measure breathed through Jesu's patience and pain and struggle and victory, does consult and deliberate with and counsel our spirits when, with fervent desire, and with that other scriptural element of prayer, holy reliance on the love and power of God, we go to state solemnly our wishes at the throne of grace, and to seek there for wisdom in selecting and employing means for the accomplishment of such wishes as we retain when we return from taking counsel with the Lord.

In this Biblically taught mode of prayer there is no cold scepticism which abandons prayer as useless, nor any weak superstition which strives in vain to change the will of the All-wise, and break the indissoluble chain which links effect to cause. But, rather, in this manner of praying there is a pious and beautiful reliance on God, leading us to such a mental exercise as cannot fail to clear up our views, give definiteness to our aim, wisdom to our selection of means, and increased strength to our arm for action. Thus we see a deep and most intelligible truth in those words, which have been a stumbling-block to not a few, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in faith "believing, that ye shall receive:" for assuredly, though God remain unchangeable, yet such prayer as we have spoken of cleanses the heart of all impossible, improper and immoderate wishes, gives to the judgment clearness in selecting means and, by ever strengthening us in our wise and persevering exertions, doth change us and bring about, with the Divine blessing, the accomplishment of its own petitions. We know no other book, save the Bible, which has originated for man the knowledge of such wise and profitable elements in prayer; and for this, in addition to its many other boons, we honour the Bible as the highest fallible authority on earth.

SECTION 12.-The Bible teaching as regards Spiritual Communion with God.

THERE is one more, and only one more, of the innumerable excellences in Scripture to which we would draw the reader's attention. Not only does the Bible teach us that God is every where present and every where active, but it reveals to us a mystery that, if at all known, was by no means commonly disclosed to man until the Bible and that religion, of whose trustworthy contemporary records Scripture alone remains to

us, declared it to mankind. The heathens were of old, and still are, wont to imagine that man must go to some temple, or possess himself of some privileged charm, in order to hold communion with the Deity. The Bible teaches us that such a communion with the Highest and the Holiest, who is love, is, in God's mercy, placed within the reach of every man, at every time, if he will only seek it with that disposition of heart and mind which is designated in Scripture as "worship in spirit "and in truth." It is needless to argue in proof that a man's chosen and habitual companions affect his character. It is needless to prove by verbal statement that wise and loving associates are an inexpressible gain to man. They augment our enjoyment in time of prosperity. They solace our woe. They stimulate our good exertions. They counsel us in the way of wisdom when we are entangled amidst doubts and difficulties. "Ointment and perfume rejoice the "heart; so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty "counsel." "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth "the countenance of his friend."*

If these things be so, what must be the effect on man's character of habitual heart-intercourse with the God whose handiwork is seen in every creature, and whose "goodness "reacheth to the clouds."

What must be the effect of constantly recurring spiritual communion with the Allwise and the Allholy, who manifested his benevolence in the life and death, and showed his power in the resurrection of Jesus? Great already has been the effectin sanctifying and elevating the life of the slave and of the prince, in solemnizing and yet freeing from all terror that death-scene which awaits each one of us, and in which we are to pass into the very seen presence of our God-great has been the effect of habitual and ever accessible spiritual communion with God. It has altered and ennobled the life of all who have availed themselves of its proffered blessings. It has felicitated the death of all who have learned in it to talk with God and to rejoice. Greater still and more worldembracing will this amelioration of human life and this beatifying of death become as the Bible, being more closely and more wisely studied, shall lead ever increasing multitudes to walk in spiritual communion with God, and so to be prepared

* Proverbs xxvii. 9, 17.

joyfully to depart and be with Him in a better and more enduring world.

It is because the Bible.is the book which teaches the possibility of such, communion with our heavenly Father, and inculcates the happy duty of practising such communion at all times, under all circumstances and in all places, that we the more revere its sacred though fallible authority.

CHAPTER IV.

RESUME AND CONCLUSION OF THIS BOOK CLAIMING A SACRED AUTHORITY FOR THE BIBLE AS A FALLIBLE BUT INSPIRED VOLUME.

We have now suggested a few, very few, of the grounds on which we claim for the Bible a deeply reverent, though a wholly reasonable, reception at the hands of every man. If we look to its antiquity, it is venerable with its age of from two to three thousand years. If we seek for a trustworthy account of the origin and growth of that religion which Tacitus and Pliny assure us had marvellously revolutionized the religious ideas of the Roman world, the Bible is pointed to on all sides, by the men of every age and every church, by many unbelievers as well as by believers, as being the only contemporary document we can procure to aid us in such an interesting and important investigation.

Thus much of our present Book bespeaks attention and respect for the Bible before the student has opened its pages, and independently of all which has been said with special reference to its inspiration or the peculiar manifestation of God's teaching in it by the influence which his Holy Spirit had on the thoughts and sentiments of the sacred penmen. To the same feeling of reasonable respect for the Bible are we led by a consideration of the way in which this book, more than any other, has been the constant handmaid and attendant, if not the possible cause, of all great modern reforms and improvements. Thus, whilst the Bible is still, as to its contents, an unknown book to us, we are prepared to reverence it profoundly because of its antiquity, the information it can give, and the companionship it has held with the great and with the good. But when, still further, the book is opened to our perusal when, studying it in no unwarrantable search after an infallibility that must become fallible, or incomprehensible, the moment it comes into contact with our finite minds-when, thus exploring the sacred volume, we are led to notice how it equals the noblest flights of man's purest and highest

thoughts, as they are written for us by the most eloquent of the Greeks-when we observe how the Bible possesses marked and peculiar excellences to contrast with the faults or extravagances of a Socrates-when we recognise the fact that not only is Scripture replete with beauties and excellences, which taken, indeed, one by one and in their isolation, could not all be matched even if we should select for the comparison the choicest portions of heathen literature-and when, moreover, we perceive that the Bible contains beauties and excellences which taken in their combination, as they are found all of them in that one not bulky volume, constitute a wholly unparalleled and unique galaxy of moral and spiritual gems-when we thus see in the Bible, and in the Bible first, if not alone of books, a system of such principles as we have been noticing in these last pages-when we find how the Bible teaches us that in all things, upon trial, the evil is to be rejected and the good held fast-when we find the Bible maintaining the doctrine of the divine presence and activity every where-teaching that God is really "Love," and only appears otherwise when seen through the medium of sin-presenting for our adoring imitation a Saviour who can draw the rich and the poor and all men unto Him-giving rise to orderly reform from within outwards-prescribing change of mind and heart as alone necessary and alone acceptable in God's sight-providing reproof and correction for every conceivable error-pointing to and insisting on the common brotherhood of mankindoffering to all men spiritual aid as a stimulant of effort, not as a substitute for exertion, or the remover of moral responsibility-teaching that Prayer is strong and thankful desire chastened and guided by consultation with a God on whose goodwill the suppliant relies-representing spiritual communion with the Heavenly Father as possible for every child of man at all times-when, indeed, we see these and similar incomparable beauties and excellences all combined in one ancient, interesting, profitable book, then we say that the man who denies the authority of this book, because it partakes of human errors and frailties, is as unwise-must we not say as profane-as he who spurns the counsel or the entreaties of a sage and holy parent because he has occasionally known that parent to be in error.

Thus we claim for the Bible no infallibility; but we claim for it a filial readiness to regard all which it teaches as likely