maria, when James and John quoted the Old Testament, and Jesus declared the governing principle of Old Testament interpretation. He said that the Old Testament is to be judged by its accordance with the new spirit. Thereby he freed his followers for all time from moral bondage to the lower standards of the past. He taught them to use the "cancellation of develop ment." They were freely to reject whatever they found to be outgrown in the morality or in the theology of the Old Testament. They said, "See what Elijah did"; but he answered, "Yes, don't do that. If Elijah did it, it was because he knew no better. We have learned much about God and about man since Elijah's day. You are to judge the past by the standard of the new spirit." Thereafter, when Old Testament examples are cited, we are to examine them to see if they are good examples. We are to estimate them, not by the praise which attends them in the old chronicle, and not by the assertion of their eulogists that thus they did by the express revelation of God. We are to test them by the spirit we are of; that is, by the supreme standard of the life and word of Jesus Christ.

The Old Testament, as Christ explained it, is not a revelation of the will of God, in such a manner that we may open it at any place and find out what the will of God is. It was for this undiscriminating reference that the disciples were rebuked. The Old Testament is a record of the endeavors of men to learn the will of God and do it. It is an account of the progress which they made in this the chief of our human undertak

ings. The chronicle begins, as we would expect, with intellectual and moral imperfection. God deals with men, as we deal with children, according to their strength and understanding. If the best that they can do in the way of theology is to think of God as a man, coming down out of the sky, and talking with Adam and Eve, very well; that must serve until they are able to think more clearly. If the best they can do in the way of morality is to return evil in good measure for evil, exacting an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, even so, some rule is better than the anarchy of undisciplined revenge; out of these rude ethics shall at last proceed the Sermon on the Mount. The Old Testament is an honest account of theological and moral progress. It is a record of splendid successes; it is also a frank recital of failures. It is not to be read all in one tone of voice. It was written for our learning, but one of the lessons which we are to learn from it is that mankind comes slowly along the way of betterment.

IV

We are not responsible for the Old Testament. We are not under obligation to defend it where by the standard of the new spirit it can not be defended. Under such circumstances we are to deal with it as Jesus dealt with the example of Elijah, and as he dealt at other times with Old Testament ideals of neighborliness and brotherhood. We are to say with all frankness that this and that may have been very well when

it was said and done, long ago, before Christ, but that we know better now.

We are not responsible for the Old Testament knowledge. It is of no concern to us whether the men of the old time were right or wrong in their ideas about the making of the world. It used to be considered a matter of very grave concern. There were times when men of science, if they desired to keep their liberty and save their lives, were compelled to undertake the impossible task of pouring the increasing knowledge gained by study into the narrow moulds which were constructed in Asia in the days of man's ignorance. If they discovered anything which was not known in the time of Abraham, especially if it did not agree with the accounts which were transcribed in the book of Genesis from the bricks of Babylon, they must conceal it like a crime. The Old Testament blocked the way of science. Within our own memory the theories of geologists and astronomers were debated not on the basis of their agreement with the facts but on the basis of their accordance with the Old Testament. Not until recent years was it perceived that the proper reply to such conservative persons is like the rebuke which Jesus addressed to James and John: Ye know not what knowledge ye are of.

We have held ourselves responsible not only for Old Testament morality and theology, and for the accuracy of Old Testament history, but for the inerrancy even of the Jewish rabbis who wrote names of authors at the beginning of writings which were originally anonymous. If they said that David wrote such and such

psalms, we felt obliged to agree with them against the evidence of the psalms themselves. If they said that Isaiah wrote the whole of the book of Isaiah we must defend the statement even though it is plain in the book that the second half was written two hundred years after the first half. We must make the facts fit the theory.

When Jesus told the disciples that Elijah was mistaken, he liberated us from allegiance to the Old Testament, and bound us only to Old Testament truth,-to Old Testament truth certified by the knowledge and spirit we are of. When we encounter errors of statement and deficiencies of doctrine in these pages we are not to shut our eyes to them, to conceal them, to deny them, or to behave ourselves in any unnatural or insincere manner. We are to follow the example of his frankness. Out of bondage to these ancient books, he has set us free.

III

WHAT, THEN, IS INSPIRATION?

YAN we read the Bible in this free way,-prefer

ring one part to another, choosing here and refusing there, agreeing but sometimes disagreeing,— and still believe that it is an inspired book? It depends on what we understand by inspiration.

The verb "to inspire" means to breathe in or upon. Thus "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." In this sense all human beings are inspired: inspired with life, of which breath is the symbol, and of which God is the origin. The only occurrence of the word "inspiration" in the Old Testament is in the book of Job (32:8) where it says, "There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." In the Revised Version this reads, "the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding." Here again, we are all inspired of God, but to the idea of the divine origin of our life is added the idea of the divine origin of our reason. We are able to think and to know because the breath of God is in us.

A similar expression is the "spirit of God." The spirit of God comes upon the prophets, and they prophesy. This is at first different from the sober