, a sealed, book. It is not what it used to be;
what it has become they do not know, and in scorn or sorrow or apathy
they have laid it aside."[1] There may be some exaggeration in this
statement, but it cannot be doubted that there is considerable
justification for the complaint. C. F. Kent makes the admission that
"with the exception of a very few books, like the Psalter, the Old
Testament, which was the arsenal of the old militant theology, has been
unconsciously, if not deliberately, shunned by the present
generation."[2] And the words of Professor Cheyne are almost as
applicable to-day as they were when they were first written, more than
twenty years ago: "A theory is already propounded, both in private and
in a naive simple way in sermons, that the {229} Old Testament is of no
particular moment, all that we need being the New Testament, which has
been defended by our valiant apologists and expounded by our admirable
interpreters."[3]

If this represents in any sense the true state of affairs; if, on the
other hand, the words of the apostle are true, that "every scripture
inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction which is in righteousness, that the man of
God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work"; and if
these words are applicable to the Old Testament, as the writer intended
them to be--if, I say, these things are true, then Christians appear to
be in great peril of losing sight of one of the important means of
grace, on which were nourished Jesus and his disciples, and millions in
former generations, and for the restoration of which the reformers
risked their very lives.

The change of attitude toward the Old Testament may be traced to a
variety of causes, all of which affect very vitally modern religious
thought and life. There are, for example, many who feel, and that with
some justice, that the New Testament is in a peculiar sense the sacred
book of Christianity. Why, they ask, go to the Old Testament when we
have the New with its more complete and perfect revelation? But this
attitude reflects only a half truth, which is often {230} more
deceptive than an out and out falsehood. Certainly, Christians find
their loftiest inspiration in the study of the life, character, and
teaching of the Master and of his disciples; but the New Testament has
by no means displaced the Old. The early Christians were right in
placing it beside the