The Bible and Life Part 8

When men separate the Bible from devotion and practice they are guilty of the final heresy in relation to the Book of Life. The previous pages have shown that the Bible has a real message for actual living. While the larger departments have been treated, it is still true that the message of the Scriptures for other sections of life is vital and fundamental.

Whatever we may say about the message of the Bible in regard to chemistry, or biology, or geology; whatever we may say about its inspiration for the literature of the world; and whatever we may say about its accuracy in matters of ancient history and geography--the Book holds a lonely primacy as the Book of Duty. The scientist may not get from it a full revelation; the litterateur may be tempted to omit certain portions from his "choice selections"; the historian may not find in it a full or chronological list of events; but the man with a moral and spiritual pa.s.sion, the man bent on finding his duty that he may do it faithfully, will discover ample material in its pages. Indeed, he will have a sense of surplus. The ideals of the Book will be so far beyond his performance as to give him the feeling of a gentle rebuke. As a Book of moral science, moral literature, moral history, the Bible has no compet.i.tors. As a revelation of the heart of G.o.d, of the heart of man, and of the way in which the heart of G.o.d and the heart of man are brought into loving harmony, the Bible is supreme.

The great difficulty in the use of the Bible has come from wrenching it from this main purpose. Confusion is sure to arise whenever any volume is employed apart from its primary intent. If one wishes to learn mathematics, and his foolish teacher shall give him a book of music, the result is not edifying. The pages of the book may be properly numbered, and the scales of music may be denoted by the correct fractions; but mathematics represents a thoroughly subordinate purpose, and the volume does not lead easily on to Calculus. The result is even more confusing if the arithmetic be handed to a pupil who wishes to study versification. The multiplication table may look like verses when seen at some distance; still the arithmetic's main intent is not the teaching of poetry. The ill.u.s.trations of possible confusion could be taken from all fields. The common sense of the race saves it from the blunder of misapplying the most of its books. The Bible, however, has been subjected to misapplication because the theory of its infallibility has often been made to cover a wide, not to say a universal, range. The student who goes to the Bible with a purpose that is mainly historical, or scientific, or geographical, or genealogical, or mathematical, or even poetical and literary, may not find all his wishes gratified. But the student who seeks its pages under a profound sense of G.o.d and with an equally profound will to do G.o.d's will is certain to find material for all his moral and spiritual ambitions.

Consequently when the religious att.i.tude toward the Bible is changed into a professional or critical or debating att.i.tude, the Book is deflected from its intent. Doubtless we must have in the realm of scholars.h.i.+p some men who give themselves to a technical discussion of the Bible. These men may be charged with the duty of recovering portions of the Book to reality; and they may have an important, but secondary, relation to its primary purpose. Nevertheless their att.i.tude is not the final one. It would be useless to deny that the last generation has witnessed a changed att.i.tude toward the Holy Scriptures. One result has been that two camps have been formed, and that doughty champions of a view have sallied forth from each camp to do warfare. The missiles have been verbal. Sometimes they have been abusive. Each champion has believed himself a David and his opponent a Goliath. The unprejudiced observer of the conflict has had difficulty in deciding which champion has been most guilty of a wrong spirit. The conservative has called the progressive various names, infidel, atheist, destroyer, betrayer, a successor of Judas in spirit and of Celsus in method! The progressive has responded in kind and has named the conservative a reactionary, an intellectual coward, a defender of a discredited theory, a foe of liberty, and a traitor to the truth. The conservative has often become a spiritual Pharisee and has ruled the progressive out of court on the ground that the progressive lacked piety, while the progressive has often become an intellectual Pharisee and has ruled the conservative out of court on the ground that the conservative lacked scholars.h.i.+p. There have, of course, been conspicuous instances of breadth and catholicity on both sides, but occasionally the spirit of the contest has not tended to exalt the mood of the contestants or to glorify the divine Book.

The results of such a spirit could easily be predicted: they cannot make for edification. If we list on one side the radical conservatives and on the other side the radical progressives, we shall discover an evangelical helplessness in both lists. In each case a conception of the Bible supplants the purpose of the Bible. The champion defends a doctrine more than he promotes a life. The apologist overcomes the preacher. The theorist destroys the evangelist. All this is not a denial that the speculative emphasis has its place. The defender of the faith will always have his place. Usually he must work in the background, in some point of scholarly retreat. The pastor and preacher who goes into a community with the idea that his main mission is to promote a special view of inspiration is doomed to failure, while he who goes into a community with the idea that his main mission is to preach the salvation of the Bible as it climaxes in Christ cannot fail utterly. There are conservatives and progressives whose ministry is pitiably weak, and there are progressives and conservatives whose ministry is grandly strong. The difference comes from the point of emphasis. If a man is more anxious to prove that Moses was the sole author of the Pentateuch than he is to prove that Jesus is the sole author of salvation, his ministry will answer to his own emphasis. If a man is more anxious to prove that there were two Isaiahs than he is to show that there is one only name given among men whereby we may be saved, his ministry will be no more important than is his contention. The primary purpose of the Bible is not the revelation of the single authors.h.i.+p of one of its sections or the dual authors.h.i.+p of one of its books; its primary purpose is to declare that One is our Master, even Christ.

It must be plain that, as the divine revelation of the Bible culminates in a Life, so the human intent of the Bible can culminate only in lives. The purpose of the Bible is met in Practice. If we adopt the military figure of life, the Bible is a weapon given to men for moral warfare. Sometimes in its own pages the Word of G.o.d is presented under the figure of a Sword.

The writers could not have had in mind the Scriptures as we have them now; but the principle applies to every revelation by which G.o.d seeks to bring men to the understanding and doing of his own will. When Isaiah felt divine messages burning in his heart he said, "He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword." The writer of Hebrews took the same nervous metaphor and wrote, "The word of G.o.d is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." Paul in his description of the Christian armor speaks of "The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of G.o.d." It may not be amiss, then, to take this highly authorized figure of speech and to employ it once again--not claiming, of course, that our particular applications were in the thought of the first users. The point is that under the ancient military system the sword had its main intent, and that it never did its real work as long as it was divorced from that intent.

There were wrong uses of the sword, and there were secondary uses of the sword; and there was but one primary use of the sword.

We can conceive of an actual sword as being used in different ways by different people. A robber seizes it, defends himself against just arrest, and slashes the representatives of a righteous law. Evidently the sword was not made for that purpose. The sportsman takes the sword, tests its handle, polishes its blade, tries its resiliency, purchases a manual of arms, secures the best teacher, drills himself in its use. On holidays he wears a flashy uniform, marches through the streets, waves the glittering thing over his head, and so makes it an instrument of personal flourish.

This use is not evil, but it does not stand for the weapon's first intent.

A third man, with a more serious mien, secures the sword. He is enlisted in the militia, and the time may come when it will be necessary for him to go into real war. He tests its handle and polishes its blade; he studies the manual of arms; he seeks the best masters; he practices its use through many months. When the time of war actually comes this man draws the sword from its scabbard and goes out to do service in his country's cause. The primary purpose of the sword is met only in this earnest use.

The three men may represent three cla.s.ses in their att.i.tudes toward the Bible. The Bible is often used for defense in immoralities. It is often used as a means of that cheap skill that comes near to personal display.

It is often used for spiritual defense and warfare. The robber's use is evil. The parader's use is secondary. The warrior's use is primary.

Many ill.u.s.trations of the immoral use of the Bible could be given. In the story of the temptation of Jesus the devil is pictured as a user of the Scriptures, and he has not been without his followers in an unholy use of a holy record. The Bible covers a wide range of thought and experience. It tells of all manner of sins. It deals with all cla.s.ses of characters. It presents the lives of bad men who were sometimes good, and of good men who were occasionally bad, and of other men who were quite steadily bad or good. Thus the Bible gives us all sorts of examples. The record, distorted and misapplied, may be made to justify the baldest of sins. In matters of questionable morality men are ever ready to appeal to the divine Book, and even for actions condemned by all enlightened moral judgment the Bible is sometimes summoned as an advocate. There is scarcely a sin which has not had a pa.s.sage of Scripture presented as its excuse.

Men have justified rash murder on the ground that Moses killed the cruel Egyptian taskmaster. As was shown in a previous chapter the practices of the patriarchs have been quoted, even in the halls of Congress, as a warrant for bigamy and polygamy. Men in the midst of unreasoning anger have condoned their madness by reciting the words, "Be ye angry, and sin not." Jesus himself named to the Jews a sacrilegious misuse of a Bible phrase by which heartless children excused themselves from filial duties.

Ill.u.s.trations might be given touching almost every phase of personal life.

Even as in old days the wicked sometimes fled to a city of refuge, so now do men caught in an evil mood hide themselves behind a biblical rampart.

In larger social matters this use of the Bible has been fully as striking.

Human slavery felt secure within a scriptural fortress. Wilberforce and Clarkson in England, and Garrison and Phillips in America were compelled to reply to biblical arguments. Charles Sumner, at a meeting in Ma.s.sachusetts, spent an entire evening in replying to a pro-slavery discussion based on Paul's letter to Philemon, arriving duly at the conviction that the only logical and religious result of the apostle's words to Philemon would be the freeing of slaves in the name of Christian brotherhood. So pieces of Mosaic legislation and sc.r.a.ps of Pauline regulation were used to conceal the Golden Rule and the law of fraternity.

It is easy to observe here, too, that as men advance in ethical life this use of the Bible ceases. Doubtless in twenty years no one has heard the Bible quoted in behalf of slavery. Yet the biblical argument would serve quite as well for reinstating slavery as it did for continuing slavery.

The argument dies not only because the moral consciousness of man lives, but also because the moral judgment of man perceives that the general principles of the Bible are utterly opposed to human slavery. The man who proposed to bring the bondage of men back into the social life of the world by means of the biblical argument would be deemed as much an anachronism as his method of debate.

This same evil use of the Bible proceeds to-day among the opponents of the temperance reform. Our debate with the saloonist or brewer or wine maker never goes far ere we are told of biblical examples of drinking, as well as that Christ turned water into wine in his first miracle at Cana of Galilee. Saloon keepers have framed and have placed upon the walls of their alluring palaces Paul's advice to Timothy, "Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities." They do not quote the verdict that wine is a mocker, with a bite like that of a serpent and a sting like that of an adder--the cause of woes and sorrows and redness of eyes; nor the p.r.o.nouncement that no drunkard can inherit the Kingdom; nor the condemnation laid upon him that putteth the bottle to his neighbor's lips. Nor do they put forward the inevitable drift of Paul's law of charity which commands men to do naught that will make their brothers to offend. Nor yet do they heed the sure drift of the Bible's teaching as it comes to its crown in Christ himself. The man who would claim that Jesus would approve the modern traffic in intoxicating liquors would convict himself of amazing perversity and ignorance. There are increasing evidences that the Master of life is now finding an effective use for his whip of cords and that there is beginning a retreat greater than that of the ancient thieves and dove sellers. The time will come when men will marvel that an attempt was ever made to use the Bible as a foundation for the trade in alcoholics.

In Scott's Ivanhoe there is given an example of this misuse of the Bible, as well as an example of its effective rebuke. Rebecca the Jewess is beautiful in person, as she is in character. Brian de Bois-Guilbert is a member of the Order of the Holy Temple. He is a das.h.i.+ng, handsome, hypocritical crusader, both a military and a moral adventurer. He turns his lewd eye toward Rebecca. She stands by an open window, ready to throw herself to death upon the rocks far beneath rather than to submit herself to his wickedness. To justify his black intention Guilbert mentions the conduct of David and Solomon, and then says to the tempted one, "The protectors of Solomon's Temple may claim license by the example of Solomon." The beautiful woman makes a worthy retort, one that deserves frequent repet.i.tion: "If thou readest the Scriptures and the lives of the saints only to justify thine own license and profligacy, thy crime is like that of him who extracts poison from the most helpful herbs." No honest person can believe in Guilbert's use of the Bible; nor can any honest person escape the truth of Rebecca's reply. The murderer's, the bigamist's, the slaveholder's, the rum-seller's, the sensualist's method of employing the Bible is the final blasphemy against the Holy Word. The robbers of life simply steal the sword of the Spirit in order that they may use it in the service of h.e.l.l. Wolves in sheep's clothing and devils clad in the livery of heaven are apt figures of speech for the description of this perversity. The Bible itself speaks of those who wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction!

The second use of the sword moves into the realm of the legitimate, but not into the realm of the final. Expert swordsmans.h.i.+p is no crime, even as it is not the highest morality. The Bible has long been one of the favorite fields of the critical scholar. Very often the search has been for technical truth rather than for vital truth. Heated discussions have related to questions of dates and authors.h.i.+p. These questions are not to be ruled out as useless. Sometimes technical truth gives the vital truth of the Bible a setting that makes it more forceful and persuasive. It was inevitable that both the higher critics and their opponents would sometimes go to great extremes--the critics to an idolatry of intellect, their opponents to an idolatry of literalness. We must all have been impressed that at times when the spiritual battle has been intense the warriors have stepped aside from the main conflict in order that they might discuss how and when and by whom the Sword and its parts were fas.h.i.+oned!

We may change the figure of speech for a moment and modify for the present purpose a borrowed ill.u.s.tration. A man finds a casket buried deeply in his yard. The vessel appears to have been constructed a long time ago. It bears upon its sides characters that are difficult of translation. There is even doubt as to the nature of the metal. The man summons the other members of the family. They open the vessel and discover that it is filled with gold. At once a warm dispute begins over several questions. Who made the casket? When was it made? How many persons took part in its fas.h.i.+oning and its filling? From what precise mintage did the coins come? What is the meaning of the peculiar hieroglyphics found upon its sides? Are all the coins of equal value? Whose images are stamped upon them? The debaters become excited over these mooted matters. At last one sensible member of the family suggests that it is apparent that by right of finding this particular household owns the casket; that the needs of the members are many; that the gold, even though the coinage be ancient, can be turned to modern use; that the questions which they are debating can be settled only by metallurgists and historians and philologists, if they are to be settled at all; and that, pending the settlement of incidental issues, the wants of the family may be richly met by appropriating the contents of the casket! The ill.u.s.tration scarcely needs any interpretation. It surely does represent the att.i.tude which the devout and obedient heart may take in this period toward the Holy Book. The ancient casket that we call the Bible is full of treasures. This much lies beyond doubt or debate. While the learned philologists and historians and exegetes surround the casket and try to ascertain the dates of its parts, the names of its authors, the meaning of its obscurities, the family of G.o.d may continue to draw on its exhaustless treasures. Nor are there wanting signs that more and more our age is adjusting itself to this reverent and practical use of the Word of G.o.d, and that Professor Dobschutz rightly contends in his new volume that the Bible is again becoming the Book of Devotion.

There is likewise what we might well call the "lowest" criticism--the spirit that uses the Bible as a volume of puzzles rather than as a volume of directions. Many a man has spent more time in speculating about where Cain got his wife than he has in trying to find out how to make his own wife happy. Many a man has spent more time in trying to find out about the Witch of Endor as an excuse for his consulting some vulgar fortune-teller of modern time than he has spent in trying to learn the will and secure the guidance of the good and wise G.o.d. Many a man has spent more time in discussing Melchizedek, who had neither ancestors nor descendants, than he has spent in trying to learn from the Bible how he himself may honor his forbears and may train his own children in righteousness. Many a man has been so piqued by curiosity about the exact nature of Saint Paul's "thorn in the flesh" as to forget the teaching that the grace of G.o.d can make us equal to any burden and torment of life. The men of this type will not allow the Bible the use of hyperbole. When it suits their contentious mood they become strict literalists. Even though they themselves may declare that it is "raining pitchforks" or that the waves are das.h.i.+ng "mountain high," they will insist that Christ's words about the two coats and the two cloaks and the two miles are not the strong urging of much forbearance and generosity, but the counsel of literal folly. Meanwhile the certainties and duties of the Bible outnumber its riddles and its curiosities many-fold. The importunate call to holy practice ceases not. From each of a thousand pa.s.sages of the Good Book there issues a patient rebuke for the curiosity monger, "What is that to thee? Follow thou me."

This leads us to the third use of the sword as seen in our ill.u.s.tration.

The gallant soldier took the weapon and used it in harmony with its intent. So the Bible should be employed preeminently as a means of spiritual defense and warfare. The Scriptures are profitable, not for immoral justification, not for mere criticism however exact and searching, not for the solving of superficial riddles, but "for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of G.o.d may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." To go to the Bible with the motive revealed in these great words is to recover the Bible to its divine purpose as the book of human practice. Such a motive lifts the volume above any mere literary or historical aspects. There is, for example, the oft-quoted story about Benjamin Franklin's experience at the Court of France. He was pa.s.sing an evening with a company of cultured ladies and gentlemen. The conversation turned to the subject of Oriental life. Franklin read aloud to the company the book of Ruth. Struck by the beautiful simplicity and spirit of the narrative, his hearers expressed their delight and desired to know in what book the charming pastoral could be found! It is safe to say that these men and women needed the lesson of fidelity in the book of Ruth far more than they needed the sense of its literary merit.

We must always return to the idea that the key to the Bible is the deeply religious instinct and motive. Nothing else will really open its pages.

Nor does the Bible herein wholly differ from other literature. There are men and women so thoroughly cultivated on the so-called practical side of their natures that it would be punishment for them to read Whittier, or Longfellow, or Lowell, or Tennyson for a full hour. The demands of business or social life have killed the poetic impulse. So many persons may crush from their natures the religious instinct and then wonder why the Bible does not appeal to them! The truth seems to be that a person gets from the Bible about what he seeks. It takes divinely opened eyes to see the wondrous things in the law. The psalmist, therefore, prayed that the change might come over himself rather than over the parchment. The way to illumine the sacred page was to illumine him. The Book may lie in a great light, but what can the Book do for a man with closed eyes? Seneca tells of an idiot child in his home who, becoming blind, insisted always that the room was dark! Herein is another parable.

It is only this disposition of the seeing eye and the obedient hand that can bring the Bible to us in its main purpose. Having this disposition we shall not suffer ourselves to be lured into interesting byways. We shall have a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. Our spiritual purpose will defeat all needless criticism and all needless dissection. Having this purpose, we will turn to the early chapters of Genesis. Instead of debating whether in a literal garden Adam and Eve were tempted by a literal serpent to the eating of literal fruit, and were driven through a literal gate, while a literal angel with a literal flame running along a literal blade guarded against reentrance, we shall be moved by the thought that we have lifted ourselves in puny rebellion against G.o.d, and that we have gone forth from our place of innocence, and that the third chapter of Genesis recounts the essential history of our souls. Having this religious purpose, we shall read the story of Job with a view to securing its spiritual lesson. We shall not permit any critical arguer to confine us to the question of the historicity of Job himself. We shall rather lay hold of the teaching of that marvelous book, with its colossal debate, and we shall see that, whether the book be a history or a parable or an allegory, it drives crus.h.i.+ng suspicion from the world by teaching that suffering is not always the result of sin, and brings cheerful trust into the world by teaching that afflictions bravely endured must have their reward. The man who back in that dim and far age got hold of the teaching of the book of Job must have somehow caught the inspiration of G.o.d himself. The common ground in all these mooted portions of Scripture is really a large and wealthy place; but only a common spiritual purpose will ever bring conservatives and progressives together in the knowledge and peace of G.o.d.

One almost hesitates to discuss the book of Jonah in this connection because petty debates have robbed it of much of its deeper meaning. The nature of the book doubtless lies beyond earthly settlement. Whether we declare that Jonah's journey was as historical as those of Saint Paul, or that it was as parabolic as the journey of the prodigal son, we can find no sure end of the debate. But all the while the teaching of the book waits for our obedience. The individual lesson seems to be that whenever a man turns his s.h.i.+p from the Nineveh of duty toward the Tars.h.i.+sh of pleasure he will directly come to rough and perilous seas. In other words, the man who flees from his G.o.d-a.s.signed work sooner or later gets into trouble. The missionary lesson is just as plain. Back yonder in a time of racial narrowness, some one caught the inspiration from G.o.d and declared that the Lord of all the earth cared for all the people of the earth. The infinite love traveled beyond all our little boundaries. The personal lesson and the missionary lesson of the book of Jonah are sufficient to keep individuals and churches busy for a thousand years to come. The spirit with which we approach the book of Jonah will decide whether we shall become petty debaters, or men and women with dutiful purpose and missionary zeal.

The conclusion is that when we seek the Bible with the motive of holy practice we never meet with disappointment. The religious purpose saves the Book for us and saves us by the Book. This purpose will likewise bring us face to face with the Hero of the Divine Word. Other sacred literatures may offer us high moral precepts, and they may occasionally give us glimpses of spiritual ideals. But one Book alone gives us Christ. One Book alone reveals the Redeemer. The climax of practice to which the Scriptures call us is the following of Christ. In all our studies in these chapters we have found that the supreme lessons centered in his teaching and in his example. The Man, the Home, the School, the Workshop, the Market Place, the Playground, and the Hospital all wait upon him for their guidance and their warning. But Jesus is more than the way and the truth; he is the Life. He is more than the Exemplar of Practice; he is the Helper in Practice. He walks the pages of the Bible even as he walked the ancient paths, and his disciples may still say, "Behold the Lamb of G.o.d, which taketh away the sin of the world." Other sacred books may offer revelations of morality; the Bible offers the revelation of a Saviour. The Bible is not its own goal. Jesus is the end of its revelation. The devout in all ages have been ready to use the heart of the verse of a familiar hymn:

Beyond the sacred page, I seek thee, Lord; My spirit pants for thee, Thou living Word.

If men seek the Exemplar who will give them a goal for their practice, they find such an Exemplar in the Christ of the Bible. If they seek the Inspirer who will give them a longing for the perfect practice, they will find that Inspirer in the Christ of the Bible. If men seek the Saviour who will help them on to the perfect practice, they will find that Helper in the Christ of the Bible.

Indeed, it may be said to be characteristic of the Bible that it not only offers the perfect program, but that it offers the perfect help. This was true even of the Old Testament. Jehovah was the strength of life. His power was as immediate as his presence. He was a present help in time of trouble. He was a present Guide in time of perplexity. The Christian revelation seems to bring that consciousness of divine help nearer to men, and to make it more real. Hence the Christian faith goes over all the world seeking to win men to G.o.d and his righteousness. Everywhere it proclaims a redeeming G.o.d. An ideal without a Saviour may become a despair--a tormenting impossibility, the lure of the final falsehood. The Bible gives the ideal and then it adds, "It is G.o.d which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." The Bible warns against temptation, and then it tells of One who was himself tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, of One who is able to succor them that are tempted. The religion of the dead code becomes the religion of the living Person. The Ideal becomes Example, and both Ideal and Example are found in a Saviour.

With all this in our purpose, as well as in our creed, we come to the Bible in full harmony with its primary intent. We find now that for every moral and spiritual emergency the Book has its message. If it were necessary we could list these emergencies and show the word that the Bible has for each of them. Here is an ill.u.s.tration that serves as well as a thousand for making the main point. The Gideons have been placing the Bibles in the hotels of America. Travelers seldom go to their rooms without seeing upon the table a copy of the Book. The organization that has done this good work often receives accounts, anonymous or otherwise, of the help given by the Bibles that its work has supplied. Here is a letter received from a young woman:

Perhaps a word will help you to realize that the little "Good Book" on the table in a lonely hotel room helps some. Last night, after fighting the fight that any young woman with any appearance fights, I found myself in Chicago at this hotel. I had papers, magazines, books, and other reading matter, but for a joke--yes, joke--I picked up the Bible. It fell open at the seventieth psalm. Can you imagine the impression it made on me? I read it again and again. Needless to say, it helped and I feel better, happier, and not so much alone.

Picture the full circ.u.mstances, and we may feel that the help went deeper and wrought more than this letter indicates. If this young woman was at the beginning of that dreadful path of death that invites careless travelers, how much must these ancient words, so graciously modern, have meant to her? "Make haste, O G.o.d, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul: let them be turned backward, and put to confusion, that desire my hurt. Let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say, Aha, Aha. Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy salvation say continually, Let G.o.d be magnified. But I am poor and needy; make haste unto me, O G.o.d: thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, make no tarrying." Any study of the authors.h.i.+p or date of this seventieth psalm, or any theorizing as to the ident.i.ty of "The chief musician," or even any discussion of the particular circ.u.mstances under which the words were originally written would not have solved the life problem of a young woman coaxed on toward carelessness. The psalm was penned to make G.o.d real, and his help real. Doubtless it performed that office long ago; and surely it performs that office now whenever a needy heart supplicates the good G.o.d by means of the ancient prayer. "Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee"--this was the psalmist's statement as to the reason for carrying portions of the ancient revelation with him on all his journeys. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word"--this was the use of G.o.d's Word prescribed for all time. The writer of the one hundred and nineteenth psalm did not have our Bible, but when he wrote these two verses he had within him the purpose of our Bible. He brought the ancient law within its primary intent, and he gave the principle by which all later Scripture should be employed. The Bible is to be placed in the heart as a defense against sin. The Bible is intended to cleanse the ways of life. The Bible is given to lead us to Him who is himself the Perfect Life and who offers the Divine Grace.

All this means that the best apologetic for the Bible is the earnest and honest use of the Bible. We may well use the apostle's fine phrase and say that those persons who follow the ideals of the Bible under the inspiration of the Saviour of the Bible are "living epistles known and read of all men." They are the modern evidences for the ancient Book, the human and divine proofs of the human and divine Book. The Bible does not fail the soul that searches its pages for the paths of truth and righteousness. The prayer of the ritual is that we may "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, that by patience and comfort of thy Holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life." In everything that bears on making men worthy subjects of everlasting life the Bible is the sure guide. All sincere souls that come to its chapters with this primary and spiritual intent will find their due reward. They may stand before the open Book confident that the voice of G.o.d will speak through the written Word and determined that they themselves shall ever be in the att.i.tude of eager listeners, saying, "Speak, Lord; for thy servants hear."