Besides, scientific methods of study have
shown that some passages interpreted formerly as predictions can no
longer be so interpreted, while in the case of others the
interpretation is more or less doubtful. Here, again, the difficulties
connected with the use of the argument have become so perplexing that
many consider it wise not to use it at all. If used with caution,
prophecy, especially Messianic {29} prophecy, possesses great
evidential value; but the argument from the fulfillment of prophecy as
used formerly has lost much of its worth as a proof of inspiration.
The arguments relied upon at the present time are simpler than those of
the past, and are of such a nature that any fair-minded student can
test them.

In the first place, attention may be called to the essential unity of
the book. There are in the Old World great and magnificent cathedrals,
some of which have been centuries in building, yet in all of them may
be found unity and harmony. How is this to be explained? Although
generation after generation of workmen have labored on the enterprise,
back of all the efforts was a single plan, evolved in the mind of one
man, which mind controlled all the succeeding generations of workmen.
The result is unity and harmony. The Bible has been likened to a
magnificent cathedral. The phenomenon to which reference has been made
in connection with ancient cathedrals may be seen in the Bible as a
whole, as also in the Old Testament considered separately. The latter
contains thirty-nine books, by how many authors no one knows, scattered
over a period of more than a thousand years, written, at least some of
them, independently of one another, in places hundreds of miles apart.
And yet there is one thought running through them all--the {30} gradual
unfolding of God's plan of redemption for the human race. There must
be an explanation of this unity. Is it not natural to find it in the
fact that one and the same divine spirit overshadowed the many men who
made contributions to the Book?

The proof of the presence of a divine element in the Old Testament
which is derived from the essential unity of the book, is confirmed by
the response of the soul to its message, and the effect which it
produces in the lives of those who yield themselves to its teachings.
Jesus and his disciples observed that its message rightly applied would
awaken a response in the human heart; sometimes, indeed, it produced a
sense of indigna