SUNDAY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 105, 24 June 1911, Page 8

SUNDAY COLUMN.

BIBLE TEACHING IX STATE SCHOOLS. AX [IP-TO-DATE REVIEW AND APPEAL BY THE VEX. ARCHDEACOX WILLIS, CAMBRIDGE. Article I. THE IMPORTANCE OF BIBLE KNOWLEDGE. In this year of grace 1911, alter 900 years’ possession of the A.\ . of the Bible, one might almost have taken for granted that everyone would have subscribed to the truth of the title of this article without any special pleading. But how are we to do this if Bible knowledge is declining as I believe it undouotudly is? Tins being so, it is well for us to be reminded of what the Bible has done, and does, and can do for men and nations. 1 adduce the . following testimony:— Pope Gregory the Croat, who said of the English that they were “Not Angles, but angels,” spoke of the Bible in the following words: “What is Scripture hut God's letter to His creatures? Now, if you received a letter from your earthly Emperor you doubtless would not pause a moment, you would not rest, you would iitu sleep until you had learned what this eartaly Emperor had written to you. The Emperor of Heaven, the Lord of men and angels, has sent you His letters for tne saving of your life. (Study them I pray you! Meditate daily on your Creator’s words.” Tne Archbishop of Canterbury, when recently presenting a copy of the Authorised Version to King George, said: “The growth and strength .of the Empire owes much to the English Bible. It (the English Bible) has sweetened homo life; it has set a standard of pure speech; it has permeated literature and art; it has helped to remove social wrongs and to ameliorate conditions of labour; it lias modi lied the laws of the realm, and shaped the national character ; it has fostered international comity and good-will among men; above all it has made accessible to us the revelation of Gqd our Father in His (Sou Jesus Christ our Lord. Its truths as long as they are made tiro standard of life will preserve the glory of our Empire through generations to come.”

His Majesty the King, in acknowledging the* presentation, said: “That worid-larnous translation of the Bible into our tongue gave freely to the whole English people the right and poWer to ssarcli tor themselves for the truths and consolations of our faith; and during JOO years the multiplying millions of the English-speak-ing* races have turned- in tlieir need and drawn upon the inexhaustible springs of wisdom, courage, and joy. It is my confident hope tnat my subjects may never cease to cherish their noble inheritance in the English Bible which, in a secular aspect, is the first of national treasures; and is as you truly say in its spiritual significance tlio most valuable thing that this world affords.” The Marquis of Northampton, in his message of this year to the Bible Society, of which he is the President, said : ‘‘N o nation or Empire owes more than wo do to the Bible, it has been and is the inspirer of all that is best in our national life, in our governing powers, in our laws, and in our individual character and action. The debt which tlie British Empire owes to the publication of the Holy Scriptures is incalculable. The keystone of its mighty fabric is the open Book.” The London “Times” of March 24th last, in an article on England’s Bible, said as follows: “Now that wo have so many cheap substitutes for literature it is more than oyer necessary that everyone from childhood should ho familiar with the Bible as a book that says what is best worth saying in the host possible way—such a familiarity with it ought to *be considered the foundation of culture among us; and wo ought to learn it at 'school as the Greens learned Homer; and to be aide to quote from it without any false shame and without suggesting any . controversy about tneological matters.” And again: “The Bible read in childhood makes us love those tilings which are best worth loving, and it has been tested by the experiences of ages. The fact that it comes from the East and has been naturalised in the West—that the Englishman has fathered what the Jew so long ago begat—is a proof of its universal value, ft has endured a severer struggle for life than any other book. Living as it does in our language, and more vigorously than even the greatest works of our own writers, it gives us a living memory of the central past of the world, so that we who came into history so late, and out- of a dark northern by-way, can look hack across the shining Mediterranean to the primeval Mesopotamia as if it wore the cradle of our own race, from which we had wandered carrying with ns Westward stories which were to last for ever through all the vicissitudes of time and place.” Yet, to the dishonour of progressive Now Zealand, in this important Dominion of tiie greatest Empire of the world, the greatest hook in the world is withheld from the great body of the peonle. The Bible is not allowed to be taught in New Zealand as part of the State school work. In my next article X will show that the Bible must lie taught in the State schools of the Dominion, if the people generally are to have any adequate knowledge ol its contents.