these books, the signs on every hand of the labor of
brain and skill of pen through which the literature of a venerable nation,
and of the infant church born of it, took slow shape into our Bible. Such
a work needs must have in it the traces of human imperfection; and these
limitations of thought and knowledge, these mistakes of fallible writers,
are to be seen by every one, save those who will not see.

It is impossible after such a study to rest in the illusion of an
infallible book, of which, as a book, God can be said to be the "author."

IV.

_The growth of this theory is plain to us, and discredits its authority._

The explanation that Max Mueller makes of the growth of superstitious
reverence for ancient traditions in Hindu history is suggestive on this
point.

"In an age when there was nothing corresponding to what we call
literature, every saying, every proverb, every story handed down from
father to son received very soon a kind of hallowed character. They became
sacred heir-looms, sacred because they came from an unknown source, from a
distant age. There was a stage in the development of human thought when
the distance that separated the living generation from their grandfathers
or great-grandfathers was as yet the nearest approach to a conception of
eternity, and when the name of grandfather and great-grandfather seemed
the nearest expression of God. Hence what had been said by these half
human, half divine ancestors, if it was preserved at all, was soon looked
upon as a more than human utterance. Some of these ancient sayings were
preserved because they were so true and so striking that they could not be
forgotten. They contained eternal truths, expressed for the first time in
human language. Of such oracles of truth it was said in India that they
had been heard, Sruta, and from it arose the word Sruti, the recognized
term for divine revelation in Sanskrit."[10]

How, in later times, the great writings of the Hebrews came to acquire the
same exaggerated sacredness, we can also observe. We read in one of the
historical books of the Jews that "Nehemiah founded a library and gathered
together the writings concerning the Kings, and of the prophets, and the
(songs) of David and epistles of Kings concerning temple gifts."[11] This
formation of a National Library was really the germ out of which grew the
Old Testament. It was a purely civic act by a layman, but it expressed the
honor in which the n