Those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter cross.--Shakspeare.
Your little child, on Christmas day, may give you a
beautiful copy of the history of "those holy fields." But a few hundred
years ago, it might have cost a throne. To-day we may have either
Testament printed in our daily newspaper and put upon our table before
breakfast. So free is the word of God that only the mere wish to have it
is necessary to secure at once the greatest of spiritual boons and the
most perfect piece of writing in our language, or in any other tongue.
The beauties of the Bible have charmed the critical of all ages. The
young have departed from its simplicity of speech only to return in
riper years for rapt tuition. The wise have lingered over its perfect
sentences, striving to catch the art which was showered upon those
unassuming translators who gave its pages to the English-speaking world.
One of the brightest wits of his time was Sidney Smith. His love of the
Bible, not only as his guide and his strength, but as the greatest of
all literary works, was passionate. He once impressed a circle of
friends very deeply with this noble veneration: "What," said he, "is so
beautiful as