HUXLEY ON THE BIBLE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1303, 14 February 1883, Page 2

HUXLEY ON THE BIBLE.

■iy'ur -I of secular educationi.in.tl the Hsejisef \ of education mttst'. confess Ilmye pi;ictj?al measures' this religious -feelings whjph'. is the esseiiiiitll basiS j\yjte to be 'iii- ,tlip ; - ohMic state of opinion.qntheßßMtters, without the!'use ><s thßf i ßible. | ; t The Pagan moralists lack ] life ' and evediMe .Mile^Stoi^.''Jlarcus Antoninus,;ij .too higH-and retoed iforanprditiairy' flake "s afwh6l6';'mls;o severest • deduction which fair.: criticism :J ican 1 for ■ arid''''positive I :'error, eliminate; as-,;a sensible .teacher would do, if left to himself, ; ali •. that is not desirable! for the children 1 to obqupy, themselves' ijrith, and- there : still remains in tliis -iyast' residuum .of,; moral grandeur, And then consider that for three ctnturiei tms book hat

beeu^woven] iiiib the life of all iliat is beat and History; become|the\, national epic |pairi, and iS fainiliar to noble jJo^ii^^) , boat's. house p) &iid Tosso iiwia writtei literiryjorm ;;arid finalfy thatitiorbids tHe. veiieat hind, who never left his village, to be- ignorant, of the existence"- of jptlier ; countries* and " other civilizations and of a great, past strelching baok to the furthest limits of the oldest nations in the WOrld/'By/the study of what other books could 'children be so,much' humanized,'iiiid triade to feel that each figure in.that hjstori-. cal precession fills, ljke themselves, but a monient%; ;Bpa'ce; in jthe; interval | between the'two eternities, .and- earns the blessing or the allHime* according to'its efforts'to do good and ,hate evil, even as they are .earning their payment for,then;,\76rkl ; ; Bible-reading is not'accompanied'by constraint and solinenity, as if .it were jit'«ißrtomtal''d^t^nl , >- : -I' do j not •helieve there is any thing in which chiltake more pleasure. At Iknow'-that, some -'Of l 'the.pleasantest Recollections of my childhood .are conr •fleeted < with' the' an : Bible which, belonged: to,#y ..jgrandmother.. There were , splendid »fot'ui!&.'iri it to suiij 'biit I lebbljecVjlttle oi' nothing, about then) save a of a in,i|is vest- ; .psents, couses'vividjys ba,ckvto tny mind ara remembrances of my. delight in the,histories of Joseph and Davidi 'arid of my-keen appi'eoiation of : :'ihe:chivalvous kindness- ofAbraham in' hjs dealing with: Lot.. ;Like flash there 'returns back "to ,®e; i 'mf uttev fiflorn of the pettifogging meanness qf jand-my'; sypathetic gri'ef over: th'eheart'ljreakirig lamentation of the cheated Esau, "Hast thou not, a blessing for me also, Oh, my father]" - : And J seej as in -a cloud,-pictures of the grand phantasmagoria of the book 'of Revelationv -I enumerate, as ; thoy . ißs!ie, ; , ; the childish impressions, which come crowding out. of the pigeon-holes ■ in my-brain, in which they have lain .pl!pj)St. ; for; forty yto.- I ' prize aq-,evince that: a child; .; of &ve or gi?f yeai ! 3 oldieft to his;own' devices may bo deeply interested, in the Bible and obtain moral sustananoe from Review.