The Bible – A Poem

by C.T. Studd, missionary

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The Bible

 
What could we do without the Book
That God gave us to read?
No more than any farmer
Who hadn’t any seed!
 
No other tells us of our Lord,
The God of grace and love,
Who made the whole creation,
This world and those above.
 
What could we do were we without
The Gospels or the Acts?
No more than could a barrister
Who didn’t know his facts!
 
Were we without the letters of
John, Peter, James and Paul,
We’d be like some poor cricketer
Without a bat or ball.
 
If Genesis is humbug,
We must cast into the flames
The Gospels, Acts and Hebrews,
Galatians, Romans, James.
 
If we should try to live our lives
Without the Book of Psalms,
Our souls would lack the music
Which comforts, cheers and charms.
 
We couldn’t know that God will be
The Judge of all mankind,
By the mere dictates of Reason,
Or the workings of the mind.
 
We shouldn’t know God gave His Son,
To agonise and die,
To save and teach us sinful men
To trust Him utterly.
 
We shouldn’t know Christ rose again—
The proof He was the Lord—
And then ascended up above
To execute His Word.
 
We ne’er had deemed He’d be the Friend
Of publicans and sinners,
Of prodigals and harlots, not
Of hypocrites nor trimmers.
 
That ne’er would He to any child
Deny a Saviour’s blessing,
And ne’er would turn a soul away,
Who came his sins confessing.
 
That He Who healed the sick, the lame,
The blind, the deaf, the dumb,
And raised the dead, by touch or word,
Would beg us all to come
 
To Him, that we might be forgiven
And made the heirs of God,
Divorced from fear of death and hell,
Warriors of the Lord.
 
We ne’er had dreamed Salvation is
A gift, and not a wage,
To be received just as you are,
Without the sacred page.
 
The Bible is a gallery
Of pictures full of life,
A cinematographic show
Of real historic strife.
 
It warns against temptations
And Satan’s savoury messes;
It paints the devil’s portrait
In all his fancy dresses.
 
It’s like a cordite rifle
With a telescopic sight,
Preventing those of single eye
From missing, day or night.
 
It is of heaven’s narrow way
The ordnance survey map,
Revealing hell’s paved broadway
And every gin and trap.
 
It gives the words of prophets,
Who courageously denounced
The sins of priests, and princes, and
The Judgment day announced.
 
It castigates the evil, and
It never screens the good;
It declares that every mortal needs
The Saviour’s cleansing blood.
 
‘Tis a history of the godly,
A hymn book for the saint,
A comfort to the dying,
A cordial to the faint.
 
It prophesies the Coming
Of the Saviour in His might,
To judge the world’s inhabitants,
And darkness turn to light.
 
Be sure, in their originals,
Each word came straight from God;
“Yea! every jot and tittle’s true,”
Said Jesus Christ the Lord.
 
Would you be brave and noble?
Read it every day,
Not as a duty merely,
Nor in a slipshod way.
 
Divorce yourself from humbug,
And cant and lollipops;
Don’t live on milk and water,
Nor sentimental slops.
 
Don’t be like Jackie Horner,
Who when he got a pie,
Picked out a plum or two, and said
“See what a boy am I!”
 
It’s God’s own patent medicine,
Take it as it stands;
Treat it as His aide-de-camp,
Bringing Christ’s commands.
 
Mind! you must obey it,
Otherwise you’ll be
Branded, as a hypocrite,
Through eternity.
 
Read it in the morning,
Meditate and pray,
Trust the Lord to keep you
“Straight” throughout the day.