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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
the majority of living scholars? What intelligent student believes such follies now? When the critics themselves can describe their own fond science, meth ods and processes of compilation, inter polation and pseudonimity, as “subjec tive suspicion,” at best, as something “dim, perilous and arid,” as “too often the frolic of paradox and mere conjec ture,” and express the hope that “san ity may return at last,” the humble believer in the perfective authority of God’s Word may well set his face as a flint against the teaching of such a science to young men in our theological seminaries and Course of Study. The theory that God’s Word is the result of a compilation of uninspired frag ments, of interpolations of various hands, even centuries apart, of pseu donymous scribes, who chose to write under a visor to protect themselves and enhance the value of their manuscripts by ascribing them to the Spirit of God# or the name of some hero—such a theory regarded as an “innocent mèthod of revelation,” is as irreconcilable with either revelation and inspiration as God is with Satan. Such critical science is a crime, the torture of the mind, like that of Ixion on his wheel, or Laocoon in the folds of the Anaconda, or Prome theus, with the vulture at his vitals. A lot of this unsensible, unscientific, un- scriptural, faith-wrecking stuff is in the Course of Study for our young preachers.—Dr. L. W. Munhall. ate ate I heard, a voice at evening softly say, Bear not thy yesterday into tomorrow, Nor load this week with last week’s load of sorrow. Lift all thy burdens as they come, nor try To weigh the present with the bye and bye. One step and then another, take thy way— Live day by day.
Tke Claims of the Critics
And what has the Higher Criticism not “claimed” as the consensus of the best living scholarship? It has claimed that there was no such thing as “alpha betic writing” in the days of Moses, a position from which it has been routed, horse, foot and dragoons, by archaeo logical research; even this, that the Tabernacle and the Aaronic priesthood had no existence in the days of Moses but were after thoughts invented by men 800 years after Moses was dead; and that Moses never wrote the Deca logue; even this, that the story of Mel- chisadec was a fabrication inserted in the record by a writer of a latter age— a position overturned by the testimony of the monuments and contemporary history; even this, that musical instru ments were unknown in Daniel’s day, whereas their forms and names have been found on monuments 800 years before Christ; even this, that Daniel was a myth, no prophet, and no writer of the book of Daniel, claims that have been utterly disproved by numerous recognized authorities, especially and conspicuously by that highest living authority on Semitic philology, Prof. Robert Dick Wilson, of Princeton Theo logical Seminary, in his recently pub lished masterful work on Daniel; and that Abraham and the patriarchs were not 1historical persons, but characters corresponding to Greek and Roman notables, like Jupiter and Orpheus, which has recently been disproved by archaeological finds; and this, that the Apocalypse as we now have it was writ ten before the destruction of Jerusalem, a position now abandoned by the ablest critics of today. But, not to multiply such instances, which might he in creased without limit, what has not the Higher Criticism claimed—absurd to the last degree—as the consensus of
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