What other book besides the Bible could be heard in public assemblies from year to year, with an attention that never tires, and an interest that never cloys?
The grand old Book of God still stands; and this old earth, the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more it will sustain and illustrate the Sacred word.
The books of men have their day and grow obsolete. God's word is like Himself, "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."
Christianity claims that the supernatural is as reasonable as the natural, that man himself is supernatural as truly as he is natural, and that the Bible is so clearly the word of God by proofs that are unanswerable, that it is unreasonable to disbelieve its divine truths.
Eighteen centuries have passed since the Bible was finished. They have been centuries of great changes. In their course the world has been wrought over into newness at almost every point. But, to-day, the text of the Scriptures, after copyings almost innumerable and after having been tossed about through ages of ignorance and tumult, is found by exhaustive criticism to be unaltered in every important particular—there being not a single doctrine, nor duty, nor fact of any grade, that is brought into question by variations of readings—a fact that stands alone in the history of such ancient literature.
The best evidence of the Bible's being the word of God is to be found between its covers. It proves itself.
