SCIENCE AND THE BOOK 281 
* absurd as it would be to reconcile a statement of | 
\ twentieth century theology with eighteenth century 
| science. Each century must restate its truths in 
terms of its own time. The truths may be at bottom 
the same through many centuries but to be clearly in- 
es 
telligible in any century they must be couched in the 
terminology of the age. 
It seems to me if we are to understand, in con- 
formity with the thought of the age, any particular 
book in the Bible, there are three steps through which 
we must pass. We must first ask ourselves the kind 
of people to whom the book was originally written. 
We must know their habits of life and of thought. 
Until this is clear in our minds the book can have 
little significance. Having built up as nearly as may 
be the life and thought of the time, we must next 
decide what is the inherent truth taught to the people 
of that time by the book under consideration. Much 
that is written must be simply the setting in which 
alone that truth could reach them. This extraneous 
detail gives vigor and color to the message but is 
not the message itself. The last step and the hardest 
one to take, the one that to some minds seems almost | 
irreverent, is to decide the form that message must 
take to-day to convey to our minds the same truth 
which the original message conveyed to the people of 
its time. In so far as we succeed in taking these 
