From a babe thou hast known the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. — 2 Tim. 3:15. VII THE BIBLE AND HOW IT BECAME WHAT IT IS In speaking on such a theme as The Bible and How it Became What It Is the secret of its influence for generations you may be quite sure that I am put under very perplexing limitations. The subject is so large and varied and the time for speech is so short, everything must be general. A minister must give the results of his thinking and investigation, not the processes. He must deal in affirmations and convictions. If a minister is wise and wants to make the most and best of his time he will confine his studies, the distilled essence of which his people have in every sermon, to men of acknowledged and undisputed eminence. In regard to the Old Testament part of our Bible, the men who have mastered my mind, formed my judgment, and given me my convictions are chiefly three- Professors Driver of Oxford University, Robertson Smith of Aberdeen University, and A. B. Davidson of Edinburgh — I mention these because if there should be any intelligent young man who wants to do good work on Old Testament study, these are the men who have given their lives to investigations and who know every thing which every other scholar in the world has said. To Dr. Davidson, of Edinburgh, I owe a debt I can never pay. The student of Davidson's two great books, The Prophets of Israel and The Theology of the Old Testament, has met a man whom all scholars own as a master, in whom the most thorough scholarship is combined with the sanest judgment and the most beautiful piety. I commend him to all intelligent, thoughtful young men of character who are troubled with doubts as to what the Old Testament is and how it came to be. For nowadays everybody assumes that he has a right to his opinion on a subject whether he has studied it or not. People who are so ignorant of their subjects as to reveal their ignorance in the very first question they ask or the very first opinion they venture, expect to be listened to as if they were wise and learned and had knowledge sufficient to entitle them to make strong affirmations. It is not polite or kind to say to such as these, "My dear sir, it does not matter to any single individual in the world, except yourself, what your opinion is. You are not qualified to give an opinion.” Strange, is it not, that so many persons think themselves competent to speak on Bible themes who never once in their lives have made any serious study of the Bible as a whole? They tell you that they "accept" it, or "reject" it, with an easy nonchalance which would really be pitiful if it were not so comical. It is waste of time to argue with folks of this kind. But there are others, people who are somewhat perplexed by all this modern talk of "higher |