own in grace.
Affectionate remembrances to your sister and to S. I hope they
continue to prosecute their labours of love. Remember me to the people
of Cawnpore who enquire. Why have I not mentioned Colonel P.? It is
not because he is not in my heart, for there is hardly a man in the
world whom I love and honour more. My most Christian salutations to
him. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit,
dearest brother. Yours affectionately, H. MARTYN."

What is the difference in quality and character between this extract
and our present section of Philippians, or between it and many another
passage in the Pauline Epistles? From one point of view, I repeat it,
none--none that we either can, or should care to, affirm. Of the
letters compared, one is as purely human as the other, in the
simplicity of its topics, in its local and personal scope, in its
natural and individual manner. I would add that, so far as we can
tell, the one was written under just as much or little consciousness of
a supernatural prompting as the other. I feel sure that when St Paul
wrote thus (whatever might be his sense of an _afflatus_ at other
times, when he wrote, or spoke, or thought, abnormally) he "felt"
exactly as we feel when writing a quiet letter; he was thinking,
arranging topics, choosing words, considering the needs of
correspondents, just as simply as we might do.

And all this is an element inestimably precious in the structure and
texture of the Bible. It is that side or aspect of the Bible which, at
least to innumerable minds, brings the whole Book, in a sense so
genuine, _home_; making it felt in the human heart as a friend truly
conversant with our nature and our life. "Thy testimonies," writes the
Bible-loving Psalmist (Ps. cxix. 24), "are the men of my counsel,"
_an'shey 'atsathi_; a pregnant phrase, which puts vividly before us
"the human element" of the blessed Word, its varieties and
individualities, its _living_ voice, or rather voices, and the
sympathetic confidence which it invites as it draws close to us to
advise and guide. How perfectly in contrast are the Bible on the one
side, with this humanity and companionship, and such a "sacred book" as
the Koran on the other, with its monotonous oracles! Strange, that the
man-made "sacred book" should be so little _humane_ and the God-made
Book so deeply and beautifully so! Yet not strange, after all. For
God knows man better than man knows himself;