f knowledge
they had to draw, compared with the unlimited wealth of information at
man's command to-day! And yet these Bible characters grappled with
every problem that confronts mankind, from the creation of the world to
eternal life beyond the tomb. They gave us a diagram of man's existence
from the cradle to the grave and set up warning signs at every dangerous
point.

The Bible gives us the story of the birth, the words, the works, the
crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension of Him whose coming
was foretold by prophecy, whose arrival was announced by angel voices,
singing Peace and Good-will--the story of Him who gave to the world a
code of morality superior to anything that the world had known before or
has known since.

Let the atheists and the materialists produce a better Bible than ours,
if they can. Let them collect the best of their school to be found among
the graduates of universities--as many as they please and from every
land. Let the members of this selected group travel where they will,
consult such libraries as they like, and employ every modern means of
swift communication. Let them glean in the fields of geology, botany,
astronomy, biology, and zoology, and then roam at will wherever science
has opened a way; let them take advantage of all the progress in art and
in literature, in oratory and in history--let them use to the full every
instrumentality that is employed in modern civilization; and when they
have exhausted every source, let them embody the results of their best
intelligence in a book and offer it to the world as a substitute for
this Bible of ours. Have they the confidence that the prophets of Baal
had in their god? Will they try? If not, what excuse will they give? Has
man so fallen from his high estate, that we cannot rightfully expect as
much of him now as nineteen centuries ago? Or does the Bible come to us
from a source that is higher than man?

But the case is even stronger. The opponents of the Bible cannot take
refuge in the plea that man is retrograding. They loudly proclaim that
man has grown and that he is growing still. They boast of a world-wide
advance and their claim is founded upon fact. In all matters except
in the "science of how to live," man has made wonderful progress. The
mastery of the mind over the forces of nature seems almost complete, so
far do we surpass the ancients in harnessing the water, the wind and the
lightning.

For ages, the rivers plung