There was an indescribable movement throughout the building, but nothing articulate, and he quietly continued: "I have ceased to believe in the divinity and the inspiration of the Bible. It is not any longer to me the Word of God. It has nothing to say to me, either of Time or Eternity. Its pages are blank. I might have gone away from you without any explanation. I was tempted to do so, but we have been twenty years together, and I desired to give you my last words." There was no response from the cold, voiceless crowd, but he felt their antagonism to be more palpable than that of either scornful looks or reproachful words. With eloquent anger he described the cynical complaisance with which the very existence of God and the inspiration of the Bible were now challenged and discussed. "There is boundless danger in all such discussions," he cried. "As long as we are loving and simple-minded we judge the Bible by the heart and not by the intellect. And of such are the Kingdom of Heaven." Then, as he spoke, the _Word_ became _Flesh_ and prevailed like a message from another world. Many were the hard words he gave them, and, if he had never before spoken the whole truth, he did so at this last hour--not of any settled purpose--but because it was the last hour, and he wanted them to see through his sight "the dead, small and great, standing before God for the judgment to come." At this point the church was no longer either cold or voiceless, it felt rather as if it were on fire. The people trembled and prayed and wept as he spoke, and Ian Macrae was a man they had never before seen. His tall, grave figure radiated a kind of awe, his voice rang out like a command. The keen spiritual life within lit up his pale, striking face, and in his eyes there was a strange glory--they shone like windows in a setting sun. The intensity of feeling had been so great that there was in about fifteen minutes an inevitable pause. Then he looked round, and continued: "Listen to me a few moments, while I illustrate what I have said by my own experience. A few months ago the Bible lay in every fold of my consciousness. Now it has nothing to say to me, and it is impossible to describe the loneliness and grief that fills my empty heart. For the God of my Bible has left me. All my life I had trusted to whatever God said in His Word. God had said it, and I knew that God would keep His Word. Then I was tempted by the devil--no, by the gift of one thousand pounds, to examine my Father's Word--to prove, and to test, and to try it, by the suppositions and ideas of some small German, French, English--and Scotch, so-called philosophers. And I was too small for the intellectual dragon I went out to slay. All of them wounded me in some way, and my God left me. I deserved it. I have lost my place among the sons of God. With my own hand I crossed out my name from the list of those who serve His altar. In the honored halls of St. Andrews they will think it kind to forget Ian Macrae.