right to be discredited by the extravagances they have foisted upon it. The real objections to the Bible, grounded upon its supposed variety of teaching, are only to be fairly argued on the platform of honest belief, and in this part of our argument we have only to deal with the differences among those sects which agree in ascribing paramount authority to the word of God.

Now we admit that there do exist, there always have existed, and probably always will exist, honest varieties of opinion about what the Bible teaches on some of the multifarious points in which it comes into contact with human life; and this is not to be wondered at. It is the unavoidable consequence of the kind of revelation God has thought best to make to man, or, rather, we should say, of the kind which man's imperfect faculties alone enabled him to receive. In constructing the Bible, the Divine architect had to bear in mind the immense variety in the capacity and culture of the human race, and the Book had to be written so as to suit all alike-so as to minister spiritual life to the child

as to the man, to the unlettered savage as to the philosopher. Many handle the Bible as though it had been designed only for the learned, and expect to find in it nothing but elaborate digests of theology and that scientific and logical development that scientific intellects crave; but in the eye of the Almighty the soul of the savage is as precious as that of the sage, and as the vast majority of His creatures always have been, and always must be, unlearned, the Book which is to guide them to Himself must needs be simple in its structure and easy to understand.

Hence it comes to pass that the Bible differs from all philosophical works; its teaching is pictorial rather than metaphysical; it affords a vast number of dissolving views in which man is seen in relation to God in every conceivable circumstance of life; instead of describing faith by abstruse researches into our mental powers, it paints the working of the principle in the life of Abraham; instead of analysing love psychologically, it shows us John leaning on Jesus' bosom; in displaying that grandest of attributes in the Almighty it holds up to the

gaze of mankind the cross of Christ-that most affecting spectacle of self-sacrifice the world has ever seen; in impressing us with the awfulness and majesty of Jehovah, we have that wonderful panorama where Sinai thundered and the people trembled, while the trumpet sounding loud and long heralded the giving of the law.

We might multiply instances indefinitely to show with what marvellous skill the Book of God exhibits to the uncultured mind of man the deepest principles of the Divine nature. In reading the Scriptures, the glory of the Lord, as in a glass, passes before the mind, and the image of the Eternal mirrors itself on the human soul almost without its being aware of it. But this pictorial style of teaching is not capable of being resolved into rigid metaphysical systems, and hence, whenever the attempt is made to compress all the features of God's revelation into a severe system of thought, differences arise among men; but it is the glory of the Book, and not its weakness, that this is the case. It is a proof that it comes from One who is higher than man, and can address his moral nature through all its thousand channels, without

being cramped and confined by the artificial rules that man must needs conform to when he sets up to be a teacher. The book of revelation and the book of nature are from the same hand, and they show striking resemblances; in both there is inexhaustible variety; in both there is an apparent disregard of all system, and yet underneath both there is a deep harmony, and the careful observer can find out a network of symmetrical laws which vindicate the wisdom of the Author. The simple rustic can find enjoyment in nature without knowing much of its laws, and so the simple believer can find spiritual life in the Bible though he knows little of theology, and can scarcely express in intelligible language the thoughts that burn within him.

It is an absolute necessity of man's moral nature that divine truth should be taught in the Bible popularly rather than scientifically; the unenlightened mind of man can only learn of God, "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little;" it approaches the comprehension of the infinite mind of God, as an infant comes to understand his father. The little child

at first can only learn through the medium of his senses, the reflective faculties are dormant; he must be punished for doing wrong before he learns the reason why; he is denied many things he longs after before it can be explained to him that they are unwholesome; the first part of his education. is the simple lesson of obedience to his parents, and it is only in riper years that he finds out the wisdom that taught him obedience; furthermore, in his infancy he can be taught only by symbolshe cannot understand language, much less reasoning, but he can soon learn to distinguish a look of displeasure from one of complacency, a tone of anger from the cooing of maternal love. Neither is it possible for a young child to receive full and complete ideas of anything; his first conceptions are in a crude and concrete form: his mother has taught him to shun the fire, and perhaps he has burned his finger, and his first impression of fire is one of dread; he has fallen into a well and nearly been drowned, and for a time he only thinks of wells with a shudder. From this it is evident that the teachers of a child can only at first tell it half-truths-it is essential that it should avoid fire