The Bible Sweeter than Honey
Anon. Psalm 19:10 More to be desired are they than gold, yes, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Among the insects which subsist on the sweet sap of flowers there are two very different classes. One is remarkable for its imposing plumage, which shows in the sunbeams like the dust of gems; and as you watch its jaunty gyrations over the fields, and its minuet dance from flower to flower, you cannot help admiring its graceful activity. In the same field there is another worker, whose brown vest and straightforward flight may not have arrested your eye. His fluttering neighbour darts down here and there, and sips elegantly wherever he can find a drop of ready nectar; but this dingy plodder makes a point of alighting everywhere, and wherever he alights he either finds honey or makes it. What is the end? The one died last October along with the flower; the other is warm in his hive tonight, amidst the fragrant stores which he gathered beneath the bright beams of summer. Honey is the sweetest of all substances, and the ancients, who were unacquainted with sugar, attached even more importance to it than we do. "A land flowing with milk and honey" presented the very strongest attractions to the Oriental taste. The idea conveyed by the text is this: that the truth of God, as revealed to us in the Bible, affords more real pleasure to the soul than that which epicures consider the most desirable luxury does to the palate. In that remarkable book, The Eclipse of Faith, there is a chapter entitled "The Blank Bible," in which the author describes a dream, wherein he fancied that on taking up his Greek Testament one morning, to read his accustomed chapter, the old familiar volume seemed to be a total blank. Supposing that some book like it had, by accident, got into its place, he did not stop to hunt it up, but took down a large copy of the Bible, and this, to his amazement, proved also to be a blank from beginning to end. While musing on this unaccountable phenomenon, his servant came in and said that thieves must have been in the house during the night, since her Bible had been carried off, and another volume of the same size, but containing but blank paper, had been left in its place. The dreamer then went forth into the street, and heard a similar report from all whom he met. It was curious to observe the different effect of this calamity on the various characters whom he encountered. An interest, almost universal, was now felt for a book which had hitherto been sadly undervalued. Some to whom their Bible had been a "blank" book for twenty years, and who would never have known whether it was full or empty but for the lamentations of their neighbours, were among the loudest in their expressions of sorrow. In marked contrast with these was the sincere regret of an aged woman, long kept a prisoner in her narrow chamber by sickness, and to whom the Bible had been, as to so many thousands more, her faithful companion ill solitude. I found her gazing intently on the blank Bible (says our author), which had been so recently bright to her with the lustre of immortal hopes. She burst into tears as she saw me. "And has your faith left you too, nay gentle friend?" said I. "No," she answered; "and I trust it never will. He who has taken away the Bible has not taken away my memory, and I now recall all that is most precious in that book which has so long been my meditation. I think I can say that I loved it more than any possession on earth." Even the warnings of the Bible are wholesome for us, for by them we are made to know our own evil. Merle d'Aubigne, during a visit to England, related an incident which happened in 1855, in connection with the circulation of the Bible among soldiers. A colporteur reached Toulon just as the French troops were embarking for the Crimea. He offered a Testament to a soldier, who asked what book it was. "The Word of God," was the answer. "Let me have it, then," said the man; and when he had received it he added most irreverently, "it will do very well to light my pipe." The colporteur felt sorry that a book which might have been of service to somebody had been thus thrown away; but there was no help for it, and he went his way. About a year later he happened to be in the interior of France, and took lodging at an inn, where he found the family in great distress, from the recent death of a son. The poor mother explained that the young man had been wounded in the Crimean War, and had only been able to reach home to die. "I have much consolation," she added; "he was so peaceful and happy, and he brought comfort to his father and to me." "How was this?" asked the colporteur. "Oh," she said, "he found all his comfort in one little book, which he had always with him." So saying, she showed him a soiled copy of the New Testament (the very one which he himself had given to the reckless young soldier), and read on the inside of the cover, "Received at Toulon (with the date), despised, neglected, read, believed, and found salvation." "Sweeter than honey" are these Divine oracles of God, and "in keeping of them there is great reward." (Anon.) Parallel Verses KJV: More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. WEB: More to be desired are they than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the extract of the honeycomb.