Young Folks' Bible in Words of Easy Reading. Josephine Pollard

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

History of the Old Testament.

      CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

      GOD MADE THE WORLD.

      Far back in the past, more years than you could think or count, God made the world. It did not look at first as it does now, for there was no live thing on it, no men, beasts, or birds, not a bush, tree or plant, but all was dark and drear.

      Then God said, Let there be light! And the light came. And God saw the light, and it pleased him, and he gave it the name of Day. And when the day was gone, and the dark came back to stay for a while, he gave the dark spell the name of Night. And God did these things on the first day.

      The next day God made the clouds, and the sky in which they were to move; and he gave the sky a name; he called it Heav-en.

      Then he drove the wa-ters to one place where they were both deep and wide, and he called the wa-ters Seas, and to the dry land he gave the name of Earth. And God made the grass to grow up out of the earth, and the trees and shrubs that have fruit on them. And the grass and the shrubs and the trees were to bear seeds, so that when these seeds were put in-to the ground more grass and trees and shrubs would grow there. God did these things on the third day.

      And God put two great lights in the sky, the Sun to shine by day, and the Moon to shine by night; and he made the stars, and put each one in its place. And these things he did on the fourth day.

      And he made the great whales, and all the fish that live in the sea, and the birds that swim on it, as well as those that fly through the air, and make their nests in the deep woods. And these things God did on the fifth day.

      God made the beasts: those that are wild and live in the deep, dark woods, far from the homes of men; and those that are tame and of use to men, and live where men live—such as the horse, the cow, the ox and the sheep. And he made the things that creep on the ground, and flies and bugs that course through the air.

      

AD-AM AND EVE DRIV-EN FROM PAR-A-DISE.

      And then God made Man, and told him that he should rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all else that lived on the earth. And he told man that the fruit which grew on the trees and shrubs should be his food, while the beasts were to feed on the leaves, and on the grass that was spread out on the earth. These things were done on the sixth day.

      The next day God did no work at all, but made it a day of rest.

      God made man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed in him till the man breathed and moved, and showed signs of life. Then God made a gar-den for man to live in, where all sorts of trees grew that were nice to look at, and that bore fruit good to eat. And this place was called E-den. And through it flowed a large stream that kept the earth moist.

      And God took Ad-am, the man he had made, and put him in the gar-den, and told him to take care of it. He told him he might eat of the fruit that grew on all the trees but one. God said he must not eat of that tree, for if he did he would be sure to die. And all the birds and beasts came to A-dam, that he might give them their names. And the names he gave them are those by which they are known to this day.

      And God saw it was not good for man to be a-lone; he should have some one to be with him and help him. So he had a deep sleep fall on Ad-am, and while he slept God took out of his side a bone, and out of this bone he made a wo-man. Then he brought this wo-man he had made to Ad-am, and she was his wife.

      Now there was in this gar-den of E-den a great big snake. And this snake spoke to the wo-man—as Sa-tan speaks to us—to tempt her to sin.

      The snake said: Has God told you not to eat of all the trees in the gar-den?

      And the wo-man said that they might eat of all but one; if they ate of that or touched it they would be sure to die. The snake told them they should not die, and that God did not wish them to eat of it for fear they would grow wise, and know more than he thought was good for them.

      The wo-man heard what the snake said, and when she saw that the tree was nice to look at and the fruit seemed good to eat, she gave no thought to what God had said, but took some of the fruit and ate of it; she gave some to the man, Ad-am, and he did eat.

      In a short time they heard a voice, and knew that God spoke to them. Yet they did not come near him when they heard his voice, but ran and tried to hide from him.

      But God spoke once more, and said to the man, Where art thou?

      And Ad-am said, I heard thy voice, and my fear was so great that I hid from thee.

      And God said, Did'st thou eat of the tree I told thee not to eat of?

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