We stand together on the wharf as a big ocean liner draws alongside, and I say to you, "A lot of people think that ship is the result of someone's carefully designed plans, but I know better. There was really no intelligence at work on it at all; the iron, by some mysterious process, gradually came out of the ground and fashioned itself into plates; slowly holes were formed in the edges of these plates, and rivets appeared, flattened themselves out on either side, and after a great time, by this same evolutionary process, the engines were in place, and one day some men on the seashore found her floating quietly in a sheltered cove."

   You would probably consider me a lunatic, and move further into the crowd to escape my senseless chatter. Why, you know that where there is a design there must be a designer, and, having seen other productions of the human mind just like the steamer in question, you would refuse to believe that it was not planned by human intelligence and built by human skill.

   Yet there are men not considered fools who tell us that the solar system evolved from its nebulous state by chance, that in some mysterious way it came - that there was really no higher intelligence at work on it; they tell us they know no God but nature, on the other hand there are many thoughtful men who believe that God is transcendent; that is, while He reveals Himself in nature, in that its laws and principles are expressions of His power and wisdom, He Himself is essentially more than the sum of them all. Atheists offer us the anomaly of design without a designer, of creation without a Creator, of effect without cause, and to escape from this dilemma ask: "If God be considered the 'first great cause,' account for Him, who made God?" Now, such a question contradicts itself, for it is evident no cause could make the first cause, or the first cause would become also the second cause, which is a mathematical absurdity.

   Every thoughtful person believes in a series of causes and effects in nature, each effect becoming the cause of some other effect. Now the acceptance of this as fact logically compels one to admit that there must be a beginning to any series - that is, there could never have been a first effect if there had not been a First Cause. This First Cause to me is Deity, and because I cannot tell where God came from is not a satisfactory reason for denying that He exists, else I might as well deny the existence of the millionth effect which, for the sake of argument, might happen to be this world. you see, if I admit one cause as ever having existed, I am bound eventually by induction to arrive at the First Cause.

   Although men have discovered many of the laws that govern it, the greatest scientists cannot really define electricity. Then why do we believe it exists? Because we see the manifestation of its existence in our homes and our factories and our streets. Though I do not know where God came from, I must believe He exists, because I see the manifestations of Him everywhere around me.

   Professor Drummond says in "The Ascent of Man": "Instead of abolishing a Creative Hand, evolution demands it. Instead of being opposed to Creation, all theories begin by assuming it."

   Lewis Fiske, L.L.D., says, "As to some things, we may be in doubt: as to God there can be no uncertainty. He is the Infinite, the Absolute, the Unconditioned, the Eternal, the First Cause. He is not unknowable, yet He is the incomprehensible. Se find Him, but we cannot grasp Him. The infinite depth of His being we cannot fathom, but reason declares Him to be the creating life of all dependent reality. And we reach the highest range of thought in conceiving and knowing Him. We do and must hang everything on the will of the infinitely intelligent Creator."

   Being convinced there is a God, we take the next step forward.

   I cannot conceive of an intelligent man making anything without a purpose - if he makes shoes, they are to wear or sell; if he bakes bread, it is for himself or someone else to eat. Behind every action there must be a motive. When I thought of this, it seemed to me quite reasonable that God should have a purpose in view when He brought in Creation.

   Of all the many books this world contains there is one only that claims to be a direct revelation from God, telling us of Himself and His purposes in us. Being a claim of such moment, it is surely worthy of thoughtful investigation, so with the advice of Francis Bacon neither to accept nor reject, but to weigh and consider, we approach this Book with its strange claims.

   But to be just to ourselves and the Bible, we should read it through. As a judge must not make his decision when the case is half heard, neither must we, but, like the judge, we should compare the evidence of the witnesses, and weigh and consider every word, seeking deeply for its hidden significance rather than accepting its surface meaning. Surely the importance of its claims justifies spending the necessary time on its study - 66 books written by at least 40 different writers, some educated, some illiterate, some kings, some peasants, over a period of 1600 years in places separated as far as Babylon in "Asia and Rome in Europe. Expecting with such authorship to find a heterogeneous collection of contradictory statements, it strikes one as the more strange that such a book should have a oneness about it that makes each contribution the complement of the others. Slowly the truth of 2 Peter 1:21 came home to me. There was no other reasonable explanation. "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." This belief was confirmed as I read prophecy after prophecy in the Old Testament, that found its fulfillment, even to the letter, hundreds of years after, as in Isaiah 53, which foretold the death of Christ with such minute accuracy more than 700 years before His crucifixion. Yes, the difficulties in the way of doubting the Book seemed to me greater than those in the way of believing it. I had to be honest with myself, and admit that the hazard was all on the side of unbelief. I even went further, and said:

   "I believe this Book to be the Word of the living God. I can account for it in no other way."