relieves us from one class of difficulties, on condition that we accept another. It throws a light from heaven about our daily path, but leaves us seeing things at a distance through a glass darkly. If the Bible contained and implied no difficulties at all, it would be singularly unlike the other works of God. The great objection to the view in question lies in the nature of the difficulties which it raises. It engages the enquirer in an investigation which is impossible for many and difficult for all. As a step to accepting the Bible as a whole, it would lead us to enquire who wrote each particular book, and what evidence we have of the author's inspiration. It would be hard, possibly it is not desirable, to explain to those who have not made trial of such investigations, how many perplexities beset them. They place the enquirer in an unnatural position, outside the truth which he loves. A mind of ordinary power and learning stands simply aghast before them. They require a linguistic and technical apparatus which few could acquire with the labour of a life, and fewer still

could employ when gained. These questions will of course exist, whatever view we take of Inspiration. But it is better, surely, if it is possible, to throw them into their proper place, at the circumference, not at the centre, of Christian truth, where they may exist as proofs of our ignorance and trials of our humility, but cannot occur as obstacles to our faith. Surely the student of divinity, as well as the child and the peasant, has a right, antecedent to all such enquiries, and independent of them, to take up the Bible as the Word of God, and read it for his instruction and comfort.

It is the nature of a book, or of a written word, that through it one mind exercises an influence on another. Through it, impressions are conveyed from intelligence to intelligence, which, if not exactly alike, bear at least some real relation and analogy to each other. Could we imagine an inscription or a poem to be produced by a chance collocation of letters, independently of any presiding mind, we could not call it the written word of any intelligence whatsoever. Through it,

mind would not speak to mind; the reader would give it all its meaning. But it is not in this relation that we find ourselves standing to any part of the universe. Everywhere about us are the traces of an Intelligence, independent of and above our own. Everywhere, humility is a learner poring over a lesson, and science a gatherer of pebbles on the shore of the ocean of truth. Not least, but rather most is this the case, when man, turning from the interests and facts of the material universe, looks at his own consciousness, and enquires respecting his great and wonderful destiny-what is his origin, and his tendency, and his work, and his hope. To questions such as these, philosophy returns a guess for answer, and nature sends back an ambiguous reply, in which her voice is blended with the echo of our own hopes and fears. But faith receives a far more clear, though still a partial answer, as she accepts the revelation which was made by the Incarnate Son of God, and is recorded in His inspired Word.

But how do we know the Bible to be the

Word of God? Both by testimony, and by the answer of its Spirit to our spirit-by external authority, and by its own. These may not weigh equally with different classes of minds. The gift of discerning of spirits' is not given in like measure to all. Nor does it follow that those who make the greatest claims to spiritual discernment possess the faculty most fully. Yet the argument from its wonderful adaptation to human nature is not lightly to be thrown aside. Few indeed would adopt in this day the extreme hypothesis, so common two centuries ago, according to which the believer possessed a spiritual sense, which enabled him to determine what was Holy Scripture and what was not, without any appeal to external authority. Such authority was then, for reasons of which we are well aware, looked upon with undue suspicion. To trust to a human authority, whether corporate or individual, merely as human, is indeed foreign to the spirit of the Gospel. In this way, we may call no man master. But human authority gains a very powerful sanction, when regarded as a form of the

C. S.

2

Divine providence. "The Powers that be are ordained of God.' To submit to such authority may be merely an endeavour to avoid thought and escape responsibility; but it may also be a sign of reliance on God's providence, an act of faith and conscientious obedience. If it be argued, as it often is, that this reliance on the external guidance of God would lead heathens to remain heathens, and perpetuate the breaches of Christendom, by letting error enclose itself in its own shell, and harden itself for ever-it may be replied, that it seems the will of God to limit the power of man to attain truth, not only by the temper of mind in which he seeks it, but by the conditions under which he makes the search. The history of the Jewish dispensation-that long, gradual, halting, irregular advance towards the truth of Christ-may teach us how much our true wisdom lies in waiting, and how consistent real holiness is with imperfect knowledge. Even those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death may, if they look warily and walk innocently, see some beams of the true light playing on the edge of the