* Matthew Arnold, Letters, vol. ii., p. 201.
Considering what Arnold's views really were, is it of any use to make the statement of rather doubtful accuracy that the Bible was his "chief and constant study"? Is it not misleading to talk of his "intense reverence and admiration for the Sacred Books"? He did not regard them as _sacred_. He studied and valued the Bible as literature, not as revelation; and it is monstrous to cite him as a witness in favor of the Bible as it is represented in the school of Dr. Farrar.
We need not waste time over Dr. Farrar's _banal_ remark that Livingstone, Stanley, and the Bible together have caused "the extension of the British protectorate over 170,000 square miles" in a certain part of Africa. We may treat with the same indifference his boast of the millions of copies of the "Sacred Books" distributed by the British and American Bible Societies. Such "evidences" are only fit for the street-corner. Only a low-minded, commercial-sodden Christian could imagine that the multiplication of copies of a book is any sort of testimony to its intrinsic truth and value; and in this particular case the demand is a forced one, depending on the incessant stimulus of the supply.
Another argument of Dr. Farrar's for the "supremacy" of the Bible is based upon the history of Christian martyrdoms. He gives several instances of Christians, old and young, rich and poor, high-placed and humble, who have died for their faith, and entered "the dark river and its still waters with a smile upon their faces." He attributes their fortitude to trust in the promises of the Bible. But he does not tell us how it proves the truth of the Bible either as history or as revelation. Millions of Jews have died at the hands of Christian bigots, and their heroism amidst torture and massacre has never been exceeded in human annals. Does this prove that the New Testament is not a revelation, and that Jesus Christ was not God? Men of other faiths have faced death with sublime courage. Does this prove that their beliefs were accurate? Mohammedans are notoriously ready to die for their religion; the Mohammedan dervishes in the Soudan never quailed before the most murderous storm of shell and bullets; they fell in thousands at Omdurman, and the Khalifa's standard-bearer, when all around him were slain, stood upright under the holy flag, with a smile of defiance on his face, which never left it until he sank shot-riddled upon the heap of his dead comrades. Does this prove that the Koran is the Word of God?