The True Test of the Bible
^ | " H E RE is one test to which I cannot but submit every creed, every religion, every book. What kind of manhood has it produced ? What sort of men did the old Bible grow? What of their aspirations, their service, their sacrifice? They were grand men. Perhaps narrow-minded, perhaps austere, per- haps conservative, but they were honorable, determined, self- sacrificing men. They were men who put themselves to a great deal of trouble for others. They gave away much money. They counted not their lives dear unto them. They liberated slaves, they smashed iniquitous monopolies, they founded missionary societies, they dared fire and sword, pestilenee' and cruelty. They had not the latest learning on the Pentateuch, Isaiah and the Apocryphal books, but they gripped the Bible with a nerve of steel. They had immense and miracle-working faith. I believe in my heart that they were more self-sacrificing than many who laugh at their ignorance and condemn their narrowness. They believed in the literal inspiration of the Bible, in the immortality of the soul, in eternal punishment, in the atoning death of the Lord Jesus, and they cried after, if finally they might attain the holiness of God. They were' not critics—they were great workers: not grammarians—but generous givers; not pedants—but unspar- ing in benevolence and sacrifice. I judge every religion by the men it makes, and so judged the Bible has no need to be ashamed of its stalwarts and its heroes. Shall I offend scholars and critics, grammarians and pedants, if I frankly say that merely as such they have next to nothing to do with the Bible ? That the Bible has little or nothing to say to them in their academical capacity? The Bible seeks and finds the heart, talks to the spirit when in the deepest humility goes out after the soul in its penitence and mortal hunger. When the reader is least a grammarian he may be nearest the spirit of the book. "Thus s a i th the high and lofty O ne that inhabiteth eternity, to this man will J look, to the man that is of a humble and a contrite heart, and that trembleth at My word." To " t r emb l e" is better than to parse; in a deep and large sense salvation is not of grammar, else then only grammar- ' ians could have a high place in heaven.-^The Life of Faith.
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