s, more rich in interest,
more responsive to repeated visits. Such a scripture among books is this
Epistle, and such a scripture among chapters is that on which we enter
now.

It is impressive by the majestic singleness of its theme; Faith, from
first to last, is its matter and its burthen. Further, it carries one
long appeal to the heart by its method; almost from the exordium to the
very close it deals with its theme not by abstract reasoning, nor even
by a citation of inspired utterances only. It works out its message by
a display, in long and living procession, of inspired human experiences.
It is to an extraordinary degree human, dealing all along with names as
familiar to us as any in any history can be; with characters which are
perfectly individual; with lives lived in the face of difficulty,
danger, trial, sorrow, as concrete as possible; with deaths met and
overcome under conditions of mystery, suspense, trial to courage and to
trust, which for all time the heart of man can apprehend in their
solemnity. Meanwhile, as a matter of diction and eloquence, the chapter
carries in it that peculiar charm which comes always with a stately
enumeration. It has often been remarked that there is a spell in the
mere recitation of names by a master of verse:

"Lancelot, and Pelleas, and Pellenore."

Or take that great scene in _Marmion_, where the spectral summons is
pealed from Edinburgh Cross:

"Then thunder'd forth a roll of names;
The first was thine, unhappy James!
Then all thy nobles came;
Crawford, Glencairn, Montrose, Argyle,
Ross, Bothwell, Forbes, Lennox, Lyle,
Each chief of birth and fame."

And the consummate prose of this our chapter moves us with the like
rhythmical power upon the spirit, while from Abel and Enoch onwards we
hear recited, name by name, the ancestors of the undying family of
faith. No wonder that the chapter should have inspired to utterances
formed in its own style the Christian eloquence of later days, as in
that noble closing passage of Julius Hare's _Victory of Faith_, where he
carries on the record through the apostolic age, and the early
persecutions, and the times of the Fathers, to Wilfrid and Bernard, the
Waldenses, Wiclif, Luther, Latimer, down to Oberlin, and Simeon, "and
Howard, and Neff, and Henry Martyn."

So we approach the chapter, familiar as it is (and it is so familiar
because it is so great), with a peculiar and reverent expectation. We
look