Correspondence.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3226, 21 June 1879, Page 2

Correspondence.

'I . ■ REPLY TO MB, WOOD. : / ; ! (To the Editor of the Evening Star.) ' \ Sißr--By your permission I should like to make a tew remarks upon; Mr Wood* last letter in the Star. I admit that he j has a right to his own opinions, and to defend them in the best way he pap, b,ut he Kai no Cright to- mi»r«ip^eht 3my' opinions, nor to:give out dark inpinualions. He says I am sceptidal and full of doubt, and such as I are rery^ood 'until we are 'f^und^dot^^This/i^'tery'Jikef'-W^w^itiiD^P of one that has such a bad opinion of human nature that there is nothing good about it: I should not like to hbld this miserable uncomfortable doctrine; I believe there is a vast more good in human, nature than 1 bad. Fsupposethe directors' of the'Glasgdw Bank were great believers, and they might believe all that Mr Wj.. believes, 'biitr!they!, we're 1' Tory \ pad•jmejo'j,' Lbut "if they, had* been after Christ's pattern (that is, loving God; and man, which is the great substance of his j religion) they could hot. have done, what they did. ,Ai I have been charged with :being a sceptic and,,a- doubter, by your permission I will briefly state what I dot

believe, and what I do not believe: I before in:-. one God,' that made all worlds and all that in them is, and tHat this Beinjj w gri?^,^ wis?, pare; arid good; hEI believe J in Christ apd Christianity in its most rational forim. I believe 1 that the jtoul of man"'.netiar;dies i'j that sin or wrong doing is always, punished ijftjtir we are 1 'made betfce? by suffering; that sin or wrong doing ir not only the great sting of death, but alfo it is the great atihg of life;, I also, beliere in reason, common sense, and in the deep intuitions of the soul, that men ought to place confidence in themselves in, their own powers.;;. I also believe* in .j purity, sobriety, in love, goodness, worship and righteousness, or in doing right not in a substituted righteousness that we can have by faith, nor a ready made one that can b? put on as a cloak, and appear? before God, not as we are, but under this cloak; and this is said to bo the best righteousness we can have--a long way better* than our own righteousness. This is a strong principle With me/that!-it is better for every ; nation, every society, every family, and every individual to do right, and ithat the righteous God has so ordained it that it is better for eveirymah to do right,l and a vast worse fbrhim i?';h^! do wrong. I also believe in the Bible'in 1 the; sense that most of the learned professions believe in it; I believe that.the, most part of it is true and good, but when I have good reasons for rejecting any par^; it I do so. If it told me to hate my father and mother, brothers and sisters I would not, do so, ,■ I should think it very / wicked to do so j or if ,i it Said something ; ,J , knew , was not true; The very passage Mr Wood quoted I do not believe, for I know it is not true, and everybody knows the same. The passage is: "We have all gone astray from our mother's womb," telling lies as soon as we are bora. I suppose this is one of

Mr Wood's great facts. Man is of more importance than the Bible ; it was designed to serve us, and not to crush every noble-thought and feeling out of our souls —even to say k thing is true, when we know it is not true. There are a few tilings in the Bible I do not believe. I am not like the old woman thai said that if the Bible said that Jonah swallowed the if halo, she would believe it. But everyon* is not blessed with such a strong faith. I had stronger faith in some things when I was a boy than I have now. I then believed there was a man in the moon; that God sent him there because he gathered sticks on the Sabbath ; that He sent him and the sticks and a little dog there. I thought then, the, the evidence was very strong. My mother and grandmother said so, and I never knew them lie. I could see then as I then thought. I have found some things in the Bible as ridiculous as this story—that Ido not believe. Ido not believe that God worked hard for six days, and then got tired, and had to rest on the seventh. Ido not believe that God caused Adam to fall into a sound sleep, and then took a rib out of his side and made a woman of - it. I do not believe that a serpent ever had talking powers, and persuaded Eve to disobey, which opened the flood gates of misery^pd woe to the human: family." I da net'believe that God is a jealous God, yfad that Re will laugh at our calamity and mock when our fear cometh. Ido Cot believe that God hated Esau and loved Jacab. I do not believe that God ever appeared as a man on earth, and that He met,with a man called Jacob, and they, had a wrestling match, and after they had wrestled a while God wanted to depart, bat Jacob would not let Him go, so they Wrestled hour after hour—indeed, all night, until the break of day; the end of it was, God put Jacob's thigh out. I also dol not believe that Christ said we had to honor bur fathers and mothers, arid said again we had to hate them ; and Ido not believe there ever were two' thousand devils in one man, and that Christ caat them out,' and there were two*'thousand swine feeding dose by and Jesus caused them to enter those pigs, and they set a galloping down a steep place into the sea, and they were all drowned. Need we reason upon, these ridiculous stories ; to show you they cannot be true; and think ye, oh ye that believe the Bible a fact from,beginning to end, are these .tales amy creaitf to the Book! If the^ had 5 been found in any other sabred book in the .world, and if lovers of truth have to go to hell if they cannot believe in those stories, we are to be pitied. If I have shocked anyone's feelings by writing in this way about the Bible, J. am aorry for it. ' My object is, not to turn the Bible into ridicule, but to save the' good from being swamped with the baa. Those foolish things in the Bible have done more 'harm to the otherwise good book than all the infidel writings in the world. The Bible was never "intended,, to.; be above reason, above common sense, above truth, and above God. It was never intended to stop: man in his onward march in intelligence, virtue, truthfulness, and r goodness. -rlam, Ac., -• ■• .••:■■■■;''' : ■ . ■ ■■■■■'-„-v

I J. Hob*. !Jun©-18th,^187dJ ' - • J '[This lettoi* must close the corresponenco on the subject.-^-Bi).] , , .