Second advent library

50 mssrnru-ron on 'rimteenth century,more than nine tenths ofour world was covered with gross darkness.The word of God was little known orread,if credit can be given tothe histories of thosetimes: and even down to the year 1798,but very little painswas taken topublishthe Bible in oramong the nations of theearth. And up to that time, protestantwriters, many of them, clothed the Bible inmysticism, and taught that it could not beunderstood bycommon minds at least. Butfrom that year we may date the rise ofand Bible societies. Then,missionary efforts,the Christian community began to awake,as from along sleep of moral night, afnd beganto see and feel the necessity of publishingthe lamp of life, to a dark and -a benightedworld without note or comment. "Thenarose and trimmed theirall those virginslamps," translations of the Bible began,and in the space of forty years since, fourtimes asmany languages have received theBible orparts of it,as had received it ineighteen hundred years before. Well maywe exclaim,--the sackcloth is rent in twain;the little book is open; the angel is dyingthrough the midst of heaven, having theeverlasting gospel topreachto them thatdwell on the earth ! We know the two witnessesare no longer clothed in sackcldth.If ever, since the days of the apostles, theBible has been free and clear, it is so now.Who cansay, in sincerity and truth, that