"The wisdom of our Father has provided that none of His children should
be without a knowledge of Him, without a power to recognize and
appreciate Truth, and in the way or language best suited to the
capacity of each to understand, are the revelations made. Sometimes this
knowledge comes into our consciousness like a direct message from God,
and so vividly are we impressed, that no other words could express the
nearness and clearness of it, than the expression 'walking and talking
with God.' Sometimes wonderful pictures appear before our mind's eye,
and reading their symbolic meaning, we catch hints of higher wisdom that
would otherwise have been hidden.

"By persistently ignoring the spiritual and cultivating the intellectual
faculties, mankind has well nigh lost the highest means of inspiration,
but now that we again, like the prophets and apostles of old, seek for
signs of the Infinite, we are gradually recovering the key by which they
unlocked its mysteries.

"As to the infallibility of what is thus revealed, we must remember that
while truth is always infallible, there is a possibility of its
recognition or conception being tinged to a greater or less degree, with
our erroneous judgements, and as the light, pure in itself, is colored
by the glass through which it passes, so is the divinest truth colored
with the quality of mind through which it comes to the world. As Heber
Newton says, 'Inspiration can not do away with the limitations of the
human individuality.' Thus, in our discrimination of so-called inspired
literature, language or thoughts, we must learn that whatever is
opposite God, the universal idea of goodness, is the chaff that must be
blown away. In other words it is the assumption of mortal thought
instead of absolute knowledge of divine mind.

"It would be an utter impossibility to describe infinite truth in finite
language. Words are inadequate to express the grandeur of sacred
revelation.

"With this view of inspiration, we can readily see how far short we have
come in our conceptions of the Bible, and now that we are to use and
understand this wonderful book as never before, it is well that we
consider it a little more closely.

"There are three general views held in regard to the Bible as an
inspired book. 1. That it is verbally inspired; _i. e._, that every word
is direct from God. 2. That it is partially inspired; and, 3. That it is
no more inspired than any other good book. The first two