THE BIBLE AND EDUCATION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8359, 20 February 1913, Page 8

THE BIBLE AND EDUCATION

To the Editor "N.Z. Times." Sir. —Op arrival this morning from London, I saw in a copy I procured of your paper a letter on the subject of Bible education in. schools. The writer, in a immber of ex parte and unproven statements, appears to cast doubts on parts of the Bible, and declares that its ideas are "of an erroneous order," and that the whole book is the product of "barbarous times," when men were steeped in ignorance. He alleges that the Evangelists thought insanity and devil-possession to be the same thine — an utterly unfounded statement. Ho speaks grandiloquently of scientific knowledge, and appears to desire to set up the dicta of physical science instead of the Gospel. He might as well desire to eet up electric light in place of the sun. He tells us that "to teach children from the Bible is to neutralise the scientific teaching" of Modernism. But what has science to teach ua about God's love ? Science can study His laws, but it cannot reveal the Law-giver. This revelation of His character God Himself has given only in His Word. It is our bounden duty to teach our ehildren such facts as from Whose Hands they came and to Whoso Hands they will return. As Christian men and women our orders axe to make /all nations disciples of Christ. It is not a question of clericalism or non-clericalism. It is a question of Christianity or Paganism. Nothing can. take the place of Christianity; and nothing can take the place iu men's hearts of the Gospel. The Gospel is mankind's last and only hope, and the question has beeD asked by' a wiser than Solomon —"What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" We live in a world of change and death. Wo are here to-day and gone to-morrow. Where do we go? Is there a life beyond the tomb ? Science has no answer; but the Christian faith has an answer, and this answer has satisfied 6tvong men from the days of St. Paul until now. St. Paul was no barbarian, • and the people he wrote his letters to were of an intelligence that would put most of us moderns to shame. Nothing is more untrue and unhistofie than to describe the early Christians as ignorant and barbarous. St. Paul as a thinker has never yet been, surpassed, and his teaching after nineteen centuries has lost none of its freshness, and none of its power over those who seek a solution of life's mystery. It is easy to ridicule the Bible statement that God. rested from TTU work of creation on the seventh day. But had He not rested He must needs have gone on creating. God had no necessity to rest, nor does the Bible anywhere assert that He had such a necessity. In fact, your correspondent sets up his own inaccurate apprehensions of what the Bible says, and then, overthrowing these men of 6traw of his own construction, imagines he is overthrowing the Bible. As one who has lived seventeen years in New Zealand, and for the last seventeen years has worked among the poor of England, my experience is that the Bible taught and lived is the supreme power to uplift men and give them a peace and a happiness which the world with all its science can never give. And the centre of the Bible is a Person, both human and divine, and through Him we learn the love that God has towards us. That Person has said "Sufier the children to come unto Me," and as Christians we are bound to obey God rather than man. I love New Zealand, and owe to her as a kindly nurse more than I can ever repay; but I see clearly that a country that seta up science in place of the Gospel is following in the steps of France

at the end of th© eighteenth century* and preparing the way for a reign of terror and th© devastations of anarchy. W© have been given by God in New Zealand a fruitful vineytard; let us se© that our children are taught at least to acknowledge and thank the Giver* and to honour Hie Nam© and His Word, io neglect to hear the Voice of God m the Bible is • sheer madness and lolly. i-o deter th© children of cmz land from hearing God's Will concerning them is to leave them as sheep without a shepherd to th© mercy of the wolves of doubt and despair. No country - that dishonours the Bible, or neglects its teaching, will ever produce men and women of the highest moral typo. morale even more than, its intellect that in {ho past has made tho British raco predominant in the world. i should be considered. one of those altogether ignorant of science. X sign myself —Yours faithfully, E. S. BTjCICi.IvAN, MA« B.Sc. Maurice terrace, February 13th, 1313.