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When such a mastery of the Bible-books is won, they are to be used in the customary methods of critical study, with reference to their contents and the significances thereof, under the same general laws of interpretation that hold over other literature.

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I think I hear some one saying—­Is this the right use of the Bible, for which I am asked to give up the dear, old, simple way of reading for my soul’s inspiration?  Not at all, my friend.  That blessed use of the Bible, learned at your mother’s knees, is still, and must always remain, the best use possible to any one.  Of this I shall speak hereafter.  I am now speaking, not of the right devotional use of the Bible, but of the right critical use of it.  It has been used critically in building our theologies, but, to a large extent, amiss.  Out of this wrong use of it has come the misconceptions in theology which to-day perplex our minds and bar the progress of religion.  If we must use the Bible critically, let us by all means try to employ a true and thorough criticism.  Let us not think to close every controversy by the phrase—­The Bible says so.  We shall be more modest and less disputatious when we appreciate the study necessary before any one can properly answer the question—­What saith the Scriptures?

Again I hear a voice from the pews—­Who then save a scholar is competent for such a use of the Bible?  I answer—­No one, except a pupil of the scholars.  The scholars have placed within our reach the results of such a critical study of the Bible.  You can find the rational guidance you may desire in the manuals which set forth the conclusions of these critical processes; though you must painfully feel, as I do, the lack of the religious tone in some of them.  A crying need of our day is a Hand Book to the Bible in which the new critical knowledge shall blend, as it may blend, with the old spiritual reverence.

One should not rise from such a study of the Bible as we have made to-day, in its merely literary aspects, without a new, strange sense of awe before this mystic Book.  It is the handiwork of no one man, of no group of men, of no period.  It is an organic product, the growth of a whole people the coralline structure builded by a nation.  Hands innumerable have toiled over these pages.  Voices indistinguishable now, in blended chorus from the dawn of history, have joined in the cry of the human after God which whispers upon us from this sacred phonograph.

Successive generations of men, struggling with sin, striving for purity, searching after God, have exhaled their spirits into the essence of religion, which is treasured in this costly vase.  The moral forces of centuries, devoted to righteousness, are stored in this exhaustless reservoir of ethical energy.  At such cost, my brothers, has Humanity issued this sacred book.  From such patience of preparation has Providence laid this priceless gift before you.  In such labor of articulation—­spelling out the syllables of the message from on high, through multitudinous lives of men dutifully and devoutly walking with their God—­does the Spirit speak to you, O, soul of man.  Say thou—­