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THE LITERARY

CHARACTERISTICS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

OF THE BIBLE.

THE LITERARY

CHARACTERISTICS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

OF

THE BIBLE

BY

THE REV. W. TRAIL, A. M.

AUTHOR OF THE CHRISTIAN GRACES' AND UNSEEN REALITIES.'

EDINBURGH

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1863

PRINTED BY R. AND R. CLARK, EDINBURGH.

PREFACE.

It is not without considerable hesitation that I present this volume to the public. The subject, in detached parts, has been treated by far abler pens; but, so far as I am aware, the attempt has not been made, in any single volume at least, to exhibit the subject with the same comprehensiveness and system. Where I had the labours of preceding writers to direct and aid me, I felt less hesitation; where I had not these guides, the importance of the subject not unfrequently caused me to doubt my own ability to handle it, so as while gaining the ear of those who are of literary taste and culture, there should be nothing to offend the sensibilities of a pure and simple piety. I had an abiding conviction that a free exhibition of the literature of the Bible is calculated to strengthen our belief in its divine inspiration; but, on the other hand, it needed caution, while freely exhibiting its literary characteristics, not to present the Bible as merely a literary production. I have striven to use. this caution; so that although I do not on every other page reiterate my belief in its divine inspiration, I

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