Who wrote the Bible? Has God spoken or only man?

MAR 181924

Division IBS 4 SO

Section

»wciL iiiW"

Who Wrote the Bible?

Has God Spoken, or Only Man?

(Formerly "Visions and Voices, or Who Wrote the Bible f")

By

CHARLES A. BLANCHARD, D.D.

President Wheaton College, President Chicago Hebrew
Mission, Ex-President National Christian Association,
Ex-President Federation of Illinois Collegics, Director
Chicago Tract Society, Ex-President College
Section of Illinois State Teachers' Associa-
tion, Ex-President Colleg^e Section of
National Teachers' Association, etc.

h

Chicago

THE BIBLE INSTITUTE COLPORTAGE ASSN.

826 North La Salle Street

COPYRIGHT, 1917, by

CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE PUB. CO.

BROOKLYN

Charles A. Blanchard, Owner

Printed in U. S. A.

Dedicated

to my dear friends

Mr. and Mrs. Elbridge Torrey

Earnest Witnesses

for the truth

and the Word of God

The Works of

Charles A. Blanchard

Published by
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ASSOCIATION
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AN OLD TESTAMENT GOSPEL. Jonah shoivn
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WHO WROTE THE BIBLE? Proofs that God

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CONTENTS.

PAGE
Preface •• — — -•""■"" y
Proof of the Bible as the most popular and
enduring book— Assaults upon its credibility
reveal no substantial error— Its overshadow-
ing importance in alone dealing with vital
questions and themes — Its relationship to God,
to the human soul, to eternity unique in teach-
ing and literature— It alone transforms from
savagery to gentleness and love— Countless
thousands have suffered and died in its de-
fense— Many present-day Biblical^ teachers
and professors allied with agnosticism — Al-
legiance to the Word an urgent, solemn duty
to all who honor God— The Bible the only
hope of the human race,

CHAP.

I — Importance of the Question - - - I3
Value of memorizing Scripture — Indiffer-
ence to Biblical authorship, "What difference
does it make?" — Historical accuracy a neces-
sary test — The Bible the only revelation from
God — Comparison with so-called sacred books
— What if the moral teachings of the Eastern
World supplanted the Bible?— What infidels
dare not assail — When infidels keep silence —
Marvelous changes wrought by the Word of
God.

II — The Bible Statement as to the Facts ; or,
What the Bible Says for Itself - - 28

External and internal evidence — Wrong
principles of examination — The Bible's amaz-
ing survival of time and stress — Vast present-
day circulation — Its preeminence above all
books— Two thousand New Testament manu-
scripts extant— "The Lord spake," "The Lord
said" — Mosaic authorship proved beyond doubt

4 Contents

— Scripture's unrivaled diction and style —
Undertone of Divine authority throughout.
Ill — How Could God Write a Book? - - 43

Inspiration simple and natural — The source
of all human communication — Could sinful
men write such a book? — Books men write
usually die; the Bible endures — Himian^ au-
thorship faced with a thousand difficulties —
The Bible the Word of God.
IV — Visions and Voices So

"A more sure word of prophecy" — Mr.
Spurgeon on evidence — The promises of God
abide — Their impressiveness never wanes —
Speaking with tongues — Paul's estimate of
the gift — Its purpose nearly if not altogether
useless — Visions and voices pass away, the
Word remains — Death-bed repentances.
V — Should We Say That We Believe or That
We Know? 62

God has made it possible for us to "Know"
— Origin of Locke's "Human Understanding"
— Sources of knowledge, seen and unseen — The
needle and the anvil — The cross of Christ —
Napoleon's belief and testimony — Grave duty
of those who hold the faith — Speak the Word
of God faithfully.
VI — What Do We Mean by Inspiration? - 73

True meaning of "Inspiration" oftentimes
obscured — Careless use of words — Men's con-
victions as shifting sands — What "Inspiration"
means — The inspiration of illumination, of
suggestion, of words — Proofs of inspiration
many and infallible — ^Unique character of the
Bible — Its mighty achievements must rest on
the supernatural.
VII— What Is a Miracle? - - - - 82

The word defined — The conceit of the pres-
ent age — The dangers of great scientific at-
tainment— Professed atheists now compara-
tively few — Government of universe by exact
and intelligent laws cannot be denied — Belief

Contents 5

in God, belief in miracles a necessary conse-
quence— Can man place a limit to God's pow-
er?— His Omnipotence — Jonah's mission to
Nineveh, its purpose and threatened failure —
The miracle lost in the greater issue — A wide
view of the subject — ^Jewish commemoration
of the escape from Egypt — Every synagogue
throughout the world bears testimony today
to miracles wrought in Egypt.

VIII — Is THE Age of Miracles Past? - - 99
Miracle-working today a live fact — Deliver-
ances from demoniacal power very real — Com-
parison with physical healing — The outward
miracles of Our Lord a means to an end —
Cleansing of the Spirit a greater miracle —
Miracles of healing today innumerable and
carefully attested — The remarkable case of
Jenny Smith — God can and will work miracles
when necessary — The discrimination of God —
Dishonoring unbelief stays the Almighty Hand
— His rewards and wonder-working power for
those who see His face, hear and obey His
voice.

IX — The Man Christ Jesus - - - -118
His dual nature clearly set forth in Scrip-
ture— The Man Christ Jesus, the everlasting
Father — ^A familiar objection stated — Christ's
authority for Scripture — Can modern learning
overrule Omniscience? — Old Testament a bat-
tleground— Our Lord's repeated use of Old
Testament Scriptures — Quoted in conflict with
Satan— The authoritative, "It is written,"^ "It
is written" — Christ extended and intensified
the law — "I came not to destroy but to fulfil"
— The Divine command was to "Search the
Scriptures" — Would Christ urge the study of
error and misrepresentation?

X — Did the Prophets Foretell? - - -131
The work of the prophets — They prophesied
both doom and deliverance — The judgments
they foretold accepted without question —

6 Contents

Babylon a widespread desolation — Tyre a col-
lection of miserable huts — A great Sacrifice
for sin foreshadowed from the earliest times —
Until the coming of Jesus sacrifices were in
universal use — Why then have blood offerings
now ceased throughout the entire world? —
Isaiah fifty-three a full-length portrait of Jesus
Christ as a sufferer — Isaiah also foretells Him
as reigning King — The case of the Jews —
Palestine to be redeemed — Jesus will come to
reign.

XI — The Pickax and Spade . - - - 142
Geology reveals much of the thought of
God in creation — The work of excavation in
Bible lands of recent development — Thousands
of inscriptions unearthed — Restored monuments
confirm Bible narratives — In many instances
Higher Criticism directly refuted — No tablet
or inscription yet found that contradicts a sin-
gle Biblical statement of fact — The testimony
of pickax and spade not yet concluded — Great-
er and more important discoveries not improb-
able.

XII — Why Do We Believe the Miracles of the
Bible to Have Been Wrought? - - 150

The testimony of Jesus to miracles — The
miracle of Jonah used as a warning to His
disciples of His approaching death — Could
Christ trifle with historic fact on so solemn
an occasion? — The miracles of Jesus certified
to His Divine nature — "If you do not believe
Me, believe the works" — The history of the
Christian church a miracle — Missionary ef-
fort a miracle — The church built and re-
ceived on the truth of supernatural works
— Sharp distinction between the miracles of the
Bible and e.g., spiritualistic "miracles" of our
time — The difference between daylight and
darkness — The apostles earnestly and at once
declared and preached the resurrection.

Contents 7

XIII — Modern Miracles - - . . _ j5i
Alleged miracles of Spiritualism, Roman
Catholicism and Christian Science — Demons
have power to work miracles (Rev. 13:13) —
Humble souls perhaps permitted in the name
of Jesus Christ to work signs and wonders —
We are surrounded by spirit intelligences —
"Miracles" frequently no more than momen-
tary ecstasies or other forms of excitement —
Systems of men rather than of Christ — Do not
lead to holiness of character — Our Saviour
outlawed by secret societies — The miracles of
the Bible lead to repentance, to restitution,
to faith and joy — Fictitious miracles lead
merely to wonder — "Some people so consti-
tuted that they can believe anything except the
truth" — Unbelievers rarely acquainted with
God's Word — The natural wonders of the
Bible.

XIV— A Few Words in Conclusion - - 178
God's providence to the author in enabling
him to leave the testimony of this book —
His desire that others should share his faith
in the disputed things of Scripture— Belief in
the miracles leaves little room for doubt in
anything else— A privilege to share these re-
flections with other fellow travelers to the
judgment bar of God — Visions and voices
less important than the precious words God
has written for our learning — We may say
"I know" rather than "I believe"— May the
Book become more and more the man of our
counsel, the light to our feet, the lamp to
our path — "Heaven and earth shall pass away
but My Word shall not pass away.'*

PREFACE.

The Bible is the most popular book in the
world. Books usually die in their youth, but
the Bible, begun about four thousand years
ago and completed nearly two thousand years
ago, seems endowed with perpetual life. Last
year (191 5) there were over twenty-nine mil-
lion copies of Scripture, either whole or in
part, printed. This is in itself a miracle.

The Bible is the only book in the world
which is really up to date. It has been scru-
tinized and assailed as no other book ever was,
yet it has never been convicted of substantial
error. Books of science and history are con-
tinually shown to be mistaken or defective,
but the most that critics of the Bible have
been able to do has been to find some errors
in transcription of spelling or numbers.

The Bible alone attempts to answer the
great questions natural to the human soul and
which every sane man must ask. *Tf a man
die, shall he live again?" "How can a man
be just with God?" "Wherewithal shall a
young man cleanse his way?" "Where shall I
spend eternity?"

The Bible is the only book that transforms
human character. Men and women by thou-

lo Preface

sands have been lifted from baseness to nobil-
ity of life by the Bible. Many are alive today
and ready to testify to the facts in the case.

Communities and nations have in like man-
ner been transformed by the Bible. We can
trace the course of naked, man-eating savage
tribes from barbarism to gentleness and civil-
ization through the influence of the blessed
Word of the Bible and its effect on savagery,
superstition, vice and crime.

It is not strange that such a book should be
assailed. We do not wonder when we read
that its translators, teachers and followers
have been strangled, beheaded, burned,
drowned and by thousands have died for this
Wonderful Book on bloody fields.

It is, however, strange that today men
who profess to believe the Bible and are paid
for teaching it should join hands with the
Paines, Voltaires and Ingersolls of our race
to destroy the faith of the people in this Book.
I do not understand their motives, but I do
know the deadly work they are doing, and I
entreat all men who honor God or wish well
to humanity to resist their desperately evil as-
saults on this the only hope of the human race.

The Author.

Visions and Voices

OR

Who Wrote the Bible?

CHAPTER I.

IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION.

Dr. Greene of Princeton University said
years ago in one of his great addresses re-
specting the authenticity and integrity of the
Bible that formerly the question respecting
that Book was, "What does the Bible mean?"
"At the present time/' said he, "the question
is far more fundamental. It is, What is the
Bible?" The view which most of us of ma-
ture age were taught when we were children
was that the Bible was God's Word. We were
not taught to discriminate between inspiration
of illumination, inspiration of suggestion,
plenary inspiration and inspiration verbal.
Wc simply believed that God had revealed
His will in His Word. In those days we used
to memorize large portions of the Book. In
our Sabbath schools this was the method usu-

14 Visions and Voices

ally pursued. That was before the days of
pupils' helps, teachers' helps, superintendents'
helps and helps of all kinds. I do not here
raise the question of relative values. Un-
doubtedly there have been improvements in
certain particulars. It is doubtful, however,
whether all of them combined are sufficient to
fill up the gap left by the failure to memo-
rize. In one of our conferences held recently.
Rev. J. D. Williams of St. Paul set the entire
company to memorizing the first chapter of
Hebrews. I think without exception it was
found to be a delightful exercise. Personally
I can testify that I greatly enjoyed it.

This question aside, however. The fact of
which I wish specially to speak is that in those
early days the Bible was believed to be a word
vvhich God had spoken for the guidance of
His people. At the present time this view is
doubted or denied by many who profess to be
teachers of the Book. I remember to have
heard a minister in a local conference say not
many years ago, "We must sift the errors out
of the Bible." This gentleman could not
speak English thoroughly well, but he felt en-
tirely competent to correct the writings of
men who finished their work thousands of
years before he was born. It would seem that

Importance of the Question 15

such a statement would be looked upon as an
empty trifling with a serious subject and al-
lowed to pass as such. Unfortunately it is not
so, but many men who seemingly should know
better are affected by such words as these.

"What Difference Does It Make?"

Every now and again when some of these
persons who are unsettling the foundations of
faith in the church are called to account, they
say, "Well, what difference does it make who
wrote the Bible? It is good anyway. Why
peril the whole Book by insisting upon author-
ship? You cannot certainly prove that the
Book is from God. Whether it was from
Him or from a man, what odds does it make,
provided it is true? If the ten command-
ments require righteousness and condemn sin,
how does it concern us whether Moses wrote
them or some other good man or even a bad
man?" It is noticeable that those who hold
this view of authorship have very loose views
as to the portion of the Bible which is true.
Beginning by denying that it is from God and
saying that it makes no difference whether it
is from Him or not if it be true, they proceed
to deny that it is true. The books of Moses
are a pious forgery. Historic and scientific

1 6 ' Visions and Voices

errors abound in them. The book of Job has
no historic value. Job was not a historic
character. The book of Job is a production
of the imagination, etc., etc., and this class of
men who began years ago with the Old Testa-
ment have now proceeded to question and
deny the books of the New. One of them is
reported to have said, "We have finished up
the Old Testament, now we will take hold of
the New." What he seemed to mean was that
the alleged "reverent and free criticism" of
our time had proved the Old Testament to be
unhistoric, unauthentic and valueless as an
authority and that this same "free and rever-
ent" criticism was about to do for the New
Testament what it had already accomplished
for the Old.

Moral and Spiritual Teaching.

Those who thus trifle with the Word of God
are accustomed to say that the Bible was not
intended to teach history and science but
morals and religion ; that it was not intended
to show men "how the heavens go but how to
go to heaven." The inference expressed or
implied is that if the Bible states falsehoods
respecting history and teaches error in sci-
ence, nevertheless it may be a very excellent

Importance of the Question 17

guide to conduct; that if it says the heavens
go as they do not go, it may, nevertheless,
teach men how to go to heaven successfully.
Such teaching as this seems to entirely for-
get the solidarity which belongs to human
character and human production. If a man
were known to be entirely honest in one sec-
tion of his character, and careless, untruthful,
dishonest and dishonorable in another, the fact
that he was in part righteous would not favor
his standing in the community as an honest
man and would unquestionably throw doubt
on everything that he might say or do. It
would be an impossible defense for him to
say, "I tell the truth on moral subjects, I only
misrepresent and falsify when I come to
questions of history or science."

That the Bible is not intended chiefly as a
textbook in human learning is imquestionably
true ; but if the Bible is untruthful or untrust-
worthy in its statements on this subject, no
thoroughly sane man will accept it as an au-
thority regarding conduct and destiny. It has
what might be called an average value. This
is true of any book ; it is also true of the Bible.
"From one, know all" is an old motto which
cannot be pressed too far but which certainly
has an application here. If the Pentateuch

1 8 Visions and Voices

throughout represents itself as the word of
Moses when in fact it is a compilation of
documents the oldest of which was written
five hundred years after Moses died, then its
pretense to Mosaic authorship is a lie. The
fact that men who criticize the Bible do not
use this term freely is no reason why we
should omit it. Lying is lying no matter what
it is called, and for men to declare that repre-
sentations which the Bible makes concerning
itself are not trustworthy, are not reliable,
means simply that they are not true. It is
simpler and better that men should say pre-
cisely what they mean in a language which can
be understood.

In the book of Job we are told that there was
a man in the land of Uz who bore this name.
His character is described and events are set
forth said to have occurred during a portion
of his life. There is no hint in the book from
beginning to end that the writing is a parable
or consists of any other form of symbolic
teaching. The teaching is clear, "there was a
man in the land of Uz whose name was Job."

So Jonah is named in his own prophecy as
a man. The work which he was called to do
is specified. His attempt to avoid that task is
described. His after obedience is set forth

Importance of the Question 19

and the results thereof. Now if one man
should speak to another man sitting in his own
parlor as the Bible speaks of these men, not
to mention others, and if thereafter it should
be found that there were no such individuals
as were named, that no such events as
he declared to have occurred ever took
place, he would be looked upon simply as a
liar. What is more, he would be one, and if
his neighbors learned the facts in the case his
character for truth and veracity would be
destroyed.

Yes or No.

Is the Bible God's word or man's word or
an indefinite, undefined mixture of the two?
This is a plain man's question and an honest
scholar should give a straightforward answer.
Millions of human beings have gone into
eternity relying upon the representations made
in this Book. Right or wrong, good or ill,
they have believed that they have here a reve-
lation from Almighty God. A dying man has
a right to the truth. A living man has a right
to it, but to deceive one who is pushing off
from the world into the vast and unknown
eternity seems to be a specially wicked trans-
action. It is greatly to be desired that men

20 Visions and Voices

who profess to expound the Scriptures should
make up their minds in regard to this matter.
The question of the authorship of the Bible
is not an unimportant question. It deserves
a simple, straightforward answer which a
common man can understand. To throw a
flood of ink into the question as the cuttlefish
darkens the water when pursued by an enemy,
is a procedure which cannot be admired from
the standpoint of Christianity or manhood.

Hundreds of thousands of ministers are
taking texts from the Bible from which to
preach sermons. Millions of children are be-
ing taught in our Lord's Day schools that in
some way or other this Book contains a reve-
lation from God which ought to control their
lives. Tens of thousands of simple men be-
lieve that if they could adjust their lives to
this Book they would get help against their
sins. Tens of thousands of sick and burdened
people read the words of Jesus, the Psalms of
David or the Gospel of John and find rest and
comfort because they believe these words to
be divine. These people are living in a fool's
paradise if that Book is not what it professes
to be. No man has a right to say that the
question of authorship is unimportant. No
man has a right to say that the truth is true

Importance of the Question 21

no matter who says it and that therefore we
may dismiss the question of BibUcal author-
ship as unimportant. If God wrote this Book,
then men can rely upon it. If man wrote the
Book, men cannot rely upon it, for while it
may be true in streaks or spots it is not re-
liable as a book and therefore should never
be placed before the public as a safe guide to
conduct. Whatever men may hold respect-
ing the authorship of the Bible, they have no
right to hold, to believe or to teach that the
question of its origin is an unimportant one.

Bible or Nothing.

Among the many reasons for the importance
of this question is the fact that if the Bible
is not a revelation from God then we have no
such revelation. There have been many so-
called sacred books. The scholarship of the
world has been digging at them for a hundred
years or more. Many of them have been trans-
lated into English. All of them have a clear
and well-defined character. The Koran, the
bible of the Mohammedans, is accessible to
anyone who Vvishes to know what it teaches.
Max Mueller's work on the holy books of
India is known to all scholars. Missionaries
have been working in China for more than a

22 Visions and Voices

hundred years, and the teachings of Confucius
are as accessible as the orations of Wendell
Phillips or Charles Sumner. From time to
time learned men from pagan lands have
visited our country for the purpose of adver-
tising and recommending their religions. We
have already quite a large number of joss-
houses and Buddhist temples in this country.
These writings can be tested and compared
with the Bible as to their doctrine of man, of
sin, and of salvation. Their teachings con-
cerning the character and state of women and
children can be ascertained. World study has
now gone forward so far that the home life,
the political institutions, the industrial condi-
tions, the mercantile customs, the educational
view of heathen nations, can be known as well
as those of our own country.

I do not hesitate to say that there has never
been revealed in connection with the study of
the holy books of the world anything which
would lead a sane and honest man to propose
for a single instant a substitution of some
other bible for our Bible. I think that Hin-
dus, Chinamen and Persians, even those who
are yet idolators among them, would admit
that the Bible in its moral teachings, in its
social and political influence is immeasurably

Importance of the Question 23

superior to the customs which they have con-
sidered divine. Who would, for example,
even suggest that the position of women and
children in Christian lands should be altered
to conform to the teachings of the sacred
books of the Eastern world? What teacher
would propose that a wife should worship her
husband, should wash his feet and drink the
water in which she had washed them ? What
teacher would propose the adoption of the
Chinese method of disposing of wives and
children? What teacher, even an Oriental,
if he had fairly good sense, would propose
foot-binding as a universal custom for the
women of the world ?

If now our own Bible is infinitely superior
to these other bibles, how unfortunate it would
be if it should prove in the end that our Bible
has gained its position through misrepresen-
tation and falsehood, that it is in reality not
God's book but man's. Undoubtedly it would
have a certain place in human life because of
its proved excellence, but as soon as it had
been decided that its claims to divine origin
are false, that it cannot be relied upon to
tell the truth about itself or about historic and
scientific facts, no man would consider himself
bound by its teachings. Men who wished to

24 Visions and Voices

hallow the Lord's Day would hallow it. Those
who did not wish to hallow it would treat it as
a common thing and would not be condemned
by their consciences for so doing. Men who
wished to live clean lives would lead them.
Men who did not wish to live clean lives
would become vile and corrupt without the
sense of shame and guilt which now is part
of the penalty visited upon their transgres-
sions. Civil laws which have been established
because of Christian teaching would more or
less rapidly lose their preeminence and we
should find that the social, industrial and
political life of our own country would ap-
proximate that of China, India, Turkey or
Africa.

I remember that when I first read the chap-
ter on the penalties inflicted in China on act-
ual or alleged criminals it made me sick for
days. I could not think of the sufferings in-
flicted on poor human bodies without the
keenest distress, but if we have no Bible we
are to look on chapters in human history like
that as really divine as are the manners and
customs of Christian lands.

Who Wrote the Bible?
Who wrote the Bible? There is no ques-

Importance of the Question 25

tion at the present time before the thoughtful
people of the world more important than this,
and the answer will determine for good or ill
the lives of millions of men and women like
those who read these words. Archimedes
said if you would give him a fulcrum on
which to rest his lever he would move the
world. He never found the place to rest his
lever and the world has gone on in its old-
fashioned way from his day to the present
time. The Bible is a fulcrum on which the
religious teachers of the world have rested
their levers for the purpose of lifting the
human race to a clearer atmosphere. Wherever
the Bible has gone results have followed
which are most desirable even in the opinions
of godless men. Infidels with their smooth
tongues and their hard faces have never dared
to assail the domestic life which has been
produced by Bible lovers in Bible lands. On
the contrary they laud this and speak as if it
might be produced without the Book which
alone has caused it. But when they are asked
to furnish the evidence, to show the homes in
the countries where gentleness, purity,
honesty and helpfulness prevail apart from
the influence of the Word of God, a great
silence comes over them. They say that the

26 Visions and Voices

Bible is not the cause of the results which
every thoughtful man attributes to it, which
no thoughtful man can attribute to any other
force in human society, but they do not tell
what will do this work.

I close this chapter asking all who read it
to seek to imagine what would be the condi-
tion of the world today if the Bible had never
been known. I urge them to compare the
conditions of the lands where the Bible is
known with the condition of the lands where
it is not known. I urge them to ask the ques-
tion what it was which began the change from
savagery to civilization. There are a thou-
sand things in Christendom which we must
look upon with shame and sorrow. The
present world war is the latest great example,
but all those who are fairly well informed
know that the Bible is not chargeable with the
crimes which its enemies or its half-friends
commit. No man who knows what the
teachings of Jesus Christ are will declare that
this war or any other war is a result of liv-
ing according to those teachings. In the Bible
we are commanded to think upon the things
which are lovely and of good report. We are
charged to avoid all those spiritual states and
acts which lead to the wholesale murders

Importance of the Question 27

which are now going forward throughout the
world. There are a few of us, perhaps, who
have seen in individuals, in homes, in commu-
nities, the marvelous changes wrought by the
Word of God. We have therefore a right
to insist upon our question. Who wrote the
Bible? If God has not written it, why has it
produced the marvels it has wrought? If
God did not write it, what shall we do for
guidance in conduct for ourselves and those
depending upon us? More important than
questions of industrial life or government pol-
icy is this great question as to the authorship
of this wonderful Book.

CHAPTER 11.

THE BIBLE STATEMENT AS TO THE

FACTS OR WHAT THE BIBLE

SAYS FOR ITSELF.

Dr. Bowne in his "Psychological Founda-
tions" contrasts the method of rigor and
vigor with the rational method. He says
that the method of rigor and vigor requires
us to use no terms which are not defined and
no propositions which are not proved; that
the rational method requires us to accept
terms in their ordinary meaning unless there
is a reason for rejecting them, to believe
statements to be true unless there is some
reason for doubt. He says truly that under
the method of rigor and vigor it is impossible
to get anywhere; that in every science, as in
geometry, there must be universally admitted
truths lying at the foundations and from these
universally admitted truths we may pass to
truths which are not obvious in themselves.

To doubt everything that can be doubted
and to believe only that which is proved
is a method for the insane rather than for

The Bible Statement 29

rational beings. An objector might ask, "Why
do you wish to know what the Bible says for
itself? Of course the Bible will speak well
of itself. This is naturally true. But it is
poor evidence. We need to establish the di-
vine character of the Bible from outside tes-
timony rather than from its own statements."
It may be admitted that one's own testimony
must be accepted with a measure of doubt.
Corroboration in such a case will always be
in order. At the same time the testimony
which a man or a book or an institution bears
concerning itself is always important, and in
the case of the Bible certainly ought to be
understood and, if corroborated by sufficient
proofs, may be accepted. If there should
prove to be real evidence going to show that
the Bible's claims for itself as to origin
and character are not true, these evidences
must be weighed. Everything must be fair-
ly considered. The rule here is the rule which
we should follow everywhere.

Assume Nothing, Deny Nothing, Test
Everything.

Every once in a while I run across a state-
ment something like this: 'The Bible is
literature and must be regarded like all other

30 Visions and Voices

literature. We must examine and test it just
as we do other books." This statement has
an appearance of truth and yet contains a
fatal error. Supposing accusations should be
made against the character of the mother of
the person who is reading these words. He
is told that his mother is a human being like
all other people and that the charges against
her ought to be regarded by him just as
similar charges against any other woman
would be. My reader would probably say,
"Well, but I know my mother, I have known
her ever since I was a little child. I know
what sort of a woman she is and I will not
examine the charges affecting her character
as I would those of a person I did not know
at all or one whom I knew to be of evil char-
acter. I mean to accept proofs and testi-
mony, but I shall require more and different
evidences to establish charges against my
mother than I would require to establish
charges against a person who was a stranger
or one whose character I knew to be bad."
Every reasonable person would say that my
reader was speaking quite within his rights,
that he would not only be unfilial but that he
would be a fool to examine charges against
one whom he had known for, let us say, forty

The Bible Statement 31

years, as a worthy and excellent person, in
exactly the same temper and state of mind
with which he would come to the study of
similar charges against a person of different
character.

I think the application of this remark is
obvious. The Bible has been in the world in
part for about four thousand years. It has
had a completed existence for near two
thousand years. It has been scrutinized as
no other book ever has been. Friends and
foes alike have devoted years of patient, per-
severing study to its books and pages. The
one class of men have endeavored to ascertain
whether it was evil or not; the other have
endeavored to prove it evil. It has been trans-
lated as no other book in the history of the
world ever was translated. It is printed today
in nearly or quite five hundred different lan-
guages, and whenever a savage people is dis-
covered in some out-of-the-way corner of the
world, one of the first things that the mission-
ary does is to create a language for the people
and then put the Bible into their native tongue.
We have here, then, a Book which has ex-
isted in completed form for nearly two thou-
sand years and which has been already put
into over five hundred different languages.

32 Visions and Voices

Here are two searching tests, but there is a
third.

This Book in place of being a book for
curious scholars has everywhere been recog-
nized as a book for the common people.
There are, it is true, costly editions printed,
editions costing in single copies scores or
hundreds of dollars. On the other hand, it
is printed in editions of the cheapest sort so
that the whole Bible has been sold for twenty-
five cents or about that. The volumes printed
annually have increased in number from the
beginning until now. Last year, 191 5, the
publication reached high-water mark, over
twenty-nine millions of copies of the whole
or portions of the Word of God having been
put out during those twelve months — over
eight million by the British and Foreign
Bible Society, over six million by the Ameri-
can Bible Society, over three million by the
Scottish Bible Society, about one million by
the Oxford Press, and thousands and tens of
thousands and hundreds of thousands by other
publishers. Here is a most remarkable fact.
Some infidel comes along writing a little
book filled with blasphemies and vagaries and
says, *'My book is literature and the Bible is
literature. You are to examine what I say

The Bible Statement 33

against the Bible candidly and with the same
willingness to accept it that you give to what
the Bible says concerning itself." This is
absurd beyond the limits of impudence. If
my friend who says we must treat the Bible
as literature would say we must treat the Bible
as we treat all other literature of the same
class, that would do. That is a rational po-
sition to occupy. But to treat literature
which has been tested through thousands of
years by millions of people as we treat the
vagaries or even the excellent work of writers
who have as yet failed to produce a deep
and permanent impression upon the world,
is simple nonsense. Take the matter of
manuscripts alone. I do not profess to speak
with authority, but men who do, tell us that
for Caesar, Virgil, Ovid, Xenophon, Thucyd-
ides, Aristophanes or other classic writers a
score or two of copies of manuscripts is about
all that we can generally find. It is from this
score or two of manuscripts that questions of
text are determined and place in the literary
world is made out. On the other hand, the
New Testament furnishes us something like
two thousand manuscripts, the Old Testament
hundreds more, and this although it is known
that for many years both civil and ecclesiasti-

34 Visions and Voices

cal authority was exerted to the utmost to de-
stroy all copies of this Book. No one ever
gathered copies of the classic writers, piled
them in courtyards and burned them, but this
has been commonplace in the history of the
Word of God, and yet we are asked to treat
the Bible as literature, to assume nothing for
it that we cannot assume for the ignoble work
of men whose writings never have had its
vast circulation and which are at the present
time valued only by a few students.

■ To THE Place of Beginning.

I therefore return to the question with
which I started. What does the Bible say for
itself? Does it make any declarations as to
its origin? If so, what are they? We cer-
tainly have a right to hear them. Whether
they shall be accepted or not will depend. If
they are clearly irrational and contradictory,
we must reject them. If they have an ap-
pearance of truth and if there is no contradict-
ing evidence, then we must accept them. We
must deal honestly with the Book. This is
required by common sense and common fair-
ness.

One of the first facts which we meet when
we begin this discussion is the continual re-

The Bible Statement 35

currence of the expressions "The Lord said,"
"The Lord spake," "The Lord said," "The
Lord spake." I have never counted the
number of times that these expressions occur
in the Word of God, but that they are so com-
mon they must be numbered by hundreds of
times all Bible readers know. When the
Bible says, "And the Lord said," and "The
Lord spake," what is the obvious inference?
It is that God communicated the words which
follow to some writer who recorded them and
that they have been preserved from that day
until this present time. There is perhaps no
one alleged author of the Bible whose work
has been so sharply criticized as that of Moses,
yet more frequently than in the case of any
other individual do we have this expression as-
sociated with his name, "And the Lord said
unto Moses," and "the Lord spake unto
Moses," and finally we have it recorded that
the Lord told Moses to write in a book things
which He had spoken to him. And the record
goes on to say that Moses did what God told
him to do. "And Moses wrote this law, and
delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi,
which bare the ark of the covenant of the
Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel. And
Moses commanded them, saying. At the end

36 Visions and Voices

of every seven years, in the solemnity of the
year of release, in the feast of tabernacles,
when all Israel is come to appear before the
Lord thy God in the place which he shall
choose, thou shalt read this law before all
Israel in their hearing. Gather the people
together, men, and women, and children, and
thy stranger that is within thy gates, that
they may hear, and that they may learn, and
fear the Lord your God, and observe to do
all the words of this law" (Deut. 31, verses
9 to 12). And again in the same chapter,
verse 22, we find these words : "Moses there-
fore wrote this song the same day and taught
it to the children of Israel." And in the 24th
to 26th verses, "And it came to pass, when
Moses had made an end of the writing the
words of this law in a book, until they were
finished, that Moses commanded the Levites,
which bare the ark of the covenant of the
Lord, saying. Take this book of the law, and
put it in the side of the ark of the covenant
of the Lord your God, that it may be there
for a witness against thee." The whole
tenor of the book is in this same line though
the thought is not always so positively ex-
pressed. It seems as if God laid the emphasis
on the work which was to be denied or else

The Bible Statement 37

that infidel writers have chosen to deny that
which God had particularly emphasized. But
though there is no other author whose con-
nection with the Book is so positively and so
frequently examined, there is throughout the
whole series of books of the Bible a clear
claim of divine authority for the things which
are written.

Job, another of the books which is frequent-
ly questioned as to authenticity, is referred
to in the New Testament as an evidence of
the promise-keeping of God. The saints are
taught to think of Job and to see how merci-
ful God is to His believing ones. "Behold,
we count them happy which endure. Ye have
heard of the patience of Job, and have seen
the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very
pitiful and of tender mercy" ( Jas. 5:12). We
have also in the New Testament the explicit
declaration that all the Scriptures are given
by inspiration of God and are profitable for
doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in
righteousness (II Timothy 3:16). And Peter
says substantially the same thing in his second
letter, first chapter, verses 19-21 : "We have
also a more sure word of prophecy; where-
unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a
light that shineth in a dark place, until the

38 Visions and Voices

day dawn, and the day star arise in your
hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy
of the scripture is of any private interpreta-
tion. For the prophecy came not in old time
by the will of man: but holy men of God
spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost." And finally, we have in the last
chapter of the Book these wonderful words:
"For I testify unto every man that heareth
the words of the prophecy of this book. If
any man shall add unto these things, God shall
add unto him the plagues that are written in
this book: And if any man shall take away
from the words of the book of this prophecy,
God shall take away his part out of the book of
life, and out of the holy city, and from the
things which are written in this book." It is
admitted that these imprecations have special
reference to the book of Revelation, but it
seems to me as if they have also backward
reference that should make all people who
deal lightly and carelessly with the prophets
or history in the different books of the Bible
very much afraid.

So Much for the Positive.

On the other hand, there is no intimation
in the Book from beginning to end that

The Bible Statement 39

any considerable portion of it is written with-
out divine authority. The only exceptions, I
believe, are those where Paul once or twice
says that he speaks certain things not by com-
mandment but of himself ; and in another case
w^here he says that he believes himself to
have the Spirit of God. There is here no
denial of the divine supervision and control,
but it is admitted that expressions of this
kind cast a certain measure of doubt on the
particular passages with which they are con-
nected. If, however, these should be re-
jected, the Book would remain in every essen-
tial particular what it is today. We have
therefore this singular state of fact in refer-
ence to the Bible's claim for itself. Wherever
it speaks definitely as to authorship and re-
sponsibility, it claims for itself divine author-
ity. Nowhere except in the two or three
small instances above referred to is there any
intimation that God is not the responsible
Author of the whole work. We therefore
conclude that it is the purpose of the Bible
to claim for itself divine authorship. If this
is not true, if the Bible did come by the will
of men rather than by inspiration of God,
if it was not written by holy men as God
directed them, then the Book is in many in-

40 Visions and Voices

stances evidently lying and throughout seems
to be endeavoring to secure faith for a fraud.
It is a fair question whether or not a book
having the general character of the Bible
could possibly be a book of this description.
Liars and cheats have usually a reason for
cheating and lying. If the Bible was written
by men without divine impulse and if these
men who wrote the Bible in this manner
wished to get the world to believe that there
was a godly origin for the Book, then cer-
tainly we should expect the Book to show
in its character marks of this sort of an ori-
gin. We should not expect it to be high in
moral tone, lofty in diction and style, but
the shabby spirit which animated it we should
expect to clothe itself in shabby dress. On
the other hand, it is claimed, I believe, by
those who wish to study the Bible simply as
literature, that never since the thoughts of
men were recorded in permanent form has
there been a book written which in diction and
style compares for a moment with this Book.
The wonderful poems of David expressing
so beautifully the universal longings of
the human heart, the orations of the patriot
prophets Isaiah, Ezekial, Jeremiah, the limpid,
crystal-clear biographies, all these seem to be

The Bible Statement 41

absolutely inconsistent with the theory that
the Bible is the work of a number of cheap,
deceitful, fraud-loving men. If we meet a
man on the street and he tells us that his
name is Smith, Jones or Brown, we naturally
believe that what he says is true. If we see
that he has a hangdog look, if we find that
he is accustomed to change his dwelling often
without settling his rent, if we learn that he
has been arrested a few times and on each
occasion has given a different name, we natu-
rally question about Smith, Jones or Brown
as the case may be. But if we find that the
man looks us squarely in the face and his
eyes are clear and honest, his tones unfalter-
ing; if we find that his reputation is that of
an honest, industrious, truthful man, then we
accept his statement that his name is Smith,
Jones or Brown. If someone chooses to throw
doubt upon it on the ground that many men
tell lies, that there are a great many persons
traveling under aliases, we say. Nevertheless,
this man looks like an honest man, acts like
an honest man, speaks like an honest man.
Until we have some specific charge of bad
faith to bring aginst him we accept his state-
ment at face value and we believe that he is
Smith, Jones or Brown.

42 Visions and Voices

The Bible is entitled to similar treatment.
In many instances it explicitly declares itself
to record words which God Himself said.
Through the entire sixty-six books this claim
to divine authority is an undertone felt if not
distinctly uttered. In a number of instances
the claim to divine authority is set up in a.
general way. "All scripture is given by in-
spiration of God." The word "scripture"
used here had a clearly defined meaning. No
Jew had any doubt as to what it meant. It
referred primarily to the Old Testament. It
referred in a secondary way to those portions
of the New Testament which were already
written, and this claim must be accepted until
there is some reason for doubt. The method
of rigor and vigor is an absolute failure. It
breaks down at the very threshold of human
reasoning. We are not to doubt everything
we can doubt and to believe only that which
is proved; but if we wish to act rationally,
we must believe what is affirmed to be true
until we have some reason for questioning.
And this reason must be a definite, positive
reason ; general remarks about the uncertainty
of human testimony, etc., etc., have no stand-
ing in the court of reason any more than they
have in a court of law.

CHAPTER III.
HOW COULD GOD WRITE A BOOK?

At times men have said to me as if they
were asking a question impossible of reply.
You do not suppose that God dictated the Bible
as you dictate a letter to a stenographer, do
you ? And I answer. Why not ? We stumble
here on the question of thought communica-
tion. Everyone knows that we communicate
our thoughts and feelings by words, looks and
acts. If a man scowls, shakes his fist in my
face and advances toward me in a threatening
manner, I do not have to ask him how he is
feeling. I know how he is feeling. This is
one of the common methods of communicating
feeling. Thoughts are usually expressed in
words or by actions. If I say to a man,
"Which way did that man go ?" and he points
down the street or says, "He went down the
street," in either case I know the thought
which has passed through his mind. If a
person writes a letter to me and I am able
to understand the language which he uses, I
know his thoughts because I read them ex-

44 Visions and Voices

pressed in words. These are the common
methods of expressing thoughts among hu-
man beings.

But supposing God wished to talk with men,
as the Bible over and again affirms that He
did. What then? Shall we imagine that it
will be difficult for God to communicate His
thoughts because He has not a body like a
man, because He cannot speak into our ears
or write a communication for our eyes? It
would seem to be an absurd statement to say
that God Who has made man cannot commu-
nicate His thoughts to the men whom He has
made. If men are able to communicate their
thoughts to one another and God is not able
to communicate His thoughts to them, it seems
that they are in essential particulars greater
than He. When, therefore, someone asks me
how God could write a book, I ask him how
men write books, and I say to him that un-
doubtedly God is as capable of writing a book
as a man is ; that if He chooses to write one,
undoubtedly He will be able to do it.

Let us, however, go a step farther than
this general affirmation. We ourselves are
spirits housed in organisms and operating
through them. Our voices do not speak
words which the voices determine but words

How Could God Write a Book 45

which our minds determine. Our hands do
not write words which the hands decide upon,
they write words which our minds decide
upon. We do not express in looks or words
thoughts which arise in the skin or in the
vocal organs or in the muscles, but we ex-
press thoughts and feelings which arise in our
inner being. This is the source of all human
communication. From within, out of the
heart, proceed not only the evil deeds of
men but the good deeds of men.

Death to us is commonplace. *There is no
flock howe'er so well defended but one dead
lamb is there," and we know that when the
body has dropped away, the spirit can no
longer employ it for the expression of its am-
bitions, hopes and fears. Do we, therefore,
imagine the spirit to be dead and powerless ?
There is a little handful of Christian people
who thus believe, but the vast majority of
men and women of Christian faith have be-
lieved and believe now that when the body
has dropped away the spirit can communicate
its thoughts and perform its acts much more
fully and freely than now. It would be a
singular faith that should lead us to believe
that the millions of persons who have gone
into eternity are shut up each to his own in-

46 Visions and Voices

dividual life. I do not think anyone believes
this to be possible. If not, then the spirit
must be able to communicate with spirit with-
out physical resources, and if finite spirits can
communicate with finite spirits, surely the In-
finite Spirit can communicate with finite
spirits.

God in Human Form.

No person who believes in God at all doubts
that He can assume human form if He de-
sires to do so. If God can create human
forms for the occupation of finite spirits, cer-
tainly He could create a human form for the
housing of His own Infinite Spirit if He
wished to do so. This is the explanation pf
the being of our Lord Jesus Christ, mani-
fested in the flesh.

Reflection on this subject will show that if
God wishes to dictate a message to any of His
people it is a simple thing for Him to do so.
He could if He pleased speak into the ears
of men or He could control the hands of men
so that they should write the things that He
wished them to write and nothing else. In
this manner He seems to have given to David
the directions for building the temple (I
Chronicles 28:19). There is no limit to the

How Could God Write a Book 47

methods in which God might have dictated
the Bible to His servants if He desired to
do so.

If we choose to believe those who deny
divine authority to the Word of God and af-
firm human authorship, we should be landed
in a thousand difficulties. In the first place,
how could sinful men write a book which is
so lofty in moral tone as the Bible, command-
ing everything that is right, forbidding every-
thing wrong and denouncing the most fear-
ful judgments upon people who will not do
things which are right? How could men
have ever deliberately set out to write a law
like this ? Allow that the Book is man's work,
and how are we to account for the fact that it
frankly sets forth the follies and failures of
God's people ? We should never have known
that Noah got drunk except that the Bible
had told us so. We may be quite sure that
courtiers would never have recorded the sins
of David. There is no record anywhere so
far as known of his failure in moral char-
acter except in the Word of God. The disciples
of our Lord Himself were, according to their
own account, full of human frailty. They dis-
puted for preeminence even in the shadow of
His cross; and Peter, one of the chief est of

48 Visions and Voices

them, one who is by the Roman church con-
sidered its founder, received that frightful
rebuke, *'Get thee behind me, Satan/* It is
not customary for men to recite their own
failures, to put them into permanent form
where after ages will think of them. If men
wrote the Book, how are we to account for
the fact that men in such social and intel-
lectual surroundings should have written a
Book which is a model of composition for
all after ages? University professors by the
score are now busying themselves with the
Bible as literature, some of them are commit-
ting large portions of it to memory and earn-
ing fees for reciting it. Others of them are
writing literary criticisms on it as a means of
getting money. It is incredible that men of
the Jewish race, two or three thousand years
ago, should have created a literature which is
a model for all the ages since.

If this was man's Book, how are we to
account for its continued life? Books which
men write generally die. They become out
of date, worn out. New books supplant them.
Everyone knows how this is in regard to hymn
books for our churches and Sabbath schools.
There is a stream of new writings all the
while. Everyone knows how it is in science.

How Could God Write a Book 49

A scientific book ten years old is generally
out of date. Yet here is a Book which has
lived on for two thousand years and in place
of seeming about to perish it has a wider cir-
culation today than ever before.

No matter in what direction you turn, if
you accept the theory of human authorship
you are landed in the midst of difficulties.
If, on the other hand, God is the author of
the Book, its moral tone, its literary character
and its ever- increasing life are all explained.
If God should take it upon Himself to write
a book for the guidance of human beings,
we should expect it to be perfect in moral
standards; we should expect it to be perfect
in literary style ; we should know that it would
be vital ; that it would have in it life, and this
is what we have in the Word of God.

CHAPTER IV.

VISIONS AND VOICES.

"We have also a more sure word of
prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take
heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark
place, until the day dawn, and the day star
arise in your hearts." What did the Holy
Spirit intend when He moved Peter to say, "A
more sure word of prophecy" ? In the verses
which immediately precede this 19th verse of
2nd Peter, Chapter I, Peter had said that the
Lord Jesus had shown him that he must short-
ly die. He says that he was an eye-witness
of His Majesty and that he heard a voice cer-
tifying to His character from the heavens
above saying, "This is my beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased"; and then he pro-
ceeds to say, "We have also a more sure word
of prophecy to which we do well to take
heed." More sure than what? Perhaps
more sure than this personal communication
with the Lord Jesus Christ. Possibly more
sure than the vision of His transcendent
glory, possibly more sure than the voice which

Visions and Voices 51

came from heaven saying, This is my beloved
Son; we have also a more sure word of
prophecy. Why was the word of prophecy
more sure than the vision and the voice?

I remember a lady who once told me she
was certain she was a Christian, and when I
asked her the reason she said because when
she was a young child she had a vision of the
Lord Jesus. He came into her room, stood at
the foot of her bed and told her that she was
really a Christian and that she was going to
heaven. "Since that time," she said, "I have
had no question in my mind about it. I am
sure that I am saved." Of course I did not
attempt to destroy her faith. It is better to
have an ill-founded faith in a truth or in a
good thing than to have no faith at all. But
how small an evidence she had ! How pitiful
that she did not have the evidence of a more
sure word of prophecy !

Charles Spurgeon said one day in his pulpit,
"If an angel from heaven were to meet me as
I go into the vestry and say to me, 'Charles
Spurgeon, your sins are all forgiven, you are
a child of God,' I would say to him, *It is true
I am, but I do not thank you for telling me
so. I know it on far better evidence than
yours/ " He was speaking on the certainty

52 Visions and Voices

of the Word of God and the fact that Chris-
tians who believe the Word of God know
themselves to be saved, not because of some
experiences which they have had, but because
of the word which God Himself has spoken.
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting
life." This is the word of God. If it is true
and one believes it, then he has everlasting
life and he does not need an angel to come
and assure him of the fact. He has the word
of God.

Years ago there was an ignorant lad work-
ing in a blacksmith shop not far away from
my home who was being badgered by an older
Christian who ought to have known better
than to do as he did. The older Christian
said to him, "Now, you are a Christian ; now,
you are saved, I suppose ?" And the lad said,
"Yes, 1 am." The older one said to him,
"How do you know that you are a Christian ?
How do you know that you are saved ?" The
babe in Christ did not know what to say, but,
availing himself of the Yankee privilege of
answering one question by asking another, he
said, "Are you saved?" The older man said,
"Yes, I am saved, thank God." The lad went
on, "How do you know it?" And the older
man said, "I have the word of God for it."

Visions and Voices 53

This gave the younger man his cue and he
said, "So have I."

Feelings change. They change with the
wind, with the weather, with physical condi-
tion, with spiritual state; but the Word of
God does not change. It abides ever the
same. If one of my readers should tonight
have a vision of Jesus Christ, should hear
a voice from heaven assuring him of his ac-
ceptance, I do not doubt he would be awed
and moved. If he is simply reading the
promises of God, "Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy
house," he may have no such exultant feeling.
This statement was made to the jailor and to
all persons in the jailor's situation, and it does
not impress him as the vision or the voice
would, but the vision and the voice pass while
the Word of God abides forever. This is the
comfort that comes to those who know the
Word of God to be what it professes to be.

Marvels Lose Their Power.

Another fact respecting visions and voices
is that by repetition they lose their impressive-
ness. If a man were to be raised from the
dead by the word of a disciple in one of our
churches, when the word passed out among

54 Visions and Voices

the people crowds would throng to see the
place where the marvel had occurred and all
of them would hope that they might see some-
thing of the same sort; but most of them
would not see something of the same sort,
and if they did and it were repeated twenty or
thirty times, it would largely lose its power.
Those who wished to go to hear and to see,
would go. But the busy multitudes would say,
"We are occupied with life, trying to provide
for daily needs. We will let dead men take care
of themselves." Perhaps this is the reason why
there is such a divine economy of the miracu-
lous in the Word of God. Careless readers
think of the Bible as full of miracles, but if
they will count they will be disabused of this
opinion. There are a number of miracles re-
corded but these cluster about the deliverance
of God's people from Egypt, the coming of
our Lord and the establishing of the church.
All can see that there was a reason for mir-
acles at such times as these and all can see
that, after the people had been established in
their own land, after Jesus had come, after
He had spoken to the people, had been rejected
by His own, had been accepted by the few,
after the church had been planted, its teach-
ings had become known and the 'snarvels upon

Visions and Voices 55

which it rested for a first faith had been suf-
ficiently certified, then the miracles naturally
would drop out. God does not waste His
time or His energy. He furnishes evidence
enough for the faith of an honest man. A
person who will reject sufficient evidence will
reject all evidence. If a man will not believe
when he has proofs enough to satisfy a rea-
sonable person, he will not believe at all, and
God does not seek to force faith. He says,
"He that believeth shall be saved ; he that be-
lieveth not shall be condemned." Saved be-
cause he believes the truth, condemned be-
cause he rejects the truth. This is plain and
reasonable. Anyone can see that it is what
ought to be.

Speaking with Tongues.

The principle just stated has something to
do with a subject which is awakening much
thought in our own time. I refer to speaking
with tongues. One of my truest and best friends
became so earnest about this gift that he had
people praying for him that he might receive
it. He did not receive it. He was a thoughtful;
earnest Christian man. I think he was occu-
pied by the Holy Spirit. He had been for
years. I believe it was a mistake for him to

56 Visions and Voices

desire this gift. If he had prayed for the
gift of healing, I could have seen more reason
for that, or for the gifts of an apostle or of a
prophet or of a teacher, but I could never un-
derstand why anyone should especially desire
the gift of speaking with unknown tongues. I
can well understand why a person should de-
sire ability to speak in a language which the
public could understand. It seems to me that it
would be delightful to be able to go to Japan,
to India, to China, to the islands of the sea and
speak without the labor of learning the lan-
guage of the people of those countries. So far
as I know, it has never been done since the
Day of Pentecost. On that particular occa-
sion when the church was to be launched, men
who spoke some fifteen or twenty different
languages heard the apostles, Galileans, speak-
ing each man in his mother tongue. There
was a reason for this. It was the launching
of the Christian church, a movement which
has continued with ever-increasing power up
to this present moment. I believe that today
if there were an equal occasion there would be
the same result. I am not disposed to deny,
though perhaps I may doubt, that there have
been individual instances in which men have
acquired languages so rapidly that the work

Visions and Voices 57

was practically miraculous; but speaking in
tongues, which are not known to the person
who speaks and not known to the person who
listens, seems to be so nearly useless that one
would not believe such a thing to have
occurred unless it were stated in the Word of
God.

Paul gives a true estimate of this sort of
gift when he says, "I would rather speak five
words with my understanding than ten thou-
sand words in an unknown tongue" (I Cor.
14:19). In this connection he says that he
speaks with tongues more than all the rest of
them. I do not deny that he may have spoken
in what is now called tongues. He may have
done so. If he did, he did not highly value
the gift. Five words of understanding he
considered better than ten thousand words
of that sort.

Some years since a good woman in our town
felt that she ought to go to India as a mis-
sionary. She was more than fifty years of
age, as deaf as it is possible for a human
being to be. As I remember her she could
hear absolutely nothing. I remember she said
in a farewell meeting in our church, "I sup-
pose it is counted as a sort of insanity for a
woman of my age and infirmity to go to In-

58 Visions and Voices

dia, but," she said, "in these days God has to
work with most anybody He can get." She
went out to that country. It was just after
the famine. There were literally tens of
thousands of children and others nearly dead
from starvation. She washed them, fed them
and clothed them and was like an angel of
mercy. She returned, after about ten years
of such service, glad and happy that God had
used her as He had.

There are teachers who would say that she
could have no evidence that she had received
the Holy Spirit unless she could talk in words
which nobody understood, not even herself.
This seems to me to be not according to rea-
son or Scripture. Whatever we may think
of this particular subject, we must believe that
the Holy Spirit spoke truthfully and wisely
when He said, "We have a more sure word
of prophecy."

The Bible Is More Sure than Visions and
Voices.

It remains the same through thousands of
years. Visions and voices pass away. The
Bible can be translated into myriads of
tongues. Visions and voices have their little
day and pass. The Bible can be examined by

Visions and Voices 59

millions of humble, earnest students. It has
been examined by millions of such persons,
and if the Lord tarry it will still be examined
by millions more. But the vision and the
voice are for the one or the two who behold
or hear and then pass away. The vision and
the voice, if they were to be repeated,
would lose their power by repetition. The
Word of God, repeated from father to son,
from mother to daughter, from age to age,
and still from age to age, ever grows in power
as it becomes a part of the spiritual fiber of
man.

I suppose that some dl my readers have
wished that they might see visions and hear
heavenly voices. Perhaps some of them have
thought that the evidence of the truth of the
Gospel would be more certain if it were thus
confirmed. Dives thought thus in Hades.
When Abraham said to him that his brothers
had Moses and the prophets and that they
should listen to them, he said, "Nay, father
Abraham: but if one went unto them from
the dead, they will repent." But Abraham
said, No, if they will not hear Moses and the
prophets, they would not believe if one were
to be raised from the dead (Luke 16).

6o Visions and Voices

Death-Bed Repentances.

A common experience in the lives of earnest
workers confirms this testimony of Abra-
ham. When careless and wicked men are
brought down to death, oftentimes they im-
agine themselves repentant and believing.
What the Word has not done, death seems
to do. Many times they furnish such testi-
mony that in Christian charity we are bound
to accept it and believe they are actually
changed. In how many instances, however,
do we find it true that with the passage of
the fear there is also a loss of the faith?
Cases are not unknown, unfortunately they
are not rare, where these death-bed repent-
ances have proved to be the introduction to
lives of frightful wickedness. At times it
seems that the very fear, which has driven men
near to God in professed faith, irritates them
when they come to health and strength and
leads them to grosser wickedness than they
have hitherto known. It is safe to say that
men who will reject the Word of God will not
be seriously affected by anything else. Ex-
ceptions here and there there are. I have my-
self known one man who was converted by
an earthquake. He said to me that when he

Visions and Voices 6i

felt the earth quaking under his feet and saw-
buildings tottering around him he thought it
was time for him to call upon God, but the
visions and voices in most instances are valu-
able for those who believe rather than for
those who are yet unrepentant. God may use
them for anyone. If man will allow Him to
do so, He will, for God is determined to save
all men who will willingly be saved. No man
is lost of whom our Lord does not say, "You
would not come to me that you might be
saved."

But we ought to comfort ourselves with the
thought of the unshaking Word of God. The
marvelous rock of holy Scripture which has
withstood the lashing of all seas through all
ages will stand when the heavens and the earth
have passed away. So if the reader has had
doubts and fears and questions as to the suf-
ficiency of evidence, if he has sometimes even
in heart if not in language desired marvels
that he might believe, let him remember that
he has the Lord Jesus who is quite sufficient
for his needs. Let him seek to live up to the
Word which he has received, and he will find
all the evidences that he can desire.

CHAPTER V.

SHOULD WE SAY WE BELIEVE OR
THAT WE KNOW?

I raise this question because I believe it to
be very important. Should my reader say, I
believe the Bible is the Word of God, or
should he say, I know the Bible is the Word
of God? I do not remember who it is, but
someone defines knowledge as ^'certainty that
something is." To know is to be sure of fact.
If I say I believe, there is in the very word
the shade of uncertainty. If I say I know,
the very utterance helps to confirm faith.
Certainly we have no right to say we know if
we do not know. A humble, beautiful child
of God said to me recently respecting the ill-
ness of his wife which had continued through
years : "I do not believe we ought to say we
have faith when we have not faith." Certain-
ly we ought not nor ought we to say, "I know
the Bible to be the Word of God," when in
our inmost hearts we doubt. But it is well
that we know whether we may know or not.

Should We Say We Believe 63

Knowledge is based upon evidence of some
kind. One who does not consider evidence
will not know, but one who does honestly
consider evidence, if it is sufficient, will know,
and if this is our privilege respecting the
Word of God, certainly it is also our duty.
When we take up v.he Bible, if it is God's
Word and if there is sufficient evidence to
enable us to know that it is the Word of God,
we ought to know and we should be ready
to say, "I know." We have no right to be
uncertain if God has made it possible for us
to be sure. So I invite my reader to reflect
upon the situation and to find out, God help-
ing, whether he has a right to know or not,
whether he has a right to say "I know" or
not, and having reflected and considered the
proofs to take the highest ground which God
is willing for him to occupy.

Limits of Human Understanding.

Years ago a company of English scholars
were gathered and together were considering
some of the great questions respecting Chris-
tian faith and human life. They did not seem
to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion and
finally one of them said, "Is It possible that
we are dealing with subjects where certainty

64 Visions and Voices

is impossible? Ought we not to raise the
question whether or not it is possible for us to
arrive at certainty respecting these matters
of which we have been speaking ?" The result
of this suggestion was that Dr. John Locke
began his essay on "The Limits of the Human
Understanding." It was an epoch-making
book and, together with its criticism by the
great French philosopher Cousin, would con-
stitute a splendid course in logic for any man
who really desired to know how to think. I
have not the time here nor have I the dispo-
sition to review these two great books, but I
desire that the thought which led to the writ-
ing of the essay on the limits of the human
understanding should be clearly defined in the
minds of my friends.

What can a man know and how can a man
know it? Of course I have as an ultimate
question. Can a man know the Bible to be
God's Word or is this one of the things which
is left in the region of the uncertain, the un-
determined? If the limits of the human un-
derstanding are such that we cannot really
know whether the Bible is God's Word or
not, we must do the best we can. If we may
know and if, through intellectual idleness of
spiritual sloth, we refuse to consider the evi-

Should We Say We Believe 65

dence and therefore do not arrive at certainty,
we ought to repent and do the first works.

Sources of Knowledge.

One of the difficulties with careless thinkers
is that they do not understand that different
facts may be ascertained through different
faculties. The senses give us the external
world; we see, we hear, we smell, we taste,
we touch, we weigh, we measure, we divide,
we add, we subtract, we multiply ; and all the
while we are dealing with things, objects of
sense. This is one of the original and au-
thoritative sources of knowledge. The world
of mental activities is not apprehensible by
the senses at all. No man ever saw a hope, or
smelled a fear, or tasted a desire, or measured
a will. Certain nervous reactions which are
associated with these psychic movements have
been measured, at least as to time, but the
things themselves are hidden far away beyond
the reach of the senses of man. We know
that we love our friends, that we are irritated
by careless and wicked people, that we con-
sider different possible lines of activity, that
we decide on one line of action or another.
These things we know through consciousness.
The senses do not help us at all. They may

66 Visions and Voices

hinder us. He will arrive at certainty most
surely and most quickly who can separate his
consciousness from sense activity.

Certain facts we know through testimony.
They are not facts of consciousness nor are
they objects of sense perception. Some of
you know of Pekin, of Yokohama, because
you have seen them, but most of us on this
side of the water know them by the testimony
of other people. Shall we say we know or
shall we say we believe ? He would be a very
foolish man who should affirm that only those
can say, I know there is such a city as Pekin,
or I know that the sun is about ninety millions
of miles distant from the earth, who have
themselves personally seen the one or meas-
ured the distance to the other. Human testi-
mony, provided it be adequate, is sufficient for
knowledge. We shut men up in jail on hu-
man testimony, we take away their property
or we take away their lives, and we do not do
these things because we believe but because
we know. Yet our knowledge is derived from
testimony, not from sense perception, not from
consciousness.

Once more, we derive certain knowledge
through the reason not with the intervention
of senses, not in or through consciousness as

Should We Say We Believe (yj

a source. Suppose someone should tell us that
it is true that in this world effects follow
causes and that without causes there cannot be
effects, but that in Jupiter or in Neptune, in
heaven or in hell, there could be changes with-
out forces in operation. What would you say
to him? Suppose he should declare that in
Jupiter stones moved thousands of miles with
no force acting upon them, that buildings were
erected without builders, or that books were
written without authors, and when I objected
he should say, "Well, it is true that in this
world in order to get such effects there must be
appropriate causes, but in Jupiter things are
different." Have I a right to say to him that
what he says is not true? The causes of ac-
tivities in Jupiter may differ from the causes
of activities on the earth, but there cannot be
changes without forces in operation. Have I
a right to say to him, I know this, or should
I say, I believe this? If I know, how do
I know ? Not by the senses, not by conscious-
ness, not by testimony, but by reason, God-
given, God-sustained. This is so evident that
we should consider a man who declared him-
self to be uncertain about the matter lacked
ordinary common sense. We should look upon
him as an idiot or a madman, and we should

68 Visions and Voices

properly consider him so, for reason affirms
the principle of causality. No change with-
out some force in operation and no force in
operation without producing some change. This
is an affirmation of the reason. It is quite as
positive as the affirmations of sense or con-
sciousness or affirmations based upon testi-
mony.

I remember one of my pastors who once
said, speaking of the phrase / know, "It is like
the sword of Goliath, there is none like it."
No man has a right to dwell in the midst of
uncertainties when God has made it possible
for him to be sure. I have run over this bit
of mind study for the purpose of arriving at
a satisfactory answer to the question of this
chapter. Shall I say, I know the Bible is
God's Word, or shall I say, I believe, or I
think, or even I hope?

A Needle and an Anvil.

Take a fine cambric needle in your hand
and consider it attentively. Look at its shape,
feel the smoothness of the lines, the sharp-
ness of the point and look at the delicacy of
the eye. Suppose some man should say to
you when you ask him who made the needle
that a neighbor of his made it with a black-

Should We Say We Believe (yg

smith's hammer on an anvil. You have seen
hammers and anvils, you know what they are
like. You know about the surface of the
anvil and the surface of the blacksmith's ham-
mer, and you pause and you reflect and in-
quire. Your informer insists. He says. Yes,
the blacksmith makes those needles on his an-
vil with a hammer. Do you believe the wit-
ness to tell the truth? Can you believe him if
you desire ? Do you say to him, I doubt your
statement, or do you say to him, Your state-
ment is not true? Of course you seek to be
courteous and you will put your affirmation
into as kindly a language as possible. I am
not merely speaking of form, I am speaking
of fact. Do you know that the cambric needle
is of such character that a man could not
forge it with a blacksmith's hammer on a
blacksmith's anvil, or not?

Supposing a man would say to you that the
Bible was written by man, that God had noth-
ing to do with it except that He made the
men who made the Book. With this great
proposition as a starting point, you begin to
read. You do not read carelessly, thought-
lessly, but carefully and with meditation. You
take up the historic books, you pass through
the books of devotion, you consider the books

70 Visions and Voices

of prophecy, you study the biographies, you
take up the letters and finally you end with
those two wonderful chapters, the twenty-first
and twenty-second of Revelation. You de-
termine as well as you can the times and the
places where these books were written, the
persons by whom they were written. You
examine the effects which they have produced
on the lives of individuals in homes, in com-
munities, in nations. You do not raise any
question of the miraculous, you deal only with
obvious facts. When you have completed a
study of this sort, what have you a right to
say? Can you say, I know this Book to be
the Word of God ? Can you say, I know this
Book to be the work of man? Can you say
I know this Book to be in part divine and in
part human? Can you know anything about
it or are you shut up to doubts, to beliefs, to
thinkings? I am well aware of the fact that
different minds are impressed differently by
the same occurrences. But while this is true
it is also true that all minds are subject to cer-
tain general laws. No sane man can believe
that a baby three years old takes a building
five hundred feet long in his hand and throws
it a hundred yards. It makes no difference
who tells him that it is true. He not only

Should We Say We Believe 71

does not believe it; he says that it is a lie.
And he is quite right, it would be a lie. There
is no advantage in trifling with statements like
this.

Suppose, now, we think of the life of Jesus
Christ as prophesied and revealed in the Word
of God. Suppose some man to tell us that
He was merely a human being. Or suppose
one to do as some have done and tell us that
there never was such a Person at all, that He
is the result of the myth-forming tendency in
the human race. Yet here are the facts.
Throughout the civilized world the cross of
Jesus Christ is lifted into the air from noble
cathedrals, worn on golden chains about the
necks of beautiful women, housed in many
books. Consider the transformations of char-
acter which are continually resulting in mis-
sions, in homes, in churches, and will you say,
I do not believe you are right, or will you say,
I know that you are wrong? Napoleon is
not generally considered to have been espe-
cially fanatical on the subject of Christian
faith, but even he said, "I know men and I
know that Jesus Christ was not a man." I do
not believe that any reasonably intelligent and
fairly honest man can consider candidly the
internal and external evidences for the divine

72 Visions and Voices

character of the Bible without coming to the
conclusion that a human origin for such a
Book is absolutely impossible. I believe that
any such person, having candidly considered
the facts in the case, will not only feel that
he may say "I know" but that as a reasonable
being he must say it. If this is true, we who
hold "the faith once for all delivered to the
saints" have a grave duty to perform. Let
the prophets who have dreams tell them, but
let us who have the Word of God speak it
faithfully. "What is the chaff to the wheat?
saith the Lord."

CHAPTER VI.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY INSPIRA-
TION?

One of the remarkable facts connected with
Biblical criticism is that a certain class of per-
sons seem to delight in using words with
meanings absolutely foreign to those which
they originally bore. Is Jesus Christ divine?
''Certainly He is divine. All men are divine.
You are divine." So this great word which
used to imply Godhead is dwarfed so that
it may mean a drunken pedlar or a dishonest
politician. "Divine? Certainly. Of course
Jesus is divine. All men are divine."

Just so respecting the Word of God. When
in the olden time men said that the Bible was
God-breathed they meant what they said, that
God by supernatural methods communicated
His will to men and that the result of this
communication was the Book which we have
in our hands. This, however, is past and now
men say, "The Bible inspired? Certainly.
Longfellow is inspired. Lowell is inspired.
All good writings are inspired. So the

74 Visions and Voices

Bible is inspired." To be sure this is
not at all what the word "inspiration" used to
mean. But without any definition or explana-
tion the moderns rob this old word of all that
it used to mean. I will not characterize the
moral attitude of such writers harshly. I
content myself with saying that such a method
of dealing with literature is not considered
fairly honest among business men.

The word "evolution" has been subject to
the same unfortunate treatment. Originally
this word signified a definite process. It
meant that all life originated in primitive cells
and that without divine interposition this
primitive life differentiated itself into the
forms of vegetable and animal life which ex-
ist on the globe. The simpler species by these
processes of natural selection, the survival of
the fittest, etc., became more complex and thus
life without supervision or supernatural
power has come to be what it is. Man is the
summit of the ascending series of animal
lives so far as his body is concerned. Some
insistent and courageous persons conclude that
the soul was subject to like processes, that
it came little by little to be what it is. Not by
divine creative act but by an evolution, primi-
tive sensations coming at last to be memory.

What Do We Mean 75

imagination, reverence, hope, fear, etc., etc.
Of course this is only a partial account of the
matter, for the question that must arise is,
Where did this original cell life come from?
and here the evolutionists differ. Some be-
lieve in spontaneous generation and try to get
other people to believe that life without crea-
tive power came to be from certain physical
elements as carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitro-
gen, and the like. Others declared that God
must have started the process and implanted
in the primitive cells the law by which they
came to be the flora and the fauna of the
world. This is no place nor is there time to
discuss the subject of evolution.

I wish to remind my reader, however, that
the word "evolution" has now come to have
for many men a totally different significance
from that which it originally possessed. To
many persons at the present time evolution
means simply the progress of an individual
from infancy to maturity, the germination of
human life, ending in the full man, the ger-
mination of the egg, producing the chick or
the bird, the germination of the seed from the
time the brown coat is softened and warmed
until the time when the tree or the plant lifts
itself into the sky, an object of beauty. This

76 Visions and Voices

is said to be an evolution, and persons are told
that everybody believes in evolution, as indeed
of course everybody does, if this is what is
meant by the word. It is extremely difficult
now to find in a Christian newspaper or a
book written by a Christian evolutionist clear
writing as to definition, but persons who wish
to be considered scholarly talk about evolu-
tion as one of the assured results of scientific
research and at the same time do not take
pains to tell us what they mean by the word
which they use. This is an apparent dis-
honesty. I do not wish to say that it is dis-
honest for I think that in many cases the
trouble is ignorance and carelessness rather
than intentional deceit. But certainly a man
who uses a word like evolution ought to know
what he means by it and his readers and hear-
ers also ought to know, and for them to say
evolution means progress from infancy to ma-
turity when the word itself means a progress
from species to species without divine power
interfering, is not a straightforward line of
action. I have no quarrel with a man who says
what he means, who means what he says, and
is clear in his utterances, but cuttlefish-dealing
with subjects like these is entirely out of order

What Do We Mean ^j^j

and ought not to be practiced or tolerated by
intelligent or honest men.

What the Word "Inspiration" Means.

Certainly for many years it meant a divine
force acting upon the human mind so that the
person inspired did not speak or act accord-
ing to his own knowledge, wisdom or will,
but acted or spoke according to the knowl-
edge, wisdom and will of God. In those
days the Bible was said to be inspired.
No one had any difficulty in knowing
what was intended by this statement. The
persons who used it believed that God com-
municated His will to men and caused men
to write or speak His will to other men, so
that in the books of the Bible we have not a
record of man's thoughts, but a record of
God's thinking ; that we have not in these mar-
velous books some lines of action laid down
which man approved or thought necessary,
but those which God willed, for which He held
man accountable and that He rewarded or
punished according as man gave attention to
what He said, or failed to do so.

That there is the inspiration of illumination,
when truths which are already known are
caused to shine in a clearer light; that there

yS Visions and Voices

is the inspiration of suggestion, when truths
which are not apprehensible from human
sources are directly communicated by the di-
vine; that there is the inspiration of words,
when the Spirit of God directs men not
merely as to the thoughts which they should
utter but as to the words in which those
thoughts are to be clothed. All of these
shades of meaning are admitted, and
thoughtful persons understand precisely what
men intend by what they say. But what
does the word inspiration mean when we are
told that "all men are inspired; that Long-
fellow was inspired, that Lowell was inspired,
that Shakespeare was inspired, that you are
inspired," etc., etc.? What does this mean?
Simply a big nothing. If inspiration were
cut down to these dimensions nobody need
speak of the inspiration of the Bible. They
might as well speak of the inspiration of an
arithmetic or a spelling-book or a dictionary.
Respecting this subject let me confess my
faith and let me give such reasons for it as I
can and let me urge my fellow men to do the
same. Then if we do not agree we shall at
least understand one another. If we will if
so, at least we can all be honest. I believe
the word inspiration to mean what the fathers

What Do We Mean 79

intended when they used that word. I beUeve
that it signifies a divine supernatural commu-
nication from God to man and that persons
who are inspired are inspired for particular
tasks. Bezaleel and Aholiab were inspired to
do work on the tabernacle ; the writers of the
Bible were inspired to give the law, the history^
devotions and biographies which will give life
eternal to men who pay attention to them.
God inspires men to interpret and expound the
Scriptures, but that He inspires men to in-
crease the body of the Scriptures I do not be-
lieve, nor will I believe it until some one of
the prophets of our time can oifer his creden-
tials. When our modern, inspired people will
live as the old, inspired folk did, will write as
they did, will produce the results that they did,
I will believe them to be inspired also, but
until then I shall not believe them to be in-
spired.

I believe the Bible to be thus inspired be-
cause of all the proofs by which thoughtful
people are surrounded. I believe the miracles
recorded in the Bible to have been wrought.
I believe the prophecies to have been largely
fulfilled and to be yet fulfilling. I believe the
moral teaching of the Bible to be so lofty and
sublime that no man can really know what it

8o Visions and Voices

is without admitting to himself, if not to
others, the impossibiUty that such teaching
should ever have originated among sinful men.
I believe the history of the Bible when really
known, to be true. I believe the scientific
statements of the Bible to be accurate, and
because of moral tone, miraculous informa-
tion, prophetic information and the wonderful
results in human character and society pro-
duced by this Book, I believe it to have been
inspired. I think it absurd to the verge of
insanity for anyone to hold that such a Book,
working such transformations, could have
originated anywhere short of the throne of
God. I wish that my fellow students of the
Bible would do as I am seeking to do. I wish
they would tell us what they really understand
the Bible to be. I wish they would write brief
statements on my subject, "Who Wrote the
Bible?" If they believe that man wrote it, I
wish they would say so. If they believe that
men wrote it in part but not in whole, I wish
they would tell us what portion of it they be-
lieve to be human and what portion of it they
believe to be divine. And I wish they would
tell us in plain language why they believe what
they believe. I profess to be a free seeker
after truth. I do not believe that I am in any

What Do We Mean 8i

way wedded to the past. I will just as freely
believe and teach one thing about the Bible as
another, provided there is evidence and I can
know that it is true. I believe I am in a state
of mind where I can listen patiently and can-
didly to any man who has a real faith which
he is able to express in fairly good English
and which seems to him important. But
really we ought to have done with the sucking
of eggs, with taking out from words, which
have clearly established meanings, these mean-
ings, and causing them to signify something
else without telling us what they now believe
the old word to signify and why they believe
what they believe.

CHAPTER VII.
WHAT IS A MIRACLE?

This English word is derived from the
Latin word miraculum, which means simply
a wonder. It is obvious that miracles will
vary with the character and training of the
people among whom they are said to be
wrought. What would be a wonder to one
man will not be a wonder to another man
who has a different training. So much we set
down as a first remark.

In the second place, there are certain events
which so far vary from the ordinary opera-
tions of nature that they are properly called
miracles and would be so recognized by all
persons who were acquainted with them.
Take for example the raising of a dead man
to life. It is the rule that when the body of
a man is dead it decays. It is not according
to human experience that dead bodies are re-
animated. If an event of this kind should oc-
cur, it would be a miraculum, a wonder, a
miracle. All people would call it so unless
they were possessed by a desire to be peculiar.

What Is a Miracle 83

Supposing a person to be subject to a serious
disease like leprosy or a raging fever, and sup-
pose another to come into the presence of the
sick man and by a touch and a word cause him
to be well. This again would be a miracle, a
miraculum, a wonder. Ordinarily when there
are diseases of this kind, remedies are used
and time is an element in the case. If with-
out any means employed and without any time
allowed to pass, the leper is cleansed so that
his skin becomes fair and smooth, the fevered
man becomes healed so that his temperature
goes to normal and he is able to attend to his
work, we have here a case of the miraculous.

If a man were swallowed by a great fish,
he would be in danger of suffocation and
would be instantly attacked by the gastric
juice. The rule would be that in a few mo-
ments he would become unconscious and in a
short time he would be dead. If it should be
found that in a certain instance a man swal-
lowed by a great fish had lived for a period of
three days, that he had been sufficiently con-
scious to pray while in the fish and that
thereafter he had been thrown out upon the
land and had gone about his work, it would
be clear that we have here a series of events,
not according to nature, but wonders, mir-

84 Visions and Voices

acles, miracula. The age in which we live, a
pleasure-loving age, an age of great scientific
attainment, an age of consequent self-conceit,
does not like to admit the supernatural. One
who examines the objections to the Bible will
find the objection to the supernatural lying at
the foundation of pretty much all that is said
on the subject. As the "Reign of Law" be-
comes manifest, the record of events which we
are not able to harmonize with known law be-
comes questioned. I desire, therefore, to
have you spend a little time on the general
subject of miracles, laying thus a foundation
for a special examination of the miracles of
the Bible, which, if God permit, may follow.
And first I wish to remind my reader that so
far as the possibility of real miracles is con-
cerned the question is as to the existence and
power and will of God.

Professed atheists in our time are compara-
tively few. When I was a boy there were
many of these people, but at the present time
those who are atheists call themselves agnos-
tics, that is, they do not deny the existence of
God but they say they do not know whether
He exists or not. When, however, men deny
the possibility of miracles, they are occupying
distinctly atheistic ground. That God has

What Is a Miracle 85

created the universe and governs it by gen-
eral laws is unquestionably true. This is a
question of fact which is determined by the
observation of all men. But the fact that the
usual administration of God is by general laws
is no proof that God does not at times inter-
fere with the ordinary progress of events and
performs miracles. No man who is really in
his right mind would deny that a Being who
could create the universe could modify its
actions if He pleased. One of our old hymns
used to say:

"He can create and He destroy."

Surely if He can create, He might destroy.

If God were man, then the universe might
be a Frankenstein and He might find it impos-
sible to control the system which He had set
in motion; but it is not the belief of theists
that God is man. The poem says :

"Right is right and God is God,
And right the day must win."

Of course God is God and, therefore, having
created the universe, He can control it. If He
chooses to modify its ordinary activities in pe-
culiar ways, that is easy. No man who believes

86 Visions and Voices

in the existence of God can for an instant
doubt the possibility of the miracle.

He Might, but Will He?

That will depend on the reasons in the case.
If there should be a sufficient reason, of
course God, Who can without the slightest
difficulty work any sort of miracles that He
chooses, will work one or two or ten. There
is no limit to be assigned to His power except
the limit of reason. God will not do foolish
things, but whatever is necessary He will do.
This is absolutely clear. We must also remem-
ber that the necessity of the miracle is to be
determined not by man but by God. We
might think the raising of Lazarus would be
entirely an unnecessary event but the fact
that we so think would not be decisive. Per-
haps God did see reasons for such a transac-
tion. We are not to set bounds and give laws
to the Ruler of the universe. Undoubtedly
some men would be glad to do this. Beyond
doubt some men think themselves quite com-
petent to do this. Nevertheless the fact re-
mains that God does not take advice of men
as to the management of the universe. If He
should wait for a vote before He sent a rain
storm or a month of sunny weather, it would

What Is a Miracle 87

be amusing to see how the world would get
on; and just so regarding the unusual acts
which He performs in the management of the
world. He is governed by His own judg-
ment, not by man's ignorance, and men who
are not willing that God should manage the
world may criticize Him if they desire and
may unsettle His throne if they are able. But
Christian people admit that God can work
miracles, that He will work miracles if they
are necessary, and that He will be the judge
as to their necessity and will not take advice
of men.

I am far from assuming that many of the
acts of God do not seem entirely reasonable
to thoughtful men. I believe that all of them
do when men will take time and will consider
the facts in the case. Let us spend a moment
on Jonah. What was the situation ? A great
city of possibly a million of inhabitants was
rotting to pieces from its sin. God ordered
a certain prophet to go and warn the city that
it might repent and that judgment might be
averted. "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall
be destroyed." That is if it will not repent, if
it continues in sin. This is clearly the teach-
ing. Jonah was afraid to go and ran away,
as many a preacher, teacher. Christian, has

88 Visions and Voices

done since. The probability is that scores if
not hundreds of people will read these words
who are at the time they read them doing just
what Jonah did, that is, running away from
disagreeable duties. Still God's purposes of
mercy for the city continued and He arrested
the prophet on his runaway trip; arrested
him in a miraculous manner, that is, caused
him to be swallowed by a fish, and in place of
being smothered and digested by the fish,
caused him to live, to be conscious, to pray
and finally to be delivered. Having this tre-
mendous lesson thus taught, God said to him,
"Go preach to Nineveh the preaching that I
bid thee." This time he went, and day after
day in that great wicked city he warned the
people of impending judgment. They heard
and, more sensible than some men of our
time, they were afraid. The king himself was
afraid. He put on emblems of mourning and
made proclamation that his people should turn
from their sins, if possibly the penalties de-
served might be averted. God saw that the
city repented and He spared it. There were
one hundred and twenty thousand children in
it who had not yet come to the age of moral
accountability. There were great numbers of
cattle in the city that had done no evil, yet

What Is a Miracle 89

which would suffer if a judgment like that of
Sodom and Gomorrah should fall upon it.
What was the reason that the people listened
to the preaching of Jonah? Is it probable
that just escaping from his living doom he
failed to tell the people his experience? Is
it probable that the sailors who had seen him
and known of the storm and his being cast
into the sea said nothing on the subject? Is
it not very probable that the reason why his
message was attended to and the city was
saved was because he could say to the people,
I was a coward. I tried to avoid delivering
this message to you. I ran away, but God
dealt with me. Three days I was in the belly
of a great fish, and I prayed to God. There
He pardoned me and now I am here to tell you
that if you repent God may pardon you and
if you do not repent you will be destroyed ?

Some of my readers may think this was en-
tirely insufficient as a reason for the miracle
which is alleged. To me it seems entirely suf-
ficient. It was just as easy for God to keep
Jonah alive in the belly of a fish as to keep
him alive in the Waldorf-Astoria, and Jonah
would have no more power to keep himself
alive in that great hotel than he had in the fish's
belly. Many a man and woman with un-

go Visions and Voices

limited means and with a hearty disposition to
live have died in luxurious hotels. Probably
many more people have died in such places
than ever died in fishes. How many people in
that great city which repented at the preaching
of Jonah lived thereafter more humble and
worthy lives ? We do not know, but we know
that for the time at least there was a profound
impression produced and a great change came
about. Of this we are certain. Now my
wise friend who knows how God ought to
run the universe and who apparently wishes
God would take counsel with him from time
to time respecting it, may think this whole
transaction silly and unimportant. I have my-
self in meetings of ministers heard jokes re-
garding this event in this prophet's life, but
I have never been able to laugh at the funny
things which these brethren have said. To
me it seems a very wonderful exhibition of
divine power. I am glad that God cared
enough about those poor people in Nineveh
to warn them. Sometimes I wish He would
in some similar fashion warn the ignorant,
suffering people in Chicago or New York. If
He did, husbands would be better men and
wives would have an easier time. The jails
would not be so full. The poorhouses would

What Is a Miracle 91

not be so full. The insane asylums would
not be so full. While I admit that we do not
need any more teaching than we have, and
while I do not blame God for not working
more miracles than He does, when I see the
misery which men bring upon themselves, I
really wish sometimes we might have miracles
like this to startle a self-complacent, worldly,
licentious, untruthful people into at least a
momentary sanity.

He Might, but Did He?

Thus far we have settled two questions, if
my readers have followed me, as I trust they
have. First, it is a perfectly simple thing for
God to work miracles. It is just as easy for
Him to work miracles as it is for us not to
work them. In the second place, God will
work miracles if they are necessary and of
their necessity He will be the judge. Per-
haps we can see that there was a sufficient rea-
son for all the miracles which He wrought.
It seems to me that I can see the reason for
the miracles, but no matter whether the rea-
sons seem sufficient to my friends or not, God
will be the judge as to the reasons, and man
will do wisely to let Him manage His own af-
fairs. They will be compelled to do so in the

92 Visions and Voices

end. It is just as well to do it pleasantly and
without making foolish objections. But the
fact that God can work miracles and that He
will work miracles if He thinks wise does not
prove that He has worked them. Here we
come into the region of testimony. We pass
out from the region of pure reason to the re-
gion of human affirmation. The evidence for
miracles comes to us through men. These
men are not the authors of the evidence. God
is the author and He has told the men to re-
cord it. It is fair to raise a question as to
the evidence in the case. Take, for example,
the miracles connected with the departure
from Egypt. God could have wrought them
all if they were necessary. If they were
necessary God would have wrought them all.
It is declared that He did work them all. Is
the evidence sufficient? Take the miracles
connected with the lives of the prophets Eli-
jah, Elisha, and the rest. God could have
wrought these miracles. It was nothing for
Him to kill fifty or one hundred men if
they needed to be killed and He wished to do
it. Is it true that He did kill one hundred
men who came to drag away one of His
prophets to be checked up by a worthless.

What Is a Miracle 93

bloody king ? It is declared that He did. Is
the evidence sufficient ?

Take the miracles connected with the
launching of the Christian church, the mir-
acles ascribed to our Lord and His apostles.
All sane persons admit that they are entirely
possible. The question is whether or not they
actually occurred and this is a question of tes-
timony. Is the evidence sufficient? If so,
we are bound to believe them ; if not, we are
bound to hold them in doubt or reject them
as the case may be.

It is obvious that an extended examination
of a large number of miracles is impossible in
a work having the purpose which lies be-
low this one. I must content myself with a
few instances. Let us take the exodus from
Egypt. Is there reason for believing the mir-
acles which are alleged at that time to have
been wrought? If there is, if the evidence is
sufficient, then we are bound to accept the rec-
ord, and if the evidence is not sufficient, we
may hold them in doubt or may reject them
as the case may be.

The Wide View.

Let us look at the case as a whole for a
moment and then examine one in particular.

94 Visions and Voices

in detail. What was the situation ? Here was
a race of slaves in bondage to a desperately
wicked and cruel king and people. This na-
tion of slaves had been chosen of God to oc-
cupy a distinguished place in human history.
God wished them to be free, not only because
He wishes all people to be free, though that is
true, but because these were His chosen people
and were assigned to a particular task and
they must be free if they were to accomplish
it. Is it probable that the bloody ruler of this
enslaved nation would let them go without
some exhibition of supernatural power? Has
it been the custom of kings and luxurious,
lazy, worthless people to dismiss slaves for
light and trifling reasons? Did we free our
slaves in this manner?

I was born in the time when the discussion
of American slavery was ripening for war. I
lived through the entire struggle which ended
in nationalizing freedom. I remember very
vividly the occurrences of those days. I was
astounded, as were Northern people in gen-
eral, at the defeats which came to the arms of
the Union. Those defeats continued until our
President issued the Proclamation of Emanci-
pation, and on the day when that Proclamation
was issued the tide turned. Of course some

What Is a Miracle 95

wise men may say that if we had continued
partners in the enslaving of the negro race, the
tide would have turned just as it did. I have
many times been compelled to say that some
of my wise friends can tell what would have
happened if what did occur had not taken
place. I am myself not so wise. I know
some of the things which occur and some-
times I think I can see the reasons for them,
but I never can tell what would have taken
place if the events which have occurred had
failed. So I repeat again— we never tri-
umphed in any large way in the war for the
Union until our rulers had declared their pur-
pose to free the slaves. Then we did tri-
umph, and from that time the fate of the re-
bellion was sealed. Were Pharaoh and the
Egyptians in the same condition? I am in-
clined to think they were, and if God had not
wrought miracles terrifying and confusing
them, they would never have consented to let
His people go. Of course some of my wise
friends may say. Why did not God bring about
that in some other way? For example, why
did He not kill the people by a plague ? This
would have been easy. He could have done
this if He desired, but I must again decline to
spend time in considering what might have

96 Visions and Voices

been. I set before myself the humbler task of
considering what is and has been, and I repeat
that so far as I can see the only way to secure
the voluntary dismissal of slaves on the part
of Egypt was to bring about such a series of
events as the Word of God records. This
would make all plain. Nothing short of this,
it seems to me, would have accomplished the
end desired.

Seven Days of Hard Tack.

If the people of the United States should
this year decide to eat unleavened bread,
bread made with flour, water and salt without
leaven of any kind, and to keep this up for
a period of seven days and to make this an
annual occasion and should continue to do so
for twenty-five or fifty years, I think any rea-
sonable person would ask for an explanation.
Why should a nation decide to eat hard tack
once a year for seven days for a period of
twenty-five or fifty years ? I think the ques-
tion would be a fair one and that every reason-
able student would say that some reason there
must have been.

Now the Jews have been eating hard tack
every year for a period of seven days for
about three thousand years. Scattered as they
f

What Is a Miracle 97

are throughout the lands of the earth every-
where they have had these seven days of un-
leavened bread. When you ask them why
they eat this unleavened bread every year,
they say that it is because when their fathers
were coming out of Egypt about fourteen
hundred years before Christ they came out by
night in haste and that for a time they had to
use bread of this kind, and they declare that
God taught them to keep up this fast of un-
leavened bread, this seven days of hard tack,
in order that they might not forget the great
events through which they passed during those
days of deliverance. Now a national custom
like this is a tremendous monument. The
base of this monument is the ends of the earth.
Wherever you find a Jewish family living ac-
cording to Jewish law, you find the Passover
feast, the days of unleavened bread. If the
explanation alleged is not the true one, what
explanation will our wise men substitute?
The fact is that the institutions of any nation
are the most tremendous comment upon its
history. The Jews are no exception to this
universal rule. Every synagogue in the world
is today bearing testimony to the miracles
wrought in Egypt. It was a sufficient reason
for them. God was well able to cause them.

98 Visions and Voices

The Bible says He did cause them. No ra-
tional person has any reason to doubt this
testimony of the Word of God.

CHAPTER VIII.

IS THE AGE OF MIRACLES PAST?

I do not know how many times in my life I
have heard men and women, sometimes I am
sorry to say, ministers who are called to
preach the Word, make the remark above in-
dicated. When I hear people say this, I like
to ask them how they know the age of miracles
is past. The Bible does not say that the age
of miracles ever will be past. In fact there
are intimations that the age of miracles will
not pass. The commission of the disciples
as they went out to organize the church,
to preach the Gospel of the King, seemed to
indicate the possibility of miracles continuing.
Of course I know that the last chapter of
Mark is questioned, but apart from that there
are intimations of the continuance of the su-
pernatural power in the church. Take for ex-
ample the conversion of sinners. Which is
the greater miracle, to reanimate a dead body
or to reanimate a dead soul ? We do not call
conversion a miracle because we see it so fre-
quently, but is it therefore not fairly con-

loo Visions and Voices

sidered one? I am not speaking of the re-
sults of Christian living which come to well-
bred people who have never been in open sin,
of the quiet coming into faith of the people
who have no stormy passions and who have
never really felt the grip of evil spirits on their
souls. I am talking about the other sort of
folks who have to "resist to blood, striving
against sin," people assailed by the demons of
licentiousness, of drink, of gambling, of drugs
or of idleness. Whether my readers have
ever battled with these evil spirits or not, there
are plenty of people who have, and I think
that one who knows the frightful power which
these legions of darkness possess will believe
that to be saved and kept from uncleanness so
that the soul may feel white in the presence
of God is quite as much a work of super-
natural power as that of quickening dead eyes
so that they can see, of dead ears so that they
can hear, of dead tongues so that they can
speak, or of a dead body so that it might
rise up and go its way.

I know, however, that those who have not
experienced the frightful power of the de-
mons will be unable to comprehend this argu-
ment. All those who have had this test and
victory will know precisely what I am talking

Is the Age of Miracles Past loi

about and I think they will, most of them,
agree with me in opinion. I do not, however,
intend to beg the question nor to say that
people who cannot appreciate this argument
have not a right to an answer to their ques-
tion. Is the age of miracles ended? I remind
them, however, that in the days of our Lord
precisely the same difficulty occurred. There
were folks who could not understand about the
forgiveness of sin but who could realize what
it meant to see a paralytic take up his bed and
go home, and Jesus says expressly on one
occasion that He worked this physical miracle
that they might know that He had power to
work the spiritual wonder. "That ye may
know that the Son of man hath power on
earth to forgive sins, he saith to the sick of
the palsy" (Mark 2:10). This shows that at
that time men thought it a great miracle to see
a palsied man walking away with his bed
on his shoulder but thought it to be not at all
a sure thing if Jesus said to a poor, sin-smitten
soul, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," and Jesus
undertook to meet their difficulty. He said,
"That ye may know that the Son of man hath
power on earth to forgive sins, he saith to
the sick of the palsy." He wrought the out-
ward miracle which the poor blinded people

I02 Visions and Voices

about Him could see and understand, that
they might beHeve that the greater miracle
was wrought.

Is THE Age of Miracles Past?

I put the question again because I wish all
my readers to know that I intend tQ deal
honestly with it, and while everything which
I have said on the subject is true and weighty,
I will not, even to those who cannot compre-
hend it, seem to avoid the issue.

Does God in our day interfere with what
might be called His ordinary methods of ad-
ministration for the purpose of relieving the
suffering, removing perplexity or accomplish-
ing any other good end for His people ? This
is the question. Let me now ask you to read
again chapter seven throughout and to ques-
tion whether there is anything in it which you
cannot see to be surely true. If you agree
that what is written in the last chapter is a
statement of fact, then you will admit that
God can work miracles if He chooses, that
God will work miracles if it is best, that of
their necessity He will be the judge and that
the question whether or not He has thus in-
terfered for the help of His children is a ques-
tion of fact to be determined by testimony.

Is the Age of Miracles Past 103

All the rules of evidence, of course, are to be
observed. The character of the witness, his
competence, anything which is fairly asked
for in a court of justice, may reasonably be
required here. The testimony of hysterical,
half-crazed individuals of course is to be re-
jected, or, if it is received at all, received be-
cause of corroboration and not because of
the character of the witness.

If, for example, a man or a woman says
that body and mind having been destroyed by
narcotic stimulants, he or she on a certain oc-
casion had dealings with God; that in the
course of the transaction God touched his or
her body, that the appetite which had been a
cruel tyrant was suddenly broken, that the
nerves which had been frazzled and worn were
still and quiet, and that for a term of years, say
two years, or five, or ten, or forty, the former
victim had been clothed and in his or her right
mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus, rejoicing in
His saving and keeping power. Suppose half
a dozen or a dozen friends, one or two
physicians, perhaps a jail-keeper or two, de-
clare themselves to have know this person,
to have been acquainted with him or her dur-
ing the period of the evil demon's control, to
have known the person directly after he or

104 Visions and Voices

she had dealings with God on the subject;
supposing that these people testified that to
outward appearance the change which is al-
leged by the individual actually took place,
that the man or woman who had been unable
to do without the gratification of base appe-
tites had suddenly become a self-controlled,
happy person. Suppose they declare that
there seemed to be physical changes, that the
eyes became clear and quiet, that the move-
ments were regular and rational, that labor
which had been impossible for years was
faithfully and efficiently performed, so that a
person who had been a helpless victim, nay, a
menace to society, had come to be a useful
and worthy member of it. On what ground
is this testimony to be rejected? If these
people should be sworn in court and should
declare that they had seen and known cer-
tain events to take place that they knew
personally had occurred, their testimony
would be accepted. Of course there is no
rational reason for rejecting the testimony of
these persons in regard to the character and
deliverance of the individual who is furnish-
ing testimony to the honor of Jesus. The
question is as to its miraculous character.
There is no reasonable basis for rejecting the

Is the Age of Miracles Past 105

testimony in itself. Is this a miracle or not?
If it is a miracle, certainly the age of miracles
is not past, for there are scores, yes, hundreds
of men and women, who will furnish testi-
mony substantially like the above, and there
are hundreds and thousands of people who
will corroborate what they say. If this story
were found in the New Testament, the un-
believer would question it. He would say
that it required time to get the victory over
evil passions, that nerves which had been de-
stroyed through years of abuse could not be
in a moment made normal, that wills which
had been enfeebled by years of evil living
could not be in an instant restored to strength
and vigor. All people would admit that God's
ordinary method is to work more slowly than
in the ways supposed, but all reasonable
people would also admit that if the evidence
was sufficient for an exception to the rule it
ought to be received, and that the age of
miracles, if you call this a miracle, is not past.

Take the Case of Sickness.

Let a man or woman tell us that he or she
had for years been suffering under consump-
tion, that a dozen physicians have declared
that one lung is entirely gone and that the

io6 Visions and Voices

other lung is so seriously affected that there
is reason to anticipate death at any time, that
there is no reason to anticipate a recovery to
health and strength. Suppose these physi-
cians are living men whose testimony is se-
cured and they confirm what the sick man
says. Suppose this man to go forward and
relate that on a certain occasion God spoke
to him, it matters not how, in some way,
through a sermon, through a portion of the
Bible, in the prayer of a friend — the manner
is immaterial. He says that whereas he had
been coughing, had had hectic flushes in his
cheeks, had had sharp pains passing through
his lung or lungs, had been throwing off large
quantities of sputum indescribably foul and
offensive, and supposing that he proceeds fur-
ther to say that on this occasion when God
spoke to him and he spoke back to God, God
said to him, If I make you well, what will you
do ? And supposing he said he promised Him
that he would give without reservation to His
service the new life that He should bestow.
Supposing he says that God said to him, "Will
you make your boast of Me, will you tell people
what I have done, and will you encourage
other afflicted folk to come to Me for help" ;
and he said, "Lord, I will." Suppose he pro-

Is the Age of Miracles Past 107

ceeds to say that a strange and wonderful
power seemed to affect his body, that some-
thing seemed to pass over him, through him,
burning up waste tissues, removing difficulties
of one kind and another and that in an hour
he was healed. Suppose he says that his
cough passed away, not gradually, little by
little, but at once. Supposing he tells you
that he began to breathe deeply with comfort
and satisfaction. Supposing he says that
night sweats passed, that his cheeks became
normal in color, that his strength returned so
that he could walk or run or labor without
difficulty ; and supposing that the doctors who
testified that he had been a hopeless consump-
tive testified that they had seen him since this
alleged recovery and that, so far as they know,
what he says is true. Suppose his friends,
his wife or children or brothers or sisters
do the same. On what ground is this testi-
mony to be rejected, allowing that the people
are persons of good character whose testi-
mony would be accepted in a court of justice ?
I do not see how this testimony can be re-
jected by rational, fair-minded persons, and if
it is accepted, what shall we say to the ques-
tion, Is the age of miracles past? Certainly
if a case of this kind were recorded in the

io8 Visions and Voices

New Testament, people would say that it was
miraculous. Objectors to the supernatural
would say that they did not believe it to be
true. What will they say when the person
stands before them with witnesses to prove
that what he has said is so ?

I remember when Jenny Smith stood on
our platform at the college for an hour and
told the students and teachers assembled how
for sixteen years she had been unable to walk
or sit erect. She told them that over thirty
physicians diagnosed her case and declared
that she was to be a life-long invalid, that she
had nothing to do but suffer. She told us
how in those days she was carried on a cot
from church to church, from conference to
conference, bearing testimony as an invalid to
the sustaining grace of God. She told us that
in the city of Philadelphia in a hospital her
sister, sixteen years of age, was with her who
had never seen her sit erect or stand upon
her feet. She sent out invitations to friends
to come and pray with her for her recovery.
She told us how after the invitations had been
sent to the office she felt she had been pre-
sumptuous, that it was not God's will to make
her well, and sent her sister to the office to see
if the letters had gone that she might recall

Is the Age of Miracles Past 109

them if they were yet at the office. The let-
ters had gone and her friends came, about
twenty of them. They prayed with her and
for her and she lay still on the cot helpless
as she had been for sixteen years. She told
us how at this time a minister rose, saying
that he had another engagement and must be
excused, and she said, "That is quite right,
brother, I do not wish to keep you or anyone
who wants to go; but if any of you can tarry
with me I should be glad to have you do so,
for^ I believe it is God's purpose to heal me
tonight." She said that he came and stood
by her cot and said to her, "Sister Jenny, you
are rebelling against God. You have preached
better sermons from this sick bed and greater
sermons than we ministers are able to preach
from our pulpits; you ought to be happy to
go on thus serving and rejoicing in God."
She said she replied to him, "Brother, you do
not understand me at all. There were years
when I did rebel against the providence of
God, when I wanted to be well so greatly that
it seemed I would like to be well even if God
did not wish it. But that is all passed. lam
just as willing to die as live, and I am a«.
wilhng to live sick as well. I am absolutely
contented with whatever God wills, but I be-

no Visions and Voices

lieve it is His purpose to heal me tonight.
You go on about your work and let all the rest
go who wish to go, but if any can tarry I shall
be glad of their help." She said about one-
half the number present went away, the other
half remaining ; that they sat there quietly, oc-
casionally repeating a verse of Scripture, sing-
ing in soft tones a verse of a hymn, one and
another offering prayer. She said that about
eleven o'clock she felt power coming into her
back and arms, and putting her hands down
on the sides of her cot, she rose to a sitting
position. Her physician, one of those who
had remained with her, ran to her, and lower-
ing the foot-board of her cot, brought her feet
near the floor. She rose and, unaided, walked
across the room to a chair and sat down prais-
ing God. Her sister went to the heater and
took a bowl of milk which had been warming
for her and brought it to her, which she drank
with great satisfaction. After a time she
walked, still unaided, back to the cot and slept
through the night. On the morrow she arose,
was dressed and began to walk about the world
to which she had been so largely dead for
sixteen years. I suppose there must have
been a hundred thousand people at least who
had seen her carried about on her cot, seen

Is the Age of Miracles Past iii

her loaded into express or baggage cars year
after year^ as she did all her traveling in that
way. I am repeating the story from memory
and I do not profess to be accurate in every
detail, but the substance of her narrative is
as recorded. I think she still lives, and if
so, she can correct any failure of memory
caused by the lapse of time. The substance
is as she gave it and the witnesses are not
numbered by ones and twos but by hundreds
and thousands.

If my reader had found this story in the
book of Matthew or John, he would have at
once said. Here is a miracle wrought by the
power of Jesus, and would have thanked God
Who had given such power to man. The un-
believer would have said it was all a lie, the
writer became enthusiastic and wrote that he
saw what he did not see, or in some way or
other would have explained away a fact which
may be received and believed, but which does
not require to be explained. This is not some-
thing which happened in the year one or in the
year thirty or in the year fifty. It is an event
of our own time and it is as well substantiated
as thousands of cases which are decided in
our courts every year. If one objects to Bible
miracles, why should he not object to this one

112 Visions and Voices

which is not a Bible miracle but a modern
miracle wrought by the same power which
healed and saved so many years ago?

In my little book on "Getting Things from
God" I have spoken of my friend who told
his story in the Eighth Avenue Mission, New
York. I never saw him anywhere except in
the mission, and I have never confirmed his
story by the testimony of other witnesses, but
he seemed to be an absolutely truthful man.
My impression is that his testimony to matters
of fact would have been accepted in any court
in the world. Those who have read "Get-
ting Things from God" will remember how
his physician in the hospital said he was dead,
how his wife insisted that she had had a
promise from God that he should be saved,
and that he could not die until this promise
was fulfilled. You will remember that the
doctor replied, "I do not know anything about
that but I know he is dead. I am very sorry
for you but he is dead." He summoned
physicians to the number of seven, all saying
that he was dead, and then withdrew leaving
her on her knees by the side of the cot while
the screen which they put between the living
and the dead in those wards was drawn about
them. He said that his wife asked for a pil-

Is the Age of Miracles Past 113

low because the floor hurt her knees ; that the
nurse brought her one and that she remained
kneeling on that pillow by the side of his cot
thirteen hours; that then he opened his eyes
and she said to him, "My dear, what do you
want ?'' And he replied, "I want to go home."
And she said, ''You shall go home." The doc-
tors who had declared him to be a corpse
made a great objection. They said it was
murder for her to take a man in his condition
away from the hospital, but she said, "You all
said he was dead. I do not see how you can
kill a dead man. I am going to take him
home." This man sat by my side for per-
haps an hour. When he told this story he
was standing within six or eight feet of me.
What would my friend who objects to the
supernatural events recorded in the Old Testa-
ment or in the New Testament say if he had
found this story there? Of course he would
have explained it — away. He would have said
there was some reason for believing that the
man was not dead, that life was suspended
for a bit, but that all the while he was alive
and liable to get up and go about his work.
I do not say that the man was dead. It was
the seven doctors who said that. I say that
he was apparently dead, that the doctors de-

114 Visions and Voices

clared he was dead, that his wife held on to
the promises of God, and that as she prayed
God gave him power and she took him home.
When he was lying on the cot in the hospital
he said he weighed about one hundred pounds.
That night as he was talking in the Eighth
Avenue Mission he said he weighed two hun-
dred and forty-six pounds. He looked the
part. He was an engineer on the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad, running, he said, a fast line
train from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. Is the
age of miracles past ? Certainly the age when
God can work miracles is not past, nor is the
age when He will work them, if there be suf-
ficient reason, past. In every case of this kind
the whole question is one of evidence. No-
body is required to believe without evidence.
God never asks anybody to believe anything
without a reason, but He does require men
to believe what there is reason to believe.

In the same book of which I have spoken
I mention God's dealings with me in regard to
the raising up of the sick. I have seen it
done repeatedly when physicians declared that
there was nothing before the sick one but
death. In one instance the friends had been
brought home to see their mother die and
had sat about for days waiting for her to

Is the Age of Miracles Past 115

die. Her husband came over to my office to
get me to pray for her, and I went, and she
Hved to bury that husband after some years.
I saw, as those who have read "Getting
Things from God" will remember, a child with
supposedly no chance for living. God raised
up the child. He has been running about
my yard lately. No one would have given a
penny for his life that morning when we
prayed for him as he lay on the pillow on the
lap of a kind neighbor. I have mentioned a few
instances, only a few. There are plenty more,
which might be recorded, instances in home
lands, instances in heathen lands, the healings
of sick people and the casting out of demons.
I will not say that God does not at times raise
the dead even in our day. I have never
known an instance which I considered unques-
tionable, but I have seen what came so near
to it that to me there was little practical dif-
ference.

Why Not Oftener?

I have no doubt some good man will say.
Well, if God can and will and does step out-
side the ordinary course of nature in our time,
why does He not help other people? There
are many people who would like to be helped.

Ii6 Visions and Voices

Why does He not heal them, deliver them?
And I answer that there were many people in
the time of Christ who were not helped. There
were many lepers in Israel at the time of
Elisha the prophet, but only Naaman was
healed. So far as we know Naaman was the
only one who went to Elisha. Naaman came
near losing his healing because when the
prophet told him what to do he went away in
a rage. If he had not happened to have a
servant there who had some sense, he would
have rotted to pieces as a leper. As it was,
when he dipped in Jordan the seventh time
his flesh came again to him like the flesh of a
little child.

The trouble with people in our day is like
the trouble with the people in that day. We
are too smart, we are too full of the world,
we are too much filled up with the thought of
men. We do not ask what God has said,
what God thinks or will or can do. We ask
what people say, what people think, what
people will do, and we ought to be ashamed.
If we could get ashamed and could cease from
our dishonoring unbelief, God could do a
thousand things for us which He would like
to do but which He now cannot do because of
our unbelief. He does not offer prizes to lazi-

Is the Age of Miracles Past 117

ness. He does not offer prizes to earthliness.
His rewards are for those who can see His
face, can hear His voice, and are willing to
obey. For people like this the age of mir-
acles never passes.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.

The Holy Spirit says in I Timothy 2 :5, "For
there is one God, one mediator between God
and men, the man Christ Jesus." The same
Spirit in Isaiah 9 :6 says, "For unto us a child
is born, unto us a son is given, and the gov-
ernment shall be upon his shoulder; and his
name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace." The same Spirit says in
Hebrews i :8, "But unto the Son he saith, Thy
throne, O God, is forever and ever, a scepter
of righteousness is the scepter of thy king-
dom." In these scriptures we have clearly
set forth the dual nature of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He was the Man Christ Jesus and
He also was the everlasting Father, the
Prince of Peace. I am going to speak of His
testimony to the Bible.

Some years ago I was on the examining
committee of what is now called a conference,
when a young man was before us asking ap-
probation as a preacher. He was from one

The Man Christ Jesus 119

of our wealthy universities where there is a
great affectation of learning, where there is
really a great deal of learning, such as it is.
I said to him in the examination, "If you be-
lieved that Jesus Christ actually said that
Moses wrote of Him, and your professors
should tell you that Moses never wrote any-
thing of Jesus Christ, which would you be-
lieve?" He replied, "1 suppose there are
many sorts of information available at the
present time which were not at command
when our Lord was living." In other words
he believed that a professor in one of our col-
leges or universities knew more about the
writers of the Bible than the Lord Jesus Christ
who came down from heaven to die for the
sins of man. He was apparently a young man
of high character. He had been a high school
teacher at the salary of twelve hundred dol-
lars a year. He was just leaving his work as
a teacher to accept the pastorate of a little
church where they were to pay him six hun-
dred dollars per annum. As I looked upon
him I loved him and I marveled at what he
said. I did not blame him; I blamed his
teachers ; I blame them now. I believe if that
entire institution could be sunk in the middle
of the Atlantic Ocean it would be a vast bene-

120 Visions and Voices

fit to the kingdom of God and the sons of
men.

Of course, to a person in this state of mind,
it makes no difference what Jesus said or
thought about the Bible. He believes that
Jesus was ignorant and therefore he does not
accept his testimony ; but Christian people still
believe that Jesus Christ knew at least as
much as an ordinary professor, and they ac-
cept His testimony as decisive in regard to
matters on which He spoke. I trust that there
are very few among my readers who will
have come into the unfortunate condition at
which the young man had arrived, and I there-
fore mention to them the teaching of Jesus in
regard to the Word of God, with the confi-
dent expectation that when they reflect upon
what Jesus said respecting the Bible it will be
the end of the controversy.

In the first place I remind you that the only
Bible which Jesus ever saw was the Old Testa-
ment. I remind you that He never saw this in
printed form ; that possibly, yes, probably. He
never saw it in collected form ; that the sacred
books in His day were in rolls. There was
the roll of the prophet Isaiah, there was the
roll of Moses, and from these priceless treas-
ures He drank deep as a mere child. Fortu-

The Man Christ Jesus 121

nately we know that the Old Testament which
He possessed was substantially the one which
we have in our hands today. About three
hundred years before He was born this Old
Testament had been made into Greek by learn-
ed men in the city of Alexandria, Egypt.
Both these books, the Hebrew and the Greek,
were accessible in His time. He knew about
them. His wondering admirers said, "How
doth this man know letters, never having
learned?" (John 7:15). That is to say, He
had never been a pupil in the schools, yet He
learned letters so that in the synagogue at
Capernaum he stood up to read and sat down
to teach. This, I say, was the only Bible
which He knew. The New Testament, which
was to give clear revelation of that which the
prophets had taught in symbol and type, was
not begun until He had ended His mission on
earth. We have therefore to consider His
testimony as to the facts. What did He say
about the Bible that He had? Did He say
anything about the Bible that was to be? If
He did speak of the New Testament, what did
He say?

The Old Testament a Battle Ground.
It is well understood by all Bible students

122 Visions and Voices

that the Old Testament, which has for years
been the football of these alleged scholars,
was the Bible which our Lord had. When we
hear Him speak about the Scriptures, we are
to remember that He was talking about the
Old Testament. They were the only Scrip-
tures of which He had knowledge. If we
can learn what He thought about them, how
He treated them, we can learn how those who
love Him and revere Him as the Saviour of
the world will also think about and speak
about the Old Testament in our day. Let us
then reflect on a few facts relating to our
Lord's relation to the Old Testament, to the
Scriptures of His time. And first let us re-
member that He not only knew them but used
them repeatedly. He quoted them to His dis-
ciples. He quoted them to His enemies, He
quoted them to the Devil when he assailed
Him in the wilderness of Judea. As we ex-
amine these quotations, it is apparent that
Jesus Christ believed the Old Testament to
be the Word of God, an authority for man.
"It is written," "It is written," "It is written,"
He said to Satan, and at each thrust of this
mighty sword Satan drew back. When He
wished to modify the teaching of the Book,
He modified it, not to make it less important.

The Man Christ Jesus 123

but to make it more so. "Ye have heard that
it hath been said by them of old time, but I
say unto you." Probably He was in most, if
not all, instances speaking of the commen-
taries of the Word rather than of the Word
itself ; but no matter which was His purpose,
He intensified and extended the law. He did
not abrogate it, as He Himself said, "I did
not come to destroy it but to fulfil it." And it
was Jesus Himself who said, "Heaven and
earth shall pass away but my Word shall not
pass away." Whether our critical friends are
right in their supposition that it will sometime
pass away or not, they will have to admit that
up to date it has not passed away, that up to
this time it has fulfilled His word concerning
it. Heaven and earth have not passed away.
They will ; but up to now the Word of Jesus
has not passed away.

It should also be admitted that throughout
His entire recorded teaching He never in any
instance spoke of this Word slightingly or
with contempt. An unfortunate man who was
for years a professor in a theological seminary
has recently written an essay entitled "Chris-
tianizing the Bible." When he was drawing
a salary of three thousand dollars a year for
professing to teach truths which he then

124 Visions and Voices

denied and which he still denies, people object-
ing to criticisms of him told what a beautiful
character he was, how lovely he was in his
home life, how delightful to his wife and chil-
dren, and we had none of us any disposition
to deny the truth of all these commendations.
Unfortunately, however, his home relations
were not the subject of criticism. He was
criticized for professing to teach the Bible,
for drawing a salary for doing so and then to
the extent of his power breakitjg down the faith
of the people in the Book which he was paid
to teach. That was the point which was
objected to. Respecting this matter, there was
never any defense made so far as I know. No
one who knew what he was teaching believed
him to believe the Bible or to teach it, yet he
drew his salary regularly to the last hour
and went away with the price of his treason
in his pocket.

There was never a word in the teaching of
Yesus Christ from beginning to end which cor-
responded to this blasphemous phrase, "Chris-
tianizing the Bible." Our Lord did blame
people for not obeying the Word, but He
never blamed the Word for not teaching the
people how to do. Once more I must re-
mark that if people do not believe Jesus

The Man Christ Jesus 125

Christ knew enough to form an intelUgent
opinion respecting the Bible, of course they
will not value either His positive or negative
testimony in its favor. But Christians must
believe that, if Jesus Christ, knowing the
Bible, knowing it from a child, using it
habitually with all classes of people, both
friends and foes, always spoke of it with re-
spect and never criticized it as lacking in any
particular, this is a most certain fact, and for
a Christian it seems to me it is a decisive one.
Our Lord not only quoted the Bible and
failed to criticize the Bible, but speaking in
general terms He commended it to His dis-
ciples. "Search the scriptures for in them
ye think ye have eternal life: and they
are they which testify of me" (John 5:39).
There is a question as to the translation of
this verse, but there is no question as to the
teaching "Search the scriptures." What
scriptures? The writings of the Old Testa-
ment, to be sure. There were no other in
His time. If these writings were full of
scientific error, as men now blasphemously
affirm, why should Jesus Christ, Who made
the worlds, set people to studying this de-
fective or false account of the creation which
He Himself had made, this course of history

126 Visions and Voices

which he Himself had supervised? From
every point of view it seems to me a man
should either stop calling himself a Chris-
tian or should stop criticizing, in the present
reckless and godless fashion, this Book which
our Lord Jesus treated with such respect.
From this He expounded the things that are
written concerning Himself. He began with
all the prophets to do this. Why cannot His
professed followers be contented to do the
same?

But What of the New Testament?

This is to us a portion of the Word of God,
but we have no right to receive it without
thought and examination any more than we
have the Old Testament. Did Jesus say any-
thing about the New Testament, and, if He
did, what did He say? Over and again He
reminded His disciples that He looked upon
them as witnesses who were to bear testimony
for Him to the world. He used that very ex-
pression. He said, "Ye are my witnesses."
They were the men whom He called into the
world to prove what sort of a person He was.
It is obvious that their embarrassment would
not be scantiness, but abundance of material.
Walking with Him for years, listening to Him

The Man Christ Jesus 127

hy day and by night, how full their minds
must have been of His character and teach-
ing. They being human beings like us, there
was reason to fear that when they should un-
dertake to give their evidence either verbally
or in writing they might omit the important
and dwell upon the comparatively insignifi-
cant. How easy it would have been to have
filled up the Gospels with accounts of His
appearance, His height. His weight, the color of
His hair and eyes, the way in which He walked
and spoke. How wonderful the Gospels are,
considered from the standpoint of simple de-
scription. Not a single word respecting these
trifling things, not a comment on His most
tremendous teaching— just the record. Day
after day, hour after hour, set down for the
teaching of coming ages. How did this hap-
pen? Jesus tells us how it happened. He
says, "When the Holy Spirit is come, whom I
will send unto you from the Father, he shall
teach you all things and bring all things to
your remembrance whatsoever I have said
unto you," Here we have the secret of New
^ Testament writing. The Spirit of God was to
' bring to the remembrance of those witnesses
the things that Jesus Christ had said. Not
all the things that He had said or done, but

128 Visions and Voices

the things which were important to their testi-
mony. "He shall teach you all things and
bring all things to your remembrance whatso-
ever I have said unto you." That is, all things
which were essential to the work in hand.
These witnesses, whom He thus specially quali-
fied to give their testimony, began and con-
tinued until they finished their courses under
this supernatural guidance.

A few years ago the scholars of two worlds
collated on a translation of the Bible. When
the New Testament had been concluded the
books were eagerly awaited by Bible scholars
on this side of the sea. At last the precious
volume arrived in New York, and a great
paper in Chicago paid for having that book
telegraphed over that thousand miles, and by
the time it was offered for sale in the streets
of New York it was printed and sold by this
newspaper in the streets of Chicago. This is
in itself a wonderful testimony to the char-
acter of this wonderful Book. But if what
has been said is true, if the Holy Spirit was
the responsible Author, if He taught those
men what they were to say, if He brought to
their remembrance the things that Jesus
Christ had said, then all is understandable.
We are to add to this testimony of Jesus the

The Man Christ Jesus 129

fact that these witnesses so empowered were
themselves men filled with the Holy Spirit for
their daily lives and work. They were mir-
acle-workers, as we should expect men en-
trusted with such a high and holy office to be.
I have not forgotten Mark and Luke, two
men, not of apostolic grade, who became biog-
raphers of our Lord. But there is no reason
to doubt the faith of the church in all ages
until now that these men wrote under the
direct supervision of the miracle-working
apostles. Mark was the student of Peter and
Luke the companion and friend of Paul, so
that we have in the books which those two men
wrote no exception to the general plan which
is stated above. We accept the Old Testa-
ment on the authority of Jesus Christ. We
accept the New Testament on the authority of
Jesus Christ. He certified to the one after
it was completed. He certified to the manner
and means by which the other should be writ-
ten. This is all a Christian needs. It is true
that fulfilled prophecy, the testimony of mir-
acles, the moral tone of the Bible, its effect
among the nations, the wonderful way in
which it has been preserved, all these are add-
ed evidences which go to show that the faith
of the church in this wonderful Book is well

130 Visions and Voices

founded. Pelion is piled on Ossa. Moun-
tains of proof are added to mountains of
proof. The work is of such importance —
such life and death importance to a sinful
world, that God has not permitted any nook
or corner where a reasonable doubt concern-
ing this Book can creep in. It is a more sure
word of prophecy, more sure than visions,
more sure than voices from heaven, though
visions and voices are not to be despised. But
this Book is more certain than all, and upon it
the Christian church has built her faith.

CHAPTER X.
DID THE PROPHETS FORETELL?

Years ago, in the city of New York, two
lectures were placed in my hands, the work
of a Hebrew Rabbi of that city. One of them
was entitled, "Did Isaiah Prophesy Jesus?"
In this lecture the Hebrew Rabbi undertook to
show that Isaiah said nothing about Jesus.
In place of speaking of Jesus, he said the
prophet was talking about the suffering serv-
ant, and that this meant either the Hebrew
people or some individual, at present unknown.

The second lecture was entitled, "Did the
Other Prophets Prophesy Jesus?'* He dealt
with them in substantially the same fashion,
saying that they said nothing about Jesus but
talked about other persons.

This is only one movement in the attempt
to show that prophets have not prophesied,
that there has been no Instance of foretelling
future events in any clear and decisive man-
ner. It is alleged that where the prophecies
are somewhat indefinite, they were guesses;
that where they are definite, they were writ-

132 Visions and Voices

ten after the event. In both instances the
prophecy is denied.

The question whether or not the fact of the
foretelHng' of future events can be clearly
made out is an important one.

The Preaching Work of the Prophets.

It is admitted that the prophets were not ex-
clusively occupied with the foretelling of fu-
ture events. They were great preachers,
men who loved their nation and who wept
bitter tears as they saw her ruin approaching.
They saw that the ruin was caused by sin and
by sins, and they insisted that the nation must
repent and turn from sin or she would be de-
stroyed. From time to time they turned from
the sight and sins of their own people to the
cruelties and abominations of the nations
around them, and they declared, respecting
these neighbor nations — Moab, Philistia, Tyre,
Edom, Egypt, Assyria, Syria, etc. — that they
also would be punished for their sins, and
among other sins they mentioned the attitude
which these heathen nations maintained
toward the chosen people of God.

In these expostulations and exhortations,
from time to time the prophets rose from the
general to the particular. They said not only

Did the Prophets Foretell 133

that evil would follow a continuance in wrong-
doing but they set down particular evils which
should come to particular cities, to countries,
and used these threatened judgments as argu-
ments to persuade men to turn from sin.

Along with these prophecies of coming
doom were the prophecies of coming deliver-
ance. If Israel was to be punished for her sins,
God would not forsake her in her suffering,
but would, in time, grant her repentance
and relief, and among these prophecies of
hope were the great prophecies concerning the
golden age, the millennial kingdom, the time
when the Lord's prayer should be answered,
when the millions upon millions of children
who have prayed "Thy kingdom come" should
find the kingdom of God here.

Fulfilled and Unfulfilled.

Some of these prophecies have unquestion-
ably been fulfilled. Nobody doubts that
Babylon has been destroyed; no one doubts
that Tyre is at the present time a place for
the spreading of nets; no one doubts that
Egypt is today the basest of the kingdoms;
no one doubts that Israel is today scattered
throughout the nations of the world; no one
doubts that the Jewish name is now become

134 Visions and Voices

a hissing and a by-word. To question any
of these facts would be to prove oneself hope-
lessly ignorant.

I think it safe to say that no one at present
doubts that these prophecies respecting the
nations to which I have just referred were
made before the event, in certain instances many
years before the event. Those who say that
the prophets did not foretell declare that these
foretellings are the result of a happy guess,
just as a man today might say that if Chicago
continued to be as vile as she is she would be
destroyed; but the destructions which are
foretold for these sinning nations of the olden
times are so exceedingly specific in character
that it seems that an honest man can hardly
accept this statement of the case.

The city of Babylon, for example, was one
of the great cities of the world. Its monu-
ments and palaces are, today, mentioned
among the most celebrated ever known. There
was no reason, at the time when the prophe-
cies were uttered, to suppose that this city
would be wiped out. A fairly intelligent man,
knowing the rottenness of the nation, might
easily have judged that it would suffer great
reverses, that it would become far less im-
portant than it was ; but that is true of a score

Did the Prophets Foretell 135

of great cities which are in existence today,
and a person deahng thus with probabiHties
and without supernatural guidance might eas-
ily affirm that New York, or London, or Paris,
or Pekin, if it did not repent, would suffer
loss; but who would venture to declare that
one of these cities should be wiped out, should
never be rebuilt, and, if he did undertake to
say this of some one of them, which one would
he choose?

Damascus was a wicked city in those olden
ages. Damascus deserved to be punished, was
punished, but it was never declared that
Damascus should cease to exist, as it was that
Babylon and Tyre should be removed from
the map. Babylon and Tyre were removed
from the map. Tyre is today a collection of
miserable huts. Babylon is a widespread
desolation in which the Arab will not pitch his
tent, nor the shepherd fold his flocks. It was
declared that Babylon should be this kind of
a place, and it is. Why were not similar judg-
ments threatened upon Damascus ? Damascus
lives today, a city of one hundred and fifty
thousand inhabitants, yet Damascus was a sin-
ful city, as I have said above, deserved judg-
ment and received it ; but the prophets told in
detail the ruin that was to come upon certain

136 Visions and Voices

cities, and their detailed descriptions have
been fulfilled. This sort of work cannot be
attributed to guessing — at least, men nowa-
days cannot guess this way. Thoughtful men
do not dare to try. If fools rushed in where
angels fear to tread, they would probably be
confounded by the event.

The Prophecies of Jesus.

These prophecies were verbal and typical
from the beginning of the creation up to the
end of the Old Testament writing. In the
Garden of Eden God promised Eve that one
of her children should bruise the head of the
serpent who had deceived her. No one, so
far as I know, pretends to assign this prophecy
to anyone but the Lord Jesus Christ. Direct-
ly thereafter we are told that Adam and Eve
were clothed in the skins of beasts, but why
were beasts slain? They were not, at that time,
permitted for food. Why did God avail Him-
self of the skins of the beasts for the clothing
of His sinful, ashamed children? The offer-
ings of Cain and Abel seem to throw light
on this question. Abel brought for his offer-
ing, from the flock, a slain lamb, and his offer-
ing was accepted. Why? Because of the
confession implied and probably because it

Did the Prophets Foretell 337

was in obedience to divine direction ; certainly
sacrifice for sin came early into the history of
the human race and sacrifices for sin were
typical declarations that a great Sacrifice was
to come, a Sacrifice which was actually to ac-
complish that which its foreshadowings never
could do.

The Bible writers knew that it was impos-
sible for the blood of bulls and goats to take
away sin (Heb. 10:4). These offerings were
perpetually renewed because, while they did
atone for sin, they did not take it away. They
were accepted for the sin confessed, but they
must needs be perpetually renewed. But
Jesus, by one offering, perfected forever those
who are sanctified, and when the true Offer-
ing had come, the typical offerings ceased.

By what chance does it happen that blood
offerings for sin have ceased throughout the
entire world, except among a few savage
tribes? What man can see the universal use
of sacrifices up to the coming of Jesus and the
universal cessation of sacrifices since He was
here, without believing the prophecies which
were made concerning Him?

As days went on, the shadows began to pass
away and the realities began to exhibit them-
selves. Isaiah, in that wonderful fifty-third

138 Visions and Voices

chapter, which my Jewish friend undertook
to explain away, draws a full-length portrait
of Jesus Christ as a sufferer; and the same
prophet speaks of the days when the suffer-
ing Saviour is to become the reigning King;
when God^s people are to be comforted and
their enemies are to be under their feet.
The very manner of His death is described,
the disposition of His garments, the drinks
which were to be offered to Him at the time of
His crucifixion ; the time of His slumber in the
grave was distinctly foretold ; His resurrection
was predicted ; and these events have come to
pass.

There yet remains to be fulfilled the promise
of the golden age, the kingdom of God on
earth, the millennial reign of our Lord. That
has not yet come to be, but those who read
the former prophecies and remember for how
many centuries men had to wait for their ful-
filling, and yet how literally they have been
fulfilled, find it easy to believe that that which
remains shall yet be accomplished, and that, as
the suffering Saviour, foretold, has come, and
done His great work of redemption, so the
kingly Saviour will come, destroying His en-
emies and establishing His kingdom among
His people.

Did the Prophets Foretell 139

The Case of the Jews.

Associated with prophecies of the Messiah
are always prophecies to be found concerning
the Jews. For some reason they were God's
chosen people — I do not think anyone can tell
why — God does not tell why. He tells why
He did not choose thejn, but He does not tell
why He did choose them, except that He chose
to choose. But here are the Jews. They
have a life history now approximately of four
thousand years. The prophets declared be-
forehand all that has come to them, not in
general and indefinite terms, but specifically
and in detail. No man can read what they
say should come upon the Jews without say-
mg to himself, "All this has been fulfilled."
But there are prophecies concerning them
which have not been fulfilled. It is declared,
for example, that they shall yet dwell in their
own land, the land which was given them by
covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It
is declared that the streets of their cities shall
be filled v/ith boys and girls playing, that the
fruitfulness of their land shall return, that
the scattered and dissevered people shall
be united, that Israel shall no longer vex
Ephraim, that Ephraim shall no longer envy

I40 Visions and Voices

Judah. It is declared that they shall have
a King who is to reign in righteousness.
The Jews have no king, have not had a
king since Solomon, nearly or quite three
thousand years ago, yet it is declared that
they shall have a King and that He shall
reign in righteousness, not to be such a king
as on the other side the sea at this time is send-
ing young men to death by millions, for no
crime, simply because of his own lawless, un-
bridled ambition ; and it is declared that, when
the Jews have been restored to their own
land, when the land has been redeemed from
its centuries of desolation, when their King
shall sit upon the throne of David and reign
in righteousness, the saints shall reign with
Him.

All these prophecies are before us. No one
claims that they have been fulfilled. People
who do not believe the Bible — some of them —
declare that they cannot be fulfilled. Some
people who do believe the Bible in general,
when they come to these great prophecies,
hesitate and doubt. These latter prophecies
await the unfolding years, but as men waited
for centuries before Jesus came to suffer, so
men can afford to wait for centuries, if need
be, until He comes to reign. But as after the

Did the Prophets Foretell 141

waiting time He did come to suffer, so we
have reason to believe that He will yet come
to reign.

Evidently the prophets have foretold; evi-
dently some of their foretellings have been ful-
filled, and it is equally evident that some of
their prophecies yet remain to bless the world
in their fulfilling.

CHAPTER XI.
THE PICKAX AND SPADE.

The world, though it is an insignificant dot
among the planets and stars, is to us im-
portant. It is our home for the present. It
has been dignified by the presence of God
manifest in the flesh. It is yet to be honored
by His presence as a reigning Sovereign. It
is of particular interest to us, who have been
redeemed by His precious blood, because in
that day we also shall reign with Him. The
kingdom is His, but the kingdom belongs to
His saints as well.

The world is also interesting as an object of
study. Geology, digging down through the
rock foundations, teaches us a thousand
things about the thought of God in creation.
The plant life and the animal life of the world,
the flowers that bloom on the hills, and the
trees which clothe the mountains with their
shaggy forests, all these are wonderful. The
differences of soil are most remarkable, and
the differences of climate.

I have ridden for a whole day, in the state

The Pickax and Spade 143

of Texas, where nothing was in sight on the
ground but rocks and sand, yet one can ride
for days in Texas where nothing is in sight
but fruitful soil and its products.

A friend of mine who lived in India, once
said to me that they had ample rain in the
region where he lived for the vegetation of
the entire year, but that this rain came within
a period of ninety days. All the rest of the
year there was no rain, so, unless in some
way this supply should be stored up in the
earth, famines were probable, though the soil
was fruitful and the rainfall abundant.

Those of us who dwell in the garden spots
of the world have a right to marvel and the
duty of gratitude. The timely rains, the green
grass, the luxuriant foliage of the trees, the
marvelous variety in the flowers, the vege-
tables, the fruits, all these are occasions of
perpetual wonder and gratitude.

I have been led to this train of thought by
thinking of those marvelous countries where
God has so wonderfully preserved the wit-
nesses to His Word. It is only a few years,
comparatively speaking, since pickax and
spade began to do their work in Bible lands.
For centuries nobody cared to do any work
of excavation. If men had cared to do it, the

144 Visions and Voices

inhabitants were largely so savage that it
would have been unsafe to undertake it; but
the slow-moving centuries have passed. Na-
tions that recognize the Bible have obtained
military power over the whole world. Even
Lassa, the capital of Tibet, has been occupied
by the British army. Germany has been push-
ing a railroad down the Euphrates Valley.
Africa has been parceled out among so-called
Christian nations of the world.

While military power has thus come to these
nations, intellectual life has also been their
portion. It is now perhaps five hundred years
since great universities began to be — over-
crowded and formless at first but throbbing
with intellectual life — virgin soil for scholarly
men, and as the years have passed, learning
has become more exact and the field continu-
ally widened.

Among other things, men have become in-
terested in the languages of dead nations.
Stones covered with inscriptions, sides of
mountains covered with inscriptions, baked
tablets covered with inscriptions, cylindrical
stones covered with inscriptions, one by one,
sometimes hundreds by hundreds, occasion-
ally thousands by thousands, these silent, elo-

The Pickax and Spade 145

quent witnesses have come to the stand to
tell their story.

Sargon and the Hittites.

When I was a boy, one of the proofs I used
to see occasionally that the Bible was an un-
trustworthy book was the fact that the Bible
talked about Sargon as an Assyrian king
whereas there never had been any Sargon.
The lists of Assyrian kings were known and
this man was not found among them. For
many years this remained true and it was im-
possible to confirm the Bible account of his ex-
pedition against the Holy Land from the
monuments; but men kept at work — Rawlin-
son, Layard, Murchison and a host of lesser
lights were busy with pickax and spade. They
excavated on the site of Nineveh, they ex-
cavated on the site of Babylon. I myself saw
such people at work under the foundations of
the exhumed city of Pompeii. Permits have
been granted by Governments for excavations
in Eg}^t, for excavations in Turkey, for ex-
cavations in Assyria, for excavations in
Arabia — all over the East these armies of pio-
neers have been working for the revelation of
the long- forgotten past.

146 Visions and Voices

Of course their work was rewarded. Every
now and again some monument was dis-
covered which told the story of life in the
long ago, and often these stories came in touch
with Bible narratives. Stories of the deluge,
stories respecting social and political customs,
bodies of law, what not. Now among the
rest was found a cylinder containing an ac-
count of the expedition of Sargon, King of
Assyria, against the Holy Land ; the victories
which he obtained, the ruin which he
wrought, all were clearly set forth. Then men
who had refused to believe the Word of God
believed the old stone which had been buried
in a dry place where its inscriptions were
not seriously injured for centuries. I be-
lieved the stone, too. I valued the stone as a
corroborative witness, but the witness-in-chief
was quite sufficient for me.

I do not understand how men can wish to
confirm stones by the Bible. I desire to con-
firm the Bible by stones, and if I do not find
any stones to confirm the Bible, I believe the
Bible just the same.

No Dissenting Voice.

It is a singular fact that up to this present
hour no tablet, mountain inscription, monu-

The Pickax and Spade 147

mental inscription, nothing of the kind re-
vealed by pickax and spade has been found to
contradict a single Biblical statement of fact.
This is a most wonderful thing, when we con-
sider it in all its bearings. If, from time to
time, we should find statements which did con-
tradict the Bible, they would not affect the
truth of the Bible to my mind, for the char-
acter of this Book is so thoroughly established,
it has lasted out so many centuries, millenni-^
ums, it has performed such a beneficent work
for individuals, families, cities, nations, that,
even if I should find that some old heathen,
three thousand years ago, declared that a por-
tion of this Word was untrue, I would not be-
lieve him; I would believe the Word; but I
am glad, nevertheless, that these old heathens
were more sensible, apparently, than many of
the alleged scholars of our time, and that up to
this present hour no single instance is known
in which a monument of antiquity has con-
tradicted the testimony of the Word of God.
On the other hand, scores, perhaps hundreds
of antiquities, have been uncovered and
placed in the museums throughout the world
which clearly and definitely confirm the testi-
mony of Holy Scripture. Take for example
the Hittites. I never knew anybody to object

14B Visions and Voices

to the Bible account of the Hittites until re-
cently, but a few years ago someone criticized
the Bible account of this ancient, wicked
people, and I think said that there were no
such folk, yet now the history of the Hittites
has been revealed by pickax and spade.

It is one of my dreams that yet in the old
world there will be found, hidden away in
some cave, dry and safe for manuscripts, the
original copies of the prophets, perhaps the
very words which Moses wrote. Why not?
Continually we are pushing the lines farther
and farther back into the shadows of the past.
Today manuscripts and monuments are in
hand which a few years ago were entirely un-
dreamed of. Who is to draw the line and
say. Thus far shalt thou go and no farther ?

I affirm nothing as to what is to be. I do
not claim to be a prophet or the son of a
prophet, but I do claim to know a little of the
history of the excavations in the far East,
as related to Bible narratives ; and that which
I know I affirm, have already affirmed, expect
to repeat frequently, that the pickax and the
spade never contradict the Word of God, that
so far as they say anything they affirm the
Word of God ; and I believe that their revela-
tions are not concluded, that there is yet to

The Pickax and Spade 149

be a great body of evidence for the truth of
Scripture thus revealed which, at the present
time, is visible only to the all-seeing eye of
God.

CHAPTER XIL

WHY DO WE BELIEVE THE MIR-

ACLES OF THE BIBLE TO HAVE

BEEN WROUGHT?

I have spoken, in the chapter on Jesus and
the Bible, of His testimony to these miracles.
That would be quite sufficient for me if there
were no other evidence. I believe Jesus
Christ to have been God, manifest in the flesh.
I believe that it was by Him that God made
the worlds, that He was the brightness of His
glory, the express image of His person, that
He upholds all things by the word of His
power, and that when He had by Himself
purged our sins. He sat down at the right
hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1:2, 3).
This being my faith, of course I need no testi-
mony to the miracles of the Bible except His
testimony.

When He certified to the Old Testament,
telling us to search it, and when He certi-
fied to the New Testament, telling us that He
would give those who wrote it the Holy Spirit
so that they might remember the things which

Why Do We Believe 151

they ought to say, that is quite sufficient for
me; but because it is proper to call two or
three witnesses, even when one's testimony is
enough, I propose in this chapter to speak a
little in detail of the reasons for believing
the miracles of the Bible to have been
wrought, as the Bible declares.

I shall omit the general testimony of Jesus
to the whole Book, though I may speak of His
dealing with some individual cases, and I
think I will begin with His reference to the
case of Jonah. I do this because I consider
the manner in which this prophet's work has
been treated so shameless and wicked.

Three Days in the Earth.

Jesus was approaching the end of His
earthly ministry. The quiet years at Naza-
reth, where He sat in the evening with Joseph
and Mary and learned from tliem the story of
His people ; the stormy years of public teach-
ing, when He was misunderstood by His dis-
ciples, by the sons of Mary, hated and hunted
by the ecclesiastical leaders of His time —
these years were done. He was passing out
into that frightful period which closed His
earthly career. He was trying to get His
disciples to understand the events which were

152 Visions and Voices

at hand, that they might not be disappointed
by them, but, on the other hand, might be en-
ergized by them for the great work to which
they were called. So He began to tell them
about the things which He must suffer.

Among other things he said, "As Jonah was
three days and three nights in the whale's
belly, so shall the Son of man be three days
and three nights in the heart of the earth"
(Matt. 12:40). Let us remember the solemn
occasion on which these words were uttered,
the time in His life, the purpose which He had
in view, and let me ask any thoughtful person
who reads whether or not on such an occasion
our Lord would have been likely to trifle with
historic fact, or whether we have a right to
believe that He would have reported things as
they actually are.

Of course I am not undertaking to give the
law to anybody else; I am simply expressing
the judgments which seem to me necessarily
true when I say I find it utterly impossible
to believe that our Lord Jesus Christ would
have made this reference if Jonah had not
been swallowed by a great fish, retained for
three days in his stomach, and then vomited
forth on the dry land.

I do not here cover the ground which I

Why Do We Believe 153

have formerly traversed in reference to the
effect of this miracle on his preaching. I am
speaking of our Lord Jesus, and I ask
whether or not He would have been likely
at such a time, for such a purpose, to have
made a historic reference which had no foun-
dation in fact. Anyone who chooses to be-
lieve this and is able to believe it may; I
cannot and do not. I believe just as much
in the historicity of Jonah and the truth of
the narrative concerning his flight, the man-
ner in which God checked it, and the resulting
preaching, as I believe in the existence of
George Washington, the Declaration of In-
dependence, the existence of King John of
England, or the Magna Charta.

The Miracles of Jesus.

Suppose that Jesus was the Person that the
Bible declares Him to be, God manifest in the
flesh; suppose that the Creator of the uni-
verse elected to occupy human form and to
dwell in this world for a number of years,
teaching and suffering that He might bring
men to Himself. Allow, I say, that this is
true. If it were true, would it be natural that
this marvelous Being should come into the
world as other men had? He must be bom

154 Visions and Voices^

of woman, for He must partake of our na-
tures if He was to sympathize with us in our
temptations and trials and atone for our sins,
but would it have been natural that He should
be bom as other men are? If God should
create the infant life in Mary, the mother,
then He would, on the one hand, represent
Deity, and, on the other, could be touched with
the infirmities of man. He would thus become
qualified to be a mediator between God and
man. If God was thus to take upon Himself
human form, would it be natural that stars
should shine supernaturally ? Would it be
natural that angels should break through the
skies to sing and that shepherds and wise
men should be moved strangely at His advent ?
If God should really take upon Himself
human form, becoming for us a man, would
it be natural that He should certify His
divine character by works, such as no man
can do? I say, would we naturally expect
this? Would it be natural that He should
heal the sick, open the eyes of the blind, un-
stop the ears of the deaf, give feet to the lame,
cleansing to the leper, peace and quiet to
the demon-driven; that He should preach the
Gospel to the poor?
If men were to take such a person with

Why Do We Believe 155

wicked hands and crucify and kill Him, would
it be natural that the heavens should be dark,
that the earth should tremble, that graves
should be opened and that dead saints should
come forth? Would it be natural that He
should rise from the dead, show Himself to
His friends and empower His followers to do
the sort of works that He did, that their testi-
mony might be believed? Would it be natu-
ral that He should say to men, "If you do
not believe me, believe the works" ?

In other words, are the miracles of both the
Old and New Testaments such occurrences
as a rational, thoughtful man would reasonably
expect in the times and under the circum-
stances which then existed? It seems to me
that for a reasonable being there is only one
answer to questions like these, and I believe the
miracles of the Old and New Testaments
for the reasons above stated, if for no other.

There are many other proofs, but these
would be sufficient for me if they stood alone.

The Story of the Church.

I have referred several times in this writing
to the miraculous history of the Christian
church. It is, however, a great subject, has
never yet been exhausted and is not likely to

156 Visions and Voices

be, so I make no apology for referring to

it in this connection.

I have spoken of the law of cause and
effect. This is a principle which is imbedded
in the reason of the race. Every little child
understands it as well as a philosopher. He
looks from the event to the cause precisely as
the most scholarly man in the world would do.

Now the church is a tremendous effect. I
admit all its defects, all the imperfections that
arise from our human weakness. These are
neither denied nor forgotten; but the church
is a tremendous effect. It is a wonderful
thing to have hundreds of millions of people
profess one faith. It is most remarkable that
men, in the struggle for life, should set aside
hundreds of millions of dollars for the erec-
tion of churches and the maintenance of re-
ligious exercises of various sorts.

There are today twenty-five thousana na-
tives of European and American countries,
missionaries in foreign lands. The tests to
which they are subjected are not so severe as
they were fifty or one hundred years ago, but
still these people leave their friends, their
comfortable homes ; they go into streets which
are reeking with filth, into homes which are
swarming with vermin; they yet travel in re-

Why Do We Believe 157

gions where life is in hourly danger, and all
this they do, twenty-five thousand men and
women, to preach the Church of Jesus Christ,
the Gospel of the kingdom, the Saviour of the
world.

A Jew was recently sitting in the great hall
built by the Los Angeles Bible Institute. That
group of buildings with the land cost approxi-
mately two millions of dollars. The great
hall seats over four thousand persons. The
Jew sat there wonderingly through an hour or
so, and, the service closing, said to a friend
of mine, "There must be something in the
Christian religion or men would not put so
much money as there is in this building into
it." He was a reasonable Jew. Any sensible
man would say the same. People do not spend
their money by hundreds of thousands and
millions of dollars without some sort of a
reason ; but that great building, beautiful and
expensive as it is, is like a grain of sand com-
pared with a mountain range when measured
against the monies which have been put into
Christian churches, schools and enterprises of
all sorts from the beginning until now.

Here, I say, we have a tremendous effect.
One who does not think very much of course
will not appreciate it, but no man who thinks

158 Visions and Voices

can consider the history of the church without
being awe- stricken.

The Church Built on the Miracles.

Now the Christian church is the only insti-
tution in the world which, from its origin, de-
manded to be received on the truth of super-
natural works. The Christian church did de-
mand to be so received and was so received
from the beginning. As I have already re-
minded you, Jesus said, "If you do not believe
me, believe the works" (John 10:38); and
again, "That ye may know that the Son of
man hath power on earth to forgive sins, he
saith unto the sick of the palsy, Rise up and
walk" (Matt. 9:6).

We are to remember that the miracles of
the Bible were not like the spiritualistic mir-
acles of our time. They were not wrought
in a corner. When our Lord was about to
heal a sick man, or raise a dead one. He did
not first get the invalid or the corpse into a
room with a handful of adherents about Him
and turn down the lights. His miracles were
wrought before men, most of them, per-
haps every one, in broad daylight. He was
surrounded in many cases not alone by crowds
of friends but by deadly enemies, enemies who

Why Do We Believe 159

hated Him to death, who hunted Him Hke a
wolf to His very Cross.

These miracles were preached, especially
the great miracle of the resurrection, every-
where. The apostles did not wait until they
got to Antioch or Rome or Corinth to declare
the resurrection. Within a few weeks after it
occurred, Peter stood up in the city where
Jesus was murdered and where He rose from
the dead and said to the Jews, "You crucified
and murdered Jesus Christ, but God has
raised Him from the dead.*' From this as a
center, the doctrine of the resurrection was
preached wherever the Gospel went. It was
not only preached, it was believed, and it was
not believed in a lazy, half and half fashion,
but it was believed by men and women so un-
questionably that in testimony of their faith
they went cheerfully to die in every horrible
fashion that the ingenuity of devils and men
could invent. Simple beheading or hanging
would have been the height of mercy com-
pared with the manner in which these brave
brothers and sisters of ours went singing to
their doom.

From that day to this present hour, the
miracles have been part and parcel of the
teaching of the church throughout the whole

i6o Visions and Voices

world. Common people have never found it
difficult to believe the record. Everywhere
infidelity in regard to the supernatural has
been the work of paid defenders of the Faith
— more is the shame and more is the pity ; but
everyone knows that this is true.

We are in the last days, and the darkness
deepens as the sun goes down, but if the night
comes, the morning also comes, and soon the
Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing
in His wings. It behooves us who have been
redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus to
contend earnestly for the faith which was
once for all delivered to the saints. At such
a time as we do not think, the Son of man
comes ; and when He comes, it is well that He
finds us watching and working.

CHAPTER XIII.
MODERN MIRACLES.

Persons who object to the miracles of the
Bible frequently remind us that bogus signs
and wonders are common in our time. They
talk of the alleged miracles of Spiritualism,
Roman Catholicism and Christian Science.
They declare that these miracles are very
largely fraudulent and they thus seek to throw
a shade of doubt upon the wonders of the
Word of God. Respecting these alleged mir-
acles, two or three things may be said.

In the first place, it is not necessary to
deny that some of these alleged marvels are
actually true. The Bible recognizes the fact
that demons have power to work miracles
(Rev. 13:13). They have far greater power
than we, why should they not do works im-
possible to us, that is, works which are to us
miracles and wonders? Still further, there
is an element of truth in all these systems.
The Roman catechism says: "We receive all
gifts, even eternal life, solely through the
death and merits of our Lord Jesus Christ."

1 62 Visions and Voices

This is true, no matter who says it. There
have been many thousands of humble Chris-
tians in the Romish church. Luther and
Melanchthon were in the Romish church
when they were converted. Fenelon and
Madame Guyon lived and died in that church
and they were near to the heart of God. Who
is to prove that humble souls like these may
not have been permitted at times to work
signs and wonders in the name of Jesus
Christ ? I certainly have no such commission.

Spiritualism was a reaction against gross
and crude materialism. Largely fraudulent
as it has always been, nevertheless it is true
we are surrounded by spirit intelligences,
and it is true that they influence us in various
ways. The Spirit of God is our teacher, if
we will have Him. If not, we will be taught
by Satan, and Satan has a thousand imps
ready to run his errands and do his bidding.

Christian Science is a system which, like
Seventh Day Adventism, seeks to live, not by
attempting to save sinners, but by pulling
uninformed, dissatisfied, unhappy Christians
out of churches. I have heard of godless,
wicked men who have been saved by the teach-
ing of Christian Science, but I never chanced
to know one yet. All of my friends who have

Modem Miracles 163

become Christian Scientists were professed
Christians before they became Scientists. I
never knew one such person who was living
a grossly immoral life. They have, without
exception, been refined, intelligent, pleasant
people. Those of them whom I have known
have never been desperately poor. The rule
is, I think, that they are well-to-do, if not
wealthy. A man who is really up against the
serious things of life can hardly accept a
system which teaches him that he can never
be sick but that if he is, somebody can help
him by looking at him or thinking about him
two dollars' worth.

Since these people are very largely those
who have confessed Christian faith, who have
the Bible, and who, in a way, believe it, who
is to declare that God will never work won-
ders for them? Certainly I will not. This
will do for a first remark.

The second one is this. Many of these al-
leged miracles do not hold up. Under spiritual
excitement, a sort of an ecstasy, suffering
people imagine themselves to be helped for a
while, but realities press upon them and they
fall back into their suffering and ill-health.
Dr. Dowie was accustomed to tell people to
throw away their crutches and say they were

164 Visions and Voices

healed and could walk when they were not
healed and could not walk, and when these
people came back to him for their crutches
he refused to give them up. He would rather
they should suffer than that he should be
discredited. Of course there is only one end
for a teacher like that.

Another fact to be stated regarding these
alleged miracles is that many of them are
simply frauds and lies. Why do the Spiritu-
alists always want the lights turned down be-
fore they have a materialization scene? If
the work is genuine and real, it can be
wrought in daylight as well as in the dark;
but who ever heard of Spiritualists proposing
to work their miracles in the midst of a crowd
where all men can see ? They want a cabinet,
a darkened room, something or other so that
they can fool the people who are willing to
pay them for being fooled.

Another fact which is to be stated regard-
ing these miracles is that the failures far out-
number the alleged successes. I have myself,
in the church of St. Anne de Beaupre, seen
stacks of crutches and festoons of crutches
and trusses. I would be afraid even to guess
how many there were in these stacks and fes-
toons. Certainly I think they would be num-

Modern Miracles 165

bered by hundreds; but right around those
stacks of crutches and under those festoons
of crutches and trusses were poor lame people
creeping around on hands and knees trying
»to be helped but unhelped; blind people led
by the hand, praying to see but remaining
blind. It was pitiful beyond expression and
it rendered one indignant at the priests who
were fattening on their miseries.

Another thing w^hich should be said regard-
ing these alleged miracles is that they lead
people to wonder at and admire systems or
men rather than Jesus Christ. A friend of
mine was in a spiritualistic seance. The
medium was in a trance state. My friend, be-
ing permitted to ask a question, asked this
medium, who professed to represent someone
in the spirit world, "Have you seen anything
of Jesus Christ since you were there?" And
the spirit answered, "I have been here ten
years and I never have seen or heard of such
a person."

A friend of mine, who was a very earnest
Christian Scientist, was telling me what Chris-
tian Science had done for him. I said to him,
"Was it Christian Science or Jesus Christ
that healed you?" "Oh," he said, "of course
it was Jesus Christ." "Well," I replied, "as

i66 Visions and Voices

it was Jesus Christ, why do you not say
something about Him once in a while? Why
are you always talking about Christian Sci-
ence? I have heard you say nothing about
Jesus Christ. If He is the one who has
helped you, I think you owe it to Him to say
something about it," This friend of mine was
not a bad person. He was a gentleman. His
wife was for several years my stenographer.
She was a lovely young woman and is now a
happy and honored wife. They did not, either
one of them, intend to be untrue to the re-
ligion which they professed before they be-
came Christian Scientists, but the system is
a poison. It gets insensibly into the blood and
people are ruined as to their faith before they
know it.

These dear young people, whom I love truly,
had ceased to think about Jesus Christ. When
they were checked up and required to stop,
they remembered that He was their Saviour;
but naturally they did not think of Him at
all ; they thought of Christian Science, of Mrs.
Eddy, of Science and Health. This sort of
thing filled the horizon of the mind.

It was so with Catholicism. The Roman
Catholic thinks of Mary. He thinks of the
priests, he thinks of the church, he thinks very

Modem Miracles 167

little about the Saviour. It is a commonplace
that in the cathedrals the altars of the saints
and of Mary have far more gifts than the altar
of Jesus Christ. He is preached by the sys-
tem, but He is buried under the prominence
of the priests and of the sacraments.

Another thing which ought to be said re-
specting these alleged miracles is that they
do not lead to holiness of character. Why
should they? There is no being in the uni-
verse except Jesus Christ who can make a
sinful man holy, and any system which fast-
ens the thought on any other one than Him
will necessarily make men unholy rather than
holy.

I read recently of a devout Catholic in
South America who had been attending the
Catholic church all his life, going around oc-
casionally for absolution and the sacrament.
The missionary spoke to him about Jesus and
he said, **Who is He? I never heard of
Him." He had been taught to pray, "Mary,
mother of God, pity us. Mary, mother of
God, help us. Holy Mary, mother of God^
intercede for us ;" but he knew nothing about
Jesus Christ.

The whole list of false faiths from the be-
ginning until now is of one sort in regard

i68 Visions and Voices

to Jesus. As in the Masonic lodges, the Odd
Fellow lodges, so in all the lodges of our
time which are distinctly religious in char-
acter, Jesus Christ is outlawed. Satan knows
that Jesus Christ is the Saviour. When the
miracles were wrought in the times of the
apostles, and Peter had preached the resur-
rection to the men who had murdered Jesus,
the people cried out, "What must we do to be
saved?" They knew they were sinners, they
wanted to be saved. The same teaching pro-
duces the same effects today. Where men
believe the Bible, the miracles of the Bible,
the teachings of the Bible, they are rebuked
because of their sins, they are ashamed of
them, they are sorry for them, they get them
forgiven through the blood of Jesus and they
live new lives; but false faiths, heathen re-
ligions and sham miracles have never pro-
duced such results. From the nature of the
case they never can.

The miracles of the Bible in every essen-
tial particular differ from these frauds which
are palmed off upon ignorant and foolish
people in our time. In the first place, the
former were, practically all of them, works of
mercy — ^none of them wrought for the sake of
creating wonder. The fevered, the leprous.

Modem Miracles 169

the lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, all
these and multitudes of others were healed
by the touch of their teachers and went their
way to praise Jesus Christ Who had had com-
passion upon them.

These miracles, as I have said above, were
all of them wrought in daylight, in the pres-
ence of numbers of people. When our Lord
was to raise the daughter of Jairus, though
He would not permit the howling multitude
to come into the death room, He would not
go in alone. He took with Him three dis-
ciples and the mother and father of the
maiden. In the presence of these five wit-
nesses He said to the dead child, "Damsel, I
say unto thee arise; and straightway she
sat up."

In Spiritualistic circles frequently the me-
dium says he or she cannot work because of
the presence of unbelievers; but the Bible
miracles were, practically all of them, wrought
in the presence of unbelievers. They were
wrought for the sake of unbelievers, that the
unbelievers might believe.

As I have just been saying, the genuine
miracles, the miracles of the Bible, lead to
repentance, to restitution, to faith and joy;
the fictitious miracles lead to wonder but not

170 Visions and Voices

to gladness. The people say, Let us go again
and see if we can see another. They do not
say, We have seen and are satisfied.

In the accounts of the founding of the
church, over and again the joy of the disciples
is mentioned as a distinguishing characteris-
tic. They were glad because they were saved.
They were saved because they believed that
what Jesus had done for other people He could
do for them. So the miracles of the Word
of God are in a class by themselves, differing
absolutely and in every particular from these
fraudulent ones which are taught in our time.

Which Will You Have?

Someone has said that life is a series of
choices. He might have said that these
choices are continuous, that each moment of
conscious existence furnishes its alternative,
and compels its decisions.

It has been often said — it is always true —
that man is incurably religious. In some way
or other he must get to what he believes is
divine. He is never satisfied with himself.
He is conscious of his need and he is con-
scious of his sin. Until in some way or other
he is, or believes himself to be, in the presence
of a helping power which is sufficient, a sav-

Modern Miracles 171

ing power that can pardon and cleanse, he can
have no rest. "The wicked are Hke the
troubled sea," they cannot rest. This is not
because of some baleful design on the part
of God, but because of the nature of the case.
A sinning soul is as much out of harmony with
itself as it is out of harmony with the will of
God. Parallel lines never cross. Divergent
lines, in the same plane, must first or last
interfere.

I am led to this line of thought by the
fact that man must have a God, that is, some
being whom he looks upon as equal to his
need. He must have some religion, that is,
some system of faith and practice which he
thinks will conduct to virtue and happiness.
He must, somewhere or other, come in touch
with the supernatural. His nature requires
that he should. He does not will to be this
kind of a person. He has been made this
sort of a person and he cannot change his
essential being. What God created him he
will remain; therefore, my readers and the
friends of my readers are in this situation.
They must accept the wonders of the Word or
they must believe these fraudulent miracles,
which by various systems are being foisted
upon the world. It is not a question

172 Visions and Voices

whether a person will believe in miracles or
not. Men necessarily believe in them, that is
to say, they believe in works which are be-
yond their own power. No sane man be-
lieves that he causes the sun to shine. No
sane man believes that the shining sun is
without a cause. Nature abhors a vacuum,
and the worst emptiness in this world would
be an emptiness of God. All other emptiness
may be endured, but this would be fatal to the
universe, so my friends must choose.

I have pften referred to a saying of a
Wheaton alumnus, an Iowa judge who re-
turned after some years to the college to de-
liver an address. I remember only one sen-
tence which he uttered. That has been with
me, I think, a thousand times since I heard
him say it. His statement was this — "There
are some persons so constituted that they can
believe anything except the truth/* There ii>
not a particle of doubt that this is a fact. Some
persons are so constituted that they can believe
anything except the truth. The Bible speaks
of certain people who are given over to be-
lieve a lie. What a frightful thing this would
be, to be given over to believe a lie, so that the
person should really accept it, trust it, believe
it, though it was a lie.

Modern Miracles 173

I heard a sermon recently about forgetting
God. The preacher concluded the sermon by
saying, "What is the end of forgetting God?"
Very thoughtfully and solemnly he read the
words of Jeremiah: "Therefore, behold I,
even I will utterly forget you and I will
forsake you and the city that I gave you and
your fathers and will cast you out of my pres-
ence and I will bring an everlasting reproach
upon you and a perpetual shame which shall
not be forgotten" (Jer. 23:39, 40). The
preacher did not read all the words which I
have written here. He stopped with the words
"forget you," but because all are related, I
choose to write the whole.

God says that His people go into captivity
because they have no knowledge. I think
most unbelievers consider themselves very
well informed. They think they are unbe-
lievers because they have knowledge, whereas
God says they are unbelievers because they
lack it. While this ignorance is general and
exhibited in many ways, I think there is no
one subject of which unbelieving men are so
ignorant as they are of the Word of God.

I have never shunned the presence of or
conversation with unbelieving men. I have
coveted it, both for my own information and

174 Visions and Voices

in the hope that I might do such men some
little good, and God has, from time to time,
rewarded my hope and faith by the work He
has been willing to do through me. I mention
this fact to say that I have never yet known
an unbeliever who has been fairly well ac-
quainted with God's Word. A peculiar truth
regarding these men is, however, that they,
almost all of them, believe themselves to be
very well informed concerning it. Over and
again they have said to me, "I know all about
the Bible. My father and mother made me
read it when I was a little boy. I always had
to go to church and Sunday school. I got too
much of it. I have studied it from beginning
to end." And when I have asked them the
simplest question respecting it, instantly their
knowledge has dissolved into the ignorance
which they had denied.

I remember well a young fellow who sat
with me in a coach on the Burlington Line
many years ago. As I sat down and we en-
tered into conversation, I said to him, "Are
you a Christian man?" and he replied, "No,
I am a Bob Ingersoll man." I said to him,
"Why are you a Bob Ingersoll man?" He
said, "Well, I am down on the Bible." I said,
"Are you; why are you down on the Bible?"

Modern Miracles 175

He said, "Because it justifies crime." *'Is
that possible?" I said. "I did not know that.
What crimes does the Bible justify?" He
said, "The crime of adultery." I said, "Is
that possible? I have studied the Bible
quite a bit. I never found that place.
Perhaps you will show me the place." By
this time I had taken out my Bible and
handed it over to him. He colored and said,
"Oh, I do not know the place, but I know
it is so." "Why," I said, "I am very much
surprised. I did not know that it was so. Per-
haps this is the verse to which you refer";
so I turned to Leviticus 20:10: "The adul-
terer and adulteress shall surely be put to
death." "Perhaps this is the verse you had in
mind." He blushed even more deeply and
said, "No, that is not the verse." This young
man knew as much about the Bible as most
unbelievers with whom I have come in close
contact.

The Book of Hezekiah.

I read years ago of an unbeliever who was
talking with a humble Christian and was dis-
cussing the Bible. The unbeliever said that
the Bible was an infamous book; that it was
not fit to be read ; that it ought to be put out

176 Visions and Voices

of existence; that it was a shame for a man
to have such a book in his house. The Chris-
tian man said to him, "You do not think the
whole Bible is as bad as that, do you?" He
said, "Indeed I do; it is bad from beginning
to end. It is not fit to exist." And the be-
liever said to him, "Well, take the book of
Hezekiah. Do you not think the book of
Hezekiah has some good things in it?" And
he replied, "The book of Hezekiah? That is
the meanest book there is in the whole Bible."
This seemed to me, at the time I first read it,
doubtful, so twice I tried the trap which my
friend furnished, on some unsuspectin'* in-
fidel with whom I was talking. In each case
the unbeliever declared himself to be well
acquainted with the Bible, to have studied it
since a little boy, to have had it forced upon
him by parents and teachers, to have been
particularly disgusted with it because he found
it such an obnoxious book; and each time I
asked him about the book of Hezekiah and
each time he said, for substance, what the
narrator of the incident above recorded said;
that the book of Hezekiah was about the
worst book there was in the Bible.

We are shamelessly negligent of the Bible.
We ought to repent and do far better than we

Modern Miracles 177

have done; but unbelievers, especially those
who declare themselves to be thoroughly well
informed about the Bible are, so far as my
observation extends, grossly ignorant of all its
teachings.

Which of the Two Will You Choose?

Let me remind you once more for yourself
and more than that, for your friends, that men
are to choose. When you say you will not
choose, you choose. When you say you will
not choose until tomorrow, you choose today.
You are at liberty to choose which you will
but you are not at liberty not to choose; so
let me once more repeat, Which will you have
this wonderful Book, with its wonders which
are so natural, which were so necessary,
which are so necessary, which brought such
unmixed gladness to those who experienced
them; or will you have the emptiness and de-
ceit of some false system which comes to you
in some hour of need, when you must have
something to depend upon, and offers itself to
your weakness, perhaps to your terror? If
you will not have God, then you will have to
put up with yourself and with the false gods
which men who feel themselves alone in the
universe are certain to accept.

CHAPTER XIV.
A FEW WORDS IN CONCLUSION.

All of my friends know me as a busy man.
I began my life- task when I was twenty years
of age and have since that time very seldom
known what it was to have a day of idleness.
Twice it has seemed that I must rest, and God
has, through generous friends, graciously pro-
vided for the need, but the rule has been that
I have toiled each day, oftentimes through
many hours.

I did not for years find myself able to write
books, but as I found years creeping on — I
ought not to say creeping, rather rushing — I
saw that if I was ever to leave my testimony
in accessible form for those who were to
come after me, I must be about the work. So
I have written, in hurried, imperfect fashion,
four small books, each of them dealing with
subjects which seemed to me important. In
most remarkable ways God provided me pub-
lishers, for I could not have published them
at my own expense; and what was more de-
lightful, perhaps more wonderful. He has in

A Few Words in Conclusion 179

most instances provided many readers. I
have received over and again, from far-dis-
tant places, even from the islands of the sea,
testimony that God had blessed the word
which He gave me to utter.

This has encouraged me to write the pages
which you have read. I have always been in-
terested in books on the truth of the Word of
God. This question seems to me so absolute-
ly fundamental that I have availed myself of
books, little and large, on the subject, and
expect to continue to do so. One might ask.
Why not select those books which have al-
ready been published and put time and money
into the circulation of them and in this way
multiply the number of those who have an
unshaking faith in this unshakable Book? I
reply, as I have respecting a former publica-
tion, that I could not do any large work in
this way to begin with, and, if I did, the testi-
mony would not be mine but that of another.
So far as God permits, I would like to utter
my own testimony, to have men know some
of the reasons why I believe, why I say I know
the Bible to be God's Word. I would like
to have all the people who trust me at all
share with me in the faith I have in the dis-
puted things in this marvelous Book, for the

i8o Visions and Voices

disputed things seem to me oftentimes the
most important.

If men believe in the miracles of the Bible,
they are not likely to doubt anything else they
find in it. If men believe that the Bible is
really inspired of God, that holy men of old
wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,
they are not likely to treat with ignorant con-
tempt any portions of such a Book ; so I have,
in the midst of many cares and labors, most
imperfectly written the words which are here-
in contained. I have tested them, as well as
I am able, I believe, without the slightest dis-
position to accept anything but what is true.

I am thankful that I have lived to write
these words, for, while I do not think that
men are generally converted by arguments, I
know that men are often confirmed jn a faith
which they have inherited or received without
sufficient examination, by having exhibited the
truths involved. Therefore I am, as I have
said, thankful to be permitted to share these
reflections with my fellow travelers to the
judgment bar of God.

I do not believe that, apart from the ques-
tion of personal salvation, any more important
subject will ever be presented to the mind of
a rational being than this one, "Who wrote

A Few Words in Conclusion i8i

the Bible?" When we reflect on what the
Bible says on this subject for itself, how con-
tinually it declares itself to contain the word
of God, and not the word of man; when we
remember how the Holy Spirit Himself has
contrasted the written Word with visions and
voices, which, important in their time and
place, are nevertheless less important than the
precious words which God has written for our
learning; when we remember how the Bible
insists on the possibility of knowledge as to
the great questions awakened by our faith so
that we may say "I know" rather than "I be-
lieve"; when we consider the miraculous
deeds done by the fathers, recorded in this
Book, confirmed by so many infallible tokens ;
when we reflect upon the prophecies which
have been already fulfilled and meditate upon
those which yet remain ; when we think of the
manner in which God stored up, under heaps
of dirt, in distant lands, proofs of this Book's
truthful character, hiding these proofs away
from the eyes of men for thousands of years
and bringing them forth in our time and
spreading them before the whole world ; when
we reflect on the marvelous diff"erence between
the miracles recorded in the Bible and the mir-
acles recorded by the false faiths of our time ;

i82 Visions and Voices

when we consider what the Bible has done for
the world, what it has done for us — I think
we must always feel that we have here a price-
less treasure, a pearl of great price, nay, a
string of pearls forming a glorious ornament
fit for the throat of a queen or the throne of
a king.

What Follows?

If the things set forth in this little book are
even approximately true, it follows that we,
first, should make this Book more and more
the man of our counsel, the light to our feet,
the lamp to our path. This is not difficult,
provided we are determined. If we are not
determined, it will be not only difficult but im-
possible. Satan will furnish a thousand rea-
sons for neglecting the Word of God, if we
are willing to have him lay out our work. The
pressure of duty, the claims of pleasures, all
these will make it impossible for us to become
men and women of the Book, unless we have
determined that we will be. If we are so de-
termined, we shall be able to find time or make
time, and the helps to a knowledge of the
Word are now more abundant and more inex-
pensive than ever before. He who wills may
know ; he who wills not will not know.

A Few Words in Conclusion 183

In the second place, while we ought to know
the Book better than we do, our chief failures
have been, not in the line of knowledge, but
in the line of obedience. No man will read
these words who has not known better than
he has done. I have known far better than
I have done. So while knowledge is an impor-
tant thing, obedience is all-important, and we
shall find that our knowledge of the Word
will be broadened and heightened and intensi-
fied by every effort to obey. "Thy words have
I hid in my heart that I might not sin against
thee." So said the great singer of Israel,
so we also should say; if we do this, we shall
find that hiding God's words in our hearts will
accomplish for us the thing which David
hoped to have for himself.

And third and last, if we know this Book
and obey this Book we shall find it so beauti-
ful, so lovely, that we shall wish with our
whole hearts to pass it on to other people.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but these
words which God has spoken through His
Spirit and through His Son will never pass
away.

With a great love for you, whom I have
never seen, whom probably I shall never see,
and for this Word which I have seen, which

184 Visions and Voices

I have imperfectly known, which I have im-
perfectly obeyed, but which has nevertheless
wrought for me so many blessings that I can-
not remember nor describe them, and with
the desire that you and it may come into lov-
ing fellowship for all the days of your earthly
life, that you may enjoy the Author of this
Book through all the ages of eternity, I desire
to be considered in the love and work of Jesus
your true and faithful friend.

Date Due

"My '1 1

J