a fact or principle, an incident, a person-and so reconstructing it by a mental process as to make it a new order of truth for life. Thus, for instance, a personality of history becomes an energy of the soul, is wrought into a rubric of faith, is reconstructed into a type of life. It is when thus rightly understood that imagination is seen to have a religious use. No man can make the most of religion for himself and the world about him until he has clothed it in reality, invested it with familiarity and companionship. Professor Johnson rightly speaks of the failure of some believers to realize the facts of religion as a "mental indolence which turns their hearts cold towards their Lord, and leaves their lives inert and useless." *

What, then, has imagination to do with the Bible? We return to our first statement-the Bible is not a Book of the imagination, nevertheless it is pre-eminently a Book for the imagination. It did not grow up out of, it is not a product of, the imagination. At the same time it is a contribution to the imagination, using the term in the sense already defined as the faculty of insight and reconstruction. Its appeal, considering the nature of its contents, is to the realizing sense of the mind. To some the Bible, though always admirable, has not yet come as the Book of Life; with others it is the Book which apart from all others has found the soul. Of all books, the Bible is calculated to come closest to life, because it furnishes such varied and rich material for the imagination.

Bearing in mind what has been said about imagi

*The Religious Use of Imagination, p. 199.

nation and its relation to religion, let us now take account of its helpfulness in the study of the Book.

1. Its first use is general, affecting the attitude of the mind toward the Book. What does the mind think about the Bible? How does it feel toward the Bible? What responses are awakened in the heart by the Bible? In short-is the impressionistic ef fect of the Book upon the mind compounded of lively sensations, active interest, and hearty affection? It is in the highest degree important that men should have a hearty feeling about the Book. It should somehow appeal to them as no other book does. It should appear to the mind as composed of the most impressive and inviting realities. In other words, the Scripture can never win its way with the mind, without a realizing sense of what the Scripture is. The first proposition with which the mind has to do is in this form-This is God's Book. Now this proposition may stand before the mind merely as a technical reality, or a theological conclusion, and as such it may yield little of vital feeling. The very first duty of the mind is to realize what the Bible is, to interpret the above proposition in the terms of insight and feeling, to build it up by the reconstructive power of imagination into its true magnitude for the heart. To deliver the mind from shrunken conceptions, to produce vital feelings in the mind, to expel coldness, formality and dulness, and to create. warmth and interest-this is the task of imagination. To say that the Bible is God's Book must mean for us a very vital thing, producing a mental excitement, a spiritual verve, such as may easily swing open all the doorways of the heart. Consulting our experi

ence, we know at once that the above proposition is not a truth established by controversy, nor a truth dependent solely upon a theory of inspiration. We see that it is a truth so vital as to escape imprisonment in terms and formulæ. We insist, therefore, that the primary force obtained by the Book in our minds rests in its appeal to the mind's realizing sense, in other words, the imagination. We may confidently affirm that the divine Author of the Book is more concerned in the first instance to have us grasp the vital force and possibility of the proposition-This is God's Book-than he is to have us analyze the proposition into terms and theories.

2. The imagination must deal in like manner with a companion proposition-This is man's Book. This may be said about every book that is of worth, that contains a real message. As applied to the Bible, however, it must receive manifold interpretations, and indescribable intensifications. It is an odd conceit to speak of "my Homer," or "my Shakespeare," or "my Tennyson." It is very common to hear men speak of "my Bible." Behind the expression there is there ought to be-something more than the fact of formal ownership. There is also an affirmation of the fact of mental and spiritual ownership. This Book has moved in upon the mind and has possessed me, so that I in turn have come to possess it. The task of verifying, of rehabilitating, in new and fascinating modes, this truth of the essential and farreaching humanity of the Scripture, is the task of imagination. One result of its work is that we come to live in the Book with a feeling of comfortable familiarity toward it. Feelings of unreality disap

pear. There seems no longer anything unnatural or extraneous in having God's Book as the companion of our life. The sense of distance is destroyed; the supernatural comes by easy and natural modes to inhabit the mind. Thus the two propositions, This is God's Book, and This is Man's Book, come to be concentric circles, with their centre in the deepest insight of the heart, where are born both its Faith and its Love.

3. The next step for the mind is to bring out the main contents of the Scripture. This is a painter's term, and very much of the portrait-painter's art consists in the ability to make the characteristic features of the subject stand forth. Vandyke painted three portraits of the King, with the thought that three would represent better than one the impression produced by the monarch. Cromwell would have his wart painted that men might not miss even a characteristic detail. The painter who should give slight attention to the deep furrows in Lincoln's face, would be guilty of overlooking the feature that is most truly characteristic of one who bore a heavier weight of sorrow than any other man of his generation. Landseer is the greatest painter of animals because his imagination seizes upon the sincerest truths of animal life. Turner is nearest of all to nature because his imaginative genius succeeds in transferring the atmosphere of things to canvas. The question to be asked here concerning the Bible is: What does it stand for most of all? What are its outstanding facts? What are its most impressive truths? God, Man, Sin, Righteousness, Heaven, Hell, Salvation-these are the main facts

of Scripture. From beginning to end the Scripture is charged with the task of presenting these realities with the utmost vividness to the mind. The mind in turn is charged with the duty of responding by every one of its faculties, so that these facts of the Revelation may be, not merely cold terms, but living realities. The psychologic term, an old term with new uses, for the mental process involved is apperception. These great ideas of the Scripture are not merely to be perceived; they are to be apperceived, they are to stir our inner consciousness with the excitement of vital truth, they are to become henceforth a veritable part of our life furniture.* The main truths of the Scripture are calculated to appeal very powerfully to the mind, because they are in the truest sense living truths. Yet it is also true that the mind must take hold of these truths actively, and let them live and grow in the heart. Imagination, being the fac ulty by which the mind obtains insight and at the same time builds new forms and adaptations of truth, is thus in constant vogue with an appreciative reader of the Bible.

The idea of God, for instance the mind must take active hold of this idea, and work it out into vital adaptations. The form of the Revelation is everywhere favorable to this process. God is revealed in the Scripture, not abstractly, but concretely, in order that the imagination may be assisted both to

"The Gospel is educative because its Teacher put its truth before men in a form to be apperceived, to become, not a part of man's mental store, but a part of his mental life. The words of Plato are a priceless treasure, but the words of Jesus are spirit and are life."-Educational Evangelism, by Charles E. McKinley, p.