a kind of Imperial Synagogue which continued for not less than two hundred years and which in that period finished the collection and authorization of the Old Testament. This synagogue had various presidents, including Nehemiah. No such organization for the selection of the Scriptures existed. Accurate ancient history gives no trace of its work. The work of testing the writings was slow. The arbiter was life. Life had determined the writing. Life must now determine the authority.

We can catch an interesting glimpse into this process by studying for a moment the story about Josiah, the young king. Hilkiah, the priest, finds the book of the law. Shaphan carries the book to the king and reads to him from the ancient lore. The book quickens the royal conscience. God and the earthly ancestors of Josiah speak to him from the pages. He is made to feel how far he and his people have gone from the will of Jehovah. He rends his clothes. He sends for the human voices of the Most High. Huldah, the prophetess, is the chief instructor. The people are called back to their allegiance. The land is purged. A manuscript has done all this. It inspired the king and his people until abominations fled from Israel. The land continued in obedience until the archers sent King Josiah to his sepulcher. That portion of the law that had been read to the king by Shaphan and had then been delivered to the people proved its inspiring quality in its effects on life. On that day a portion of the Old Testament canon was selected.

Doubtless this incident is somewhat typical of a procedure that was more or less constant. The imperial synagogue was the Jewish people. The debate that settled issues was the debate of experience. Life was electing its own books. Words that touched the conscience into an impression of God and then worked their way outward to the blessing of the multitude were gaining for themselves the popular vote. Candidates for the canon were rejected. Other candidates were held in long suspicion. Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Esther, Solomon’s Song—all these served a long probation ere they proved themselves worthy of their place. The ancient world, like the modern world, was not willing to surrender Proverbs, with their homely wisdom; Esther, with its lesson of loyalty to race and kindred; Solomon’s Song, with its refusal to listen to the blandishments of royal lasciviousness luring to the betrayal of a true and humble lover; or even Ecclesiastes, with its pessimism uncured until the writer once more finds God.

After books secured their place in the authorized list of the Jews, they had still to contest to keep their place. As late as the first century of the Christian era, debate was frequent. Life was slow to render its decision. There was no hasty authority. The final judgment was rendered by the experience of a race. When Eck reminded Martin Luther that the church had decided what books should go into the canon and that Luther must accept a quotation from Second Maccabees as authoritative, the great Reformer made reply, “The church cannot give more authority or force to a book than it has in itself. A council cannot make that be Scripture which in its own nature is not Scripture.” So it came to pass that in due season the freed religious consciousness of the church took certain apocryphal books from the Old Testament canon. That consciousness seemed to feel a difference in spiritual power between the Apocrypha and the other portions of the Old Testament. Life was still coming to the polls in order that it, far more than any stately council, should elect the true Word of God.

This same process of selection went on in relation to the New Testament. The early Christians started with no New Testament whatsoever. Their Bible was the Old Testament. We do not find any warrant for saying that they expected to make additions to the Bible. Jesus came first. Then the Gospels and Epistles came as natural consequences. The early Christians, as we shall later see, had received the very purpose and climax of Revelation, because they had received Christ. But the Gospels and Epistles which grew up out of life had in their turn to be tested by life. Believers began by reading these as if they were suggestive; after the writings had wrought their full impression upon the minds of the believers, they began to consider them inspired and holy. This decision did not come abstractly, nor did it come quickly. Gradually the sense of the value of certain writings grew upon the early church. Almost two centuries of the Christian era passed ere the collection so commended itself to believing hearts as to be given definite form. As in the case of the Old Testament, so in the case of the New, life declined to be hurried into a decision. The books must prove their authority in the experience of the people. The Christian republic was engaged in the task of choosing its Bible from life.

We find, too, that certain books appeared as claimants for permanent authority that did not win their case. The ancient manuscripts were passed from church to church and were read to the people. The task of sifting went surely forward. Directly lists of books that peculiarly commended themselves to the Christians began to appear. In the first two centuries such leaders as Irenæus, Clement, and Tertullian present their lists which show some of our present books omitted, some other books included, and still other books declared as good but inferior. The Christian consciousness had not yet reached a confident verdict. But a review of the period shows the Christian leaders verging toward unanimity. Slowly some books were eliminated; and slowly other books asserted their right to be included. By the beginning of the fifth century the canon had been practically determined. The great Augustine, with his immediate predecessors and his close successors, reveals the well-nigh unanimous conclusion to which the church had come. It may well be noted that the voting booth stood open for almost four hundred years. The Councils of Hippo and Carthage were simply the servants of the people. The books that had sprung from life had received the testing of life.

It must be allowed that here, as in the case of the Old Testament canon, some books had to re-prove their right to the place of authority. The Council of Trent may have settled the matter for all Roman Catholics, but it did not irretrievably close the canon for Protestants. It is well known that Luther himself wished to remove several books from the list, and that he called the Epistle of James “strawlike.” Luther’s reason was a polemical one. He felt that the vivid practicalness of James conflicted with the principle of justification by faith alone. It is only a stronger evidence of the demands of life in the selection of the final canon that even the powerful influence of Luther could not prevail. The church well knew that the Epistle of James would be a good antidote for any lazy mysticism. Life voted against Luther in this instance, and life won. Zwingli wanted to exclude the Book of Revelation from the canon. The Christian republic felt that beneath all the weird imagery of the Apocalypse God was speaking by his servant to the churches of all time. Life voted against Zwingli in this instance, and life won. When life was given its freedom the most influential voices of authority could not prevail against its verdicts. This completes the circle. The Bible was written by life, and the Bible was selected by life.

Perhaps it is well to note that when any portion of the Scripture has been taken away from the purpose of life, it has lost its note of authority; when it has been brought back to that purpose of life, it has regained that note. The Song