Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/517



CIENTIFIC interpretation of the Scriptures most properly begins with the beginning of the Old

Testament, — chiefly because the spiritual import of the Word, in its earliest articulations, often seems so smothered by the immediate context as to require explication; whereas the New Testament narratives are clearer, and come nearer the heart. Jesus illumines them, showing the poverty of mortal existence, but richly recompensing human want and woe with spiritual gain. The incarnation of Truth, that amplification of wonder and glory which angels only could whisper, and God illustrated in light and harmony, is consonant with ever-present Love. So-called mystery and miracle, which subserve the end of natural goodness, are explained by that Love for whose rest the weary ones sigh, when needing something more native to their immortal cravings than the history of perpetual evil.

A second necessity for beginning with Genesis is this, — that the living and real prelude of the elder Scriptures