THE BIBLE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 



51 



religions of the world depict a cruel God, Whom to propitiate sacri- 

 fices are offered, even human. Christianity alone ofiers to the race 

 something different. 



But then Christianity is not a religion. It is a revelation and 

 a faith — a revelation whose author is God, and whose subject is 

 Himself. 



I believe in the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the 

 Bible. To me it is the Word of God, a revelation of Himself. 

 Putting forward no explanation as to inspiration, I hold this book 

 to be this revelation, not merely to contain a revelation. 



God's revelation is a light that shows not only the greatness of 

 its source but displays the squalor of the place into which it shines. 

 The former explains the kernel, the latter the husk. We would 

 never have thought the conduct of the people in the Old Testament 

 cruel, treacherous, etc, but for this Light. Civilisation would not 

 make us look askance at them, for, human nature being always 

 the same, their conduct can be matched — yes, overmatched. 



The author speaks of experts. As long as they confine themselves 

 to the bringing out of facts which, but for their skill and special 

 knowledge, might remain unnoticed, all is well- It is when they 

 come to deductions, opinions, suppositions, and so forth, that we 

 get contradictions. Of this Miss Maynard gives ua a specimen. 



Deuteronomy, the experts tell us, is a book written much later. 

 But there are many experts that say just the reverse — higher critics, 

 such as Van Bohlen, Vater, Vatke and Reuss. And a greater than 

 any critic, even St. Paul himself, in his Epistle to the Romans, 

 bases arguments on quotations from Deuteronomy, and expressly 

 quotes from it as being from the pen of Moses. I might refer to 

 St. Peter and Stephen as well as to our Lord Himself, but time 

 forbids. 



As to evolution. Well, I was a student when Darwin was 

 fascinating my world. But to be true to science you must go the 

 full length of evolution. The " ascent of man " ? Well, one smiles 

 and thinks of its author as a modern Issachar ! You must go back 

 to the first nebulosity so tenuous that a few million cubic miles 

 of it weighs but a grain. 



Out of this by slow processes and under strict law this world 

 has come ! And what a wonderful world ! Read Fabre's books. 

 The man whom Darwin himself called *' that incomparable 

 observer " ! I take my stand humbly as becomes me in the presence 

 of such a mind and believe him when he gently gibes at the evolu- 

 tionist. Here is what he says about the logarithmic curve known 

 to you for its mathematical expression and wonderful attribute^. 

 *' We find it," says he, '* in the spiral of a snail-shell, in the chaplet 

 of a spider's thread, as perfect in the world of atoms as in the 

 world of immensities. And this universal geometry tells us of a 



