that it is not a man-made book, but a book
whose real and sole author is the living and eternal God.

This claim stands face to face with human need.

Here we are from birth to death, pilgrims on the highway of time,
not knowing whence we come, nor whither we go. We need a guide to
lead us, a light to shine when we stand at that parting of the ways
--where eternity becomes the end of time.

This book meets us and claims to be all that--a guide through time,
a light to shine upon the road that leads to God and to be, in every
line and accent, the inspired, incorruptible, infallible Word of
God.

How may we know it is all it claims to be?

Never more than now did we need to know it.

Voices in the air are crying that we have been deceived; that this
book upon which our fathers pillowed their heads when at the end of
life's journey, they laid them down to die; this book we have held
as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path is, after all, at its
best, only the word of man and not the Word of God at all.

Every now and then resounding blows are heard as they strike against
the old foundation. Those who pretend to be working in the interest
of the truth bid us stand aside, lest we and our hopes be buried in
the impending ruin.

We need to know at any cost whether this splendid and sustaining
faith has deceived us; whether this book we have looked upon as holy
and divine is nothing more than the word of man, spoken with his
stammering tongue and written with his stumbling pen.

We must know, and know for a certainty that will leave no
peradventure to arise as a troubling after-ghost, whether this Bible
is, as Paul says it is, in truth, the Word of God; and the question
will insistently repeat itself:

"How may we know the Bible _is_ the Word of God?"

The question need not make us tremble.

The answers are at hand.

The evidence is so great, its very wealth is an embarrassment.

That evidence stated, detailed, analyzed and elaborated, would
require--not a few pages--but whole libraries.

One broad and general proposition may be laid down.

It is this:

The Bible is proved to BE the Word of God when it is shown to be NOT
the word of man; and it is proved to be not the word of man when it
is shown to be--not such a book as a man WOULD write if he COULD;
nor such a book as a man COULD write if he WOULD.

That it is not the word of man--not such a book as a man _would_
write if he could, is made clear