But there is another river more wonderful than the river of old Egypt. It flows down from God out of heaven, and flows over this world, and brings with it all that is beautiful and healthful and good. The waters of this river are carried off in little canals, and are brought into the homes and churches and Sunday-schools; and wherever they go tend to make lives good and happy. Little children love this River of God, and dip their cups into it and drink, and there is a voice speaking in their ears and saying: "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." There are some people who have traveled round the world and seen many very interesting lands and strange and curious people—white men, red men, black men, copper-colored men, yellow men, but they will tell you that they never saw men where the children were happy, where the homes were happy, and where people were trying to do each other good, unless this River of God went there first. This beautiful river that is doing so much for all who live on its banks,—it is the Bible, the Word of God, which tells us about Himself and about ourselves, which speaks to us of a Savior and of the life after death.

Some years ago a black prince in Africa sent a messenger to Queen Victoria, a man who was to ask her what was the reason that England was so rich and prosperous; and she sent back to this African savage something that told the whole story. What do you suppose it was? Not a rifle, not a sword, not a steam-engine, not a plow, not a sewing-machine, but a copy of the Bible. Let me tell you five things about this book, and if you know how to spell the word Bible you will find them easy to remember—B-I-B-L-E.

First, then, the Bible is a beautiful book. I do not mean as to its shape and color. It may be very lovely or it may be very plain, as it looks to your eye. I have seen Bibles that you could buy for a sixpence, and I have a New Testament that I bought for a penny. I have seen Bibles which were copied with a pen and filled with pictures on which men labored for years, and which you couldn't buy for a thousand dollars. When I say that the Bible is a beautiful book, I mean that it is full of beautiful thoughts and beautiful pictures and beautiful stories that speak to our minds. God often talks with children through pictures. You love things that speak to you through the eye, like flowers and birds, and your dear mother's face. Just think of some of the pictures God has given us in this Book.

I see, with my mind's eye, a garden, large, fair, with great trees and beautiful walks, pure, clear streams with lovely flowers, with animals playing about, with two trees that were set apart from the rest, one called the Tree of Life and the other the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I see a man in this garden, and animals passing before him and hear him giving them names. Now I see a city with twelve gates, each gate a pearl. The city has walls made of twelve kinds of jewels, and the streets are of pure gold, and there is no temple in the city and no sun, but it is very glorious and wonderful. I see a beautiful River and a glorious Sea, and a great multitude of shining ones with harps in their hands, and I see a throne and One that sits thereon, more lovely and beautiful and mighty and glorious than any words can say.

The little three-year-old boy before he can read, loves to take his picture book and see things that are to him very wonderful, and when he gets a little older he loves to take a box of paints and a brush and color the pictures in some of his books. The first book I ever colored was full of Bible pictures. There was the picture of a man on the top of a hill with his son laid on a heap of stones. The father's face was sad, and the old man was lifting a knife in his hand; and there was a sheep caught in a bush near by; and there was the figure of an angel in the sky. Then there was the picture of a young man lying on the ground, with stones under his head for a pillow, and a stairway or ladder reaching up to the heavens above, with angels going up and down. There was the picture of a boy whose father gave him a coat of many colors, and how I liked to daub on the red and yellow and blue paint, and I am afraid I took a pin and punched out the eyes in the pictures of the brothers of this boy—those brothers who, as you remember, cast him into a dry well and afterward sold him as a slave. There was a picture of a little boy lying in a little boat which was among the tall grasses of a river. There was the picture of a great tent in the desert, with altars on which fire was burning, and a great pillar of cloud resting down on it in the midst of the tent. And then far over in the book was the picture of the best Man who ever lived, taking little children in His arms, putting His hands on them and blessing them.

The Bible is a beautiful book for a great many reasons that I can't speak of now. Its beauty is not like that of an apple blossom, which soon fades away. It grows more and more lovely as you grow older. I like to see a little child reading with happy face from this book which tells of God's love; but it is lovelier still to see the old grandmother, who loved the Bible in childhood, putting on her spectacles and reading these words of David: "Oh, how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day. How sweet are thy words to my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Two of the most beautiful things that we ever see are gold and honey—gold, bright shining, and the honey which looks like liquid gold, shut up in little boxes of pearl. Now I am going to end what I have to say about the Bible as beautiful, by telling you what David said of the words of the Lord that are found in this book: "More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honey comb."

But the Bible is not only a beautiful book for children, but it is an interesting book. You like to read it and hear it, partly because it tells so much about children, boys and girls like you. You read in this book about two brothers, one of whom loved God, and the other did not love his brother, and slew him because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. You read about a little girl who was taken off in a certain war, and became a servant for the wife of a great general. He was a leper, and this little girl, believing in God and in God's prophet, Elisha, told her mistress that the prophet in Israel could heal her master of his awful disease. You read the story of a little boy whose mother gave him early to the Lord, and who went to live with an old man in a great tent, which was God's house, and who heard the voice of the Lord calling to him in the night. Did you never hear God's voice speaking to your heart, and do you always answer as did this boy in the tabernacle at Shiloh: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth"?

And in this Book you have read of four boys in the court of the great king of Babylon who would not defile themselves with the rich meats and the fiery wines, and who formed a boys' temperance society in the court of the king, and who rose to high honor and great fame. Above all, you read of the perfect Child who was obedient to his earthly father and mother, and who did the will of his Heavenly Father, and who grew into the bravest, noblest, truest, most manly man that ever lived, and who died for us all—that Man whose words are, I think, the first words of the Bible that you learned by heart. I have heard of a little girl who lived where the Bible is not permitted to be read by the children. But she had a present of the good Book from her Sunday School teacher. It was discovered that she had this book; it was snatched from her and thrown into the fire. She watched it burn, while the tears rolled down her cheeks, and turning sadly away, said: "Thank God, there are fourteen chapters of the Gospel of John which they can't burn up, for I have committed them to memory."

The Bible interests you because it is full of wonderful things. It tells of a wonderful God who doeth marvelous things for His people. It tells of the flood which swept away the wicked world; of the plagues which fell on wicked Egypt; of the march of two millions of people through the Red Sea which God divided; it tells you of the wonderful life of the children of Israel in the desert, with God's hand feeding them with the birds and the bread; it leads you to the foot of a great mountain, on which God came down in a chariot of fire, while the thunders roared and the trumpet blown by some mighty angel sounded loud and long, and the mountain shook and smoked like a great furnace, and all the people trembled while God gave the law which begins: "I am the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt. Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

This Bible has more wonderful things than you will find anywhere else. It tells of great battles, of the sun and moon standing still, of cities falling down at the blowing of trumpets; of fire descending from heaven; it tells of shipwrecks and storms, and cruel kings, and men willing to die for the name of Jesus. It tells of God's wonderful love, and how the Son of God came from heaven to earth and died for us on the Cross and rose from the grave. And the best thing, children, about all these Bible wonders, is this, that they are true. A wonderful God doeth wonderful things. This is a wonderful world we live in. You children know it and feel it, and some older people have got to become much wiser than they now are to be as wise as you are. Is not the Bible an interesting Book? My children will listen longer to the story of the Bible than anything else. And as you grow older, if you will only keep on studying the Bible, it will keep its interest till you die.

Children who live in cities love to ride, in summer, in the parks and see the wonderful figures which the gardeners have made with their plants and flowers, the stars and stripes, an elephant, the ball-player, a giraffe, a sun-dial, a calendar, an obelisk, sphinxes, and so forth. Now, this book is a great garden on which God has made figures that will last as long as the world lasts. There is Adam, with his face dark and sorrowful because he had sinned; there is Abel, looking up to that heaven which he, first of all men, entered; there is Noah, a preacher of righteousness, who preached many years without converting a soul, but kept on believing God; there is Abraham with a staff in his hand; there is Moses holding the wondrous rod and the book of the law; there is David with his harp; there is Paul, going forth to preach Christ; there is John, looking into heaven. The children who have the Bible taught them will find great interest in these figures. But the greatest interest in the Bible is this, that it is a sign-board pointing us to our Father's house in Heaven.

Now, I come to the third letter. The B-I-B-L-E—is not only a Beautiful book, and an Interesting book, but it is a Blessed book. That is, it makes people happy and good, good and happy. A poor man comes from England to Chicago with his wife and three children, expecting to get work and to make him a lovely home. But he fails to get work and he has to sell many things to get bread for his family. At last he is in despair, but a good man comes to his house, learns of his need, gives him bread and gets him work; and that night the Englishman says to his wife, "Wasn't he a blessed man to help us at this time?" But in a few days the baby of the house is taken sick and soon dies, and the good man comes again and advances money to pay for the funeral of the dear little child; and they say, "Blessed man!" again. But that night, when all is over, and the baby is laid to sleep in the cemetery, the poor man takes down the Bible and reads to his wife of Christ's love to children, and of the beautiful world beyond, where there is no more crying and death, and the wife says, "Oh, isn't that a blessed Book!"

Blessed Book. So the mother thinks whose boy has gone off to school or to sea. How careful she was to put a copy of the Bible in his hands and to get from him the promise to read it every day. She knows perfectly well that no great harm can come to him, if he reads and obeys what is written in the Word of God. I know a young lady who was very much distressed when in Paris several years ago because her hand-bag, a little portmanteau, had been lost. And when, after much hunting, it was found, she confessed that what distressed her most of all in the thought of losing her hand-bag was this, that it contained the little Bible which had been given to her when a child and which she had made her daily companion ever since. I hope that each of you owns a Bible which, the gift of a mother or of some dear friend, is growing more and more blessed to you as you go forward into your lives. There is much darkness in the future. You will have sorrows as well as joys. The clouds will gather. The shadows will sometimes descend and you will wonder where you are to walk, or what you are to do. But remember what David has said of this blessed Book: "Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a guide to my path."

Now, we come to the fourth letter, B-I-B-L-E. Beautiful, Interesting, Blessed, L, Life-giving. This is something better than anything we have yet said to you about the Bible. It gives life to those who are dead. You have seen a patch of ground early in the spring on which nothing was growing. But the rain falls, and the warm sunshine pours down, and the seeds in that soil burst into life and spring up and cover the earth with living plants and flowers. And so God's Word brings its dew and sunshine on our cold, dead hearts, and the flowers of love, hope, peace and joy spring up. The Bible is like bread, like the manna which came to the children of Israel in the desert. It feeds our souls. It gives us life. How does it give us life? It teaches us about God and his great love in Jesus, and when we come to get from Him the forgiveness of our sins, when we come to know God and love God and trust in God, we have life. "This is life eternal," said Jesus, "that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Some of you are giving money to send this Book to the heathen people. Where this Book goes it gives life like bread sent to people who are starving.

But why do we need the Bible to know about God? Do not the stars and the sun and the earth tell us that there must be a God who made all these wonderful things and rules them? Yes, they tell us that God is powerful, that He is very great, but they do not tell us that he loves us poor sinners. The Egyptians believed in God; yes, in many gods. They were, as we know, a very wise and learned people. And yet this people Moses found bowing down and worshiping cats and crocodiles and beetles. They did not know the one God who led His people, and who said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," and who is not only holy, but merciful, forgiving our sins. Suppose that you were on an ocean steamer way out at sea, and she was sinking into the waves. To what or to whom would you pray? You wouldn't pray to the waves. They would not have mercy on you. You wouldn't pray to the stars. They wouldn't have mercy on you. You would pray to the God who is revealed in this Book, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has said that nothing can take us from His love, neither life nor death, land nor ocean, nothing can separate us from His love.

Children, this Book tells us one thing which all need to learn, and that is, how we may gain life eternal, how we may escape from death. This Book is the story of God's love. It is the story of Jesus, our Savior. He that has Christ in his heart has life. "I am the resurrection and the life," said Jesus; "I am the way, the truth and the life." If this Book does not lead you to Christ, you have failed to get from it what God gave it for. David said of the Bible: "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul."

We come now to the fifth letter, B-I-B-L-E—Everlasting. The Bible is Beautiful, Interesting, Blessed, Life-giving, and Everlasting. It is something that does not wear out. "The word of the Lord endureth forever." Children's clothes wear out, as you well know. Your play-things break; your shoes don't last; your books get torn; these bodies die; but the Bible lasts. It was good in David's time. It was good when Christ was a child, and He read it. It was good in Paul's time, and he added to it. It was good when Martin Luther translated it into the German language, and William Tyndale translated it into English. It lasts the way an oak tree lasts, that grows bigger and bigger and sends out little shoots that grow into other oaks and make a mighty forest. This Bible is now speaking to men in nearly three hundred different languages. It is going to be the one Book of the world. A hundred years ago a famous infidel in France, named Voltaire, foolishly published his opinion that the religion of the Bible would soon die out, but to-day men are using Voltaire's printing-press in Geneva to publish this grand old Book. Here is something, children, that is going to last. You can stand on it safely. God is in it. When the little girl whose father was an infidel and whose mother was a Christian was dying, and she said to her father, "Shall I hold to your principles, father, or shall I turn now to my mother's God?" the father said: "Believe in your mother's God."

Just before beginning a great battle on the sea, you remember that Admiral Nelson hung out a flag with these words for all to see: "England expects every man to do his duty." And so our great General, the Captain of our salvation, expects that every boy trained up in a Christian church will do his duty. He expects that you will take this Beautiful, Interesting, Blessed, Life-giving and Eternal book and make it your guide, your compass, your rudder, your chart on the great ocean of life. He expects that you will be true men and women, honest, pure, obedient to God, loving your country and all the world. He expects that you will be faithful to duty, that you will be clean in body and in lips and mouth and eyes and heart. He expects to meet you and welcome you all in glory above.

A passenger on one of our ocean steamers found an old friend in the captain. They talked about one of their old classmates in school. Said the passenger: "I could never understand why Will did not succeed. He left college well educated, full of life and health, well-to-do. He gave up the ministry which he had intended to enter, having fallen in with some free-thinking fellows. He studied law, but gave that up and went to farming. He became a skeptic. He left his wife and farming and became a gold-seeker in California. He left this and went to Idaho. He had lost everything, and supported himself by odd jobs. I knew him there. He was not a drunkard or a gambler, but he had never succeeded. He tried something new several times a year. He was now almost mad in his opposition to the religion of the Bible. Soon he died, bitterly rebelling against God. It is wonderful that such a man should ever have come to such an end."

The captain was silent for a while, but at last said: "Old sailors have a superstition that there are phantom ships (that is, ghosts of ships) which cross the sea. I saw a vessel once that showed me how this idea may have sprung up. It was a full-rigged bark, driving under full sail. There was no one on board. Some disease may have broken out, and all the sailors had left. I could not capture her, though I tried. Several months later I passed her again. Her topmast was gone; her sails were in rags; the wind drove her where it would. A year later she came in sight one stormy winter night. She was a shattered hulk and went down at last in the darkness and storm. She was a good ship at first, but," added the captain, "she had lost her rudder." Boys and girls, young men and women, I pray you, on this voyage of life, not to lose the rudder by which, in the storm, you may hold the ship true to the harbor.