ails concerning
these. The reader can easily see them for himself. But on the
question of inspiration I was about at my wits' end. Here I was at the
very vital part of the Christian religion, as I had been taught it and
was trying to teach it to others. I have already told how I passed up
the matter of the inspiration of the Old Testament as being of little
importance under the Christian dispensation. And now every prop was
falling from under me in regard to the inspiration of the New. If the
very records of the life and teachings of the Christ himself, upon
which the whole fabric of Christianity rested, were now shown to be
discordant and irreconcilable in their contents, and some of them very
doubtful in their authorship; with it the whole doctrine of a divine
and infallible revelation would have to go.

I was dumfounded. Was it possible that all this upon which I had
staked my whole life, and had been preaching for years, was a mere
fiction? It seemed to be so, if the Bible was not divinely inspired, a
true revelation from God, and infallibly correct. But how could it
_all_ be true, when it told so many different and conflicting stories
about the same thing? Was not God the very essence of truth? Then how
could He miraculously reveal one thing to Matthew, another and entirely
different one to Luke, and still another and different one to John, all
about the same thing? And yet, that in many instances this was true, I
could no longer doubt. Even tho these discrepancies might not go to
the essence of Christianity as a system of religion; nor materially
affect its fundamental doctrines; yet they did go to the very
foundations upon which it was based,--a divine and infallible
revelation from heaven. Take this away and orthodox Christianity is
not left a leg to stand on; and I knew it.

But we will hurry on thru this subject. The authorship of the Acts of
the Apostles was attributed without serious question to Luke. All the
Epistles usually attributed to Paul are conceded to him by our author,
except that to the Hebrews, while some critics reject the Pauline
authorship of any of the Pastoral Epistles,--those to Timothy, Titus
and Philemon. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is admitted to
be unknown, and its date uncertain, tho it existed in the church quite
early.

The Epistle of James is admitted to be doubtful; and especially as to
which of several men of this name might have written it. It is