Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Bob McKillip and PG Distributed Proofreaders. HTML version by Al Haines THE MENDENHALL LECTURES, THIRD SERIES DELIVERED AT DEPAUW UNIVERSITY UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES BY FRANCIS J. McCONNELL Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church CONTENTS FOREWORD I. PRELIMINARY II. THE BOOK OF LIFE III. THE BOOK OF HUMANITY IV. THE BOOK OF GOD V. THE BOOK OF CHRIST VI. THE BOOK OF THE CROSS FOREWORD The Mendenhall Lectures, founded by Rev. Marmaduke H. Mendenhall, D.D., of the North Indiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, are delivered annually in De Pauw University to the public without any charge for admission. The object of the donor was "to found a perpetual lectureship on the evidences of the Divine Origin of Christianity and the inspiration and authority of the Holy Scriptures. The lecturers must be persons of high and wide repute, of broad and varied scholarship, who firmly adhere to the evangelical system of Christian faith. The selection of lecturers may be made from the world of Christian scholarship, without regard to denominational divisions. Each course of lectures is to be published in book form by an eminent publishing house and sold at cost to the faculty and students of the University." Lectures previously published: 1913, The Bible and Life, Edwin Holt Hughes; 1914, The Literary Primacy of the Bible, George Peck Eckman. GEORGE R. GROSE, President De Pauw University. CHAPTER I PRELIMINARY The problem as to the understanding of the Scriptures is with some no problem at all. All we have to do is to take the narratives at their face meaning. The Book is written in plain English, and all that is necessary for its comprehension is a knowledge of what the words mean. If we have any doubts, we can consult the dictionary. The plain man ought to have no difficulty in understanding the Bible. Nobody can deny the clearness of the English of the Scriptures. Nevertheless, the plain man does have trouble. How far would the ordinary intelligence have to read from the first chapter of Genesis before finding itself in difficulties? There are accounts of events utterly unlike anything which we see happening in the life around us, events which seem to us to contradict the course of nature's procedure. There are points of view foreign to our way of looking at things. More than that, there seem to be actual contradictions between various portions of the books. And, above all, the way of life marked out in the Book seems to lead off toward mystery. To save our lives we have to lose them. All the precepts of common sense seem set at defiance by some passages of the Book. How can we explain the hold of such a book on the world's life?