from some powerful life. All Europe owned the sway of Geneva, but the only sceptre in Geneva was the Book in Calvin's hands. Max Müller calls our attention to "the bleak study of a poor Augustine monk" and bids us "see that monk step out of his study with no weapon in his hand but the Bible with no armies and no treasures

and yet defying with his clear and manly voice both Pope and Emperor, both clergy and nobility;" and intuitively we accept his verdict; "there is no grander sight in history." Eloquent lips have drawn the likeness of the Pilgrims and Puritans as "armed agents of the Bible."

It is all true. Cromwell led his hosts to battle at Marston Moor, Naseby and Dunbar, carrying a Bible in every knapsack, and chanting, as did the Lord's anointed, the sixty-eighth Psalm. No oath in all that camp; nothing but praises. The Bibles were in their knapsacks, but the truth was in their hearts,- they themselves became living Bibles, known and read of men. Pilate gave his judgment, but the truth still lives. Tyrants have issued decrees; and prelates, anathemas; all in vain! The Book remains unscorched by flames; uncut by scimitar; unstained by all the blood of its defenders; a deathless power in human progress.

III.

THE RADICAL BOOK.

THE principles of the Bible have revolutionized and are revolutionizing the world.

We need not now question the possibility of some of its truths being recorded elsewhere; nor shall we inquire into the origin of such truths. Undoubtedly there are eternal verities that even heathenism cannot blight. There are teachings in nature sacred like their author. Confucius ignored all claims to inspiration, yet came near discovering the Golden Rule. It is impossible to clearly define the power of Socrates over Grecian speculation through the philosophy which Cicero claimed was "brought down from the heavens to the earth;" there was much of truth in it. Coleridge was surely not dreaming when he called Plato "a plank from the wreck of Paradise cast upon the shores of idolatrous Greece."

We do not deny the reception of truths outside

the Bible. The author of Revelation is the God of nature. Days and nights have voices; and the language of the firmament is of Him who made them, and who calls each star by name. We raise no question or comparison with the Zend Avesta whose hold on the race is limited to a few scanty communities chiefly in Western India; and of whose twenty-one parts only one is left entire. A writer of great scientific acumen draws the picture of China moralizing with Confucius upon "the perfect man," and of India " dreaming monotonous and fantastic dreams and longing for absorption in the eternal Brahm; neither of them suspecting that without them, among what they would have called Western barbarians if they had known of their existence, the world's history was going on as a mighty stream of which they did not even hear the distant roar."

We are not then to question the existence of truths outside the Bible; but this we do observe, the Bible is the only book containing the principles symmetrical with each other that are consistent with human progress. Between Confucianism in a stagnant nation, and Christianity in the highest civilization, there is no analogy, even as there can be none between the two books that symbolize

their thinking. We shall look upon the Bible as representing what is best in morals and truths; for convenience' sake identifying it with Christianity, although the two are not the same.

The relation of the Bible to human motives and actions is recognized in three special particulars, as unlike the teachings of all other books.

First: The relation of the individual to the race. The teachings of Jesus are all centered in the two fundamental doctrines; the Fatherhood of God, and the consequent brotherhood of man. Geographical boundaries cannot separate races and men from mutual responsibilities. No lines, of ecclesiasticism or of caste, can remove even the remotest of the race from our duties to them as neighbors. It was a bold statement when Paul confronted the habits and opinions of the ages with the declaration "there is neither Jew nor Greek," i. e., nations are not perfect without each other; "there is neither bond nor free," a marvelous statement when we remember that the multitudes, even while he spoke, were held as slaves by the few; "there is neither male nor female " a tribute to woman's power the realm of truth, although she was then despised. The Christian doctrine of the human brotherhood has turned the world upside down. The then

in

startling teachings that the slave had as true a manhood as his master; and that the Emperor, known and worshiped as the Pontifex Maximus, was subject to the same laws of morality as his meanest subject, -have prevailed. The sacred command of the Nazarene, "call no man master," has become the corner stone of our great republic in its declaration, "all men are created equal." Yet in all this, Christ only made more clear what was long before involved in the earliest records touching the universal brotherhood. The "covenant" with Abraham included a blessing upon "all the families of the earth," a truth sadly perverted by Jewish prejudice in their substitution of hatred for love. The prophecies are likewise concerned with the blessings to come upon the Gentiles as truly as upon the children of Abraham.

Secondly: The obligation of service in behalf of all. In one respect, the responsibilities of the universal brotherhood include the fulfilling of duties, yet we notice the direct command and example of Christ. All human progress depends upon this principle. Grecian philosophy, with all its learning, and Roman power with all its might, failed to discover the secret that love in practical life is the foundation of all human good. The purest Greek