we go and do likewise in our "lyfe
tyme," our period, not at present of martyrdom but, God knoweth it, of
need.

CHAPTER III.

_SECRET STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES._

_Like those Emmaus travellers we go
Forth from the city-gate of things below;
Christ at our side, His Scripture for our light,
Here burning hearts and there the beatific sight._

Already I have broken ground to some extent in the all-important subject
of private Bible Study. Let me now put before my reader and Brother a
few more detailed remarks and suggestions on that subject. Such is the
holy Book, and such is the variety of possible modes of study, that all
I can dream of doing is to touch some parts and sides of the matter
which present themselves with special impressiveness to my own mind, or
which experience of the needs of friends has suggested to me somewhat
particularly.

HIGHER CRITICISM.

To discuss the sacred problems of Scripture Inspiration is not my
purpose here. Elsewhere[3] I have attempted to deal with some of them.
All I would do here is, in view of what is truly a "present necessity,"
to ask my Brethren, very deliberately, not to be in haste to take up
with the last and boldest word of what is called the Higher Criticism (I
speak particularly now of its application to the Old Testament), as if
its "advances" were always towards light and fact. I have no complaint
against the term Higher Criticism, which has a recognized place in
literary technical language, denoting that familiar and lawful process,
the study of books not for their grammar and style only, but in order to
infer from their whole phenomena what their age is, and their structure,
and their character. The Higher Criticism is a term pointing not to
methods and results transcending ordinary intelligence, but to a study
which aims "higher" than grammatical and textual questions considered as
final. And thus of course the most earnest defender of the supernatural
character of the Scriptures may be, and very often is, as diligent a
"higher critic" as the extremest anti-supernaturalist.

[3] _Veni Creator_, ch. iii

A PLEA FOR CAUTION.

It is not its definition in the abstract but its actual work and spirit,
as seen in many leading instances, which constrain me to enter an
earnest protest against a too easy confidence in this criticism of,
particularly, the Old Testament Scriptures. It is "a thing to give us
pause" when we are asked to accept it as p