THE ANTI-INFIDEL LIBRARY. 
 
 THIRD MILLION, 
 
 FIVE-CENT SERIES, No. 1, OCT., '91. 
 
 PRICE FIVE CTS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 H. L HASTINGS, PUBLISHER, 49 CORNHILL 
 
 ENTERED AT THE POST O r FICF, BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A., AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER. 
 0. 2UIL. 20*. QOARTtKLY : TWELVE SUCCESSIVE NUMBERS, 11.00.
 
 H. L. HASTINGS' ANTI-INFIDEL WOEK. 
 
 Infidelity is propagated by lectures, newspapers, and cheap pamphlets 
 which are scattered far and wide, both in Christendom and in heathen lands. 
 
 The same methods must l>c used to resist infidelity. This we are en- 
 deavoring to do. About forty cheap pamphlets have been issued as Tin. 
 AxTi-IxKinri, LII;K.\I:Y, at 5 and 10 cents each and upwards. Millions of 
 these have been printed. Of a single lecture, The Jnfjiiration oj'ilit l-i<!,i< . 
 over two million copies, using 40 tons of paper have been issued. Christian 
 people, generally, unite in their praise. Who will help to circulate them '.' 
 fen thousand dollars are needed to set a million of them living through 
 the earth. AVho will help? 
 
 TESTIMONIAL. 
 
 The under signed, being personally aci/itnintnl with the Aitli-fnjidtl Lr-ct- 
 ures and Publications of Mr. II. L. Hafihii/s, / Jji'.--/nn, .l/r/.<.--.. mid bv- 
 lii rinij that tin ir iride circulation if dfinruidtd by the increase of Ski-pli- 
 cifin nwl skeptical literature, and- trill tmd t<> greatly bint-jit not 
 Skeptics, but also (til Christians and churches which ln>i<i tin >-ii>niiiii failh 
 of Chrifl, 'in In i-iinj mutt hi-nriihi I'm/nin-nd //('.< inn-k to the coHfidttict . i 11- 
 couragemeni, and support of all Christians and Philanthropists. 
 
 SL'lll-il by Lo];l> KlXXAIHK, L'lIMI KAilSTocK, SIR ARTHIK I'.I. Ac K U ( K >] >. 
 
 .1: WTLLIAMB/EDMUUD J. KKNNKHY. T. \v. STOUQHTOK, SAJIUEL SMITH. 
 M. 1'., T. A. DKXXY, S. UIIIXKY .SIMCIM-AKII, ,1<>nx \VJLKIXSOX, IIIA J). 
 S \XKF.Y. , It isKi'ii <.N)K. DoxAi.D M/.'i H i :s. >\. < 'A x< >.v Wn,r.i:i: i me i:. Ki'WAi.i' 
 WHITE, H. W. WEBB I'Kri.m-:. DK. IIAHNAIIIMI. l(i:v. I)i;s. IIUXAI.O FKASKI:, 
 K. \V. RULI/INGKR, Aixiu-II SAl'llllt, .JnsKi-H I'.M.'KKi:. A. II. IM.r.Ml:, .!. 1>. 
 WiTHKiiu . I>ANII:I, I)ni:i'iii:sTi';i:. K. V. I'.i in:, .IOSKI-II CIMMINCS. <;. ]'. I'KX- 
 TBCQ8T, A. .'. (ioi.-i'iiv, L. I',. |;ATI.S, A. 'I'. )'ii.i;sox, J. 11. I> \ I.KS, (' 1:0. J. 
 
 JIINOKNS, \V. T. JlcmllK, I I. 1'. ( ; 1 I I 1; I', AXI> OIHl.KS. 
 
 THE ANTI-INFIDEL LIBRARY. 
 
 " I do not know anything in the Knvlisli tongue that meets Hie rurrent 
 
 skepticism as II as tiles.-." .1. T. riKltsn V. It. D. , P/iihulelpfn<i, Ptm: 
 FIVE CENT SERIES. 
 
 The Inspiration of the Bible. 
 
 A f/'ccml flitioit of Him, illustrnt. ,1. in- 
 titled " Will the Old Book Starfd ? " 
 ami also nl till tlic (Ire-cent numben nnn. .1 
 tli'ltiw. may lir li:ul lur ili-tnlmt 1 
 CU. poriloz.: 2.(ipcr 1C(I : |;>II PIT IIKI. 
 paid in fiut.il 
 Stati-Siitnl Cannila. Cloth cilitii.n 
 
 Fourteen Nuts for Skeptics to Craok. 
 
 Romark.s on thi- Mistakes of Moses. 
 Friendly Hints to Candid Inquirers. 
 Who made the New Testament? 
 Israel's Messiah. 
 Israel's Greatest Prophet. 
 
 The Witness of Skeptics. 
 A Warning Word 011 Infidelity. 
 Testimony of Christ to (>; 
 Number in Nature. 
 Spiritual Manifestations. 
 
 Workings. 
 Familiar Spirits. 
 The Mystery Solved. 
 The Depths of Satan. 
 Is the Bible a True Book ? 
 Trying tin- Spirit*. 
 Reaching the Miu 
 
 niMiii'jincl Spiritualism. 
 hriHtianity. 
 
 LARGER SERIES. 
 
 i >i. 
 
 Cor 
 
 t in History and I'roph., 1 .'> i-ts. 
 
 Biola Triumphant, 26 cts. 
 
 Test.,16ct. 
 
 Hiding. ISctn. 
 
 tion, 16 cts. 
 
 Origin of Llfo, lOcta. 
 
 15 cts. 
 15 cts. 
 BctS, 
 
 Errors of Evolution, I Cloth), $1.OO*. 
 Testimony OfHlatory, ci.,nv. 3fi cts. 
 Credibility Chris. Relig., .'!.>; 25 cts. 
 
 Darwinism, 
 
 Atheism and Arithmetic, 
 The Wonderful Law. 
 The Separated Nation. 
 
 H. L. HASTINGS, SCRIPTURAL TRACT REPOSITORY. 
 
 17 ('I'KMiM.l., I I.IM>N: 10 1' \TI i.'Mis'i 1:1: liow, 
 11. I. II \ST1NOR. | ,M \l;>ll.\l.l. i:l:i)S., A.
 
 , question as to the inspiration of the Hible 
 is not a question raised by me. It is a 
 question that is already tip for discus- 
 sion through the length and breadth of 
 the land. What arc we ti> do with the 
 Bible? How arc we to regard it? N it 
 the best book in the world, or the worst? Is it a 
 true book, or is it a false book? Is it God's book, 
 or is it man's book? 
 
 We find men on all sides of the question. There 
 arc persons who tell us this book is a irood book 
 
 * iH'livcrril Ix-fore the; Sixteenth Annual Convention of tliu Massachusetts 
 Young Men's Chriatiau AtMociutions, at Spencer, Maws., U.S.A.
 
 4 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 but then, there are others just as good. The Bible is inspired, 
 and so was Plato inspired, so was Socrates, and so is the almanac 
 inspired ; in fact, everything is inspired the book of Mormon, 
 the Koran of Mahomet, the sacred books of the Hindoos and the 
 Chinese; they have their Bibles, you have yours; all are good, 
 and one is about as good as the other. Shakespeare was inspired, 
 Milton was inspired, Thomas Paine was inspired, and everything 
 and everybody is inspired. 
 
 It is not worth while to 1 waste time on false issues. When I 
 open Shakespeare's plays I do not read at the commencement, 
 " Thus saith the Lord God of hosts ; " when I turn to Plato's 
 writings I do not read, " Hear ye the word of the Lord ; " when I 
 peruse the almanac I do not read, " The word of the Lord came 
 unto me." Hence, you see that this book must be judged by a 
 standard different from all other books. Over and over again this 
 book says, " Hear ye the word of the Lord." Now, the message 
 is the word of the Lord, or it is a lie. It is the word of the Lord, 
 as it professes to be, or it is a cheat, a swindle, a humbug, a 
 fraud. 
 
 To illustrate : A man tells me that Jesus of Nazareth was a 
 good man ; but then, there were other men just as good. He was 
 a spiritual medium; but there are other mediums equally 
 powerful in these days. To be sure, I do not remember any 
 spiritual medium giving a public dinner, for nothing, to five 
 thousand hungry people ! You may have heard of sucli a 
 " manifestation," but it has not fallen under my notice. I have 
 not heard of a spiritual medium hushing the winds or calming a 
 storm at sea. I have heard of dancing tables and similar 
 operations. I prefer to have my tables stand still! 
 
 But while you say, " Christ was simply one of many remark- 
 able men," He says, " I came forth from the Father, and am como 
 into the world again, J leave the world, and go to the Father." 
 He says, "O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, 
 with the glory which / had with thce before the world was." 
 Now do you say lie was a good man, and yet he told lies? What 
 is your idea of a good man? I do not believe that a good man 
 lies ; and I do not believe that a man who lies is a good man. 
 IVi haps you do, but if HO, you were brought up in a different way 
 froi:' that in which my father brought me up. So I do not believe 
 that a book packed with lies from one end to the other is a good 
 book ; and I do not want anyone to come ami tell me that Jesus 
 Christ was a good man, and the Bible is a good book, but neither 
 of them tell the truth. I join issue there. This book is what it
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 6 
 
 professes to be, or it is a swindle ; Jesus of Nazareth was what he 
 professed to be, or he was an impostor. 
 
 Suppose a man comes to town and represents himself as the son 
 of a British nobleman. He is well dressed, has plenty of money, 
 turns the heads of half the young ladies in the town, and makes 
 Iiimself at home generally ; but after a while they find out that he 
 is the son of "Old Jinkins, the blacksmith," down in the next 
 town. Now I do not want you to tell me how prettily he behaves, 
 what fine broadcloth he wears, or what a perfect gentleman he is 
 in all his deportment. The fact is, he is a liar, a fraud, and a 
 scamp. He has come ui.der false colours, and palmed himself "if 
 on the community under false pretences ; and the more good things 
 you say about him the less I think of him ; because, if he is such 
 a well -educated gentleman, he knows better than to be going 
 around its a fraud, and deceiving the people. So we must accept 
 Jesus of Nazareth and his claims entirely, or else we must reject 
 the whole gospel as an imposture, and as the grandest, most 
 stupendous fraud the world has ever known. 
 
 Now, do not be fooled by this soft talk about the Bible being " a 
 good book," and yet just like many other good books. There is 
 not another like it in the world. Let us look at some of its 
 peculiarities : 
 
 Here is one : The Bible is a book which has been refuted, 
 demolished, overthrown, and exploded more times than any other 
 Imok you ever heard of. Every little while somelxwly starts up 
 and upsets this book ; and it is like upsetting a solid oul>e of 
 granite. It is just as big one way as the other; and when \ on 
 have upset it, it is right side up, and when you overturn it again 
 it is right side up still. Every little while somebody blows 
 up the Bible ; but when it comes down it always lights on 
 ks feet, and runs faster than ever through the world. They 
 overthrew the Bible a century ago, in Voltaire's time-^-entirely 
 demolished the whole thing. In l-ss than a hundred years, said 
 Voltaire, Christianity will have been swept from existence, and 
 will have passed into history. Infidelity ran riot through France, 
 red-handed and impious. A century has passed away. Voltaire 
 lias " passed into history," and not very respectable history either ; 
 but his old printing-press, it is said, has since been used to print 
 the Word of God ; and the very house wlier he lived is packed 
 with Bibles, a depot for the Geneva Bible Society. Thomas Paine 
 demolished the Bible, and finished it off finally : but after he had 
 
 Some interesting facts on this Bul.ject may be seen in a lecture by H. L. 
 Hastings, entitled I the Bible a True Book t
 
 6 THE INSPIRATION OF THK BIBLE. 
 
 crawled despairingly into a drunkard's grave in 1809,* the book 
 took such a leap that since that time more than twenty times as 
 many Bibles have been made and scattered through the world as 
 ever were made before, since the creation of man. Up to the year 
 1800, from four to six million copies of the Scriptures, in some 
 thirty different languages, comprised all that had been produced 
 since the world began. Eighty years later, in 1880, the statistics 
 of eighty different Bible societies which are now in existence, with 
 their unnumbered agencies and auxiliaries, report more than 
 165,000,000 Bibles, Testaments, and portions of Scripture, with 
 two hundred and six new translations, distributed by Bible 
 societies alone since 1804 ; to say nothing of the unknown millions 
 of Bibles and Testaments which have been issued and circulated 
 by private publishers throughout the world. For a book that has 
 been exploded so many times, this book still shows signs of 
 considerable life. 
 
 I have heard of a man travelling around the country exploding 
 this book, and showing up " the mistakes of Moses," at about two 
 hundred dollars a night. It is easy wurk to abuse Moses at two 
 hundred dollars a night- especially as Moses is dead, and cannot 
 talk back. It would r^ ~-":>rth something after hearing the infidel 
 on "the mistakes of Moses," to hear Moses on " the mistakes of 
 the infidel, "f When Moses could talk back, he was rather a 
 difficult rnan to deal with. Pharaoh tried it, and met with poor 
 success. Jannes and Jambrcs withstood Moses, and it is said 
 found a grave in the Red Sea. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram tried 
 it, and went down so deep that they have not yet got back. But 
 
 * There lies before me a letter written to me by Mrs. Mary Benjamin, who 
 nt the age of eleven years was an eye-ioitncss to the death-bed agonies of 
 Thomas Paine. She writes from Williamsport, Pa., April 25, 187G : 
 
 " I was invited by a distant connection ... to go and see T. Paine on his 
 death-bed. . . . The scene to mo was appalling, and I wished to leave at 
 once. I remember him as he lay, his head near and close to the door we 
 entered, his glaring, rolling eyes, uttering imprecations, apparently in agony 
 of body and mind, his screams could be heard at a great distance. As I 
 shrank back they said (there were many there) he called on Jesus Christ for 
 mercy, and lie: * blasphemed." 
 
 This independent witness simply confirms the testimony of other respect- 
 able persons, whose veracity is only impeached by infidels who were not 
 present,, and who know nothing of the facts, but who, -with characteristic 
 candour, expect us to believe their testimony concerning events which 
 occurred years before they were born 1 
 
 t K-e three pamphlets by H. L. Hastings, entitled, Remarks on the 'Mis- 
 takeH of Moses,' The Wonderful Law, The Separated Nation, and lsrael'6 
 Greatest Prophet ; to be bad of the publishers of this lecture.
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 7 
 
 now Moses is dead, and it is easy to abuse him. It does not 
 take a very brave beast to kick a dead Hon.* 
 
 But, after all, this book seems to stand abuse, and thrive upon 
 refutation. A few months ago some learned men, after working 
 for a number of years on the revision of the New Testament, 
 finished their work. Having inserted a few modern words instead 
 of others which had become obsolete, made some slight corrections 
 of errors in translation, and rectified from ancient manuscript - 
 some little errors that had been made by copyists in transcribing 
 the New Testament,t at last the book was announced .as ready to 
 le issued on a certain day. What was the result? Why, men 
 offered five hundred dollars to get a copy of that book a little in 
 advance of its publication ; and the morning it was published, the 
 streets of New York were blockaded with express waggons haeUed 
 up ami waiting for copies of a book which had been refuted, ex- 
 ploded, and dead ami buried for so many years. Millions of copier 
 were sold as fast as they could be delivered. They telegraphed 
 that book, from the first of Matthew to the end of Romans from New 
 York to Chicago, about 118,000 words the longest message ever 
 wired for the sake of getting it there twenty -/our hours sooner 
 than steam could carry it, to print in the Sunday newspapers. 
 
 A dead book, is it? They would not pay for telegraphing the 
 greatest infidel speech ever delivered in this country, from here tc 
 Tophet. This old book seems to show some signs of life yet. Tt 
 is like Aaron's rod that budded an<' blossomed, and it is being 
 scattered all over the world. 
 
 This book outlives its foes. If you could gather all the looks 
 written against it, you could build a pyramid higher than the 
 loftiest spire. Now and then a man goes to work to refute lh 
 I'ihle : and every time it is done it has to be done over again Ihr 
 next day or the n<'\t year. And then, after its enemies have done 
 
 It would be interesting to hear a military leader and legislator, like 
 "Moses the man of God," who, after he was eighty years old, commanded 
 for forty years :ui army of six hundred thousand men, emancipating, orcau 
 izing, and giving laws to a nation which has maintained its existence f"t 
 more than thirty stormy centuries, give his candid opinion concerning " the 
 mistakes " of a " Colonel " of cavalry, whose military career is said to have 
 included one single engagement, in which " he was chased into a hog-yard 
 and surrendered to a boy of sixteen ;" after which, as soon as exchanged, he 
 heroically resigned his commission in the face of the enemy, subsequently 
 turning his attention to managing swindling whiskey rings, disciis-ine 
 theology, defending scoundrels, blaspheming (!od, and criticising dead men 
 who cannot answer him. 
 
 t For an account of these errors and their extent and importance, see The 
 Corruption* r>f the New Testament, by H. L. Hastings.
 
 8 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 ..neii worst, some of its professed friends torture and twist an<i 
 mystify and misrepresent it. Surely it is no fool of a book if it 
 iives through all that. Infidels have been at work nearly eighteen 
 hundred years, firing away at it, and making about as much 
 impression on it as you would shooting boiled peas at Gibraltar. 
 
 The fact is, this book has come into the world, and it seems to 
 have come to stay. It is in the world, and I do not know how you 
 are to get it out. One hundred years ago you might have found 
 that book in twenty or thirty translations ; but now you can find 
 it in between two and three hundred different versions, most 
 of which have been made in this last progressive, intellectual, 
 nineteenth century. All over the globe it goes ; touch any shore 
 and you will lind that book there before you. 
 
 And it is a curious fact that most of our sceptical friends 
 contrive to keep very close to where its shadow falls. It does not 
 take a great while to get out of sight of the Bible. You can go, in 
 a very few days, where there are no churches, Sunday schools. 
 Young Men's Christian Associations, preachers, deacons, or 
 anything else of the kind you can "go West." There is little 
 difficulty in getting beyond the reach of the Bible. Your scalp 
 might not be very safe, but you can easily get away from the 
 reach of the Bible. But the infidel, while finding fault with the 
 l>ihle, takes good care to stay where the Bible is. Why is tins'; 
 
 There was once a vessel wrecked on one of the South Sea 
 Islands. There was on board a sailor who had been there before, 
 and who knew that the people were cannibals. And when the 
 ship was wrecked, and they were cast away on this shore, they 
 knew there was no hope for them, for they saw no way to escape. 
 Tin-, sailor, however, climbed up on a hill top to reconnoitre 
 a little. 1'resontly his shipmates saw him swinging his arms in 
 great excitement, and inquired what was the matter. He had 
 ^eeri just over the hill the steeple of a meeting-house ! That was 
 what took all the fear of trouble out of his soul. He knew that 
 church spire made his neck safe on that cannibal island. 
 
 Now infidels know that fact just as well as he did. Years ago, 
 a young infidel was travelling in the West with his uncle, a 
 banker, and they were not a little anxious for their safety when 
 they were forced to stop for a night in a rough wayside cabin. 
 I'liere were two rooms in the house ; and when they retired for the 
 night they agreed that the young man should sit with his pistols, 
 and watch until midnight, and then awaken his uncle, who should 
 watch until morning. Presently they peeped through the crack, 
 and saw their host, a rough-looking old man, in his bear-skin suit.
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. P 
 
 reach up and take down a book a Bible ; and after reading it 
 awhile, he knelt and began to pray ; and then the young intidel 
 l>egan to pull oil his coat and get ready for bed. The uncle .said, 
 " I thought you were going to sit up and watch." But the young 
 man knew there was no need of sitting up, pistol in hand, to 
 watch all night long in a cabin that was hallowed by the word of 
 God, and consecrated by the voice of prayer. Would a pack 
 if c.-inls, a rum-bottle, or a copy of the Age of Reason, have thus 
 quieted this young infidel's fears ? (See Illustration on Cover.) 
 
 Kvery one knows that where this book has influence it makes 
 tilings safe. Why is this? If it were a bad book, we should 
 expect to limi it in the hands of the worsi men. In New York 
 there was once a kind of rogue's museum a place where they had 
 all kinds of skeleton-keys, and jemmies, and brass knuckles, and 
 dirks, and pistols, and implements of mischief, which they had 
 taken away from roughs and criminals. Do you suppose there 
 was a single New Testament in the whole kit ? Why not ? If it 
 were a bad book you would expect a man to have a revolver in one 
 pocket, and a New Testament tucked away in another. There 
 was a row the other night, and a man broke his wife's head with a 
 Bible ? No ! it was a Bottle ! Where the Bible bears sway, the 
 rows and quarrels do not come. 
 
 What makes this t>ook so different from all other books? 
 Whose, hook is it? Who made it? Infidels Iwave the strangest 
 ideas on that subject. iTecollect in Marlboro', Ala<s., I read in a 
 newspaper an article written by an infidel, which stated that the 
 Council of Nice, in the year 325, compiled the New Testament. 
 They had a lot of (Jospels and Kpistles, genuine and spurious, and 
 no one could distinguish between the two; so they put them all 
 on the floor, and prayed that the good ones might get up on the 
 communion table and the bad ones stay on the floor ; and that 
 was the way that the present New Testament was compiled. And 
 that is the kind of food that infidels are made to swallow and 
 cliLj'M : for that very statement can be found in various infidel 
 books now issued by infidel publishers. This writer said that this 
 account rested on the authority of Papias, an early Christian 
 bishop. I replied, in a lecture, that there was one difficulty about 
 that story that 1'apias was dead and buried a hundred and fifty 
 years before the Council of Nice was held: Init a-> they might 
 have got the news from "the spirits" that might l>e no -real 
 objection to them. The man HIM- to explain, and said that this 
 was not the right I'apias but that it was another 1'apias. "an 
 obscure Christian bishop of the fourth century." I told him I
 
 10 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 thought he was obscure ; so obscure that no one ever heard of him 
 before or since. On investigation it was learned that a German 
 dominie, named John Pappus, preacher in Strasburg, and a professor 
 at Minister, who died in 1610, discovered this story in an old Greek 
 manuscript entitled " Synodikon," which was written by some old 
 romancer back in the dark ages, about the year 900, for it relates 
 things which occurred as late as 879, over five hundred years after 
 the Council of Nice was dead and buried. And this story, written 
 nobody knows when, where, or by whom, has been swallowed, 
 believed, and published by infidels far and near, as an account of 
 the origin of the New Testament ; and the men who believe and 
 peddle such fables call Christians fools for believing the Bible. 
 
 I have on one of my library shelves, between twenty and thirty 
 volumes, containing about twelve thousand pages of the writings 
 of different Christian authors who wrote before A.D. 325, when 
 the Council of Nice was held. Many of these books are full of 
 Scripture. Those writers had the same books which we have ; 
 they quoted the same passages which we quote ; they quoted from 
 the same Gospels and Epistles from which we quote. 
 
 Origen, who wrote a hundred years before the Council of Nice, 
 quotes 5,745 passages from all the books in the New Testament ; 
 Tertullian, A.D. 200, makes more than 3,000 quotations from the 
 New Testament books ; Clement, A.D. 194, quotes 380 passages ; 
 IrenaMis, A.D. 178, quotes 707 passages; Polycarp, who was 
 martyred A.D. 165, after having served Christ eighty-six years, in 
 a single epistle quoted o(5 passages ; Justin Martyr, A.D. 140, also 
 quotes from the New Testament ; to say nothing of heathen and 
 infidel MTiters like Celsus, A.D. 150, and Porphyry, A.D. 304, 
 who referred to or quoted scores of the very passages now found in 
 the Scriptures which we have. Indeed, Lord Uailes, of Scotland, 
 having searched the writings of the Christian Fathers to the end of 
 the third century, actually found the whole of the New Testament, 
 with the exception of less than a dozen verses, scattered through 
 their writings which are still extant ; so that, if at the time of the 
 Council of Nice every copy of the New Testament had been 
 annihilated, the book could have been reproduced from the 
 writings of the early Christina Fathers, who quoted the book as 
 we quote it, and who believed it as we believe it. And now infidels 
 talk about the Council of N'iee getting up the New Testament. 
 \ <iii might as well talk about the town council getting up the 
 Revised Statutes of UK; slate or nation, bec.-uise Miry happened to 
 say they ;iecepied or received them. The Council of Nice did 
 nothing of the kind. The books of the New Testament were
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 11 
 
 received from the apostles who wrote them, .and were carefullV 
 preserved, and publicly read in the churches of Christ long before 
 lli-- ( 'oiincil of Nice was held.* 
 
 Says Tertullian, A.D. '200, " If you are willing to exercise your 
 curiosity profitably in the business of your salvation, visit the 
 ajiostolic churches ; in which the very chairs of the apostles still 
 preside in their places ; in which their very nnthi-nlif l<'tt> rs arc 
 '/, sounding forth the voice ami representing the countenance 
 of every one of them. Is Achaia near you ? You have Corinth. 
 If you are not far from .Macedonia you have 1'liilippi and 
 Theasalonica ; if yon can go to Asia you have Ephesus, but if you 
 an- near to Italy you have Rome."f 
 
 These apostolic churches received the Gospels at tlie hands of 
 the men who wrote them ; and the Epistles were written and signed 
 by men whom they well knew. Paul wrote, "The salutation of 
 me, Paul, by mine, own hand, which is the tukc in crrr// epistle."^. 
 
 Now, what did these writers testify? They testified things 
 which they knew. The apostle John does not say, " That which 
 we have dreamed, Imagined, or guessed at, that thing do we 
 declare unto you;" but, "That which was from the beginning, 
 which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we 
 have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of Ihe Word of 
 Life." 1 John i. 1. This was their testimony. They testified that 
 they saw Christ in his life and in his death ; that they saw him after 
 his resurrection, and felt his hands and feet, and saw the nail prints 
 and the spear-wound; and they knew these things and te-tilied 
 of them, and they preached Christ, who had died and risen again. 
 
 When Lepanx, a member of the French Directory, complained 
 to Talleyrand that his new religion, " Theophilanthropy," made 
 little headway among the people, the shrewd old statesman replied : 
 
 " I am not surprised at the ditlicnlty you find in your effort. 
 It is no easy matter to introduce a new religion, lint then* is one 
 thing I would advise you to do, and then, perhaps, you might 
 succeed." "What is it? what is it?" eagerly a>ked Lepau.v. 
 " It is this," said Talleyrand; "go and be crucified, and then 
 be buried, and then //. ntfuin on the tltinl <f<m, and then go on 
 working miracles, raising the dead, and healing all manner of 
 diseases, and casting out devils : and then it is possiUe that \ou 
 may accomplish your end !" The philosopher went away silent ; 
 and no infidel has succeeded in fulfilling these conditions. But 
 
 See Who Made the Xew Testament f tTcrtnl., Against Heretics, r. xxxvi. 
 t For a few overwhelming proofs of the authenticity of the books of the New 
 Test, consult The Corruptions of the Xew Testament, by H. It. Hastings.
 
 12 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Christ has died, and has risen again, and these apostles suffered 
 the loss of all things, and even of life itself, in proclaiming these 
 facts ; and they left their testimony on record in this Book. 
 Then the apostles quote from the prophets, and the prophets 
 quote from the Psalms, and refer to the Law which was given on 
 Mount Sinai ; and so we go back from book to book, until we 
 reach the book of Genesis, and that does not quote from anybody 
 or anything. You have then reached the fountain-head. 
 
 " But," says one, " I think that the Bible may be a true history, 
 but that is no proof of its inspiration. It does not require divine 
 inspiration to write a true history." So you think it an easy 
 matter to tell the truth, do you ? I wish you could make other 
 people think so. Suppose you go and read a file of the newspapers 
 published just before the last election, and see if you do not think 
 it requires divine inspiration to tell the truth, or even to find it out 
 after it is told. Truth is mighty hard to get at, as you can see by 
 perusing the daily papers on the eve of an election. 
 
 There are certain things in the Bible which, to my mind, 
 bear the impress of Divinity. A sceptic will tell you what a race 
 of old sinners we read about in the Bible ! Noah got drunk ; 
 David was guilty of adultery and murder; Solomon was an 
 idolater, and wrought folly; Peter denied his Lord, 'and Judas 
 sold him for thirty pieces of silver ; all these people that the Bible 
 talks to us so much about are a pretty set of men ! Very well ; 
 what kind of men do you expect to read about in the Bible ? Noah 
 got drunk. Is that strange? Did no one else ever get drunk? 
 IVier cursed and swore. Are there not other men who curse and 
 swear? Judas, an apostle, sold his Lord, who said he had chosen 
 twelve and one of tliem was a devil. Do you not sometimes find a 
 Judas in the church even now-a-days? One in twelve was a thief 
 and a traitor then ; and we need not be surprised if we find about 
 the same average now. Hut you seem to think that when you 
 read about a man in the Bible he is sure to be free from all kinds 
 of errors, frailties, faults, and sins. Yon have formed this idea of 
 men from reading in Sunday -school looks about good children, 
 who usually die young ; or perusing excellent biographies, which, 
 as you read them, cause you to exclaim, "I wish I could he as 
 gooil as (lint person was ; but 1 never shall." No, I presume you 
 ne\er will and if you knew the whole story about the person you 
 
 might not feel so deeply on the subject. 
 
 Do you suppose that if the Bible had been written by some 
 lenriied doctor, rc\ JM'd by :i committee of eminent divines, and 
 published by some great religious society, we should ever have
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 13 
 
 heard of Noah's drunkenness, of Abraham's deception, of Lot's 
 disgrace, of Jacob's cheating, of Paul and Barnabas' quarrelling, 
 or of Peter's lying, cursing, or dissembling ? Not at all. The 
 good men, when they came to such an incident, would have said, 
 " There is no use in saying anything about that. It is all past 
 and gone ; it will not help anything, and it will only hurt 
 the cause." If a committee of such eminent divines had 
 prepared the Bible, you would have had a biography of men 
 whose characters were patterns of piety and propriety, instead of 
 poor sinners, as they were. Sometimes a man writes his own 
 diary and happens to leave it for some one to print after he is 
 dead ; but he leaves out all the mean tricks he ever did, and puts 
 in all the good .acts he can think of ; and you read the pages, filled 
 with astonishment, and think, " What a wonderfully good man he 
 was ! " But when the Almighty writes a man's life he tells the 
 truth about him ; and there are not many persons who would 
 want their lives printed if the Almighty wrote them. 
 
 Suppose a young man goes, say from the country, down to the 
 city. Perhaps he is a rich man's son, who has had more money 
 than was good for him at home, and who comes to the city to see 
 the sights. He sails around in dangerous waters, and slips into 
 various ports that are not exactly safe, and the next morning finds 
 him hauled up before His Honor in the police court. You get a 
 morning paper, and you expect to find the full particulars of the 
 case. You do, do you ? You find a paragraph on this wise : "A 
 certain young man from the rural districts came to town 
 yesterday, sailed around in dillerent parts of the city, and fell into 
 rather bad company. This morning lie was brought up before His 
 Honor, who admonished him to be more careful in the future, and 
 he departed a sadder and a wiser young man." * This is the kind 
 of paragraph you will find in the papers when a rich man's son 
 conies to the city, goes on a spree, and has his head smashed and 
 his eye banged in a fight ; you don't get many particulars. But if 
 he is a poor vagalinnd, without a second shirt to his back, yon can 
 get his name, and perhaps his genealogy for generations, and all 
 the particulars of his case. This is the way nn-n write history ; 
 but when the Lord undertakes to tell his story of a sinful man, he 
 does not select a poor, miserable beggar, and show him up ; he 
 does not give even the name of the thief on the cross, nor of the 
 wretched outcast who bathed the Saviour's feet with her tears, nor 
 of the guilty woman to whom lie said, " Neither do I condemn 
 thee : go and sin no more;" but he takes King David from 
 Bee Illustration on p. 17.
 
 14 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 the throne, and sets him down in sackcloth and ashes, and 
 wrings from his heart the cry, " Have mercy upon me, O CJod, 
 according to thy loving-kindness : according unto the multitude of 
 thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." And then when 
 he is pardoned, forgiven, cleansed, and made whiter than snow, 
 the pen of inspiration writes down the whole dark, damning record 
 of Ins crimes, and the king on his throne lias not power, nor wealth, 
 nor influence enough to blot the page ; and it goes into history 
 for infidels to scoff at for three thousand years. Who wrote that ? 
 
 Yon find a man who will tell the truth about kings, Avarriors, 
 princes, and rulers to-day, and you may be quite sure that he has 
 within him the pOAver of the Holy Ghost. And a book which tells 
 the faults of those Avho Avrote it, and Avhich tells you that " there 
 is none righteous, no, not one," bears in it the marks of a true book ; 
 for we all know that men have faults, and failings, and sins ; and 
 among all the men whose lives are recorded in that book, each man 
 lias some defect, some blot, except one, " the man ( 'hrist Jesus." 
 
 NOAV AVC have to discuss this subject from all points of view, but 
 mainly from the direction of objections. Men love objections ; 
 and so they say there are diflicnlties, and absurdities, and errors, 
 and contrail ictions in the Bible. You have all heard such 
 assertions. After speaking once in the city of Boston, an ex- 
 minister came to me and told me that the Bible Avas not true, for 
 there was that story which Moses told about the quails. Israel 
 In :-ted at'ier llesh, and the Lord sent them quails to eat, .and they 
 fell by the camp a day's journey on each side, or over a territory 
 forty miles across, and they Avere two cubits deep on the ground, 
 and the Israelites ate them for a full month. I have in my 
 possession an inlidel paper which AVHS published in Boston, in 
 which there is about a column of arguments and figures on this 
 "(|iiail siory :" giving an estimate of the number of bushels of 
 (jiiails that were piled up over the country, and showing that Avlien 
 they were divided among the people, each one would have 2,SS8,043 
 bushels of quails, which they were to eat during the month ; 
 giving each poor Israelite (JiUi'JO bushels of quails to eat at, each 
 meal for thirty days, and therefore the Bible \vus not true ! That is 
 the meat on which these, sceptical Cjesjirs grow so wondrous great. 
 
 I said to this gentleman, "The Bible does not say any such 
 thing!" lie replied that it certainly did ; but I answered that it 
 did not, say any such thing. He insisted that, it did. "Well," 
 said I, " find it ! " And when you ask an inlidel to_//W anything 
 in the Bible, you generally ha\e him. Me could n-d, find the 
 place ; so I turned over to the eleventh chapter of Numbers, and
 
 THE INSPIRATION OK THE BIBLE. 15 
 
 there read that instead <>f tho birds being packed like cord-wood 
 on the ground, three feet ilir/>, iho account says that the Lord 
 brought the quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as 
 it were " two cubits /</<///," or about three feet high upon, or nlioce 
 the face of the earth. Thai is, instead of living overhead and out 
 of reach, they were brought in about three feet h i<j/t, where any 
 one <-on Id take as many of them as he chose.* And this sceptical 
 friend had got the birds packed solid, three feet deep, over a 
 territory forty miles across. As if I should say that a Hock of 
 wild geese Hew a- high as a church spire, and some one should 
 insist that they were purl;*;} soliil from the ground up, a hundred 
 feet high ! This is a sample of the kind of arguments infidels 
 bring to prove that the Bible is -not true ! 
 
 The book, to my mind, bears the marks of inspiration in tha 
 foresight which it exhibits. This book foretells things. You 
 cannot do that. You cannot tell what will be next year, or next 
 week. " The >pirits " cannot tell who will be the next president, 
 or governor, or emperor. They may tell a great many things which 
 are ]ntxt. They may tell you who your grandmother was, and 
 may copy the inscription on your grandfather's grave-stone, and 
 may tell things which are written in the family record. They 
 may reveal many things in the past for the devil knows about 
 the past but ti icy cannot foretell the future. I did hear of one 
 spiritual medium who foretold her own death, and she died within 
 a few boon ; but when they got the stomach-pump, they pumped 
 out of her stomach poison enough to kill two or three. That kind 
 of prophecy requires no omniscient foresight. 
 
 Years ago I talked with an infidel in Plymouth, Massachusetts, 
 and he wanted me to give him some evidence that the Bible was 
 tine. After some conversation, I loaned him a little volume, 
 an abridgement ol ]\< till on Prophecy, Some ten \ears after, as I 
 took my seat in a railway train, he came and sat down beside me 
 and began to talk, and lie said : " If i/nu want that book yon can 
 have it; but no one else can have it at any price." It had 
 knocked his infidelity into atoms, and he was a believer in Christ, 
 and a member of the church. 
 
 * The Hebrew word nl, rendered upon, Num. xi. 31, signifies above or over, 
 as \\vll as upon ; ami it is applied to the flight of birds, "fowl that may fly 
 above the earth" (den. i. 20) ; "a wind to pass over tho earth" (Gen. viii. li ; 
 " The curse that goeth forth arrr the face of the earth " (/rcli. v. :<i ; " Dark- 
 ness was upon the face of the deep ; and the Spirit of (lo-l moved y>on tho 
 face of the waters " (Ccii. 1. 2). The Sfytiuigint renders it by opo, "from tho 
 earth ;" and the Douai version gives the true souse thus: " They flew in tho 
 air two cubits high above the ground."
 
 16 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 The revelations of prophecy are facts which exhibit the divine 
 omniscience. So long as Babylon is in heaps ; so long as Nineveh 
 lies empty, void, and waste ; so long as Egypt is the basest of 
 kingdoms ; so long as Tyre is a place for the spreading of nets in 
 the midst of the sea ; so long as Israel is scattered among all 
 nations ; so long as Jerusalem is trodden under foot of the 
 Glentiles ; so long as the great empires of the world march on in 
 their predicted course, so long we have proof that one Omniscient 
 Mind dictated the predictions of that book, and " prophecy came 
 not in old time by the will of man." * 
 
 We call this Bible a book ; but here are sixty-six different 
 books, written by thirty or forty different men. A man may say, 
 " I do not believe in the book of Esther." Well, what of that? 
 We have sixty-five others left. What will you do with them ? 
 A man says, "I find fault with this chapter, or with that." 
 Suppose you do ? If you were on trial for murder, and had sixty- 
 six witnesses against you, suppose you impeach one of them, there 
 are sixty-five left ; impeach another, and you still have sixty -four ; 
 impeach another, and you have sixty-three surely enough to 
 hang you if you are guilty. Do you not see that you cannot 
 impeach this book unless you do it in detail ? Each book bears its 
 own witness, and stands by itself on its own merits ; and yet each 
 book is linked with all the rest. Blot out one, if you can. I am 
 inclined to think it would be difficult to do this. This book seems 
 built to stay together ; it is inspired by one Spirit. 
 
 The authorship of this book is wonderful. Here are words 
 written by kings, by emperors, by princes, by poets, by sages, by 
 philosophers, by fishermen, by statesmen ; by men learned in the 
 wisdom of Egypt, educated in the schools of Babylon, trained up 
 at the feet of rabbis in Jerusalem. It was written by men in 
 exile, in the desert, in shepherds' tents, in " green pastures " and 
 beside "still waters." Among its authors we find the tax- 
 gatherer, the herdsman, the gatherer of sycamore fruit ; we find 
 poor men, rich men, statesmen, preachers, exiles, captains, legis- 
 lators, judges ; men of every grade and class are represented 
 in this wonderful volume ; which is in reality a library, -filled witli 
 history, genealogy, ethnology, law, ethics, prophecy, poetry, 
 eloquence, medicine, sanitary science, political economy, and 
 perfect rules for the conduct of personal and social life. It 
 contains all kinds of writing ; br.t what a jumble it would be if 
 sixty-six >>ooks were written in this way by ordinary men. 
 
 Jcr. 11. 37 ; Ezck. xxii. 13 ; Ezck. xxvl. 6 ; Deut. xxviii. C4 ; 8 Petwr 1. 21.
 
 17 
 
 Me departed jjr 
 a gadder ana vrtfer young man
 
 18 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, that we get sixty-six medical books written 
 by thirty or forty different doctors of various schools, believers in 
 allopathy, homoeopathy, hydropathy, and all the other "pathies," 
 bind them all together, and then undertake to doctor a man 
 according to that book ! What man would be fool enough to 
 risk the results of practising such a system of medicine ? Or 
 suppose you get thirty-five editors at work writing treatises on 
 politics, or thirty-five ministers writing books on theology, and 
 then see if you can find any leather strong enough to hold the 
 books together when they are done. 
 
 But again, it required fifteen hundred years to write this book, 
 and the man who wrote the closing pages of it had no com- 
 immication with the man who commenced it. How did these men, 
 writing independently, produce such a book ? Other books get out 
 of date when they are ten or twenty years old : but this book 
 lives on through the ages, and keeps abreast of the mightiest 
 thought and intellect of every age. 
 
 Suppose that thirty or forty men should walk in through that 
 door. One man comes from Maine, another from New Hampshire, 
 another from Massachusetts, and so on from each state, each bear- 
 ing a block of marble of peculiar shape. Suppose I pile up these 
 blocks in order, until 1 have the figure of a man, perfectly 
 symmetrical and beautifully chiselled, and I say, " How did these 
 men, who have never seen each other, chisel out that beautiful 
 statue ? " You say, " That is easily explained. One man planned 
 that whole statue, made the patterns, gave the directions, and 
 distributed them around ; and so, each man working by the 
 pattern, the work fits accurately when completed." Very well. 
 Here is a book coming from all quarters, written by men of all 
 classes, scattered through a period of fifteen hundred years ; and 
 vet tliis book is filled together as a wondrous and harmonious 
 whole. How was it done? "Holy men of (Jod spake as they 
 were mo\ ((! by the Holy (Jhost." One mind inspires the whole 
 book, one voice speaks in it all, and it is the voice of (Jod speak- 
 ing with resurrection power. 
 
 Again, 1 conclude th;it this book has in it the very breatii of 
 (Jod, from the effect that it produces upon men. There are men 
 who study philosophy, astronomy, geology, geography, and 
 mathematics ; hut did you ever hear a man say, " I was an out- 
 i \\ rel-hed inebriate, a disgrace to my race, and a nuisance 
 in the world, until I began to study mathematics, and learned the 
 multiplication table, and then turned my attention to geology, got 
 Hie a little hammer, and Knocked off the corners of the rocks and
 
 11IK INSTIIIATION (K THE lilltuG. 19 
 
 -tndied the fonnation of the earth, and since that time I have 
 ueen happy as the day is long; I feel like singing all the time, 
 iil is full of triumph and peace; and health and Messing 
 h;i\ e (Mime to my desolate home mice more ?" Did you ever hear 
 a man ascribe his redemption and salvation from intemperance ;md 
 -111 and vice to the multiplication talile, or the science of mathe- 
 matics or geology '! Hut I ran bring you, not one man, or two, or 
 ten, lint men l>y the thousand who will tell you, " I was 
 wretched; I was lost; I hroke my poor old mother's heart : I 
 I M inured my family ; my wife was heart -stricken and dejected ; 
 my children ll^l from l lie sound of their father's footsteps; I wa- 
 ruined, reckle>s, helpless, homeless, hopeless, until i heard the 
 words of that Hook ! " And he will tell you the very word which 
 fastened on his soui. It may be it vas "Come unto Me, all ye 
 that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" perhaps 
 it was, liehold the I ..am h of God, which t;iketh away the^sin of 
 the world ;" it may have been, " God' so loved the world, that he 
 gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life." He can tell you the 
 very word that saved his soul. And since that word entered his 
 heart, he will tell you that hope has dawned upon his vision ; that 
 joy has inspired his heart ; and that his mouth is lilled with graie 
 ful son;;. He will tell you that the blush of health has come back 
 to his poor wife's faded cheek ; that the old hats have vanished 
 from the windows of his desolate home ; that his rag- have been 
 exchanged for good clothe?- ; that his ehildren run to meet him 
 when he comes ; that there is bread on his table, lire on his 
 hearth, and comfort in his dwelling. He will tell you all that, and 
 he will tell you that this IJo.ik has wrought the change. 
 
 Now this lKX>k is working just such miracles, and is doing i. 
 every day. If you have any other liook that will do such work as 
 this, bring it along. The work needs to be done ; if you have any 
 oilier book that will do it, for Heaven's sake bring it out. Hut for 
 the present, while we are waiting for yon. as we know this lx>ok n-Hl 
 do tho work, we mean to use it until we can get something better 
 
 What we most need is the book itself. It is iis own licst 
 witness and defender. Chri.-tians sometimes try to defend the 
 word of God. It -eem- like half a do/.en poodle dog- trying to de 
 fend a lion in hi- cage. The be-t thing for us to do i- to slip the 
 bars and let the lion out, and he will defend himself! And the 
 l-t thing for us to do is to bring out the word of God, and let 
 "the sword of the Spirit" prove its own power, as it pierces 
 even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.
 
 jJU THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Suppose, for example, all the good people of this town should 
 5ry the Bible, say for a single year. Suppose you start to-night, 
 and say, " We have heard about that book, and now we will begin 
 iud practise its teachings just one year. " What would be the 
 result ? There would be no lying, no stealing, no selling ruin, no 
 getting drunk, no tattling, no mischief-making, no gossiping, no 
 vice nor debauchery. Every man would be a good man, every 
 voman a good woman ; every man would be a good husband, 
 lather, or brother ; every woman a good wife, mother, or sister ; 
 every one in the community would be peaceable ; there would be 
 no brawls, no quarrels, no fights, no lawsuits ; lawyers would 
 almost starve to death ; doctors would have light practice, and 
 plenty of time to hoe in their gardens ; courts would be useless, 
 jails and lock-ups empty, almshouses cleared out of their inmates, 
 except a few old stagers left over from the past generation ; taxes 
 would be reduced, hard times would trouble nobody, all would 
 be well dressed and well cared for ; and presently the news would 
 go abroad, and we should hear in Boston, " What wonderful times 
 they are having up there in old Spencer. The people have all gone 
 to living according to the Bible." The news would get into all the 
 local papers, the Springfield papers, the Boston papers, the New 
 York papers ; the telegraph wires would be kept busy with the 
 news ; they would hear of it in Cleveland, in Cincinnati, in 
 Chicago, in St. Louis, in New Bedford, and Fall River, and Port- 
 land ; and the reporters would start oft' to investigate. One would 
 be inquiring, " Are there any houses to let in Spencer ? any to sell ? 
 any building lots ? any farms for sale ? " Capitalists would come 
 here ; some man from Boston would say, ' ' I am going to move 
 to Spencer ; I am sick of the noise and hurry of the city, and T 
 want a place where I can bring up my children, and not have 
 them go to perdition ; " there would be a general rush from all 
 quarters to Spencer. It would raise the price of real estate 
 twenty-live per cent, in six months ; taxes would eo.ne down, pro- 
 perty would go up, and good people from far and near would want 
 to move into town, and nobody who \v;is worth having there would 
 want to move out. And this would be the direct result of reading 
 and obeying this book. Now, if a l>ook will do that for a community, 
 what kind of a l>ook is it? Is such a book the Lord's book or the 
 devil's l)ok ? It seems to me that a book which will do such work 
 ;is that must l>e inspired by the very brent h of the Almighty. 
 
 The bunk is its own witness. It bears its own fruits and tells 
 its own story. The great trouble with us is, we do not read this 
 book, we do not use it, we do not understand it. It is a sorrowful
 
 THE INSPIRATION OK THE BIBLfc. 21 
 
 vact that you can hardly go into a prayer-meeting but you are 
 likely to hear a quotation for Scripture that is not in the Bible 
 and never was. You may hear, " In the midst of life we are in 
 <leiith," from the prayer-book, " He tempers the wind to the shorn 
 lamb," from an old romance ; "God unchangeably ordains what- 
 >oe\er conn's to pass," from the Catechism ; accompanied by 
 passages misquoted, misunderstood, and misapplied, which show 
 that the people do not read their Bibles, and do not -understand 
 tin-in : and the worst tiling about it is, one-half the people who go 
 l> meeting do not seem to know the diMerence. We need to read 
 the Bible, to search it, study it, believe it, and obey it, and we 
 shall lind that it is tilled with sanctifying power to our own souls, 
 and that it is the word of salvation to the lost and perishing. 
 
 But says one, " I do not understand the Bible. I read it, but 1 
 cannot make anything of it. Somehow it is obscure, and my mind 
 does not take hold of it." How do you read your Bible? " Oh, I 
 read a chapter now and then,; I read it here and there." 
 
 Suppose your boy comes home from school and says, " I can't 
 make anything of this arithmetic ; it is all dark to me." You say 
 to him, " How did you study it?" "Oh, I read a little at the 
 beginning, and then 1 turned to the middle and read a little here 
 and there, and skipped backward and forward. But I don't 
 understand it ; I can't see into it." 
 
 You say to him, "My son, that is not the way to understand 
 arithmetic. Yon must begin at the beginning, with the simplest 
 elements, master every principle, learn every rule, solve every 
 problem, and perform every example, and then the whole book will 
 open to yon as you go on." 
 
 When yon read a novel do you begin in the middle, and read a 
 page here and a line there, and skip about hither and thither, ami 
 say, "I can't make anything of this book ? " No; you begin at 
 tin- beginning, M here "A solitary horseman was seen one dark, 
 tempestuous night, riding along 'upon the margin of a swollen 
 stream which wound about the base of a lofty mountain, on which 
 sto.nl an -ancient cattle," etc., etc. There is where you Ix'gin ; 
 .and then yon read every line and every page of the l M >ok until you 
 get to the end. Sometimes they print a column or two of a story 
 in a paper, and ^o and scatter it through the town, and at the end 
 ;>f it yon will read, " The remainder of this thrilling story will IM> 
 j'oiind in the columns of the Weekly Bluzinij Count ;" and then 
 \.ni-tartoirdowii to the news-room and buy the lUnzinfj Cmmf 
 to find out how the story ends ! Why will you not take the I'.ible 
 and read it in the same way ? Why will you not give as much
 
 22 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 attention to the faithful words of the living God as you will to 
 a pack of lies spun out by some sinful man ? Why will you not 
 take the Bible and read it from beginning to end, and see how it 
 comes out ? You will find it the grandest and most thrilling story 
 the world has ever known. Sometimes, when you have not time 
 to read a novel through, you read the first chapter or two, to find 
 out who the hero is, and then skim through the pages and read 
 the closing chapters and find out who was murdered, who was 
 hung, and who was married ; and then you can guess the rest, for 
 there is usually about so much sawdust put in the middle for stuff- 
 ing. Why will you not do ajj. much as this for the Bible? Begin 
 at the beginning, and read until you find out who is the hero of 
 the story. You will find that the presence of one Person pervades 
 the whole book. If you go into a British navy-yard, or on board 
 a British vessel, and pick up a piece of rope, you will find that 
 there is one little red thread which runs through the whole of it 
 through every foot of cordage which belongs to the British govern- 
 ment so, if a piece of rope is stolen, it may be cut into inch 
 pieces, but every piece has the mark which tells where it belongs. 
 It is so with the Bible. You may separate it into a thousand 
 parts, and yet you will find one thought one great fact running 
 through the whole of it. You will find it constantly pointing and 
 referring to one great Personage " the Seed of the woman ' that 
 shall crush the serpent's head ; " the Seed of Abraham," in whom 
 all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; "the Seed of 
 David," who shall sit on David's throne and reign for evermore ; 
 the despised and rejected Sufferer, the Man of Sorrows, the Christ 
 of God, born in Bethlehem, crucified on Calvary, rising trium- 
 phant from Joseph's tomb, ascending to sit at God's right hand. 
 and coming again to judge the world and reign as King and Lord 
 of all for ever. Around this one mighty Personage this whole book 
 revolves. " To him give all the prophets witness ; " and this book, 
 which predicts his coming in its earliest pages, which foreshadows 
 his person and his ministry through all its observances, types, and 
 sacred prophecies, reveals in its closing lines the eternal splendours 
 which shall crown and consummate his mighty work. 
 
 God's Word declares the end from the beginning. It is not only 
 the chart which guides each weary wanderer to his own eternal 
 rest, but it is the record of the great plan and purpose of the 
 Almighty concerning the world which he has made, and the 
 church which he has redeemed. It, unfolds God's everlasting 
 piirpu-;e, as manifested in .Jesus Christ ; and if one will read 
 three chapters at the beginning of the Bible and three at the
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 23 
 
 end, he will be struck with the correspondence which there exists. 
 At the beginning >f the Uihle we iind a new world : " In the 
 beginning (iod created the heaven and tlie earth." At the end of 
 tin' Hilile we find a new world : " I saw a new heaven and a new 
 earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." 
 At the beginning, we find Satan entering to deceive and destroy; 
 at the end, we find Satan cast out, "that he should deceive the 
 nations no more." At the beginning, sin and pain and sorrow and 
 sighing and death find entrance to the world ; at the end, there 
 shall be no more pain nor sorrow nor sighing, and no more death. 
 At the beginning, the earth, for man's transgression, is cursed 
 with thorn* and thistles; at the end, ''there shall be no more 
 curse : but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it.". At 
 the beginning, we find the tree of life in paradise, from which the 
 sinner is shut away by a flaming sword, lest he eat and live 
 for ever ; at the end, we find the tree of life again " in the midst of 
 the paradise of God," and the hlcsM-d ami the blood- washed ones 
 have a right to the tree of lite, and "enter in through the gates 
 into the city." At the beginning, man was brought beneath the 
 dominion of death and the grave ; at the end, " the dead, small 
 and great, stand before God," the sea gives up its dead, and death 
 and hell are cast into the lake of lire. At the beginning, the 
 first Adam lost his dominion over earth, and was driven out of the 
 garden of Eden in shame ami sorrow ; at the end, we find the 
 second Adam, victorious over sin and death and hell, enthroned as 
 King and Lord of all, and reigning in triumph and glory for ever. 
 
 Now, when you get the plan of this book, you find that it is 
 something more than a book of detached sentence*, good maxims 
 and comforting words. It is a book which unfolds the divine 
 purpose, and not only reveals the way of salvation, but marks the 
 pathway of the people of God through this wilderness, and fore- 
 shows the destiny of the world which he has made and the church 
 which he has redeemed. 
 
 \Vhen we look at these farts we see that this is no man's Inuik. 
 When Columbus saw the river Orinoco, some one said lie had dis- 
 covered an island. He replied : " No Midi river as that Hows from 
 an island. That mighty torrent must drain the waters of a 
 continent." So this book comes, not from the empty bent- <>f 
 impostors, liars, and deceivers ; it springs from the eternal depths 
 of divine wisdom, 1m e, and grace. ll i< the f ransrript of the 
 divine mind, the unfolding of the di\ ine purpose, the revelation of 
 
 the divine \\ill. God help us to receive it, to believe it, and 
 be saved through Christ our Lord.
 
 H. L. HASTINGS' PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 ORDER LIST FOR 1802 
 
 Ancient Heathenism and .fluff m 
 Spiritualism." II L Hastings 5cm- 
 
 .Ittli-lntiilrl Library, The. Edited 
 by H L Hastings About 40 numbers issued. 
 All Titles with a star ()-belotig to it 
 
 si lit >- Tobacco Crusader, The. Quar 
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 armory. The, is part of The Christian 
 
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 Truth of the Bible.' 1O cu. 
 
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 H I. Hastings. THIRD MILLION. Several 
 different edition*, viz. Coant type ("lone 
 primer"). Manilla, A ctg. Paper, 6 cu. . per 
 100 copies. 200, 10UO. 15 00 lltuttratcil 
 Edition, WILL THE OLD BOOK STAND? same 
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 festations Explained.' 5 cts 
 
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 BOSTON, MASS.: 47 A Vi COKNIIILL. \ LONDON. 10 PATEKNOHTKU 1,'ow, E.G. 
 
 H. L. HASTINGS. 
 
 M AKMIAI.I. m;o.s .
 
 AN ANTI-LNFIDEL CRUSADE. 
 
 Perhaps the, nm-t widely circulated argument ;iirainst Infidelity ever 
 written is a lecture en The Inspiration of the Bible, published also under 
 the title Will the Old Book Stand? which, within ten years of its first 
 i"ite, had entered upon its third million, in over a dozen different trans- 
 lations; including German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Bohe- 
 mian, Japanese, Hindee, etc., and requiring some forty tons of paper to print. 
 
 II. L. Hastings of Boston, Mass., U. S. A., the author of this widelv cir- 
 culated lecture, which was pronounced by Lord Mmfttsljurij ''one of the 
 mo-t valuable essays in modern times," has Ion;: 1'eeii engaged in an Anti- 
 ///// ('nifiidc. As early us 1852 lie commenced deliveriiiL' addresses upon 
 Christian evidences, ami a<;ain.-t atheism, :md IIMS continued the work to the 
 nt time. In .Ian., IStiii. lie issued the first immlier of TIIK (,'III;IVIIAN, 
 a pioneer in the field of uiiM-etarian Christian periodical literature, and in 
 the first number of this paper he commenced the issue of an anti-infidel 
 tract, Infidel Testimony to the Truth of the Scriptures. In 1875 he 
 Carted TIIK AIS.MOKV. the only anti-infidel paper then known to him, which 
 is still continued, monthly, in connection with TIIK < 'HIMSTIAX. In 1882 
 he commenced the issue .1' tin- AN ii-l. \KIDKI, LIHKAHY, the first number of 
 which was his lecture on The Inspiration of the Bible. 
 
 Besides the lalior involved in issuing ./>< Ininilrml tn.< of anti-infidel and 
 nnsectarian jjosp.-! literature, and editing Till: ClIUISTIAX, tile LlTTI.K 
 CIII;I>TIAX. and TIIK AN Ti-IxKiin-;i. Lii'.i'.AKY, .Mr. Hastings has found 
 time to travel annually many thousand miles, and deliver evangelistic and 
 anti-infidel addresses in between twenty and thirty of the I'nited States, and 
 in the British Provinces: and has visited and lectured in Knglaiid in 1875, 
 in Kiigland and Scotland in 1S81-2. in Kntxland and Ireland in 18HH-7. and 
 
 lias published in Great Britain alone, sii 1882, about a million of anti- 
 
 intidel publications, a'_"- r rei:atin',' some twenty tons weight ot gospel literature, 
 which has Keen scattered throughout (ireat Britain, and her dependencies. 
 
 Through the reading of these publications it is believed that many Chris- 
 tian-; have been strengthened in the fu'th, and manj skeptics have been 
 turned to know the Lord ami believe his word. A curious commentary on 
 the eti'eet ot Mr. Hastings' efforts put forth in (Ireat Britain from the'year 
 nward, in conjunction with thos,- of other Christian wurK.-rs. is fo'und 
 in the statistics of the National Secular Organization, an Infidel Society, 
 which, in 188'!. claimed to have about a hundred branches and a lar^'e mem- 
 bership, each of its members paying an entrance fee of four shillings, and 
 receivini; :i certilicate of his standing in that organization. 
 
 fear. New Members. Annual Loss. Natmnnl Reformer. 
 
 1883 1,8*3 June 8, 1883, |>. 388 
 
 1884 1.747 I,,,-* 141 June 8. 1884, p. 388 
 
 1885 l.::;7 47rt May 31, 18X5. n. 4nj 
 1--'; 988 ' 37!> June20, 1886, p. SM 
 
 1887 605 " 483 June ".. ls.s7. p. :5 
 
 1888 59S Gain 88 May 27, 1888, p. 338 
 
 1889 4!l:! Loss 101 June If,. 1889. p. 369 
 
 But the work is only begun. It is said there are between three and four 
 hundred infidel societies in America. Infidel literature is scattered through- 
 out Christendom and in heathen lands. Funds are '_'re.uK needed to ex- 
 tend this important work. Address letter*, orders and donations to 
 
 H.L HASTINGS' SCRIPTURAL TRACT REPOSITORY. 
 
 r.iinv \l i 17 rmixiiii.i.. I LOM-V- 1" I' \ i >:!.%<- i KI: li\\ , 
 H.I, IIASIIN.,-. MAIISHAU, r.KKS., A.iKXTS.
 
 - 
 
 What Is 
 "THE CHRISTIAN"? 
 
 It is "excellent," " the best paper that comes to me." C. H. Spurgeon. 
 
 It is " about the best paper in the country." D. L, Moody. 
 
 Is is "that excellent paper that we all like." Theo. L. Cuyler, D. D. 
 
 It is " an admirable paper for general distribution." Kussell Sturgis, 
 Jr., Ex-president Boston Y. M. C. A. 
 
 It is, " I think, the best religious paper in the country." Arthur T. 
 Pierson, D. D. 
 
 It is "a very widely circulated paper, which has never flinched in the de- 
 fense of unpopular truth." Joseph Cook. 
 
 It is "full of evangelical truth, set forth with glowing earnestness. Its 
 trumpet always gives a certain sound." Andrew A. Bonar, D. D., Scotland. 
 
 It is " known world-wide and ought to be." D. T. Taylor. 
 
 It is a paper that " I rejoice that the Lord allows you to publish to the 
 pr.iise <>f His name." George Miiller, Bristol Orphan /louses, Enylmul. 
 
 It is " of th'o greatest practical value in bringing out the simplicity of the 
 gospel.'' Major D. W. Whittle. " I find nothing so helpful to me in illus- 
 t rating (Jospel preaching as THE CHRISTIAN. Joseph Cummings, D. IX, 
 J' resii/i-nt of Northwestern University. 
 
 It is "a large, illustrated, IG-page, family, monthly paper, filled with 
 true stories, music, poetry, religion and common sense. It contains II. L. 
 Hastings' articles and his "Notes on the International Lessons." It is free 
 from sectarianism, puffs, politics, pills, and patent medicines. The young 
 road it as well as the old. It is a safe paper to have about the house. 
 
 It is, indeed, declared to be "very, very good; worth far more than the 
 price," ($1.00 a year) as Hon. Neal Dow, of Maine, says. But, if you 
 will subscribe for it, at once, sending me simply its regular price, $1 .00, for 
 a year's subscription, 1 will frcvli/ </irc you, in addition, any dollar book in 
 tlii- " FAITH" and "HOME ".SERIES; published by me, as follows: 
 
 " I'i.i:m.i;s FROM THK PATH OK A I'II.CHIM," "TiiK. (Irmixo HAM>," 
 " TAUCS OK TitrsT,'' " KISKNK/.KKS," " TIIK FAMILY CIKCLE," " FIKE- 
 MIH-: J{K.AI>IN<;S," " KK\I>I\<.S KOI; LKISTUK MOMENTS." 
 
 Karh of these volunus is a regular .Si. '25 book, and worth it, but now 
 rulm-xl to 1.00. Fine cloth binding; between .'JOO ami 400 pages. 
 
 Conditions. You must, please, nsk for the book when you semi in your 
 subscription, and sny where you s/tio this ojf'i-r. If you want the book 
 mailed \oii must also add l(i cents extra, for postage and packing. This is 
 a special offer, open nui>/ /<> wr/c subscribers and for a limited time. 
 
 H. L. HASTINGS, SCRIPTURAL TRACT REPOSITORY 
 47 & 49 Cornhill, Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
 
 THE FAITH SERIES. 
 
 WRITTEN AND EDITED BY H. L. HASTINGS. 
 
 Each volume independent of the otJicrs, t/umgh of uniform size. 
 
 These volumes probably contain a larger collection of autkoi- 
 iinitdl records of jirovidciitial interposition and answers t<> 
 believing prayer than can be elsewhere found in the English 
 language. A large majority of the accounts emlxKlied in these 
 books have been written <:rj>rcssli/for the -pages of THK < 'HKISTIAN, 
 a large monthly religious periodical, edited and pul>lished since 
 1886 by H. L. Hastings, in l'.o>ton, Mas-., I'. S. A., and <jir< yl/r/.v 
 which have occurnd i<u>l< r the observation of t/tc I'-rifcr, or, in the 
 experience of those with whom he is personally acquainted. All 
 such accounts, for the correct ness of winch he. is personally prepared 
 to vouch, are distinguished in the Index by a star. [*] 
 
 THE GUHXEK ~"AND; or Providential Direction, illus- 
 trated by authentic instances of Relief and Deliverance in time.- of 
 trouble and perplexity ; of Direction through dreams and mental 
 impressions, and of Providential Evidence resulting in the con- 
 version of sinners. Recorded and collected by H. L. HASTINGS. 
 Crown 8vo., cloth, pp. 382. (3.s. 6d.) PriVv, $7.()Q. 
 
 "It would be well if Pantheists and other deniers of Divine Providence 
 would only take the trouble to read the, authentic instances in illustration of 
 this doctrine, {riven by Mr. Hustings in his beautiful little work bearing tho 
 title of THE GUIDING HAND." Lct-ds Mercury. 
 
 TALES OF TRUST; Instances of God's Care and Faithful- 
 ness in providing for His people; Providential Direction in the event .; 
 of life, and special Guidance in the Ministry of the Word of God. 
 Recorded and collected by H. L. HASTINGS. "CL 8vo. Price, 1.00. 
 
 " \Ve would commend this work, replett nth testimonies to God's faithful- 
 ness, to all who have faith to believe that >;<>d hears and answers prayer. 
 In its perusal their belief will be strengthened, and their hearts lifted' up 
 in adoring gratitude to God, who is the same now and for ever." Christian 
 Depository. 
 
 EBENEZERS ; or Records of Prevailing Prayer ; including 
 Prayers for Rescue, Relief and JIIes>inu r : Prayers for the Healing 
 of llodily l>i>e:i-es: pra\ers for the Conversion of the Impenitent. 
 Written and collected by H. L. HASTINGS. Cl. 8vo. JY*Vv, $1.00. 
 
 PEBBLES FROM THE PATH OF A PILGRIM ; 
 
 Personal Reminiscences of Answers to Prayers, and Providential 
 Guidance and Interposition, in connection with Gospel Labour, 
 Rescue Work, and of Mission Work among the Freedmen of the. 
 Southern States of America fter the close of the great ( 'ivil War. 
 By Mrs. H. L. HASTINGS. A book of deep and romantic intere.-i. 
 Crown 8vo. (In British Empire, 3s 6d.) Price, $1.00. 
 
 H. L. HASTINGS' SCRIPTURAL TRACT REPOSITORY. 
 BOSTON, U.S. A. : 49 CORNHILL, I LONDON: 10 PATERNOSTKK Kow, 
 U. L,. HASTINGS. MAKSHAUL BKOS., AGENTS.
 
 
 HOW TO HELP RESIST INFIDELITY. 
 
 First Send 25 cents or more to H. L. HASTINGS, 49 Cornhill, 
 Boston, Mass., U.S.A., for some specimens of THE AUTI-lMFIDEL 
 LIBRARY, edited by him, and read "them. Then you can judge 
 whether the work should be extended. Over thirty numbers of 
 the ANTI-INFIDEL LIBRARY are now issued. Others to follow. 
 
 Second Make them known to otiiers. 
 
 Third Ask your local bookseller or newsagent to order some 
 copies, and place showbills in his windows. And, to induce 
 him to do it, you might guarantee him against loss, by ottering to 
 take, at cost, whatever copies he might fail to sell. 
 
 Fourth Call the attention of Clergymen, Ministers, Colpor- 
 teurs, and City Missionaries to these publications, as especially 
 useful among Sceptics, Infidels, Secularists, and persons who are 
 undecided or unsettled in their religious convictions. 
 
 Fifth Give copies to sceptics and unbelievers ; or, tetter 
 still, send them, or order them to be sent, by post, that they may 
 not know the source from Avhence they come, sending one at a 
 time at short intervals, and praying for a blessing upon them. 
 
 Sixth Suggest to persons who are in the habit of purchasing 
 quantities of tracts for distribution, that it would be well to 
 include copies of these among others. 
 
 Seventh Enclose copies of these suggestions (furnished freely), 
 and also specimens of the various numbers of the Avn-l.N FIDEL 
 LIBRARY and GRAPE SHOT Leaflets, to Christian friends, and ask 
 them to use their influence in extending their circulation. And 
 remember that every tract pun-luiscd furnishes means to print 
 another to take its place. Copies may also be sent by post to 
 Ministers of the Gospel, City Missionaries, Foreign Missionaries. 
 and Christian Workers, many of whom have found help in their 
 labours by suggestions contained in these publications. 
 
 Eighth There are many expenses connected with an enterprise 
 like this, such as printing, postage, stationery, &c., and numerous' 
 calls for publications for gratuitous distribution. AYe do not feel 
 that, after meeting all these demands, to the best of our ability, 
 we are further called upon to specially solicit the aid of other- 
 who may best learn their duty from their Muster and ours. lint. 
 if friends desire to help us in a work that is far beyond our own 
 strength and means to accomplish, their contributions will lie 
 thankfully received and carefully applied. While it is intended 
 that the work shall, so far as possible, IK- self-supporting, yet the 
 Enemy lias had a long start, and it is important that iniini-<lintc 
 and i'in'r(fi'//r efforts be put forth to stay tbe progress of unbelief, 
 and to publish abroad truths which have long been neglected and 
 a-saileil. Hence extra expenses uliinilil In 1 provided for to give 
 the work a fair start at once. 
 
 <Vi. .-ix./.ir iliiiinHiniK, ,fc., thniild be mini: jMiimlli: In II L. Hatting*, anil tent to either of 
 tneAaaretebeUnD,amot convenient. *\>-I-I<HIII m< nts for lectures bv Mr. Ilanliny8 canbemadi. 
 
 H. L. HASTINGS' SCRI^TU^AL TRACT REPOSITORY. 
 
 BOSTON, U.S.A.: 40 COUNHIM,, I LONDON: 10 PATKBNOSTBB Row, 
 H. I,. HASTINGS. MA11SHALLL UU08., AOKNTS.
 
 H. L. HASTINGS' 
 
 BOSTON BIBLE 
 HOUSE, 
 
 47 & 49 CORNHILL, BOSTON 
 MASS. 
 
 For about forty years H. L. Hastings has been 
 eiigau'ed in import in-.', buying, selling, and dis- 
 tributing Bibles. In connection with the pub- 
 lication of Anti-Infidel and Gospel literature he has established the BOSTON 
 BIBLE HOUSE, at which, it is probable, there may be found the g; 
 variety of choice Bibles in America, if not in the world, and comprising 
 Bibles of various sizes, prices, styles and editions. Pulpit Bibles, Family 
 Bibles, Pictorial Bibles, Reference Bibles, Teachers' Bibles, Bagsters' Bibles, 
 Oxford Biblps, Cambridge Bibles, Collins' Bibles, Kyrt- ,fc Spottiswoode's 
 Bibles, Bible Society Bibles, Bibles in different languages, and Bibles and 
 iients at priee.s from 25 cents to $25.00, weighing from one ounce to 
 fifteen or twenty pounds. Any Bibles at reduced prices. , , 
 
 DO YOU WANT the finest Teachers' Bible published, without money 
 outlay? Youcanhave it by saying when- you saw this offer, and by send- 
 ing in only three times the publishers' price for the Bible, in new sub- 
 scriptions to 1 1 . L. Hastings' large, HJ-page, illustrated, family, monthly 
 paper, Tin-: < .'IIKISTI AN, $1.00 a year, or to the LITTLK CIIIUSTIAN, a 
 beautiful semi-monthly paper for children, at 30 Cts. a year. Postage free. 
 Your choice of a hundred styles of type, paper, or binding. Send for 
 catalogue and specimen-; of Tu i: < 'n i;i> n AN and LITTLE CIIIUSTIAN free. 
 
 DO YOU WANT A splendid $15. 00 Family Bible, containing thousands 
 of engravings, costly steel plates, tine ehronio lithographs, Bible Dictionary, 
 comple'e ( 'onco -dance, in fact, a whole library of valuable Bible Helps, and 
 
 DO YOU WANT this Bible without paying a dollar for it 1 II. L. 
 Ha-tiir_'-< will give it to you, freely, if you get only its price. $15.00, in lieu- 
 subscriptions to either of hi< papers, TIIK CIIIMSTIAX, at $1.00 a vear, or 
 the LITTI.K CIIKISTIAN, 30 CtS. a year, and </.<. t tlie time, for the Bible. 
 Kvpressed at receiver's expense, or ma i led for S 1 .25 extrainU. S. or Canada. 
 
 le.ise send for specimens of the papers free, and fi.r illustrated descriptions 
 of the Bible alluded to in this extraordinarily liberal oH'er. Also this si.'i.oo 
 Bible will be given to anv o:ie buying or selling only $15.00 worth of any 
 numbers of the ANTI-!XI IIKI. I T.IJAKY at retail prices. See Li>t. 
 
 H.L.HASTINGS 1 SCRIPTURAL TRACT REPOSITORY. 
 
 BOSTON, r. s. A.: 47 CUKNHII.L, I LONIMJN: 10 PATKKNM-I i \- KI-W. 
 H. L. HASTIN<;>. MARSHALL H<)S., A-.-
 
 OVER 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 COPIES 
 
 of these Bibles 
 HAVE BEEN SOLD. 
 
 THE ORIGINAL, 
 THE BEST, 
 
 THE MOST 
 COMPLETE, 
 
 The "AID 
 by le 
 
 *" in this Bible make 300 pages of closely printed matter prepared 
 jading specialists in each department of Biblical study, and 
 give the latest results of the best scholarship. 
 
 This Bible has been IMITATED but not EQUALED. 
 
 KIGIIT DISTINCT EDITIONS, printed on "India" or Thin White ftag- 
 niade paper. 
 
 I'rici-s front */.-> to $1'J. Si' nil for detailed and tlatcriplire 1'rice-List. 
 
 WHAT IS SAID OF THIS BIBLE. 
 
 THE STANDARD, Chicago. "A mass of information forming a library 
 in itself. . . . With every feature a teacher needs for practical use." 
 
 THE I$APTIST.,i-"Qmte a wonderful coin])endiuin of Biblical information. 
 No Simday-schooKteacher should lie without it." 
 
 I. W. WALTON of Hie T. M. C. A.'s of Ohio. "I believe that for the use 
 of Sunday-school teachers and active members of the Y. M.C. A. they are 
 not only unexcelled, . . . but have no equals. . . . A library of' rare, 
 choice and practical information which no Bible student should miss." 
 
 The Venerable Archdeacon FARRAR, in speaking of it says: "The Hook, 
 as now completed, presents the best and most recent results of Biblical 
 research ill the smallest possible compass. . . . A Bible rich in informa- 
 t ion, which could only be gathered from a multitude of learned and expen- 
 
 the 
 
 she books, and frr 
 something to learn." 
 
 Tin- Nov. Dr. EDEKSI1KI3I : "It is eertainU 
 useful which has hit lierto appeared." 
 
 The lifv. JOSEPH PAKKKK, D.I).: "I hav< 
 
 j'leat caie. It is (|itiie as valuable for preachers a n< I hearers as for learhers 
 and seliolars. It is almost a library in itself, coiitaiiung e\erytliing that is 
 immediately needed for the clneidalion of the sacred text. I can not 
 imagine how this ISilile can he improved in any important particular." 
 
 The Laic Archbishop TIIEM'II : " Marvi ously full of interesting and 
 accurate information." 
 
 The Kcv. C. II. SPUIMJEON: " It is a singularly useful edition." 
 
 MAY BE OBTAINED THROUGH ANY BOOKSELLER. 
 
 E. & J. B, YOUNG & CO., COOPER UNION, FOURTH AYE., NEW YORK. 
 
 l|l==l_ ( , .0 "^
 
 
 BAGSTKRS' 
 
 COMPREHENSIVE 
 
 TEACHERS' BIBLE, 
 
 With New Helps, New Concordance, Indexed Atlas, and 
 the Complete "Bagster Bible." 
 
 "WHAT EDITION OF THE BIBLE SHALL I BUY?" 
 
 .Messr<. I 1 .;. Asters liave now issued a Cnmi>r<-li<'H- 
 
 I'l'in-lii-rn' l>Hil<' which contains some three or 
 
 four hunilriMl pa^es of additional Jlc//>s to Jiilili- 
 
 Stint i/, including a new and beautiful Concordance. 
 
 with twenty tlionsand references, also containing 
 
 an account of all the books in the Hiblc, and of its 
 
 raiihy, topography, antiquities, natural hi-- 
 
 tory, etc., with a dozen or fifteen maps and ihe well 
 
 known helps which have pre\ ioiisly In en embodied 
 in the other editions of Hauler's J'.ililcs. 
 
 Though tlio hook now contains more- than a 
 thousand pajjvs, yet it. is quite portable, bein;: more 
 shapely and convenient than most other Bible- of 
 this description, while* the. paper is no! too thin for 
 distinctness. Those who are contemplating pur- 
 chasing new r.ibles are iinilcd to examine the 
 Jliii/xft'i-'f: Cf>mi>rehensire Teui-lu-m' Rihle and see 
 it this is not. the h<x>k for which they arelookinu." 
 
 11. i.. IIASTIM;S. 
 
 "There has been placed upon our desk a copy of ' The Comprehensive 
 Tea'-hers' I'.ible.' recently issued by S. BagSter and Sons, Limited, London. 
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