TRUTH.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4663, 14 December 1883, Page 3

TRUTH.

To the Editor of the Evening S* ;r.) Sib,—Ought not we to be very thankful that truth is discovered at last. The editor of Enoch says it is the Bible, that every word written on every page of this volume is true, that there is only one source from whence flows all truth, and that is the Bible. If this is true, it is of vast importance, and in order to get to know whether it.is so or not, we would ask a few questions j about this Bible. As there are many ver- | sions of the same Book, which version does j be mean is all true? If he says he means the common Protestant version, that in common use, wo ask why the learned Pro j testant ministers—not the wicked infidels, but the pious divines—said that it was not j correct ? So they made a new translation of the New Testament. Surely a book that was infallibly correct would not need to be altered. But suppose this difficulty was got over, and there really was one book infallible somewhere; as so many people understand this book differently, the difficulty which crops up is, who is ? Of course, all parties say their view is the right one, but without they claim to be infallible they ought to be modest enough to say that they might be wrong. One of the most learned, modest, and beßt reasoners of the ministers of this place, said that when two opinibns differed they might be both '* wrong, but they both could not be right —only one of them. This is ungetoverable ; when so many differ they cannot all 'te truej only one. No one of the Bible writers could make a truth; two and two make four, and that was a truth before the Bible was written, and if they had written it in the Bible that two and two made five that could not make it true, even if they bad died to confirm it. Nor yet could truth spring from this error. Because the Bible says that the hare chews its cud that does not make ifc true, especially when all naturalists say tbat it does notWhatever is true in the Bible was true before it was written, and truth does not spring from the Bible. All the truths of geology, physiology, phrenology, and astronomy were true before the Bible was written and therefore could not possibly spring from it, nor can we learn much from the Bible about these important subjects. I have no objection to the Bible when it is properly used —it would then be a help mate, and many useful things would be learnt from it; but I have a strong objection to it being a master and a tyrant, exalted above reason and common sense, putting a stop to man in his progress in intelligence and goodness. When that is attempted, I say " out of the way," and let me.have room to breath and grow. Does anybody believe that those nice young men who meet in a Bible class meet to know what truth is? They do not want it, and would be sorry to meet it,"if it did not agree with their precon- " eeived opinions. Many of them do not meet to know what the Bible does teach, but want to find a few passages in the Scriptures to confirm them in their former creed. They persecute anyone who tries to learn more than they know. The Young Men's Christian Association in Dunedin had some talk about prosecuting Professor Denton for blasphemy, because he had gone outside the Bible to learn something that he could learn from it, and because he could hot endorse all that the Bible taught as being true. There are many things we oncbt to know, that we cannot learn from the Bible. The Bible tells us that the world was made in six days, and it makes plain what the writer meant by days. It says the light was called day, and the auk-feigbt,: and the morning *nd evening was the first day, and God finished it in six days, and rested on the seventh. Words coald not be plainer; but does that finish it? Have we no right to look out for evidence to see whether this is true or false ? Surely we ought to love Truth, Goodness, and God better than any book, and especially a book ; which $ has gone through so many translations.— "'I ■"■»•■*«■.;■:■■ J.HOBK.