BIBLE-READING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 322, 23 February 1910, Page 3

BIBLE-READING.

To the Editor. Sir, I am very sorry that your anonymous correspondent, "C.W.W.," finds my last letter lacking in courtesy, vituperative, and almost insolent. It was far from my intention thus to lapse from good manners; but, as I am of the opinion that these charges are incorrect, it is much to be regretted that lie did not quote the passages which would lay me open to these animadversions, which I challenge him to do. "C.W.W." deems me as ignorant of astronomy as the author of Genesis because I believe—what all the world knows' to be a fact —that the sun and moon are "two great lights: the greater to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night." He denies that this is so, and gives as liis reason—a reason so puerile that to characterise it would probably lay me open to another charge of vituperation —that "the moon shines witli a reflected light," and is not in itself a light. The most elementary knowledge if dioptrics would have prevented this writer falling into so curious a blunder. According to this theory, the best and strongest of our modern lighthouses have no lights in them, as they only give forth (for the most part) a reflected light. If "C.W.W." is right and every seafaring man wrong who steers his 1 course by these lights, t- ' is the Bible also wrong. But it will require something stronger in the way of argument than he has yet favored us with to make us think that the moon does not give light at night, or that a dioptric lantern is not superior for lighting a coast to an ordinary 'amp of the old fashion. Nor is this he only mistake made. He has' stated . ore than once that the Biblical narra- .'. e describes these lights as made for > benefit of the world only, a piece u. : gnorance on which he founded some very wise strictures as to the inhabitants of Mars. There is nothing in Genesis of the sort; it is' like the other diatribes he favors us with against God's Word. He is unable to see that the very many pests the fruits of the earth are cursed with are to be attributed to the Fall. There is none so blind as 1 those who won't see. But where can we find a truer description of the life of the husbandman than this: "Cursed, is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; ... in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground"? How literally is this true even here in New Zealand, where we have thousands of acres covered with brambles and furze; where our root crops are attacked with various diseases such as the potato ! blight, and our fruits are destroyed by eodlin moth and different grubs and scales? And what is our experience is j that of every other nation under the ' sun. Sugar has its borer, tobacco its J mildew, and so all up and down the I gamut of vegetable life. As I said be- | fore, the wonder is that people can be j found to deny facts so patent. Your j correspondent is evidently not a woman j and mother; some young man, one j would suppose, whose knowledge of common things is as elementary as it is on the Bible. He "fails to see or acknowledge what evils Mr. Enroth decries (sic) in maternity." Let him ask his mother, if happily he is able, and she will tell him how true to-day are the words in Genesis iii., 16: "In sorrow shalt thou bring forth thy children," although many of our up-to-date women pooh-pooh the rest of tne verse, which, having a savor of politics, I will not j quote. If he likes to disbelieve the ac count of the making of woman, that is his affair; for myself, I shall continue to hold to the old belief. But I should certainly like to know from whence he gets his story of the appearance of the Almighty to David as a lion. I have been a lifelong reader of the Bible and have no idea to what he alludes. If "C.W.W." will call on me I will gladly give him the use of my Concordance in the matter. What he terms the "horrible atrocities described therein," and which render the Bible almost unfit reading for adults, "let alone being fit for the Study of youth," exist only in his imagination. There is nothing in the historical books which can lie truthfully characterised h this ; way. newspapers from time to time depicts lis bloody wars, to say n> thing of the accounts of the Paris Communards or the Barcelona rioters—de-

. seriptions' which do not render our newspapers unlit for family perusal. There are, beside-', the Psalms, Proverbs, the Prophecies, and, above and beyond all, the -\ew Testament, to (which no exception of this nature can be taken. The argument as to the great ' age of the world is of no importance. While Archbishop Usher's chronology only carries us back some six thousand years (our friend has an error of only one thousand years here), certain pasj sages in the Book itself give an inkling of previous creatures which may or may not have 'peopled this earth. But the matter is of no importance. The Bible is simply a revelation of God's dealings with us, with the needful information of liow to be wise unto salvation. It is not intended as a scientific handbook, ! although it is wonderful how, as science ; advances, it is found to fall into line | with it. The vast periods of the new | science of geology are quite likely to Ibe entirely modified" in another age. In ' a case tried in Sydney last year the ! professor of geology in Sydney University swore that the formation at a i certain spot was of geologic age, running into hundreds of thousands of years. On the other side several old residents attested that they had known the place formerly under tidal water, and one of them had caught fish there > within' sixty years. Does it not seem i the height of folly to endeavor to rebut the Word of God which standeth for ever and to endanger our whole future ; happiness on the doctrines' of so-called science which is liable to make such ridiculous mistakes? Your correspondent admits so much ignorance as to the predictions of Moses and the prophets, and in his statements exhibits so much more, that he must excuse me if I again advise him to taKe the advice of the One Perfect Man to "search the Scriptures," after which he will most likely very much modify his opinion of them, —I am, etc.,