size the permanent
value of the larger division of the Sacred Book. It has been carefully
scrutinized, tested in furnaces heated seven times, but out of the fire
it has come bearing the stamp of God, testifying more confidently than
ever before that God in olden times spake unto the fathers, and that in
its pages may be found records and interpretations of these
revelations. The features of the Old Testament which assure to it a
permanent place in religious thought and life may be briefly indicated
as follows:

The Old Testament will always prove attractive as literature. The more
we know of other literatures of antiquity, the more evident it becomes
that even from the literary viewpoint the Old Testament is far superior
to any other literary remains of ancient civilization. "If the
inimitable freshness of life is preserved in Homer, it is not less
preserved in the epic stories of the Old Testament; while the still
more intangible simplicity of the idyl is found perfect in Ruth and
Tobit, the orations of Deuteronomy are as noble models as the orations
of Cicero. Read by the side of the poetry of the Psalms, the lyrics of
Pindar seem almost provincial. The imaginative poetry of {256} the
Greeks is perfect in its own sphere, but by the Hebrew prophets as bold
an imagination is carried into the mysteries of the spiritual world.
If the philosophy of Plato and his successors has a special interest as
the starting point for a progression of thought still going on as
modern science, yet the field of biblical wisdom offers an attraction
of a different kind, in a progression of thought which has run its full
round and has reached a position of rest.... And in the inner circle
of the world's masterpieces, in which all kinds of literary influences
meet, the Bible has placed Job, the Isaiahan Rhapsody, ... unsurpassed
and unsurpassable."[23]

From the standpoint of history the Old Testament still occupies, and
ever will occupy, a unique position. Important as are the
contributions of archaeology, the student of ancient history can by no
means spare the testimony of the Bible. The Old Testament is still the
main source of information for the national history of the Hebrew
people, and it is and will remain a very important secondary source for
the history of the surrounding nations. It also retains a unique place
in the history of religion, for without it the religious development of
the Jews could not be traced; and sinc