The Bible is, truly, a supernatural book. One once confessed to an abounding confidence in the plenary inspiration of the scriptures in that he "accepted the Bible from 'lid' to 'lid'--and including the 'lid.'" But the supernaturalism which we believe belongs to or inheres in the Bible does not attach to the "lids"--to the materials by means of which the scriptures, as literature, have been communicated and preserved from age to age. (The fact which is here suggested is all apart from the question of inspiration.) God wastes no energies in a miraculous preservation of the materials of books,--not even of the materials of the "good Book." God does not violate, we think, the great law of "parsimony" by exerting either superfluous or supernatural energies for the accomplishment of His purposes. It was only when King Jehoiakim in his blind rage and folly cut the "roll" in pieces and burnt its mutilated fragments, that the supernatural energies were called into requisition to _restore_ the "words of the book, which Jehoiakim, king of Judah, had burned with fire." (Jeremiah 36:32.) God has, however, guarded, preserved, and treasured--and in a marvelous, not to say supernatural manner--the "revelation" contained in the "good Book" so that no age has been left without its ample and unimpeachable witness. And this is all that we may reasonably demand for a revelation that is intended and destined to be authoritative, universal, and final. The destruction of the materials of books does not weigh if the contents are preserved. The impious King of Judah did not destroy the holy law of God when he utterly destroyed the parchment upon which it was inscribed. What mattered it if the "roll" was consumed since God had His faithful prophet and his scribe to produce another and ampler roll? And what matters it if a given copy, or any number of copies of a book, or of the Bible, be lost or destroyed so long as other unnumbered copies of the same are preserved beyond the reach of bad men or the destructive forces of corroding and destroying time? It does not matter, supremely, since it is the contents and not the materials of a book that claims the supreme consideration.