enjoyed a privilege denied to thousands. Will you not be grateful for this privilege? Will you not manifest that you know how to prize a gift of more value than all the world beside? Can you deliberately consent to meet the dreadful condemnation of those who, from childhood, "knew the Master's will, and did it not." I hope I need not remind you that the BOOK OF GOD is to be read with feelings and in a manner very different from those with which you read all other books. When you have read books of human composition once or twice, you have gotten from them all they contain--you have done with them. But with the perusal of the Bible you can never have done. The oftener you go over it, if you feel as you ought, the richer and more delightful will it appear. You can never exhaust its meaning or its interest. Like its divine Author, it has a length and breadth and depth and height, concerning which no human reader can ever say that he has completely fathomed its meaning, or measured its riches. Other books are to be read with attention, and, if they abound with truth and wisdom, with respect; but the Book of God is to be read with the deepest veneration, as containing the mind and will of our heavenly Sovereign. In fact, every line of it is to be considered as the voice of God speaking to us. Woe to those, whether young or aged, who can handle the Bible with levity, make sport of its contents, or recite its solemn language as matter of jest! The Lord will not hold them guiltless who thus, practically, "take his name in vain." The Mohammedans manifest much more reverence for their _Koran_, than many Christians for the Bible. They never allow themselves to touch it without washing their hands. They handle it with the most pointed respect, never holding it lower than their girdles. Every copy of it commonly contains an inscription or label on the cover, in these words--"Let none touch but those who are clean." How very differently do many, young and old, among us, treat the Holy Scriptures! I have often been distressed when I have seen children toss about their Bibles, and even throw them in the dirt, as they would the least valued of their play-things, or rattle over some of the most solemn language of the Bible with as little apparent thought or respect as they would repeat the veriest effusions of nonsense.