293 
existence you. have to find. Others have sought it, but there 
is not even a theory that pretends to cover the case as yet. 
Criticism itself, for age after age, has stood poring on this 
mysterious fact — this mighty Bible, — if so be its literary origines 
could be explained, — and still in vain it muses, as if silently 
gazing on the granite of the everlasting hills. 
The people in whose hands this volume is first found had 
been slaves four hundred years in very remote times, and made 
their escape in a body. One of themselves was their leader, who 
in the desert, to which he conducted them, began this Book, 
about seven hundred years before Homer and Hesiod. That 
people, in someway, have kept what their great lawgiver gave, 
and other writings which were gradually added to it ; and at 
this time, after the lapse of more than three thousand years, 
they cherish the whole, under the most difficult circumstances. 
How it was originally written, by what means preserved, part 
by part, through the ages between the dynasty of the 
Pharaohs and the reign of Cyrus the Persian, they really know 
not. There it is in the hands of that isolated people (of whom, 
indeed, it gives no flattering account), and its reception is by 
no means limited to them. 
For that Book has influenced the hearts and minds of un- 
told millions of men, and of various nations, for ages, by its own 
inherent power. Hot in the sense in which all its present 
the past may be said to tell on the present ; not in influence * 
the sense in which old civilizations reappear in the new,' by 
transitions and associations. No, it entirely holds its own, as 
absolutely as a kind of outer conscience for man. It changes 
not. As representing an old civilization, it would only be a 
witness of what is past. It is by its truths, both explicit and 
implicit, that it fives now. “ Greater nations and mightier ” 
had philosophies, literature, and gods; and their story has 
passed into archasology, and their science scarcely excites the 
curious ; while the Psalms and Prophets of the people “ trod- 
den down of the Gentiles” have power to stir deeply the 
inmost conscience of man, and to kindle in thoughtful hearts 
anxieties altogether different from everything that ancient 
times have transmitted. 
We who affirm the only possible explanation of this Fact — 
viz., that it transcends merely literary scrutiny, and stands by 
its own felt Truth, ask all opposers for their rationale — 
some account of it, which they are prepared to try as a theory 
—while we shall look on, with a sense of the solemn and in- 
exorable triumph of Fact. 
IX. This “ Bible made for man,” of human materials and 
earthly form, but with more than human and earthly power. 
