you own as high
authority. The results of the survey are in the text. Real men wrote real
books; holy men wrote holy books; and, when we come to account for their
holy, human power, we can only say--The Divine Spirit stirred in them;
"holy men of old spake as they were moved of the Holy Ghost."

The Bible is a collection of many writings, in many forms, by many hands,
from many ages. Genuine letters these, whether they be _belles-lettres_ or
not; by every mark and sign most human writings, whether they be holy
Scriptures or not; the product of honest toil of brain and hand. Whatever
more they are, these are _bona fide_ books, of men of like passions and
infirmities with ourselves.

What is there in these books which has led Christendom to assign to them
so high an honor?

I.

1. _These books have the venerableness which belongs to ancient writings._

With what interest and care we handle a very old book, and turn its
well-worn pages, thumb-marked and dog-eared by men of Oxford or of
Florence in the Middle Ages! Unless we are the baldest materialists, we
will not reserve for the parchment body of some old book the respect
called forth by its soul. The latest re-embodiment of an ancient writer,
fresh from the presses of Putnam or of Appleton, merits the honor
belonging to the book given to the world so many centuries ago, and fed
upon by successive generations. Thus I look at the Plato on my shelves.
How venerable these writings! Over their great words, on which I rest my
eyes, my fathers bent, as their fathers had done before them; generation
after generation finding inspiration where still it flows fresh and full
for me. Thus every reverently minded man ought to feel concerning the
Bible. The latest of these books is probably seventeen hundred years old,
and the earliest has been written twenty-seven hundred years; while in the
more ancient of these writings lie bedded some of the oldest fragments of
literature known to us. These books have been the constant companions of
men and women through two or three score of generations. The crawling
centuries have carried these books along with them--the solace and the
strength of myriad millions of our kind. Forms, now turning into dust,
holy in our memories, read these familiar pages. Men whose names carry us
back through English history knew and prized these writings; Cromwell,
Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the Great Alfred. When Rome was the seat of
empire, Cons