but the background of the Old is the ancient East--the age and land of
wonder, mystery, and intuition, far removed from the logical, rushing
world in which we live. The Old Testament contains a vast and complex
literature, filled with the thoughts and figures and cast in the quaint
language of the Semitic past. Between us and that past there lie not
merely long centuries, but the wide gulf that is fixed between the East
and the West.

[Sidenote:_The new light from the monuments_]

With three such distinct and powerful currents--reaction, suspicion, and
misunderstand--bearing us from the Old Testament, it might be predicted
that in a decade or two it would lie far behind our range of vision.
Other forces however are, in divine providence, rapidly bringing it back
to us again, so that we are able to understand and appreciate it as
never before since the beginning of the Christian era. The chasm between
us and it is really being bridged rather than broadened. The long
centuries that lie back of the Old Testament have suddenly been
illuminated by great search-lights, so that today we are almost as well
acquainted with them as with the beginning of the Christian era. From
ancient monuments have arisen, as from the dead, an army of contemporary
witnesses, sometimes confirming, sometimes correcting, but at all times
marvellously supplementing the biblical data. Now the events and
characters of Old Testament history no longer stand alone in mysterious
isolation, but we can study in detail their setting and real
significance. At every point the biblical narrative and thought are
brought into touch with real life and history. The biographies and
policies, for example, of Sennacherib and Cyrus, are almost as well
known as those of Napoleon and Washington. The prophets are not merely
voices, but men with a living message for all times, because they