around them and set them on the path of determined striving toward a
definite goal. As the idea of the seer or the prophet found general
acceptance it gradually hardened into law, law meant for scrupulous
observance. If a singer felt stirred to write a psalm, he voiced his
experiences or his aspirations in the midst of a throbbing world. If a
statesman drew a wide survey of God's dealings with the nations of the
earth, he did so at some mighty crisis in Israel's relations to Egypt or
Assyria or Babylon. When we reach New Testament times we find that even
the Gospels seem to have been books struck out of immediate practical
urgencies rather than composed tranquilly with a scholar's interest
merely in doing a fine piece of professional work. The early Christians
were anxious to hold the believers to the strait and narrow way. To do
this they repeated often the words of the Lord Jesus. When, however, the
older members of the first circles began to fall away, the words were
written down, not because some scholar felt moved thus to improve his
leisure, but because it was absolutely necessary to preserve the words.
Moreover, conflicts were arising between the growing church and the
forces of the world round about. Some scriptures were written to supply
instruments with which to carry on the warfare. Always the fundamental
aim was to keep the people acting according to the teachings which lay
at the heart of the Christian system. The object of the biblical
revelation was from the beginning just what it is to-day in the hands of
Christian believers--the object of using the Scriptures as an instrument
for practicing the Christian spirit into all the phases of life.

We would by no means deny that there are imposing philosophies or,
rather, hints toward such philosophies, in the Scriptures, but we insist
that these did not come out of a purely philosophizing temper. They came
as men tried to put into some form or order the understandings at which
they had arrived as they wrestled with the tough facts of a world which