The Hon. William Ewart Gladstone, one-time Prime Minister of Great Britain, a great scholar and statesman, was a strong believer in the Bible as the Word of God. Here is his testimony, a worthy contribution to any gospel paper.
“‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.' As they have lived and wrought, so they will live and work. From the teacher's chair and from the pastor's pulpit; in the humblest hymn that ever mounted to the ear of God from beneath a cottage roof, and in the rich, melodious choir of the cathedral, 'their sound is gone out into all lands and their words unto the ends of the world.'
"Nor here alone; but in a thousand silent and unsuspected forms will they unweariedly prosecute their holy office. Who doubts that, times without number, particular portions of Scripture find their way to the human soul like messengers from on high, each with its own commission of comfort, of guidance, or of warning? What crisis, what trouble, what perplexity of life has failed or can fail to draw from this inexhaustible treasure-house its proper supply? What profession, what position is not daily and hourly enriched by these words which repetition never weakens, which carry with them now, as in the days of their first utterance, the freshness of youth and immortality?
"When the solitary student opens all his heart to drink them in, they will reward his toil. And in forms yet more hidden and withdrawn, in the retirement of the chamber, in the stillness of the night season, upon the bed of sickness, and in the face of death the Bible will be there, its several words often winged with their several and special messages, to heal and to soothe, to uplift and uphold, to invigorate and stir.
"Nay, more, perhaps than this; amid the crowds of the court, or the forum, or the street, or the marketplace, when every thought of every soul seems to be set upon the excitements of ambition or of business, or of pleasure, there too, even there, the still small voice of the Holy Bible will be heard, and the soul, aided by some blessed word, may find wings like a dove, may flee away and be at rest."
It was the Bible in Latin, accidentally discovered, which revolutionized Martin Luther's life, and stirred Christendom to its depths. He read the Book and it shook him to the very center of his soul. It has been said, he trembled before no man; but he trembled before the Word of God and cried out, "my sins! my sins!" Finally the same Word led him to see God's remedy for sin, and he found pardon and peace in believing. Christ became everything to him. Afterward he wrote to a friend: "Come over and join us, a great and awful sinner saved by the grace of God." Reader! What is the Bible to you?