Three hundred years ago there was but one Bible in a parish in
England, and that was chained to a column in the church; and
there was but one man to read it--the priest. And the people
did not understand it then, and it was a part of official duty
to go from house to house on the theory that the average parent
did not know enough to teach the children the first principles
of morality and of religion. Go to-day over the same community,
and on the Sabbath morning you shall see the girls and the
young men with Bibles under their arms, themselves teachers,
going down to mission-schools, going down to instruct their
inferiors. The profession has distributed its functions among
the common people. Has it destroyed the profession? It never was
stronger, never was as strong as it is to-day.--HENRY WARD
BEECHER.
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