It is in the setting forth of Christ that the New Testament is self-evidencing. No theory as to its origin and descent is needed to guarantee its inspiration. The evidence of experience goes to show that the New Testament has power within itself. It is the word of God because it effectively conveys the message of God. Its glow, its simplicity, is due to this, that it was written by men who had just come through an overwhelming religious experience, an experience differing in kind but related in each case to the same supreme Source. In the case of a great work of art we are able to trace an origin and an evolution. The development may be rapid but there is demonstrable sequence between the Byzantine art and Giotto, between Giotto and the great Umbrians. In pure literature the master does not arise like some volcano from the midst of a plain. He has his predecessors in form, and his rivals differ only in degree. But in the case of a religious movement, the first burst is the most powerful, the first vision the most clear. Every effect must have an adequate cause. What Cause was it which made of these plain disciples literary and religious figures of incomparable power and dignity? Who of mortals can have taught the writer of the Fourth Gospel the interpretation that he has to hand on to us? The power of the written Gospel is due to the unique power that was at work in these men's hearts. After they were gone other Christian writers arose, better equipped in scholarship, and men of true piety as well, but they have left nothing that can be mentioned in the same breath with those narratives of the life of Christ, with the torrent of the Apostle Paul. Those who were nearest the source received most of the light. No naturalistic explanation has ever done anything to solve the riddle of those New Testament writings. An exercised Christian experience carries the truth. Almost all of those to whom we owe the New Testament died violent deaths, but their hearts were filled with singing, and their tribulations were matters only of joy. Base the inspiration of the Scriptures on their universal and ever youthful experience, and nothing can move the authority of the Gospels. Rest it on some theory of verbal inerrancy, and it is shaken by every negative critic. The vital question with regard to the New Testament is whether it does or does not reveal Jesus as God in the flesh. If it does this, then every other question as to the mere harmony of this account and that becomes almost irrelevant. We can admit and must admit the human element. God works through personalities, not through colorless nonentities. Every experienced Christian is a separate instrument, giving forth a separate tone. And men rejoice in the New Testament because other men two thousand years ago rejoiced, and their gladness and release still sound true.