hend, and yet of which it is itself a ray? Does the heart find in the circuits of creation no Friend worthy of trust and love?"

"Our own religion takes a place not distant from, but among, all religions, past or present. Its relation to them, is not that they are earth-born, while it alone is divine, but it is the relation of one member of a family to other members, who are all brothers, having one work, one hope, and one All-Father.""

"

Every race above the savage has its Bible. Each of the great religions of mankind has its Bible. These books contain the highest and deepest thoughts respecting man's relations with the Infinite above him, with his fellows around, and with the mystery of his own inward being. In them are found the purest expressions of faith and hope, the finest aspirations after truth, the sweetest sentiments of confidence and trust, hymns of praise, proverbs of wisdom, readings of the moral law, interpretations of Providence, studies in the workings of destiny, rules for worship, directions for piety, prayers, prophesies, sketches of saintly character, narratives of holy lives, lessons in devoutness, humility, patience, and charity."

"There is a common impression that the Bible has created a religion for man by a positive enactment. The Bible has not made religion, but religion and righteousness have made the Bible."

"In holy books we read how God hath spoken
To holy men in many different ways;
But hath the present worked no sign nor token?
Is God quite silent in these latter days?

The word were but a blank, a hollow sound,
If He that spoke it were not speaking still;
If all the light and all the shade around

Were aught but issues of Almighty Will."

"The only safe way of meeting this danger (that threatens the Bible-the danger, on one hand, of hostility; and, on the other, of indifference), is to find, as grounds for men's continued veneration and use of the Bible, propositions which can be verified, and which are unassailable. This, then, has

been our object: to find sure and safe grounds for the continued use and authority of the Bible."

LIX.-ILLUSTRATIVE SELECTIONS FROM RECENT BOOKS BEARING ON THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE BIBLE.*

1.-The Infallible Book.

In early times the use of metals was unknown, and consequently the knives which the priests of a certain religion used in connection with certain of their rites, of necessity had to be of stone. Later, when metal had come into use, we should naturally suppose the crude stone knife would give place to a better knife of metal. Not so, however! The knife originally used was of stone; nothing else therefore would ever do in any future time but a stone knife. The fact that the Book had grown to be regarded as infallible petrified the religion it taught -cut off the possibility of future progress and improvement,made sacred every crudeness, every imperfection, every childish rite or ceremony, as well as every false doctrine which, but for the notion of a faultless Book, the people in due time would have outgrown.

Thus it is that in India a single text of the Vedas (misinterpreted, at that) resulted in the immolation of vast numbers of widows on the funeral piles of their husbands. Thus, too, it is, that we see many a religious rite practised, and many an

* See list of volumes chiefly selected from on opening pages-page 9.

absurd doctrine believed to-day in Christendom, which long ago would have been laid aside but for the notion of a Book whose every word must be accepted, and whose lightest injunction must be carried out to the letter, as long as time lasts. Men can't get away from the stone knife."

"Another thing seems to be common with nearly all the great Sacred Books of the world, or rather with the believers in nearly all these books; and that is, that, just as soon as any one of these books comes to be set up as a Bible, it is from that time forward regarded by its adherents as the only Bible, and all the other Sacred Books of the world are cast out as false. In other words, the process of canonization of a book, if I may so say, or of lifting it up from a merely good book into a Bible, seems as a rule, to be a process of degradation or condemnation of all other books and religions. So the Buddhist has ever been the bitter foe of the Brahman, and the Mohammedan of the Buddhist, and the Christian of the Mohammedan. Whereas, the evident truth is, each of the world's Bibles contains a great deal that is good, with more or less that is of no value, if not positively bad. Each religion has divine elements in it, as well as elements that are very undivine, and it is a great pity that the eyes of men should be blinded to this fact. It is not only a great pity that the adherents of other Bibles and religions of the world should be blinded to this fact as regards our Christian Scriptures and religion, but it is also a pity that we should be blinded to the same fact as regards scriptures and religions which are not Christian."

"In regard to our Old Testament, as is well known, the idea of infallibility attached first to the Pentateuch, or the Five Books of Moses, or the Law, as it was called. And the infallibility of even this seems to have been something very shadowy and intangible for a long time. The part of the Old Testament called by the Jews The Prophets came next to be so regarded; while all that part then known as Hagiographa, or Chetubim, and including such books as the Psalms, and Proverbs, and Job, which are generally held to-day in higher esteem than any other of the Old Testament books, did not come to be regarded as really sacred much before the time of Christ. Indeed, at the time of Christ, all this part of the Old Testament was ranked much lower in authority, or sacredness, than the rest."

"As to the New Testament writings, the Epistles seem to have come to be regarded as authoritative, considerably earlier than the Gospels or the Acts. But for a long time-certainly for two centuries-the New Testament writings were none of them looked upon by the Christian church as equally sacred with the Old Testament. And at least three or four centuries passed away before it was decided, more than in part, which particular ones, of the large number of writings produced within a century or two after the death of Jesus, should be included in the New Testament canon."

2.-Ideas and Forms Common to all Religions.

"The ideas of immaculate conceptions and virgin mothers and virgin-born gods are common to many religions and Bibles besides the Jewish and Christian. The Greek god Mars was fabled to have been born by an immaculate conception of Juno. Zoroaster was supposed to have been born of an immaculate conception by a ray from the Divine Reason. Both Buddha and Krishna of India are reported to have been immaculately conceived. The Hindoo Scriptures tell us that the mother of the latter (Krishna) was overshadowed by the god Brahma. The Messianic idea, too, is one found in other Bibles besides our own. The Chinese Scriptures contain prophecies of a Chinese Messiah who was to come. The Hindoo Scriptures contain like prophecies of a Hindoo Messiah."

"In the different religions of the human race, we constantly meet the same leading features. The same religious institutions-monks, missionaries, priests, and pilgrims. The same ritual-prayers, liturgies, sacrifices. The same implementsfrankincense, candles, holy water, relics, amulets, votive offerings. The same symbols-the cross, the serpent, the all-seeing eye, the halo of rays. The same prophecies and miracles-the dead restored and evil spirits cast out. The same holy days; for Easter and Christmas were kept as spring and autumn festivals, centuries before our era, by Egyptians, Persians, Saxons, Romans. The same artistic designs for the mother and child stand depicted, not only in the temples of Europe, but in those of Etruria and Arabia, Egypt and Thibet." So also the idea

of incarnation. He (the Messiah) is predicted by prophecy, hailed by sages, born of a virgin, attended by miracle, borne to heaven without tasting death, and with promise of return. Zoroaster and Confucius have no human father. Osiris is the Son of God; he is called the Revealer of Life and Light; he first teaches one chosen race; he then goes with his apostles to teach the Gentiles, conquering the world by peace; he is slain by evil powers; after death he descends into hell, then rises again, and presides at the last judgment of mankind; those who call upon his name shall be saved. Buddha is born of a virgin; his name means the Word, the Logos, but he is known more tenderly as the Saviour of Man; he embarrasses his teachers, when a child, by his understanding and answers; he is tempted in the wilderness, when older, etc."

3.-False and Fanciful Interpretations.

66

"The Brahmin, repeating Vedic hymns, sees them pervaded by a thousand meanings, which have been handed down by tradition; the one of which he is ignorant is that which we perceive to be the true one." Greater violence is done by successive interpreters to sacred writings than to any other relics of ancient literature. Ideas grow and change, yet each generation tries to find its own ideas reflected in the sacred pages of their early prophets. Passages in the Veda and Zend Avesta which do not bear on religious or philosophical doctrines are generally explained simply and naturally, even by the latest of native commentators. But as soon as any word or sentence can be so turned as to support a religious doctrine, however modern, or a religious precept, however irrational, the simplest phrases are tortured and mangled till at last they are made to yield their assent to ideas the most foreign to the minds of the authors of the Veda and Zend Avesta." "This practice of interpreting into Sacred Books what later ages think ought to be in them, and out of them what later ages think ought not to be in them, is pointed out and illustrated with regard to the Chinese, Brahmanic and Buddhist Sacred Books, by Dr. Legge, Dr. Muir, Burnouf, and others."

"Illustrations of the same with regard to our own Bible are more numerous still. Indeed the whole history of Christianity