which approved some books and refused others. Canon Sanday sums up the
selective process by saying: "In the fixing of the Canon, as in the
fixing of doctrine, the decisive influence proceeded from the bishops
and theologians of the period 325-450. But behind them was the practice
of the greater churches; and behind that again was not only the lead of
a few distinguished individuals, but the instinctive judgment of the
main body of the faithful. It was really this instinct that told in the
end more than any process of quasi-scientific criticism. And it was well
that it should be so, because the methods of criticism are apt to be,
and certainly would have been when the Canon was formed, both faulty and
inadequate, whereas instinct brings into play the religious sense as a
whole. Even this is not infallible; and it cannot be claimed that the
Canon of the Christian Sacred Books is infallible. But experience has
shown that the mistakes, so far as there have been mistakes, are
unimportant; and in practice even these are rectified by the natural
gravitation of the mind of man to that which it finds most nourishing
and most elevating."

In their attitude towards the Canon all Christians agree that the books
deemed authoritative must record the historic revelation which
culminated in Jesus and the founding of the Christian Church. A Roman
Catholic may derive more religious stimulus from the _Spiritual
Exercises_ of Ignatius Loyola than from the _Book of Lamentations_, and
a Protestant from Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ than from the _Second
Epistle of John_; but neither would think of inserting these books in
the Canon. He who finds as much religious inspiration in some modern
poet or essayist as in a book of the Bible, may be correctly reporting
his own experience; but he is confusing the purpose of the Bible if he
suggests the substitution of these later prophets for those of ancient
Israel. The Bible is the spiritually selected record of a particular