Chapter I: Foreword

One great universal law runs through the realm of nature. Our Saviour gave it in a sentence: 'First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.'

It is with the desire to show that the same law rules in another of God's creations--The Bible--that this little volume has been prepared.

The Bible has as literally 'grown' as has an oak tree; and probably there is no more likeness between the Bible as we know it to-day and its earliest beginning, than we find between the mighty tree, and the acorn from which it sprang.

The subject is so vast that we have not attempted anything beyond the briefest outline. Our purpose has been merely to give some idea of the origin of the Bible books, up to the measure of our present light upon the subject, and also to show the purpose for which they were written.

But if our readers, by seeing something of the wonder and glory of the Holy Scriptures, are able to catch a glimpse of the Creator's mind behind the whole, our work will not have been in vain.

MILDRED DUFF.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. A LIVING BOOK
II. THE SECRET OF ITS GREATNESS
III. MOSES AND HIS WRITINGS
IV. THE HISTORY BOOKS
V. THE SCATTERING OF THE PEOPLE
VI. THE ATTACK ON THE SCRIPTURES
VII. TWO FAMOUS VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES
VIII. THE BIBLE IN THE DAYS OF JESUS CHRIST
IX. THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
X. THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
XI. HOW THE GOSPELS CAME TO BE WRITTEN
XII. SOME OTHER WRITERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
XIII. THE FIRST BIBLE PICTURES

THE BIBLE IN ITS MAKING