I was once profoundly disturbed in the traditional faith in which I was brought up by inroads made upon the Book of Genesis by the higher critics. I could not then gainsay them, not knowing Hebrew or archaeology well, but to me, as to many, to pull out one great prop was to make the whole foundation uncertain.

So I floundered for some years trying, as many of my higher critical friends are trying today, to continue to use the Bible as the Word of God, while at the same time holding it to be of a multiple composite authorship, a curious and disastrous piece of mental gymnastics- an attempt to bridge over the chasm separating an old Bible-loving generation from a newer Bible-emancipated race. I saw in the book a great light and glow of heat while shivering out in the cold.

At last it occurred to me to see what the Book had to say about itself. As a short, but perhaps not the best method, I took a concordance and looked up "Word," when I found that the Bible claims from one end to the other to be the authoritative word of God to man. I then tried the natural plan of using it alone as my textbook of religion as I would take a textbook in any science, testing it by submitting to its conditions, as Christ Himself invites men to do. (John 7:17).

As a result I now believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God, inspired in a sense utterly different from that of any merely human book.

I believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, without human father, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary. I believe that all men are sinners by nature, alienated from God, and that, when we were thus utterly lost in sin, the Son of God Himself came down to earth and, by shedding His blood upon the cross, paid the infinite penalty of the guilt of the whole world. I believe that he who thus receives Jesus Christ as his Saviour is born again spiritually, as definitely as in his first birth, and, so born spiritually, has new privileges, appetites, and affections and will live and grow with Him forever. I believe also that no man can save himself by good works or by what men call a "moral life," while good works are the necessary fruits and evidence of Faith.

In Satan I recognize the cause of man's fall and sin and rebellion against God, our rightful Governor: as the Prince of this world he will in the end be cast into the pit and made utterly harmless. Christ will come again in glory to earth to reign, even as He went away from earth, and I look for His return day by day.

I am further assured that the Bible is God's Word because in using it day by day as spiritual food I discover in my own life, as in the lives of others, a correction of evil tendencies, a constant purification of the affections, and an ever increasing knowledge of the righteousness of God, of which the world is utterly unaware. It is just as obviously and truly food for the spirit as bread for the body.

One of the most cogent reasons for my supreme confidence in the Bible is that it reveals to me, as does no other book in the world, that which appeals to a physician -- a clear diagnosis of my spiritual condition, showing me clearly what I am by nature, one lost in sin and alienated from life that is in God. I find it to be a consistent and wonderful revelation, from Genesis to Revelation, of the character of God, far removed from any man's natural imaginings. It also reveals a tenderness and nearness of God in Christ that satisfies the heart's yearnings and presents the infinite God, Creator of the world, as taking our very nature upon Him in infinite love to become one of His people in order to redeem them.

To state fully what the Bible means to me is as intimate and difficult a questions as the presentation of reasons for loving father and mother, wife and children. Such a faith also elevates to a higher level my relation to family and to friends. One of a far greater tenderness to those, as well as a far deeper interest in all my fellow men, with whom my daily contacts are never viewed as casual. It robs death of fear and creates a close bond with those who have gone before.

In as much as faith so reveals God, I go without question wherever He may lead. I place His precepts and commands above every seeming probability, dismissing cherished convictions, and holding the wisdom and ratiocinations of men as folly when opposed to Him. I place no limits to a faith vested in God as the sum of all wisdom and knowledge and trust Him though standing alone before the world in declaring Him to be true.