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BIBLE STUDY 
 THE GREAT WAY 
 INTO LIFE’S VALUES 
 
 HENRY CHURCHILL KING 
 
 President of Oberlin College 
 
 NINETEEN HUNDRED NINE 
 YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION PRESS 
 NEW YORK 
 
Copyright, 1909, by the International Committee 
 of Young Men's Christian Associations 
 
Life’s Values Realized Through 
 Bible Study 
 
 JS the insistent demand for Bible 
 study justified ? If it is, we ought 
 to be able to see that Bible study 
 has a broad, philosophical basis, 
 that it is knit up with the great 
 values of life, that the biblical way 
 is the great way into life’s values; 
 that, in fact, there is no way so cer¬ 
 tain to the largest life. 
 
 For the age in which we live, 
 though it is not an irreligious age, 
 is a realistic age, an age with a 
 passion for reality, for real life. 
 The feeling of our time is rightly 
 voiced in Tennyson’s lines: 
 
 “’Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, 
 More life and fuller that I want.” 
 
 The desire for life is not only the 
 
 3 
 
4 A TEST OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 desire of our time, but is also the 
 point of Christ’s own challenge; 
 he comes that men may have life, 
 and that they may have it abun¬ 
 dantly. Christianity has, therefore, 
 no need to shrink from this test. 
 It fully believes, as MacDonald 
 said, that religion is life, and not 
 merely the food or the medicine or 
 the adornment of life. And it is so 
 insistent upon Bible study just be¬ 
 cause it believes it to be the best of 
 all ways to the largest life. Is 
 religion life ? and is Bible study 
 such a preeminent way to life ? 
 If it is not so, we cannot afford it 
 the time demanded; if it is so, we 
 need to know and to heed it. 
 
 I 
 
 We shall readily grant, in the 
 
THINGS THAT SATISFY $ 
 
 first place, that the great values of 
 life —what is really worth while- 
 must involve the achievement of 
 character, of influence, and of hap¬ 
 piness, and no one can come into 
 the largest life without achieve¬ 
 ment along all these lines. To be 
 what one ought, to count as one 
 can, to enjoy what one may—this 
 is really worth while; and any way 
 of life must show us the way to 
 these basic values. 
 
 For satisfying life looks, in the 
 first place, to character. We may 
 not forget Thomas Arnold’s words 
 to the boys of Rugby, “The only 
 thing of moment in life or in man is 
 character”; or, as another has put 
 it, “The great soul will be strong to 
 live as well as to think.” No life 
 can come to its best into which there 
 
6 A FOUR-SQUARE HAPPINESS 
 
 has not been built mighty convic¬ 
 tions, mighty decisions and the in¬ 
 spiration of great ideals and hopes. 
 
 Nor can the genuine man be 
 satisfied without influence , without 
 counting effectively for good in the 
 lives of others. He must demand 
 from himself social efficiency, must 
 be sure that he can be counted a 
 part of that leaven that is to leaven 
 the world's life, of that “good 
 seed” which is the children of the 
 Kingdom. 
 
 And the man who means really to 
 live has a right to expect a deep and 
 abiding peace and happiness that 
 are something more than satisfac¬ 
 tion of the senses, a happiness that 
 can stand four-square to all the 
 facts of life. In comparing one of 
 the madonnas of Correggio at the 
 
THE CALM OF ETERNITY 7 
 
 Dresden Gallery with the great 
 Sistine madonna of Raphael in the 
 same gallery, Kedney says that 
 while each is a masterpiece in its 
 own line, the loveliness of Cor- 
 reggio's picture is that of a domestic 
 felicity which seems capable of 
 abiding only so long as the world 
 is shut out and its dark facts for¬ 
 gotten, while the suffused calm of 
 the Sistine madonna and child is to 
 be read in the eyes of both, that do 
 not forget the world, but look out 
 with assurance into the eternities 
 of God. A basic happiness like 
 that must belong to the man who 
 means really to live. The message 
 of Jesus Christ is a word of good 
 news, the best that could ever be 
 brought to needy men; it means 
 
8 PERSONAL ASSOCIATION 
 
 happiness, as well as character and 
 influence. 
 
 II 
 
 And if one asks, in the second 
 place, what the great means to 
 character, and influence, and happi¬ 
 ness are, there seems no doubt that 
 one must answer— Personal asso¬ 
 ciation with significant lives, and 
 some sharing in their best vision. 
 There are no other means for a 
 moment comparable with these for 
 the achievement of either character, 
 or influence, or happiness. Even 
 Kant, abstract philosopher as he 
 was, knew that the great road to 
 character was by the living exam¬ 
 ple. Fichte caught up the message 
 from Kant and rang it out over the 
 heads of the students of the Univer- 
 
THE LIVING EXAMPLE 9 
 
 sity of Erlangen in his great ad¬ 
 dresses on “The Vocation of Man” 
 and “The Nature of the Scholar,” 
 with their great conception of the 
 scholar as the embodiment of the 
 “Divine Idea,” who must power¬ 
 fully touch the lives of others. And 
 Carlyle caught it up from Fichte 
 in his “Sartor Resartus,” and 
 George Eliot from Carlyle; and 
 perhaps no one has given it finer 
 expression than she, when she says: 
 “Ideas are often poor ghosts; our 
 sun-filled eyes cannot discern them 
 —they pass athwart us in their 
 vapor, and cannot make themselves 
 felt. But sometimes they are made 
 flesh; they breathe upon us with 
 warm breath, they touch us with 
 soft, responsive hands, they look 
 at us with sad, sincere eyes, and 
 
SUPREME SERVICE 
 
 jo 
 
 speak to us in appealing tones; 
 they are clothed in a living human 
 soul, with all its conflicts, its faith, 
 and its love. Then their presence 
 is a power, then they shake us like 
 a passion, and we are drawn after 
 them with gentle compulsion, as 
 flame is drawn to flame.” 
 
 In fact, when one stops to think 
 about it, one sees there are only two 
 services of supreme value that it 
 seems possible for any man to do 
 for another: he may lay upon that 
 other the impress of a high and 
 noble character, and he may share 
 with him his own best vision. Be¬ 
 yond these there is no service of 
 supreme value that he can render. 
 And these two services are our 
 supreme need from others’ lives, 
 and our own greatest task in life. 
 
SIGNIFICANT PERSONALITIES is 
 
 The great road to character, and 
 influence, and happiness is the con¬ 
 tagion of great lives and the sharing 
 in their visions. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It follows, in the third place, that 
 the greatest conceivable need for our¬ 
 selves or for others is high and 
 significant personalities , and the 
 chance of sharing in their effective 
 witness to those great interests and 
 personalities by which they live. 
 And the significant personalities 
 that above all else we need are 
 those that are marked by great con¬ 
 victions and great decisions, and 
 are inspired by great ideals and 
 hopes. It is the touch of such lives 
 that we need most of all; nothing 
 else can so surely bring us into the 
 
li THE EFFECTIVE WITNESS 
 
 largeness of life. But the degree in 
 which we can enter into the large¬ 
 ness of their vision will depend in 
 no small part upon the effectiveness 
 of their own witness. And all men 
 need effective witness from other 
 men as to those values and person¬ 
 alities by which they live. What 
 are the qualities required in such 
 an effective witness ? If the service 
 rendered at this point is supreme, 
 as I believe it to be, it is worth while 
 to make clear to ourselves exactly 
 what the qualities of the effective 
 witness must be. 
 
 So far as I can see, they are four: 
 first, conviction; second, character 
 and judgment in the sphere in 
 which one bears witness; third, dis¬ 
 interested love; and, fourth, power 
 to put one’s witness home. 
 
THE ELOQUENCE OF CHARACTER 13 
 
 First of all, that witness counts 
 most with us who speaks mani¬ 
 festly out of profound conviction of 
 his own. This conviction of his 
 
 * 
 
 goes further with us than the very 
 reasons that he urges on its behalf. 
 
 And the second quality of the 
 effective witness indicates how im¬ 
 possible it is to separate power in 
 service from power of personality. 
 For, in the last analysis, weighing 
 testimony is weighing witnesses, 
 and no man is finally going to count 
 powerfully with us in whose charac¬ 
 ter we cannot have confidence, and 
 whose judgment we cannot trust. 
 A few words from the man of 
 character and judgment will go 
 further than much eloquence from 
 a man in whose character we do not 
 
14 THE UNFAILING LIGHT 
 
 believe, and whose judgment we do 
 not trust. 
 
 And the effective witness, in the 
 third place, must speak with evi¬ 
 dent disinterestedness. It must be 
 plain that he has no merely private 
 interest to serve, no selfish scheme 
 of his own to further, but that in 
 the witness he bears he genuinely 
 seeks the good of those to whom he 
 speaks. Back of all witness of 
 words, thus, must lie, above all, the 
 witness of the life of conviction, of 
 character and judgment, of disin¬ 
 terested love. 
 
 And the witness of such men can¬ 
 not well fail, though their power of 
 speech is small indeed. And yet, 
 the fourth element of the effective 
 witness is not without importance. 
 A man may add greatly to his 
 
POWER IN TESTIMONY 15 
 
 effectiveness for good because he 
 has power to put his witness home. 
 And that, it may perhaps be said, 
 means exactly three things —power 
 to make his testimony to the cause or 
 person or interest of which he 
 speaks real , rational , and vital . 
 
 It sometimes seems to me that the 
 Christian witness particularly needs 
 to have these three demands con¬ 
 tinually in mind. It is his business, 
 above all, to make Christ and the 
 things of the spirit real to men, able 
 to take their place among the 
 steadfast realities of their life; 
 rational , with steadfast appeal to 
 their best reason, knit up with the 
 very best thinking that they are able 
 to do in any line; and vital , drawn 
 from life, with motives for life, 
 translatable continuously into life. 
 
16 OUR GREATEST NEEDS 
 
 These, then, it seems to me, are 
 our greatest needs: the contagion of 
 high and significant personalities— 
 that is, personalities character¬ 
 ized by great convictions, de¬ 
 cisions, ideals, and hopes—and 
 the opportunity of sharing in their 
 effective witness, a witness that 
 grows out of conviction, character 
 and judgment, and disinterested 
 love, and that is so brought home as 
 to be made to us real, rational, and 
 vital. It is no accident, therefore, 
 that the program of Christianity 
 should be, as my colleague, Professor 
 Bosworth, has said, the conquest 
 of the world by a campaign of tes¬ 
 timony, through empowered wit¬ 
 nesses. For this is the way by 
 which we come into all the great 
 values of life. It could not fail to 
 
THE MISSION OF THE BIBLE 17 
 
 be the way into the supreme values 
 of life, brought by the highest of all 
 religions. 
 
 IV 
 
 Just here, then, it seems to me, 
 is to be found the basic reason for 
 the preeminent importance of Bible 
 study. The great mission and 
 priceless value of the Bible are that 
 it puts us in touch with the most 
 significant lives of the world, in the 
 greatest realm, that of the moral 
 and spiritual—the lives that we 
 need most of all, because religion 
 is the great unlocker of the powers 
 of men. Here, thus, in the Bible, 
 we have the opportunity of staying 
 in the presence of the best. If 
 Kaftan was right in saying that our 
 chief task is to enter with appre- 
 
18 significance of history 
 
 ciative understanding into the great 
 personalities of history, then our 
 greatest task is to be able so to enter 
 into the lives embodied in this 
 record of revelation. The Bible 
 has, in other words, a supreme place 
 just because it does put us in touch 
 with the most significant person - 
 alities of history—the great line of 
 the prophets, culminating in Christ; 
 and because it contains the most 
 effective witness to moral and spirit¬ 
 ual values that the world knows. 
 
 Where else shall one turn to find 
 a line of personalities so grounded 
 in the greatest convictions that men 
 can have, so embodying the mighty 
 decisions of the moral and spiritual 
 life, so moved by the highest ideals 
 and inspired with the largest hopes ? 
 Here lies the inestimable value of 
 
THE LIVING RECORD 19 
 
 the modern historical study of the 
 Bible. For it enables us, as never 
 before, to enter with intelligent 
 sympathy into the personal lives of 
 the Bible record, to find them liv¬ 
 ing persons. To a degree true of 
 no preceding generation, this gener¬ 
 ation is able to enter into the actual 
 situation, for example, of the proph¬ 
 ets, to see their problem, their 
 life task, and the message that 
 it was given them to utter; and 
 their greatness so comes home to 
 us as never before. So the free critic 
 Cornill can say of Amos, “Amos 
 is one of the most marvelous and 
 incomprehensible figures in the his¬ 
 tory of the human mind, the pioneer 
 of a process of evolution from which 
 a new epoch of humanity dates.” 
 And Hosea he counts “among 
 
N ao WHERE ELSE? 
 
 the greatest religious geniuses which 
 the world has ever produced”; 
 and he says of Isaiah, “In Isaiah 
 we find for the first time a clearly 
 grasped conception of universal 
 history.” It is into the presence of 
 such personalities that the modern 
 historical study of the Bible in¬ 
 troduces us. To a degree never 
 before true, the Bible lives for us; 
 of it we may well use Lowell’s 
 phrase, and say that it is “rammed 
 with life.” One cannot put the 
 point of a needle into it anywhere 
 without drawing blood. 
 
 Where else, too, shall one turn 
 for such effective witness to moral 
 and spiritual values ? Where else 
 are the personalities to be found 
 who speak as those who have seen 
 the verities of the moral and spirit- 
 
OURSELVES WRIT LARGE ai 
 
 ual world, whose message comes 
 out of such conviction, such char¬ 
 acter and judgment, with such 
 manifest disinterestedness of love ? 
 Who else have power to make the 
 things of the spirit so real, so 
 rational, so vital ? These person¬ 
 alities of the Scripture are truly 
 the moral and religious leaders of 
 the race. 
 
 As the record of the preeminent 
 meetings of the men of the ancient 
 time with God, even the Old Testa¬ 
 ment gives us what else we could 
 not have, a genetic understanding 
 of Christianity , and the transcript 
 of our own individual experience 
 writ large. This generation can 
 least of all spare the Old Testa¬ 
 ment; for college students are 
 studying almost every subject they 
 
%l SHARING IN THE RACE-LIFE 
 
 take up by the biological method. 
 The great concept of evolution in 
 its larger sense is a dominant one, 
 and the students of our time are 
 trying to understand their sub¬ 
 jects genetically. It would hardly 
 be possible to satisfy this genera¬ 
 tion without such a genetic under¬ 
 standing of Christianity, and that 
 genetic understanding requires a 
 study of the Old Testament. So 
 strongly do we feel this that the 
 modern man would be almost 
 tempted to reproduce out of his 
 imagination the record of such a 
 preceding growth, if we did not 
 have it in the Old Testament. In the 
 same way we are trying to under¬ 
 stand our individual lives in the 
 light of the record of the race; and 
 in this aspect, too, the Old Testa- 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST *3 
 
 ment has for us profound signifi¬ 
 cance as a record of a race-expe¬ 
 rience, like that experience through 
 whose stages we ourselves must 
 largely pass. In the Old and New 
 Testaments alike we have the 
 opportunity, too, of sharing in no 
 small measure in the best insights 
 of the greatest spiritual seers that 
 the world has known. 
 
 But above all, in the New Testa¬ 
 ment, the Bible brings us back into 
 the concrete presence of the histor¬ 
 ical Christ , and to the sense of his 
 practical lordship. No generation 
 the world has ever seen has wit¬ 
 nessed such study of his life as has 
 this generation of ours. It is not 
 an accident that every life of Christ 
 worth reading, outside the Gospels, 
 has been written since the year 1835. 
 
14 the good new times 
 
 To our time, too, belongs the whole 
 rise of the great science of biblical 
 theology, to our time the most 
 searching studies in the teaching of 
 Jesus. Men have been brought 
 face to face with the life and spirit 
 and teaching of Jesus as never be¬ 
 fore, and it is a reasonable thing to 
 expect the best Christian preaching, 
 and the best Christian living the 
 world has ever seen to be just 
 ahead of us, not behind us. For, 
 in spite of all the questions that are 
 raised, the practical lordship of 
 Christ is becoming daily more mani¬ 
 fest; never before did his spirit 
 rule so truly in industry, in com¬ 
 merce, in politics national and in¬ 
 ternational. And while we are still 
 only at the beginning of that com¬ 
 plete lordship that belongs to him, 
 
OUR UNIQUE NEED OF CHRIST 15 
 
 we have the greatest reasons for 
 faith and hope. And it is through 
 the witness of these earliest disci¬ 
 ples, who “beheld his glory,” that 
 there is given to us this priceless 
 vision “of the knowledge of the 
 glory of God in the face of Jesus 
 Christ.” 
 
 V 
 
 And it especially concerns us men 
 of the twentieth century to re¬ 
 member that it is exactly we who , 
 above all , need Christ for any sure 
 way to God. For this generation 
 has awakened to scientific and 
 moral self-consciousness to an ex¬ 
 tent never before true. Just be¬ 
 cause there is this scientific con¬ 
 sciousness on the one hand, and 
 this deeper moral consciousness on 
 
*6 CLOSED WAYS 
 
 the other, many of the older ways 
 into the religious life are for us 
 closed. I do not say that the New 
 Hollander or the African has had 
 no genuine religious experience. 
 I do not say that any race has been 
 without some genuine relation to 
 God. But I do say that for us men 
 of the twentieth century the ways 
 by which most of them came into 
 their religious experience are for 
 us closed ways. The facts that were 
 sufficient for them are not sufficient 
 for us. If we are to find our way 
 into assured personal relation to 
 God, it must be by way of a per¬ 
 son able to call out absolute trust. 
 For, in Herrmann’s language, 
 “the childlike spirit can only 
 arise within us when our experience 
 is the same as a child’s; in other 
 
ASSURED RELATION *7 
 
 words, when we meet with a per¬ 
 sonal life which compels us to 
 trust it without reserve. Only the 
 person of Jesus can arouse such 
 trust in a man who has awakened 
 to moral self-consciousness. If 
 such a man surrenders himself to 
 anything or anyone else, he throws 
 away not only his trust but him- 
 self. ,, We need for assured relation 
 to God a fact so great that in it 
 we can unmistakably find God, 
 and he find us—a fact great enough 
 to bring us renewed conviction of 
 the certainty of moral ideals, of the 
 spiritual world, of the living God. 
 And it is this conviction that the per¬ 
 sonality of Jesus is able to bring us, 
 with a certainty and strength that 
 no other fact or person can ap¬ 
 proach; so that we can say with 
 
a 9 TO STAY IN HIS PRESENCE 
 
 Harnack, “When God and every¬ 
 thing that is sacred threaten to dis¬ 
 appear in darkness, or our doom 
 is pronounced; when the mighty 
 forces of inexorable nature seem to 
 overwhelm us, and the bounds of 
 good and evil to dissolve; when, 
 weak and weary, we despair of 
 finding God at all in this dismal 
 world—it is then that the personal¬ 
 ity of Christ may save us.” 
 
 The man of the modern age, 
 thus, needs Christ in preeminent 
 degree. But we are put face to face 
 with the personality of Jesus only 
 through the New Testament as the 
 witness of his first disciples. The 
 greatest of all our tasks, therefore, 
 becomes at the same time our su¬ 
 preme opportunity—to stay in his 
 presence , and to let him make his 
 
QUICKENED INTO LIFE a 9 
 
 legitimate impression upon us. All 
 values of every kind go back ulti¬ 
 mately to the riches of some per¬ 
 sonal life, and there are no riches 
 like those of the world’s greatest 
 personalities; above all, like the 
 unsearchable riches of Christ. 
 
 “Then stand before that fact, that Life 
 and Death, 
 
 Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, 
 dispread. 
 
 As tho a star should open out, all 
 sides. 
 
 Grow the world on you, as it is my 
 world.” 
 
 The Bible, thus, becomes our 
 great way to character, and in¬ 
 fluence, and happiness. In touch 
 with its great personalities, we are 
 quickened into life, as we feel the 
 impress of their character, and 
 share their witness. In such study, 
 
30 CHRIST THE SOURCE 
 
 too,, the qualities of effective witness 
 are produced and deepened in us. 
 It is thus that we come into life; for 
 it is literally true to say of many a 
 man who feels deeply the modern 
 spirit and yet who has stayed per¬ 
 sistently in the presence of Christ, 
 that in all the higher ranges of his 
 life he lives by Christ; all the 
 sources of his life are in Christ. 
 
 In such considerations as these 
 lies the great reason for Bible 
 study, for insistence on such study, 
 as the supreme way into life’s 
 values. 
 

 
 

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