CONCLUSION.
The foregoing chapters are nothing more than a brief illustration of the principles laid down by the Sovereign Pontiff, Leo XIII., in his Encyclical Letter "On the Study of the Sacred Scriptures."[[1]] The careful reading of this Letter must convince us how important a part the study of the Bible has always played in the Church. The conclusions of Leo XIII. are not of yesterday, nor does he claim them as of his own invention. He cites the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the Decrees of Councils, from Antioch to Trent and the Vatican, as witnesses to the fact that all Catholic teaching rests upon the Sacred Scriptures as one of the two great foundation stones which support the grand archway leading into the domain of divine truth. God, in order that He may reveal Himself to man, sends His messengers, the Prophets and the Apostles, to announce with living voice His promises and His judgments; then, as if to confirm their mission for all time to come, He bids them take a letter, written by Himself, and addressed "to the human race on its pilgrimage afar from its fatherland" (Encycl.). That letter is the Holy Scripture. "To understand and to explain it there is always required the 'coming' of the same Holy Spirit" who was to abide with the Church. And she, "by her admirable laws and regulations, has always shown herself solicitous that the celestial treasure of the Sacred Book ... should not be neglected" (Ibid.). If men have grown remiss at any time in the use of that heavenly gift, it cannot be said that the Church failed to keep before them its admirable utility. "She has arranged that a considerable portion of it should be read, and with pious mind considered by all her ministers in the daily office of the sacred psalmody." For centuries past the solemn promise of every ordained priest throughout the Catholic world to recite each day the Hours of the Breviary testifies to the constant practice of not only reading, but meditating a fixed portion of the Scriptures, so that under this strictest of his priestly obligations he has practically completed the entire sacred volume within the limit of each ecclesiastical year. "She has strictly commanded that her children shall be fed with the saving word of the Gospel, at least on Sundays and on solemn feasts." If these laws and this practice receive a fresh impulse from the Sovereign Pontiff in our day, it is because there have arisen men who teach that the Sacred Scriptures are the work of mere human industry, that they contain only fables, which have no claim to be respected as coming from God. "They deny that there is any such thing as divine revelation, or inspiration, or Holy Scripture at all. They see in these histories only forgeries and falsehoods of men.... The prophecies and the oracles of God are to them either predictions made up after the event, or forecasts formed by the light of nature. The miracles and manifestations of God's power are not what they profess to be, but are either startling effects which are not beyond the force of nature, or else mere tricks and myths. The Gospels and apostolic writings are not, they say, the work of the authors to whom they are assigned" (Ibid.). To confute these errors Leo bids us engage voice and pen. In the limited space allowed us we have only been able to indicate the arguments which prove the historical authenticity and the essentially divine character which points to the true origin of the Sacred Text, and at the same time to lead the earnest student into the way of reading with pleasure and profit the grandest of all written works.
[[1]] Litteræ Encyclicæ, "Providentissimus Deus," Nov. 17, A.D. 1893.
THE END.