---

My theme is the superiority of the Divine Word to the merely human dreams by which men have sought to displace it. I refer not to the discoveries of science, but rather to those views regarding God, and the soul, and the hereafter which multitudes in our times are seeking to put in antagonism to the Word of God, — and I say that these "human dreams" when tested by experience are found to be chaff, while the Word of God, when similarly tried, is discovered to be wheat.

I. THE HUMAN DREAM IS EMPTY; BUT THE DIVINE WORD IS SUBSTANTIAL. Chaff is a mere husk, but wheat is all grain. So the antagonists of the Bible deal in vague speculations, or empty negations; whereas the Scriptures are positive and satisfying. Try the human dream in the hour of bereavement. What has it to say to the mourner weeping over the casket that holds his dead beloved? I challenge infidelity to utter then a word which has in it a single particle of comfort for the stricken one. If he choose to repress the intuitions of his own nature, and shut his eyes to the evidences of intelligent design which exist in the external world, one may affirm that there is no God. But what comfort is there in that at such a time? The specific in medicine has won its recognition when it is seen to be unfailing. In like manner the power of the Gospel to comfort the mourner establishes its claim to be received as the Divine, specific for his grief, and he will not give it up unless he gets something better in its place; least of all will he part with it for that which is unsubstantial as an airy nothing.

II. THE HUMAN DREAM IS DESTITUTE OF NOURISHMENT FOR MAN'S SPIRITUAL NATURE, WHILE THE DIVINE WORD IS STRENGTHENING, AND MINISTERS TO ITS GROWTH. Chaff does not feed; but wheat gives nutriment. So mere speculation has in it no educating and ennobling influence, It occupies the mind without strengthening the character. Scepticism puts an arrest on progress. It stimulates the critical faculty into excess; and, instead of stirring a man up to the formation and development of his own character, it makes him a mere anatomist of the characters of others. The great majority of mere critics have become so through their lack or loss of personal religious faith. What a contrast, in this regard, there is between the lives of the two Frenchmen, Vinet and St. Beuve! They were companions in youth, and, indeed, friends through life. But St. Beuve lost his religious faith and became a literary critic, one of the very best of critics, indeed, yet only a critic, delighting the readers of his Causeries du Lundi with his expositions of the systems of other men and his estimates of their worth; but Vinci, who retained his faith to the last, became a producer himself, added something great to the thought and work of his time, and earned the right to be called the "Chalmers of Switzerland."

III. THE "HUMAN DREAM" HAS NO AGGRESSIVENESS IN IT TO ARREST OR OVERCOME THE EVILS THAT ARE IN THE WORLD, BUT THE DIVINE WORD IS REGENERATING AND REFORMING. "Is not My Word like as a fire? saith the Lord, and like a hammer," &c. Where shall we look for anything like similar results from those who are the votaries of the human "dreams" of agnosticism, scepticism, or infidelity? What has any one of these done to improve the characters of individual men, or elevate society, or bless the world? Let the advocates of infidelity either do more than we have accomplished, or let them for ever hold their peace.

IV. THE HUMAN DREAM IS SHORT-LIVED, BUT THE DIVINE WORD IS ENDURING. Chaff is easily blown away,, but the wheat remains. And so the "little systems" of human speculation "have their day and cease to be"; but the "Word of the Lord endureth for ever." The arguments of the first antagonists of the Gospel are now read only in the pages of the apologists who replied to them. And in more recent times, how many adversaries have advanced to assail it, with haughty boasting that it would speedily be defeated, but with the same result? Voltaire said that it took twelve men to establish the Gospel, but he would show that one man could overthrow it. Yet the Gospel is here studied by millions, and how few now read Voltaire! A certain German rationalist alleged that the Gospel was not worth twenty-five years' purchase; but half a century has gone since he wrote, and the Gospel is more vigorous than ever, while he is forgotten. Again and again, in the estimation of its adversaries, it ought to have been demolished; but it will not die, for there is deep truth in Bezas motto for the French Protestant Church, which surmounts the device of an anvil surrounded by blacksmiths, at whose feet are many broken hammers, and which I once heard Frederick Monod translate thus —

"Hammer away, ye hostile bands:

Your hammers break, God's anvil stands."

(W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD.

WEB: The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat? says Yahweh.