scribes, of
whose perfect good sense and honesty we cannot be certain. But who
that really values his Bible cares for them any more than he cares
for the spots on the sun which he can find through a telescope? The
sun still shines, and gives light to the whole earth, and the Bible
still shines, and gives light to every soul of man who will read it
in reverence and faith. But that the prophets ever invented, or
ever dared to tamper with truth, is a thing not to be believed of
men whose writings are plainly, by their own meaning and end,
inspired by the Holy Spirit of God.

One more reason--and a reason which to me is unanswerable--for
believing, like our forefathers, that the Old Testament is true.
The Old Testament, as well as the New, tells us of the 'noble acts'
of the Lord--of certain gracious and merciful and just things which
the Lord did to the children of Israel. But if that be not true,
what follows? That God has not done the noble acts which men
thought he had, and therefore that God is not as noble as men
thought he was; that men have actually fancied for themselves a
better God than the God who exists already.

Absurd.

Absurd, truly; and if you choose to call it by a harder name still,
you have a right to do so.

Do not you think that God must be better, not worse; more generous,
not less; more condescending, not less; more just, not less; more
helpful, not less, than man can fancy or describe? Are not the
riches of Christ unsearchable, and the mercies of the Lord
boundless? Is he not able and willing to do exceeding abundantly
beyond all that we can ask or think? Did not even St. Paul say that
he only knew in part and prophesied in part? And must it not be
true of the whole Bible what the beloved apostle St. John says of
his own Gospel, 'And there are many other things which Jesus did,
the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even
the world itself could not contain the books that should be
written?'

Bear that in mind, remembering always that the God of the Old
Testament is the God of the New likewise; and whenever you read,
either in the Old or New Testament, of the noble acts of the Lord,
say boldly, as millions of hearts have said already, when the good
news of the Bible came to them, 'This is so beautiful that it must
be true. The Spirit of God in the Bible, and the judgment of the
Church in all ages, bears witness with my spirit that this is true.
So ought God to