life sustained Himself upon it as the solemn word
of God. And I cannot help feeling that the Bible which was good enough
for Christ on earth should be good enough for me.

IV.--THE WITNESS OF ITS POWER.

1.--Need I remind you of that practical conviction of every earnest
Bible student, the conviction which Coleridge expresses when he speaks
of the way in which it "finds me". Men feel by their own spiritual
experience that the Book witnesses to itself. "The Spirit itself
beareth witness with their spirit" that the Book is the Book of God.
It "finds them" as no other book ever does. Its words have moved them
deeply; it has helped them to be good; it has mastered their wills and
gladdened their hearts till the overpowering conviction has forced
itself upon them, "Never book spake like this Book."

Need I point you to the world around, to the miraculous power which is
exercised by that Bible, to the evil lives reformed by it, to the
noble, beautiful lives daily nourished by it? Did you ever hear of any
other book of history, and poetry, and memoirs, and letters that had
this power to turn men towards nobleness and righteousness of life?
Did you ever hear a man say, "I was an outcast, and a reprobate, and a
disgrace to all that loved me till I began to read Scott's poems and
Macaulay's History of England?" Did you ever hear a man tell of the
peace and hope and power to conquer evil which he had won by an earnest
study of the Latin classics?

You can get a great many to say it of the study of the Bible, ten
thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. You can see
the amount of happiness and good that has come to the world even from
the miserably imperfect following of it. You can see that the world
would be a very paradise of God if it were thoroughly followed. Misery
and vice would vanish forever, purity and love and unselfish work for
others would hold their universal sway on earth. The millenium would
have begun.

Need we be disquieted about a Book that comes to us thus accredited in
so many powerful ways? Can we not see with restful hearts that all for
which we value it is safe from assault; that we never can doubt that it
has come to us from God.

With this confidence in our foundations we shall study peacefully and
with interest all new knowledge on the Bible. Instead of fearing a
conflict of Science and Scripture we shall learn to read our Bible more
wisely. For example, we shall read