But when we return to our first proposition, that all religion in its origin, fundamental essence and ultimate purpose is not only one and the same, but is _natural_ and common to all humanity; that its processes are a continual revelation in nature and human experience in man's continuous progress onward and upward in the scale of human attainment; and that the Bible, and all other literature of its kind, merely records a part of these processes and revelations in nature and experience, by which we are able to read the footprints of human progress in the past, and that these various writers, mostly unknown, merely recorded what they saw, felt, believed or understood at that time to be the truth; then all these difficulties of interpretation and sources of division vanish, and these books take on a new value and importance that they never otherwise attain. With this view of its origin and purpose the Bible readily takes and holds its place as the most remarkable and invaluable book the world has ever known, or perhaps ever will know. It becomes at once an inexhaustible treasure-house of knowledge indispensable to the world's highest thought and progress,--knowledge which cannot be obtained anywhere else. In this view its many contradictions, discrepancies, errors of fact, and incredible statements become at once of little force and easily accounted for; and when we consider the various ages in which its parts were written, the many different authors of its different parts, the standards of human knowledge and attainment in these times, the wonder is that there are not more. The Bible is thus the greatest book of _religious instruction_ that the world knows, or ever has known. It contains inexhaustible treasures of religious thought, feeling, emotion and experience, of every conceivable type and variety, which makes it indeed "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness." It is an inexhaustible mine of the richest and purest gold, fused in the fires of human experience in many ages. But the gold is mixed with the sand and dirt and rocks and rubbish of the human frailties and weaknesses of the ages in which it was accumulated in this mine. The pure gold must be separated from this dross in the crucible of _present day_ human intelligence, reason and experience. It is like a great river that has wound its course thru many countries and as many different kinds of soil, receiving tributaries from many different sources and directions. It contains much pure water; but it is impregnated with the sand and dirt and mud of the channels thru which it has passed. It must be filtered and these elements eliminated before it can be put to its highest and best use. As a great book of religious instruction it contains riches in human experience and inspiration from which any and all may draw something to fit their particular case and need. But to