BIBLE-READING IN SCHOOLS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 309, 8 February 1910, Page 3

BIBLE-READING IN SCHOOLS.

To the Editor. Sir,—The late Professor Huxley, the famous exponent oJ the Darwinian and evolutionary theories, is understood to have in some qualified way advised the reading of the Bible in schools; but to me it seems very questionably judicious to instruct the minds of children that the sun and moon were placed in the skies as "two great lights," the one to "rule the day" and the other the "night" of the earth. The moon shines by reflected light only, and is in itself no "light," and the just possible inhabitants of the satellite might look upon their world as put where it is' quite as much for their benetit as to 'be a light only to rule the night of the earth, or by its illuminating influence heighten only the romance of terrestial lovers. The toiling people of the planet Mars, too, if there be such dwellers, might right'y claim some share of the sun's light and heat. The aspect of waving fields of wheat, of grain of every sort, of extensive and verdant pastures', of fruitful orchards and prolific vineyards, of flowery gardens, of glittering and gorgeous forests, do not seem indicative of a very withering "curse" having been placed on the ground or on the fair fertility of the earth for man's-vicious sake. Noxious weeds there are certainly, which might, not inaptly be styled "cursa'." The formation of "woman" from tlie rii> of Adam, obtained from liim while in a deep sleep, is virtually a no more reliable story than the inparalleled achievement of ''Maui," t'le worthy ancestor of the Maoris, in filling up the Island of Hawaii from the sea with a iook made from the jawbone of his grandfather. From the dnnensionS obtainable of the "ark of Noah" it might still be difficult for the intelligence of youth to comprehend the incredible capacity of that marvellous receptacle for holding two of every animal of the globe (its size as described would seem to have been distinctly less than that of the latest Atlantic liners), not to mention the room required for the prodigious weight and diversity of fodder requisite for provisioning that nunumerable menagerie—Polar bears from the Arctics, kangaroos from Australia. The alleged apparition of the Almighty in the form of a lion as descried by King David in a thicket might require more authentic record for even the child mind to credit, and it lias been noticed that as tlie Devil is said to go about as a "roaring lion," tlio only difference between the two lions is that "the Almighty as a lion did certainly not roar. The unprecedented exploits, too, of the intrepid Jonah might need qualification. It ought, further, to be scarcely considered expedient that youth should be 'instilled with the justice of that asserted "Divine" statement, injunction, or maxim tlia+ "to the rich more shall be given, but * 0111 the poor shall be taken even that which he hath."—l am, etc., (J.W.W.