centuky's witness to the bible. 



83 



in versions all over the world. The one Book that can attract 

 to itself such service is unquestionably different from the rest. 



IV. Worlcl-vjide demand for this Jeivish miscellany. 



We pass on to a fourth fact respecting the Bible which 

 became more conspicuous in the nineteenth century than ever 

 before. People all the world over, in ever-increasing numbers, 

 have been asking for and reading the Holy Scriptures, as they 

 have never agreed in asking for and reading any other book. 

 A little consideration will show how remarkable a fact this is. 



A few years back the Kev. Dr. Horton, of Hamp^ead, 

 published a small volume entitled The Bible, a Missionary Book. 

 His aim in it was to show that the Bible from first to last had 

 the whole world in view, and was intended to be the great 

 means for bringing all men to " the full, clear knowledge of 

 God."* 



And yet the writers of the sixty-six documents which make 

 up this cosmopolitan volume were all (with the possible 

 exception of St. Luke) members by birth of that nation which 

 has kept itself more persistently aloof from the other families 

 of mankind than any other nation in the world has done.f 

 They were all Jews. One never hears of Jews seeking the 

 spiritual good of other nations by translating and circulating 

 among them the divine oracles of which they prided themselves 

 on being the sole possessors. And yet these Jewish writings 

 take account of the whole human family. All men are viewed 

 as coming within the regard and the purposes of one loving 

 God. This feature is patent throughout in Law and History, 

 in Poetry and Prophecy. The first book in the Old Testament 

 records a promise made in universal terms to Abraham, the 

 founder of the Jewish nation, thus : — " In thy seed shall all the 

 nations of the earth be blessed."! The first book in the New 

 Testament gives us one of the last sayings which Jesus Christ, 

 a Jew by birth, spoke to Jewish hearers, in these words : — " Go 

 ye and make disciples of all the nations."§ 



Whence came this breadth of view in so many Jewish 

 authors, differing in character and gifts, rank and circumstances, 

 and living centuries apart ? Was it spontaneous in writer 

 after writer, and age after age ? In any case, is not this 

 universal outlook wonderfully in harmony with the ever- 

 growing demand for this old Jewish miscellany which is 



* P. 30. t Cf. Acts X, 28. 



§ St. Matt, xxviii, 19, E.V. 



I Gen. xxii, 18. 



