teachers, and of those among whom I lived. Every one I
heard speak of the Book, spoke of it as divine, and the thought that it
might be otherwise did not, that I remember, ever enter my mind. This my
hereditary faith in the Bible was strengthened by the instinctive
tendencies of my mind to believe in God, and in all the great doctrines
which the book inculcated.

The first attempt to _prove_ the divinity of the Bible, of which I have
any recollection, was made by my mother, while I was yet a child. What
_led_ her to make the attempt I do not remember. It might be some
perplexing question that I had asked her; for I used to propose to her
puzzling questions sometimes. Her argument was,--'Bad men _could_ not
write such a book, and good men _would_ not. It must therefore, have
been written by God.' Another argument that I remember to have heard in
those days was,--'No man would write the Bible who did not know it to be
true; because it tells liars that their portion will be in the lake of
fire and brimstone.' There was also an impression among such people as
my parents, that the Bible was so good a book, and that it wrought with
such a blessed power upon their souls, that it was impossible it should
be written by any one but God. The last had probably the greatest effect
upon their minds. Then they found in the Bible so many things in harmony
with their best affections, their moral instincts, and their religious
feelings, that they felt as if they had proof of its heavenly origin in
their own souls. I came, at one period of my life, to look on these
arguments with contempt. And it is certain, that to give them much force
with men of logical habits, they would require qualification, and
considerable illustration. But they are none of them so foolish as I
once supposed. As for the last two, they are, when presented in a proper
way, unanswerable.

There was another argument that was sometimes used, namely,--that though
the different portions of the Bible were written by persons of widely
distant ages, of different occupations and ranks, and of very different
degrees of culture, they all aim at one end, all bear one way, and all
tend to make men good and happy to the last degree. This is a great
fact, and when properly considered, may well be accepted as a proof that
the Bible, as a whole, is from God.

What effect these arguments had on my mind in my early days, I do not
exactly remember, but the probability is, that they h