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THE BIBLE 
 
 IN 
 
 THE WORLD OF TODAY 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 IN THE 
 
 WORLD OF TODAY 
 
 CLARENCE A. BARBOUR, D.D. 
 
 ASSOCIATE SECRETARY RELIGIOUS WORK DEPARTMENT 
 INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF YOUNG MEN'S 
 CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 ASSOCIATION PRESS 
 
 NEW YORK: 124 EAST 28TH STREET 
 LONDON: 47 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 
 
Copyright, igii. 
 
 By the International Committee of Young Men's 
 Christian Associations 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Books regarding the Bible are many and vari- 
 ous. The only vaHd excuse for the appearance 
 of another is that it presents material nowhere 
 else available in collected form and that it seems 
 to answer a real need. This volume is prepared 
 especially for use in connection with the Men and 
 Religion Movement in North America, but it is 
 believed that it will find a yet wider usefulness. 
 
 The first chapter makes no attempt at the sug- 
 gestion or solution of critical questions concern- 
 ing the text of Scripture. Its aim is to put in 
 vivid and readable form such information as will 
 be interesting and useful to the average man. 
 Use has been made of material from a multi- 
 tude of works concerning the making of the 
 Bible, such as, How We Got Our Bible, and 
 The Old Documents and the New Bible, by J. 
 Paterson Smyth, LL.D., of Trinity College, Dub- 
 lin, published by Samuel Bagster and Sons ; The 
 History of the English Bible, by T. Harwood 
 Pattison, D.D., published by the American Bap- 
 tist Publication Society; and The Bible — Its 
 Origin and Nature, by Marcus Dods, D.D. 
 
vi FOREWORD 
 
 The second chapter, by T. Harwood Pattison, 
 D.D., is used by permission of the American 
 Baptist PubHcation Society. 
 
 The third chapter, by James Orr, D.D., is taken, 
 by permission of the pubHshers, the George H. 
 Doran Company, from their volume. The Bible 
 under Trial. 
 
 The fourth chapter, by Frederick W. Farrar, 
 D.D., F.R.S., is reprinted, by the permission of 
 the publishers, Longmans, Green and Company, 
 from their volume, The Bible, Its Meaning and 
 Supremacy. 
 
 The other chapters in the book have appeared 
 under the Association Press imprint in various 
 forms, but are now assembled in whole or in part, 
 that they may be more easily within the reach 
 of all. 
 
 That minds may be informed and quickened, 
 faith strengthened and genuine Christian char- 
 acter established in those to whom this volume 
 shall come, is our hope and prayer. 
 
 Clarence A. Barbour 
 
 New York City, 
 September first, 191 1. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE ... i 
 
 Clarence A. Barbour, D.D. 
 
 Associate Secretary Religious Work Department 
 
 International Committee of Young Men's 
 
 Christian Associations 
 
 II THE BIBLE AND THE TWENTIETH 
 
 CENTURY 33 
 
 T. Harwood Pattison, D.D. 
 
 Late Professor of Homiletics i7t the Rochester Theo- 
 logical Seminary 
 
 III THE BIBLE THE HOPE OF THE 
 
 WORLD 73 
 
 James Orr, D.D. 
 
 Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology in 
 
 the United Free Church College, Glasgow 
 
 IV THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE . 99 
 Frederick W.^Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 Late Dean of Canterbury, England 
 
 V THE ABIDING VALUE OF THE OLD 
 
 TESTAMENT, 127 
 
 George L. Robinson, Ph.D. 
 
 Professor Old Testament Literature and Exegesis 
 
 in the McCormick Theological Seminary, 
 
 Chicago 
 
viu TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 VI BIBLE STUDY THE GREAT WAY 
 
 INTO LIFE'S VALUES .... 149 
 Henry Churchill King, LL.D. 
 
 President of Oberlin College 
 
 VII WHY SHOULD EVERY YOUNG 
 MAN READ AND STUDY THE 
 BIBLE? . . , 165 
 
 James McConaughy 
 
 Professor of the English Bible, Mount Herman 
 
 School, Mount Heniion, Mass. 
 
 VIII BIBLE STUDY FOR PERSONAL 
 
 SPIRITUAL GROWTH 185 
 
 John R. Mott, LL.D. 
 
 General Secretary World's Student Christian 
 
 Federation 
 
 IX HOW TO MAKE THE BIBLE REAL 203 
 
 Henry Churchill King, LL.D. 
 
 President of Oberlin College 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 IN 
 
 THE WORLD OF TODAY 
 
CLARENCE A. BARBOUR 
 
 Upon whatever questions believers in the Hv- 
 ing and true God differ, they are alike in their 
 allegiance, real or professed, to a book which we 
 call the Bible, or the Book. Even for those who 
 do not accept its teachings, it is the Book, for no 
 other book has such a history. In its collected 
 form, practically as we have it today, it has ex- 
 isted for nearly eighteen hundred years, while 
 some portions of it go back into far greater re- 
 moteness of time. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to oppose the idea which 
 has been held by some, that our Bible, with cover 
 and clasp complete, has, as it were, been dropped 
 down from heaven, like the image of the goddess 
 Diana in Ephesus of old ; or to oppose the idea 
 that the Bible is too sacred a book to be subjected 
 to critical inquiry. Yet the Revised Version of 
 the Bible actually met with strenuous opposition, 
 on the ground that a new book was attempting 
 to supersede the venerable volume which in the 
 course of the years had come to be regarded by 
 some as, word for word and punctuation point 
 
2 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 for punctuation point, the veritable written reve- 
 lation of God. It is not necessary to combat 
 any such conception. 
 
 God's Various Revelations of Himself. 
 
 God has many ways of revealing Himself. 
 There is some revelation of Him in nature. I 
 am sorry for one who does not find God in the 
 sea, whether it lies gently breathing, like a maiden 
 asleep, under the summer sun and zephyr, or 
 whether its giant billows, in spume of spray and 
 thunder-crash of power, hurl themselves on rocky 
 cliffs. There is hardly a place in the world 
 where one feels in such close communion with 
 God as when, at sea, the plain of the ocean meets 
 the dome of the sky in unbroken circle, with 
 nothing to mar the infinite beauty of it all. He 
 is an object for pity who can see nothing of 
 God in mountain, in forest, in lake and stream. 
 But our finding of God in nature is largely our 
 reading of God into nature. We cannot separate 
 ourselves now from that vastly broader and 
 deeper revelation of Himself that He has given. 
 We see Him in nature so plainly because we have 
 long walked in the brighter light of His other 
 revelations of Himself. 
 
 On the fields of Bethlehem long ago there was 
 a wondrous vision which came to shepherds abid- 
 ing in the field. The Word had come, the Word 
 which had been in the beginning with God, the 
 Word which was God Himself. His life was 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 3 
 
 to be the light of men, shining in the darkness, 
 to give to men knowledge of Him who was and 
 is the Light. 
 
 But we do not see that Word, as they saw Him 
 of old who walked in the roads and lanes of 
 Palestine. The Word, the Lord Christ, went 
 from the earth in His bodily presence and is 
 with us no more. The revelation of God which 
 we have in visible form is the written Word, 
 through which, in the main, is given to us the 
 expression of the will of God for our instruction 
 and our guidance. Whence came this Bible of 
 ours, as now found in the Revised Version, bear- 
 ing date of May 5, 1885, when the complete 
 Revision was put into the hands of the people? 
 
 The original manuscripts are lost. The church 
 in the early days after Christ had these. What 
 we call the Epistles of the apostle Paul were 
 actually letters, written letters, sent to the 
 churches and read. The four Gospels were actual 
 historical treatises, written and read. Doubtless 
 for some time after the death of Christ His 
 teaching and life were orally transmitted from 
 mouth to ear, but the time came when they must 
 be preserved in more permanent form, and the 
 Gospels were written. The early church had 
 manuscripts of the Hebrew rolls of the Old Testa- 
 ment, including the translation called the Septua- 
 gint, or version of the Seventy, called such from 
 an old tradition of its having been prepared by 
 seventy learned Jews of Alexandria. That ver- 
 
4 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 sion was in Greek, Greek being the language most 
 widely known at the time. That version, dating 
 from about 280 years before Christ, was ordi- 
 narily used by the evangelists and the apostles, 
 and doubtless Jesus Himself had access to the 
 Septuagint. These writings of course were all 
 in manuscript, written by hand. When copies 
 were needed, each had to be written out, letter 
 by letter, at great expense of time and trouble. 
 
 Versions of the Bible, in whole or in part, 
 began to be soon after the year 200 a. d., save 
 only the Septuagint, which, as has already been 
 said, goes back more than four hundred years 
 more. Upon the Latin, the Syriac, the Egyptian, 
 the Gothic, and other versions we must not now 
 pause. 
 
 Of the Vulgate, the Latin Bible, which for 
 more than a thousand years was the basis of 
 the Scriptures of Western Europe and of the 
 Rhemish and Douay versions of the Bible, which 
 are now used in the Roman Catholic Church, we 
 will later speak at some length. 
 
 The Bibles which immediately preceded the 
 Authorized Version are based both upon the Vul- 
 gate and upon the existing Greek manuscripts 
 which had been lately discovered and to which 
 St. Jerome had not access. The Revised Version 
 had not only the use of the Vulgate, together 
 with all the translations which had been made 
 from it, but it had existing and more lately dis- 
 covered manuscripts, in Hebrew and in Greek, 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 5 
 
 one of the most important of which — the Sinaitic 
 manuscript — had been fully brought to light 
 within sixty years. Moreover, the scholars of 
 these later days are much better able to grapple 
 with the difficulties and to interpret the shades 
 of meaning of the original languages. Upon no 
 previous revision have so many scholars been 
 engaged ; in no previous revision have such pre- 
 cautions been taken against accident or oversight, 
 or against any bias that might arise from ecclesi- 
 astical adherence. It is the ripe product of all 
 the light and all the scholarship which the ages 
 have produced, brought to bear upon every avail- 
 able source of information, to bring us back as 
 closely as possible to the exact body of teaching 
 which God designed as the revelation of His 
 nature and His will. 
 
 Writings upon Stone. 
 
 In our thought of the sources from which our 
 present written Bible has been derived, we shall 
 speak first of writings upon stone. 
 
 We could wish that we had the original stone 
 tables upon which the Ten Commandments were 
 written on Mount Sinai and given into the care 
 of Moses. These have long since disappeared, 
 but we have writings on stone, of great antiquity 
 and of exceeding importance. 
 
 In the city of Paris its most important build- 
 ing, both architecturally and on account of its 
 treasures of art and learning, is the Louvre, a vast 
 
6 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 Structure, covering an area of forty-eight acres. 
 Through every change of government since the 
 days of Napoleon I. the collections of this build- 
 ing have been enriched, until they are practically 
 inexhaustible. Among the numberless possessions 
 of the Louvre, hardly one is of greater impor- 
 tance than the Moabite Stone, its inscription writ- 
 ten in the ancient Phoenician, of which there are 
 but few examples left. It was discovered in 
 1868 at Dibon in Moab, east of the Dead Sea. 
 It bears an inscription of Mesha, king of Moab, 
 who is mentioned in Second Kings 3 : 4. Un- 
 doubtedly the inscription is as old as the ninth 
 century before Christ, and is the oldest existing 
 specimen of the ancestral Phoenician language. 
 
 In the city of London is another stone, not quite 
 so ancient, and yet of peculiar interest and im- 
 portance in the story of the translation of ancient 
 languages, and not without its bearing upon the 
 text of Scripture. In the British Museum, per- 
 haps unequaled in the world as a repository of 
 treasures in literature and archaeology, is the 
 famous Rosetta Stone, which opened the meaning 
 of Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is a large slab of 
 black basalt, found in the year 1799 by a French 
 engineer in the trenches on Fort St. Julien near 
 Rosetta, in Egypt. It contains an inscription in 
 three languages. Beginning from the top, there 
 are fourteen lines of hieroglyphic text, the ecclesi- 
 astical language of Egypt, then thirty-two lines 
 of the ordinary Egyptian, then fifty-four lines of 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 7 
 
 Greek. The reading of the Greek reveals the 
 fact that the inscription on the stone was a repe- 
 tition of the same proclamation in three languages, 
 and hence the key to the hieroglyphs of Egypt 
 was placed in the hands of the world of scholar- 
 ship. The decree upon the stone is one issued by 
 the Egyptian priesthood to commemorate the 
 beneficent deeds of Ptolemy V. 
 
 The deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs has 
 been of exceeding value in the way of corrobora- 
 tion of the Scripture record. For example, on the 
 south wall of the court of Shishonk, in the tem- 
 ple of Karnak, Egypt, are to be seen representa- 
 tions of King Shishak returning in triumph from 
 a war. His captives, having their hands tied 
 behind them and ropes around their necks, are 
 kneeHng before him. The faces are distinctly 
 Jewish, and the inscription means Judah-Melek, 
 King of Judah. We know that Judah-Melek was 
 Rehoboam, whose defeat by Shishak is recorded 
 in Kings and Chronicles. Thus six hundred miles 
 up the Nile is another proof of the inspiration and 
 truthful record of the Word of God. God has 
 not left Himself without a witness. The spade 
 of the archaeologist, the brain and the linguistic 
 achievements of translators, are alike witnesses 
 of His glory and His truth. 
 
 Ancient Manuscripts in the Original Languages 
 
 We now come to ancient manuscripts in the 
 original languages. We are all well aware that 
 
8 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 the Old Testament, with some few exceptions, is 
 written in Hebrew, the language of the Jews, 
 a branch of the great Semitic family of languages, 
 so called because the nations to which they be- 
 longed were considered to be chiefly descendants 
 of Shem. The Syriac and Arabic represent other 
 branches of the same great family, and increasing 
 knowledge of them in recent days has thrown 
 much light upon the language of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 Most monasteries had their scriptoria, or 
 writing-rooms, attached to their libraries, and 
 there through the quiet hours the copyists wrought 
 at their task. Their work was deemed to be of a 
 sacred character and it was done with the utmost 
 reverence. Many of the copyists v/ere men who 
 had had their training in Jewish schools, and 
 after their conversion to Christianity found their 
 best employment in transcribing the Epistles and 
 other books meant for the use of the churches. 
 Many of these early manuscripts are beautifully 
 illuminated, written with wonderful clearness and 
 care. Special privileges were granted to those 
 whose hands must be kept delicate for their ex- 
 acting tasks, and they were often excused from 
 the coarser employments of hewing wood, draw- 
 ing water, or planting the gardens of the con- 
 vents. It is pathetic to read in these later days 
 of the pious care and affection with which the 
 work was done and its results treasured, and no 
 one can look at the stained and tattered pages 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 9 
 
 of the oldest manuscripts, or turn the leaves of 
 daintily and splendidly illuminated Bibles, with- 
 out having the mental picture rise before him of 
 those quiet scriptoria, where the work was a labor 
 of love and where the divine blessing was often 
 invoked upon every stroke of the pen and brush. 
 Longfellow, in his " Golden Legend," and Wal- 
 lace, in the poem of " The Blessed Hand," have 
 immortalized this work. 
 
 The New Testament, it need hardly be said, 
 is written in Greek, and, as is the case with the 
 Hebrew, the present condition of the Greek text 
 has been an evolution. We have what we have 
 today because of the incredible labors of reverent 
 scholars for many years. Ours is the heritage 
 of long ages of toil. We may speak briefly of 
 the three most ancient manuscripts, all of which 
 are in Greek. 
 
 The Alexandrine Manuscript. 
 
 In the British Museum there is a priceless 
 manuscript, the Alexandrine, the first of all the 
 great manuscripts which was critically studied 
 and applied to the correction of the text of 
 Scripture. It was presented to Charles I. of 
 England in 1628 by the patriarchs of Constanti- 
 nople, who brought it from Egypt when the 
 British Museum was established in 1753. It 
 was sent to this repository from the royal col- 
 lection and it may be seen there today, pre- 
 served in a glass case, no hand allowed to touch 
 
lO THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 it except in rare instances and for the purpose of 
 scholarly investigation. It is in four volumes. 
 As to the exact origin of the manuscript nothing 
 can be determined with positiveness, except that 
 it is Egyptian and probably Alexandrian. The 
 vellum upon which the writing is placed is well 
 preserved, though in many places age has crum- 
 bled the leaves. The letters of the text are large 
 and comparatively clear. There are no spaces 
 between the words, no accents or breathings, and 
 but few instances of punctuation or abbreviation. 
 This is the oldest manuscript with uncial, or 
 capital letters, which we have at first hand. 
 
 The Vatican Manuscript. 
 
 The second of these manuscripts is the Vatican 
 manuscript, which is in the Vatican library at 
 Rome. 
 
 That library is not as often visited as are the 
 rooms in the same vast structure crowded with 
 masterpieces of sculpture and painting, the col- 
 lection of sculpture unsurpassed. The number 
 and value of the manuscripts contained in this 
 library surpass those of any other collection in 
 the world. The most priceless treasure in the 
 library is the Codex Vaticanus, one of the earliest 
 and most valuable manuscripts of the Bible in 
 existence. It is closely guarded and is held be- 
 yond price. The first catalogue of the Vatican 
 library was issued in 1475, and this manuscript 
 appears in the catalogue of that date. The library 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE ii 
 
 was founded in 1448, hence the Vatican manu- 
 script may be fairly considered to have been one 
 of the original volumes of the collection. This, 
 the most valuable manuscript of the Bible, is, 
 and has been through the ages, in the possession 
 of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 Until recently it has been with the greatest 
 difficulty that scholars gained access to the Vati- 
 can manuscript. Pope Leo XIII., however, pur- 
 sued a more liberal policy than did some of his 
 predecessors, and a splendid facsimile edition 
 by prototype was made and may be seen in many 
 of the well-equipped libraries of Europe and 
 America. There are comparatively few of them 
 in America. It was my pleasure to see and to 
 handle one of these in the magnificent library 
 of the late James G. Batterson of Hartford, a 
 gift to him from Rome as a recognition of dis- 
 tinguished attainment and service. It may not 
 be generally known that Mr. Batterson, beside 
 being one of the eminent business men of New 
 England during his lifetime, was a noted Greek 
 scholar. The study of Greek was to him his 
 principal recreation, and the early morning hours 
 usually found him engrossed in his library. 
 
 Before this facsimile edition appeared, many 
 attempts had been made to study the precious 
 manuscript. The famous German scholar, to 
 whom we shall later refer, Dr. Tischendorf, tried 
 to get the use of the manuscript in his critical 
 work, in 1843, ^^^ was finally successful in gain- 
 
12 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 ing six hours with it. Twenty-three years later, 
 after he had discovered and pubHshed the Sinaitic 
 manuscript and hence was the most noted au- 
 thority on manuscripts in the world, he was at 
 last successful in having the use of the Vatican 
 manuscript in a private room off the library and 
 worked upon a transcription for forty-two hours. 
 In 1808 the papal dominions became tem- 
 porarily a part of the French Empire and 
 Napoleon I. caused many of the treasures of the 
 Roman museums and libraries to be carried to 
 Paris. Among them was this priceless manu- 
 script. There it might have been studied freely 
 had anybody known enough to do so. But com- 
 petent critics were not ready. When Napoleon 
 was overthrown at Waterloo in 181 5, the manu- 
 script, with many other treasures, was returned 
 to Rome. 
 
 The Sinaitic Manuscript. 
 
 The third of these priceless manuscripts is in 
 some respects the most noted of all, because of 
 the romantic manner in which it came into the 
 possession of the world of scholarship. It is 
 known as the Sinaitic manuscript and is now 
 in the National Library in St. Petersburg. It 
 has a romantic and singularly interesting story. 
 
 The discoverer of the Sinaitic manuscript was 
 Lobegott Friedrich Constantin Tischendorf, a 
 famous German scholar, to whom we owe a debt 
 that we can never pay. The name Lobegott, or 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 13 
 
 Praise God, was given to him by his mother, who 
 had a presentiment that her child would be born 
 blind. When he was found to have good eyes, her 
 thankful heart insisted that his name should com- 
 memorate the goodness of God. Those eyes be- 
 came the working tools of the first scholar of the 
 world in the determining of the text of Scripture. 
 
 For years Tischendorf gave his life to the 
 discovery and study of the ancient manuscripts 
 of the Bible, using the best resources of Europe 
 in his day and also traveling to the libraries 
 of the East. He explored the recesses of Greek, 
 Syrian and Armenian monasteries. He searched 
 through Alexandria and Cairo, but found noth- 
 ing to especially reward his eager search. Guided, 
 as it would seem, by the Spirit of the God of 
 truth, he set out on the hard journey through the 
 Sinaitic peninsula, on which stands Mount Sinai, 
 where the tables of the law were given to Moses. 
 Near the base of that mountain is the Convent 
 of St. Catherine, dating from the time of Jus- 
 tinian. Here through many centuries the brother- 
 hood of monks had devoted itself to worship and 
 quiet study and a rich library had grown up. 
 The monks, however, seemed strangely ignorant 
 of some of the manuscript treasures within their 
 walls. 
 
 Dr. Tischendorf arrived at St. Catherine's on 
 May 24, 1844. He was allowed free access to 
 the library, which was rich in manuscripts, but 
 for a time it seemed that his researches would be 
 
14 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 unrewarded by any discovery of special value. 
 At length his eye fell upon a large basketful of 
 old parchments, waiting to serve as kindling when 
 the next fire should be lighted. Two basketfuls 
 of similar fragments had already been employed 
 for that purpose. As Tischendorf turned over 
 the pieces he found that there were a number of 
 leaves of the Old Testament in Greek, which 
 bore evidence of being more ancient than any he 
 had ever seen. His quick exclamation and trem- 
 bling hands aroused the cupidity of the monks, 
 for they were led to suspect that these manu- 
 scripts had a value of which they had no knowl- 
 edge. Tischendorf was allowed to take a small 
 portion of the fragments, forty-three leaves, but 
 no persuasion of his could induce the monks to 
 part with the remainder, which only a few mo- 
 ments before they had been ready to burn. These 
 leaves were borne to Leipzig, and there deposited 
 in the University library. Tischendorf did not 
 tell where he had found the fragments, for he 
 had by no means given up hope of eventually 
 securing the remainder. By means of an in- 
 fluential friend at the court of Egypt he en- 
 deavored to procure the entire manuscript, so 
 far as it could be found, but without success. 
 His friend wrote : " The monks of the convent, 
 since your departure, have learned the value of 
 the parchments and will not part with them at 
 any price." Tischendorf paid another visit to 
 Mount Sinai in 1853 and was cordially welcomed, 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 15 
 
 but could not find the slightest trace of the 
 longed-for manuscript. 
 
 In 1859 he came to St. Catherine's, this time 
 with a formidable open sesame. The convent was 
 under the Greek Church; the Czar of Russia is 
 the head of that church. This time he came with 
 the imperial command to produce the manuscript. 
 The familiar rooms of the library were thrown 
 open to him. The custodian of the books showed 
 him every courtesy. Many invaluable manu- 
 scripts, some of which he had not seen in his 
 previous visits, were put into his hands, but no- 
 where was the one treasure he desired, and every 
 inquiry was met with sincere denials of its ex- 
 istence in the monastery. The German scholar 
 was forced to conclude that it had either been 
 destroyed or removed to some other library, and 
 he was about to take his departure. The very 
 evening before he was to leave he was walking 
 in the garden with the steward, and as they 
 returned the monk invited him into his cell to 
 take some refreshment. Scarcely had they en- 
 tered the cell, when, resuming his former con- 
 versation, the monk said, " I, too, have a copy of 
 that Septuagint." So saying, he took down a 
 bulky bundle wrapped in red cloth and laid it 
 on the table. The parcel was opened and 
 Tischendorf, to his amazement, found not only 
 the fragments that he had seen fifteen years be- 
 fore, but also other parts of the Old Testament, 
 the New Testament complete, and some of the 
 
l6 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 apocalyptic books. He asked, in a careless way, 
 for permission to look it over in his bedroom, 
 and there, he says, " I gave way to my transports 
 of joy. I knew that I held in my hand one of 
 the most precious biblical treasures in existence, 
 a document whose age and importance exceeded 
 that of any I had ever seen after twenty years' 
 study of the subject." 
 
 Through the Czar's influence and will he suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining the precious manuscript, 
 which now finds its home in the library of St. 
 Petersburg, the greatest treasure in the possession 
 of the Greek Church. 
 
 There are many other manuscripts of impor- 
 tance and usefulness, but none to compare with 
 the three of which we have spoken. Some of 
 the other manuscripts are Palimpsests, where 
 under the straggling writing are seen faint, faded 
 lines of old uncial letters. Parchment was very 
 expensive. For that reason scribes sometimes 
 used old parchments, which had been used be- 
 fore, and by careful scraping and erasing of the 
 old letters, the skin was made tolerably fit for 
 use again. In many cases the writing thus blotted 
 out was of much greater value than that which 
 replaced it. In process of time the action of 
 the atmosphere brought out the words of the 
 old text with more or less clearness, so that the 
 one parchment in many cases bears two texts, 
 the one written over the other, and both to be 
 deciphered with difficulty. 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 17 
 
 Among the best known manuscripts, apart 
 from the Alexandrine, the Vatican and the 
 Sinaitic, are the Codex Ephraem, in the royal 
 library at Paris, the Codex Bezae, in the library 
 of the University of Cambridge, the Rossanensis 
 manuscript, found in 1879 in Rossano, Italy, and 
 the Codex Purpureus, the bulk of which was 
 found in the monastery of St. John in the island 
 of Patmos in the ^gean Sea. 
 
 We now come to ancient versions in other 
 tongues than the Greek and Hebrew, upon only 
 one of which we can dwell at any length, though 
 the Syriac and Egyptian versions are eminently 
 worthy of extended attention. 
 
 The Vulgate of St. Jerome. 
 
 Of all the translations in tongues other than 
 the Greek and Hebrew, the most interesting is 
 the Vulgate, written in the Latin tongue, a ver- 
 sion which, as has already been said, is the source 
 of the Rhemish and Douay versions used in the 
 Roman Catholic Church of today. There were 
 already Latin Bibles in existence, and they con- 
 tained so many variations that the need of some 
 kind of revision began to be very keenly felt. 
 When the leaders of the Latin-speaking churches 
 were looking about for some one to do this work, 
 attention was called to one whose high repu- 
 tation pointed him out as the very man. Eusebius 
 Hieronymus, known to us as St. Jerome, was 
 a man of great resource, a most industrious and 
 
l8 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 energetic worker, an able and accomplished 
 scholar. He was an adept in all the learning of 
 the day. He had access to Hebrew manuscripts 
 probably centuries older than the time of our 
 Lord, and he produced the most valuable transla- 
 tion of the Bible that was ever made, up to 
 the issuing of the Authorized Version of Scrip- 
 ture. No other work has had such an influence 
 in the history of the Bible. 
 
 In a cave, called the Cave of St. Jerome, close 
 to the Sacred Grotto beneath the Church of the 
 Nativity in Bethlehem, St. Jerome spent thirty 
 years of his Hfe. His labors were finished and 
 the Vulgate appeared about the close of the fourth 
 century and was received with a storm of oppo- 
 sition. It was called revolutionary, heretical. It 
 was held to be an impious tampering with the 
 inspired Word of God. For centuries it was re- 
 jected and condemned, and everything which 
 ignorant bigotry could suggest was used to bring 
 it into disrepute. It was a sad story, but it does 
 not stand alone, for other brave men have worn 
 out their lives in great achievements and have 
 seen their work banned and proscribed to their 
 dying day. 
 
 But St. Jerome was to be vindicated at last. 
 At the time of the Council of Trent, when the 
 injured old scholar had been a thousand years 
 dead, men had grown attached to the Vulgate. 
 In fact, they seem almost to have forgotten that 
 it was only a translation. When errors were 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 19 
 
 pointed out, the idea of correcting them by means 
 of the old manuscripts in Greek and Hebrew was 
 quite resented. The Latin Vulgate received the 
 seal of the authority of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. It Was accepted as final and authentic, 
 and it was decreed that it was the standard ver- 
 sion to which appeal must be made in all matters 
 of controversy. Dean Milman says : " Jerome's 
 Bible is a wonderful work, still more as achieved 
 by one man, and that by a Western Christian, 
 even with all the advantages of study and resi- 
 dence in the East. It almost created a new 
 language. . . . The Vulgate was even more per- 
 haps than the papal power the foundation of 
 Latin Christianity. ... It was in his cell at 
 Bethlehem, meditating and completing the Vul- 
 gate, that Jerome fixed for centuries the domin- 
 ion of Christianity over the mind of man." 
 
 The Early Christian Fathers. 
 
 We now come to the question of quotations 
 from Scripture in the writings of the early 
 Christian fathers. The quantity of these writings 
 is very great, but they have been only imper- 
 fectly examined. In spite of the fact that the 
 Scripture quotations are often fragmentary and 
 sometimes made loosely from memory, they are 
 yet of great value in determining the text of 
 ancient Bibles, some of them going back to the 
 days of the original New Testament writings. 
 
 A most interesting table, which can be found 
 
30 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 in almost any of the standard works upon the 
 origins of Scripture, will show the temporal re- 
 lation between the best known of these pioneers 
 of the Christian Church. Among the most im- 
 portant of them for our purpose are Origen, 
 Irenseus and Polycarp. Among other notable 
 leaders of the Church in those early days were 
 Eusebius, living from about 260 to 339 a. d., in 
 whose writings we find direct allusions to or 
 quotations from every one of the books of the 
 New Testament, with the possible exception of 
 James, Second Peter, Second John, Third John 
 and Jude ; and Ignatius, who died before 150 a. d., 
 in whose writings we find allusions to or quo- 
 tations from Matthew, John, First Corinthians, 
 Ephesians, Philippians, First Thessalonians, and 
 Philemon. 
 
 Origen w^s a discriminating student and edi- 
 tor of the Septuagint, and his labors upon the 
 text of the New Testament were those of a great 
 scholar. His work was begun in Caesarea and 
 finished in Tyre. He undertook the enormous 
 labor of comparing the Greek text, then gen- 
 erally accepted, with the Hebrew and other Greek 
 translations, collecting for the purpose manu- 
 scripts from every known source. 
 
 Going back toward the time of Christ, we find 
 Irenaeus, who was Bishop of Lyons in Gaul. 
 His bishopric extended from the time of the 
 persecution under Marcus Aurelius, 177 a. d., to 
 his own martyrdom under Septimius Severus in 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 21 
 
 202 A. D. In his writings we find reference to 
 the four Gospels, the Acts, twelve of the letters 
 of Paul, First Peter, First and Second John, and 
 Revelation, which last he expressly ascribes to 
 John the beloved disciple. See how large a part 
 of the New! Testament is directly referred to in 
 the writings of one who died in the year 202. 
 It is exceedingly interesting to read his own ac- 
 count of his interview with Polycarp, of whom 
 he says, in a letter : " I can recall the very place 
 where the blessed Polycarp used to sit and teach, 
 his going out and his coming in, his mode of 
 life, his appearance, the style of his address to 
 the people, his familiar intercourse with St. John 
 and with the rest of those who had seen the Lord, 
 and how he remembered their sayings. What- 
 ever he had heard from them concerning our 
 Lord, His miracles and mode of teaching, Poly- 
 carp, being instructed by those who were eye- 
 witnesses of the Word, recounted in strict agree- 
 ment with the Scriptures." 
 
 And this Polycarp, who was so distinctly in 
 the personal memory of Irenseus, was a pupil of 
 the apostle John, whose life and writings form 
 a link between the apostolic days and the second 
 century. Polycarp, then an old, old man, was 
 put to death for his faith in the persecution under 
 Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. We are 
 told that the martyr laid aside his garments and 
 calmly took his place in the midst of the fagots 
 prepared for him. When they would have se- 
 
22 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 cured him with nails to the stake he said, " Let 
 me remain as I am, for He that hath enabled me 
 to brave the fire will so constrain me that with- 
 out fastening me with nails I shall unmoved en- 
 dure its fierceness." And so he passed away. 
 The cypress tree above his alleged tomb stands 
 lonely against the sky in Smyrna. In one letter 
 of Polycarp, and that a short one, there are forty 
 clear allusions to the books of the New Testa- 
 ment, some of the allusions exceedingly valuable 
 for critical purposes. Do not forget that he was 
 the contemporary of the apostle John. 
 
 The Bible of Wiclif. 
 
 Now, perforce, we must hasten to the close, 
 with a simple reference to English Versions, — 
 the Bible of Wiclif, the Bible of Tyndale, the 
 Authorized or St. James Version and the Re- 
 vision. 
 
 John WicHf lived from 1324 to 1384 A. d. In 
 the little English village of Lutterworth, a small 
 market town in the neighborhood of Leicester, 
 may be seen a simple village church. In that 
 church is the very pulpit from which Wiclif 
 preached. In the vestry is the old oak chair in 
 which, according to the tradition of the place, 
 he died. It wias a great life which closed in that 
 little English village, the life of a man whose 
 extraordinary abilities were fully acknowledged 
 during his Hfetime. Wiclif was not merely a 
 theologian, he was widely acquainted with the 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 23 
 
 science of his day. He was entirely familiar 
 w*ith everything which had been discovered up 
 to his time in mathematics, in chemistry, in natu- 
 ral history, beside his ample knowledge in his 
 own distinctive branches of scholarship. He 
 had all the learning and quickness of mind re- 
 quired for debate with the greatest scholars of 
 the day, and he did debate with them, as they 
 knew to their cost. He contributed more than 
 any other man to the great Reformation in the 
 Church of England, and its severance from the 
 Church of Rome a century and a half later. 
 Macaulay calls Wiclif the first, and perhaps the 
 greatest, of the reformers. 
 
 During the latter years of Wiclifs life he 
 accomplished his greatest work, the translation 
 of the Bible into the English tongue. There 
 had been partial translations of Scripture from 
 the Latin into the English. The Gospel of John 
 was translated into the Anglo-Saxon by the Ven- 
 erable Bede in the eighth century. The great 
 King Alfred at the time of his death was per- 
 sonally engaged in translating a portion of the 
 Bible. There were two rough translations of the 
 Gospels and of the Psalms. But John Wiclif 
 was the first to translate the whole Latin Bible 
 into English prose, and to put it, without note 
 or comment, into the hands of his countrymen. 
 What he said regarding the placing of the Bible 
 in the hands of the people might be said by any 
 man of today, so far ahead of his times he was : 
 
24 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 " The faith of the church is contained in the 
 Scriptures. The more these are known, then, 
 the better, and as assuredly as men should under- 
 stand the faith that they profess, that faith should 
 be taught in whatever language may be best 
 known to them." 
 
 As a mere translation, Wiclif's Bible is of only 
 secondary value, for it is taken from the Latin, 
 not from the original languages of Scripture. 
 It is a translation of the Vulgate. The worth 
 of Wiclif's version lies in its English. It fixed 
 the language. It became a ground of literature. 
 No other book could have been that, for the Book 
 alone came to the people with supreme authority. 
 
 This man first opened the Bible to our English 
 fathers. Our Christian institutions and literature 
 of today are saturated with the imperishable re- 
 sults of his toil. As some one has nobly said, 
 " It went wherever there should be English homes, 
 to brighten and bless them ; wherever there should 
 be English toil, to sanctify it; wherever there 
 should be English graves, to tell of the resurrec- 
 tion and the life. In one final word, Wiclif's 
 translation of the Bible was, for the English- 
 speaking race around the world, the second resur- 
 rection. The day of its completion was the 
 Easter Day of the English language." 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 25 
 
 The Bible of Tyndale. 
 
 One hundred and fifty years passed since John 
 Wiclif had given to the EngHsh people the Bible 
 in their own language. Wiclif's work was done 
 a century before William Caxton had set up his 
 rude printing press, and the printing press had 
 created a new era in the realm of letters. It 
 remained for William Tyndale to do his work 
 in the giving of the Bible to the people, not only 
 in the English language, but in printed form. 
 
 Tyndale was the contemporary of Luther, 
 Zwingli and Erasmus. He was trained in Ox- 
 ford and in Cambridge, a man of wide and deep 
 learning. It is evident that his thinking was 
 much influenced by the writings of Erasmus, 
 with whose praise all Europe was then ringing 
 and who was in high favor with those of most 
 exalted rank in England. But Tyndale thought 
 for himself. He was no parrot. We must not 
 stop upon the story of his life, fascinating as 
 would be the narration. Suffice it to say that 
 there came a time when, in debate with a certain 
 learned man, Tyndale said, "If God spare my 
 life, ere many years I will cause a boy that 
 driveth a plow to know more of the Scriptures 
 than thou dost." His purpose became fixed to 
 translate the New Testament into the English 
 language from the original Greek, not from the 
 Latin Vulgate as Wiclif had done. He soon 
 found that there was no room in London to 
 translate the New Testament, and also that there 
 
26 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 was no safe place to do it in all England. So in 
 1524 he sailed to Hamburg, never again to set 
 foot on his native land. The air was freer in 
 Germany, the Reformation had made much more 
 progress there. In the following year we find 
 him in Cologne, with the sheets of the New 
 Testament in the printer's hands. 
 
 Against fierce opposition and with many trials, 
 the book began to circulate in England. It had 
 a hard struggle against the authority of the law, 
 the condemnation of the church, and the wicked- 
 ness and bigotry of the times. In spite of all 
 opposition, however, the book was smuggled 
 into the realm and found its way to the people, 
 and it was everywhere being talked about and 
 read. 
 
 Tyndale himself did not see the day of the 
 triumph of his work. He was treacherously ar- 
 rested in Antwerp and was hurried to prison. 
 For over a year and six months he was in con- 
 finement, ** sitting cold and dark and solitary 
 in the damp cells of Vilvorde during the long 
 cheerless nights of winter, and earnestly pleading 
 for the favor of a light and warm clothing, and, 
 above all, of books to comfort him," like the 
 great Apostle of the Gentiles in the Mamertine 
 dungeon. On October 6, 1536, the martyrdom 
 was accomplished. He was strangled to death 
 and his body was burned by the side of the castle. 
 His work was done, and his service in the trans- 
 mission of the English Bible, first to those of his 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 27 
 
 own age and eventually to us of a later day, is 
 beyond all computation. 
 
 The St. James or Authorized Version. 
 
 This year there is being celebrated the three 
 hundredth anniversary of the issue of the St. 
 James Version, or Authorized Version, of the 
 Scriptures. King James I. of England found 
 that he could not prevent the incoming of the 
 Bible, and hence he was shrewd enough to de- 
 cide to stamp that Bible with his own coat-of- 
 arms. Fifty-four learned men were selected from 
 High Churchmen and Puritans, as well as from 
 those who represented a scholarship unattached 
 to any ecclesiastical party. The king also sought 
 to secure the cooperation of every biblical scholar 
 of note in the kingdom, "such learned men as, 
 having especial skill in the Hebrew and Greek 
 tongues, have taken pains in their private studies 
 of the Scriptures for the clearing of any obscuri- 
 ties either in the Hebrew or the Greek, or touch- 
 ing any difficulties or mistakings m the former 
 EngHsh translations." The revisers were divided 
 into six companies, each of which took its own 
 portion as its field of labor. The Greek and 
 Hebrew were carefully studied. Bibles in Span- 
 ish, Italian, French, and German were examined 
 for any aid which they might give. The best 
 commentaries of European scholars were con- 
 sulted, and the effort was made to express the 
 text in clear, vigorous English. After four years 
 
28 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 of work, in 1611 the translation was published, 
 and henceforth the Bible was available to the 
 people as were other books. 
 
 Dr. Newell Dwight HilHs has well said : " The 
 year 161 1 was a great year for old England. In 
 that year Shakespeare wrote two of his greatest 
 plays. In that year Bacon wrote the first draft 
 of his greatest book, the * Advancement of Learn- 
 ing.' In that year imperial Spain, hitherto count- 
 ing herself the only first-class nation, recognized 
 little England as her equal on land and sea. 
 In that year William Brewster took the second 
 half of the Pilgrim Fathers from Scrooby across 
 to Leyden, preparatory to the great voyage, when 
 the architects of the new states, tossing on the 
 Mayflower, were to sign that compact that was 
 to be the seed corn of our Constitution. But the 
 world now knows that the greatest event for Eng- 
 land in 161 1 was the translation of the Bible into 
 the language of the common people. From that 
 hour they searched the Scriptures, and found 
 eternal life therein, and also found the springs 
 of law, liberty, and progress." 
 
 The Revised Version. 
 
 We now come, in conclusion, to a brief refer- 
 ence to our modern Revised Version of the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 Westminster Abbey, in London, is justly re- 
 garded by England as her national Temple of 
 Fame. Burial within its walls is considered the 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 29 
 
 last and greatest honor which the nation can be- 
 stow on the most deserving of her sons and 
 daughters. Through the aisles of this national 
 mausoleum flows the majestic stream of English 
 history. Adjoining the little court of the deanery 
 at the south of the Abbey is the entrance to the 
 Jerusalem Chamber, where in days long gone the 
 first of the Lancastrian kings of England breathed 
 out his weary life. In that room was drawn up 
 the Westminster Confession. In that room, in 
 June of 1870, met the picked scholars of all 
 Britain, gathered for the revision of the Author- 
 ized Version of the Scriptures. At the center of 
 the long table sat the chairman, Bishop Ellicott, 
 and around him the flower of English scholar- 
 ship. There were Alford and Stanley, and Light- 
 foot, Westcott and Hort, Scrivener and Eadie, 
 and the venerable Archbishop of Dublin. Differ- 
 ent religious communions were represented, vary- 
 ing schools of thought. Methodist and Baptist 
 and Presbyterian and Anglican sat side by side 
 in that selected company, as if to guard against 
 even an unconscious bias toward any set of theo- 
 logical views. Across the Atlantic a similarly 
 constructed company was cooperating with this, 
 to criticise their work and to suggest emenda- 
 tions. Nearly one hundred of the ripest scholars 
 of England and America were connected with 
 the Revision. For more than fifteen hundred 
 years scholars had been toiling in many lands 
 over the masses of biblical lore, and the results 
 
30 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 of those toils appeared in the clear and carefully 
 prepared sheets which lay upon the table before 
 the revisers. The scholarship of the ages was 
 brought to bear upon the Book of books. 
 
 So the work went on, month after month, until 
 more than ten years had passed, and some of the 
 most distinguished of those who met on that first 
 day in 1870 to begin the work were numbered 
 among the company of the redeemed in heaven. 
 In the evening of November 11, 1880, there was 
 an assembly for special prayer and thanksgiving 
 in the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields — 
 thanksgiving for the happy completion of the 
 labor upon the New Testament, and prayer that 
 God might use it for the good of men and for 
 the honor of His holy name. Four years after- 
 ward the company revising the Old Testament 
 finished its work, and on May 5, 1885, the com- 
 plete Revised Bible was in the hands of the 
 people. 
 
 The Revised Version therefore is the result of 
 the use of all the authorities, of all the results of 
 the best thinking of the ages, together with the 
 utilization of manuscripts, some of which have 
 been discovered within very recent years. No 
 previous revision has ever had such an advantage. 
 Upon no previous revision have such scholars 
 been engaged. In no previous revision have those 
 who took the lead shown so large a measure of 
 fellowship with those outside their own com- 
 munion. In no previous revision have such 
 
HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 31 
 
 effective precautions been taken against accidental 
 oversight or lurking bias. The Revision, both 
 English and American editions, may be fairly 
 said to possess pre-eminent claims upon the confi- 
 dence of all devout thinkers and readers of the 
 Scriptures. Beyond all other versions, it brings 
 us close to the meaning of the original form in 
 which the written Scriptures were given to 
 mankind. 
 
 The Conclusion of the Matter. 
 
 So we have, though closely limited by the 
 necessities of time and space, discussed the 
 origins of the Bible as we have it today. Surely 
 it is the Book of books. For eighteen hundred 
 years it has stood. Rome has gone down in ruin, 
 the empires of Charlemagne and Napoleon have 
 flourished and gone into decay, England, Ger- 
 many and America have taken their places among 
 the great nations of the earth, wars civil and 
 religious have raged, the earth has been deluged 
 in blood, but through the ages the Bible has stood, 
 and stands, not a book missing or seriously muti- 
 lated, the mightiest power upon earth. " For 
 some reason which never fails to move me with 
 awe, God has been pleased in all these years to 
 communicate most largely His impulse and His 
 irresistible energy through these vital pages." 
 We must not fail to realize the significance of 
 the well-known lines - — 
 
32 THE BIBLE IN THE WORD TODAY 
 
 "Last eve I paused beside a blacksmith's door, 
 And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime; 
 Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor 
 Old hammers worn with beating years of time. 
 
 'How many anvils have you had?' said I, 
 *To wear and batter all these hammers so?' 
 'Just one,' said he; then said, with twinkling eye, 
 'The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.' 
 
 And so, I thought, the anvil of God's Word, 
 For ages sceptic blows have beat upon; 
 Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard, 
 The anvil is unharmed — the hammers gone." 
 
II 
 
 JCiie J&iblt anb tfje ^Ttuentietti Centurp 
 
 T. HARWOOD PATTISON 
 
 We must first pause to pay our tribute of 
 reverence and admiration to the last century. 
 As a Bible era, one of the critical points in the 
 progress of our Bible, it is not too much to 
 say that the nineteenth century is worthy to 
 take its place beside the great century in which 
 Jerome gave us the Vulgate; or that in which 
 Tyndale translated the Bible into the tongue so 
 dear to the majority of my readers; or that in 
 which the version which bears the name of King 
 James saw the light. If with the passing of the 
 dark ages " Greece rose from the grave with the 
 New Testament in her hand," with equal truth 
 may it be said that the nineteenth century rose 
 from the grave of the eighteenth with the Bible 
 for the whole world in hers. 
 
 Two Memorable Rooms. 
 
 There are two rooms in London which seem 
 to me to be forever memorable in the history of 
 the Bible. The first may still be found on the 
 edge of the river Thames, in the busiest part 
 
34 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 of the city. Here, a hundred years ago, were 
 the offices of Joseph Hardcastle, one of the mer- 
 chant princes of London, endued with such en- 
 tire devotion to the spread of the gospel that he 
 welcomed men like-minded with himself when 
 they came to consult on matters of the highest 
 moment to the advance of the Kingdom of God. 
 In his private office were held the early com- 
 mittee meetings of the London Missionary So- 
 ciety and the Religious Tract Society; and here 
 was born the British and Foreign Bible Society. 
 
 " I scarcely ever pass over London Bridge," 
 one of Joseph Hardcastle's colleagues wrote, 
 '* without glancing my eye toward those highly 
 favored rooms, feeling a glow of pleasure at the 
 recollection that there many societies formed their 
 plans of Christian benevolence. Those rooms in 
 my judgment are second to none but that in which 
 the disciples met after their Master's ascension, 
 and from which they went forth to enlighten and 
 to bless a dark and guilty world." 
 
 The nineteenth century caught the mission of 
 the first. Pentecost in Jerusalem heard the won- 
 derful works of God divinely recounted through 
 the miraculous gift of tongues to the multitudes 
 from many lands gathered about the apostles. 
 By England and America supremely has this 
 honor been assumed in the age in which we live. 
 Every man the world over is to hear in his own 
 language the news of God's unspeakable gift. 
 
 In the great work of Bible translation, all the 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 35 
 
 leading churches of Protestant Christendom have 
 played a part. And this work is emphatically 
 the work of the nineteenth century. Up to the 
 year 1800 there were only sixty-six languages 
 and dialects, so far as we know, into which any 
 portion of the Scriptures had been translated. 
 But by i860 the number had risen to two hun- 
 dred and twenty. By 1890 it had touched three 
 hundred and thirty-one, and we cross the thresh- 
 old of the new century with some four hundred 
 and fifty-one versions, while every year this num- 
 ber is increased. Berthold, archbishop of May- 
 ence, in 1468 forbade the circulation of religious 
 works in the vernacular, on the ground that the 
 German language was incapable of expressing 
 the deep truths of religion. Today the whole 
 wide world, whether savage or civilized, laughs 
 that embargo to scorn. Our religion has not yet 
 failed through any mother tongue to win its way 
 to the common human heart. 
 
 The second memorable London room to which 
 I call your attention, is better known than Joseph 
 Hardcastle's dingy office. It is the Jerusalem 
 Chamber, in the Deanery of Westminster, which 
 will forever be associated with the Revised Ver- 
 sion of the Bible, the achievement of the nine- 
 teenth century in its closing years. In the whole 
 history of the English Bible the public interest 
 in this version remains without any parallel. 
 
 " When the Revised Version of the English 
 New Testament appeared in 1881, orders for a 
 
36 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 million copies were received before publication 
 by the Oxford Press alone, and perhaps an equal 
 number was ordered from the Cambridge Press. 
 The sale of the Revised Testament opened in the 
 United States on May 20 amid scenes absolutely 
 unparalleled in the book trade since the begin- 
 ning of the world. It is said that thirty-three 
 thousand copies were sold on that day in New 
 York. They were hawked about the streets by 
 newsboys and fakirs, and sold even under the 
 shadow of the Stock Exchange. Two Chicago 
 papers, the Tribune and the Times, had a large 
 part of the New Testament telegraphed from 
 New York and sent it to their readers complete 
 within two days of publication. The Tribune em- 
 ployed for the purpose ninety-two compositors 
 and five correctors, and the whole was completed 
 in twelve hours. The Times had the four Gos- 
 pels, the Acts, and the Epistle to the Romans 
 telegraphed, and set up the remainder from a copy 
 that was forwarded by rail. The portion tele- 
 graphed contains about one hundred and eighty 
 thousand words and constitutes the longest dis- 
 patch ever sent over the wires. A large number 
 of papers followed the example of these in Chi- 
 cago and sent the New Testament to their readers 
 as a supplement to their regular issues. Besides 
 this extensive newspaper circulation, there were 
 as many as thirty editions issued in America be- 
 fore the close of the year. Who, in the light 
 of these facts, can doubt the pre-eminence of the 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 37 
 
 Bible among all books? Of no other could such 
 things be possible." ^ 
 
 That the final revision of the Bible has now 
 seen the light, no one with any understanding 
 of the times supposes. The immense influence 
 which the Authorized Version has exercised for 
 nearly three hundred years has not been checked 
 by its younger rival. The demand for it is 
 greater than it ever was. One great service, in- 
 deed, which the Revised Version has rendered to 
 our Christian faith is to demonstrate that the 
 Bible, so far from fearing, welcomes examination, 
 and demands that the acutest and soundest schol- 
 arship of each age should be devoted to its pages. 
 At the same time, the learning gathered about 
 the table in the Jerusalem Chamber, in its turn, 
 testifies that to be engaged in the study of the 
 old version is to admire more and more " its 
 simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns 
 of expression, its general accuracy, and the music 
 of its cadences, and the felicity of its rhythm." 
 The growing circulation of the Revised Version, 
 alike in its British and American form, has only 
 gone to swell, as by some great tributary, the 
 parent river, moving on in its majestic course 
 through all the English-speaking peoples of the 
 world. Assuredly the nineteenth century places 
 the English Bible in the hands of the twentieth 
 a worthier transcript of the revelation of God to 
 man than it has ever been before. 
 
 * Professor Perry, of Hartford Theological Seminary. 
 
38 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 Forces to be Encountered. 
 
 I turn now to consider some of the forces 
 which our Bible will certainly have to encounter 
 in this present century. As I do so, I am im- 
 pressed at once with the altered feeling in refer- 
 ence to the book throughout the intelligent world. 
 The very tone of opposition has changed for the 
 better. In the eighteenth century it could with 
 truth be said of Voltaire that, 
 
 The Scripture was his jest book, whence he drew 
 Bomnots to gall the Christian and the Jew. 
 
 The spirit of contemptuous scorn breaks into a 
 coarser temper in Thomas Paine, a few years 
 later, when he concludes the first part of his 
 " Age of Reason " by saying: " I have now gone 
 through the Bible, as a man would go through a 
 wood with an axe, and felled trees. Here they 
 lie, and the priests may replant them, but they 
 will never make them grow." For the present, 
 at least, we seem to have seen the last of the 
 men who, whether for love of gain or to catch a 
 transient notoriety, will treat the Bible as an 
 object of ridicule or a target for invective. The 
 world of life and the world of letters have ceased 
 to respect antagonists of this order. Probably 
 the Bible never stood so high in the estimation 
 of the human intellect, never so high in the love 
 of the human heart, as it does at this moment. 
 But it must look to be measured against the 
 forces which hold the field as our century opens. 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 39 
 
 From that ordeal, how may we anticipate that 
 it will emerge ? By considering what these forces 
 are we shall best answer this question. 
 
 A Quickened Intellectual Life. 
 
 I. Let me name as first among the charac- 
 teristics of the twentieth century a quickened 
 intellectual life. 
 
 The form in which this message from God 
 reaches us is of great moment. Here you see 
 a printed book. It does not change with the 
 passing years. It is not at the mercy of speech 
 as is the sermon of the preacher. It does not 
 shift its ground as does public opinion. Every 
 advance, therefore, in recovering a pure Bible 
 is a return to rock truth, to the clearer under- 
 standing of the mind of God Himself. As a 
 printed book, the Bible has always led the field. 
 Even up to 1490, it had exceeded in the amount 
 of printing all other books put together. A thou- 
 sand editions of the Bible, in whole or in part, 
 were issued in the first half-century of the his- 
 tory of printing. From that time onward the 
 Bible has continued to be the best-known book 
 in the world. That which is best known is there- 
 fore best guarded. The printed page has taken 
 the place of the manuscript parchment. Errors 
 which were formerly inevitable in transmission 
 are now practically impossible. The book is fitter 
 than it has ever been to submit itself to the ex- 
 amination of the age to which it comes. 
 
40 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 An Age of Careful Criticism. 
 
 a. Our age is an age trained to careful criti- 
 cism. No treatment of our subject would be 
 adequate and fair which did not do justice to the 
 immense service that the criticism of the present 
 time in this country, in Great Britain, in Ger- 
 m,any, is rendering to the textual study of the 
 Bible. 
 
 " In the monumental works on biblical grammar 
 and lexicography and the great concordances 
 to the Old and New Testaments produced dur- 
 ing the nineteenth century, we have enduring 
 bulwarks, impregnable so long as men have skill 
 to employ them against the inroads of arbitrary 
 interpretation. They are the firmest guarantee 
 that the Protestant standard of faith and practice 
 will not be turned into a laughing-stock under 
 the gibe, Scripture means whatever the individual 
 interpreter wants it to. Our highest tributes of 
 honor will be none too high for the men who have 
 forever silenced this jeer by disposing of the 
 arbitrary interpreter and restoring to the Scrip- 
 ture writers the right to mean what they say, 
 whether in agreement with modern theological 
 views or not." ^ 
 
 The critic, no doubt, as any other man, has 
 his limitations, and, as any other man, he does 
 not always respect them. Still, as ever, must it 
 be true that it is with the message itself and not 
 with the form in which it comes to us that we 
 
 ^ Professor Bacon, of Yale University. 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 41 
 
 are supremely interested. But we cannot be too 
 thankful that the criticism of today is so deeply 
 occupied with that form. That it is increasingly 
 so with every advance in the science of language 
 is surely an augury for good. Only we must 
 insist that while grammar is to be the basis of 
 much of our work on the Bible, it can never be 
 more than the means to an end, the channel of 
 the marbde aqueduct through which flows to 
 parched lips the water of life. John Ruskin 
 complained to his friend Professor Knight that 
 people are eager to '* prove all things," but not 
 so eager to '' hold fast to that which is good." 
 To fail here, however, is to fail altogether. It 
 is to grasp the dictionary, but lose a literature. 
 It is to spend our lives over the letter, and miss 
 entirely the spirit. 
 
 An Age of Literary Culture. 
 
 h. Our age is an age of increasing literary 
 culture. As to the quality of that culture I am 
 not saying anything. All that I need to do is 
 to note the fact. It is calculated that on litera- 
 ture and education the churches of America alone 
 expend more than thirty-two million dollars 
 yearly. Such a widespread desire for mental im- 
 provement certainly never distinguished any pre- 
 vious century. To me this is one sign, and per- 
 haps the easiest on which to fasten, of literary 
 quickening. Unless this quickening should change 
 in its character, the Bible will be a prime element 
 
42 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY ^ 
 
 in its affluent life. Of the Bible the world over 
 it is true, '' The entrance of thy word giveth 
 
 light." 
 
 At fifty years of age Professor Huxley took 
 up Greek, as his son believes, that he might learn 
 to read the New Testament in the original. The 
 study of the English Bible as literature has been 
 called a discovery of our own time. Certainly 
 it is a necessary consequence of the discoveries, 
 the scholarship, and the general literary interest 
 of the century. The Bible is the staple of any 
 intelligent investigation into the roots of our 
 language. This the latest abridgment of the 
 " International Dictionary " recognizes by re- 
 taining all the words in the King James version 
 and in Shakespeare, even though they may have 
 become rare and perhaps obsolete in our daily 
 speech. Ruskin has left us a list, made out by 
 his mother, of the chapters in the Bible which 
 she thought to be best suited for his special 
 training, and he counts the impress which these 
 chapters made on his taste in literature as " the 
 most precious and on the whole the one essential 
 part of his education." " The music of the Eng- 
 hsh Bible," writes Cardinal Manning, looking 
 back half-mournfuUy to his early life as an 
 English clergyman, " became a part of my 
 soul." 
 
 Whether or not we use the English Bible in 
 our public schools, the words of Frederic Harri- 
 son must remain true : '' The English Bible is 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 43 
 
 the true school of EngHsh Hterature. It pos- 
 sesses every quaUty of our language in its highest 
 form. The book which begot English prose still 
 remains its supreme type." Not less emphatic 
 is the judgment of James Anthony Froude: 
 " The Bible, thoroughly known, is a litera- 
 ture of itself — the rarest and richest in all 
 departments of thought and imagination which 
 exists." 
 
 Literature, more perhaps than science or than 
 art, has its fashions; but already the Bible has 
 survived so many of these that it is in no danger 
 of going out of fashion at the bidding of any 
 passing literary caprice. No other body of litera- 
 ture so certainly appeals to every variety of in- 
 tellectual taste. No other body of literature has 
 such infinite variety in itself. As no previous 
 age the age in which we live is learning to prize 
 the Bible as literature. 
 
 Nor is it possible to separate the literary beauty 
 of the Bible from its spiritual contents. In all 
 ages God has been pleased to select men for the 
 work of translation who were equipped not alone 
 with a strong faith but also with the intellectual 
 culture which could make that faith doubly effec- 
 tive. Tennyson's mother tells him how fervently 
 she has prayed '' that the Holy Spirit may urge 
 him to employ his talents to impress on the minds 
 of others the precepts of God's Holy Word." 
 Who shall say that " In Memoriam " is not one 
 answer to these prayers? The literary excellence 
 
44 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 of this Bible is a weapon which the Holy Spirit 
 has used in all ages. It is no solitary experience 
 that Tatian relates in the second century. Coming 
 to Rome a seeker after truth, weary of philosophy 
 and sick of the religious systems of his times, 
 he came across " certain barbarous writings older 
 than the doctrines of the Greeks, and far too 
 divine to be marked by their errors." ^ These 
 " barbarous writings " — books of the Old Testa- 
 ment and the lives of the early Christians — 
 joined to win Tatian over to the faith of Christ, 
 of which he was henceforth the champion and 
 apologist. 
 
 A Teaching Age. 
 
 c. This age, with its quickened intellectual 
 life, is certain to be an age memorable in the 
 history of education. It will be a teaching age. 
 Perhaps while the preacher will lose none of his 
 power as a herald, he may come to train himself 
 in this new and necessary art. He must also 
 teach. To this the missionary gives himself 
 " when he translates the Bible, when he instructs 
 the converts in the first essentials of Christianity, 
 when he lays the foundations for Christian insti- 
 tutions, when he trains a native ministry, when 
 he educates the young, and when he fosters gen- 
 eral education of the most useful kind." ^ The 
 
 ^ Canon Edmonds, The Translation and Distribution of 
 the Bible, p. 8. 
 
 2 Dr. W. N. Clarke, A Study of Christian Missions. 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 45 
 
 Bible needs to be expounded as well as preached 
 from. It is not so much a repository of texts 
 as it is a treasury of truths. This was one char- 
 acteristic of the Reformation. Not only was the 
 Bible a herald, it was also a teacher. If w*ith 
 Luther it insisted, with Colet it explained. His 
 method of so dealing with the Scriptures as to 
 make them living books to the men of his times, 
 bringing out the richness and fullness of the 
 teaching that stimulated the spiritual life of his 
 hearers in Oxford, may well bid our preachers 
 to go and do likewise. It is this same Book which 
 was the constant study of Count Tolstoy, who 
 declared that " without the Bible in our society 
 the development of the child or of the man would 
 be as impossible as it would have been in Greek 
 society without Homer." 
 
 An Age of Research. 
 
 d. Pre-eminently it is likely that our age will 
 be one of research. Perhaps this will distinguish 
 it even more than criticism. The historic value 
 of the Bible is to be tested in the light of our 
 increasing knowledge of the past. Travel will 
 open up buried records. The dust heaps and 
 mounds of extinct civilizations will reveal their 
 hidden treasures. From their deciphered in- 
 scriptions the rocks will speak. At the bidding 
 of the explorer the Orient will rise and unveil 
 her face, and open her long-sealed lips. The 
 Bible as an Oriental book of the first importance 
 
46 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 is to take on a fresh interest, as round about it 
 quickens this wonderful renaissance. As the 
 book of origins its records will be a thousand 
 times more significant to us and to our children 
 than they were when Tyndale languished in Vil- 
 vorde Castle, or even when the revisers sat in the 
 Jerusalem Chamber. 
 
 Equally, the study of comparative religions is 
 going to set this Bible in vivid contrast with other 
 sacred books. We shall prize the sanity of its 
 records none the less because we are brought into 
 closer touch with men who in other parts of the 
 world than among the hills and valleys of Pales- 
 tine felt after God that so they might find Him. 
 
 Out of all this will come the survival of the 
 fittest not alone in all the so-called sacred books, 
 but emphatically in this, the one truly sacred 
 Book which is not for an age but for all 
 time. 
 
 The Bible will survive unfair critics. It will 
 achieve a still harder task — it will survive un- 
 wise friends. Time was when its great words 
 were wrested in order to buttress the claims of 
 the Church and the pretensions of the clergy. 
 This day may never come again. Nor is it likely 
 that the befogged mind of those devotees of the 
 letter that killeth, whose zeal so easily outstrips 
 their knowledge, will ever again bring intelligent 
 men to believe that a more accurate comprehen- 
 sion of the way in which this Book came about 
 will deprive it of its sanctity or divest it of its 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 47 
 
 authority. It will come to be seen with greater 
 clearness as time passes " that the contents of the 
 Book are more valuable than the vessel which 
 holds them," and that the Book itself " transcends 
 in importance and value the various speculations 
 of men about them, the interpretations which 
 different ages have given them, and all recon- 
 struction of the truth in theological systems and 
 formulas and creeds." ^ 
 
 Some things which the early years of the nine- 
 teenth century believed about the Bible the twen- 
 tieth century may be unable to hold. Commen- 
 taries prized by our fathers will doubtless lose 
 their value in the estimation of their children. 
 Theological definitions will still change with 
 changes in the thought of the age as they always 
 have ; and what seemed the kernel to one gener- 
 ation will seem only the husk to the generation 
 which follows it.^ But it is impossible to regard 
 with any apprehension the breath of free and 
 candid opinion, provided only that it is not suf- 
 fered to stagnate into a spirit of unreasonable 
 dogma that shuts out any fresh springtide of new 
 thought. Our Lord Himself, while speaking with 
 the highest authority, constantly challenges the 
 consent of the candid mind. " Every one that 
 is of the truth heareth my voice." 
 
 1 Dr. Gilman, The Nineteenth Century to the Twenti- 
 eth, p. 17. 
 
 2 Cf. Spence, Back to Christ, p. 30. 
 
48 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 The Influence of the Bible upon National Life. 
 
 2. How, let us now ask, in the face of great 
 political changes, will the Bible influence national 
 Hfe? 
 
 a. When the nineteenth century dawned the 
 map of Europe was being remodeled. When the 
 twentieth century dawned the remodeling process 
 was being applied to the map of the world. It 
 is no longer the boundaries of France or Prussia 
 or Austria that are under discussion. It is the 
 expansion of these United States. It is the 
 British control of Africa. It is the eastward trend 
 of Russia. It is the very existence of China. 
 Almost it seems as though the westward march 
 of empire had completed its circuit, and were 
 now! doubling back on the Orient itself. In the 
 face of these facts this book, so distinctly Oriental 
 in its setting, cannot be regarded with indifference. 
 That it has so largely influenced the world when 
 the hemispheres were parted the one from the 
 other, leads us to anticipate that with these closer 
 relations the influence will be still more marked. 
 
 Certainly the Bible has survived the empires 
 with which its early fortunes were bound up. 
 Genesis lives, although Ur of the Chaldees is 
 a region for conjecture only. The idyl of Ruth 
 charms, although Moab be forgotten ; the Psalms 
 of David make music for the world, although the 
 slopes of Bethlehem are now heroic only in their 
 memories. The Acts of the Apostles is today the 
 most attractive itinerary of Asia Minor; Miletus 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 49 
 
 has a name to live solely because there Paul, 
 with tender, touching words, bade farewell to 
 the elders of Ephesus ; it is to tread in the foot- 
 prints of Him who spake as never man spake that 
 the traveler walks the shores of Gennesaret ; 
 Athens today holds no spot of wider interest than 
 Mars' Hill; and the great dome of St. Peter's 
 perpetuates the name of the obscure fisherman 
 whom heathen Rome put to death, and catches 
 the eye of the tourist long before he detects the 
 hill of the Capitol or the palaces of the Caesars. 
 And with all these names the Bible is closely 
 identified. 
 
 h. The twentieth century finds much of the 
 civilized world absorbed in the expansion rather 
 than in the preservation of its territory. 
 
 The policy of expansion is not here to be dis- 
 cussed, but what is certain is that the territories 
 henceforth to be so largely controlled by the 
 United States must look to us for the Bible. 
 The quickening of national life may outstrip the 
 work of evangelization, but this book will often 
 find its wTay where no preacher can gain a hear- 
 ing. And here, at home, as the whole world 
 sends to our shores representatives of its vast 
 and varied nationalities, we are bound to pro- 
 vide for them the Word of life. The tongues 
 which are talked in San Francisco, in Chicago, 
 in New York, leave the many languages of Pente- 
 cost far behind ; but into them all the same appeal 
 has to be rendered : " Repent and be baptized 
 
50 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 every one of you for the remission of sins, and 
 ye shall receive the Holy Ghost." 
 
 c. Notice, as you look around in the first flush 
 of the century, that the dominant races are all of 
 them, in name if not in spirit, Christian. As the 
 shackles of superstition fell off from the limbs 
 of enfranchised Europe with the breaking up of 
 the Dark Ages, it was the Bible which proved 
 itself the Book of the people, molding the best 
 life of the Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon races. 
 
 More and more we are learning that the form 
 which our religion takes on in any country must 
 harmonize with that country's habits and cus- 
 toms. These are not essential, but " wherever 
 Christ and His gospel are taught the husk of 
 form may change, but the core of eternal truth 
 will remain. It is with that core of truth divine, 
 immortal, of instant and everlasting moment, that 
 the gospel is concerned." ^ 
 
 d. In the inevitable growth of culture and 
 civilization which will come with this enlarged 
 national life the Bible will play its part. It will 
 continue to raise the standard of popular morality, 
 to work for that universal suffrage of schooling 
 which is far more important than any other uni- 
 versal suffrage. Still, it will furnish for litera- 
 ture its noblest themes, and for art its most in- 
 spiring subjects. Still, as from the days of Moses, 
 it will impregnate law with its lofty spirit of 
 humanity. When the nineteenth century began 
 
 * Contemporary Review, Dec. 1900, p. 876. 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 51 
 
 a Bible could not be found in Calcutta; and in 
 Madras, at the opening of a court-martial, as 
 the nearest approach to it, a scrap of an Episcopal 
 Prayer Book was used with which to swear in a 
 witness.^ It was not the British official but the 
 Christian citizen who revolutionized India for 
 Christ, and made the Bible one of its household 
 possessions. Today, in Africa, the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society has established a depot for 
 the sale of the Scriptures in Omdurman, where 
 General Gordon was massacred ; and the repre- 
 sentative of the British throne in Khartum took 
 pains to say that the sale of the Scriptures was 
 nowhere in the world forbidden, and would not 
 be forbidden in the Soudan. 
 
 The English Language. 
 
 e. It cannot have escaped your attention that 
 the spread of the English language is one of the 
 prominent features of our times. The tongue 
 of our childhood, of our homes, of our daily life, 
 of our literature, is becoming familiar in the ear 
 of the world. ^ 
 
 /. Still more would I emphasize, among the 
 
 ^ Caroline Fox, 
 
 ^ In 1800 it was spoken by 21,000,000 people. Now it 
 is spoken by 120,000,000. Russian has advanced in the 
 same period from being spoken by 30,000,000 to be the common 
 tongue of 75,000,000. German spoken in 1800 by 30,000,000 
 is now spoken by 70,000,000. French has gone up from 
 30,000,000 to 45,000,000 and Spanish from 27,000,000 to 
 45,000,000. 
 
52 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 influences which this Book will exert over the 
 political changes of the next fifty years, its power 
 to form and develop national character. This is 
 the Book which leads us back to root principles. 
 What other volume has made great men and 
 women as this has? What other volume has 
 put iron in the blood as this has? What other 
 volume as this has set before the statesman and 
 the patriot lofty ideals? It was the Bible which 
 taught John Knox to fear the King of kings, 
 and to fear no other king but him ; it was with 
 the Bible that Cromwell and his " Ironsides " 
 flung out their standard at Dundee. It was on 
 the impregnable rock of Scripture that Gladstone 
 planted himself. It was a faith trained in the 
 Bible that made Bismarck confident in the ulti- 
 mate victory of his Fatherland. Calvinism has 
 had more to do with building up a strong na- 
 tional character than any other system of theology. 
 To quote Doctor Hodge : " It regards divine 
 sovereignty and the human will as the two sides 
 of a roof which come together at a ridgepole 
 above the clouds. A system which denies either 
 has only half a roof over its head." The giant 
 Alps gave John A. Broadus his fitting image, as, 
 traveling under their shadows, he said : " The 
 people who sneer at what is called Calvinism 
 might as well sneer at Mont Blanc." And they 
 might as well sneer at the Bible also, for it was 
 fidelity to this Book which gave to Calvinism 
 alike its sinewy vigor and its imperial authority. 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 53 
 
 No Bible-loving people, it has with absolute truth 
 been said, was ever permanently enslaved. I be- 
 lieve with Henry Ward Beecher that " The es- 
 sential elements of Christianity were never so 
 apparent as today, that they were never so influ- 
 ential ; that they were never so likely to produce 
 institutions of power; that they never had such 
 a hold on human reason and human conscience ; 
 and that the religious impulse of the human race 
 was never so deep, never so strong in its current." 
 
 " The prime educator of the conscience," says 
 Bishop Gore, " ought to be the Bible. In the 
 Bible has been the strength of the English 
 character." 
 
 " I put a New Testament among your books," 
 Charles Dickens wrote to his son starting out 
 to make his way in the world, " because it is 
 the best book that ever was or will be known in 
 the world, and because it teaches you the best 
 lessons by which any human creature who tries 
 to be truthful and faithful to duty can possibly 
 be guided." 
 
 To have this Book circulated among the nations 
 of the earth, to build it into the structure of the 
 new empire, to permeate with it the fresh life 
 stirring all about us at this hour, is our policy 
 as citizens as well as our obligation as Christians. 
 
 The Humanity of the Century. 
 
 3. These noble words bring to our minds a 
 third force which I hope is to influence our age. 
 
54 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 I mean humanity. The signs are abundant that 
 the twentieth century is to be emphatically 
 humane. 
 
 Happily it does not fall within my province to 
 dilate on the vast increase of Christendom, and 
 especially of the Christendom nearest to our- 
 selves, in material wealth. Taking this for 
 granted, let us see what follows. 
 
 a. I strike no joyous note when I mention, 
 first of all, inevitable national jealousies, feuds, 
 and wars. All history through, the prosperous 
 peoples have been apt to battle for what they have, 
 and then to fight for more. Alas, that we should 
 have to concede that the auguries today forecast 
 but little betterment in this respect! Even here, 
 however, we take heart as we remember that the 
 gospel of reconciliation, humility and forgiveness, 
 which in the first Christian centuries ranged it- 
 self against the aggressive materialism of Rome, 
 is still the same. Now, as then, the still, small 
 voice shall be heard above the earthquake and 
 the tempest of human passions; and now, as 
 then, it shall recall the prophet of God to his 
 mission and give to him his message. If war's 
 red-lettered creed is not to die out, its cruelty 
 will certainly be assuaged by the Bible. In the 
 inglorious conflict in South Africa, Briton and 
 Boer united to supply the soldiers with Scriptures. 
 Lord Wolseley, the late commander-in-chief of 
 the British army, wrote, in his preface to the 
 reprint of Cromwell's Soldier's Pocket Bible: 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 55 
 
 ^' In my humble opinion, the soldier who carries 
 this Bible in his pack possesses what is of far 
 higher value to him than the proverbial mar- 
 shal's baton, for if he carries its teaching in his 
 head, and lets it rule his heart and conduct, he 
 will certainly be wholly and most probably emi- 
 nently successful." 
 
 The Democracy of the Bible. 
 
 h. The democracy of the Bible is an element 
 in its favor. It is not for one class, or for one 
 nation, or for one race. It is for all sorts 
 and conditions of men. At this hour " People 
 gentle and simple, people endowed with the latest 
 culture, and people plain and unadorned, are found 
 ready to listen, often with great inward comfort 
 and manifest delight, to words taken from a 
 literature part of which dates back nearly three 
 thousand years ago." ^ A return to Christ, in 
 the sound meaning of that over-worked and 
 hardly used phrase, will be a return to the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount as well as to the Cross. It 
 will be a return to the Bible, because that Book 
 is full of Him. " He is immeasurably greater 
 than the Book that contains the records of what 
 He was ; He secures for it a perpetual significance ; 
 it can never be that the world will let fall into 
 oblivion the words that described the Son of 
 Man." Of the Gospels we can almost hear Him 
 say : " Because I live ye shall live also." 
 
 ^ The Ancient Faith, etc., pp. 74, 198. 
 
56 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 c. The Bible — need it be said? — is on the 
 side of humanity. Here we find one element in 
 its permanence. Human nature must change 
 through and through before it ceases to need this 
 book. That it '' finds us " as no other book does, 
 is to Coleridge one proof of its divine origin. 
 With what marvelous persistence does it foster 
 and encourage the best that is in us ! " We live 
 by admiration, hope and love." It bids us ad- 
 mire the most admirable; cherish within us the 
 hope of immortality; and rejoice in the love 
 of Christ that passeth knowledge. Where else 
 can you wSalk through such a portrait gallery 
 of high-minded faces, from Abraham standing 
 up before his dead, to Paul writing his matchless 
 letter to Philemon? Where else shall the re- 
 former listen to such passionate pleas on behalf 
 of the poor and the outcast and the oppressed 
 as burn on the lips of the Hebrew prophet? 
 Where, as in this Book, can you find the power 
 which can make mercy temper justice in the 
 administration of law? The truest feelings of 
 our human nature respond to the spirit of the 
 Bible. A yearning to make its lofty standard 
 the measure of our conduct comes back at times 
 to the men of highest mind and noblest imagina- 
 tion with all the pathos of the lost chord. *' I 
 would give a great deal," declared John Adding- 
 ton Symonds, " to regain the Christian point of 
 view." To attain to this is the constant ambition 
 and effort of the best of men in their best moods. 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 57 
 
 Even the man who was more fascinated by the 
 old pagan spirit than any of his contemporaries, 
 Walter Pater, found a comfort in reciting the 
 Psalms in his hours of doubt, which not the 
 noblest Roman poet could afford him, and died 
 with a little book of prayer in his hand, given 
 him by his mother when he was a child, and 
 which had been his constant companion in all 
 his wanderings. 
 
 d. While it is true to the best that is in us, 
 the philanthropy of the Bible is wholesome and 
 vigorous. It is not fanciful. Nowhere does it 
 expose itself to Horace Bushnell's censure: 
 " There is no nerve in a gospel of mere specu- 
 lation." With inerrant accuracy it draws the 
 line, invisible to so many modern reformers, be- 
 tween sentiment and sentimentality. It is never 
 feeble or flaccid. It rests not so much on love 
 for the individual as on love for the whole human 
 family. 
 
 What spectacle in all the centuries past was 
 more impressive than that which was presented 
 by the absolute devotion of the native Christians 
 in China? The brutal and ignorant hate of their 
 persecutors moved them only to prayer. The 
 prospect of suffering and death was one which 
 they beheld through eyes suffused with tears 
 such as Jesus shed above the doomed Jerusalem. 
 In one instance a band of eighteen colporteurs 
 carrying the Bible to their countrymen were 
 warned of the risk which they ran in persisting 
 
58 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 in their mission. Not one of them blanched or 
 shrank from the martyrdom awaiting him. " We 
 go," said they, '' on a colportage tour. God's 
 will be done.'' And from that tour only four 
 returned alive. An example such as this, which 
 draws not its language alone but its very spirit 
 from Calvary, will be a mighty power in com- 
 mending to China the gospel of divine love. 
 
 e. The Bible, we say, is on the side of hu- 
 manity. The converse is also true. Humanity 
 is on the side of the Bible. In all the great 
 crises of Bible history, with Savonarola in Flor- 
 ence, with Wyclifife at Lutterworth, with Tyndale 
 in Antwerp, with Luther in Wittenberg, with 
 Knox in Edinburgh, the heart of the people has 
 never failed to beat in unison with the Bible. 
 In the teeth of priests and potentates they have 
 demanded that the Word of God be not bound. 
 
 Among all the schemes which are being floated 
 at this hour for the betterment of the masses who 
 herd together in a life to which grace and beauty 
 are denied, and where indeed only by a severe 
 struggle can purity retain her whiteness and 
 virtue her honest blush, it is safe to predict that 
 only disappointment and defeat await those which 
 deny to the Bible a place among their books, and 
 refuse to count the sword of the Spirit as one 
 of the weapons of their warfare. This Book must 
 be heard at the bar of our crowded life pleading 
 for the rights of man, demanding that we should 
 respond to the challenge of God, our common 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 59 
 
 Father, in tones more tender than those of Cain, 
 when he cried : '' Am I my brother's keeper ? " 
 In the counsels of the new and noble philanthropy 
 which is growing up about such of our churches 
 as are planted in the centers of teeming life, in 
 the experiments which in the slums of our great 
 cities are aiming to make the desert rejoice and 
 blossom as the rose, the Bible — unless the his- 
 tory of the twentieth century belie the experience 
 of the century which has preceded it — will be 
 a powerful influence in promoting cleaner lives, 
 and kindlier feelings, and sweeter and saner re- 
 lations between man and man. Until he ceases 
 to sin, until he ceases to be a creature desiring 
 to know about the God who made him, until 
 he ceases to inquire whence he came and whither 
 he goes, until then the Bible will continue to be 
 of abiding significance to every generation of 
 men. 
 
 The Bible and the Demands of the Soul. 
 
 4. We have now glanced at three of the strong 
 forces which confront us. Each of them, we 
 have seen, will increase the spread and augment 
 the influence of the Bible. But not all of them 
 combined could compensate for the lack of the 
 last great power to which I turn. The question 
 with every age is still the question with ours. 
 The auguries are hopeful that this new century 
 shall be marked by a rich spiritual life. The 
 quickening of the pulse of the civilized world 
 
6o THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 must have its influence upon the religious fervor 
 of our times. It is impossible that these powers 
 which are to furnish our Bible with new ap- 
 paratus and new leverage should not act and 
 react on the life which, while it is hid with 
 Christ in God, yet at the same time draws so 
 much of its vigor from the human channels 
 through which it flows. Side by side with the 
 aggressive spirit of the Church, do we not detect 
 today a passionate longing for a spiritual quick- 
 ening? Yes; the question of all others which 
 needs to be answered is. Will the Bible continue 
 to respond to the demands of the soul? 
 
 a. That it has never failed to do this is in 
 itself a reason for anticipating that it never will. 
 That " even in the very thick of what are called 
 the Dark Ages there never failed a succession 
 of godly people whose best life was fed from 
 the life of God in the Scriptures " ^ every student 
 of history may learn for himself. Others beside 
 Max Miiller in their dislike of religious contro- 
 versy have fallen back on the simple faith which 
 they drew many years ago from a mother's lips. 
 Unshaken by hostile criticisms of the Bible, they 
 have felt that nothing could deprive them of what 
 they themselves have heard and seen and handled 
 of the Word of life. Max Miiller says : 
 
 " I had little to carry, no learned impedimenta 
 to safeguard my faith. If a man possess this 
 one pearl of great price he may save himself and 
 
 ^ The Ancient Faith, etc., p. 72. 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 6l 
 
 his treasure, but neither the tinseled vestments 
 of a cardinal nor the triple tiara that crowns the 
 head of the church will serve as life-belts in the 
 gales of doubt and controversy." 
 
 That this book has met the cry of the soul 
 in a hundred hours of trial and when everything 
 else failed, is no mean argument in favor of its 
 doing so in continuance. Gladstone wrote in 
 his old age: 
 
 "If I am asked what is the remedy for the 
 sorrows of the heart — what a man should chiefly 
 look to in his progress through life as the power 
 that is to sustain him under trials, and enable 
 him manfully to confront his afflictions, I must 
 point to something which in a well-known hymn 
 is called ' The Old, Old Story,' told in an old, 
 old Book, and taught with an old, old teaching 
 which is the greatest and best gift ever given to 
 mankind." 
 
 b. To an age of doubt the '' Thus saith the 
 Lord " of the Old Testament, the *' I say unto 
 you " of the New, will not cease to be refreshing. 
 Here is a book which has in it no speculative note. 
 On the contrary, it is dogmatic. And the very 
 spirit that draws men from the churches which 
 discuss and debate to the church which professes 
 to be infallible, in its healthier moods longs for 
 positive assurance, not from the lips of any 
 church but from the mouth of God himself. 
 This is what moved Thomas Carlyle to credit the 
 Bible with possessing this special property, that 
 
62 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 it is " written under the eye of the Eternal ; that 
 it is of a sincerity Hke very death, through which, 
 as through a window divinely opened, all men 
 could look into the stillness of eternity, and 
 discern in glimpses their far-distant, long-forgot- 
 ten home." True it is not upon its claim so much 
 as upon its contents that this book takes its stand ; 
 and yet its claim to be God's word to man, sus- 
 tained by its contents, in its turn gives to those 
 contents a lustrous significance which otherwise 
 would be lacking. 
 
 c. And still, up to this moment when I speak, 
 is it not true that the Bible does respond to the 
 deepest that is in us ? Still, as when the psalmist 
 sang, deep crieth unto deep — the deep of human 
 sin to the deep of divine forgiveness, the deep of 
 human need to the deep of divine sufficiency. 
 What great souls, such as Augustine and Luther 
 and Pascal and Bunyan, discovered in their 
 strenuous, spiritual hours, lowlier souls are still 
 finding in every age and land. The Bible answers, 
 as does no other book, to the craving of the soul 
 for pardon and peace, for Hght and leading. You 
 must create for us another man before we need 
 another Bible. 
 
 The Stimulation of Spiritual Life. 
 
 d. Moreover, as nothing else does, the Bible 
 stimulates spiritual life. To open its covers is to 
 rouse the mind to think, the heart to feel, the 
 conscience to arraign, the soul to aspire. That 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 63 
 
 saintly philanthropist George Miiller, friend and 
 father to multitudes of orphans, in his experience 
 gives us our own : 
 
 " The vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact 
 proportion to the place held by the Bible in our 
 life and thoughts. I can solemnly state this from 
 the experience of fifty-four years. Though en- 
 gaged in the ministry of the Word I neglected 
 for four years the consecutive reading of the 
 Bible. I was a babe in knowledge and in grace. 
 I made no progress because I neglected God's 
 own appointed means for nourishing the divine 
 life. But I was led to see that the Holy Spirit 
 is the instructor, and the Word the medium by 
 which he teaches. Spending three hours on my 
 knees, I made such progress that I learned more 
 in those three hours than in years before. In 
 July, 1829, I began this plan of reading from the 
 Old and New Testament. I have read since then 
 the Bible through one hundred times, and each 
 time with increasing delight. When I begin it 
 afresh, it always seems like a new book. I can- 
 not tell you how great has been the blessing from 
 consecutive, diligent, daily study. I have always 
 made it a rule never to begin work till I have 
 had a good season with God, and then I throw 
 myself, with all my heart, into this work for 
 the day, with only a few minutes' interval for 
 prayer." 
 
 This power to quicken the life of the soul is 
 the glory of the Bible. As a boy Augustine hears 
 
64 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 of the humility of Christ condescending to the 
 pride of man ; and through all the years of his 
 own intellectual rebellion he cannot shake the 
 memory off. Baxter plants his parish with 
 Bibles, and Kidderminster from a place of shame- 
 ful profligacy becomes a garden of the Lord. 
 Here, by his own confession, Charles Darwin 
 enters a region where his rare scientific acumen 
 avails him nothing. " Spiritual powers," says he, 
 " cannot be compared or classed by the natural- 
 ist." " It is astonishing," Spurgeon says, " how 
 much a man may know of the Bible by learning 
 a text a day, and how much he may know ex- 
 perimentally by watching the events of the day 
 and interpreting them in the light of the text." 
 e. Today the Bible responds to the prevailing 
 belief in the unity of God. The march of the 
 centuries is ever forward toward a world-wide 
 acceptance of monotheism. This was the Hebrew 
 faith, which spoke to Moses in the burning bush 
 in the wilderness, and by the firmness with which 
 it was held and the clearness with which it was 
 preached, you can measure the growth or decline 
 of the Hebrew people. For the Bible to reach 
 any heathen land today, is for this great central 
 truth to sound the death-knell of idolatry, as 
 certainly as did the preaching of Paul in Athens 
 declare that, with its strong insistence on the 
 one God in whom all Hve and move and have 
 their being, the polytheism of the old world must 
 pass away. 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 65 
 
 f. But in revealing the unity of God, this book 
 also reveals the unity of man, and his close rela- 
 tion to his Creator. That God should give His 
 Son for us ceases to perplex us when we believe 
 in Him as Creator and so loving man; and as 
 father and so akin to man. Man is never for a 
 moment regarded by this Book apart from this 
 high origin and this endearing relationship. 
 
 The Bible Repays Study. 
 
 g. That the Bible with such a mission to our 
 common humanity invites and repays careful and 
 systematic study should go without saying. " My 
 brother," writes Edward Irving, " no man is fur- 
 nished for the ministry till he can unclasp his 
 pocket Bible, and, wherever it opens, discourse 
 from it largely and spiritually to the people." ^ 
 Epistle and Gospel and prophecy and psalm *' be- 
 come instinct with life when a living man takes it 
 in hand and holds it up to the light." To his 
 congregation in London, one day, Joseph Parker 
 said : " I spend nearly the whole of my life in 
 making marginal notes upon my study Bible, and 
 it is to me very profitable reading. That to me 
 is the most valuable book I have ever attempted 
 — to take my heart and set it on the margin of 
 the Bible, verse by verse." 
 
 h. Dowered with this spiritual power, the 
 Bible may precede other agencies for converting 
 
 * Mrs. Oliphant's Life of Edward Irving, p. 396. 
 
66 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 the world to Christ. It may pave the way for 
 them. Long before Jesus was born, the Septua- 
 gint put the Scriptures within reach of the 
 heathen; and at a time when the Jewish nation 
 was under a cloud, and when thick darkness 
 covered all other people, it planted in the hearts 
 of men the hope of the dawn.^ The Bible rather 
 than Wycliffe deserves to be called " The Day 
 Star of the Reformation." Not the translator, 
 but the translation, is the subject of Words- 
 worth's great lines : 
 
 But to outweigh all harm, the sacred book 
 In dusty sequestration wrapt too long 
 Assumes the accent of our native tongue; 
 And he who guides the plow or wields the crook 
 With understanding spirit now may look 
 Upon her records, listen to her song, 
 And sift her laws. 
 
 Persecution wiped out Christianity in Mada- 
 gascar, but hidden in their turbans devout be- 
 lievers carried their Bibles. A copy of the Bible 
 bought by a native and carried back to his country 
 home, is the means of the conversion of a whole 
 village in Brazil. A copy found in a cast-off 
 garment leads numbers in a Chinese village into 
 the truth. Similar stories might be told of every 
 quarter of the globe. The Word of God is its own 
 witness, and in its printed form becomes a mes- 
 senger of the gospel. 
 
 ^ Barnes, Two Thousand Years of Missions before 
 Carey, p. 25. 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 67 
 
 Among the ruins of Pompeii a phial of water 
 was once found. For nearly two thousand years 
 it had remained there, since the day when the city 
 was buried in the ashes of Vesuvius. But the 
 water, when once again it saw the light, was still 
 pure and sweet. So with this Book. It is peren- 
 nial. Age cannot wither nor custom stale its 
 infinite variety. " Truth," as said Lord Bacon, 
 " from any other source is like water from a cis- 
 tern, but truth drawn out of the Bible is like 
 drinking water from a fountain immediately 
 where it springeth." And it is all-sufficient. The 
 poetry of George Herbert may halt, but his piety 
 treads with confident step, as he sings : 
 
 The Bible? That 's the book, the book indeed, 
 
 The Book of books 
 
 On which who looks 
 As he should do, aright, shall never need 
 
 Wish for a better light 
 
 To guide him in the night. 
 
 In one of the galleries of Europe there hung 
 a picture bearing the title " The Peaceful High- 
 way," a bridge crossing a stream which parted 
 the one half of an English village from the other. 
 Centuries have glided away since the foundations 
 of that bridge were laid, since its strong buttresses 
 were set to breast the water. Successive genera- 
 tions have passed across it from infancy to old 
 age. Again and again has spring swollen the 
 stream which in summer ran translucent and 
 shallow. But the bridge has endured. These 
 
68 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 Scriptures, " letters," as Augustine calls them, 
 " letters from our heavenly country," are just 
 such a peaceful highway, and today the steps 
 of the world's need and sin and hope and despair 
 and prayer and praise have not ceased to tread 
 it from the cradle to the grave. They never shall. 
 
 Our century opened with a quickened intel- 
 lectual life. That shall make the Book clearer 
 and therefore dearer than ever to us. It opened 
 with broader prospects for the world of action. 
 That shall discover fresh avenues for this Book 
 to the hearts of the great human family. Our 
 century, let us hope and believe, is waking also 
 to a new and truer conception of human brother- 
 hood. This Book shall knit us closer to one 
 another. Finally, our century opened with a rich 
 promise of spiritual life. This Book shall make 
 that Hfe more affluent and precious. " The Lord," 
 in John Robinson's memorable phrase, " has more 
 truth yet to break forth from His holy word." 
 To his students, John A. Broadus left no richer 
 legacy than his parting words : " Young gentle- 
 men, if this were the last time I should meet you, 
 I should feel amply repaid for consuming the 
 whole hour in endeavoring to impress upon you 
 these two things, true piety, and, like Apollos, 
 to be men ' mighty in the Scriptures,' ' mighty in 
 the Scriptures,' ' mighty in the Scriptures.' " 
 
 The signs of the times are urgent in demand- 
 ing a knowledge of the Bible far wider and 
 more thorough than exists at present among the 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 69 
 
 churches and schools of our land. Were there 
 time, it might be well for us to inquire whether 
 the Bible is as familiar to the people of our 
 country today as it was to the peasants and ap- 
 prentices of England in the days of Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 " My only hope," said Gladstone, looking back 
 over a strenuous life and speaking as a statesman 
 and as a philanthropist not less than as a Chris- 
 tian, " my only hope for the world is in bringing 
 the human mind into contact with divine reve- 
 lation." How shall this be done? No longer 
 by great scholars alone, or by historic churches, 
 or by the mighty influence of mighty kings and 
 conquerors. Today, as Canon Edmonds insisted 
 when speaking before the Ecumenical Conference 
 in New York: 
 
 " It is the common task of Christendom, and 
 the lowly and loftier alike are members of this 
 greatest of cooperative societies. All missionary 
 work will eventually be tested by the conformity 
 of its result to the divine model of life and char- 
 acter set before us in the holy Book. No mission- 
 ary is better employed than the competent trans- 
 lator. No missionary society has fully risen to 
 its ideal which has not contributed a man or 
 men to this great Pentecostal revelation of the 
 mind of God to the heart of His creatures. Be- 
 tween us all, we reckon over four hundred of 
 these divine voices, and none of them is without 
 signification. Each of them bears witness to the 
 
70 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 love that God hath to us ; each bears witness also 
 that no race or language is now common or 
 unclean." 
 
 The Choicest Heritage. 
 
 Surely this is the conclusion of the whole mat- 
 ter. The Bible must be put foremost in our 
 preaching. Biblical exposition must regain its 
 ascendency in the pulpit. The Bible must be in 
 the hands of our congregations. Bible reading 
 must again be the rule and not the exception in 
 our pews. The Bible must be found in our Sun- 
 day-schools. Not lesson helps, but the Book itself 
 must be the basis of devout and earnest and in- 
 telligent study. The Bible, in some form, must 
 be as familiar to our public schools as are the 
 other classics of our literature. Once more, as 
 in the days of Pilgrim and Puritan, it must be 
 counted the choicest heritage of the nation. With 
 the living church does it lie to see that all this 
 is done. I am confident that the appeal to those 
 who themselves have tasted of this good Word 
 of life will not be in vain. 
 
 If the forecast which I have taken in this 
 chapter be correct, we have nothing to fear, but 
 only everything to hope, as to the Bible in the 
 twentieth century. With each fresh year in the 
 century's history the Bible will renew its youth. 
 Is the world ready for the Bible as never before? 
 As never before the Bible is ready for the world. 
 Were there ever so many golden gates of oppor- 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 71 
 
 tunity wide open as at this hour? Never as at 
 this hour was the Bible so splendidly equipped for 
 entering these gates. The supply is adequate 
 to the demand. And as nothing else it answers 
 and satisfies the demand. 
 
 We search the world for truth; we cull 
 The good, the pure, the beautiful, 
 From graven stone and written scroll, 
 From all old flower fields of the soul; 
 And weary seekers of the best, 
 We come back laden from our quest, 
 To find that all the ages said 
 Is in the book our mothers read. 
 
Ill 
 
 W^t Pitile tlje ?|ope of tfje OTorlb 
 
 JAMES ORR 
 
 The Bible influences the world through the 
 many-sided revelations of God's character and 
 will it contains ; it specially influences it through 
 the historical image, and the moral and spiritual 
 teaching, of Christ in the Gospels, and through 
 the hopes, promises, exhortations, and motives, in 
 which the Apostolic writings abound. We speak 
 with gratitude of the profound influence which 
 has been exercised on the world by Christianity. 
 But it is to be remembered that Christianity comes 
 to men, and is kept alive in their memories 
 and hearts, only through the Bible ^ — through 
 the possession, translation, diffusion, and de- 
 vout and prayerful reading, preaching, study, 
 and teaching of the written Word. Without the 
 Bible to revert to, keeping the truth fresh and 
 living, the image of the Master would long since 
 have been blurred and distorted beyond recog- 
 nition. His Gospel would have been perverted 
 beyond recovery by corrupt human tradition. His 
 doctrines and moral teaching, with those of His 
 
74 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 Apostles, would have been buried under a moun- 
 tain-load of human inventions. 
 
 It is not, therefore, an exaggeration to say 
 that it is the Bible which has preserved Christi- 
 anity to the world. If, as we believe, the re- 
 ligion of Jesus is the hope of the world, it is 
 the possession of the Bible conveying and main- 
 taining the knowledge of that religion, which 
 makes the hope possible. In saying that Chris- 
 tianity is the hope of the world, and that the 
 Bible is the hope of the world, we use nearly 
 equivalent expressions. 
 
 Comparison with the Sacred Books of Other 
 Religions. 
 
 A powerful argument for the divineness of the 
 Bible might be drawn from a simple comparison 
 of the Bible with the sacred books of other re- 
 ligions. There is a large group of religions in 
 the world which students of the subject are accus- 
 tomed to designate " book-religions " — this for 
 the reason that they possess, like our own, sacred 
 books or scriptures. Such books are the Hindu 
 Vedas, the Parsee Zend-Avesta, the Tripitakas 
 and other sacred writings of the Buddhists, the 
 Mohammedan Koran. Whatever light of wis- 
 dom or gleams of truth about God and duty such 
 books contain — and we need grudge to them no 
 real " gems " of this kind they possess — there 
 is, as every candid judge will be ready to admit, 
 no true comparison between these ethnic scrip- 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 75 
 
 tures, even at their best, and the collection of 
 writings which we term pre-eminently the Bible 
 — the Book. Whether they be regarded as litera- 
 ture, as history, or as means of conveying mes- 
 sages of truth, the unique superiority of the Bible 
 stands out unchallengeable. 
 
 Take the Bible, for instance, as history. It is 
 the simple fact that there is nothing that can be 
 properly called history in these other sacred books 
 of the world. They are, as every student of them 
 knows, for the most part jumbles of heteroge- 
 neous material, loosely placed together, without 
 order, continuity, or unity of any kind. There 
 is no order, progress, or real connection of parts. 
 The Koran, e. g., is a miscellany of disjointed 
 pieces, loosely placed together, arranged chiefly 
 in order of length. The Bible, on the other hand, 
 is a history with a beginning, a middle, and an 
 end; a history of revelation; the history of a 
 developing purpose of God, working up to a goal 
 in the full-orbed discovery of the will of God for 
 man's salvation in His Son Jesus Christ. There 
 is nothing like this, nothing even approaching it, 
 in any other collection of sacred books in the 
 world. 
 
 As distinctive in its character is the message 
 of the Bible. The Bible is not a book of mere 
 secular wisdom, though much secular knowledge 
 is embodied in it ; not a book merely of grand 
 thoughts about religion, or of theories and specu- 
 lations about divine things ; not a book simply 
 
76 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 of fine ethical teaching, of noble biography, of 
 soul-stirring narrative. It is, as just said, pre- 
 eminently a book of revelation ; of God's historic 
 revelations down through the ages to the coming 
 of Christ and the advent of the Spirit. These 
 revelations form a crisis. Each adds something 
 to those which went before; each carries the 
 course of revelation a little further ; each fore- 
 shadows a yet richer development in the future; 
 and when the whole is before us, we see in it 
 the unfolding of a great purpose which has its 
 consummation in Christ and His redemption — 
 a purpose the very character of which is the 
 guarantee to us that it is the purpose of God, not 
 the thought of man. 
 
 The Claim of History and Influence. 
 
 This imperfect glance suffices to show the 
 uniqueness of the Bible, and the inestimable 
 treasure we possess in it. We are now to see how 
 the Bible verifies its exceptional character and 
 claims by its history and influence, and by the 
 blessings it confers. 
 
 It is not too much to say that the Bible, re- 
 garded simply as a book, has had an unexampled 
 place in history. Its authors were not learned 
 men, as the world counts learning; yet their 
 writings have been preserved, read, copied, trans- 
 lated, and spread abroad to the utmost corners 
 of the earth, as no works of philosophers or 
 sages, poets or orators, historians or moralists, 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 77 
 
 have ever been. Take the witness of manuscripts. 
 While of some important classical works only 
 one manuscript is known to exist, and ten or 
 fifteen is thought a large number for others — 
 few of these dating beyond the tenth century of 
 our era — the manuscripts of whole or parts of 
 the New Testament are already reckoned by 
 thousands, the oldest of which go back to the 
 fourth and fifth centuries, and parts are still 
 older. 
 
 Or take the test of translation as a mark of 
 this book's influence. It is no uncommon thing 
 for a popular book to be translated into many 
 languages. Here, again, however, the Bible has 
 a record which casts every other into the shade. 
 The books of the New Testament had hardly 
 been put together in the second century in what 
 we call the Canon before we find translations 
 made of them into Latin and Syriac and Egyp- 
 tian, and by-and-by into Gothic and other bar- 
 barous tongues. In the Middle Ages, notwith- 
 standing the discouragements put upon the pos- 
 session and reading of the Scriptures, we find 
 translations made into nearly all the leading lan- 
 guages of Europe. With the art of printing the 
 work of translation received a new impetus. 
 Today there is not a language in the civilized 
 world, hardly a language among uncivilized 
 tribes of any importance, into which this mar- 
 velous book has not been rendered. Whatever 
 man may say of decay of faith in the Bible, it 
 
78 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 is, as remarked earlier, the undeniable fact that 
 its circulation in the different countries and lan- 
 guages of the world today outstrips all previous 
 records. The reports, e. g., of the three great 
 Bible Societies — the British and Foreign, the 
 American, and the National Bible Society of 
 Scotland — show for the year 1905 the enormous 
 total of over 9,000,000 of issues of the whole or 
 parts of the Scriptures in European and in 
 Eastern lands! 
 
 Every other test we can apply to the Bible 
 yields a similar result. No book has ever been 
 so minutely studied, has had so many books writ- 
 ten on it, has given birth to so many commen- 
 taries and works of exposition, has evoked such 
 keen discussion, has founded so vast a literature 
 of hymns, liturgies, works of devotion, has been 
 so determinedly assailed, has rallied such splen- 
 did defenses, as the Bible! 
 
 Why do I mention these things? Not merely 
 for their own interest as facts, but as proofs of 
 the unconquerable vitality which resides in this 
 book, of the universal appeal it makes to human 
 hearts, and of the need of ascribing the power 
 it exercises to some higher than neutral cause. 
 Genius alone in the writers, even if they were 
 allowed to take rank as men of genius, would 
 not explain it. What boasts are sometimes made 
 of the genius and scholarship ranged against the 
 Bible! Yet, as I said at the commencement, the 
 Bible holds on its career of conquest unchecked, 
 
 ^ Critiques and Addresses, p. 61. 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 79 
 
 while the works of its assailants, after a genera- 
 tion or two — often much less time — lie on the 
 shelves unread. These books have no message 
 to the world, as the Bible has. The Bible is a 
 book, as experience shows, for all races ; and it 
 has this character because, like the Gospel it en- 
 shrines, it goes down beneath all differences of 
 rank, age, sex, culture, to that which is deepest, 
 most universal in man. It bears translation 
 into all languages, because the language of the 
 deepest things of the soul is, all the world over, 
 one. 
 
 This vital penetrative character of the Bible, 
 attesting its divine quality, shows itself not sim- 
 ply in the place it holds in history, but in the 
 unexampled character of the influence it has been 
 enabled to exert. To tell what the Bible has been 
 and done for the world would be to rewrite in 
 large part the history of modern civilization ; to 
 re-tell the story of Christian missions, including 
 those which brought the Gospel to our own 
 shores; to extract the finest qualities in much 
 of our best literature; to lay bare the inner 
 springs of the lives of those who have labored 
 best and most for the moral and spiritual well- 
 being of their kind. Trace back to their springs 
 the great movements, the great struggles for civil 
 and religious liberty, in our own and other lands, 
 the social and humanitarian movements which 
 were the distinction of the past century, the 
 sources will be found ultimately in the high 
 mountain levels of the Bible's teaching. And say 
 
8o THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 what men will, it is the Bible which is the source 
 of our highest social and national aspirations 
 still. 
 
 The Testimony of Huxley. 
 
 I shall return immediately, with more particu- 
 larity, to the proof of these statements. But I 
 may here cite the witness of one who will not, 
 I think, be regarded as unduly biased in favor 
 of the Bible — I mean Professor Huxley. 
 
 Secularist and agnostic as he was. Professor 
 Huxley, on more than one occasion, expressed 
 himself in very remarkable terms on this un- 
 paralleled influence of the Bible. Here is one 
 of his latest utterances : 
 
 '* Throughout the history of the Western 
 world," he says, " the Scriptures, Jewish and 
 Christian, have been the greatest instigators of 
 revolt against the worst forms of clerical and 
 political despotism. The Bible has been the 
 Magna Charta of the poor, and of the oppressed ; 
 down to modern times no State has had a consti- 
 tution in which the interests of the people are 
 so largely taken into account, in which the duties, 
 so much more than the privileges, of rulers are 
 insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel in 
 Deuteronomy and Leviticus; nowhere is the 
 fundamental truth that the welfare of the State, 
 in the long run, depends on the uprightness of the 
 citizen so strongly laid down. Assuredly the 
 Bible talks no trash about the rights of man; 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 8i 
 
 but it insists upon the equality of duties, on the 
 liberty to bring about that righteousness which 
 is somewhat different from strugghng for 
 ' rights ' ; on the fraternity of taking thought 
 for one's neighbor as for one's self." ^ 
 
 Here is another passage. Arguing in one of 
 his essays for the reading of the Bible in the 
 schools, Professor Huxley bids us consider " that 
 for three centuries this Book has been woven 
 into the life of all that is best and noblest in 
 English history; that it has become the national 
 epic of Britain . . . that it is written in the 
 noblest and purest English, and abounds in ex- 
 quisite beauties of mere literary form " ; and he 
 asks, " By the study of what other book could 
 children be so much humanized, and made to feel 
 that each figure in that vast historical procession 
 fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in 
 the interval between two eternities, and earns the 
 blessings or the curses of all times, according to 
 its efforts to do good and hate evil, even 
 as they also are earning their payment for their 
 work? " ^ 
 
 Are not statements like these the best reply to 
 such strictures on the " narrowness " of Christian 
 ethics? Can a religion be really regarded as 
 inimical to political freedom, to duties of citizen- 
 ship, to education, to patriotism, which produces 
 results like the above ? 
 
 1 Essays upon Some Controverted Questions, Prologue, 
 PP- 52-53- 
 
82 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 The World's Debt to the Bible. 
 
 Let me now trace a little more in detail some 
 of the actual blessings which the world owes to 
 the Bible. For practical purposes, the influence 
 of the Bible and the influence of Christianity 
 are, as I have said, convertible ideas. It will be 
 convenient for me to speak, first, of what the 
 world owes to the religion of Christ in a tem- 
 poral respect — on the plane of moral and social 
 benefit; then of what the world owes to it in 
 a spiritual respect, or in regard to its eternal 
 hopes. 
 
 There are, I know very well, and we are never 
 allowed to forget it, two sides to this picture. 
 Deeds have been done in the name of Christ, and 
 of His official Church, which reflect eternal dis- 
 honor upon humanity. It is a dark picture the 
 historian has to draw of the abounding corrup- 
 tion, the dead formalism, the gross immorality 
 of certain ages of the Church; of the frightful 
 evils of the periods of Roman and Byzantine 
 ascendency; of the spirit of intolerance and 
 persecution directed against heretics and unbe- 
 lievers, and often against Christ's own faithful 
 witnesses, when truth had to be confessed in 
 peril of the dungeon and the stake; of super- 
 stitions like witchcraft ; of the feuds and divisions 
 of churches and sects; of the moral blots, the 
 inconsistencies, the festering sores of vice and 
 misery, of our so-called Christian civilizations. 
 We acknowledge it all, and blush in the acknowl- 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 83 
 
 edgment. To dwell on such things is the stock 
 in trade of the anti-Christian agitator. But in 
 this he is unjust. A fair mind will always dis- 
 tinguish — or try to distinguish — between effects 
 really due to the spirit and principles of Christ's 
 religion, and the false and perverted readings of 
 that religion given by those who had nothing in 
 common with its spirit, and made it too often 
 the engine of their own temporal ambitions. 
 Much human infirmity and folly must be stripped 
 off if we are to do justice to this religion as it 
 lies before us in the Bible. To Christ himself 
 we appeal, as against the people who deny Him. 
 If, then, we look to the Gospel as it came forth 
 in its purity from the lips of Christ Himself and 
 of His apostles, what do we find it teaching? 
 What ideas did it communicate to the world? 
 I look at the subject, first, as proposed from the 
 standpoint of moral and social benefit. 
 
 The World into which Christianity Came. 
 
 To understand what the religion of the Bible 
 has accomplished, we have to think of the kind 
 of world into which Christianity entered. It 
 found a world in the last stage of dissolution 
 — in a state of utter decrepitude and decay. 
 The old religions had lost their power, and with 
 religion the foundations of morals were well-nigh 
 universally loosened. Dissoluteness flooded so- 
 ciety. Even duty to the State — the one duty 
 that was held supreme — was breaking up in all 
 
84 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 directions. There was little sense of individual 
 right. In the family, e. g., the father held all 
 power in his own hands, and wife and children 
 and slaves were subject to his absolute authority. 
 Infanticide and exposure of children were com- 
 mon and recognized practices. The social struc- 
 ture was built on slavery, and slaves had no 
 protection of any kind. Work was held to be 
 beneath the dignity of citizens, who, if not pos- 
 sessed of wealth, claimed to be supported by the 
 State. The favorite amusements of the populace 
 were the sanguinary spectacles of the amphi- 
 theater. Marriage had fallen into such disuse 
 that, though the emperors set a premium on mar- 
 riage, people could hardly be induced to enter 
 into the bond. Worse than all, heathen society 
 had not within itself — nor was it able to find 
 — any principle of regeneration, for religion had 
 lost its hold, the moral codes of the philosophers 
 were without sufficient sanction, and there were 
 not those ideas of the dignity and worth of the 
 individual which could create any noble or sus- 
 tained efforts on his behalf. Noble examples 
 of virtue, no doubt, there still were ; friendship, 
 piety of a sort, family affections, a deploring on 
 the part of the better spirits of the evils they 
 could do nothing to check or subdue. But ancient 
 civilization had played itself out in both thought 
 and life, and had not a spring of renewal from 
 which recovery could come. 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 85 
 
 What did Christianity Bring? 
 
 What now did Christianity bring to this effete 
 and sinking heathenism? 
 
 It brought for one thing a totally new idea 
 of man himself as a being of infinite dignity 
 and immortal worth. It taught that every man, 
 as made in God's image, and capable of eternal 
 life, had an infinite value — a value which made 
 it worth while for God's own Son to die for him. 
 It taught that no man was worthless in God's 
 sight; that every man, however lost in sin, was 
 redeemable, and that no efforts should be spared 
 for his redemption. It brought back the well- 
 nigh lost sense of responsibility and accounta- 
 bility to God. It breathed into the world a new 
 spirit of love and charity — something wonderful 
 in the eyes of the heathen, who looked on in 
 amazement as they saw institutions growing up 
 around them such as paganism had never heard 
 of; institutions for the care of the poor, the or- 
 phan, the aged, the helpless, the fallen, the leper ; 
 that wealth of charitable and beneficent institu- 
 tions with which Christian lands are full.^ It 
 flashed into men's souls a new moral ideal, and 
 set up a standard of truth, integrity, and purity, 
 which has acted as an elevating force on moral 
 
 ^ Cf. Lecky's History of European Morals, I., p. 412; H., 
 pp. 84-91, 107. Uhlhorn's Christian Charity in the Ancient 
 Church. " It has covered the globe," says Lecky, " with 
 countless institutions of mercy, absolutely unknown in the 
 whole pagan world" (II., p. 91; cf. p. 107). Thirty years 
 ago hospitals were unknown in Japan. 
 
86 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 conceptions till this hour. It restored woman to 
 her rightful place by man's side as his spiritual 
 helpmate and equal. It taught care for the chil- 
 dren, and created that best of 'God's blessings on 
 earth, the Christian home. It taught the slave 
 his spiritual freedom as a member of the King- 
 dom of God; gave him an equal place with his 
 master in the Church ; and struck at the founda- 
 tions of slavery by its doctrines of the natural 
 brotherhood and dignity of man. It created self- 
 respect, and a sense of duty in the use of one's 
 powers for self-support and the benefit of others ; 
 urged to honest labor ; and in a myriad ways, by 
 direct teaching, by the protest of holy lives, and 
 by its general spirit, struck at the evils, the cor- 
 ruptions, the malpractices, and cruelties of the 
 time. 
 
 In all these and in numberless other ways that 
 cannot now be mentioned, Christianity, as im- 
 partial investigators recognize, entered as a revo- 
 lutionizing, regenerating, and renewing principle 
 into that ancient society, and produced effects 
 which have borne fruit in the new world that has 
 sprung up on the ruins of the old. 
 
 Christianity the Basis of Modern Civilization. 
 
 Once the ideas I have mentioned had been 
 introduced, and had taken possession of the 
 world, they liberated other forces, and gave birth 
 to new ideas, which have cooperated with them 
 in advancing the progress of the race; but no 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 87 
 
 one who goes to the bottom of what is distinctive 
 of our modern civiHzation will deny that the ideas 
 I have named are the basis on which our modern 
 civilization rests, nor will any one deny that, 
 however self-evident some of them may now 
 seem to us, it was Christianity which practically 
 put the world in possession of them, and still 
 sustains them in men's minds as living convictions. 
 These ideas are now, in large part, I say, the 
 common possession of mankind. They exist and 
 operate far beyond the limits of the visible Church. 
 They have been taken up and contended for by 
 men outside the Church — unbelievers even — 
 when the Church itself had become unfaithful 
 to them. But none the less are they of Christian 
 parentage. They are the principles of the Bible 
 — of the Gospel. They he at the basis of our 
 modern assertion of equal rights ; of rights of 
 conscience; of justice to the individual in social 
 and State arrangements ; of the desire for 
 brotherhood and peace and amity among classes 
 and nations. It is the Christian leaven that is 
 fermenting, sometimes in turbid enough forms, in 
 all this social seething we see going on around 
 us ; Christian ideas which are propelling the race 
 on in its march of progress ; Christian love which 
 is sustaining the best and purest and most self- 
 sacrificing efforts to raise the fallen, rescue the 
 drunkard, and make the condition of the race 
 happier and better. And if the Christian root 
 of these ideas and efforts were withdrawn, it 
 
88 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 would be seen how many of them would come 
 to be laughed at as baseless ideals, and a very 
 different range of ideas and motives would take 
 their place; how, in their race for riches, lust 
 for pleasure, and greed of power, men would be 
 willing to trample the poor and helpless under 
 their feet, if only they could by that means raise 
 themselves a little higher. 
 
 We thus see that, even in a temporal respect, 
 the Bible and its teachings are the grand civilizing 
 agency of the world. The experience of the past 
 proves it. Christian missions, with their benign 
 effects in the spread of education, the checking of 
 social evils and barbarities, the creation of trade 
 and industry, the change in the status of women, 
 the advance in the social and civilized life gen- 
 erally, prove it. We are still far enough from 
 the goal, God knows. But contrast ancient pagan 
 with modern society, with all its faults, and mark 
 how far we have already traveled ; contrast 
 Christian nations with nations yet in the night 
 of heathenism — even with such lands as India 
 and China — and note the contrast in the life of 
 today; take the Christian nations themselves, 
 and see how it is those that have drunk most 
 deeply into the Spirit of Christ, that most revere 
 His word, respect His day, and observe most 
 purely His worship, that stand foremost in all 
 the elements that constitute true progress — fore- 
 most in enlightenment, in wealth, in virtue, in 
 social order and happiness; take, finally, the 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 89 
 
 godly and godless classes in the same society, 
 and mark how the tone of our public life and 
 the stability of our institutions are strengthened 
 by the former, and are daily put in jeopardy by 
 the latter! 
 
 " The fear of the Lord is to hate evil " (Prov. 
 8:13); and in proportion as that fear spreads 
 itself through a community, the community will 
 be stable, progressive, prosperous. Given a Bible- 
 reading, Bible-loving people, and it will not be 
 long before such a people is found well-housed, 
 well-clothed, industrious, and content ; before the 
 demons of drink and poverty disappear from its 
 towns; before schools and colleges spring up to 
 educate its children ; before all the tokens , of a 
 genuine prosperity are visible within its borders. 
 
 The Message of Religion and Eternal Hope. 
 
 Thus far I have been speaking of the tem- 
 poral advantages accruing from the religion of 
 the Bible. But the chief blessing of the possession 
 of the Bible is not told till we speak of what 
 the world owes to it in a religious respect, and 
 in regard to its eternal hopes. The two things 
 are connected, for the moral reforms wrought by 
 Christianity can never be dissociated from its 
 religious ideas. Nothing elevates the mind or 
 raises the affections so much as right thoughts 
 of God. In the light of his relation to God, man 
 attains to the sense of his dignity and worth as 
 a moral being, and feels that life has an end 
 
90 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 which makes it worth living. The chief gain of 
 the Bible, therefore, is still untold when we speak 
 only of its literary and moral and civilizing 
 effects. It is not disclosed till we think of its 
 message of the love of God, and that light of 
 eternal hope which streams from it into a world 
 which, despite all speculations of reason, and 
 brilliance of civilization, would be hopelessly dark 
 as respects the future without it. 
 
 It is the Bible which gives the knowledge of 
 God. I need not do more than lift a corner 
 of the veil which at this distance of time hides 
 from us the condition of the ancient world in 
 a religious respect. What a spectacle of ignorance 
 of the true God and of the way of life it is which 
 presents itself ! In one place it is the sun, moon, 
 and planets which are the objects of worship. 
 Elsewhere, as in Egypt, temples are built to 
 four-footed beasts and creeping things of the 
 earth (cf. Rom. 1:23). In other places, as in 
 India, the great natural objects — the sky, the 
 dawn, the rain, the rivers, fire, etc. — are the 
 favorite deities. In Greece men adore gods 
 sculptured in forms of human beauty. In Rome 
 gods of all countries are swept together, and wor- 
 ship is paid to them. Round the roots of these 
 religions clung innumerable superstitions; the 
 rites of many of them were licentious and revolt- 
 ing; in the service of gods of lust and gods of 
 wine, the most shameful orgies were enacted. 
 Where, from the list of these heathen gods, or 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 91 
 
 in the stories told of them, could men get one 
 idea to elevate them, one impulse to raise them 
 above themselves to nobler life? When Plato 
 sketched an ideal Republic, his first concern was 
 to banish the myths of the gods out of it.^ Think 
 of England when the light of Christianity- 
 first broke upon it. Druid priests chant their 
 mysterious songs, go through their mystic cere- 
 monies in dim forest recesses, plunge the sacri- 
 ficial knife into shrieking human victims. The 
 tribes who supplant them bring over their wild 
 Scandinavian traditions ; sing the praises of Thor 
 and Odin; revel in the prospect of a Valhalla, 
 where they will drink blood from the skulls of 
 their slain enemies! Look at the lands which 
 lie even yet in the shadow of death of heathenism. 
 See their lords many and their gods many, their 
 cruel practices, their revolting superstitions. As 
 every student of social progress knows, their 
 false religions rest on these lands with the weight 
 of an incubus, and there can be no real progress 
 till this incubus is shaken off. 
 
 It is the poet Milton who in his great Ode 
 on the Nativity has described the dire consterna- 
 tion in the ranks of the heathen deities at the 
 announcement of the birth of Christ. Christ 
 came, and as His religion spread, the vapors of 
 a dense heathen superstition rolled away before 
 it, and gave place to a purer faith and to a 
 nobler worship. Corruption, as we know, early 
 
 1 Republic, Bk. H. 
 
92 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 seized on Christianity also, and in the course of 
 centuries attained huge proportions. But we 
 know, too, how, from time to time, as at the 
 Reformation, through the force of that vitality 
 within it, which is but another name for the 
 abiding presence of God's Spirit in its midst, 
 Christianity has risen up, and thrown the worst 
 of these corruptions off, and come forth stronger 
 and purer than before. It is the Bible which in 
 every case has been the instrument of God's 
 Spirit in these reformations. It is the same 
 Bible which has been the agency in that long 
 series of historical revivals by which the Church 
 has once and again been saved in days of stag- 
 nation and unbelief. Without the Bible not one 
 of these great changes would have been brought 
 about. 
 
 And how marvelous the results ! To the Gos- 
 pel of Christ we owe it that we ourselves are not 
 today worshiping rocks and stones, but are bow- 
 ing in acknowledgment of the one God and 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is above 
 all and in all. It was Christianity that, in the 
 early centuries, overthrew the reign of the gods 
 and goddesses of Greece and Rome, and swept 
 them so entirely from faith and history that no 
 one now so much as dreams of the possibility 
 of the revival of their worship. It was Chris- 
 tianity that, still retaining something of its youth- 
 ful energy, laid hold of the rough, barbarian 
 peoples that overran Europe, and, with the Bible's 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 93 
 
 aid, trained and molded them to some kind of 
 civilization and moral life. It was Christianity 
 that, in Scotland, lighted a light in the monas- 
 teries of lona and other places, that by-and-by 
 spread its beams through every part of the 
 country. Just as today it is Christianity that is 
 teaching the idolaters to burn their idols, to 
 cease their horrid practices, to worship the true 
 God, and take upon them the obligations of decent 
 and civilized existence. 
 
 The Bible and the Future Life. 
 
 As it is with the knowledge of God, so is it 
 with hope for the future. The ancient world 
 was as much in the darkness about a future life 
 as it was about the being and character of God, 
 and what notions it had were perplexed, con- 
 fused, and erroneous in the extreme. But Christ, 
 as He came from God and went to God, has shed 
 a new light into the depths of the Unseen, and, 
 by His own Resurrection, has opened the gates 
 of a new and assured hope to mankind (I Peter 
 1:3). The lesson of all history is that, apart from 
 the Bible, and this hope which it contains, the 
 world but gropes in darkness, and wanders into 
 deeper and ever deeper uncertainty, from the 
 scepticism in which ancient Rome and Greece 
 ended, to the unconcealed agnosticism, and deeper 
 than agnosticism, the pessimism, under the de- 
 pressing influence of which our modern age 
 groans. 
 
94 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 Take a single illustration. I took up lately a 
 work of fiction — a book written, its lately de- 
 ceased author (Grant Allen) declared, *' for the 
 first time in my life wholly and solely to satisfy 
 my own taste and my own conscience " — and 
 this is the kind of teaching it offers. The author 
 is speaking in his own name. " Blank pessimism," 
 he says, " is the one creed possible for all save 
 fools. To hold any other is to curl yourself up 
 selfishly in your own easy chair, and say to your 
 soul, ' O soul, eat and drink ; O soul, make 
 merry.' . . . Pessimism is sympathy; optimism 
 is selfishness. . . . All honest art is therefore of 
 necessity pessimistic." The close of the book 
 describes the suicide of the heroine, and its last 
 words are : " Her stainless soul ceased to exist 
 forever." 
 
 In such an eclipse of hope — and there is more 
 of that eclipse at this hour in human minds and 
 hearts than one sometimes realizes — what can 
 bring light to the world, but the glorious mes- 
 sage of life and immortality through the gospel 
 of Jesus Christ ? 
 
 Look once more at heathenism. Here is an 
 extract from a letter recently received from a 
 young missionary working in India. " I have 
 had to give up the idea," he says, " of sending 
 home impressions of heathenism. Much of it is 
 literally indescribable, and a good deal of it too 
 awful to describe. It does not enter into one's 
 mind all at once that one's environment in a place 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 95 
 
 like this is almost incredibly vile. Things have 
 not so appalling an appearance on the surface, 
 but here and there are breaks, and one gets a 
 glimpse inside." Then follows a counter-picture 
 of the changes seen in the '' boys " at his insti- 
 tution. " Here is a very primitive Christianity, 
 if you like ; but for pluck, frank good nature, 
 real affection, and honest, downright fidelity (ac- 
 cording to their lights), they are as widely dif- 
 ferent from heathen boys as night from day." 
 
 It is this gospel which today is flooding with 
 hope and courage myriads of hearts that would 
 otherwise be in deepest despondency; that in 
 India, in China, in Africa, in the New Hebrides, 
 in every land to which it comes, is rising like a 
 great '' rose of dawn," a " dayspring from on 
 high," fraught with hope and healing for the woes 
 of men. But in this great work of the recovery 
 of mankind to God, of the regeneration of the 
 world, how absolutely indispensable is the Bible! 
 Without it what could the missionary, arm and 
 tongue paralyzed, accomplish? With it, even in 
 the absence of the missionary, what wondrous 
 changes, moral miracles even, are sometimes ef- 
 fected! Like seeds wafted by the wind into the 
 crevices of hard rock, that grow and flourish 
 and by-and-by split the rock, the simple truths of 
 the Bible, without a human tongue to expound 
 and enforce them, have often taken root, and 
 brought forth amazing fruit, to God's sole glory. 
 It was through a copy of the New Testament, 
 
96 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 found floating in the waters of the Bay of Yeddo, 
 that the gospel re-entered Japan, and created the 
 first band of disciples — the nucleus of the future 
 Church — when as yet no Christian teacher was 
 permitted to enter, and the profession of Chris- 
 tianity was prohibited on pain of death. 
 
 The Results to Ourselves. 
 
 Need I, finally, in this plea for the power of 
 the Bible, go further than its blessed results to 
 ourselves? What do zve not owe to the Bible, 
 and to the gospel which it brings ? I have spoken 
 already of civil blessings ; I look now only to the 
 spiritual. Our innumerable churches, our Sab- 
 bath rest and privileges, the religion whose power 
 inspires so much earnest life and so much noble 
 work, the blessed effects of that religion in peace, 
 in strength, in moral impulse in the minds that 
 possess it, the comfort it dispenses in trial, and 
 the joy and triumph it gives in death — all this 
 is the fruit of the message of the Bible. What- 
 ever blessings or hope we can trace to our Chris- 
 tian faith ; whatever light it imparts to our minds, 
 or cheer to our hearts ; whatever power there is 
 in it to sustain holiness or conquer sin — all this 
 we owe to the fact that Jesus came, and lived, 
 and died, and rose again, and has given us of 
 His Spirit ; and that we have the Bible in our 
 hands to tell us that He did it, and what He 
 expects us to be and do as His disciples. 
 
 Surveying the road we have traveled, am I 
 
THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 97 
 
 not entitled to claim that the rock of God's truth 
 stands fast, and that Jesus, His gospel, and the 
 Book that sets both forth, are still, let men gain- 
 say as they will, the spiritual powers that hold 
 in them the hope of the world's future. Christ's 
 reign is not ending. It will endure. In many 
 ways, voluntary or involuntary, His supremacy 
 is owned by the very persons who most loudly 
 dispute His claims. Even unbelief confirms the 
 Scripture statement that God has given Jesus 
 *' the name which is above every name" (Phil. 
 2:9). Christ's own Church, with more con- 
 sistency, echoes the confession. But so long as 
 Christ, in His self-attesting power, commands the 
 allegiance of believing hearts, the Bible, which 
 contains the priceless treasure of God's Word 
 regarding Him, will remain in undimmed honor. 
 It will be read, prized and studied by devout 
 minds, while the world lasts. 
 
IV 
 tCfje ^upremacp of tfte ?Bi6le 
 
 FREDERICK W. FARRAR 
 
 Men have misused Scripture just as they mis- 
 use Hght or food. And yet the Holy Scriptures 
 continue to be — and even increasingly to be — 
 the Supreme Bible of Humanity. There could 
 be no more decisive proof of the unique tran- 
 scendence of Holy Writ, and its essential mes- 
 sage to mankind, than the fact that it has not 
 only triumphed with ease over the assaults of 
 its enemies, but has also continued to command 
 the reverence, to guide the thoughts, to educate 
 the souls, to kindle the moral aspirations of men 
 through all the world. Were we to collect the 
 impassioned eulogies which have been pronounced 
 upon it by the saints and theologians of every 
 age we should require a volume, and he must 
 be indeed a cynic who could declare that testi- 
 monies so numerous and so fervent are due 
 only to insincerity or custom. Yet, if such ex- 
 pressions of gratitude and even of ecstasy be sus- 
 pected, how can we possibly explain the fact 
 that the most advanced critics — that literary men 
 outside the sphere of church influence — that 
 
lOO THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 men who would be denounced as heretics — nay, 
 even that avowed sceptics, who have approached 
 the Bible without a single trammel of doctrine 
 or tradition — have yet spoken of it in terms 
 of astonishment and admiration no less glowing 
 than those which have been used by preachers 
 and divines? 
 
 I will collect a few of these estimates of Scrip- 
 ture formed by men of independent minds and 
 of the highest ability, and by men who have ap- 
 proached the Bible solely from its literary and 
 humanitarian side. Their evidence will show 
 that the ignorant contempt with which the Bible 
 is often disparaged only proves the incapacity 
 of its assailants to grasp its real significance. 
 It is a literature which no age or nation can equal 
 or supersede, " though every library in the world 
 had remained unravaged, and every teacher's 
 truest words had been written down." " What 
 problems do these books leave unexamined ? vv^hat 
 depths unfathomed? what height unsealed? what 
 consolation unadministered ? what conscience un- 
 reproved ? what heart untouched ? " How absurd 
 it must be to scoff at a book which, through all 
 the centuries, thousands of great men have rev- 
 erenced in proportion to their greatness ; a book 
 for which, in age after age, warriors have fought, 
 philosophers labored, and martyrs bled! The 
 Lord Christ Himself did not disdain to quote from 
 the Old Testament. Its Uterary splendor was 
 acknowledged even by heathen critics like Longi- 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE loi 
 
 nus, who referred to the sublimity of Genesis and 
 the impassioned force of St. Paul. It exercised 
 the toil of Origen and Jerome; it fired the elo- 
 quence of Gregory and Chrysostom ; it molded 
 the thoughts of Athanasius and Augustine ; the 
 " Summa Theologise " of St. Thomas Aquinas 
 was but a meditation upon its theology, and the 
 " Imitatio Christi " of St. Thomas a Kempis an 
 attempt to express its spirituality. All that is 
 best and greatest in the literature of two thou- 
 sand years has been rooted in it and has sprung 
 from it. It has inspired the career of all the 
 best of men who " raised strong arms to bring 
 heaven a little nearer to our earth." vSt. Vincent 
 de Paul learned from its pages his tenderness for 
 the poor; and John Howard his love for the 
 suffering; and William Wilberforce his com- 
 passion for the slaves ; and Lord Shaftesbury 
 the dedication of his life to the amelioration of 
 the lot of his fellow-men. Has there been one 
 of our foremost statesmen or our best philanthro- 
 pists who has not confessed the force of its in- 
 spiration? It dilated and inspired the immortal 
 song of Dante and of Milton. All the brightest 
 and best English verse, from the poems of 
 Chaucer to the plays of Shakespeare in their 
 noblest parts, are echoes of its lessons ; and from 
 Cowper to Wordsworth, from Coleridge to Tenny- 
 son, the greatest of our poets have drawn from 
 its pages their loftiest wisdom. It inspired the 
 pictures of Fra Angelico and Raphael, the music 
 
10 2 THE BIBLE EN' THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 of Handel and Mendelssohn. It kindled the in- 
 trepid genius of Luther, the bright imagination of 
 Bunyan, the burning zeal of W'hitefield. The 
 hundred best books, the hundred best pictures, 
 the hundred greatest strains of music are all in 
 it and all derived from it. Augustine said long 
 ago that in the great poets and philosophers of 
 pagan antiquity he found many things that are 
 noble and beautiful, but not among them all could 
 he find " Come unto Me, all ye that are weary 
 and hea\y laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 The First Group of Witnesses. 
 
 Vast indeed is the cloud of witnesses to the 
 glor\- and supremacy of the Holy Scriptures. 
 " Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses 
 shall even.' word be established." I will begin 
 with a pleiad of witnesses, chosen first by way 
 of specimen from all sorts and conditions of men, 
 yet unanimous in their testimony to the eternal 
 preciousness of Holy Writ. I will adduce the 
 opinions of a Romish cardinal, a Jewish littera- 
 teur, an American Unitarian, a German scholar, 
 an Englishman of science, and an EngHshman 
 of letters. All of them differed, some of 
 them disbelieved, yet they are all at one as to the 
 unapproachable supremacy of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 I. John Henry Newman was a Romish cardi- 
 nal of sincere goodness and refined genius. He 
 said of the Bible, " Its light is like the body 
 of heaven in its clearness : its zastness like the 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 103 
 
 bosom of the sea; its variety like scenes of 
 nature." 
 
 2. Heinrich Heine was a Jew, half German, 
 half French; a man of flashing wit, a brilliant 
 stylist, a confirmed doubter. After a Sunday of 
 leaden ennui in Heligoland, he writes that he took 
 up the Bible in desperation, and spent most of the 
 day in reading it. Though he confesses himself 
 a secret Hellene, he admits that he was not only 
 well entertained but deeply edified. " What a 
 book ! " he exclaimed. " Vast and wide as the 
 world! rooted in the abysses of creation, and 
 towering up beyond the blue secrets of heaven! 
 Sunrise and sunset, birth and death, promise and 
 fulfillment, the whole drama of Humanity are all 
 in this Book!" 
 
 " It is the Book of books. The Jews may 
 easily console themselves for having lost Jeru- 
 salem, and the Temple, and the Ark of the 
 Covenant, and the golden vessels, and the pre- 
 cious things of Solomon. Such a loss is insig- 
 nificant compared with the Bible, the imperishable 
 treasure which they have rescued. If I do not 
 err, it was Mahomet who named the Jews * the 
 people of the Book ' — a name which has remained 
 theirs to the present day, and is deeply charac- 
 teristic. A book is their fatherland. They live 
 within the boundaries of this Book. Here do 
 they exercise their inalienable rights of citizen- 
 ship. Here they can be neither persecuted nor 
 despised. Absorbed in the study of this Book, 
 
I04 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 they observed little of the changes which went 
 on about them in the world. Nations arose and 
 perished ; states flourished and disappeared ; revo- 
 lutions stormed out of the ground, but they lay 
 bent over their Book, and observed nothing of the 
 wild tumult of the times that passed over thier 
 heads." 
 
 Nor was this a mere passing spasm of admira- 
 tion. When he was near his death, after years of 
 agony on his mattress-cofiin, when he had become 
 a changed man, Heine wrote, '' I attribute my en- 
 lightenment entirely and simply to the reading of 
 a book. Of a book? Yes! and it is an old 
 homely book, modest as nature — a book which 
 has a look modest as the sun which warms us, 
 as the bread which nourishes us — a book as 
 full of love and blessing as the old mother who 
 reads in it with her dear trembling lips, and this 
 book is the Book, the Bible. With right is it 
 named the Holy Scriptures. He who has lost his 
 God can find Him again in this Book, and he who 
 has never known Him is here struck by the breath 
 of the Divine Word." 
 
 3. Theodore Parker was a Unitarian minister 
 at Boston, a man of deep earnestness, of great 
 eloquence, of splendid courage. 
 
 " This collection of books has taken such a 
 hold on the world as no other. The literature 
 of Greece, which goes up like incense from that 
 land of temples and heroic deeds, has not half 
 the influence of this Book, from a nation alike 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 105 
 
 despised in ancient and modern times. It is 
 read of a Sunday in all the ten thousand pulpits 
 of our land; in all the temples of Christendom 
 is its voice lifted up week by week. The sun 
 never sets on its gleaming page. It goes equally 
 to the cottage of the plain man and the palace 
 of the king. It is woven into the literature of 
 the scholar, and colors the talk of the street. 
 The bark of the merchant cannot sail the sea 
 without it; no ship of war goes to the conflict 
 but the Bible is there. It enters men's closets, 
 mingles in all the grief and cheerfulness of life. 
 The affianced maiden prays God in Scripture for 
 strength in her new duties. Men are married by 
 Scripture; the Bfble attends them in their sick- 
 ness, when the fever of the world is on them; 
 the aching head finds a softer pillow when the 
 Bible lies underneath ; the mariner, escaping from 
 shipwreck, clutches this first of his treasures, and 
 keeps it sacred to God." 
 
 4. Heinrich von Ewald was a German scholar 
 of immense learning, who by indefatigable, life- 
 long study — amid the universal chorus of anath- 
 emas from that " blind and naked Ignorance " 
 which 
 
 Delivers brawling judgments unashamed 
 
 On all things all day long — 
 
 flung more light on the true meaning and history 
 of Scripture than all his assailants put together. 
 One day, when the late Dean Stanley was visiting 
 him, a New Testament which was lying on a 
 
Io6 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 little table happened to fall to the ground. He 
 stooped to pick it up, and he laid it again on 
 the table. " It is impossible," says Dean Stanley, 
 " to forget the noble enthusiasm with which this 
 ' dangerous heretic,' as he was regarded, grasped 
 the small volume, and exclaimed with indescrib- 
 able emotion, * In this little book is contained all 
 the best wisdom of the world.' " 
 
 5. Professor Huxley was a man of science, 
 and one of the most eminent. It was he who in- 
 vented the word " Agnosticism," and he accepted 
 the name " Agnostic." Yet he pleaded in the 
 school board for the Bible, as the best source of 
 the highest education for children, and in the 
 Contemporary Review for December, 1870, he 
 wrote : *' I have always been strongly in favor of 
 secular education, in the sense of education with- 
 out theology, but I must confess I have been no 
 less seriously perplexed to know by what practical 
 measures the religious feeling, which is the essen- 
 tial basis of conduct, was to be kept up in the 
 present utterly chaotic state of opinion on these 
 matters without the use of the Bible. The pagan 
 moralists lack life and color, and even the noble 
 Stoic, Marcus Antoninus, is too high and re- 
 fined for an ordinary child. Take the Bible as 
 a whole, make the severest deductions which fair 
 criticism can dictate for shortcomings and posi- 
 tive errors, eliminate, as a sensible lay teacher 
 would do if left to himself, all that it is not 
 desirable for children to occupy themselves with, 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 107 
 
 and there still remains in this old literature a 
 vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur. 
 And then consider the great historical fact that 
 for three centuries this Book has been woven into 
 the life of all that is best and noblest in English 
 history; that it has become the national epic of 
 Britain, and is familiar to noble and simple from 
 John o'Groat's House to Land's End, as Dante 
 and Tasso were once to the Italians; that it is 
 written in the noblest and purest English, and 
 abounds in exquisite beauties of a merely literary 
 form ; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind 
 who never left his village to be ignorant of the 
 existence of other countries and other civiliza- 
 tions, and of a great past, stretching back to the 
 furthest limits of the oldest nations in the world. 
 By the study of what other book could children 
 be so much humanized, and made to feel that 
 each figure in that vast historical procession fills, 
 like themselves, but a momentary space in the 
 interval between two eternities, and earns the 
 blessings or the curses of all times, according 
 to its efforts to do good and hate evil, even as 
 they also are earning their payment for their 
 work?" 
 
 6. Mr. Matthew Arnold was a man with an 
 exquisite gift of style and of critical insight. 
 He retained but little faith in the miraculous; 
 his creed was anything but orthodox. Yet the 
 Bible was his chief and constant study, and he 
 even contributed a most important element to 
 
I08 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 the true principles of its elucidation when he 
 insisted that being a literature it must be in- 
 terpreted on the fixed principles of literary criti- 
 cism. His writings abound in passages which 
 witness to his intense reverence and admiration 
 for the Sacred Books. 
 
 " As well imagine a man," he says, *' with a 
 sense for sculpture not cultivating it by the help 
 of the remains of Greek art, and a man with a 
 sense for poetry not cultivating it by the help 
 of Homer and Shakespeare, as a man with a 
 sense for conduct not cultivating it by the help 
 of the Bible." 
 
 The Testimony of Great Authors. 
 
 I will now proceed to group together a few 
 more of the remarkable testimonies to the unique 
 supremacy of Scripture over all other literature 
 — testimonies gathered from men of every va- 
 riety of genius and eminence, and from men who, 
 though they differed from each other as widely 
 as possible in their religious standpoint, were 
 at one in their exaltation of Holy Writ. 
 
 Let us begin with great authors. 
 
 1. Richard Hooker: 
 
 " There is scarcely any noble part of knowledge 
 worthy of the mind of man, but from Scripture 
 it may have some direction and light." 
 
 2. Milton : 
 
 " There are no songs to be compared with the 
 songs of Zion, no orations equal to those of the 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 109 
 
 Prophets, and no politics equal to those the Scrip- 
 tures can teach us." 
 
 And of the Scriptures in general he says : 
 " I shall wish I may deserve to be reckoned 
 among those who admire and dwell upon them." 
 
 3. Spenser, we are told, studied the prophetic 
 writings before he wrote the " Faerie Queene." 
 
 4. Bacon has more than seventy allusions to 
 the Bible in twenty-four of his essays. 
 
 5. George Herbert wrote : 
 
 'T is heaven in perspective, and the bliss 
 
 Of glory here. 
 
 If anywhere. 
 By saints on earth anticipated is, 
 
 Whilst faith to every word 
 
 Its being doth afford.^ 
 
 6. Sir Isaac Newton : 
 
 " We account the Scriptures of God to be the 
 most sublime philosophy." 
 
 7. Addison, Johnson, Pope, Young abound in 
 Scriptural allusions, and that in their most beau- 
 tiful and impressive passages. 
 
 8. William Cowper, comparing the poor Buck- 
 inghamshire lace-worker with Voltaire, says : 
 
 Yon cottager who weaves at her own door, 
 Pillow and bobbins all her little store, 
 Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night 
 Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light; 
 Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true, 
 A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew; 
 And in that treasure reads with sparkling eyes 
 Her title to a mansion in the skies. 
 
 ^ The Synagogue, p. 14. 
 
no THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 O happy peasant! O unhappy bard I 
 His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward! 
 He, praised perhaps for ages yet to come; 
 She, never heard of half a mile from home: 
 He lost in errors his vain heart prefers, 
 She safe in the simplicity of hers.^ 
 
 9. The poet Collins in the latter part of his 
 life withdrew from his general studies, and trav- 
 eled with no other book than an English New 
 Testament, such as children carry to school. Dr. 
 Johnson was anxious to know what compan- 
 ion a man of letters had chosen; the poet 
 said, " I have only one book, but that book is 
 the best." 
 
 ID. John Wesley: 
 
 " I am a creature of a day, passing through 
 life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit, 
 coming from God, and returning to God; just 
 hovering over the great gulf; a few moments 
 hence I am no more seen; I drop into an un- 
 changeable eternity! I want to know one thing 
 — the way to heaven : how to land safe on that 
 happy shore. God himself has condescended to 
 teach the way. He hath written it down in a 
 book. O give me that Book ! At any price, give 
 me the Book of God ! I have it : here is knowledge 
 enough for me. Let me be a man of one book. 
 Here, then, I am, far from the busy ways of 
 men. I sit down alone; only God is here. In 
 His presence I open, I read His Book, for this 
 end — to find the way to heaven." 
 1 Truth. 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE iii 
 
 11. Coleridge: 
 
 " For more than a thousand years the Bible 
 collectively taken has gone hand in hand with 
 civilization, science, law — in short, with the 
 moral and intellectual cultivation of the species, 
 always supporting and often leading the way." ^ 
 
 12. Sir Walter Scott: 
 
 Within this awful volume lies 
 The mystery of mysteries: 
 Happiest he of human race 
 To whom God has given grace 
 To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, 
 To lift the latch, and learn the way; 
 And better had he ne'er been born | 
 
 Who reads to doubt, or reads to scorn.* ' 
 
 " Bring me the book," he said, when he lay 
 dying. "What book?" asked Lockhart, his son- 
 in-law. " The Book," said Sir Walter ; " the 
 Bible; there is but one." 
 
 13. Lord Macaulay, who knew the Bible well 
 from a child and often refers to it, said : 
 
 *' The English Bible — a book which, if every- 
 thing else in our language should perish, would 
 alone suffice to show the whole extent of its 
 beauty and power." ^ 
 
 14. Charles Dickens wrote to his son : 
 
 " It is my comfort and my sincere conviction 
 that you are going to try the life for which you 
 are best fitted. I think its freedom and wildness 
 
 ^ Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit, p. 69. 
 * The Monastery. \ 
 ' Essay on Dryden. 
 
112 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 more suited to you than experiment in a study 
 or office would have been. Try to do to others 
 as you would have them do to you, and do not 
 be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much 
 better for you that they should fail in obeying the 
 greatest rule laid down by our Saviour than that 
 you should. I put a New Testament among your 
 books for the very same reasons and with the 
 very same hopes that made me write an easy 
 account of it for you when you were a little 
 child — because it is the best book that ever was 
 or will be known in the world, and because it 
 teaches you the best lessons by which any human 
 creature who tries to be truthful and faithful to 
 duty can possibly be guided." ^ 
 
 15. Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 Carlyle was a man who prided himself on his 
 absolute veracity. His attitude toward the 
 Church, his attitude to every form of Christianity, 
 was one of intellectual aloofness and complete 
 independence. He says of the Bible that it is 
 
 " The one Book wherein, for thousands of 
 years, the spirit of man has found light and 
 nourishment, and a response to whatever was 
 deepest in his heart." 
 
 John Ruskin's Notable Words. 
 
 16. John Ruskin : 
 
 "All that I have taught of Art," he says, 
 " everything that I have written, whatever great- 
 
 ' Forster's Life of Dickens, III. 445. 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 113 
 
 ness there has been in any thought of mine, 
 whatever I have done in my Hfe, has simply 
 been due to the fact that, when I was a child, 
 my mother daily read with me a part of the 
 Bible, and daily made me learn a part of it by 
 heart." 
 
 " How much I owe," he says, in the first 
 volume of his " Praeterita," " to my mother for 
 having so exercised me in the Scriptures as to 
 make me grasp them in what my correspondent 
 would call their ' concrete whole ' ; and above all 
 taught me to reverence them as transcending all 
 thought and ordaining all conduct. This she 
 effected, not by her own sayings or personal 
 authority, but simply by compelling me to read 
 the Book thoroughly for myself. As soon as I 
 was able to read with fluency, she began a course 
 of Bible work with me, which never ceased till 
 I went to Oxford. She read alternate verses to 
 me, watching at first every intonation of my voice, 
 and correcting the false ones, till she made me 
 understand the verse, if within my reach, rightly 
 and energetically. It might be beyond me alto- 
 gether ; that she did not care about ; but she 
 made sure that as soon as I got hold of it at all, 
 I should get hold of it by the right end. In 
 this way she began with the first verse of Genesis, 
 and went straight through to the last verse of 
 the Apocalypse; hard names, numbers, Levitical 
 law and all; and began again at Genesis next 
 day. If a name was hard, the better the exercise 
 
114 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 in pronunciation; if a chapter was tiresome, the 
 better the lesson in patience; if loathsome, the 
 better the lesson in faith that there was some use 
 in its being so outspoken. After our chapters 
 (from two to three a day, according to their 
 length, the first thing after breakfast, and no 
 interruption from servants allowed, none from 
 visitors, who either joined in the reading or had 
 to stay upstairs, and none from any visitings or 
 excursions, except real traveling), I had to learn 
 a few verses by heart, or repeat, to make sure I 
 had not lost, something of what was already 
 known; and, with the chapters above enumer- 
 ated, I had to learn the whole body of the fine 
 old Scottish paraphrases, which are good, melo- 
 dious, and forceful verse ; and to which, together 
 with the Bible itself, I owe the first cultivation 
 of my ear in sound. It is strange that of all the 
 pieces of the Bible that my mother thus taught 
 me, that which cost me m.ost to learn, and which 
 was, to my child's mind, chiefly repulsive — Psalm 
 119 — has now become of all the most precious 
 to me in its overflowing and glorious passion of 
 love for the law of God." 
 
 17. The two greatest poets of our generation, 
 Browning and Tennyson, abound in loving and 
 reverent allusions to the Bible, which will recur 
 to the memory of every student of their works. 
 
 18. Mr. J. A. Froude, in his sketch of John 
 Bunyan, writes: 
 
 " The Bible thoroughly known is a literature 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 115 
 
 of itself — the rarest and the richest in all de- 
 partments of thought or imagination which 
 exists." 
 
 19. Charles Reade writes that he was aston- 
 ished at the amazing vividness of impression pro- 
 duced by the sacred writers with a few slight 
 touches. He considered that in a few lines they 
 left a deeper mark than many a writer of genius 
 in a long work of fiction. This consideration 
 sufficed, even alone, to impress on him a sense 
 of their transcendent value. 
 
 20. Speaking of the matchless verve and in- 
 sight which we find in the delineation of char- 
 acters in the Bible, another of our most eminent 
 modern novelists, Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, 
 says : 
 
 " Written in the East, these characters live 
 for ever in the West; written in one province, 
 they pervade the world; penned in rude times, 
 they are prized more and more as civilization 
 advances; product of antiquity, they come home 
 to the business and bosoms of men, women, and 
 children in modern days. Then is it any ex- 
 aggeration to say that the * characters of Scrip- 
 ture are a marvel of the mind ' ? " 
 
 21. Another eminent novelist, Mr. Hall Caine, 
 writes in McChire's Magazine: 
 
 " I think that I know my Bible as few literary 
 men know it. There is no book in the world 
 like it, and the finest novels ever written fall far 
 short in interest of any one of the stories it tells. 
 
Il6 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 Whatever strong situations I have in my books 
 are not of my creation, but are taken from the 
 Bible. ' The Deemster ' is the story of the Prodi- 
 gal Son. * The Bondman ' is the story of Esau 
 and Jacob. ' The Scapegoat ' is the story of Eli 
 and his sons, but with Samuel as a little girl; 
 and * The Manxman ' is the story of David and 
 Uriah." 
 
 22. Mr. J. H. Green wrote his admirable his- 
 tory of England without the smallest touch of 
 clerical bias, and, speaking simply as an observer 
 and an impartial historian, he records the memo- 
 rably noble effects produced upon England by the 
 possession of the Scriptures in a language which 
 the people could understand. 
 
 '* England became the people of a Book, and 
 that Book was the Bible.' It was, as yet, the one 
 English book which was familiar to every Eng- 
 lishman. It was read in churches, and it was 
 read at home, and everywhere its words, as they 
 fell on ears which custom had not deadened to 
 their force and beauty, kindled a startling en- 
 thusiasm. . . . Elizabeth might silence or tune 
 the pulpits, but it was impossible for her to 
 silence or tune the great preachers of justice, 
 and mercy, and truth, who spoke from the Book 
 which the Lord again opened to the people. . . . 
 The effect of the Bible in this way was simply 
 amazing. The whole temper of the nation was 
 changed. A new conception of life and of man 
 superseded the old. A new moral and religious 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 117 
 
 impulse spread through every class. . . . The- 
 ology rules there, said Grotius of England, only 
 ten years after Elizabeth's death. The whole 
 nation, in fact, becomes a Qiurch." 
 
 The Testimony of Rulers and Statesmen. 
 
 Let us now adduce the opinions of a few rulers 
 and statesmen. 
 
 1. King Edward the Sixth. At the coronation 
 of the young King Edward VL, three swords 
 were brought to be carried before him, as signs 
 of his being head of three kingdoms. '' There 
 is one sword yet lacking," said the king, " the 
 Bible. That book is the sword of the Spirit, 
 and to be preferred before any other. Without 
 that sword we can do nothing, we have no 
 power." And, so it is said, at his command 
 the Bible was also carried before him in the 
 procession. 
 
 2. Very remarkable was the emphatic testi- 
 mony of Napoleon I. to the Bible as recorded in 
 Bertrand's Memoirs. " Behold it upon this 
 table " (here he solemnly placed his hand upon 
 it). "I never omit to read it, and every day with 
 the same pleasure. Nowhere is to be found such 
 a series of beautiful ideas, admirable moral 
 maxims, which produce in one's soul the same 
 emotion which one experiences in contemplating 
 the infinite expanse of the skies resplendent upon 
 a summer's night with all the brilliance of the 
 stars. Not only is one's mind absorbed, it is con- 
 
Il8 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 trolled, and the soul can never go astray with 
 this book for its guide." ^ 
 
 3. Lord Bacon — " The Student's Prayer " : 
 " To God the Father, God the Word, God the 
 
 Spirit we pour forth most humble and hearty sup- 
 plications that He, remembering the calamities 
 of mankind, and the pilgrimage of this our life, 
 in which we wear out days few and evil, would 
 please to open to us new refreshments out of 
 the fountain of His goodness for the alleviating 
 of our miseries. This also we humbly and ear- 
 nestly beg, that human things may not prejudice 
 such as are Divine; neither that from the un- 
 locking of the gates of sense and the kindling of 
 a greater natural light anything of incredulity or 
 intellectual night may arise in our minds toward 
 Divine mysteries; but rather that by our minds 
 thoroughly cleansed and purged from fancy and 
 vanities, and subject and perfectly given up to 
 the Divine oracles, there may be given unto faith 
 such things as are faith's." 
 
 4. John Selden : " I have surveyed most of the 
 learning found among the sons of men ; but I can 
 stay my soul on none of them but the Bible." 
 
 5. Sir Matthew Hale (Lord Chief Justice) : 
 " Every morning read seriously and reverently a 
 portion of the Holy Scripture, and acquaint your- 
 self with the doctrine thereof. It is a book full 
 of light and wisdom, and will make you wise to 
 eternal life." 
 
 ' See Table Talk of Napoleon I., p. 120. 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 119 
 
 6. Judge Blackstone, in his famous " Com- 
 mentaries on the Laws of England," says that 
 the Bible has always been regarded as part of the 
 Common Law of England." 
 
 7. Edmund Burke : " The Bible is not a book, 
 but a literature, and indeed an infinite collection 
 of the most varied and the most venerable 
 literature." 
 
 8. William Wilberforce : " Through all my 
 perplexities and distresses, I seldom read any 
 other book, and I as rarely have felt the want 
 of any other. It has been my hourly study." 
 
 9. Mr. Gladstone : " It is supremacy, not 
 precedence, that we ask for the Bible ; it is con- 
 trast as well as resemblance, that we must feel 
 compelled to insist on. The Bible is stamped 
 with speciality of origin, and an immeasurable 
 distance separates it from all competitors. 
 
 " Who doubts that, times without number, par- 
 ticular portions of Scripture find their way to 
 the human soul as if they were embassies from 
 on high, each with its own commission of com- 
 fort, of guidance, or of warning? What crisis, 
 what trouble, what perplexity of life has failed 
 or can fail to draw from this inexhaustible 
 treasure-house its proper supply? What profes- 
 sion, what position, is not daily and hourly en- 
 riched by these words which repetition never 
 weakens, which carry with them now, as in the 
 days of their first utterance, the freshness of 
 youth and immortality? When the solitary stu- 
 
120 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 dent opens all his heart to drink them in, they 
 will reward his toil. And in forms yet more 
 hidden and withdrawn, in the retirement of the 
 chamber, in the stillness of the night season, upon 
 the bed of sickness, and in the face of death, the 
 Bible will be there, its several words how often 
 winged with their several and special messages 
 to heal and to soothe, to uplift and uphold, to 
 invigorate and stir. Nay, more, perhaps, than 
 this : amid the crowds of the court, or the forum, 
 or the street, or the market-place, where every 
 thought of every soul seems to be set upon the 
 excitements of ambition, or of business, or of 
 pleasure, there too, even there, the still small 
 voice of the Holy Bible will be heard, and the 
 soul, aided by some blessed word, may find 
 wings like a dove, may flee away and be at 
 rest." 
 
 The Testimony of American Statesmen and 
 Writers. 
 
 Of American statesmen and writers we may 
 adduce : 
 sj I. President John Quincy Adams: 
 
 ** The first and almost the only book deserving 
 of universal attention is the Bible. The Bible is 
 the Book of all others to be read at all ages and 
 in all conditions of human life; not to be read 
 once or twice through and then laid aside, but 
 to be read in small portions of one or two chap- 
 ters every day, and never to be intermitted except 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 121 
 
 by some overruling necessity. I speak as a man 
 of the world to men of the world, and I say to 
 you, ' Search the Scriptures/ 
 
 *' I have for many years made it a practice 
 to read through the Bible once a year. ... It is 
 an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowl- 
 edge and virtue." 
 
 2. Andrew Jackson, President of the United 
 States. When he lay on his deathbed he pointed 
 to the Family Bible which lay on the table be- 
 side him, and said to his physician: 
 
 '* That Book, sir, is the rock on which our 
 Republic rests." 
 
 3. Senator W. B. Leigh, a famous Virginian 
 lawyer : 
 
 " I advise every man to read his Bible. I speak 
 of it here as a book which it behooves a lawyer 
 to make himself thoroughly acquainted with. It 
 is the code of ethics of every Christian country 
 on the globe, and tends, above all other books, 
 to elucidate the spirit of law throughout the 
 Christian world. It is, in fact, a part of the 
 practical law of every Christian nation, whether 
 recognized as such or not." 
 
 4. Daniel Webster, the great American orator: 
 " From the time that, at my mother's feet or 
 
 on my father's knee, I first learned to lisp verses 
 from the sacred writings, they have been my daily 
 study and vigilant contemplation. If there be 
 anything in my style or thoughts to be com- 
 mended, the credit is due to my kind parents in 
 
122 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 instilling- into my mind an early love of the 
 Scriptures." 
 
 And, again, 
 
 "If we abide by the principles taught in the 
 Bible, our country will go on prospering and 
 to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect 
 its instructions and authority, no man can tell 
 how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us 
 and bury our glory in profound obscurity." 
 
 And in his speech on the completion of the 
 Bunker Hill Monument (1843), he said: "The 
 Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, 
 and a book of morals, and a book of religion, 
 of especial revelation from God." 
 
 When he lay on his deathbed his physician 
 quoted to him the verse of Psalm 23 — " Yea, 
 though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
 of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with 
 me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." 
 And the great strong man faltered out, " Yes ; 
 that is what I want. Thy rod. Thy rod; Thy 
 staff, Thy staff." They were the last words he 
 spoke. 
 
 5. Secretary Seward : " The whole life of hu- 
 man progress is suspended on the ever-growing 
 influence of the Bible." 
 
 6. General Grant, President of the United 
 States, sent a message to this effect to the Sunday- 
 school children of America in 1876: "Hold fast 
 to the Bible as the sheet anchor to your liberties. 
 Write its precepts in your heart and practise them 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 123 
 
 in your lives. To the influence of this Book we 
 are indebted for all the progress made in true 
 civilization, and to this we must look as our 
 guide in the future." 
 
 7. William Lloyd Garrison, who did more 
 than any man to sweep away the curse of Ameri- 
 can slavery, said, " Take away the Bible from 
 us, and our warfare against intemperance and 
 impurity and oppression and infidelity and crime 
 is at an end. We have no authority to speak, 
 no courage to act." 
 
 8. " Of all books," said Mr. Dana to the stu- 
 dents of Union College, *' of all books, the most 
 indispensable and the most useful, the one whose 
 knowledge is most effective, is the Bible. There 
 is no book from which more valuable lessons can 
 be learned. I am considering it now not as a 
 religious book, but as a manual of utility, of pro- 
 fessional preparation and professional use for a 
 journalist. There is, perhaps, no book whose 
 style is more suggestive and more instructive, 
 from which you learn more directly that sublime 
 simplicity which never exaggerates, which re- 
 counts the greatest event with solemnity, of 
 course, but without sentimentality or affectation, 
 none which you open with such confidence and 
 lay down with such reverence. There is no 
 Book like the Bible." 
 
 9. Mr. Charles Dudley Warner wrote in 
 Harper's Magazine: 
 
 " Wholly apart from its religious or from its 
 
124 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 ethical value, the Bible is the one Book that no 
 intelligent person who wishes to come into con- 
 tact with the world of thought and to share the 
 ideas of the great minds of the Christian era can 
 afford to be ignorant of. All modern literature 
 and all art are permeated with it. There is 
 scarcely a great work in the language that can be 
 fully understood and enjoyed without this knowl- 
 edge, so full is it of allusions and illustrations 
 from the Bible. This is true of fiction, of poetry, 
 gf economic and philosophic works, and also of 
 the scientific and even agnostic treatises. It is 
 not at all a question of religion, or theology, or 
 of dogma; it is a question of general intelli- 
 gence. A boy or girl at college in the presence 
 of the works set for either to master without a 
 fair knowledge of the Bible is an ignoramus, and 
 is disadvantaged accordingly. It is in itself almost 
 a liberal education, as many great masters in 
 literature have testified. It has so entered into 
 law, literature, thought, the whole modern Ufe 
 of the Christian world, that ignorance of it is a 
 most serious disadvantage to the student." 
 
 10. We should perhaps hardly have expected 
 a glowing eulogy of the Bible from Mr. Walt 
 Whitman. Yet in his " November Boughs " he 
 wrote : 
 
 " The Bible as Poetry. I 've said nothing yet 
 of the cumulus of associations of the Bible as a 
 poetic entity, and of every portion of it. Not 
 the old edifice only — the congeries also of events 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE BIBLE 125 
 
 and struggles and surroundings, of which it has 
 been the scene and motive — even the horrors, 
 dreads, deaths. How many ages and generations 
 have brooded and wept and agonized over this 
 Book! What untellable joys and ecstasies, what 
 support to martyrs at the stake, from it ! To what 
 myriads has it been the shore and rock of safety 
 — the refuge from driving tempest and wreck! 
 Translated in all languages, how it has united 
 this diverse world! Of civilized lands today, 
 whose of our retrospects has it not interwoven 
 and linked and permeated? Not only does it 
 bring us what is clasped within its covers: nay, 
 that is the least of what it brings. Of its thou- 
 sands there is not a verse, not a word, but is 
 thick-studded with human emotion. Successions 
 of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, of 
 our own antecedents, inseparable from that back- 
 ground of us, on which, phantasmal as it is, all 
 that we are today inevitably depends — our an- 
 cestry, our past." 
 
 II. Let me add the testimony of one of the 
 best known of the great philanthropists of 
 America. 
 
 It is related of George Peabody that when he 
 was an old man, sitting in his office in London 
 one day, a boy brought him a New Testament 
 for some purpose, I know not what; but the 
 old man, looking up, said : " My boy, you carry 
 that book easily in your youth, but when you are 
 as old as I am, it must carry you." 
 
®|ie aiiftms "tTalue of tlje ©ft SCesdament 
 
 GEORGE L. ROBINSON 1 
 
 Ever since Marcion and the Gnostics empha- 
 sized the antithesis between the God of the Old 
 Testament and the God of the New, extreme 
 views have prevailed among men as to whether 
 the Old Testament is really an essential part of 
 Christianity. Some are disposed to cut the New 
 Testament aloof from the Hebrew Scriptures 
 altogether, because, as they claim, Christianity 
 can live on quite as well without them. Others 
 regard the Old Testament as " the millstone about 
 the neck of Christianity," a stumbling-block to 
 Christians as much as the Cross is to the Jews. 
 While others, who are not so explicitly antag- 
 onistic in their attitude, have no adequate appre- 
 ciation of the preciousness of the treasure 
 which has come down to them from remote an- 
 tiquity. The same men, it should be noted, are 
 usually lacking also in their appreciation of the 
 New Testament. For, as Dr. George Adam 
 Smith observes, " It is one of not the least 
 
 1 This chapter is taken from the book of the same name, 
 published by Association Press : New York. 
 
128 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 faults of a merely academic criticism, that it 
 never appeals to Christian standards except 
 when it would disparage the men of the Old 
 Covenant." ^ 
 
 Our estimate of the worth of the Old Testa- 
 ment will depend largely upon our attitude to 
 the Hebrews as the recipients and custodians of 
 God's revelation to men. Their history is " like 
 a piece of shot silk ; hold it at one angle and you 
 see dark purple, hold it at another and you see 
 bright golden tints." Too often the Old Testa- 
 ment is studied with purely aesthetic motives. 
 Frequently it is approached from the strictly 
 scientific point of view. But neither — nor both 
 — of these methods is adequate to unlock its 
 wealth. The Old Testament will not yield itself 
 to mere aesthetic or scientific investigation. The 
 Old Testament, above all other books, has spiritual 
 and religious value as the record of God's reve- 
 lation to the world. The roots of Christian teach- 
 ing go deep down into Hebrew soil, and to under- 
 stand the whole tree one must study the roots. 
 The institutions of the Hebrews are types of 
 Christian truth. Christianity, as well as the Bible, 
 has its Old Testament half. The Old Testament 
 is an integral part of the Word of God, a source 
 of inspiration, and a guide to ethical life. The 
 problem of our day is to rediscover its value and 
 to portray it to men. 
 
 1 Jerusalem, II. 343. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 129 
 
 The Old Testament Has Intrinsic Value of 
 its Own. 
 
 That the Old Testament has historical value is 
 obvious to every student of antiquity. It is the 
 Ariadne's thread to the archaeologist. (Cf. 
 Genesis 10 and 14.) It is likewise the fountain 
 head of what is known as " the philosophy of 
 history." The Hebrews were the first to take a 
 teleological view of the world, the first to interpret 
 human events in terms of God's providence. 
 Other histories displayed the disciplinary love of 
 God, but it was left for the Hebrews to discern 
 that love and to describe it in terms of God's 
 love. To them it was not enough to study mere 
 events, they sought the underlying principles 
 and showed the nexus of cause and effect. 
 Ottley, in eulogizing this quality in Hebrew his- 
 torians, goes so far as to define their inspiration 
 as " the ability to see God's hand in human 
 events." 
 
 The literary excellence, too, of the Old Testa- 
 ment is widely recognized. The charm of its 
 simplicity, the variety of its imagery, the grace 
 of its diction, the melody of its rhythm, and the 
 richness of its vocabulary and thought, are con- 
 spicuous features of the whole Old Testament — 
 of its history, biography, oratory, prophecy, and 
 poetry alike. Even our own English vocabulary 
 has been enriched by words taken over from the 
 Hebrew, such as Messiah, Sabbath, manna, Naz- 
 arite, seraph, cherub, shekel, satan, shibboleth, 
 
I30 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 and many others. Almost countless expressions 
 and phrases of our every-day speech come di- 
 rectly from the Old Testament: for example, 
 " See eye to eye," '* Let us eat and drink ; for to- 
 morrow we die," " Precept upon precept, line 
 upon line," " The shadow of a great rock in a 
 weary land," " Without money and without 
 price," *' Peace like a river," " Everlasting life," 
 etc., etc. 
 
 As a monograph on comparative religion, also, 
 the Old Testament is unique. Scant indeed would 
 be the sources handed down from antiquity were 
 the Old Testament of the Hebrews lost. This is 
 true not alone because of its quality but also 
 because of its character and genius. Above all 
 the other religions of antiquity, that of the He- 
 brews is conspicuous for originality. The He- 
 brews seem to have had a special talent for 
 truth that was theistic and for verities that were 
 eternal. Through their fertility of conception, 
 which bears the unmistakable marks of inspira- 
 tion, they discovered some truths once for all, 
 truths which have ever since been regarded as 
 essential factors in all true religion. Primary 
 among these is their conception of God. The 
 Jewish doctrine of God is absolutely unique. 
 To the Hebrew mind, Jehovah is not only a 
 majestic sovereign, strong and terrible, but He 
 is personal, holy, merciful, righteous, and good: 
 a Father, also, who pitieth His children, and who, 
 though transcendent, condescends to hold com- 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 131 
 
 mimion and fellowship with the humblest of His 
 saints. The Old Testament never attempts to 
 prove the existence of God; it assumes this as 
 axiomatic. It is *' the fool " who says in his 
 heart, "There is no God" (Ps. 14:1). 
 
 The Hebrews also discovered conscience. In 
 due time they even produced an order of men 
 who became a conscience for the nation. Modern 
 prophets too frequently shrink from being a 
 conscience unto their people. In order to express 
 Israel's moral sense of obligation to God, Moses 
 formulated a comprehensive code of civil and 
 religious law, which lifted them above the plane 
 of their heathen contemporaries. Their neighbors 
 were content to worship Nature ; the Hebrews, on 
 the contrary, early discovered that the law which 
 declares the will of God is better than nature 
 or " the heavens " which tell of His glory: " The 
 heavens declare the glory of God . . . but the 
 law of Jehovah (in contrast) is perfect" (Ps. 
 19: I, 7). They also taught men to pray, giving 
 expression to their desires through sacrifices, 
 which was the antique manner of obtaining the 
 divine favor. Isaac, for example, entreated Je- 
 hovah for his wife, literally, " offered sweet 
 smelling fragrance " ; for the word in the origi- 
 nal, atar, which is translated " entreated," is akin 
 to that in our English expression " attar of roses " 
 (Gen. 25:21). 
 
 The Hebrews also cultivated faith, as the es- 
 sential element in religion. And they emphasized 
 
132 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 duty, in particular the primary obligations of hon- 
 esty, righteousness, obedience, and charity. They 
 even enunciated for the first time what might 
 be called the germ of " Christian Endeavor," as, 
 for example, when Malachi commends the priests 
 who "turned many away from iniquity" (Mai. 
 2:6), or when the Hebrew sage declares that 
 " he that watereth shall be watered also himself " 
 (Prov. II : 25). 
 
 The Hebrews were the first also of the nations 
 to teach the sacred character of patriotism: for 
 example, Zebulun and Naphtali are praised in the 
 Song of Deborah for having jeoparded their 
 lives unto the death upon the high places of the 
 field (Judg. 5:18). Immortality likewise (Pss. 
 16 and 17) and redemption (Isa. 63:8), forgive- 
 ness of sin (Ps. 32) and victory over death 
 (Isa. 26:19, Dan. 12:2), are all carefully un- 
 folded, with greater or lesser fullness, in the Old 
 Testament — not so fully, however, as to pre- 
 clude the necessity of the incarnation. It was 
 left to Christ to bring life and immortality to 
 light; He it was who filled with richer, deeper 
 ethical content the rudimentary forms which the 
 Hebrews were as yet unable to appreciate. For 
 we must ever remember that while God sent the 
 nations to common school and Israel to high 
 school, so to speak, He sent the disciples to col- 
 lege at the feet of Christ. Thus He revealed 
 Himself " by divers portions." 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 133 
 
 Truth Taught in Characters. 
 
 Most remarkable also is the fact that in the 
 Old Testament the great truths of religion are 
 presented not in abstract form but concretely, and 
 indeed so attractively that the reader is charmed 
 by their simplicity and beauty, and by the fresh- 
 ness of Hebrew Hfe and faith. Take, for in- 
 stance, some of the great characters of Old 
 Testament history. In the story of Noah, what 
 a parable is there of encouragement to those who 
 are misunderstood, misinterpreted, and scoffed at ; 
 in the career of Abraham, what an instructive 
 illustration of the summons which must come 
 to us all to go out into the great unknown country 
 of the other life; in the ambitious, unscrupulous 
 character of Jacob, what a likeness to the spiritual 
 biography of many a man ; in the story of Joseph, 
 what a parable of the way to bear adversity; in 
 that of Gideon, what a summons to faithful en- 
 deavor with assurance of victory ; in Samson, what 
 a lesson of the way in which the noblest oppor- 
 tunities of birth and power may be prostituted; 
 in Samuel, what a splendid type both of a normal 
 religious childhood and of a normal religious 
 life ; in Isaiah, what a stately example of one who 
 recognized that public affairs demand the de- 
 voted service of the holiest and most consecrated 
 men; in Jeremiah, what a model of personal, in- 
 dividual moral responsibility; while in Job, tried 
 in the furnace of affliction, what imperishable 
 evidence that the present life is all too short for 
 
134 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 the realization of a divine theodicy of perfect 
 justice, and of the inevitabiHty of a life beyond. 
 
 Alleged Infelicities and Blemishes. 
 
 In comparison with such great masterpieces 
 of religious art — such living, throbbing char- 
 acters — how unimportant and insignificant are 
 the alleged infelicities and blemishes in the Old 
 Testament to which men sometimes superficially 
 point the finger of disapproval: for example, 
 polygamy, divorce, slavery, revenge, ritual, the 
 vindictiveness of the psalmists, and judgment; the 
 extent and character of which have been so greatly 
 exaggerated by the enemies of the Old Testa- 
 ment. And, once more, granted that the Old 
 Testament frequently tells of judgment, and 
 paints solemn pictures of universal doom upon 
 those who disobey the commands of Jehovah- 
 God, the New Testament is far more explicit 
 in the emphasis it places on eternal doom. It is 
 indeed Jesus Himself who describes the doom 
 of hell as a place of outer darkness and of 
 weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 25). It 
 was His loving lips that shaped this form of 
 words, so heart-touching in its wailing but so 
 decisive in its proclamation of blackness, home- 
 lessness, and sorrow. In the words of the late 
 Dr. Alexander Maclaren, that " prince of 
 preachers " and king of expositors, " the religion 
 of Jesus Christ was no mere soft and pliant sym- 
 pathetic helpfulness; it could smite and stab and 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 135 
 
 be severe, and knit its brow, and speak stern 
 words, as all true service must. For it is not 
 service but cruelty to sympathize with the sinner 
 and say nothing in condemnation of his sin." ^ 
 There are, of necessity, two sides to moral 
 religion, one stern, the other tender. The 
 law, it is true, speaks in stern imperatives; but 
 the gospel is as rigid in its requirements as the 
 law; in fact, its demands and penalties are in 
 several instances even more severe than those 
 of the law. 
 
 The Old Testament is the Interpreter of the 
 New. 
 
 We frequently hear men say that the New 
 Testament is the key to the Old, but it is equally 
 true that the Old Testament is the interpreter 
 of the New. The New Testament is conceived 
 in the womb of Hebrew thought. Pedagogically 
 as well as apologetically the Old Testament is an 
 indispensable part of Christianity. " No scrip- 
 ture is of private interpretation." 
 
 Few men adequately appreciate what the Old 
 Testament has meant to Christianity. The Old 
 Testament canon has had a history in the Chris- 
 tian Church as well as in the Jewish. It has 
 wrought itself into the very warp and woof of 
 Christianity. This was possible because the es- 
 sence of the Old Testament is love. Even the 
 
 * Expositions of Holy Scripture; on Matt. 20 : 28, p. 76. 
 
136 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 Decalogue is introduced by a preface which im- 
 pHcitly states that it was because Jehovah loved 
 Israel that He gave them a code of laws : " I 
 am Jehovah thy God who brought thee out of 
 the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," 
 therefore, " Thou shalt have no other gods before 
 me" (Exod. 20:2, 3). Men are wont to say 
 that the Old Testament reveals a God of justice, 
 whereas the New Testament, a God of love. Such 
 a statement is much narrower than the facts. 
 The God of the Old Testament is also the God 
 of the New, and His name is Love: to this the 
 Psalms, Deuteronomy, and especially the prophe- 
 cies of Hosea bear witness. The Old Testament, 
 indeed, describes God as dwelling in a temple, 
 the New Testament as tabernacling in the heart. 
 Ancient temples had no windows, Deity dwelt in 
 thick darkness (i Kings 8:12); in the New 
 Testament also God dwells in mystery, but it is 
 the mystery of light. According to the Old 
 Testament, God breathed into man the breath 
 of life (Gen. ^'.'j')', according to Paul, "In him 
 we live and move and have our being " (Acts 17: 
 28). The Old Testament gives prominence to the 
 solidarity of the nation ; the New Testament to 
 the value of the individual. The messages of the 
 prophets are emphatically social, those of Christ 
 individual and evangelistic. The popular na- 
 tional note of the Old Testament has been re- 
 peatedly echoed and re-echoed throughout the 
 history of the Christian Church. '' The Apostolic 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 137 
 
 church worked officially upon the democratic pre- 
 cedents set her throughout the law and history 
 of the Old Covenant." ^ Martial psalms, like 
 the 68th, have been sung on the plains of the 
 Palatinate, from the lips of Cromwell's Iron- 
 sides, and in Scotland's struggle for crown and 
 covenant. 
 
 The ideals of the two Covenants are practically 
 the same : that of the Old Testament is holiness : 
 ** Ye shall be holy ; for I, Jehovah, your God, 
 am holy " (Lev. 19: 2) ; that of Jesus, perfection, 
 " Ye, therefore, shall be perfect, as your heavenly 
 Father is perfect " (Matt. 5 : 48). There is doubt- 
 less a slight difference in the ethical contents of 
 these conceptions, but in essence they are the 
 same — likeness to God. The reason for the 
 difference is patent to any one who will pause 
 to reflect : the Old Testament covers millenniums 
 of ethical and religious development, the New 
 Testament less than a century. 
 
 As Dr. George Adam Smith observes : " The 
 Old Testament lies not under but behind the 
 New. It is not the quarry of the excavator or 
 archaeologist. It is the Hinterland of the New ; 
 part of the same continent of truth, without whose 
 ampler areas and wider watersheds the rivers, 
 which grew to their fullness in the new dispensa- 
 tion, could never have gained one tenth of their 
 volume or their influence." Or, as Augustine has 
 suggested : 
 
 ^ G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, I., p. 455. 
 
138 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 The New is in the Old contained, 
 The Old is in the New retained; 
 The New is in the Old concealed, 
 The Old is in the New. revealed; 
 The New is in the Old enfolded, 
 The Old is in the New wnfolded. 
 
 Or, as Professor Sanday puts it, '' The New 
 Testament is latent in the Old, the Old Testament 
 is patent in the New." Accordingly, in our study 
 of the Old Testament, we should never lose sight 
 of its goal in the New ; and in our study of the 
 New Testament, we should never lose sight of 
 its origin in the Old. 
 
 The Old Quoted in the New. 
 
 The actual necessity of studying the New Tes- 
 tament in the light of the Old becomes more 
 obvious when we recall that there are not fewer 
 than five hundred direct quotations from the Old 
 Testament in the New. New Testament saints 
 found it possible to adopt Old Testament utter- 
 ances as their own. Religious fervor speaks the 
 same language. Not only the " Benedictus " of 
 Zacharias (Luke 1:68-79), which is so steeped 
 in Old Testament language that some one has 
 called it '' an anthology from the Psalms and 
 Prophets," but the Beatitudes also, the conclusion 
 to the Lord's Prayer, the Hosannas of the mul- 
 titude on the occasion of our Lord's triumphant 
 entry into Jerusalem, and even the Master's 
 gracious invitation, " Come unto me, all ye that 
 labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 139 
 
 rest," are full of Old Testament reminiscences 
 and richly colored with Old Testament thought 
 and phraseology. Likewise some of the most 
 precious phrases in the New Testament, such as 
 " the living God," '' the great Shepherd of the 
 sheep," and " the blood of the everlasting cove- 
 nant," are but echoes of the language of the Old 
 Testament. And what is incidentally very re- 
 markable, the most frequently quoted psalm of 
 the collection, after the 23d, is a psalm of impre- 
 cation, the 69th. But no doctrine or teaching of 
 Judaism is taken over into Christianity without, 
 of course, being transfigured in the process. 
 
 But still more binding of the two covenants 
 in one are the Messianic hopes of the Old Testa- 
 ment, which have found their fulfillment in the 
 New, and which prepared the Hebrew mind for 
 the coming of the Christ. Without exception the 
 Hebrew prophets were optimists. To one and all 
 of them Israel's golden age lay in the future, 
 not, as with so many other nations, in the past. 
 Many of them predicted definitely the advent 
 of One who would bring spiritual salvation to 
 Israel. Jeremiah even predicted that a new Cove- 
 nant would some day supersede the Old (Jer. 
 31 : 31-34). Obviously, therefore, the Old Testa- 
 ment is the interpreter of the New, and will con- 
 tinue to be so long as Jesus Christ is regarded 
 as the fulfillment of Messianic hope. And ac- 
 cordingly, " it is necessary," as Professor Sanday 
 observes, " to go back to the old Hebraic foun- 
 
I40 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 dations of our religion and lay them again more 
 deeply and firmly, or rather see how they have 
 been laid by the Great Architect, who is so much 
 wiser and mightier than we." 
 
 Paul was not only a friend of the law and 
 thoroughly conversant with the law himself, he 
 presupposed a remarkable acquaintance with the 
 Old Testament among the members of his 
 churches. Timothy especially he commends be- 
 cause *' from a babe " he had known the sacred 
 writings " which are able to make one wise unto 
 salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ." 
 And the same sacred writings he most cordially 
 recommended to his readers when he said : '' Every 
 Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for 
 teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- 
 tion which is in righteousness, that the man of 
 God may be complete, furnished completely unto 
 every good work "(II Tim. 3: 15-17). 
 
 The Epistle to the Hebrews is even more 
 minute in its comparison of the Old and New 
 Covenants. Yet in it also God's revelation is 
 declared to be continuous. 
 
 Christ's Attitude to the Old Testament. 
 
 But the final test of the abiding value of the 
 Old Testament must be the revelation of Jesus 
 Christ. Whatever accords with the teaching of 
 Jesus Christ will be abiding. We come then to 
 the question. What was the attitude of Christ to 
 the Old Testament? 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 141 
 
 Of one thing we may be certain: The Old 
 Testament was Christ's Bible, and He was well 
 conversant with it. On more than one occasion 
 in His disputes with the Pharisees, He showed 
 intimate acquaintance with the Old Testament, 
 and drew heavily upon it (Matt. 21: 16). Like 
 the Jewish Rabbis of His time, He emphasized 
 the divinity of the law and found spiritual life 
 in it (John 5 : 39). He accepted absolutely every 
 precept of the Old Testament. Even the lex 
 talionis of Exodus 21 : 24, " an eye for an eye, 
 and a tooth for a tooth," He left standing as a 
 basis, so to speak, of His own higher mandate, 
 which Matthew Arnold has very appropriately 
 called " the secret of Jesus," passively under trial 
 (Matt. 5:38-41). Jesus abrogated nothing. As 
 some one has well said, " No one save Jesus had 
 the right to lay the law aside, and He made it 
 immortal." 
 
 He explicitly stated, " I came not to destroy 
 the law or the prophets, but to fulfill " ; adding 
 that " not one jot or tittle " should pass away 
 from the law till all things be accomplished ( Matt. 
 5:17, 18). Jesus, too, spoke as a lawgiver: 
 " But I say unto you." However, when He pro- 
 claimed the Golden Rule, " All things therefore 
 whatsoever ye would that men should do unto 
 you, even so do ye also unto them," He very 
 carefully added, " for this is the law and the 
 prophets " (Matt. 7: 12). In terms of this Rule, 
 Jesus would obviously have us interpret all Old 
 
142 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 Testament commands. He Himself invariably 
 upheld the validity of the written law. What He 
 attacked was the Rabbinic interpretations placed 
 upon it by human commentators and unscrupu- 
 lous casuists. Rules destroy principles. Through 
 the mechanical rules of exegesis the Rabbis 
 missed the spirit of the Old Testament. It is 
 as unjust to accuse the Old Testament of being 
 responsible for the Pharisaic restrictions of 
 Christ's times, as to charge Christianity with the 
 corruptions of the Roman Church at the time of 
 the Reformation. 
 
 Jesus nowhere gives the shadow of a hint that 
 any statement of the Old Testament is inaccurate 
 or needed revision or correction. Jesus, like His 
 people, is distinguished for His originality, but 
 His originality consists not so much in the new 
 truths which He enunciated as in the discoveries 
 of new meaning which He placed on the law 
 and prophecy. Jesus penetrated deep down be- 
 low the isolated precepts of the Old Testament 
 and unified as well as transformed them. The 
 Old Testament was not simply the foundation 
 of His teaching, not merely the historical pre- 
 requisite of His claims, but a constituent element 
 of His message, the background of His thought, 
 even part and parcel of His conception of religion. 
 
 When He was asked, for example, which was 
 the greatest commandment, He cited Deut. 6 : 5 
 and Lev. 19:18, not merely as individual precepts 
 but as indicating the spirit that gives value to 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 143 
 
 all obedience; and He emphatically affirmed that 
 upon these two commandments — love to God 
 and love to men — hang suspended the whole 
 law and the prophets. Thus Jesus soared away 
 far above the petty disputes of the schools about 
 the relative worth of isolated precepts, teaching 
 that the sum of man's duty and the germ of 
 all goodness spring from supreme and unlimited 
 love to God. In this way He shifted the center 
 of men's thoughts from conduct to character, 
 from deeds to affections. The Old Testament 
 sages had said, " As a man thinketh in his heart 
 so is he." Jesus said, as a man loves so is he. 
 Duties are unified in love. 
 
 The Realized Ideal. 
 
 Christ, moreover, actually fulfilled the law and 
 the prophets. He not only recognized Himself as 
 the predicted Messiah, He also realized in Him- 
 self the ideal of the prophets. " And beginning 
 from Moses and from all the prophets, he inter- 
 preted to them [the two disciples on the way 
 to Emmaus] in all the Scriptures the things con- 
 cerning himself" (Luke 24:27), The seers of 
 old had dreamed of an empire which should rule 
 provinces; Jesus established a Kingdom which 
 controls passion and exalts love. His contem- 
 poraries indeed were disappointed in Him be- 
 cause He did not establish a temporal kingdom. 
 Nevertheless He realized the spiritual ideals of 
 their illustrious ancestors just as the flower fulfills 
 
144 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 the purpose of the bud. " The bud passes away 
 as the flower comes, but it is not destroyed, be- 
 cause it has fulfilled its destiny." ^ In this sense 
 Jesus became the incarnation of the law as well 
 as the incarnation of love. 
 
 Our Attitude to the Old Testament. 
 
 Christ's attitude to the Old Testament must 
 determine ours. He is God, He is Truth. Fol- 
 lowing Christ's example, some of the greatest 
 thinkers the race has ever produced, as Gladstone, 
 have recognized that in the Old Testament we 
 have inherited from the Jewish Church a very 
 precious legacy. Bishop Westcott, one of the 
 very greatest New Testament scholars of modern 
 times, freely acknowledges that the Old Testa- 
 ment is an essential part of the Christian's Bible. 
 The fact that it teaches the simplest elements 
 of religion, and begins with the utmost rudiments 
 of truth, such as are contained in Genesis, does 
 not destroy its abiding value. We do not discard 
 the alphabet when we begin to read. We do not 
 remove the base of a pyramid in order to study 
 its apex. 
 
 Through the Old Testament the ancient world 
 still speaks most eloquently. Human nature is 
 a constant quantity. The types described in the 
 Old Testament are typical and practical. Con- 
 sequently we dare assert that the Old Testament 
 
 1 Barton, The Roots of Christian Teaching as Found in 
 the Old Testament, p. 269. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 145 
 
 is destined, because of its inherent merit, to con- 
 tinue a fresh fountain of Hving truth, which will 
 ever help to invigorate and restore, to purify and 
 refine, to ennoble and enrich the moral and spir- 
 itual well-being of mankind. 
 
 Who can possibly estimate the moral influence 
 of the Old Testament upon the race! So long 
 as sin exists in the world there will continue to 
 be need of the Ten Commandments. So long as 
 greed and selfishness are found among men there 
 will be the necessity of Law. Law is not annulled 
 by love ; rather love carries on its work in a law- 
 governed sphere. Even the hygienic laws of Le- 
 viticus are not yet obsolete, neither will they be 
 obsolete so long as statisticians tell us that the 
 average age of Gentile life is 2.^ years while that 
 of Jewish is 37. So long as men are tried and 
 tested, the Book of Job will be imperishable; so 
 long as old age overtakes the sons of men, the 
 Book of Ecclesiastes will furnish timely instruc- 
 tion to boys and girls to remember also their 
 Creator in the days of their youth; so long as 
 the race knows sorrow and sighing the Shepherd 
 Psalm will remain immortal ; " for though it 
 came from an Oriental heart and is expressed in 
 terms of Oriental experience, it deals with the 
 deep things of life with a simplicity so noble 
 that it touches the heart of every generation.^ 
 
 The chief enemy of the Old Testament is 
 ignorance of it. For more than two millenniums 
 
 * McFadyen, The City with Foundations, p. 201. 
 
146 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 the Old Testament has circulated among men, 
 as Dr. Barton expresses it, "revealing the heart 
 of man to himself, holding before human eyes 
 the law of God, awakening the conscience, un- 
 folding the story of the Father's forgiveness in 
 Christ, and forming by its lofty teaching the 
 characters of the saints." And it is destined, 
 I firmly believe, to live on so long as true re- 
 ligion holds sway over human hearts ; for, though 
 we may put more knowledge into our worship 
 than did the ancient Hebrews, we shall hardly 
 be able to put in more reality. 
 
 The one supreme immortal element in the Old 
 Testament is faith in the only true and living God. 
 The one outstanding portrait which it paints is 
 that of one ineffable Face, before which stands 
 the soul in joyful converse and immortal faith. 
 The Old Testament postulates FAITH as the 
 great central fact of religion. 
 
 In short, the faith that makes heroes, gives 
 substance to things hoped for and reality to 
 things as yet not seen; which was illustrated in 
 the many Old Testament worthies, who "through 
 faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, 
 obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 
 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge 
 of the sword, from weakness were made strong, 
 waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies 
 of ahens" (Hebs. 11:33, 34). Such faith 
 in concrete form we find inimitably depicted 
 in countless Old Testament characters. Surely 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 147 
 
 the faith of such men will live on and on forever ; 
 and not only their biographies, but their writings 
 will continue to be recognized by the Christian 
 Church as indeed ^'profitable for teaching, for 
 reproof, for correction, for instruction which is 
 in righteousness." So that with Emerson, we 
 may well affirm — 
 
 The word unto the prophets spoken 
 Was writ on tables yet unbroken. 
 
 The Soil of Christianity. 
 
 In conclusion, therefore, the Old Testament 
 must be regarded as an essential part of the Word 
 of God. It has intrinsic value of its own ; it is 
 the interpreter of the New Testament; Paul 
 recognized its eternal validity; Jesus Christ mag- 
 nified it and made it honorable; and every thor- 
 ough Bible student recognizes its intrinsic worth. 
 
 To the Christian it has perennial value, be- 
 cause it supplies the soil out of which Christianity 
 has sprung. Such an one will consequently read 
 it carefully and ponder it ; he will likewise 
 assimilate it, live it and obey it; for unless he 
 obey it, it will not yield itself to him. There 
 is an esoteric element in the Old Testament; 
 spiritual things are spiritually discerned. He will 
 read it devotionally as well as study it critically. 
 Even the New Testament specialist must be con- 
 versant with it. In fact he cannot understand the 
 New Testament without it. 
 
 Moreover, for an appreciation of the full mes- 
 
148 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 sage of the Old Testament, it must be studied 
 in the closet, and its promises tested in the actual 
 intercourse of daily life. The greatest care must 
 be taken to catch its spiritual significance. Such 
 an exercise demands time, but the rewards are 
 worthy of the effort. Of no other book is the 
 motto of the old Schoolman more appropriate: 
 " We should prepare a man for the world by 
 taking him out of the world for a while, to be 
 influenced, not by the spirit of the age, but by 
 the spirit of the ages." The spirit of the ages 
 is the Spirit of God, and the spirit of the Old 
 Testament is none other than the spirit of the 
 Gospel. Truth is continuous. " Divine revela- 
 tion is all of one piece." 
 
VI 
 
 ?Bftle fetulrp tlje (great Map into Hife'sJ 
 "Values; 
 
 HENRY CHURCHILL KING 
 
 Is the insistent demand for Bible study justi- 
 fied? If it is, we ought to be able to see that 
 Bible study has a broad, philosophical basis, that 
 it is knit up with the great values of life, that 
 the biblical way is the great way into life's 
 values ; that, in fact, there is no way so certain 
 to the largest life. 
 
 For the age in which we live, though it is 
 not an irreligious age, is a realistic age, an age 
 with a passion for reality, for real life. The 
 feeling of our time is rightly voiced in Tennyson's 
 lines : 
 
 *T is life whereof our nerves are scant, 
 More life and fuller that I want." 
 
 The desire for life is not only the desire of our 
 time, but is also the point of Christ's own chal- 
 lenge; he comes that men may have life, and that 
 they may have it abundantly. Christianity has, 
 therefore, no need to shrink from this test. It 
 fully believes, as MacDonald said, that religion 
 
I50 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 is life, and not merely the food or the medicine 
 or the adornment of life. And it is so insistent 
 upon Bible study just because it believes it to 
 be the best of all ways to the largest life. Is 
 religion life ? and is Bible study such a pre-eminent 
 way to life? If it is not so, we cannot afford it 
 the time demanded ; if it is so, we need to know 
 and to heed it. 
 
 Character, Influence and Happiness. 
 
 We shall readily grant, in the first place, that 
 the great values of life — what is really worth 
 while — must involve the achievement of charac- 
 ter, of influence, and of happiness, and no one 
 can come into the largest life without achievement 
 along all these lines. To be what one ought, to 
 count as one can, to enjoy what one may — this 
 is really worth while; and any way of Hfe must 
 show us the way to these basic values. 
 
 For satisfying life looks, in the first place, to 
 character. We may not forget Thomas Arnold's 
 words to the boys of Rugby, '' The only thing 
 of moment in life or in man is character" ; or, 
 as another has put it, '' The great soul will be 
 strong to live as well as to think." No life can 
 come to its best into which there have not been 
 built mighty convictions, mighty decisions, and the 
 inspiration of great ideals and hopes. 
 
 Nor can the genuine man be satisfied without 
 influence, without counting effectively for good 
 in the fives of others. He must demand from 
 
THE WAY INTO LIFE'S VALUES 151 
 
 himself social efficiency, must be sure that he 
 can be counted a part of that leaven that is to 
 leaven the world's life, of that "good seed " which 
 is the children of the Kingdom. 
 
 And the man who means really to live has 
 a right to expect a deep and abiding peace and 
 happiness that are something more than satis- 
 faction of the senses, a happiness that can stand 
 four-square to all the facts of life. In comparing 
 one of the madonnas of Correggio at the Dresden 
 Gallery with the great Sistine madonna of Ra- 
 phael in the same gallery, Kedney says that while 
 each is a masterpiece in its own line, the loveli- 
 ness of Correggio's picture is that of a domestic 
 felicity which seems capable of abiding only so 
 long as the world is shut out and its dark facts 
 forgotten, while the suffused calm of the Sistine 
 madonna and child is to be read in the eyes of 
 both, that do not forget the world, but look out 
 with assurance into the eternities of God. A 
 basic happiness like that must belong to the man 
 who means really to live. The message of Jesus 
 Christ is a word of good news, the best that could 
 ever be brought to needy men ; it means happiness, 
 as well as character and influence. 
 
 Association with Significant Lives. 
 
 And if one asks, in the second place, what 
 the great means to character, and influence, and 
 happiness are, there seems no doubt that one 
 must answer — Personal association zvith signifi- 
 
152 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 cant lives, and some sharing in their best znsion. 
 There are no other means for a moment compar- 
 able with these for the achievement of either 
 character, or influence, or happiness. Even Kant, 
 abstract philosopher as he was, knew that the 
 great road to character was by the living example. 
 Fichte caught up the message from Kant and 
 rang it out over the heads of the students of the 
 University of Erlangen in his great addresses on 
 '' The Vocation of Man " and " The Nature of 
 the Scholar," with their great conception of the 
 scholar as the embodiment of the " Divine Idea," 
 who must powerfully touch the lives of others. 
 And Carlyle caught it up from Fichte in his 
 " Sartor Resartus," and George Eliot from Car- 
 lyle; and perhaps no one has given it finer ex- 
 pression than she, when she says : " Ideas are 
 often poor ghosts; our sun-filled eyes cannot 
 discern them — they pass athwart us in their 
 vapor, and cannot make themselves felt. But 
 sometimes they are made flesh ; they breathe 
 upon us with warm breath, they touch us with 
 soft, responsive hands, they look at us with sad, 
 sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones ; 
 they are clothed in a living human soul, with 
 all its conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then 
 their presence is a power, then they shake us 
 like a passion, and we are drawn after them 
 with gentle compulsion, as flame is drawn to 
 flame." 
 
 In fact, when one stops to think about it, one 
 
THE WAY INTO LIFE'S VALUES 153 
 
 sees there are 07ily two services of supreme value 
 that it seems possible for any man to do for 
 another: he may lay upon that other the impress 
 of a high and noble character, and he may share 
 with him his own best vision. Beyond these there 
 is no service of supreme value that he can render. 
 And these two services are our supreme need 
 from others' lives, and our own greatest task in 
 life. The great road to character, and influence, 
 and happiness is the contagion of great lives and 
 the sharing in their visions. 
 
 The Effective Witness. 
 
 It follows, in the third place, that the greatest 
 conceivable need for ourselves or for others is 
 high and significant personalities, and the chance 
 of sharing in their effective witness to those 
 great interests and personalities by which they 
 live. And the significant personalities that above 
 all else we need are those that are marked by 
 great convictions and great decisions, and are 
 inspired by great ideals and hopes. It is the touch 
 of such lives that we need most of all; nothing 
 else can so surely bring us into the largeness of 
 life. But the degree in which we can enter into 
 the largeness of their vision will depend in no 
 small part upon the effectiveness of their own 
 witness. And all men need effective witness from 
 other men as to those values and personalities by 
 which they live. What are the qualities required 
 in such an effective witness? If the service 
 
154 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 rendered at this point is supreme, as I believe it 
 to be, it is worth while to make clear to ourselves 
 exactly what the qualities of the effective witness 
 must be. 
 
 So far as I can see, they are four: first, con- 
 viction; second, character and judgment in the 
 sphere in which one bears witness ; third, disinter- 
 ested love ; and, fourth, power to put one's witness 
 home. 
 
 First of all, that witness counts most with 
 us who speaks manifestly out of profound con- 
 viction of his own. This conviction of his goes 
 further with us than the very reasons that he 
 urges on its behalf. 
 
 And the second quality of the effective witness 
 indicates how impossible it is to separate power 
 in service from power of personality. For, in 
 the last analysis, weighing testimony is weighing 
 witnesses, and no man is finally going to count 
 powerfully with us in whose character we can- 
 not have confidence, and whose judgment we 
 cannot trust. A few words from the man of 
 character and judgment will go further than 
 much eloquence from a man in whose character 
 we do not believe, and whose judgment we do 
 not trust. 
 
 And the effective witness, in the third place, 
 must speak with evident disinterestedness. It 
 must be plain that he has no merely private in- 
 terest to serve, no selfish scheme of his own to 
 further, but that in the witness he bears he 
 
THE WAY INTO LIFE'S VALUES 155 
 
 genuinely seeks the good of those to whom he 
 speaks. Back of all witness of words, thus, must 
 lie, above all, the witness of the life of convic- 
 tion, of character and judgment, of disinterested 
 love. 
 
 And the witness of such men cannot well fail, 
 though their power of speech is small indeed. 
 And yet, the fourth element of the effective wit- 
 ness is not without importance. A man may 
 add greatly to his effectiveness for good because 
 he has power to put his witness home. And 
 that, it may perhaps be said, means exactly three 
 things — power to make his testimony to the 
 cause or person or interest of which he speaks 
 real, rational, and vital. 
 
 It sometimes seems to me that the Christian 
 witness particularly needs to have these three 
 demands continually in mind. It is his business, 
 above all, to make Christ and the things of the 
 spirit real to men, able to take their place among 
 the steadfast realities of their life; rational, with 
 steadfast appeal to their best reason, knit up with 
 the very best thinking that they are able to do 
 in any line; and vital, drawn from life, with 
 motives for life, translatable continuously into 
 life. 
 
 These, then, it seems to me, are our greatest 
 needs : the contagion of high and significant per- 
 sonalities — that is, personalities characterized 
 by great convictions, decisions, ideals, and hopes 
 — and the opportunity of sharing in their effec- 
 
156 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 tive witness, a witness that grows out of con- 
 viction, character and judgment, and disinter- 
 ested love, and that is so brought home as to be 
 made to us real, rational, and vital. It is no 
 accident, therefore, that the program of Chris- 
 tianity should be, as my colleague. Professor 
 Bosworth, has said, the conquest of the world by 
 a campaign of testimony, through empowered 
 witnesses. For this is the way by which we come 
 into all the great values of life. It could not 
 fail to be the way into the supreme values of 
 life, brought by the highest of all religions. 
 
 Personality in the Old and New Testaments. 
 
 Just here, then, it seems to me, is to be found 
 the basic reason for the pre-eminent importance 
 of Bible study. The great mission and priceless 
 value of the Bible are that it puts us in touch 
 with the most significant lives of the world, in 
 the greatest realm, that of the moral and spiritual 
 — the lives that we need most of all, because 
 religion is the great unlocker of the powers of 
 men. Here, thus, in the Bible, we have the 
 opportunity of staying in the presence of the 
 best. If Kaftan was right in saying that our 
 chief task is to enter with appreciative under- 
 standing into the great personalities of history, 
 then our greatest task is to be able so to enter 
 into the lives embodied in this record of revela- 
 tion. The Bible has, in other words, a supreme 
 place just because it does put us in touch with 
 
THE WAY INTO LIFE'S VALUES 157 
 
 the most significant personalities of history — 
 the great Hne of the prophets, cuhninating in 
 Christ; and because it contains the most effective 
 witness to moral and spiritual values that the 
 world knows. 
 
 Where else shall one turn to find a line of 
 personalities so grounded in the greatest con- 
 victions that men can have, so embodying the 
 mighty decisions of the moral and spiritual life, 
 so moved by the highest ideals and inspired with 
 the largest hopes? Here lies the inestimable 
 value of the modern historical study of the Bible. 
 For it enables us, as never before, to enter with 
 intelligent sympathy into the personal lives of 
 the Bible record, to find them living persons. 
 To a degree true of no preceding generation, 
 this generation is able to enter into the actual 
 situation, for example, of the prophets, to see 
 their problem, their life task, and the message 
 that it was given them to utter; and their great- 
 ness so comes home to us as never before. So 
 the free critic Cornill can say of Amos, " Amos 
 is one of the most marvelous and incomprehen- 
 sible figures in the history of the human mind, 
 the pioneer of a process of evolution from which 
 a new epoch of humanity dates." And Hosea 
 he counts " among the greatest religious geniuses 
 which the world has ever produced " ; and he says 
 of Isaiah, " In Isaiah we find for the first time a 
 clearly grasped conception of universal history." 
 It is into the presence of such personalities that 
 
158 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 the modern historical study of the Bible intro- 
 duces us. To a degree never before true, the 
 Bible lives for us ; of it we may well use Lowell's 
 phrase, and say that it is " rammed with Hfe." 
 One cannot put the point of a needle into it 
 anywhere without drawing blood. 
 
 Where else, too, shall one turn for such effective 
 witness to moral and spiritual values? Where 
 else are the personalities to be found who speak 
 as those who have seen the verities of the moral 
 and spiritual world, whose message comes out 
 of such conviction, such character and judgment, 
 with such manifest disinterestedness of love? 
 Who else have power to make the things of the 
 spirit so real, so rational, so vital? These per- 
 sonalities of the Scripture are truly the moral 
 and religious leaders of the race. 
 
 As the record of the pre-eminent meetings of 
 the men of the ancient time with God, even the 
 Old Testament gives us what else we could not 
 have, a genetic understanding of Christianity, 
 and the transcript of our own individual experi- 
 ence writ large. This generation can least of 
 all spare the Old Testament ; for college students 
 are studying almost every subject they take up 
 by the biological method. The great concept of 
 evolution in its larger sense is a dominant one, 
 and the students of our time are trying to under- 
 stand their subjects genetically. It would hardly 
 be possible to satisfy this generation without such 
 a genetic undertanding of Christianity, and that 
 
THE WAY INTO LIFE'S VALUES 159 
 
 genetic understanding requires a study of the 
 Old Testament. So strongly do we feel this that 
 the modern man would be almost tempted to 
 reproduce out of his imagination the record of 
 such a preceding growth, if we did not have it 
 in the Old Testament. In the same way we are 
 trying to understand our individual lives in the 
 light of the record of the race ; and in this aspect, 
 too, the Old Testament has for us profound sig- 
 nificance as a record of a race-experience, like 
 that experience through whose stages we our- 
 selves must largely pass. In the Old and New 
 Testaments alike we have the opportunity, too, of 
 sharing in no small measure in the best insights 
 of the greatest spiritual seers that the world has 
 known. 
 
 The Presence of Christ. 
 
 But above all, in the New Testament, the Bible 
 brings us back into the concrete presence of the 
 historical Christ, and to the sense of His practical 
 lordship. No generation the world has ever seen 
 has witnessed such study of His life as has this 
 generation of ours. It is not an accident that 
 every life of Christ worth reading, outside the 
 Gospels, has been written since the year 1835. 
 To our time, too, belongs the whole rise of the 
 great science of biblical theology, to our time the 
 most searching studies in the teaching of Jesus. 
 Men have been brought face to face with the life 
 and spirit and teaching of Jesus as never before, 
 
l6o THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 and it is a reasonable thing to expect the best 
 Christian preaching and the best Christian living 
 the world has ever seen to be just ahead of us, 
 not behind us. For, in spite of all the questions 
 that are raised, the practical lordship of Christ 
 is becoming daily more manifest ; never before did 
 His spirit rule so truly in industry, in commerce, 
 in politics national and international. And while 
 we are still only at the beginning of that complete 
 lordship that belongs to Him, we have the greatest 
 reasons for faith and hope. And it is through 
 the witness of these earliest disciples, who *' be- 
 held His glory," that there is given to us this 
 priceless vision " of the knowledge of the glory 
 of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 
 
 The Pre-eminent Need of the Twentieth 
 Century. 
 
 And it especially concerns us men of the twen- 
 tieth century to remember that it is exactly we 
 who, above all, need Christ for any sure way to 
 God. For this generation has awakened to scien- 
 tific and moral self-consciousness to an extent 
 never before true. Just because there is this 
 scientific consciousness on the one hand, and this 
 deeper moral consciousness on the other, many 
 of the older ways into the religious life are for 
 us closed. I do not say that the New Hollander 
 or the African has had no genuine religious ex- 
 perience. I do not say that any race has been 
 without some genuine relation to God. But I 
 
THE WAY INTO LIFE'S VALUES i6i 
 
 do say that for us men of the twentieth century 
 the ways by which most of them came into their 
 religious experience are for us closed ways. The 
 facts that were sufficient for them are not suffi- 
 cient for us. If we are to find our way into 
 assured personal relation to God, it must be by 
 way of a person able to call out absolute trust. 
 For, in Herrmann's language, " the childlike 
 spirit can only arise within us when our ex- 
 perience is the same as a child's ; in other words, 
 when we meet with a personal life which compels 
 us to trust it without reserve. Only the person 
 of Jesus can arouse such trust in a man who has 
 awakened to moral self -consciousness. If such a 
 man surrenders himself to anything or any one 
 else, he throws away not only his trust but him- 
 self." We need for assured relation to God 
 a fact so great that in it we can unmistakably 
 find God, and He find us — a fact great enough 
 to bring us renewed conviction of the certainty 
 of moral ideals, of the spiritual world, of the 
 living God. And it is this conviction that the 
 personality of Jesus is able to bring us, with a 
 certainty and strength that no other fact or per- 
 son can approach ; so that we can say with 
 Harnack, '* When God and everything that is 
 sacred threaten to disappear in darkness, or our 
 doom is pronounced; when the mighty forces of 
 inexorable nature seem to overwhelm us, and the 
 bounds of good and evil to dissolve; when, weak 
 and weary, we despair of finding God at all in 
 
l62 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 this dismal world — it is then that the personality 
 of Christ may save us." 
 
 To Stay in His Presence. 
 
 The man of the modern age, thus, needs Christ 
 in pre-eminent degree. But we are put face to 
 face with the personahty of Jesus only through 
 the New Testament as the witness of His first 
 disciples. The greatest of all our tasks, therefore, 
 becomes at the same time our supreme opportunity 
 — to stay in His presence, and to let Him make 
 His legitimate impression upon us. All values of 
 every kind go back ultimately to the riches of 
 some personal life, and there are no riches like 
 those of the world's greatest personalities ; above 
 all, like the unsearchable riches of Christ. 
 
 Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death, 
 Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread, 
 As tho' a star should open out, all sides. 
 Grow the world on you, as it is my world. 
 
 The Bible thus becomes our great way to 
 character and influence and happiness. In touch 
 with its great personalities, we are quickened into 
 life, as we feel the impress of their character 
 and share their witness. In such study, too, the 
 qualities of effective witness are produced and 
 deepened in us. It is thus that we come into 
 life ; for it is literally true to say of many a man 
 who feels deeply the modern spirit and yet who 
 has stayed persistently in the presence of Christ, 
 that in all the higher ranges of his life he lives 
 
THE WAY INTO LIFE'S VALUES 163 
 
 by Christ; all the sources of his life are in 
 Christ. 
 
 In such considerations as these lies the great 
 reason for Bible study, for insistence on such 
 study, as the supreme way into life's values. 
 
VII 
 
 Wi'bv fefjoulb €berj> goung iWan 3Reab anb 
 ^tubp tfje JSitile? 
 
 JAMES McCONAUGHY 
 
 My message is to the young man of today; 
 to one and all in town or country. Nor do I 
 forget the boys, who are soon to be young men. 
 Let me tell you a conviction that has grown out 
 of twenty years' experience, and let me give you 
 some of the reasons for it. 
 
 Every young man who reads at all should regu- 
 larly give to the Bible the highest place in his 
 reading. Further, he cannot read it intelligently 
 and with appreciation until he gives to it — and 
 the earlier in life he begins the better — some 
 faithful and systematic study. As well expect 
 to become a skilled typewriter by occasionally 
 drumming on the keyboard or a leading athlete 
 by cheering from the " bleachers " as expect to 
 appreciate and profit by the masterpiece of the 
 world's literature by keeping a copy of it on your 
 bookshelf. You hear it preached from by your 
 favorite minister, or perhaps you listen while your 
 Sunday-school teacher talks to you about it. Good 
 
l66 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 as far as it goes, but is it farther than the visitors' 
 gallery? Why not come down on to the floor, 
 be a worker, not a spectator? 
 
 It costs something, you say; takes time, re- 
 quires you to give up other pleasures, other en- 
 gagements. Granted. Let me show you that 
 it returns a hundred- fold ; that you must take 
 time for it if you are to do well the work of life ; 
 that, pursued heartily and faithfully, it will prove 
 re-creation indeed, and send you into the day's 
 work with a glow of spirit finer than any glow 
 of body that follows a run, a dip and a rub- 
 down. 
 
 I 
 
 To start with, what do you read or study? 
 Next to your associates, what you read determines 
 what you are. 
 
 The Bible and the Newspaper. 
 
 Many of you, if frank, will answer, " Little 
 or nothing except the daily newspaper." 
 
 It is cheap — at least until you multiply the 
 price by the number you buy in a year. It does 
 not require any great mental effort. What effect 
 does it have on your mind? on your tastes? on 
 your character? But one must know what is 
 going on, you say. Everything? How much of 
 what you read yesterday do you remember ? How 
 much has left you any wiser or better? How 
 much had you better never have read? Would 
 
WHY READ AND STUDY THE BIBLE 167 
 
 you be a strong man, with a mind that thinks 
 and a character that weighs? If so, you must 
 be master of your reading, not let it master you. 
 Read your daily, but (i) select the cleanest and 
 ablest. Boycott the journalism which is well 
 called " yellow," for it has in it neither blood nor 
 purity. In the best of dailies there will be more 
 to skip than to read, so (2) read the headlines, 
 and beyond that what is really worth reading. 
 Keep abreast of the movements in your own com- 
 munity toward social improvement and civic 
 righteousness ; of the affairs of nations which 
 affect our own national welfare and the prog- 
 ress of God's Kingdom throughout the earth. 
 Skip personalities, scandal, crimes, gossip, every- 
 thing that leaves the trail of the serpent on your 
 brain. 
 
 Hold yourself to such a course, and who of 
 you will not gain some time daily for the read- 
 ing of literature that is more worth while because 
 less transient? 
 
 Do you read a newspaper that boasts of its 
 circulation ? The Bible has circulated 250,000,000 
 copies and every year shows an increase on the 
 preceding. Does your paper proclaim its enter- 
 prise and claim readers in distant towns? The 
 Bible belts the globe. The whole or parts of it 
 may be read in 380 different languages and dia- 
 lects, and 120 of these were but spoken tongues 
 until the Bible came, in the vanguard of civiliza- 
 tion, to call into existence an alphabet and a 
 
1 68 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 literature. To two-thirds of the human race the 
 Bible is now accessible in the native tongue. 
 
 Does your paper report the words and acts of 
 the great men of our day? Make the closer ac- 
 quaintance of " the great strong beings like Moses, 
 and David, and Isaiah, and Daniel, and Paul, and 
 John, and Peter, who," as Phillips Brooks has 
 said, " stand forth as manifestations of that vital 
 power with which the Bible is filled from end 
 to end." 
 
 Have you thought the Bible stale, an antique, 
 a " back number " ? No book in the world is 
 as much alive today. The Nestor of American 
 journalism himself, Charles A. Dana, of the Nezv 
 York Sim, speaking to Cornell students, referred 
 to a thorough acquaintance with the Bible as a 
 pre-eminent qualification for success in jour- 
 nalism. 
 
 Do you seek in the papers for information 
 that will lead to success in business? The editor 
 of another New York paper was asked by a corre- 
 spondent to name a few of the best books for 
 a young man in business. This was his reply: 
 " The best single treatise is the New Testament ; 
 next to this is the Proverbs of Solomon. The best 
 business man we have ever known memorized the 
 entire book of Proverbs at twenty-two, carrying 
 a ten-cent edition in his pocket and committing 
 half a dozen verses daily. When he became an 
 employer he gave a copy to every employee, 
 recommending it as an admirable business guide.'* 
 
WHY READ AND STUDY THE BIBLE 169 
 
 Now Proverbs is neither the kernel nor the 
 crown of the Bible. Isaiah, and John, and Paul, 
 and above all Jesus Himself, were wiser and 
 greater than Solomon. There are higher con- 
 siderations to incite to Bible study than these 
 utilitarian ones; but are not these sufficient to 
 show that no young man in our day can neglect 
 the Bible without serious loss to himself? 
 
 The Bible and the Magazine. 
 
 Next to the newspaper in its hold upon the 
 reading public of today is the weekly or monthly 
 periodical. Not a few of these circulate from 
 one to five hundred thousand copies of each issue. 
 Here again the word is discriminate. Decide 
 how much time you have for such reading and 
 how it can best be spent. Exclude ( i ) those that 
 are positively harmful — when you have once 
 seen a picture or read a line that soils your brain, 
 forever after let that periodical alone; (2) those 
 that simply waste your time — the name of these 
 is legion. 
 
 To appreciate and digest those that remain a 
 good knowledge of the Bible is invaluable. In 
 the Young Men's Era for March 3, 1892, Mr. 
 Wm. D. Murray told how he was impressed, in 
 reading one of the popular magazines, with the 
 frequent recurrence, in secular articles, of Bible 
 phraseology, or quotation, or reference. On 
 counting he found in that single number forty- 
 
170 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 nine direct quotations from or references to nine- 
 teen different books of the Bible. 
 
 One of the best magazine writers of his day, 
 Charles Dudley Warner, had this to say in the 
 Editor's Study of Harper's Monthly: "A fair 
 knowledge of the Bible is in itself almost a liberal 
 education, as many great masters in literature 
 have testified. It has so entered into law, litera- 
 ture, thought, the whole modern life of the Chris- 
 tian world, that ignorance of it is a most serious 
 disadvantage to the student." To the neglect of 
 Bible study he traces the prevalent moral laxity 
 and the political corruption of our day. 
 
 The Bible and Other Literature. 
 
 So in reading books, the book to read above 
 all others is the Book that lives above all others. 
 The Bible in Latin was the first book to be 
 printed with movable type. The English Bible 
 is our greatest English classic, and all that is 
 best in our literature is permeated by its style 
 and thought. To its influence on our best prose 
 Professor Cook of Yale brings a cloud of wit- 
 nesses in his little book on " The Bible and Eng- 
 lish Prose Style." When he crowns his illus- 
 trations with an extract from Lincoln's second 
 inaugural, it is well for the young man of today 
 who has free access to public libraries to know 
 that Lincoln's library in his log-cabin home con- 
 sisted of four books — the Bible, Bunyan's Pil- 
 
WHY READ AND STUDY THE BIBLE 171 
 
 grim's Progress, Burns's Poems, and Weems' 
 Life of Washington. 
 
 Its influence on our poets has been even greater. 
 It was Shakespeare who wrote of 
 
 those holy fields ' ' 
 Over whose acres walked those blessed feet 
 Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed 
 For our advantage on the bitter cross, 1 
 
 and essays have been written to show how much 
 he is indebted to the Scriptures. 
 
 Who that has learned to love Browning at all 
 does not know something of the faith that breathes 
 in his " Saul," " A Death in the Desert," " Pros- 
 pice," or ''Rabbi Ben Ezra"? Blot out the 
 Bible's influence from Whittier, Longfellow, 
 Lowell, and what would remain? From Tenny- 
 son van Dyke has gathered page after page of 
 selections alluding to scriptural scenes or truths 
 and published them in an appendix to his " Poetry 
 of Tennyson." 
 
 The Independent, of November 8, 1894, pub- 
 lished an article from " a college president," de- 
 scribing the results of a test made with a score of 
 the most familiar of these on an entering Fresh- 
 man class. More than half were entirely ignorant 
 of " Ruth amid the fields of corn," '' Pharaoh's 
 darkness," " Joshua's moon in Ajalon," " the 
 strange angel which of old wrestled with wander- 
 ing Israel," " Jonah's gourd," " Arimathean Jo- 
 seph," and even of *' the deathless angel seated in 
 
172 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 the vacant tomb." How much better could you 
 have done? This college president located the 
 cause of this ignorance in the fact that " the Bible 
 has become buried beneath a landslide of books 
 and periodicals. People read far more than of 
 old; but they read the Bible far less." 
 
 If this indictment convicts you, face the situ- 
 ation and change it. Give the Bible the first plape 
 in your reading. 
 
 The Bible and Other Branches of Study. 
 
 The Bible is not only the crown of literature; 
 it is the science of sciences, the core of knowledge. 
 
 Says Professor Bowen in " A Layman's Study 
 of the English Bible " : " It is not too much to 
 say that the books of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments have exerted more influence, whether for 
 weal or woe, on the course of human affairs 
 among civilized nations than all other books put 
 together. Their imprint is on most of the litera- 
 ture, the philosophy, the legislation and the his- 
 tory of the last seventeen hundred years." 
 
 Finney's biographer tells us that, in trying to 
 master Blackstone's Commentaries and other law 
 books, he found constant reference made to the 
 Mosaic institutions, as if it were acknowledged 
 by jurists that there the foundation of all law, 
 as of all morality, was to be found. So the 
 lawyer's clerk, who had already decided that 
 there was nothing in Christianity for him, bought 
 a Bible and began to read it from cover to cover. 
 
WHY READ AND STUDY THE BIBLE 173 
 
 It spoiled him for the law but made him one of 
 the greatest spiritual leaders of his generation. 
 
 Ruskin, the great art critic, in his autobi- 
 ography, tells how his mother " established his 
 soul in life " by making him not merely read but 
 commit large portions of the Bible. He prints 
 the lists of chapters which he thus learned and 
 testifies : '' To that discipline, patient, accurate and 
 resolute, I owe much of my general power of 
 taking pains, and the best part of my taste in 
 literature. I count it, very confidently, the most 
 precious, and, on the whole, the one essential 
 part of my education." 
 
 Prof. W. H. Thomson, M.D., held for many 
 years in New York city a unique position of 
 influence. A high authority in medical science, 
 he taught each Sunday a Bible class composed 
 of hundreds of intelligent men and women. In 
 an address he once said : " The reason for this 
 impossibility of exhausting the Bible, so that it 
 can be once and for all disposed of, is simply 
 because somehow it touches every conceivable 
 point of human history, experience and investi-, 
 gation so singularly that, for example, the geolo- 
 gist, the philologist, the ethnologist, the historian, 
 the literary critic, the philosopher, as well as the 
 man in every department of life, finds in it what 
 seems to concern himself very particularly." 
 
 Whatever else you study, therefore, do not 
 neglect the Bible. Find in it what concerns you. 
 
 " Give diligence " to its " handling," as Paul 
 
174 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 exhorted Timothy to do, and you will find it not 
 only an awakener of thought, a cultivator of taste, 
 a guide to truth, but a fountain of life, as did 
 Finney, and as does every man who comes to 
 it with an open mind and an earnest and teach- 
 able spirit. 
 
 The Bible and Other Religious Books. 
 
 Bible study in earnest, pursued with system 
 and prayer, removes weakness from Christian 
 life and service. Are you unaccustomed to study 
 of any sort, absorbed only in life's routine? Stir 
 up the gifts, both mental and physical, that are 
 in you, and concentrate them on the Bible. On 
 the Bible itself, more than on books written about 
 it or drawn from it. 
 
 Even devotional books, intended as helps, may 
 be so used as to crowd out the Bible. Phillips 
 Brooks well said, " Religious people read thin, 
 superficial books of religious sentiment, but do 
 not meet face to face the strong, exacting, mas- 
 culine pages of their Bibles." 
 
 Do not his adjectives explain the reason for 
 his statement? The Bible is never superficial, 
 never thin. Simple indeed in great part it is, so 
 that even a child or a plantation negro may de- 
 light in it, but always profound. " In this book," 
 said Ewald, the great historian, to Dean Stanley, 
 " is all the wisdom of the world." Why be satis- 
 fied with water- jug or bottle when the spring itself 
 is at hand? The Bible is exacting, too. It de- 
 
WHY READ AND STUDY THE BIBLE 175 
 
 man-ds your best, of thought, prayer, love, obedi- 
 ence. Give it its due and it will repay you a 
 hundred-fold. 
 
 It was often said of men like Moody or Spur- 
 geon, " He is a man of one book." What does 
 it mean ? Mr. Moody's study is lined with books. 
 One of Mr. Spurgeon's biographers tells us that 
 during a part of his life he read two new books 
 a day. That could not mean careful reading of 
 every page, but he had learned by much practice 
 how to rapidly extract the juice as he would 
 squeeze an orange. Yet it was Spurgeon that 
 said, " I would like to see a huge pile of all the 
 books, good and bad, that were ever written, 
 prayer-books and sermons, and hymn-books, and 
 all, smoking like Sodom of old, if the reading of 
 these books keeps you away from the reading of 
 the Bible; for a ton weight of human literature 
 is not worth an ounce of Scripture, one single 
 drop of the essential tincture of the Word of 
 God is better than a sea full of our commentings 
 and sermonizings, and the like." 
 
 Let the simple test for all our reading then 
 be this : " Is this paper, this article, this book 
 better fitting me to appreciate and understand 
 the Bible, or am I letting it take the Bible's 
 place?" 
 
 The current page that tells of the world's 
 progress, or of its misery and need, should lead 
 back with whetted appetite to the pages that 
 tell of God's plans for the world and of God's 
 
176 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 supplies for human need; the most abstract 
 mathematics or logic should develop the accurate 
 thinking that better grasps Bible truth ; the ob- 
 servation of nature and her wonders should lead 
 reverently to the greater wonders of revelation; 
 faithful portraiture of human life and conduct 
 should lead back to the one book which best 
 describes men both as they are and as God means 
 them to be. Do they do so in your case? If not, 
 your use of them must be misuse. 
 
 It is related of Alexander Duff, the great mis- 
 sionary to India, who spent his last years in 
 teaching theology in New College, Edinburgh, 
 that he loved to tell his students this story of his 
 outward voyage to India. He was a great lover 
 of the classics, and took special delight in the 
 library of carefully selected volumes which 
 friends had furnished as a part of his missionary 
 outfit. In rounding the Cape of Good Hope the 
 vessel was wrecked and nearly everything on 
 board lost. As the passengers gathered about a 
 fire on the beach a sailor brought to Dr. Duff 
 a book which had been washed ashore, and asked 
 him if it was his. It proved to be his Bible, 
 wrinkled and discolored by sea water, but still 
 legible. He took it as an omen from Heaven, 
 and from that hour, though always a leader in 
 education, he made the Bible central in his 
 thought and study and teaching. 
 
WHY READ AND STUDY THE BIBLE 177 
 
 The Bible and Character. 
 
 The Bible is the one book that contains the 
 message which transforms Hfe, whether in Scot- 
 land or India, America or the heart of Africa. 
 A Scotch boy, nine years old, won the prize his 
 pastor had offered by repeating from memory 
 the whole 119th Psalm ''with only five hitches." 
 David Livingstone, scientist, explorer, mission- 
 ary, carried the New Testament he thus won 
 across Africa from ocean to ocean, and so hid 
 its truths in his heart and exemplified them in 
 his dealings with native tribes that when Stanley 
 followed on his track their dark faces lit up at 
 mention of his name. The American newspaper 
 correspondent, in the weeks he spent with Living- 
 stone on Lake Tanganyika and its shores, got a 
 new vision of the Christ in the face of His herald 
 to Africa, of whom he wrote : " In him religion 
 exhibits its loveliest features ; it governs his con- 
 duct not only toward his servants, but toward 
 the natives, the bigoted Mahometans, and all who 
 come in contact with him." 
 
 When Stanley went to Africa the second time 
 he carried with him a beautifully bound Bible, 
 the gift to him of Livingstone's sister. When he 
 visited Uganda he read from it to its king, Mtesa. 
 When he had gone two hundred miles farther a 
 messenger reached him, crying out that Mtesa 
 wanted the book, and it was sent to him. A few 
 years later, when, by the labors of Mackay and 
 other missionaries, a written language had been 
 
178 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 created in Uganda, and the New Testament trans- 
 lated and printed in it, Uganda Christians, who 
 a dozen years before had never heard of the true 
 God and Jesus Christ, gladly paid the wages of 
 three months' hard labor to own a copy of it. 
 These same Christians have proved their faith 
 " at the stake, under the knobstick, and under 
 torture unto death." 
 
 They were the stuff that martyrs are made of, 
 but it takes the Bible to make such martyrs. Well 
 did Professor Drummond say that what we need, 
 whether in Scotland or in America, today, is 
 " not more men, but more man." It is Gladstone, 
 who was guided throughout the greatest career 
 of this century by the principles of the Bible, 
 than whom, we are told, no man of his day at 
 Oxford read his Bible more or knew it better, 
 who testifies from the ripe experience of his old 
 age, " My only hope for the world is in bring- 
 ing the human mind into contact with divine 
 revelation." 
 
 The attempt to build character without the 
 Bible is doomed to failure. President G. Stanley 
 Hall of Clark University, in addressing the Con- 
 necticut Valley Congregational Club on " The 
 Teaching of Morals," referred to a collection he 
 had made of more than three hundred different 
 text-books used in schools and colleges to teach 
 ethics as " a mongrel library." He urged that 
 " to cultivate morality one must appeal, as the 
 Bible does, to the moral sense rather than to 
 
WHY READ AND STUDY THE BIBLE 179 
 
 reason. Hence life must be leavened with re- 
 ligion and children infected with Christianity." 
 Professor Huxley, whose testimony would cer- 
 tainly not be biased by any prejudice toward 
 Christianity, writes, " I have been seriously per- 
 plexed to know how the religious feeling, which 
 is the essential basis of conduct, can be kept up 
 without the use of the Bible." 
 
 Let us, then, take as our motto the words which 
 Wesley wrote on the fly-leaf of his Bible, " Live 
 today." On each day's threshold, as the old 
 Aryan greeted the sun, let us meet with Him 
 whose " life is the light of men," and go into 
 the world with His light on our faces. 
 
 Rebuke the heresy that the Bible is the book 
 for the pulpit, but not for the shop and the office. 
 One of the most useful Christians I have 
 known is neither a minister nor an evangelist, 
 but a business man. For thirty years or more 
 he has taught every Sunday a great Bible class 
 of men, and the weeks have been full of such 
 contact with these and other men, and such ser- 
 vice for them in Christ's name, as have made his 
 life a constant fountain of living water. 
 
 Seven Reasons for Bible Study. 
 
 To sum up, every young man should make the 
 Bible central in his reading and study: 
 
 1. Because it is the most alive and widely 
 studied book in the world today. 
 
 2. Because the English Bible is the greatest 
 classic in our literature. 
 
l8o THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 3. Because its study enlarges one's horizon 
 and brings one in touch with the most earnest 
 and self-sacrificing spirits of this and of every 
 age. 
 
 4. Because to know it helps one to appreciate 
 all else that is best in literature. 
 
 5. Because it touches and crowns all other 
 branches of knowledge. 
 
 6. Because it is God's appointed means for 
 the development of noble Christian character. 
 
 7. Because it contains God's message of grace 
 and power for the full salvation of the needy 
 world in which He has placed us. 
 
 How to Get to Work. 
 
 And now if the resolution is formed, a hint or 
 two about putting it into effect may be helpful. 
 
 I. Read the Bible as if it were a nezv hook just 
 from the press. Use the Revised Version, if for 
 no other reason, because it is printed in the para- 
 graph form with which your mind is familiar in 
 other books. Let the Sunday newspaper alone, 
 if you have been in the habit of reading it, and 
 sit down for an hour to the Gospel of Mark or 
 the story of Abraham or Joseph or David or 
 Ruth or Nehemiah. I risk the prophecy that 
 there will not be a page even of these familiar 
 narratives on which you will fail to find some- 
 thing fresh and beautiful and suggestive for your 
 own life. 
 
 Buy a volume or two of the Modern Reader's 
 
WHY READ AND STUDY THE BIBLE i8l 
 
 Bible series at any book-store. They are small 
 and cheap and easily carried in the pocket. Take 
 one with you on the cars and give it some of the 
 time the daily paper usually gets. If you love 
 poetry, begin with the Job or Isaiah volume. 
 The method of printing will make it a new book 
 to you. If you are fond of public speaking, try 
 Deuteronomy and see how fine Moses's farewell 
 orations are. If you are a keen observer of life, 
 try Proverbs, which lends itself easily to frag- 
 mentary reading. Once started, follow your own 
 tastes, but go on until you begin to feel that you 
 are really making the Bible's acquaintance. 
 
 It is related of Matthew Arnold, the English 
 essayist, that he once said to Charles Reade, the 
 novelist : " The old Bible is getting to be to us 
 literary men of England a sealed book. I wish 
 you would take up the Old Testament and go 
 through it as though every page of it were alto- 
 gether new to you. I think it will astonish you." 
 Reade entered on the undertaking with the zeal 
 which characterized all his work. The result 
 was, he not only became astonished at his dis- 
 coveries, but became a sincere and humble Chris- 
 tian. Not least among the books he has left 
 behind is the group of sketches of " Bible Char- 
 acters " which he wrote late in his life. 
 
 2. Join a Bible class. It was a man of ability, 
 who stood at the very head of financial circles in 
 his nation, who, to Philip's question, " Under- 
 standest thou what thou readest?" (Acts 8: 30), 
 
i82 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 did not hesitate to reply, " How can I, except 
 some one shall guide me ? " The men who have 
 studied the Bible most are the very ones who are 
 most ready to learn from any other Spirit-filled 
 man. 
 
 If you are able to choose, begin with a class 
 which is studying the life of Christ. This is the 
 heart of revelation, to be studied over and over 
 again. After you have made a beginning with 
 it you are better able to go back and see how 
 all Old Testament history, law and prophecy were 
 a preparation for it, and how the apostolic his- 
 tory and teachings are its development. 
 
 3. Begin every day with devotional Bible 
 reading. Form the habit and plan the day so as 
 to provide for it. Go to bed fifteen minutes or 
 a half-hour earlier than you have been accustomed 
 to, so as to gain that time in the freshness of 
 the morning. If this requires sacrifice, be willing 
 to make it, and be as faithful in your appointment 
 with God as in your business engagements. Here, 
 as in a Bible class, a systematic plan is essential 
 to profit. 
 
 4. Never forget that it is through His Word 
 that God now speaks to men. In the earliest 
 times He spoke to men in visions and dreams, or 
 mouth to mouth as to Moses (Num. 12:6-8). 
 When the temple was built, its innermost sanctu- 
 ary, the holy of holies, was called " the oracle " 
 (I Kings 8: 6), the place where God would 
 speak to His people, and there He spake with 
 
WHY READ AND STUDY THE BIBLE 183 
 
 Isaiah (Isaiah 6). Now we have given unto 
 us "the living oracles" (Acts 7: 38); the veil 
 is rent, and we have access into the presence of 
 God. We must enter reverently, with humble but 
 sure reliance on the blood which our Great High 
 Priest has shed for us. We must listen to hear 
 God speak, and then we shall be ready to go out 
 to men, like Moses from God's presence, with faces 
 that shine, though like him we know it not. If 
 the secret of backsliding is found in failure to 
 study and obey God's Word, the secret of much 
 ineffective Christian work is found in bustling 
 activity for God without quiet communion with 
 God. ' 
 
 In an almshouse in Southern Pennsylvania a 
 blind man sought refuge when seventy years old. 
 He had lived a wicked life. Some ladies came 
 to visit and read the Bible. He remembered the 
 promise he had made to his good wife at her 
 deathbed. He opened his heart to the Gospel and 
 was converted. The Bible was all new to him, 
 and as they read to him on their visits he drank 
 it in as a thirsty man quaffs water. When the 
 supper bell rang, he begged them to go on, " I 
 would rather have you read than go to supper." 
 Even when he had his sight, his education had 
 never gone further than to know his letters. But 
 now, this old blind Christian hungered to learn 
 to read that he might be able to read God's Word 
 for himself. Instruction books for the blind were 
 obtained, and he toiled patiently over them day 
 
l84 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 after day, with his fingers roughened by years 
 of labor, until he could read the Bible for the 
 blind. He committed and recited perfectly the 
 fifteenth chapter of John. Soon he said to the 
 ladies, " The reading now is nothing to the think- 
 ing of it out." Surely the almshouse had become 
 a sanctuary. 
 
 He who approaches the Bible in the spirit of 
 this old blind Christian will find for himself the 
 truth of the assurance with which God's great 
 angel closed the highest message ever sent to 
 earth from Heaven : 
 
 " No WORD FROM GOD SHALL BE VOID OF 
 
 POWER.'' (Luke i: 37.) 
 
VIII 
 Pihle B>tvihp for ^Pergonal Spiritual (grotutfj 
 
 JOHN R. MOTT 
 
 Let us note at the outset that it is the Bible of 
 which we are to think in this discussion; not 
 books about the Bible, no matter how many, or 
 how helpful, or how accessible they may be. Let 
 us also bear in mind that it is Bible study that is 
 to engage our attention, not the subject of Bible 
 reading, although we might profitably spend much 
 time upon that. Nor are we to consider the sub- 
 ject of Bible listening, although that is almost a 
 lost art in these days. It is Bible study which we 
 are to emphasize, with all that the word study 
 means to us as students. Moreover, it is Bible 
 study for personal growth. It is not that form 
 of Bible study designed to equip us to lead others, 
 one by one, to Jesus Christ, although it furnishes 
 an essential part of our equipment for such work. 
 Nor is the object of such study first of all to 
 enable us to help other Christians spiritually, by 
 preparing us to give Bible readings, or to make 
 spiritual talks, or to teach Bible classes, or to 
 guide the Bible study of others, although it will 
 prove invaluable as a preparation for all such 
 
l86 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 work. It is Bible study for each man's own life 
 which we shall keep clearly before us. It is in- 
 tensely personal. Its object is personal growth. 
 
 What kind of growth is meant ? Not growth in 
 knowledge, although the world could far better 
 afford to lose any other sixty-six books than these, 
 viewing them simply as a storehouse of essential 
 knowledge. Not intellectual growth, although it 
 may be stated confidently that there is no other 
 group of writings the study of which affords the 
 same intellectual suggestiveness, grasp, breadth, 
 and power. Above and beyond all this is the 
 meaning of the term to which we shall limit our 
 thought — Bible study for each man's spiritual 
 growth. It is that Bible study which will make 
 us better men tomorrow than today; which will 
 find us far higher up the mountain path of Chris- 
 tian experience a year hence than at present; 
 which enables us to meet God and to hear His 
 voice and to know that it is His voice. It is that 
 Bible study which opens up to us, each day, fur- 
 ther and further vistas into the possibilities of 
 the life hid with Christ in God. 
 
 The Importance of Devotional Bible Study. 
 
 I. To us as Christians. It is the test of true 
 discipleship. Christ says, ** If ye abide in My 
 Word, then are ye truly My disciples." We may 
 call ourselves His disciples, but that does not 
 prove that we are. Our names may be on the 
 roll of his professed disciples, but that is not 
 
PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH 187 
 
 sufficient proof. The real test is the life, and 
 that is not possible apart from devotional Bible 
 study. If you abide in the Word — that is, if 
 you spend time there, if you dwell there, if 
 you live there — then will you necessarily be a 
 true disciple. Such Bible study alone shows us 
 the needs of our spiritual lives. It reveals to us 
 the weak places in our armor, the points of least 
 resistance in our lives. It shows us ourselves 
 as we are, and therefore as God sees us. Chrys- 
 ostom says, " The cause of all our evils is our 
 not knowing the Scriptures." Therefore, if we 
 would overcome doubts, temptations, passion, 
 evil imaginations, unclean, unholy, and proud 
 thoughts, let us center our energies upon such 
 study. The devotional study of the Bible alone 
 shows us the possibilities of our spiritual lives. 
 Why be satisfied with living on the dead level 
 or in the valley, if God intends that we be climb- 
 ing in the peaks ? The only place where the great 
 mountain peaks of Christian experience are re- 
 vealed is in the Scriptures. Would we be Chris- 
 tians of more than ordinary spiritual power? 
 Then we must be great feeders upon the Word, 
 which is not only quick but powerful. De Quincey 
 has divided all knowledge into the literature of 
 knowledge and the literature of power. The 
 sacred writings constitute pre-eminently the liter- 
 ature of power. To have real power with God 
 we must give ourselves to this study. This is 
 clearly taught in the words, " If ye abide in Me, 
 
l88 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 and My words abide In you, ask whatsoever ye 
 will, and it shall be done unto you." Other helps 
 to spirituality without devotional Bible study may 
 become dangerous. The habit of meditation, for 
 example, without the Bible is likely to lead a 
 man to become morbid and melancholy ; whereas, 
 conducted with the aid of the Bible, it is a most 
 healthful process. Secret prayer, moreover, is 
 practically impossible without Bible study, be- 
 cause real prayer is not monologue but dialogue. 
 It requires two to have true communion. We 
 must give God an opportunity to speak to us 
 as well as ourselves an opportunity to speak to 
 Him. 
 
 2. To us as Christian teachers. Think over 
 your teachers, either in things intellectual or 
 things spiritual. Which of them helped you the 
 most? Were they not the teachers who had the 
 life behind the words? Devotional Bible study 
 alone gives sincerity. And no one detects insin- 
 cerity or cant so quickly as the unbelievers who 
 are in our classes or who watch us in other 
 relationships. Moreover, it is noticeable in col- 
 leges having the elective system that the best 
 students prefer drinking from a running stream 
 to drinking from a stagnant pool; that is, they 
 prefer to enter the classes of teachers who are 
 themselves growing rather than of those who are 
 giving old material, without at least living over 
 it again. In AustraUa recently some new gold 
 fields were discovered. We met hundreds of 
 
PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH 189 
 
 persons on their way to these new fields. So it 
 is, if a teacher keeps finding new riches he sets 
 all his pupils to digging. If he rejoices with 
 David " as one having found great spoil," many 
 others will be attracted to the search. In a word, 
 therefore, if we would hold the interest, enthu- 
 siasm, or even the attendance of Bible classes, 
 let us give attention to enriching our spiritual 
 lives. 
 
 3. To us as Christian workers. Would we 
 work without friction, strain, anxiety, worry? 
 Then let us apply ourselves to this kind of Bible 
 study. We may not work so many hours, but we 
 shall accomplish more, and, when we leave, our 
 work will not have to be undone. Without deep 
 devotional study there is danger that our work 
 become purely mechanical. It alone will make 
 our experience fresh, rich, and full, and keep 
 the realities of our faith vivid. If we would 
 shape the work, and not be shaped by it, we 
 must through these studies preserve a strong and 
 ever-expanding inner life. Moreover, our fruit- 
 fulness in Christian work is absolutely conditional 
 on our abiding in the Word. Above all, it is 
 impossible to have the power of the Spirit of 
 God as a constant possession apart from the 
 study of the Bible. To do the work of God we 
 must have the power of God. To have the power 
 of God we must have the Spirit of God. The 
 Bible is the channel through which the Spirit 
 comes into the life. We do not find Spirit-filled 
 
IQO THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 men apart from deep, devotional Bible students. 
 If we would be filled with the Spirit, keep filled, 
 and have our capacity constantly increase, let us 
 become possessed with the Bible study passion. 
 4. To us as Christian leaders. If those over 
 whom God has placed us are to be spiritual, we 
 must be spiritual leaders. The stream never rises 
 above the fountain head. Moreover, if we would 
 be safe leaders we must study with intensity the 
 mind of God concerning our work and problems. 
 The Bible is the principal place where that is 
 revealed. More than all, if we would have the 
 true idea and spirit of Christian leadership, we 
 must study with diligence the life of that Leader 
 of leaders, as clearly set forth in the Scriptures. 
 
 Hindrances to Devotional Bible Study. 
 
 Let us clear the ground, first of all, of that 
 supposed hindrance — lack of time. In each 
 country that we visit the Christian men and 
 women claim that they are busier than those of 
 any other country. There are many persons who 
 conscientiously think they do not have half an 
 hour a day to spend in Bible study. Let us 
 suggest two ways of meeting this hindrance. 
 There is time to do the will of God. Is it the 
 will of God that I grow spiritually? Yes; for 
 He does not wish me to become unspiritual or 
 to stand still. Has a man ever grown spiritually 
 apart from devotional Bible study? We have 
 not found that man. Have you? Therefore, 
 
PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH 191 
 
 there is time to study the Bible daily for our 
 own spiritual growth. This, you say, is logical 
 but theoretical. Well, then, will you for one 
 month try the plan of spending the first half 
 hour of the day in Bible study, and at the end 
 of the time let us know whether it has interfered 
 with your regular work or standing or efficiency? 
 Hundreds of persons in different parts of the 
 world have accepted this challenge. Thus far not 
 one has reported that his work or standing has 
 suffered in the least. On the other hand, many 
 of them report that such study has enabled them 
 to do more and better work. Is it fair, therefore, 
 for any of us, without trying it, to say that this 
 cannot be done? 
 
 Many conscientious Christians raise the ques- 
 tion whether the reading of devotional books will 
 not take the place of Bible study? We firmly 
 believe that much of the lack of spiritual fiber 
 among Christians today is due to a second-hand 
 knowledge of the books of God. We would not 
 be misunderstood, for we have derived too much 
 benefit from such books as The Confessions of 
 St Augustine, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas 
 a Kempis, The Spiritual Letters of Fenelon, 
 Baxter's Saints' Everlasting Rest, Jeremy Tay- 
 lor's two spiritual classics. Law's Serious Call, 
 and the more recent writings of Murray, Meyer, 
 Moule, and Miss Havergal. The point is, why 
 not go to first sources ? One, in speaking of some 
 of these writings, has said that in their most ap- 
 
192 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 pealing tones they echo the voices of the Bible. 
 After all, these things ought we to have done and 
 not to have left the other undone. 
 
 Some people are hindered from studying the 
 Bible devotionally because they are afraid to do 
 so. One day while in India two young men said 
 to us : " If we study the Bible in this way, we are 
 afraid it will compel us to abandon our plan of 
 entering Government service, and to devote our- 
 selves to Christian work." A Mohammedan stu- 
 dent in Egypt told us that, if he studied the 
 Bible in this way, he would have to become a 
 Christian. In another place a young man said it 
 would make it necessary for him to give up a 
 certain bad habit. Afraid of the light! How 
 unscientific and unscholarly and cowardly! The 
 reason why some do not study the Bible devo- 
 tionally is because they have no suitable course 
 of study to follow. This leads to the third point. 
 
 Suggested Courses of Devotional Study. 
 
 It would be an excellent thing if each one of 
 us had studied the Bible as a whole and the dif- 
 ferent books composing it — their setting, con- 
 struction, contents, and purpose. The more of 
 such study we have the better use we can make 
 of the Bible devotionally. But to complete such 
 a scheme of study would require a lifetime. For- 
 tunately it is not necessary to master the Bible 
 critically before we begin to study it for daily 
 spiritual profit. 
 
PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH 193 
 
 The first suggested course would be the study 
 of the more devotional books of the Bible. Some 
 books of the Bible are better for devotional study 
 than others. One of the foremost Bible students 
 in Britain has said that for devotional purposes 
 we should study first, foremost, and in this 
 order : The Gospels, Colossians, Hebrews, Psalms, 
 Isaiah, Deuteronomy. We submitted this list to 
 one of the greatest devotional Bible students in 
 America. He suggested only one change, namely, 
 the placing of Deuteronomy before Isaiah. It 
 seems to me that it would be well for Christian 
 workers to place the Book of Acts after the 
 Gospels. There are different methods of study- 
 ing a book devotionally. The outline studies of 
 St. Luke's Gospel and the Book of Acts by 
 Robert E. Speer, and of St. John's Gospel by 
 W. W. White, will be found specially suggestive 
 and helpful on this point. 
 
 A second course, which has been followed with 
 great profit by many, is '' The Messages of the 
 Epistles to Me." We are indebted for this method 
 to Professor H. C. G. Moule, of Cambridge 
 University (now Bishop of Durham). The out- 
 line which he recommends, and which may be 
 followed in our study of any Epistle, is as 
 follows : 
 
 1. Account of Christ: a. Human history; h. 
 Divine history ; c. Relation to His followers. 
 
 2. Account of the Christian life: a. Inward; 
 h. Outward. 
 
194 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 3. Account of the writer's life in Christ. We 
 would suggest that at first the shorter epistles 
 be taken. 
 
 The study of biographies has always proved 
 stimulating to the spiritual life. What incentives 
 to growth and endeavor would come from a close, 
 practical study of a series of lives ; e. g., Joseph, 
 Moses, Elijah, Daniel, John the Baptist, John, 
 Peter, Stephen, and Paul? To guide us in such 
 study we might take a simple outline like the 
 following: a man's preparation for his Hfe-work, 
 qualifications, difficulties encountered, achieve- 
 ments, the secret of his enduring influence. 
 
 The topical study of the Bible is also very 
 fruitful. Mr. Moody every year at Northfield 
 urged the importance of devoting at least one 
 month of Bible study to each of the great doc- 
 trines ; for example, sin, the atonement, regenera- 
 tion, faith. When in college two of us met for 
 the study of the Bible. We wanted something 
 to counteract the effect of sceptical philosophy. 
 We took up the topic of the Holy Spirit, think- 
 ing we might finish it in three months. We spent 
 the year upon it, and then felt that we had only 
 opened the door. It proved, however, for us, to 
 be the very unlocking of the Scriptures devo- 
 tionally. Or we might take the topic prayer, or 
 the Kingdom of God. It is not necessary to pro- 
 long the list. 
 
 The last course of study, and by far the most 
 important, is the study of Jesus Christ. One 
 
PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH 195 
 
 day In Edinburgh I asked Professor Drummond 
 to name three courses of study which might be 
 recommended to Christians for spiritual profit. 
 After a few moments of thought he repHed: 
 " I would recommend that they study, first, the 
 Life of Jesus Christ ; secondly, the Life of Jesus 
 Christ; and thirdly, the Life of Jesus Christ." 
 He is right. It takes us to the very heart of the 
 subject. Pre-eminent and essential for the spir- 
 itual life is the constant and devout study of 
 Christ Himself. We would recommend the fol- 
 lowing six phases of the study of Christ : the 
 character of Christ, the divinity of Christ, the 
 teachings of Christ, the commands of Christ, 
 Christ as a worker, Christ as a man of prayer. 
 
 When so many courses of study are mentioned 
 there is danger that some of us will be confused, 
 hesitate, and fail to take up any. It matters not 
 so much what course we adopt. The main thing 
 is that we decide upon some one course, and hold 
 to it until it yields fruit in our lives and work. 
 
 The Manner of Devotional Bible Study. 
 
 1. Break up the subject to be studied into 
 convenient or suitable daily subdivisions. In this 
 way there will be some definite thing to take up 
 each day, and valuable time will not be lost 
 casting about to find out where to begin. If we 
 are to really search the Scriptures, we must have 
 things in mind for which we will search. 
 
 2. Be alone, if possible, while engaged in such 
 
196 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 devotional study. This will often be difficult, but 
 it is well worth the effort. We need to be where 
 we can speak aloud to God. It is said that 
 David Brainerd, in order to be alone for medi- 
 tation upon the Word, was in the habit of com- 
 mitting to memory passages of Scripture, and 
 then walking alone in the streets of New Haven, 
 or in the neighboring fields, revolving these pas- 
 sages in his mind, applying them to his life, and 
 conversing with God. 
 
 3. Keep in mind constantly the object of this 
 kind of Bible study. It is to meet my spiritual 
 need, not that of another. It is to enrich my 
 life. It is to lift my ideals. It is to enable me 
 to meet God and to hear His voice, to me, per- 
 sonally. We do well to remind ourselves of this 
 object many times during our study. 
 
 4. Let there be resolute detachment of mind. 
 Let us keep our thoughts from the thing which 
 we have just been doing and from the thing which 
 we mean to do next, and shut ourselves in alone 
 with God and His Word. This is all the more 
 important if our time be limited. If we have 
 but half an hour to devote to such study each 
 morning, we do not wish to spend half of it 
 getting the mind fixed upon the subject. 
 
 .5. Do not be diverted from the main purpose 
 of the study. This is the peril of many Bible 
 students. We come to something which, as Peter 
 says, is hard to be understood, and are apt to 
 think that that difficulty must be removed before 
 
PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH 197 
 
 we can go further in our devotional study. Not 
 so. Let us keep a paper on which we can note 
 any difficulty that we come to, and at some sub- 
 sequent time, as true scholars, let us seek to 
 understand it. But let us not be cheated out of 
 our daily spiritual food by mere intellectual curi- 
 osity, important as that is in its proper place. 
 
 6. Be thorough. We have far too much sur- 
 face study of the Bible. Gold dust is often found 
 on the surface, but as a rule we have to dig 
 for the nuggets. We need to sink a shaft in 
 the Scriptures in order to get at the deep things 
 of God. 
 
 7. Meditate. Jeremiah best defines this proc- 
 ess : " Thy words were found and I did eat 
 them " ; that is, I take these words into my mind, 
 I store them in memory, I revolve them over and 
 over again, I let them touch the springs of con- 
 science, I let them find me, I let the will act 
 upon them and apply them, I give them right of 
 way in my life, I make them part of myself, I 
 realize in actual experience that the words of 
 Christ " are spirit and are life." : 
 
 8. Record results. If you put down one point 
 each day you will gain over three hundred points 
 within the year. Most of us keep a financial 
 record. All of us are in the habit of taking notes 
 on what we hear men say. Is it not worth while 
 to keep a careful record of God's dealings with 
 us? It is my practice to carry slips of paper 
 in the Bible constantly, on which to note such 
 
198 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 points. I would rather part with the notes taken 
 when listening to the most distinguished lec- 
 turers I have ever heard than with these little 
 papers, which contain the record of my own soul 
 struggles and of God's personal dealings with me. 
 
 The Spirit for Devotional Bible Study. 
 
 1. It should be an earnest or intense spirit. 
 Ruskin says, " He who would understand a paint- 
 ing must give himself to it." He who would 
 understand the deep things of God must give 
 himself to them. 
 
 2. It must be a spirit of dependence upon the 
 Holy Spirit. The spirit must interpret what the 
 Spirit has inspired. 
 
 3. This suggests that it must be a prayerful 
 spirit. George Miiller, in writing of his experi- 
 ence in Bible study, says : " Spending three hours 
 on my knees, I made such progress that I learned 
 more in those three hours than in years before. 
 From that time I became a lover of the Word 
 of God." Does he mean that he learned more 
 facts in three hours than in years before? No; 
 he means that he spent enough time with the 
 light of God's presence shed upon the Word to 
 have revealed to him a secret which in turn un- 
 locked other secrets, and thus to have opened 
 before him a whole vista of truth. Many times 
 we need to turn from the sacred pages with this 
 prayer : " Open Thou mine eyes that I may be- 
 hold wondrous things out of Thy law." We can 
 
PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH 199 
 
 see the ordinary things without the help of God ; 
 but the unaided intellect, at its best, is absolutely 
 unable to grasp the wondrous things of God. 
 
 4. It should be a childlike spirit. Bacon urges, 
 " One must enter the kingdom of the natural 
 sciences like a little child." Christ insisted, " Elx- 
 cept ye be converted, and become as little children, 
 ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," 
 still less understand its deep mysteries. 
 
 5. It should be an obedient spirit. We must 
 be willing to let the Bible mean what it wants 
 to mean. We must be willing to have our lives 
 changed, cost what it may. " The organ of spir- 
 itual knowledge is an obedient spirit." 
 
 6. Finally, it should be a practical spirit. This 
 term is best defined in the Scripture language, 
 " All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." 
 If we would determine at once that henceforth in 
 our Bible study, as we come to commands which 
 we have not obeyed, we would with God's help 
 obey them ; as we come to precepts which we have 
 not heeded, we would in His strength heed them ; 
 as we see examples which we have not imitated, 
 we would under the Spirit's influence imitate them 
 — our lives would grow by leaps and bounds. 
 
 The Time for Devotional Bible Study. 
 
 I. Let it be a regular time. We should have 
 a Median and Persian hour, that is, an unchange- 
 able hour. It is a well-known law of psychology 
 that to form a habit we must suffer no exceptions. 
 
2CX) THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 2. Let it be a daily time. Some of us may 
 have a regular time, for example, once each week ; 
 but the daily plan is the more excellent one. The 
 world pulls us daily. Satan spreads his snares 
 for us more than once each day. Self asserts 
 itself many times each day. Therefore we should 
 fortify our lives spiritually at least once a day. 
 
 3. Let it be an unhurried time. We should 
 give ourselves believing time. It takes time to 
 become spiritual. Spirituality is not a matter 
 of chance; it must be preceded by an adequate 
 cause. If we would have large spiritual results 
 in our lives, there must be sufficient spiritual 
 causes. There is natural law in the spiritual 
 world. But some one asks. How much time is 
 unhurried time? I trust it will not mean less 
 than half an hour each day for any of us. Yet 
 more important than this, it means time enough 
 to forget time; time enough to forget the watch 
 and the clock; time enough to forget the thing 
 we have been doing, and the thing we mean to 
 do next; time enough to meet God, and to hear 
 Him speaking to the depths of our lives. I am 
 not pleading for a mere form, but for an actual, 
 personal, daily meeting on the part of each soul 
 with its God. 
 
 4. Let it be the very choicest time in the day. 
 When is that? I used to think it was the last 
 thing at night, but I found that usually the mind 
 was tired or occupied with the many things which 
 had taken place during the day. Then I tried the 
 
PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH 201 
 
 middle of the day, but found it impossible to 
 avoid interruptions at that time. At last, several 
 years ago, when I was at Cambridge, I heard 
 of the Morning Watch — the plan of spending 
 the first half Viour or first hour of the day alone 
 with God — and adopted the plan. With some 
 of you who are following the same plan, I firmly 
 believe that it is the best time in the day. The 
 mind is less occupied. The mind is, as a rule, 
 clearer, and the memory more retentive. But 
 forget these reasons if you choose. The whole 
 case may be staked on this argument: it equips 
 a man for the day's fight with self and sin and 
 Satan. He does not wait until noon before he 
 buckles on his armor. He does not wait until 
 he has given way to temper, or to unkind words, 
 or to unworthy thoughts, or to easily besetting 
 sin, and then have his Bible study. He enters 
 the day forewarned and forearmed. John Quincy 
 Adams, President of the United States, noted 
 in his journal, in connection with his custom 
 of studying the Bible each morning, " It seems to 
 me the most suitable manner of beginning the 
 day." Lord Cairns, one of the busiest men in 
 Great Britain, devoted the first hour and a half 
 of every day to Bible study and secret prayer. 
 We have all heard how Chinese Gordon, while 
 in the Soudan, had a certain sign before his 
 tent each morning which meant that he must be 
 left alone. A friend recently saw his Bible in 
 the Queen's apartments at Windsor, and told 
 
202 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 me that the pages of that book, which was his 
 companion in the morning watch, were so worn 
 that one could scarcely read the print. He 
 always reminds me of Sir Henry Havelock, who 
 took care to be alone each morning to ponder 
 some portion of the Bible. When on the heaviest 
 marches it was determined to start at some earlier 
 hour than that which he had fixed for his de- 
 votions, he arose quite in time to hold undisturbed 
 his communion with God. Ruskin, in speaking to 
 the students at Oxford, said, " Read your Bible, 
 making it the first morning business of your life to 
 understand some portion of it clearly, and your 
 daily business to obey it in all that you do under- 
 stand." Francke spent the first hour of every 
 day in private devotions. Wesley, for the last 
 forty years of his life, rose every morning at 
 four o'clock, and devoted from one to two hours 
 to devotional Bible study and prayer. Ruther- 
 ford was accustomed to rise every morning at 
 three o'clock, and the whole of the earlier hours 
 of the day were spent by him in prayer and medi- 
 tation and study. Greater than all, we have it on 
 the best of evidence that Christ rose a great while 
 before it was day to hold communion with God. 
 What He found necessary or even desirable can 
 we do without? Spirituality costs. Shall we 
 pay what it costs? 
 
IX 
 3|otD to iWafee tfte pible JSlEal 
 
 HENRY CHURCHILL KING 
 
 Every scripture inspired of God is also profit- 
 able for teaching, for reproof, for correction, 
 for instruction which is in righteousness : that 
 the man of God may be complete, furnished 
 completely unto every good work. — 2 Tim. 
 3:16, 17. 
 
 1. Make it unmistakably plain to yourself that 
 the Bible teaches that it is itself the great means 
 of grace. Mark 12:24; Acts 20:32; 2 Tim. 
 3: 16, 17; John 17: 17. 
 
 From whatever point of view one regards the 
 Christian life, he must lay the strongest empha- 
 sis on the Word. It may be safely said that the 
 growth of a Christian is, in the great majority 
 of cases, quite exactly proportioned to the real 
 applied knowledge of the Word of God. " Is it 
 not for this cause that ye err, that ye know not 
 the Scriptures nor the power of God?" 
 
 2. Treat it as you do other deep books. Apply 
 the same method to it, and expect results on the 
 same conditions. Do not be impatient. The one 
 great reason why the Bible is not more real to 
 
204 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 US is that we do not treat it as though it were 
 real. We. treat it as we do not expect to treat 
 any other similar book. 
 
 If you go to it in this sensible fashion, then, 
 you will wish to have the best translation, in the 
 best form, and you will, therefore, use the Revised 
 Version, both because it gives you the meaning 
 more exactly, and because of its division into 
 paragraphs. The " American Standard " edition 
 is the best. And you will need a good-sized type 
 which will make your reading easy, not difficult. 
 It is very costly economy that keeps you to a 
 fine print old version, though it be bound in 
 morocco. Moulton's Modern Reader's Bible, 
 simply because it prints the text as a modern 
 book would be printed — especially in the Proph- 
 ets — will be a great help to many. Fresh 
 translations also, like The Twentieth Century 
 New Testament, or Ballentine's The American 
 Bible, have a real and large contribution to 
 make. And paraphrases, like those in Sanders 
 and Kent's series, The Messages of the Bible, 
 bring the material before us in still another 
 way. 
 
 This sensible looking at the Bible, also, will 
 lead to another resolution: henceforth to use no 
 language about the Book that does not have real 
 meaning to you. You will not echo phrases, but 
 you will think ideas. 
 
 Moreover you will understand at once that it 
 is as absurd to expect large results from the 
 
HOW TO MAKE THE BIBLE REAL 205 
 
 Bible, without spending time upon it, as from 
 any other book. A Httle time, taken persistently 
 every day, will accomplish much. Coupled with 
 this, will come the twin conviction that so deep a 
 book, treating of such profound themes, justly 
 asks and requires not hearing or reading merely, 
 but study — study such as students expect to put 
 on their text-books. Therefore — 
 
 3. Study the Bible. 
 
 If going to it, in this sensible fashion, then, 
 that it may be always able to give you fresh 
 suggestions and not merely those received be- 
 fore. But another copy may well be marked 
 freely; or you may use a note book continually 
 with your study. For example, note by numbers 
 the separate points made in a paragraph; find 
 the prevailing thought in each paragraph and 
 make a definite statement of it in the margin 
 or in your note book ; note the logical connections 
 of the paragraphs with one another, and so get 
 at the line of argument of a chapter; then con- 
 nect the chapters similarly. Work out thus an 
 analysis for the whole book, after having clearly 
 stated its manifest purpose as disclosed in your 
 study. It is often of decided value to write a 
 paraphrase of a chapter — either expanded or 
 abridged — for this compels you to rethink in 
 new forms the thought of the chapter. This real 
 thinking of the thoughts of the Bible must be 
 the aim and justification of any method. For 
 the same purpose it is often helpful to note a 
 
2o6 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 recurrence of some dominant thought, or the 
 piling up of motives in some exhortation. The 
 prime thing is no set method, but a Hve attempt 
 to master the thought of the author. 
 
 Looking at the Bible in this light, you will 
 cease to depend on its unconscious influence, 
 but you will seek definite intelligent impressions 
 — some clear teachings; and you will take it 
 for granted that some intellectual impression is 
 to precede spiritual good. Therefore, 
 
 4. Study the Bible sensibly. 
 
 a. Don't take the poorest time in the day for it. 
 
 b. Remember the kind of book it is — a library 
 of sixty-six books or pamphlets, on very differ- 
 ent themes, the work of perhaps forty authors, 
 through possibly 1600 years. 
 
 c. You will aim therefore especially, at the 
 foundation and condition of every other method 
 of study of it, to master its contents book by 
 book. Make '"■ book studies." Discover for each 
 book its plan, its purpose, the principle upon 
 which its material has been selected, its title, 
 its main divisions, its complete analysis (after 
 the fashion of those in the Cambridge Bible for 
 Schools and Colleges), its place in the revelation 
 of God, its connection with the other books. 
 Don't be superficial. Ask for its great dominant 
 thoughts rather than for its " keywords." You 
 will thus be prepared to take a comprehensive 
 view of all Scriptures, in the great divisions. 
 This study of single books may begin almost any- 
 
HOW TO MAKE THE BIBLE REAL 207 
 
 where with profit, but you may find it easiest to 
 begin with some of the short Epistles. 
 
 d. Put the Psalms (which cover a period of 
 perhaps 500 years) and the Prophecies, as far as 
 possible, into their historical setting. They often 
 gain greatly in vividness and power from a clear 
 knowledge of these connections. George Adam 
 Smith's The Book of the Twelve Prophets has 
 a wonderful contribution to make in this respect 
 to the understanding of the " Minor Prophets." 
 
 e. Consider the character of the passage under 
 study. Do not make history into exhortation, 
 nor poetry into prose, nor genealogies into prophe- 
 cies. Study the history as history, yet as his- 
 tory written for a purpose, the statistics as 
 statistics, the legislation as legislation. Do not 
 be disappointed that the first chapter of Chron- 
 icles does not seem as rich in suggestion as the 
 fourteenth of John. Consider the great variety 
 of Scripture, and adapt your methods to its vary- 
 ing parts. Use your common sense, and call 
 to your aid such helps as you would employ in 
 the study of similar literature in other books. 
 Notice who is speaking in the passage, and don't 
 quote the devil, nor Job's comforters, for gospel 
 truth. Note, too, the circumstances and temh 
 perament of each writer, so far as you can get 
 at them. 
 
 /. Particularly remember that the Bible is not 
 a collection of mottoes, from which any verse 
 may be taken, to point a moral or adorn a tale; 
 
2o8 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 and that this motto use has been one of the 
 greatest hindrances to an intelligent and accurate 
 knowledge of the Bible. Therefore, 
 
 5. Study the Bible honestly. 
 
 Consider carefully the immediate context; see 
 that you are not putting on the words a meaning 
 which they cannot bear in the connection. Be 
 scrupulously honest in this. " Allow for your- 
 self and your prejudices." Don't come to the 
 Bible to read your ideas into it. Do not cultivate 
 the fatal facility of deriving any number of 
 morals from the same passage. Ask rather for 
 the plain and simple meaning of the passage, 
 avoiding " ingenious interpretations." Seek to 
 discover by a careful study of the passage in its 
 entirety, in its immediate context and in its set- 
 ting in the book, what the manifest meaning and 
 purpose of the writer was, and exalt that lesson, 
 not any other. In many cases there is no lesson 
 to be drawn from a number of verses; the com- 
 plete narrative must be taken to give the ground 
 for inferring the purpose of the writer. 
 
 6. Study the Bible systematically. 
 
 a. Not *' hit or miss," a few verses here or 
 there, anywhere as it happens. It is impossible 
 that any comprehensive knowledge of the Bible 
 should come to you in that way. 
 
 h. Not superstitiously, opening the Bible, as 
 a book of magic, morning by morning, as though 
 you had a promise that the book would open at 
 the precise passage that you needed for the day. 
 
HOW TO MAKE THE BIBLE REAL 209 
 
 Laziness and refusing to use one's intellect are 
 no means of grace. 
 
 c. Not in constant repetition of certain favor- 
 ite passages. Whole stretches of unexplored 
 truth are before you. You have no right to limit 
 yourself to a few chosen passages. Even these 
 very passages suffer by such treatment. 
 
 7. Read large portions at a time, often. YoU 
 can hardly know how the Bible really tastes, when 
 you always read it in little bits. You could not 
 enjoy Shakespeare or Scott or Gibbon so. You 
 do not yet know the charm, the interest, the en- 
 grossing power of the Bible, if you have not read 
 large sections of it at a single sitting — not so 
 many set chapters to fulfill a duty, but a complete 
 section, really to master the thought. Read one 
 of Paul's letters entire, considering its circum- 
 stances, as you would any letter today, at a single 
 sitting really to see what he says. Some Sunday 
 afternoon, read a whole Gospel, not as a task, 
 but for the sake of getting a single comprehensive 
 view of Christ's life, trying to put yourself in 
 the position of one reading the story for the first 
 time. Make the Bible live for you. There are^ 
 seventeen books of the New Testament, each of 
 which can be read in seventeen minutes or less.J 
 
 8. a. You may profitably study the Bible 
 topically, trying first through your own knowl- 
 edge, then through marginal references and a con- 
 cordance, to gather the sweep of the Bible teach- 
 ing on a single topic, like faith, the conditions 
 
2IO THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 of peace, what it is to come to Christ, the proper 
 use of money, and all practical questions con- 
 cerning which you want instruction and guidance. 
 This is to bring the Bible to bear very practically 
 on life. One needs to be very careful, however, 
 in this topical study, that he does not quote the 
 Bible without discrimination, but that he takes 
 full and honest account of the context of the pas- 
 sages, and of the entire historical setting. We 
 have to do with a progressive revelation — cul- 
 minating in Christ ; and the character and teach- 
 ing of Christ are our standard inside as well as 
 outside the Bible. 
 
 h. It is also of great interest to study the 
 Bible about biographical centers. Take the life 
 of a single one of the Bible characters, like 
 Moses, or Saul, or Samuel, or David (choosing 
 preferably at the beginning of such studies a 
 minor character, where the material is not too 
 voluminous), and try to master all that the Bible 
 gives about him; gather about him all related 
 material, endeavor to understand his circum- 
 stances and his age, and put down in order 
 all the separate facts concerning him so obtained 
 directly or by side-lights. These facts now are to 
 be made the basis of your inferences concerning 
 the development and character of the man. Such 
 a character study is not only interesting but has 
 the most potent teaching for life. 
 
 c. For the sake of variety, it is sometimes use- 
 ful to read a book with a single thought in 
 
HOW TO MAKE THE BIBLE REAL 211 
 
 mind — what warnings has it, or what exhorta- 
 tions, what promises, what hints of further possi- 
 bilities of the Christian life, what suggestions 
 for Christian work, what revelation of God, etc. 
 d. But it must never be forgotten, that all 
 fragmentary methods must be based on the com- 
 prehensive study of the books. Only so can one 
 be sure of the legitimacy of the use of the de- 
 tached verses. 
 
 9. Remember it is God's word to you. There 
 is no other person in the world to whom it was 
 sent more than to you. 
 
 10. It is God's text-hook for the earthly train- 
 ing. It is not too much to say, that this book He 
 has chosen out of all the earthly writings of the 
 world, as that which especially concerns your 
 life. This you need, this you are to study, this 
 it is your duty to study. There is no rational 
 reason why you should not come to have a wide 
 and careful knowledge of it. 
 
 11. Here are revelations. You have wanted 
 visions, some personal revelation, perhaps, giving 
 reality to the spiritual life. A vision could do 
 only one of two things for you that would be 
 valuable, give you a new truth, or a fresh realiza- 
 tion of an old truth. The Spirit waits to give you 
 both these things in the Word. For, 
 
 12. The Spirit speaks through the Word. It is 
 the meeting place of the soul and God. God 
 would speak to you there. The Bible is the 
 record of the pre-eminent meetings of God with 
 
212 THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD TODAY 
 
 men, and in these each may share. Ask God to 
 open your eyes, and to unstop your ears. Pray 
 that the Spirit may bring home to you His own 
 Word. It is directly through the Word that you 
 are to expect that far the greater part of the 
 work of the Spirit for you is to be wrought out. 
 How can he take the things of Christ and show 
 them unto you, except as you give him oppor- 
 tunity through your poring over Christ's life? 
 Lord, speak to me, and then speak through me. 
 
 13. The Word is the greatest and most rational 
 means to association with Christ — coming into 
 understanding of His thoughts, feelings, purposes, 
 acts, and into harmony with them, and thus being 
 molded into His likeness by persistent association. 
 Pore over the life of Christ to drink in its spirit. 
 And so the Word becomes the greatest and most 
 rational means to personal acquaintance with 
 God. We may as certainly and truly come to 
 know Him through His Word, as we may come 
 to know a correspondent whom we have never 
 seen through his letters. The one road to faith 
 in God is knowledge of Him, and this knowledge 
 is in His Word. " And this is Hfe eternal, that 
 they should know thee, the only true God, and 
 him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." 
 
 14. For the sake of those who are just begin- 
 ning to read their Bible, the following passages 
 may be suggested as of themselves particularly 
 helpful, and as well suited to introduce them to 
 the contents of the Bible, and so prepare the way 
 
HOW TO MAKE THE BIBLE REAL 213 
 
 a little more easily, perhaps, for the use of the 
 better methods suggested above: Matthew, chap- 
 ters 5-7; Luke, chapters 12-15; John, chapters 
 1-3 and 13-17; Acts, chapter 2; Romans, chap- 
 ters 8, 12; I Corinthians, chapters 13, 15; II 
 Corinthians, chapter 4 : 16 to chapter 7:1; Ephe- 
 sians; Philippians, chapters 3, 4; Colossians; I 
 Thessalonians, chapter 5 ; I Timothy, chapter 4 ; 
 II Timothy, chapter 2; James, chapters 1-3; 
 I Peter; Revelation, chapters 1-3, 21, 22 \ Psalms 
 I, 19, 23, 25, 2-7, 40, 43, 46, 51, 63, 91, 103, 116, 
 121 ; Isaiah, chapters 40, 42, 53, 54. 
 
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