Show THE BIBLE there t a painful amount of literature written nowadays by self ap pointed censors bewailing the fact that people no longer read the bible it would be interesting to be informed how they learned this fact have they made a census of the people as to their reading habits or do they take it that nobody reads the bible because they are comparatively ignorant of it themselves or Is it because they have not toen the bible enrolled in a certain sickish magazine among the moat popular books of the week the cocksureness of this brand of writers is puzzling how do they know the bible is not a public library books so they could have drawn no valuable inference from the fact that it Is not loaned from the shelves bibbea are not sold at ruinous cut prices in department stores so thera is no testimony available there there Is only one tangible fact iu the whole discussion and that infer ent lally at least destroys tho argument of the biond of pessimists who are the world with a wall over the neglected bible the fact is that there aro more bables printed and sold or given away than ever before in the worlds history the demand exceeds tho supply and the great religious publishing houses arc pushed all the time to keep up with the calls tor bibles for the home and foreign fields the bible is popular in all the versions the authorized zed version Is of course the standard but booksellers will tell you that the revised version sells well apparently patently ly among people who have A liking for studying the bible for themselves and comparing one version with another A down to date version giving the saviors sermons and parables in the language of today has had quite a success there has been a great interest in tho thomas jefferson testament since its publication through tha government printing office all the publishers facts show a widespread and steadily increasing in terest in the bible this naturally suggests the question for what do people buy the bible if notto read it tho explanation offered by the persons who h abc assumed the premises that the bible Is not read is that this age is too stepped in commercialism to appreciate its poetry and lofty morality but the bible Is not all poetry and lotty ethics there is a great deal of history and practical information in it why should not the story of how jacob got rachel and a fortune appe to a commercial age as not the story at joseph the best proof yet that faithfulness and virtue are rewarded are not the psalms themselves while cat in the form of poetry tho experiences of a man who had gono through every phase of life from the position of a hunted exile to that of war lord of a proud and buoyant nation ate not the parables the most perfect liberations libe rations of the best method of success in life diat the literature liera ture of all the ages has given us A commercial age cannot get along without the bible and it Is evident I 1 that this commercial ago is not trying 0 o get along without it there is proof on every hand that ahli is not merely a commercial age it is an ago impregnated with tho spirit of investigation thought and conviction men do not talk about the bible as much as they used to in the days when all men were theologians and each had his own explanation of tho of which ho was prepared to prove by assault with a dangerous weapon upon any one who failed to agree with him but this Is not that we do not think as much about tho bible as did our ancestors or that wo do not put as much of it into everyday life |