GOD hath at no time left Himself without a witness in the world. And if it was the high calling of the witness to bear witness, it was the no less high calling of those who heard the witness, to extend its reach. That the Bible is now read in several hundred languages, shows to what extent the church of Christ, in all ages, has been awake to her privilege.
That Dr. Abraham Kuyper was a witness of “the Christ of the Scriptures,” is the grateful acknowledgment of those who knew him at close range, and of those who are now making his acquaintance through his works. His “obedience to the heavenly vision” took one form in his “Meditations,” in all of which the Bible was the sole arsenal from which he drew his ammunition. To extend the witness of “the Christ of the Scriptures,” by this extraordinary man, beyond the confines of his mother-tongue, this volume of meditations on “Asleep In Jesus” in English dress is offered to the English-speaking Christian world.
As to the timeliness of the witness this book bears, consider, in the current number (May, 1929) of “The Atlantic Monthly” the striking words of the Rev. Dr. William L. Sullivan: “I feel that the extinction of the primary trust of the human soul in an eternal Perfection, an extinction preposterously asserted in the name of science, and preposterously compensated by a comfortable earthly paradise populated by the doomed, means the senility of civilization, the ruin of genius, and the decay of character.”
To revive that “primary trust of the human soul in an eternal Perfection,” to cheer it, to fan it into a bright flame again, these Meditations offer timely help. The “eternal Perfection” of the new life, which the Bible holds in prospect to all who believe on the Christ of the Scriptures, is here sketched, delineated, portrayed, with a faithfulness and affectionate appreciation, which, under Divine blessing, cannot but appeal to the heart of all such as “look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
Epiphany Rectory, Walpole, Mass., May 8, 1929