Silas Xavier Floyd

Life of Charles T. Walker, D.D. Silas Xavier Floyd

There is no species of literary composition more difficult than the writing of a good biography. Biographers are under a great temptation at times to create, or at least to magnify, the virtues of their subjects; and the temptation is not less on other occasions to deny, or greatly to minify, their vices. The biographies of Holy Scripture are models of biographical literary production. Inspired writers neither extenuate the defects nor magnify the excellencies of their subjects; extenuating nothing on the one hand, they do not, on the other, set down aught in malice. The excellence of the inspired writings in this regard differentiates them from the uninspired writings of any country or century.