Rev. E. Winchester Donald, D. D., preached in Appleton Chapel last evening from the text, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."

There is a common idea, he said, that the Bible has suffered from the criticism to which it has been subjected during recent years and that it no longer has the value which it had when it first became the common property of the people. Let us, with all reverence and humility, consider what the Bible is to us now and how it has been affected by the controversies of the day.

Many people have a mistaken impression that the so-called higher criticism has injured the integrity of the Bible. Higher criticism is simply a study of the frame in which the word of God is presented to us, and it cannot affect in the slightest degree, the picture within the frame. This distinction is sharply drawn in the higher criticism, but unfortunately there is a difference between higher criticism and higher critics. If the Bible has suffered from its critics, it has been from those who have transcended the bounds of higher criticism and who have disregarded its very first principles.

The frequent denial of the innerrancy of the Scriptures has done not a little to weaken the faith of the church. The denial that has been most felt has been made not by infidels and condescending young agnostics, but by honest and reverend scholars. When we are told that the Bible contains one error, or two errors, we often ask, how then can we be sure that there are no more? But the Bible does not err in anything that it claims for itself, namely, that it is a revelation of God's mercy and love and truth. Occasional anachronisms and inaccuracies in the text cannot by any imaginable possibility affect the spiritual integrity of the Bible. But, the question comes again, can we be sure of the authenticity of the story of the resurrection, if we are obliged to admit that some historical errors have been made? To this, then, is an answer: We owe much to the faithful scholarship that has investigated the resurrection, and placed the integrity of that great event beyond dispute.

Criticism has tended to strengthen the faith of mankind in God. Behind the Bible stands Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Christ makes the Bible what it has been to man and without him it sinks to the level of the world's literature. Our faith rests not on the silence of the critics, for they are never silent, but on the Christ who is revealed to us, whose word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

The choir sang, "All That God May Give to Thee," Richter; "It Shall Come to Pass," Garrett; and "I will Lay Me Down," Brown.