gal son come back so suddenly after going away so deliberately.

Most of the higher critics discard, because contrary to the doctrine of
evolution, the virgin birth of Jesus and His resurrection, although the
former is no more mysterious than our own birth--only different, and the
latter no more mysterious than the origin of life. The existence of God
makes both possible; and the proof is sufficient to establish both.

If the higher critic will but come into the presence of Christ and learn
of Him he will express himself in the language of the father (whose son
had a dumb spirit), who, as recorded in Mark (9:24), "cried out and said
with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

If he would only mingle with humanity he might catch the spirit of the
Master; if his sympathies were broad enough to take in all of God's
people, he would be so impressed with the religious needs of sinful man
that he would hasten to break to him the "Bread of Life" instead of
offering him a stone. The Bible, _as it is_, has led millions to
repentance and, through forgiveness, into life; the Bible, as the higher
critics would make it, is impotent to save.

Enemies of the Bible have been "blasting at the Rock of Ages" for nearly
two thousand years but in spite of attacks of open and secret foes, God
still lives, and His Book is still precious to His children.

The Bible would be the greatest book ever written if it rested on its
literary merits alone, stripped of the reverence that inspiration
commands; but it becomes infinitely more valuable when it is accepted
as the Word of God. As a man-made book it would compel the intellectual
admiration of the world; as the audible voice of the Heavenly Father it
makes an irresistible appeal to the heart and writes its truths upon our
lives. Its heroes teach us great lessons--they were giants when they
walked by faith, but weak as we ourselves when they relied upon their
own strength.

The Bible starts with a simple story of creation--just a few words, but
it says all that can be said. The scientists have framed hypotheses,
the philosophers have formulated theories and the speculators have
guessed--some of them have darkened "counsel by words without
knowledge"--but when the smoke of controversy rises we find that the
first sentence of Genesis, still unshaken, comprehends the entire
subject: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." No
one has been able to overthrow it, or bu