scholarly research. We cannot go far, however, until we recognize that
sympathy with Christian truth is necessary before we can come upon vital
knowledge. And this, after all, is but the way we learn to understand
any piece of life-literature. A vast amount of material is at hand in
the form of commentaries upon the work of Shakespeare. We know much
about the circumstances under which the plays of Shakespeare were
written; we know somewhat of the sources from which Shakespeare drew his
historical materials; we are familiar with the chronology of the plays;
but all this is knowledge about Shakespeare. To know Shakespeare there
must be something of a deliberate attempt to surrender sympathetically
to the Shakespearean point of view. We get "inside of" any classic work
of literature only by this spirit of surrender. The aim of Shakespeare
is simply to picture life as he sees it, but even to appreciate the
picture men must enter into sympathy with the painter. The Scriptures
aim not merely to paint life, but to quicken and reproduce life. How
much more, then, is needed a surrender of the will before there can be
adequate appreciation of the Scriptures? If the Scriptures are the
results primarily of will-activities, how can they finally be mastered
except by minds quickened by doing the will revealed in the Scriptures?
The book of Christianity must be interpreted by the disciples of
Christianity. Judged merely by bookish standards, there is no
satisfactory explanation of the power of the Bible. But lift the whole
problem out of the realm of books as such! The glimpses into any high
truth that are worth while--how do they come? They come out of
experience. Even when they are repeated from one mind to another they
become the property of that second mind only as they reproduce
themselves in experience. Otherwise the whole transaction is of words,
words, words. The Scriptures have to do with deeds, not words.

All this is offensive to the dogmatic reasoner. For him the intellect as