ds proceeding from out the mouth of God on which man liveth!

II.

The Real Bible.

"Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,--
The canticles of love and woe.

* * * * *

The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned.

* * * * *

Himself from God he could not free."

_The Problem._

The most original book in the world is the Bible.... The elevation of
this book may be measured by observing how certainly all observation of
thought clothes itself in the words and forms of speech of that
book.... Whatever is majestically thought in a great moral element
instantly approaches this old Sanscrit.... People imagine that the
place which the Bible holds in the world it owes to miracles. It owes
it simply to the fact that it came out of a profounder depth of thought
than any other book.--Emerson, _The Dial_, October, 1840.

II.

The Real Bible.

"Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."--2 Peter,
i. 21.

"Men of the Scriptures" was the title assumed by the Karaites, a sect of
devout Jews, who, about the middle of the eighth century of our era, threw
aside tradition, and accepted as their sole authority the canonical
writings of the Old Testament. Seeing the good that the Bible has wrought
for man in the past, we may well emulate the reverence of these Karaites;
while, seeing the unreality of the traditional notion of the Bible that
they held, and the mischiefs it has bred, we may well disown their
superstitiousness. Can we gain a view of the Bible which, without
stultifying our intellectual nature, may satisfy our spiritual nature, and
leave us free to call ourselves men of the Scriptures? The only road to
such an end must be that which our age is opening so successfully through
every field of study; as, dismissing preconceptions, it builds with care
and candor, upon solid facts, the causeway to a certain knowledge.

Let us take up the Bible as we would any other collection of books, and
see if, without assuming anything concerning it, we cannot find our way to
a rational reverence for it, as real as that which our fathers had. The
lines of our inquiry have been projected by a hand