XIII. THE GREAT HERESY. Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance? MALACHI iii. 14. AS never before, men are now bringing to bear archæological science and critical study on the body of sacred literature which we call the Bible. It has become a passion in these days to challenge the traditions, and rewrite the chronicles, of the ancient world. When so many of the landmarks have been swept over by the dust of time, there is a temptation to consider history as open country for the vigorous exercise of the imagination; and some of the German scholars are riding their theories at a breakneck pace through the scriptures of the Old Testament. We need not fear. If they can bring from their explorations of what is so venerable and so precious in the moral life of the world, certified facts, we will accept the facts with gratitude, and welcome them as contributions to our stock of truth. Faith walks hand in hand with Knowledge along all the path where Knowledge can make sure her footing. Where the path drops off in the infinite spaces, into which the soul sends its cries, there Faith walks alone. Knowledge can never impair or supersede the mission of Faith. It only illumines her path. It is the torch-bearer which accompanies her on the first stage of her journey. A closer and more accurate reading of the Bible is already bringing the religious world of to-day to the recognition of an overlooked and wellnigh forgotten truth. Men will wander in the mist and become the prey of mischievous mistakes and foolish fears, until they altogether recognize the truth, that God has revealed Himself in the history of the world by voices and institutions which are older than the Bible, and of which the Bible is simply the record. To state the truth in another form, the Holy Scriptures are the inspired chronicles |