tion, especially, of the idea that men are to be helped to help
themselves, in opposition to the old theories of indiscriminate giving,
which, taking root in some of the most beautiful utterances of our
sacred books, grew in the warm atmosphere of medieval devotion into
great systems for the pauperizing of the labouring classes. Here, too,
scientific modes of thought in social science have given a new and
nobler fruitage to the whole growth of Christian benevolence.(460)

(460) Among the vast number of authorities regarding the evolution of
better methods in dealing with pauperism, I would call attention to
a work which is especially suggestive--Behrends, Christianity and
Socialism, New York, 1886.

CHAPTER XX. FROM THE DIVINE ORACLES TO THE HIGHER CRITICISM.

I. THE OLDER INTERPRETATION.

The great sacred books of the world are the most precious of human
possessions. They embody the deepest searchings into the most vital
problems of humanity in all its stages: the naive guesses of the world's
childhood, the opening conceptions of its youth, the more fully rounded
beliefs of its maturity.

These books, no matter how unhistorical in parts and at times,
are profoundly true. They mirror the evolution of man's loftiest
aspirations, hopes, loves, consolations, and enthusiasms; his hates and
fears; his views of his origin and destiny; his theories of his rights
and duties; and these not merely in their lights but in their shadows.
Therefore it is that they contain the germs of truths most necessary in
the evolution of humanity, and give to these germs the environment and
sustenance which best insure their growth and strength.

With wide differences in origin and character, this sacred literature
has been developed and has exercised its influence in obedience to
certain general laws. First of these in time, if not in importance, is
that which governs its origin: in all civilizations we find that the
Divine Spirit working in the mind of man shapes his sacred books first
of all out of the chaos of myth and legend; and of these books, when
life is thus breathed into them, the fittest survive.

So broad and dense is this atmosphere of myth and legend enveloping
them that it lingers about them after they have been brought forth
full-orbed; and, sometimes, from it are even produced secondary mythical
and legendary concretions--satellites about these greater orbs of early
thought. Of these secondary growt