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 WILLIAM PAGE, 
 
 July, 1881.
 
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 At the end of 1867 I published a small pamphlet condemning 
 Dr. Kalisch's " Observations on Leviticus," which, strange to say, was 
 allowed, with this solitary exception, to pass unheeded by all his 
 Jewish co-religionists, although, much to their credit be it said, it was 
 vigorously attacked by the Protestants. I therein used arguments 
 condensed from the preface and other parts of the late Lord Hatherley's 
 <: Continuity of Scripture," and in reply to my note forwarding to him 
 my treatise, I had the gratification to receive from him the following 
 autograph letter : 
 
 " 31, Great George Street, S.W. 
 
 " Vice-Chan cellor Wood presents his compliments to 
 Mr. Guedalla, and begs to thank him for his courtesy in 
 forwarding the treatise on Dr. Kalisch's publication, and for 
 the honour that he has done the Vice-Chancellor in noticing 
 ' The Continuity of Scripture.' The latter work is now in its 
 second edition, and the Vice-Chancellor trusts Mr. Guedalla's 
 work may prove effective in its refutation of Dr. Kalisch's 
 various errors, rejoicing, as he does, in fellow-labourers." 
 
 Amongst other esteemed testimonials, I also received the following 
 from the late Henry Jessel, Esq., brother to the Master of the Eolls : 
 
 " 4, Craven Hill Gardens, 
 
 " 23rd February, 1868. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Guedalla, I hope you will accept my most 
 cordial thanks for your very able and interesting pamphlet on 
 
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 the now all-important Bible question. I assure you I have 
 derived the greatest gratification from the perusal of it, and 
 I cannot find words to express my sense of your talent, 
 industry, and love of religion, as displayed in your composition. 
 Indeed, I think the whole community greatly indebted to you. 
 
 " Believe me, &c., 
 
 11 HENRY JESSEL." 
 
 As a fitting humble " In Memoriam " of the unaffected piety of the 
 late Lord Hatherley, I again re-publish the very portions of which I 
 availed myself in 1867. 
 
 H. GUEDALLA. 
 
 August 1st, 1881.
 
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 WILLLIAM PAGE, LORD HATHERLEY'S, DEFENCE 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 (From "Continuity of Scripture" London, 1867. ) 
 
 One may have been, especially of late, perplexed by the alleged 
 discovery on the part of men of learning, that much of the Old Testa- 
 ment has been erroneously accepted as the authentic writing of the 
 several authors to whom the books are attributed, or unduly credited 
 with a prophetic character. He may have neither time, nor learning, 
 nor judgment, to sift or to decide upon such alleged discoveries. At 
 some future time, it may possibly be permitted me to examine the 
 supposed evidence on which are based some very confident assertions 
 of a self-styled " high criticism." 
 
 Assuming the learning to be profound and accurate which has 
 collected the materials for many such critical performances, the logic 
 by which conclusions are deduced from those materials is frequently 
 grievously at fault, and open to the judgment of all who may have 
 been accustomed to sift and weigh evidence. 
 
 Much has been said about leaving young people to their unbiassed 
 judgment. But if this had been intended by the Author of our being, 
 we should not have been ushered into the world as infants, but as full- 
 grown men or women. Authority must and ever will form every 
 human mind. Well is it for us if that authority be Divine. Well is 
 it for us that we can listen to the living Word, whose words are spirit 
 and life. His actions live in the pages of that blessed Book ever before 
 our eyes, that we may follow His steps, not merely listening to moral
 
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 sentences, but imitating His example, and growing as children do in 
 the likeness of Him to whom we are thus looking up. When we wake 
 up after His likeness we shall indeed be satisfied with it. 
 
 It is thus that the Almighty Author describes its operation : " For 
 as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and retumeth not 
 thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, 
 that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater : so shall 
 my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth : it shall not return 
 unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall 
 prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (Isaiah, Iv. c., 10, 11 v.) 
 
 The Bible has been continuous in its moral object, the eradication 
 of selfishness in every form, and the supplanting of it by love. It has 
 been continuous in its spiritual object, the raising of man to a con- 
 sciousness of his everlasting existence. The fruits of this wondrous 
 Book have been no less continuous namely, a gradual advancement 
 in morals, and mutual loving sympathy in all nations which have 
 accepted its teaching, and in proportion to their simple acceptance, of 
 it ; whilst a frightful outburst of evil has taken place where, for a 
 while, its authority has been spurned and rejected by those who had 
 been once subjected to its influence. 
 
 I do not believe that anyone who has sought for guidance or com- 
 fort in its pages has ever failed in his hope. Though, of course, to any- 
 one who reads simply to criticise, or to judge that Word by which we 
 believe we shall be judged, it would be vain to address any argument 
 deduced from personal experience. 
 
 If there be one characteristic of the Bible by which it may be most 
 briefly contrasted with every other work intended to affect the lives 
 and conduct of men, it is this : that it is historically, not argumen- 
 tatively, didactic. 
 
 It does not tell men merely what they ought to be, and leave them
 
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 there ; but, teaching them how and for what purpose they were 
 created, it tells them also historically that they have hopelessly fallen 
 from that condition. 
 
 This wonderful Book was composed by a variety of agents of the 
 Divine Will, at distant epochs, yet all working to one end ; but now 
 I wish to call attention to the fact that we have also left to us numerous 
 works of merely human authors, in the Greek and Latin languages, 
 written also by men of various epochs and various positions in life, and 
 many more such works we know existed which have since perished. 
 Moreover, in these works there are not to be found prophetical antici- 
 pations of historical events, or moral precepts to which those who 
 follow them should in like manner continuously testify. Observe, too, 
 that the inspired authors make their bold assertions in the presence of 
 men equally well read with themselves in the previous writings, equally 
 admitting also their prophetical import, and disputing only its inter- 
 pretation. On the contrary, the heathen philosophers of one age are 
 usually controverted either by their contemporaries or by their 
 successors. 
 
 If a special school of opinion were formed by some profound thinker, 
 its opinions were found to vary, within a few years, from those of 
 their founder, and the moral destiny of the world cannot be said to 
 have been permanently affected by the dogmas of even the best and 
 soundest teachers of heathendom. Still less can such teaching have 
 been said to have consoled the afflicted, whether rich or poor, learned 
 or unlearned, under the ordinary trials of life. 
 
 What effect upon the moral nature of man, or the development of 
 his highest faculties, which alone can bring him into communion with 
 his Maker, had the writings of the greatest Greek and Latin authors ? 
 We know from these authors themselves that the most shameless lust, 
 the most disgraceful intemperance, the most savage cruelty towards 
 captives taken in wars which were in themselves utterly unjustifiable,
 
 prevailed. The educated classes of society had no settled faith in 
 aught beyond this life, whilst the lower were sunk in abject supersti- 
 tions, and gradually losing every trace of the once stern, patriotic self- 
 devotion of the Roman character. It is scarcely too much to say that 
 from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans the 
 heathen world began rapidly to sink into utter darkness. 
 
 Has or has not the world's history been conformable to the an- 
 nouncements of the Bible ? The writings of Horace, of Tacitus, of 
 Juvenal, demonstrate the contempt in which the Jews were held as a 
 nation before and after the present era. 
 
 That Bible, which professes to be the Word of God, had, on the 
 contrary, been accepted by the people to whom it was addressed had 
 moulded their whole external and internal life. Their calamities had 
 been attributed by themselves to their departure from it, their success 
 to their conformity with its precepts, and, if misunderstood, it was still 
 the professed rule of conduct. 
 
 So many authors have fully and demonstratively pointed out the 
 distinction between the Bible and Koran, and their effects upon the 
 moral and spiritual condition of mankind, that I will simply make one 
 remark on each topic. The Koran contains much of the Bible. The 
 denunciation of idolatry, the doctrine of the one true God, give it, 
 therefore, some of that living power which ever accompanies the Word 
 of God. On the other hand, as regards its effects, the miserable 
 admixture of the human element in the false prophet's work is seen in 
 the lust and the cruelty of his followers, and in the sterility of those 
 few portions of the good seed, which has been choked by the worldly 
 thorns and briars so plentifully scattered in its pages. 
 
 The Old Testament was written (as regards its human authors), at 
 intervals, during a period of more than a thousand years. Its various 
 books were composed by the agency of men of almost every character 
 and position in life. The great legislator Moses, leaders of armies,
 
 judges, kings, are among its authors. Some of them lived amid the 
 struggles of conflict ; some in the enjoyment of peace and wealth and 
 splendour. Prophets also were taken from various ranks of life, from 
 among the priests, from the blood royal, from herdsmen, or other 
 humble occupations. Some of them wrote in times of danger and 
 distress, others in times of prosperity ; some were in high favour at 
 the courts of kings, and others in dee}) depression and temporal dis- 
 grace. Their style is as varied as their rank, but their subject always 
 one. 
 
 But whilst a moral life was thus insisted upon, and every circum- 
 stance was so ordered as to encourage its development, it is also plainly 
 enough indicated in every portion of Scripture, how little man, with all 
 his own efforts, is able thus to answer the requirements of God. And 
 doubtless it is for this reason that the fearful shortcomings of even the 
 best men (morally speaking) are laid before us with all the plain 
 sincerity of a holy truthfulness. 
 
 Noah's shameful drunkenness ; Lot's worldly choice of an abode ; 
 Abraham's timid deceit with reference to Sarah ; Isaac's partiality for 
 his profane son Esau ; Jacob's fraud ; Moses' impatience ; David's 
 crimes ; Solomon's folly ; Elijah's timidity immediately succeeding his 
 undaunted denunciation of Ahab and Jezebel ; Hezekiah's vanity all 
 show but too plainly what is in man, and the helplessness of his own 
 efforts to raise himself if he be left, but for a season, alone. 
 
 There is no true source of power but One, even the Everlasting 
 God, whose works are all " very good." The first man is stated to 
 have been made in "God's likeness;" that is to say, with a mind 
 capable of thought, with a soul capable of love, with authority and 
 power over the lower creation, and with a capacity for communicating, 
 however subordinately, with the Great Creative Spirit. He was 
 entrusted also with the power of self-determination with respect to his 
 actions.
 
 The external world is never mentioned in Scripture without a direct 
 reference to man's condition upon earth. The slight indications given 
 of physical creation are merely such as to teach him that an All-wise, 
 and All-powerful, and All-benevolent Creating Spirit is the Author of 
 everything that exists, bringing all into being out of nothing by His 
 simple Word, and making all " very good ;" so that man should have 
 no excuse for the foolish worship of inanimate objects, however glorious 
 in beauty (as the sun and moon and host of heaven), but should 
 worship Him only by Whom both they and he exist. The habitual 
 tendency of fallen man to believe that the evil which he sees around 
 him is a Power, or the result of a Power, instead of mere negation, is 
 thus at once rebuked.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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