immovable and eternal truth all its assailants. Like a rock in the sea rooted in a great submarine but unseen formation, it has sometimes seemed to be overwhelmed by the surging fury of the waves, but it has ever emerged unshaken and triumphant; the only effect has been to sweep away some human theological structure or false system of interpretation built upon it, but not growing out of it. In this connection it is well to bear in mind that skeptical scientists have of late become far less haughty in their criticisms of the Bible, and far more humble in their estimate of their own knowledge (as it becomes every student, whether of science or theology, to be); for says an eminent scientific writer on the rights and duties of science: “It becomes science to confess with much humility how far it falls short of the full comprehension of nature, and to abstain conscientiously from _premature_ conclusions. The rapid progress of discovery in recent times only makes more plain to us the fact that the extension of our knowledge _implies the extension of our ignorance_, that everywhere the progress of our knowledge leads us to unsolvable mysteries. It would be easy to furnish illustrations from every branch of science; but geology and biology are very fertile in them.” It has seemed due to many honest but uninformed minds, especially among the young, to say so much by way of recognition of their new-found difficulties, and also by way of indicating the outline of answer. The Bible is not a scientific, but a _religious book_, intended not to inform the scientific and philosophic understanding, but to instruct the religious intelligence of man in those things that make for the life that now is, and that which is to come (I Tim., iv:8). What a blessed fact it is that we thirsty mortals can drink a glass of pure water and quench our burning thirst without having to know the chemical analysis of water, or how it was originally created. We are thirsty beings, and if our thirst is not slaked we shall die. Meantime we find water is provided; it is offered to us, and we are told it will slake our thirst, that it was provided in nature for that very purpose, and without stopping to have it analyzed, we drink it and live. We thus experimentally prove it to be water, and that all that was claimed for it is true. We likewise are religious beings, and if we do not find truth, and love, and happiness, and regeneration, and eternal life, and resurrection, we shall die and perish. God’s word is brought to us; it contains truths, or at least statements and promises that stand over against these spiritual hungerings and thirstings just as food and drink stand over against the hunger and thirst of the body. We take hold by faith of these promises, and the hunger and thirst of our souls are satisfied. We know the truth of the Bible, therefore, not by metaphysical or intellectual demonstration, but by experimental