Without that no
miracles however overwhelmingly attested, no external evidence of
whatever kind, could have compelled intellects of the highest rank, side
by side with the most uncultivated and the most barren, to accept it as
divine, nor could anything else have so often rekindled its old fire at
times when faith in it had apparently withered away. The teaching of
the Bible has always found and must always find its main evidence within
the human soul.
And the fact that the teaching of the Bible, though when examined
afterwards it turns out to be development or evolution, yet was always
given at the time as a revelation, so far from diminishing the force of
this internal evidence adds to it still more force than it would
otherwise have. For what underlies the very conception of revelation is
the doctrine that all progress in higher spiritual knowledge is bound up
with conscious communion with God. Now it is an experience common to all
believers that in that communion is to be found not only all strength
but all enlightenment also. The believer knows that he learns spiritual
truth in proportion as he refers his life to God's judgment, prays to
God for clearer vision of what is duty and what is right faith, and
makes it his one great aim to do God's will.
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