re he had; the case of Jeremiah would furnish it if no other. This
brave and faithful advocate of the moral ideal, after standing alone in
his resistance to the materialising tendencies of his time, was scorned
and hated by his fellow-countrymen, flung into prison, beaten,
tortured, and probably murdered in the end. He shared the captivity of
the Jews under Nebuchadnezzar, a captivity against which he had warned
them in vain. "Despised and rejected of men," he died, but in later
days his name came to be reverenced as perhaps none had ever been
before. For centuries afterwards he was referred to by the returned
exiles as _the_ prophet, in contradistinction to all other prophets.
He had lived the atoning life and died a sacrificial death. It was not
wonderful that the author of the fifty-third of Isaiah should have such
a noble example in mind when he penned his deathless words, but these
words were meant to have an impersonal meaning too. They stand as a
description of the ideal manhood, the true servant of God, the saviour
of the race in any and every generation. This kind of manhood, just
because it is the true manhood, the eternal or divine manhood, must
inevitably suffer in a selfish world, but these sufferings are never in
vain; they are the Calvary from which the eternal Christ rises in
redeeming might over the power of sin and death. Let any man ask
himself what it is that is saving the world to-day, and gradually but
surely lifting it out of the mire of ignorance and wickedness, and he
cannot find a better answer than the fifty-third of Isaiah. It tells
of Jesus, but it tells also of all the sons of God who in the spirit of
Jesus have ever given their lives in the service of love.

When we go to the Bible in this common-sense way, entering with
understanding and sympathy into the thoughts and aspirations of the men
who wrote it, it becomes a living book, and a real help in our
endeavour to live our lives in union with Jesus Christ. But to regard
it as a sort of official document written by the finger of God, of
equal authority in every part, and containing a full and complete
statement of the propositions we must accept in order to make sure of
salvation, is hampering and belittling to the soul. God inspires men,
not books; and He will go on inspiring men to the end of time, whether
they write books or not. I do not know anything which is such a
serious hindrance and stumbling-block to spiritual religi