INTRODUCTION

THE REDISCOVERY OF THE BIBLE

In the early Christian centuries thousands turned to the Bible, as
drowning men to a life buoy, because it offered them the only way
of escape from the intolerable social and moral ills that attended
the death pangs of the old heathenism. Then came the Dark Ages,
with their resurgent heathenism and barbarism, when the Bible was
taken from the hands of the people. In the hour of a nation's
deepest humiliation and moral depravity, John Wycliffe, with the
aid of a devoted army of lay priests, gave back the Bible to the
people, and in so doing laid the foundations for England's
intellectual, political and moral greatness. The joy and
inspiration of the Protestant Reformers was the rediscovery and
popular interpretation of the Bible. In all the great forward
movements of the modern centuries the Bible has played a central
role. The ultimate basis of our magnificent modern scientific and
material progress is the inspiration given to the human race by the
Protestant Reformation.

Unfortunately, the real meaning and message of the Bible has been
in part obscured during past centuries by dogmatic interpretations.
The study of the Bible has also been made a solemn obligation
rather than a joyous privilege. The remarkable discoveries of the
present generation and its new and larger sense of power and
progress have tended to turn men's attention from the contemplation
of the heritage which comes to them from the past. The result is
that most men know little about the Bible. They are acquainted