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The Bible was missing.
I searched through the sanctuary. It must be somewhere. After all, it was a church.
I finally gave up and asked a female volunteer if she knew where the Bible was. She explained that it had been moved to an anteroom and that I could find it there. She added that she did not approve of it being moved.
I finally did locate it in a glass case that was hardly noticeable. That Bible, so much a part of the history of the church, had been relegated to a side room, signifying its reduced importance in the fabric of the church and of the nation as a whole.
The Bible in question was presented in 1907 to the president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, by Britain's King Edward VII on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the founding of the colony of Virginia. The Bible and the lectern on which it had rested, now devoid of any copy of the Scriptures, had been presented to Bruton Parish Church in Colonial Williamsburg by the president himself.
Times have changed
The dedicatory message from the king read: "This Bible is presented by His Majesty King Edward the Seventh, King of Great Britain and Ireland & Emperor of India to the church of Bruton, Virginia, a shrine rich in venerable tradition of worship, in solemn memories of patriots and statesmen and in historic witness to the oneness of our peoples.
"The King will ever hope and pray that the ties of kinship and of language and the common heritage of ordered worship and of ennobling ideals may through the saving faith in our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ revealed in these sacred pages, continue to unite Great Britain & America in a beneficent fellowship for setting forward peace & goodwill among men. MCMVII [1907]."
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