hundreds of years before the name of Christ had ever been heard in that empire. We may be sure that those who tell us that Rome papal is built upon the ruins of Rome pagan have good reason for such an assertion.
As we enter the Ephesus room and look at the broken fragments of many objects on which the eyes of Paul must have rested, we are reminded of the visit of, the apostle to Athens of which we read in Acts 17
“Was not Athens a large and very learned city?" Harold asks, and Connie asks if Homer was not a Greek poet? and adds—
“Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,
Through which Homer living, begged his bread.”
Yes, it was on his visit to Athens that Paul found himself surrounded by the poets and philosophers then living. The Greeks, like other heathen nations, had "lords many and gods many," and we remember how Paul's spirit was stirred when he saw the city wholly given to the worship of these false, helpless gods.
There is a fine model of the city as it then was in one of the glass cases at the end of the room, and from Mars' Hill Paul could look down upon a group of heathen temples; the altar to "the unknown god" was perhaps also within sight, or if not, very near at hand. As the apostle told them of the one living and true God, we can almost seem to see him pointing to these temples, now mere heaps of ruins, telling his hearers that God, the Maker of heaven and earth, "seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands." (Acts 17) And later he said, "We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.”
Perhaps there are no stones on earth more beautifully carved than those on which the eyes of Paul may have rested as he spoke those living, glowing words. Even the broken fragments that have been found and placed in glass cases in the museum prove that the Greek sculptors must have been men of no common genius.
Harold, who has been for some time looking at a marble carving of a horse's head on one of the wall slabs, says, "It's splendid!" It is said to be one of the finest pieces of Greek art in the collection, and is often studied as a model by artists and sculptors.
The visit of Paul to Athens must have taken place some time before that scene at Ephesus of which we read in Acts 19
Elsie, who has been turning over the pages of her Bible, asks if I can tell her what the people of Ephesus meant when they cried out, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians"? (Acts 19:28.)
Acts 19 will have, I believe, a new interest and meaning for us if we read it in the Ephesus room of the British Museum, surrounded by broken fragments of the great temple of the heathen goddess, Diana. Treasures of art, costly jewels, gold and gifts of almost priceless value, had all helped to make the great temple of Diana at Ephesus one of the seven wonders of the world. As we stand among these broken shreds of marble we seem almost to hear the shouts of the excited and angry people as for two hours they cried, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians.”
Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines for Diana, called together the craftsmen and workmen, and told them how almost throughout all Asia, "this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands: so that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at naught; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.”
Connie asks, “What did the silversmith mean by calling his work a craft?”
Well, Connie, the word "craft," though not often used nowadays, simply means a trade or occupation. I have been told that it is quite an everyday occurrence when a boy was to be apprenticed to a master tradesman, for the master in signing the indentures of apprenticeship to bind himself to instruct the youth "in the arts and mysteries of his craft.”
The center of this wonderful temple, and the object of worship, was a shapeless, huge, black stone, which the people believed had fallen from Jupiter. Such stones do fall now and then; I have myself seen such in the museum at South Kensington. They are really masses of mineral matter which have reached the earth's surface from outer space.
The town clerk of Ephesus found it no easy task to quiet the people. He did not think the temple was likely to suffer from the preaching of Paul and his friends; but thought that they themselves might get into trouble. What account could he give of the confusion if Nero or his governors should hear of it? "For we are in danger to be called in question for this day's uproar, there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse"; and thus "he dismissed the assembly.”
But the silversmith was right after all. The temple was to be destroyed, the few broken fragments of its ruins, among which we can stand in London, may give us some faint idea of how large and grand it once was.
Chapter 7: Babylon and the British Museum
OUR party to-day will be somewhat larger than it was on our last visit to the museum; for when Harold told his cousins Grace and Clement that we had not yet visited the Babylonian and Assyrian rooms in the museum, they said that they had just finished reading the Book of Daniel, and would like to know a little more about that once great and wonderful city by whose proud king, Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel and his companions were carried away from Jerusalem as captives.
I can, I think, promise my young friends that our visit this morning will prove a pleasant and I hope a profitable one, for though as Christians we do not require any outside proofs to convince us that the Bible is just what it claims to be, "the living word of the living God, divine in authorship, human in penmanship," and though Babylon to-day is a mere heap of ruins, some very interesting discoveries have of late years been made among the mounds and heaps of rubbish with which it is so thickly strewn, and bricks bearing the names and signet of more than one king of Assyria are now in the museum and may help us to form some faint idea of what the city must have been when its haughty monarch looked upon it, and said, "Is not this great Babylon that I have built?" (Dan. 4:30.)
Let us turn for a moment in thought to Jerusalem. A distance of nearly one thousand miles lay between it and Babylon. We know that God after having had long patience with His earthly people Israel, allowed rule to pass into the hands of the Gentiles, and so punished them for their sins and idol worship. Nebuchadnezzar was, we are told, represented by the "head of gold." Bold, courageous and war-loving, he seems to have been appointed by his father, who was growing old and too feeble for fighting, as second governor or ruler over the vast empire of which Babylon formed the capital.
He had fought and won many battles before he besieged Jerusalem. We read, "And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand." (Dan. 1:2.) He did not at that time attempt to destroy or even plunder the city of Jerusalem, but carried away part of the vessels from the temple to place them in the house of his favorite idol Marduk. He also wanted some of the bright, clever Jewish youths to serve as slaves in his palace.
People have sometimes asked why Marduk should be called in the Bible "his god," when we know that the people of Babylon were heathen, and worshipped many idol gods. This is quite true, but Nebuchadnezzar appears to have chosen Marduk as his special friend and protector. The king's own words are a proof of this, for on broken fragments of brick and stone, in the strange letter signs of ancient Babylon, may still be read what he thought and said about his god, "Marduk, the great lord, has appointed to me the empire of the world; has given into my care the people of the earth. May he protect the king." Nebuchadnezzar was a great builder; nine out of every ten bricks found among the ruins of Babylon are stamped with his name or signet, some of these very bricks are in the museum.
Though we are not distinctly told, it is quite probable that Daniel and his three companions, whose names our Bibles have made so familiar to us, were princes of the royal line of Judah, and might one day have been rulers in their own land. Well was it for them that they knew and served the God of their fathers, the true and living God! How weary and footsore they must often have been during that long, toilsome journey, every step taking them farther from Jerusalem, the beautiful city so dear to every Jewish heart; the city where David had reigned, and where the temple built by his son Solomon stood in all its solemn glory; farther too from the homes of their childhood, and from the loved ones who had made those homes so dear to them.
At last the high walls and lofty towers of Babylon came in sight. The city, which was of great size, was surrounded by an outer, a middle and an inner wall. Entering by one of its hundred gates the captives found themselves in the midst of crowds whose dress and language were alike strange to them. People of all ranks filled the broad streets of the city, to welcome the return of their king, and to look with curiosity, perhaps not unmixed with pity, upon the Jewish youths who formed part of the train of the conqueror.
The Hebrew youths were given into the care of one of the palace officers of high rank to be trained and fitted for future service to the king. We remember how faithfully they kept the laws of the God of Israel, and refused to defile themselves by eating food or drinking wine that had been offered to the idols of Babylon. And we know, too, when the fiery trial of their faith came and they refused to bow the knee to the great image the king had set up on the plain of Dura, how true God was to His own word, "Them that honor me, I will honor.”
Clement says that it was Nebuchadnezzar who saw One like the Son of God walking in the midst of the fiery furnace with the three faithful young men who had dared to obey the law of their God, and were walking unharmed in the fire, and adds that he has wondered sometimes why Daniel is not mentioned in the chapter that tells of their trials and God-given victory.
As the empire over which the heathen king ruled was very large, it is not unlikely that Daniel was at the time in some far-distant province, where he had been sent on important business.
Three years was the time usually allowed for the higher education of the youths of Babylon, and we may be sure that during the time of their training Daniel and his companions would have to work at their studies much harder than those of English schoolboys. Two new and difficult languages, one the spoken, the other the written language of Babylon, must be thoroughly learned. School hours were long, and I do not think that there were many if any holidays.
Elsie wonders what their school books were like. There are quite a number of books or parts of books that were found among the ruins of Babylon in the British Museum. But these are not printed books, but tablets of clay, on which strange-looking letters we now call cuniform writing were impressed with a style while the clay was damp, and afterward baked. That all the scholars were required to rise early and work hard we learn from a very old copybook now in the museum, which, we are told by those who can read the strange writing, reads, "He that would excel in the school of the scribes must rise like the dawn." Daniel and his three friends must have had many trials and temptations, but the God in whom they trusted did not fail or forsake them, and though our trials and temptations may be of a totally different kind, we may be encouraged to go quietly on "LOOKING UNTO JESUS," and seeking in humble, believing prayer "the daily strength, to none who ask denied.”
Chapter 8: Hezekiah the King
THERE is so much in the Babylonian and Assyrian rooms of the British Museum that will remind us of the wonderful way in which God helped King Hezekiah in the hour of his greatest need and danger that it will well repay a second visit.
We remember how Sennacherib, the proud king of Assyria, laid siege to Jerusalem (Isa. 36:2; 2 Kings 19), but if we go back a few pages in the history of Palestine and its people, we shall, I think, better understand the great deliverance that God gave to Hezekiah.
About seven hundred years B.C. (it is not always easy to be quite sure of the exact date of events that happened so long ago) a king whose name was Sargon reigned in Assyria and Babylon. He was a bold warrior and a great conqueror. He subdued many of the neighboring nations, and forced their kings or princes to pay heavy tribute to him. He was clever but cruel, and the word of God says plainly, that "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Gal. 6:7.) He had shown mercy to no one, and his own death was very sad and sudden. It was whispered that as he walked in the streets of his own city he was murdered by one of the princes he had taken captive. We do not read much about Sargon in our Bibles, but we know that Ahaz king of Judah had paid tribute to the king of Assyria, and it is quite likely that during the early years of his reign, when he had not learned to trust fully in the living God, Hezekiah did the same; but the time came when, according to the promise of God, he was delivered from the yoke of Assyria.
“Sargon is dead!" How quickly the news passed from one to another; until in a short time every one knew, and was talking of the man they had all so greatly feared. Sennacherib, the new king, would, it was thought by many, have enough to do to put down rebellion and keep order in his own land, and might not be so keen in exacting tribute as Sargon had been; so very little was sent to him.
From the very first day of his reign Hezekiah knew that he had many enemies, that at any time the king of Assyria might bring a strong army and invade his land; so he lost no time in trying to defend himself and his land against invasion. The streets of Jerusalem must have been a busy scene as workmen carrying loads of stone and other building materials passed to and fro; for the king had given orders that all the walls and towers of the city were to be repaired and strengthened. But though Hezekiah was young, and could not have had much experience, God made him wise and thoughtful; he saw that it would be of very little real use to protect his people from enemies outside if they suffered from want of food within the city. So storehouses were built and filled with good corn and other foodstuffs. So far the work had been easy, but something much more difficult remained to be done. The people in a besieged city might have plenty of food and yet suffer terrible hardships, and even die of thirst. Water must be brought to the city. But how was it to be done?
There must be pools and wells of water within the city of Jerusalem. Of course there had been a water supply, but it would not be enough for a time of war, when large numbers of people would have taken refuge within its walls. The reservoir, too, was placed so that a besieging army could easily get control of it.
So Hezekiah "made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city." (2 Kings 20:20.)
In 1880 some native lads were playing in the Pool of Siloam, or rather in a channel leading to it, which had been cut deep in the rock, when one of them slipped, and fell into the water; on getting up he noticed what looked like letters cut into the face of the rock. The boy was the son or pupil of a learned professor, and he lost no time in telling him of the discovery he had made; for though owing to its great age and the darkness of the tunnel, there was great difficulty in getting a copy of it, it is said to be the oldest Hebrew inscription in the world, and is believed to date back to the time of Hezekiah. The Hebrew is as pure as that in which the Bible was written, and tells how the great work of bringing a plentiful supply of water into Jerusalem was done.
A copy of this remarkable inscription is in the museum, but I can only give part of it. "Behold the tunnel. This is the story of the tunnel. While the tunnelers were lifting up the pick each one against his neighbor, and while there were yet three cubits to excavate, was heard the voice of one man calling to his neighbor... and after the excavators had struck pick on pick one against the other... the water flowed from the spring to the pool.”
When we learn from a very old book of Jewish history that to form the tunnel the solid rock had to be dug away inch by inch for a length of seventeen hundred feet, and also that it was so low and narrow that only a very few men working from each end could be employed at one time, we shall be able to form some idea, though perhaps only a very faint one, of the time and labor that must have been required to complete so great a work.
But Connie reminds me that our talk seems to have taken us quite away from the museum. We will return to it, for like most of the kings of olden time, Sennacherib had the story of his wars and victories written not in books but upon tablets or cylinders of clay; the writing was done with a style, or other sharp-pointed tool, while the clay was damp, and the tablet or cylinder afterward baked. Quite a number of these strange old-world books of history are now in the museum, and as fresh mounds are being dug into, frequent additions are still being made.
But our time has gone so quickly and we are only at the beginning of the story of the wonderful deliverance God gave to Hezekiah and his beloved city from the king of Assyria and his almost countless hosts of well-trained warriors, reminding us, as every record of the lovingkindness of the Lord should do, that "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." (Psa. 46:1.) And though we may not be able to pay another visit to the Assyrian saloon in the museum, we shall, I hope, study our Bibles with a fresh interest as we begin to understand why God has, allowed these long-hidden records to be brought to light at a time when so many are daring to ask, "Is the Bible really true?”
Chapter 9: A Very Present Help in Trouble
AS on our next visit to the British Museum we hope to spend a long morning in the Egyptian rooms, where we shall find so many objects of interest that we shall be almost able to imagine ourselves in the land over which the Pharaohs ruled, we will take our Bibles and spend a happy, and I hope not unprofitable, half-hour in tracing out the history of King Hezekiah, and learning how in the day of his greatest need and danger he proved the God in whom he trusted to be just what His word says He will be, "a stronghold in the day of trouble." (Nah. 1:7.)
We know that Hezekiah's most bitter and powerful enemy was Sennacherib, the haughty king of Assyria. And we may be sure that the news of the movements of the great warrior-king that from time to time reached Jerusalem were grave enough to make both its king and people anxious.
We are able to learn many interesting things about the doings and the thoughts and feelings of Sennacherib, not only from the clay tablets and cylinders of which there are so many in the museum, but from inscriptions which he had ordered to be carved in stone upon the walls of his palace at Nineveh. Though for a time at least Hezekiah seems to have turned a deaf ear to the warnings of the prophet Isaiah, and by sending presents to and entering into friendly agreement with the kings of Egypt and Babylon, showed that he was not trusting fully in the living God, he seems to have made an attempt to throw off the yoke of the haughty king of Assyria, and either sent very little tribute, or gave up sending it altogether.
How angry Sennacherib was when the messengers, probably high officers of state, whom he had sent to collect tribute, returned almost empty-handed, and also bringing the unwelcome news that quite a number of kings and princes had refused to acknowledge him as their sovereign lord, we may learn from an inscription carved upon the wall of one of his palaces, and which it is not unlikely he had read and re-read many times "As for Hezekiah, king of Judah, he is an obstinate rebel. He has sent me no tribute; he has been disobedient under my yoke, and he has lifted up his hand against me.... I will go to his land, and his royal city of Jerusalem I will pull down, destroy and in the fire burn. One man alive in his kingdom I will not leave, for his people shall serve me; his country shall remain a desert, and my foot shall rest on his neck. To whom will he go? In whom will he trust? To what stronghold will the vain and foolish man fly. None shall dare to rebel against the rule of Sennacherib king of Assyria.”
Sennacherib was great and powerful among the kings of the earth, but he did not know either the power or the goodness of the God of Israel, who, though His people had been faithless and backsliding, would not fail or forsake them.
So great preparations for invasion were made. The older warriors put on their armor and sharpened their heavy swords; horsemen and footmen were collected in vast numbers from every province in the vast empire of Assyria. War chariots were got in readiness, and baggage wagons loaded with food and weapons of war.
It was not long before the vast army entered the land of Judah. Several cities were besieged and taken; great numbers were slain, and the bands of refugees who, pale and trembling, often wounded and starving, crowded the streets of Jerusalem, added to the general terror by their tales of suffering and sorrow.
All that could be done was done by order of the king and his council to defend their beloved city, for we read in 2 Chron. 32:4 they "stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land.”
At last news reached the king that Lachish, not many miles from Jerusalem, was surrounded by the almost countless hosts of Sennacherib. It was a very strongly fortified city, with a strange, old-world history, for it was one of the great and walled cities (Deut. 1:28) which Joshua took from the Amorites soon after the children of Israel entered the land of Canaan. We cannot linger over all the horrors of the siege, but at last a tower falls, then a gap is made in the city walls, and a troop of the invaders rush in.
A heavy tribute sent to the king of Assyria bought a brief respite from the terror that was hanging like a thundercloud over the inhabitants of Jerusalem; but they knew only too well that there was little cause for rejoicing. Lachish was a heap of ruins, many cities of Judah lay waste and desolate; only like the lull before a storm was the short-lived peace that had been so dearly bought, and before long the walls of Jerusalem were surrounded by part at least of the great army of Assyria.
But those difficult, anxious days and weeks had not been wasted time for Hezekiah. He seems to have been learning that his hope and his help must be in God, for when Sennacherib sent three of his highest officers with a haughty message, bidding the king of Judah come forth and hear the words of the great king of Assyria, Hezekiah did not himself obey, but sent three of his most faithful friends and trusted counselors.
They passed quietly through the streets of the city to the walls. As far as eye could reach the hosts of Assyria met their gaze; there were the great battering rams, ready at a moment's notice to begin their work of destroying the walls.
Still, as they looked forth, the words of faith and hope their king had spoken in the hearing of all the people may have found an echo in their hearts.
Open your Bible, Connie, at 2 Chron. 32 and read verses 7 and 8. "Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles.”
Thank you, Connie. Though our time will not allow us to follow the long and deeply interesting conversation that took place between the counselors of Hezekiah and the messengers of Sennacherib, we know that with cruel words they tried to persuade the people that the God of Israel had no greater power to deliver those who trusted Him than the idol gods of the nations Sennacherib had already conquered. They had even dared to say that the Lord had sent them to make war against Israel.
But the people would not surrender; faithful to their king and to his wise order, "For the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not" (2 Kings 18:36), they remained silent. When the long and trying interview ended, and Hezekiah's counselors returned to him weary and almost heart-broken, the conduct of the king spewed how deeply he felt the state of things; he tore in two his royal mantle, and putting on sackcloth, a sign of mourning, he humbled himself before God.
How long Hezekiah wept and prayed we are not told, but when he looked up it was to see his faithful friends with eyes full of hope standing near him. The prophet Isaiah had again sent him a message of cheer. It was, "Be not afraid of the words which thou halt heard.... Behold... he [the king of Assyria] shall hear a rumor, and shall return to his own land: and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land." (2 Kings 19:6, 7.)
Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Most likely this text has not been proofread. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: BTPmail@bibletruthpublishers.com.
Chapter 10: The Land of the Pharaohs
OUR party to-day will be rather a large one, as Nora and Percy, who are spending their holidays with their cousins, say that though they have paid more than one visit to the British Museum, they do not remember having noticed anything in which they were really interested in the Egyptian rooms.
The land of Egypt is very often mentioned in the Bible. Though we shall not have time just now to look up all the scriptures in which it is named, our morning in the Egyptian gallery will not be less interesting if we recall two or three incidents connected with the land and its people.
Percy reminds us that Abraham went down into Egypt to escape from famine; and Connie adds that it was the land where, as the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, Moses received his education. Yes, Connie, he "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians"; it is quite likely that he may have looked upon some at least of the statues, and read and re-read the strange picture writing of which we shall see so much to-day; and we must not forget that night journey into the land of Egypt, when Joseph in obedience to the warning he had received from the angel of the Lord "took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt." It is probable that rather more than two years, or perhaps a longer period of the childhood of the Lord, who in lowly grace had become the Babe of Bethlehem, were spent in that country.
There were quite a number of Pharaohs, as it was not really a name but a title borne by many of the rulers of Egypt. We do not know them all by their Egyptian names, but a few stand out very clearly on the pages of our Bibles. First, there was the Pharaoh at whose court Abraham and Sarah visited. Then there was the Pharaoh before whom Joseph stood. Both these are supposed to have been shepherd kings-foreigners, belonging to wandering tribes who had settled in Egypt. "Then there arose up a new king... which knew not Joseph." It is thought by many Bible students that he belonged to a new race, or dynasty, who had conquered the shepherd kings.
The Egyptian princess who adopted Moses was, there is no room for doubt, the daughter of the Pharaoh who so cruelly oppressed Israel. "In process of time the king of Egypt died." It was upon the Pharaoh who filled the vacant throne that the plagues of Egypt fell, as the just judgments of God, upon the guilty land.
After the death of "the firstborn" and the departure of Israel from Egypt, we find that for many, many years scripture is silent about that land.
But we have hardly begun to look around us yet. The two greatest of the Pharaohs were Thothmes III, who erected Cleopatra's Needle, now standing on the Thames Embankment, London—he is thought to have been the Pharaoh of the oppression—and Rameses II, who is generally believed to have been the Pharaoh during whose reign the exodus took place. He added fresh columns of picture-writing to those already on the needle.
Besides the head of Thothmes carved in red granite, at the end of the gallery there is a very large granite monument on which is carved a likeness of the king and of the idol god he worshipped. If with the help of a guide-book we look carefully through the Egyptian rooms, we shall find quite a number of statues, carving and other things belonging to the reign of Rameses II. He was a great builder, and built among other places the store-city of Pithom. (Ex. 1:11.) The long-forgotten site of this old world city was discovered only a few years ago. This Pharaoh is thought to have reigned for sixty-seven years, and to have died when he was about one hundred years old.
We must now linger for a few moments to talk about the Rosetta stone; it has been of such great use in helping to form a key by which many of the inscriptions have been read. It was discovered at Rosetta in 1798 by one of the learned men who accompanied Napoleon on his Egyptian expedition, and the writing upon it was found to be in two languages, and three different kinds of writing, ancient Egyptian, modern Egyptian, and Greek. Several learned men had tried but failed in the attempt to read the picture-writing we now call Egyptian hieroglyphics. At last, two patient, diligent workers solved the problem. They found that two names, those of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, occurred several times, and these names, with perhaps some help from the Greek, gave them the key to the long-hidden alphabet.
Standing as we may do in the museum among the statues and monuments of kings who lived and reigned so long ago that their very names are almost forgotten, it is good to remember that if through grace we can say of the Lord Jesus, "He is my trusted Savior," our best things, and those which are most really our own, cannot pass away, or be taken from us. "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (Rom. 5:5) The gift, "the love of God," and the Giver, "the Holy Ghost," are our very own, to be enjoyed throughout ETERNITY.
But perhaps what I am writing will be read by some dear boy or girl who cannot say that he or she is saved. Do not linger. Come to Jesus just as you are, and come NOW. To come to Jesus is simply to trust Him. Own yourself to be a lost sheep, and you will be found and rejoiced over by the good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep.
Chapter 11: How We God Our Bible
WE have all, I think, made up our minds that the British Museum is by no means the dull, sleepy place we once thought it. This morning we will not linger among the "old stones" or picture-writing of Egypt or Babylon, but pay a visit to the manuscript room. Even Nora, the youngest of our party, has a Bible of her very own. "Yes," she says, she remembers her first Bible having been given. She was a very small child, not more than four or five years old; she could not read very well, so had to spell nearly all the long words; but only a few days ago she had a birthday, and her aunt Lucy sent her such a lovely present, a beautiful new Bible with gilt edges and shining leather covers.
Perhaps Nora is not the only one of my young friends who will be surprised to learn that even her new Bible is a very old book indeed. Most thoughtful readers of the word of God have at some time or other asked the question, "How did we get our Bible?" Perhaps we may find an answer to our question where we had not thought of looking for it—in the British Museum.
We already know that although the Bible is really one book, it is made up of sixty-six different parts, some longer and some shorter, but all alike in being the inspired word of God. These sixty-six parts were written at different times, and by different writers. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with the exception of a very small part which was written in Chaldean, and the New in Greek.
But as we have not been taught either Hebrew or Greek, the Bible would have been a sealed book to us if it had not been for the work of translators. But where did they find the old, hand-written copies from which their translations were made? In one of the glass cases in the manuscript room is one of the greatest biblical treasures of the world: a copy of the Bible in Greek, believed to have been written in the fifth century, so it is rather more than fourteen hundred years old. It was kept for some hundreds of years in Egypt at Alexandria, but was brought to England and presented to the king when Charles the First was on the throne.
Another very old manuscript is not far away. It is a Greek copy of the Gospel by Luke. To translate from, or even to read it, could have been no easy task, as the first writing had been partly rubbed or washed out, and something of later date written upon the sheets of parchment.
There are also some curious manuscripts written upon papyrus, the paper made of reed so much used by the Egyptians. This Greek MS is believed to be the oldest in existence; in the same case there is also a very old copy of some of the psalms. There is a copy of the five books of Moses too, and also of the four gospels written in Syriac, and dated A.D. 464. This is interesting, as it is the earliest translation of any portion of scripture of which the exact date is known.
Two MS copies of the Bible bring us very near finding an answer to the question, "How did we get our Bible?" The first is in Latin, and is called the Vulgate Bible. The second in English is really Wycliffe's Bible. Most of us have heard or read of Bede, a monk of Jarrow, who translated the Gospel by John into the Saxon of the times in which he lived, rather more than a thousand years ago; and how the work was only finished when he lay dying. But we love and honor the name of Sir John de Wycliffe as the first to give the people of England the word of God in their own language. He is generally believed to have made his translation from the Latin Vulgate, and though we should not find Wycliffe's Bible easy to read on account of its quaint, old-fashioned spelling, we can and do thank God for the gleams of gospel light that through its pages were carried into many hearts and homes, so preparing the way for the clearer light of the Reformation.
There are very few old Hebrew copies of any part of the Old Testament; the reason being, we are told, that the Jews always destroyed any portion of the sacred writings that from long use had been torn or in any way injured.
In 1525 Tyndale was hard at work printing, not writing, his translation of the New Testament. He found that the work could not be safely attempted in England, so he went to Cologne. Three thousand of the first sheets had been printed, when finding that Cologne was no longer a safe place for them, the printers were obliged to leave, carrying their precious sheets with them, to go to Worms.
In 1526 the first copies of Tyndale's testament were secretly brought to England, and though the price was what we should now think very high, many were ready and willing to buy.
But the Roman Catholic bishops and many of the priests took fright. If the people had the scriptures in their own language, and were allowed to read them, they might find out that many of the things they had been taught were quite contrary to the teachings of the word of God. So Bishop Tunstall was quite willing that all the testaments that could be found should be bought, his object being to burn them at the first opportunity. Shortly afterward a public burning of testaments took place at Paul's Cross. When Tyndale heard of the burning of his books he did not seem at all troubled, but said good would come out of it, as the money paid for the books would enable him to pay what was owing to the friends who had kindly lent him money to pay the workmen he had employed, and what was left would, with the blessing of the Lord, give him the means to print a new and better edition of his testament, in which errors which had escaped notice in the first edition would be corrected. And so the work of translation went on.
In the year 1611, by royal command, the "Authorized Version," or as it is sometimes called, "King James's Bible," was printed. This is the Bible that we use to-day.
How thankful to God we all ought to be, that in spite of all the many attempts that have been made to destroy the Bible, God has so watched over and taken care of His own word that to-day the circulation of the scriptures is larger than it has ever been. May we each say from our hearts—
"We won't give up the Bible,
For pleasure or for pain;
We'll buy the truth, and sell it not,
Whatever we may gain.”