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The Bible Society. Toronto. March 1938.

I am glad to be here tonight and to be allowed to pay my
humble tribute to your Society. During the term
of your existence you have been doing work, compared to which the
labours of governments and parliaments are small and ineffectual.
You have been engaged in the greatest of human duties, what Wordsworth
called "the spreading of knowledge in the widest commonalty",
and the knowledge which you have spread is the most vital of any
knowledge, knowledge of what is man's chief end.

It is often a little hard to realise the magnitude of familiar
things. It is like living under a high mountain. We recognise
that it is above us; we see its lower slopes, we feel the benefit
of its shelter, but we cannot grasp its huge mass or catch sight
of its cloud-capped summit. It is so with our English Bible. It requires
an effort of thought, some detachment of mind to realise the
marvel and the miracle of it.

Consider its story. For us the Bible is two things. It is
the way of salvation, the revelation of God and Christ. Ever since
the Bible became available to our people in their own language it has
been the object of fierce contention. In the seventeenth century
different schools, both founded upon it, came into violent conflict,
and the conflict passed beyond academies and churches to the battlefield.
The Bible has been - and still is - subject to every kind of
diverse interpretation. The manners, the outlook of our people have
changed many times, but at each age has found in the Bible a guide and
an illumination. How great a book is this! How rare its divinity!