Chapter XI · THE PATRIARCHS. (continued 2)

5. It may well reconcile us to the annoyance (if such it be) of some unreadable portions that precisely these above all others afford us the strongest evidence of the genuineness and high antiquity of these entire books. They constitute an internal mark of antiquity and genuineness which by the laws of human nature never could be counterfeited. The man who should attempt to counterfeit such proofs that his fiction is true history would not prove himself very sharp save in the skill of spoiling his book and frustrating the only conceivable object of a fiction—for the sake of what?

We lay down Genesis, profoundly impressed that this oldest volume of human history is unsurpassed in simplicity and beauty, and wonderfully rich in its revelations both of man and of his Maker.