the greatest of men, so far as they can be said to create anything, are the authors of infinitesimally few things. Then, also, there is a spiritual life which is not deducible from any thing of the natural world—not from reason, experience or science. That spiritual life, cultivated here, fits us to become angels hereafter and to live forever in heaven.
Now these things are beyond discovery by natural study or deduction. They cannot be thought out from any principles of earthly science, nor evolved from any inner conciousness formed by life in the world. They can only be learned by revelation from God. Consequently when the Lord gives a revelation to man, it is and must be concerning these higher things of which he cannot know in any other way. If the Divine mind inspire a book which shall be worthy of its infinite authorship, it must teach us concerning God and his nature, concerning eternal life as distinguished from earthly life, and concerning the means of reaching and enjoying the highest blessings which that life affords. It would be derogatory to the Divine character to attribute any other design to the books which form the Word of God.
The Word of God then cannot be a book of natural history or science. It must contain, in its essence, only spiritual truth. As history, it must give only a history of the spiritual states of the
