world either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good
as the Bible." And John Marshall and Prince Bismarck agree with Daniel
Webster when he says: "If we abide by the principles taught in the
Bible our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and
our posterity neglect its instructions and authority no man can tell
how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in
profound obscurity." There is not an anarchist in America who does not
clap his hands when he hears a Bible with the Ten Commandments and the
Sermon on the Mount denounced. Indeed, the civilization in which we
stand, as compared with the barbarism out of which we have been led
by the Bible, would make William Henry Seward's assertion only a mild
statement of the truth when he says: "The whole hope of human progress
is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible." I prefer
lawyers like these to lead American public opinion. Part of the
service of these men has been that they have shown theology that the
Bible is not a set of texts on a dead level of authority and equal
value, but the revealing, slow and sure, of an inspiration obeyed by a
certain people in the realm of morals like that inspiration obeyed by
another people in the realm of art, and its test is: Does the Bible's
ultimate message, its crowning commandment of Christ's life and love,
produce goodness in morals? just as the test of the long revelation
of beauty in his ancestors and the Greek is, does its ultimate
commandment produce goodness in art.

Christianity does not ask: "What think ye of the Bible?" It asks:
"What think ye of Christ?" There the throne is set, and so majestic is
His glory that the moment we come into His presence we are judged. The
Judge of the earth has taken His place in thought, history and hope.
He is not on trial, and He asks no question as to what man thinks of
the book which has enthroned Him in literature. The test is placed in