The Old Testament contains, albeit in embryo, all doctrines and truths essential to the kingdom of Christ. If for a while it was kept secreted within the bounds of Judaism, this was not because its revelations were meant exclusively for the chosen people, but that its sacred treasures might be guarded from waste and wanton destruction until the rest of the world was prepared to welcome them. If much of its meaning was misconceived and misconstrued by the Jewish mind, this must be attributed largely to the frailty and ignorance of human nature. The New Testament does not so much add to the Old Testament as illustrate, explain, and apply it. It is the interpreter, not the destroyer, of the Old. It opens its secrets, brings to light its truths, reveals to us the face of Jesus Christ everywhere in it, and enforces its teachings by the power of the Holy Spirit. But the Scriptures of the Old Testament are the imperishable record of the foundation of Christ’s kingdom upon earth. Without them the writings of the New Testament would be without connection with that continuous chain of inspiration whose first link was forged when God said, “Let there be light.” And, equally so, without the New Testament the Old would be merely a foundation lacking a superstructure, and thus incomplete. Its chain of inspiration would be without any sure anchorage in the future eternity, and thus hang helpless and useless, with no power to bridge the gulf between the alpha and omega, the beginning of time and its end. But the Old Testament can never become obsolete. Not one jot or tittle of it shall pass away until all is fulfilled. And the revelation given in the New ♦Testament can no more supersede or abolish it than science can supersede nature, of which it is the ordained expositor. ♦ “Testameut” replaced with “Testament” There is a healthiness, too, about the Old Testament like to the quiet restfulness of nature. When men are disposed to wander from the safe path into the vagaries of mysticism or asceticism nothing will correct the aberrance more surely than diligent and profound study of its sober realities and its everyday life. The reading of it calms the fevers and dispels the illusions to which we are prone. It brings to us those soothing influences which we feel when we look at the “Good gigantic smile of the brown old earth On autumn mornings,” or, lying under forest shades, watch the gentle swaying of foliage, or listen to the purling of brooks, or catch glimpses of the calm blue sky. We need its concrete facts to save us from the abstractions of a vague and unreal idealism.