The Bible and the child : the higher criticism and the teaching of the young

The Bible and the Child

F.W.FARRAR,D.D.

R.F.HORTON,M.A.,D.D.

ARTHUR S.PEAKE,M.AJ|||

WALTER F.ADENEY,M.A.

W.H.FREMANTLE,D.D.

WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D.

FRANK C.PORTER, Ph.D.

LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D.

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THE BIBLE AND THE
CHILD.

The Bible and

the Child:

The Higher Criticism and the Teaching:
of the Young.

F. W. Farrar, D.D.,
R. F. Horton, M.A., D.D.,
Arthur 5. Peake, M.A.,
Waiter F. Adeney, M.A.,
W. H. Fremantle, D.D.,
Washington Gladden, D.D.,
Frank C. Porter, Ph.D.,
Lyman Abbott, D.D.

London T
JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET ST,

1897.

LCAoi
-3A

ji^^t>

Contents.

I.— By the Very Eev. F. W. Farrar,
D.D., F.E.S., Dean of Canter-
bury 1

II.— By the Rev. R. F. Horton, M.A.,

D.D 29

III.— By Arthur S. Peakb, M.A.,
Tutor in Biblical Subjects,
Primitive Methodist Theo-
logical Institute , Manchester ... 51
IV.— By the Rev. Walter F. Adeney,
M.A., Professor of New Testa-
ment Exegesis, History and
Criticism, at New College ... 69-
v.— By the Very Rev. W. H. Fre-

MANTLE, D.D., Dean of Ripon 89
VI. — By the Rev. Washington Glad-
den, D.D., Author of "Who

Wrote the Bible," &c 109

VII.— By Frank C. Porter, Ph.D.,
Professor in the Yale Divinity

School 127

VIII.— By the Rev. Lyman Abbott,

D.D 151

Digitized by the Internet Archive

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By the Very Rev.

F. W. Farrar, d.d., f.r.s.,

DEAN OF CANTERBURY.

I GLADLY accede to a request to
say a few words upon a subject
of real and urgent importance —
^*^the right way of presenting the
Bible to the young in the light of
the Higher Criticism ; " Id© so
because an unwise^ or unfaithful,
way of dealing with the facts
forced upon us by the progress of
research may be prolific of de-
plorable results.

The change of view respecting
the Bible, which has marked the
advancing knowledge and more
earnest studies of this generation,
is only the culmination of the dis-
covery that there were different
documents in the Book of Genesis
— a discovery first published by the
physician, Jean Astruc, in 1753.
There are three widely divergent

THE BIBLE AND

ways of dealing with these results
of profound study, each of which
is almost equally dangerous to the
faith of the rising generation.

1. Parents and teachers may go
on inculcating dogmas about the
Bible and methods of dealing with
it, which have long become im~
possible to those who have really
tried to follow the manifold dis-
coveries of modern inquiry with
per^ctly open and unbiassed
minds. There are a certain
number of persons who, when
their minds have become stereo-
typed in foregone conclusions, are
simply incapahle of gTasping new
truths. They become obstructives,
and not infrequently bigoted ob-
structives. As convinced as the
Pope of their own personal infalli-
bility, their attitude towards those
who see that the old views are no
longer tenable is an attitude of
anger and alarm. This is the
usual temper of the odiuTn theolo^
gicum. It would, if it could, grasp

THE CHILD.

the thumbscrew and the rack of
mediaeval inquisitors^ and would,
in the last resource, hand over all
opponents to the scaffold or the
stake. Those whose intellects have
thus been petrified by custom and
advancing years are of all others
the most hopeless to deal with.
They have made themselves in-
capable of fair and rational exam-
ination of the truths which they
impugn. They think that they
can, by mere assertion, overthrow
results arrived at by the life-long
inquiries of the ablest students,
while they have not given a day's
serious or impartial study to them.
They fancy that even the ignorant,
if only they be what is called ^^ or-
thodox," are justified in strong
denunciation of men quite as truth-
ful and often incomparably more
able than themselves. Off-hand
dogmatists of this stamp, who
usually abound among professional
religionists, think that they can
refute any number of scholars.

6 THE BIBLE AND

however profound and however
pious^ if only they shout ^^ In-
fidel ! ^' with sufficient loudness.
But^ as the holy Bishop Ken
says :

The older error is, it is the worse ;

Continuation may provoke a curse.

If the Dark Age obscured our fathers'

sight,
Must their sons shut their eyes against

the Light ?

If there were no opposition to
critical inquiry, except what is of
this crude kind^ it would hardly
be deserving of any notice^ but
might be passed over with silent
indifference. There are^ however^
many true and tender souls^ in-
capable of severe studies^ and
wedded to beliefs which they have
identified with their holiest hours^
who are too old or too fixed in
opinion to make progress^ and who^
from honest dread lest they should
be dragged into doubt respecting
views dear to them as lif e^ cannot
get rid of the belief that there is

THE CHILD.

something ^^ wicked " in free in-
quiry. Like Cardinal Newman,
they think it their duty to treat
their reason as though it were a
dangerous wild beast to be beaten
back with a bar of iron. Ought
they not to bear in mind the
warning of the great Bishop Butler
that our reason is the only faculty
which God has given us by which
w^e can judge of anything, even of
Revelation itself ?

Besides this large class of Chris-
tian people, there are always some
who, with the same temper of mind,
but with more abiUty and know-
ledge, are ready to supply masses
of tortuous " harmony " and casu-
istically plausible conjecture, which
may give a semblable possibility ta
the old views. The answers which
they supply are no answers, but
usually avoid the real issue. The
impossible and dreary nature of
the defence serves to deepen in
other minds the conviction that
the cause which needs such argu-

8 THE BIBLE AND

ments is lost. I can only say^ in
my own case^ that wlien^ more than
forty years ago^ I came to the con-
clusion that the Book of Daniel^ as
now we have it^ could not have
seen the light before the age of the
Maccabees^ my conclusion was in-
definitely strengthened by reading
Dr. Pusey's elaborately ingenious
treatise in defence of its genuine-
ness and authenticity.

We cannot greatly respect the
possibly pious but obstinate and
illiterate priest who^ having been
accustomed to read the non-
existent word ^^ mumjpsimus '^ to
his congregation^ on being cor-
rected^ indignantly grumbled that
he was not going to give up '^ his
old " *^ mumpsimus " for their new
" sumpsimus,^' But every one
should be a little ashamed and
afraid to be of those who are the
last to give up their adherence to
opinions which have long become
naturally obsolete. ^^ There is
nothing so revolutionary/' said Dr.

THE CHILD. 9

Arnold^ ^' because there is nothing
so unnatural and convulsive^ as the
strain to keep things fixed^ when
all the world is^ by the very law of
its creation, in eternal progress ;
and the course of all the evils in
the world may be traced to that
natural but most deadly error of
human indolence and corruption
that it is our duty to preserve and
and not to improve." A study of
the past shows us that it has been
one of the chief duties of each age
in succession to cast off the slough
of old ignorance. The advance of
knowledge is a direct work of
God's revealing power. '^ God
shows all things in the slow victory
of their ripening '' ; and since
the light of all certain know-
ledge which comes to us from
the long results of time is light
from heaven, how can it lead us
astray ?

This at any rate is certain, that
if children are still taught to
regard as articles of their religious

10 THE BIBLE AND

belief opinions about the inerrancy^
universal equal sacredness^ verbal
dictation^ or supernatural infalli-
bility of all that is contained
between the covers of the sixty-six
books which we call the Bible^ the
faith of those children^ if they
develop any intelligent capacity or
openness of mind hereafter^ is
destined to undergo a rude and
wholly needless shocks in which it
will be fortunate if much of their
religion does not go by the board.
Some of those Books of Scripture
are separated from others by the
interspace of a thousand years.
They represent the fragmentary
survival of Hebrew literature.
They stand on very different levels
of value^ and even of morality.
Eead for centuries in an otiose^
perfunctory^ slavish^ and super-
stitious manner^ they have often
been so egregiously misunderstood
that many entire systems of inter-
pretation— which were believed in
for generations^ and which fill

THE CHILD. 11

many folios now consigned to a
happy oblivion — are clearly proved
to have been utterly baseless.
Colossal usurpations of deadly
import to the human race have
been built^ like inverted pyramids,
on the narrow apex of a single
misinterpreted text. From the
days of Origen (a.d. 253) to those
of Nicholas of Lyra (a.d. 1340)
the whole science of exegesis was
stultified by non-natural attempts
to read into all Scripture a
fourfold sense (literal, allego-
rical, mystical, spiritual), much of
which was as absurd as the
Jewish Cabbala. Unintelligent and
humanly-invented theories about
Inspiration became prolific of
monstrous exegesis.

The old forms of allegorical
interpretation which, from the
days of Philo to those of Bishop
Wordsworth, once crowded enor-
mous commentaries with useless
irrelevance, would be simply
laughed at if they were offered to

12 THE BIBLE AND

US in these days as though they
possessed any validity.

For I see that througli tlie ages one in-
creasing purpose runs,

And the thoughts of men are widened
by the process of the suns.

Of all ways of dealing with
^^the Higher Criticism^," none is
more futile^ and none will more
certainly bring its own Nemesis^
than that which thinks it sufficient
to brand its followers with charges
of wilful faithlessness^ and to
crush them with impotent ana-
themas^ which will only rebound
upon the heads of those who utter
them.

2. Another way^ equally common
among controversialists of the
opposite extreme^ is to talk as if
the Higher Criticism had robbed
the Bible of all value^ and had
shown it to be a mass of falsity
and imposture. Here again it
requires some knowledge of lan-
guage^ of literature, of history, of

THE CHILr. 13

national idiosyncrasies^ to be even
capable of estimating* the real
nature of a result arrived at.
Ignorant attempts to discredit and
\ilify the Bible are even more
egregiously illiterate than the
super-exaltation which would turn
it into a fetish or an amulet.

Let me give an instance or two.

The immense majority of scholars
of name and acknowledged com-
petence in England and Europe
have now been led to form an
irresistible conclusion that the
Book of Daniel was not written,
and could not have been written,
in its present form by the prophet
Daniel, B.C. 534, but that it can
only have been written, as we now
have it, in the days of Antiochus
Epiphanes, about b.c. 164, and that
the object of the pious and
patriotic author was to inspirit his
desponding countrymen by splendid
specimens of that lofty moral fiction
which was always common among
the Jews after the Exile, and was

14 THE BIBLE AND

known as "the Haggadah." So
clearly is this proven to most critics
that they willingly snffer the
attempted refutations of their
views to sink to the ground under
the weight of their own inadequacy.
Even Delitzsch^ a truly learned
man^ and '^ orthodox " by every
instinct of his mind, after vainly
trying to hold out against modern
conclusions, found the" love of
truth too strong within him to
admit of his continuing to resist
arguments to which he felt that
he could furnish no valid answer.
Those who understand the Bible
aright find an intelligent faith
cleared and strengthened by better
knowledge of the books which they
reverence ; but some uneducated
sceptic gets hold of this conclusion
about the age of the Book of
Daniel and declares to gaping
audiences that scholars and divines
regard the book as no longer
sacred, but as an unblushing fable
and an impudent forgery. He

THE CHILD. 15

does not tell his hearers that,
among those who find the critical
conclusion so irrefragable as not
to require any further argument,
have been found some of the ablest
and most instructive commentators
on the book, and that, only by
reading it in the light of its true
date, is it possible for us fully to
grasp the bearing of its moral and
spiritual lessons. Still less does
he see that when he talks of
'^ falsity " and '' forgery " he is
using idle misjudgments and
anachronisms, which only reveal
his own incompetence to under-
stand the correct significance of
literary problems. He is judging
the methods and views of the
second century before Christ by
the literary standard and habits
of the nineteenth century after
Christ.

Or let us take the case of the
Pentateuch. Those who now
regard it as a matter of demon-
stration that, in its present form,

16 THE BIBLE AISTD

it embodies the handiwork of at
least four different writers^ and
that it contains at least three
varying strata of legislation^ do
not^ on that account^ lose one
essential element of its moral
greatness and religious teaching.
One case may illustrate this. In
the book of Leviticus'^ a large
space is occupied by the arrange-
ments and ceremonies of the Day
of Atonement, and the way of
dealing with the scapegoats^ and
it is now known to all students
that^ except in the book of Levi-
ticus^ there is not so much as the
dimmest trace of any observance
of the Day of Atonement^ not even
in passages where^ by every law of
literature and psychology^, we
should have thought it most
certain that such allusions would
be found ; not even^ for instance^
in the account of Hezekiah^s or
Josiah's Reformations ; not even
in the elaborate Levitism of the
* Lev. xvi.

THE CHILD. 17

book of Ezekiel^; not even in the
reorganisation of Judaism in the
days of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Ezekiel, in his '^ ordinances of
worship/^ mentions the first and
the fifteenth of the seventh months
but does not say a syllable about
the supreme and all-important
tenth. It is said that this is a
mere argu7nentum e silentio, and
they must indeed be easily con-
\dnced who accept that phrase as
an adequate reply. Is it^ then^
nothing that what would naturally
have been regarded as a central
ordinance of religion^ and as the
unique day of the religious year^
should not so much as once be
alluded to in the entire religious
literature of the nation ? and that
the first allusion to the only insti-
tuted fast-day in the Jewish year
should be in an Apocryphal Book
— Ecclesiasticus i. 1-5 — in the
third or second century before

* 1 Kings viii. ; Ezek. xiv. 18-20 ; Zech.
vii., viii.; Ezra iii. 1, 6 ; Nehem. viii. 13-17.

UNIVERSITY J

18 THE BIBLE AND

Christ ? It is, to me^ almost
humiliating to see on what slight
straws of a mere phrase many will
be content to rest the weight of
great conclusions. Would any
one be able to persuade us that
the festivals of Christmas and
Easter had been from the earhest
days among the most sacred of
Christian festivals^ if not a trace
of them^ not an allusion to them,
were to be found in a thousand
years of Christian literature ? On
this ground, then, alone, is it not
inevitable that many should be led
to doubt whether the Day of
Atonement can be proved to have
been originally of Mosaic origin ?
And how much more if that infer-
ence is strengthened by many
quite different, yet converging,
lines of argument all tending to
the same conclusion? But, sup-
posing that we are unable to resist
this inference, in what single
respect does it weaken our sense of
the deep and blessed symbolism

THE CHILD. 19

enshrined in the ordinances of that
unique day in the Jewish year ?
Is one moral or spiritual lesson
about the exceeding sinfulness of
transgression^ and the mercy of
God^ and the gracious revelation
of God's forgiveness of sins to the
sincerely penitent^ in any way
weakened or dimmed by holding
that the institution of the scape-
goats and the blood of sprinkling
originated at a later rather than
at an earlier date ? Is the light
of revelation only granted to man-
kind in intermittent flashes at
intervals of millenniums ? Or,
rather, is the Spirit of Man the
candle of the Lord, and is there a
light that lighteth every man who
is born into the world ? Half the
errors about the Bible would
vanish if men would remember
that revelation is continuous^ and
that God has promised His Holy
Spirit to them that ask Him.

3. There is a third way of treai^
ing the Higher Criticism — even

20 THE BIBLE AND

more common than either of the
other ways^ less unwise^ perhaps,
but still undesirable. It is simply
to ignore all critical results^ and
to act and speak as if they had no
existence. This^ however^ is not
so easy^ and at the best it is but
the ostrich policy_, which tries to
bury its head in the sand in order
to escape its pursuers. Modern
discoveries are already beginning
to be recognised in books written
for the use of the^ young which are
indispensable to the Biblical
teacher. If children are left
unaware that the views of those
most competent to represent their
generation are widely different
from those which were all but
universal in the days of their
grandfathers^ the discovery will
certainly come to them later on^
and may come so suddenly as to
imperil their faith. If over-
growths of alien ivy are suffered
to become too dense and vigorous,
and to thrust their fibres into the

THE CHILD, 21

interstices of every stoiie^ then,
when it is necessary to tear them
away, it is often found that they
have seriously injured the stabiUty
of the building which they were
originally intended to adorn, but
have too long been suffered to
injure and enshroud. If we would
save the building from destruction
and decay we must cut away the
ivy directly we begin to perceive
how injurious may be its effects.

If, then, the methods (1) of
denunciation; (2) of exaggerated
misapplication ; and (3) of silent
ignoring be unwise, what should
be the attitude of parents and
teachers to the Higher Criticism ?
It has always been my humble
endeavour to speak without any
subterfuge and with perfect plain-
ness, and though space forbids
me from developing' the subject
here, I hope that the following
brief remarks and aphorisms may
be found serviceable by the
thoughtful and the sincere.

22 THE BIBLE AND

I. We should be profoundly and .
unswervingly truthful. We ought
never to practise that falsitas
disjpensativa, that '^ economy of
truth/' which found favour among
some of the Fathers^ and has
often been an avowed principle of
action in the Church of Rome.
Truth is too sacred a thing to
admit of manipulations or jug-
gling. Traditionalism or profes-
sionalism, or self-interest should
never for a moment be suffered to
obscure our sense of its eternal
obligation. We are not bound to
teach children all we know, but
we are most solemnly bound not
to teach them anything which we
feel to be doubtful as though it
were certain, and still more are we
bound not to teach them anything
of which we ourselves begin to
suspect the reality.

II. Into a vast part of our
teaching — by far the largest and
most important part of it, no
question of the Higher Criticism

THE CHILD. 23

enters at all. The object of the
best and most sacred Bible teach-
ing is to form the character^ not
to store the intellect. It is moral ;
it is spiritual ; it has to do with
things eternal; it far transcends
all minor questions of the date or
historicity of the books in which it
is enshrined. Does a child fail to
grasp the meaning of the parables of
Christy though he is told that these
are not necessarily founded on real
incidents^ but are ^'^ tales with a
purpose ^' ? Why^ then^ should it
be different with the stories^ say^
of Balaam or of Jonah ? There is
a remarkable book by Dr. Van
Oort^ written in Dutch by a pupil
of the great Professor Kuenen and
under his supervision, called ^' The
Bible for the Young." It has
been translated into English, and
goes much farther, on many points,
than I should myself go ; but it is
a learned and most interesting
book, and it demonstrates that
there need be no evaporation of

24 THE BIBLE AKD

any of the best lessons of Scrip-
ture even in the hands of teachers
who are advanced votaries of the
Higher Criticism. Not even the
most timid need make a bugbear
of recent results. They only
become harmful to the cause of
^^ sound learning and religious
education ^' when they are glar-
ingly misused by their adherents
or by their antagonists.

III. The manner in which the
Higher Criticism has slowly and
surely made its victorious progress,
in spite of the most determined
and exacerbated opposition^ is a
strong argument in its favour.
It is exactly analogous to the way
in which the truths of astronomy
and of geology have triumphed
over universal opposition. They
were once anathematised as '^^ in-
fidel '^ ; they are now accepted as
axiomatic. I cannot name a single
student or professor of any emi-
nence in Grreat Britain who does
not accept, with more or less

THE CHILD. 25

modification^ the main conclusions
of the German school of critics.
In G-ermany itself^ the land of
laborious and devoted study^ there
are scores of learned professors^
and among their entire number
there is said to be only one — and
he a man of no name — who clings
to the old '' mumpsimus.^^ Truth
is great, and will prevail.

IV. Our knowledge of Scripture
will not remain stationary now,
any more than it has done in the
past. On the contrary, there never
was an age in which we were more
likely to be led to new truths of
interpretation than this. Tor in
this age the increase of all sources
of information has been unprece-
dented, and we can now read the
Bible in the light of a philology, a
literary breadth, an acquaintance
with comparative religion, and an
insight into history and psychology,
such as have never been equalled
in any past century. We are not
using the language of boastful

26 THE BIBLE AND

arrogance^ but of profound grati-
tude to Him who is the Lights the
Truth^ and the Way^ when we say
of this generation.

We are heirs of all the ages, in the
foremost files of Time.

We should do well, then, to take
to heart the wise warnings of four
great and holy theologians who
lived before the Higher Criticism
was even dreamed of — Hooker,
Bishop Butler, Eichard Baxter,
and J. Robinson.

" Whatsoever is spoken of God,
or things appertaining to God,"
says Richard Hooker, ^^ otherwise
than truth, though it seems an
honour yet it is an injury. And
as incredible praises given unto
men do often abate and impair the
credit of their deserved commenda-
tion, so we must likewise tahe
great heed lest, in attributing to
Scripture Tnore than it can have,
the incredibility of that do cause
even those things which it hath

THE CHILD. 27

most abundantly to he less reverently
esteemed,'^

^^ And here/' says the great and
good Richard Baxter^ ^^ I must tell
you a great and needful truth,
which Christians^ fearing to confess^
by overdoing, tempt men into
infidelity. The Scripture is like a
man's body, where some parts are
but for the preservation of the
rest, and may he maimed luithout
death.^^

"I am convinced," said the
Pastor, John Eobinson, in his fare-
well address to the Pilgrim Fathers
before they sailed in the Mayflower
from Delft harbour, ^^that the
Lord hath yet more light and
truth to break forth from His
Holy Word."

Ajid Bishop Butler thought it
^^ not at all incredible that a book,
which has so long been in the
possession of mankind, should
contain many truths as yet undis-
covered."

V. To conclude, then, no one

28 THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD.

who fearlessly loves and follows
the truth will have the smallest
difficulty in co-ordinating the
teachings of Scripture — and all
the more in proportion as he
wisely loves the Bible — to the
results of modern inquiry. He
will still be able to say with the
large-minded Quaker poet of
America :

We search the world for truth ; we cull
The good, the pure, the beautiful.
From graven stone and written scroll,
From all old flower-fields of the soul ;
And, weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Booh our mothers read.

n.

By the Rev.

R. F. Horton, m.a., d.d.

n.

To some of us it is a matter of
amazement that the misunder-
standings— I will not venture to
say the misrepresentations — con-
nected with this subject should be
so persistent and obstinate. It
taxes all our charity to find men^
good men^ presumably religious
men^ continuing to discuss the
question in a spirit of bhnd and
uninquiring prejudice. They will
not take the trouble to learn what
it is about which they so confi-
dently affirm. With a scorn which
is the twin sister of ignorance they
seek to stamp out truth by
humiliating and deriding its advo-
cates. "Were ever the genuine
advocates of truth so intemperate^
so denunciatory^ so blind, and so
ignorant as the men who have

32 THE BIBLE AKD

been loudest in the outcry against
the Higher Criticism? The only-
parallel in history is the tone of •
the Pope — the infallible Pope — ,
and even the Pope is nowadays
more courteous. I hope it is not
a severe judgment, but I believe
this tone of anger and vehement
anathema is only founds and can
be only found, » when men are
defending positions which in their
hearts they suspect to be insecure.
When the foundations are sus-
pected the defenders will use any
device to prevent an examination
of them. If you propose to rest
your religion on an infallibility of
any sort the only chance is to
surround your infallibility itself
with an inviolable ring which
forbids criticism^ and to resent
any suggestion of doubt, dealing
with it as impiety to be denounced,
and not as argument to be met.
Now what is the issue in this long
and excited controversy ? It is
simply this : Are we required to

THE CHILD.

accept the Bible — just as it stands
— as the voice of God in such a
sense that to question any of its
assertions is blasphemy, or to
examine the composition of its
books is an offence against the
Holy Spirit who wrote it ? Or, on
the other hand, are we permitted,
and even required, to study the
books, and find out all we can
about them, in just the same way
that we deal with other literature,
and then allow the voice of God to
speak to us as it will through the
books thus studied and under-
stood ?

The old orthodoxy, which these
angry critics still accept, decided
the question in the first way. The
Bible from Genesis to Revelation
was a smooth, consistent voice of
God, like a Delphic Oracle. One
was to read it as God's letter to
the human race. If you came
across any contradictions or incon-
sistencies you were to attribute
these to your own feebleness of

3

34 THE BIBLE AND

apprehension^ but never allow that
there could be anything wrong* in
the book. Piety was to be proved
by showing that the inconsistencies
were harmonised. If^ for example^
it said in 2 Chron. xvii. 6^ that
Jehoshaphat '^'took away the high
places and the Asherim out of
Judah/' and then in ch. xx. 33^
'' howbeit the high places were
not taken away/' it was a proof
of reverence to the infallible word
to show how the high places were
both taken away and not taken
away by Jehoshaphat because '^ the
Word of God " cannot be broken.
If in reading the Bible you came
across sentiments of fierce retalia-
tion or deeds of savage blood-
thirstiness^ against which a man
of ordinary morality might natur-
ally revolt^ it was your duty to
justify these sentiments because
they were the Word of Grod_,
and to find excuses for the deeds
because they were recorded without
censure in the Word of God.

THE CHILD. 35

You were not allowed to argue
that because the sentiment was
not godly it could not come from
God^ or because the deed was
unchristian it could not be
approved by God. That was
treated as presumption^ as judging
God^ as setting up the intellect
against its Maker.

This was^ and is^ the decision of
the old orthodoxy. And what is
its result ? Plymouth Brethrenism
on the one hand^ and infidelity on
the other. It is this view of the
Bible which has enabled the infidel
publication, Reynolds Newsjpajper,
to regale its Sunday readers lately
with columns of extracts from the
Bible which run counter to even a
worldly man's sense of righteous-
ness, as the " Word of God." If
the Plymouth Brethren account of
the Bible is correct Reynolds News-
jpaper is justified. As to the
honesty of Reynolds in assmning
that Plymouth Brethrenism is the
religion of Christendom, and ig-

86 THE BIBLE AND

noring that no man of scholarship
or education holds the view of the
Bible which would justify this pro-
cedure^ I will say nothing, for that
is a side issue. But while the
loudest and most vehement de-
fenders of the Bible persist in
advocating this impossible view,
infidelity will have a thousand
weapons ready to its hand.

Now I venture on the assertion
that the result of criticism has
been to take all these weapons out
of the hand of every honest sceptic.
When Reynolds^ or any other infi-
del teacher, bases his attack against
the Bible and Christianity on this
unintelligent view of the Bible he
convicts himself of ignorance. He
starts from premises which no one
grants — I mean no one but Ply-
mouth Brethren and the small
number of Christians who have set
themselves against the fair exam-
ination of the Bible. The simple
fact is that this old view of the
Bible is not justified by any asser-

THE CHILD.

37

tioii of the Bible itself^ unless some
misquoted and misapplied texts,
which even ignorance hesitates to
cite, are to carry the day; texts
just as much misquoted, misapplied
as those which are supposed to
support the Papacy ; nor is that
old view supported by any external
authority of Church or Council, or
even unbroken tradition. It is not
consistent with the use which the
New Testament writers made of
the Old ; and it goes to pieces, like
a mummy brought into the fresh
air, directly any unbiassed mind
begins to study and examine the
Bible to see exactly what it is.

Now, of course I am not con-
tending that the critics are right
in their conclusions ; all I say is
that they are justified in their
methods. Not only are we allowed,
we are literally required, before the
Bible can give its real message to
the world, to bring every resource
of scholarship, the examination
and collation of manuscripts, the

38 THE BIBLE AND

emendation of the texts, the con-
sideration of authorship and stjle^
the internal evidences of dates^ the
witness of archseology and history^
and above all the developed system
of Christian Kf e and teachings to
settle the exact bearings relation,
and authority of each book and
each section of the Bible. Unless
and until this is done the Bible
may be wrested, by selected cita-
tion, by ignorant confusion of
dates, and purposes, and applica-
tion, or by an arbitrary method of
allegorising, to teach just what
each man wishes it to teach. And
in place of the Divine Truth, which
must be one and absolute, you
have every man his own exegete,
and every exegete his own Pope ;
and presently, as the system de-
velops, you have the world rising
up impatiently against these
myriads of petty Popes, as it did
once before against the imposing,
though effete, single Pope. The
answer to Popery is not that

THE CHILD. 3&

private judgment which makes
every one an authority entitled to
speak ex cathedra from the Bihle^
but that free^ honest and reverent
study of the Scriptures^ aided by
all the best scholarship of the age^
which tends more and more to
make Biblical Theology an intelli-
gible and progressive system, and
in its highest Christian develop-
ment a final test and authority in
religion.

It is no answer to the critical
method to prove that Wellhausen
has made mistakes^the critical
method is not bound up with the
infallibility of Wellhausen — or
that Cheyne is arbitrary in fixing
the dates of the Psalms. The only
real refutation of it would be to
furnish some proof from the Bible^
or from God^ that we are forbidden
to make these candid inquiries into
the structure of the literature ; or^
if you will^ to show that the Chris-
tian religion is injured instead of
being cleared and strengthened by

40

THE BIBLE AND

the fearless use of those faculties
which God has given us for the
discovery of truth. Neither of
these has been done. Indeed, I
will venture to close with an illus-
tration^ which is one of a thousand
easily adducible, to show how reli-
gion gains, if orthodoxy suffers, by
the candid work of criticism.

Let us turn to the 137th Psalm.
I suppose no one was ever so far
blinded by tradition as to think
that David was its author. It
tells its own tale. It was written
five centuries after David's time
by an exile in Babylon. But
according to the traditional ortho-
doxy this exile psalmist was the
penman of the Holy Grhost. He
uttered the sentiments which God
breathed into his heart, and told
him to commit to writing. Any
of these verses might therefore be
quoted as the Word of God, That
was the theory. And consequently
it must be regarded as a beatitude
pronounced by God on any man

THE CHILD. 41

who should take the little innocent
Babylonian children and dash
them against the rock. It is not
a sentiment that seems suitable in
the heart of the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ ; and the old
orthodoxy must bear its own
responsibility for maintaining a
dogma which made such a conclu-
sion inevitable. But there was a
greater difficulty still. The Lord
had spoken through Jeremiah
xxix. 7, commanding the exiles to
seek the peace of Babylon and to
pray to Him for it. How could
the same God have breathed into
the exile psalmist this cruel and
bloodthirsty sentiment ?

I need not labour the point to
prove how religion gains^ how the
truth of God gains^ how Christ's
view of God is established^ by a
mode of handling the Bible which
emphatically denies that this bitter
thought of the exile was God's
thought at all ; a mode of handling
the Bible which, instead of treating

O OF

UNIVERSITY

42 THE BIBLE AND

every passage in the Bible as the
Word of God^ seeks dihgentlj to
find and understand the Word of
God^ which is unquestionably
there.

The Higher Criticism^ we may
depend on it, is of God, and what-
ever is to be said of individual
scholars, the method must prevail^
to the lasting benefit of religion, of
the Church, and of mankind.

When it is once realised that
the result of criticism has been,
and will be still more, not to lessen
but to intensify the spiritual value
and the teaching power of the
Bible, it will be the plain duty of
both parents and Sunday-school
teachers to start in the instruction
of their children from the position
which criticism has securely estab-
lished. The baseless dogma about
the nature of the Bible must not
be given to the children ; the Bible
itself must be given. But more.
Not only must the Bible itself be
given, but it must be given with so

THE CHILD. 43

clear and convincing an explana-
tion of what the Bible actually is,
that childi-en may escape the
" sunless gulfs of doubt " into
which we and our fathers were
plunged.

Psalm cxxxvii. may be quoted
as an instance of the spiritual
illumination and the clearing
of the ethical teaching, which
may be gained by fearlessly
applying criticism to Scripture. I
was very much affected by the
words of a dear old friend, a faith-
ful and loving Christian from his
boyhood, who told me how a diffi-
culty of many years' standing had
been removed by my exposition of
this Psalm. How could it be
otherwise? What miserable con-
fusion must be wrought in the
mind of a child if he is taught
that the a^vful imprecation —

Happy shall he be that taketh and
dasheth thy little ones against the rock

is the Word of Grod ! It is im-

44 THE BIBLE AND

possible^ ill the face of such an
error^ to give children a true idea
of the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ.

Nor can I forget the storms of
unbelief to which I was subjected
as a boj in preparing the Book of
Judges for a Cambridge Local
Examination.

No pastor or master ever hinted
to me that the deeds of treachery
or blood in that book^ wrought by
men on whom the Spirit of God
was said to have come^ were not
approved bj God Himself. I sup-
posed that the dastardl}^ deed of
Jael was religiously praiseworthy^
and that Samson must be a
character that we should do well
to copy.

I know, of course, that a large
proportion of the boys brought up
with me on the same principles
of Biblical interpretation have
actually become unbelievers — or,
at least, callously indifferent to
the Bible. A few, like myself, have

THE CHILD. 45

been saved from that melancholy
fate by the revealing light and
truth which^ under the hand of
dihgent critics, '' have broken
forth from the Word " in the last
twenty years.

And^ if I may be pardoned
another personal reminiscence, the
first shock to faith which I
received in Oxford was not from
the so-called unbelief, or from the
philosophical speculations^ of the
University^ but from preparing the
Book of Acts for the entrance
examination. It was in a shady
room, looking out on the loveli-
ness of the New College gardens,
that I was confronted by the fact
that the speech of Gamaliel
referred to certain predatory out-
breaks which did not occur until
after the date of his speech. If I
had encountered such an error in
Thucydides or Livy^ it would not
have shaken my confidence in
those great historians ; but to
meet with a historical sHp in an

46 THE BIBLE AND

Infallible Book sliook the whole
untenable foundation of my faith.
I speak^ therefore^ from my own
experience of sorrowful and
unnecessary shocks to the religious
life when I plead that a true view
of what the Bible is should be
placed before children from the
beginning.

I think I must also mention an
incidental injury which a wrong
conception of the Bible has
wrought in the training of the
young. The unreahty and tedium
of much Sunday-school teaching,
which issue in the children leaving
early and imbibing a permanent
dislike to the Christian Church,
must have an explanation. It is
easy to lay the blame at the door
of the teachers. It is inadmissible
to charge the fault on the Bible it-
self. Surely the mistake lies in the
conception of the Bible which most
teachers are themselves taught,
and feel in their turn bound to
teach. They have to smooth over

THE CHILD.

47

and explain away the moral
incongruities or the historical
discrepancies of Old Testament
scriptures. They have to give an
allegorising meaning to passages
which in the original intention
could have had no such meaning.
For instance^ a worthy corres-
pondent assured me^ some years
ago^ that Esther was to him the
most precious of books^ because^
after much prayer^ it had been
revealed to him that Ahasuerus
is Almighty God^ Mordecai our
Lord Jesus Christy and Haman the
Devil. My correspondent is the
editor of a widely-read newspaper
and represents the orthodox ideas
of Bible-interpretation. But to
teach children a view of that kind
is fatal. It not only must destroy
all respect for the Bible^ but also,
what an idea of God must it give
them if they are to see Him in the
arbitrary and sensual Persian king !
or what an idea of our Lord if
they are to interpret Him by the

48 THE BIBLE AND

hard and cruel character of that
bitter-hearted Jew ! As for Ha-
inan^ I am ready to admit that he
may present a plausible portrait
of the Devil ; but it would leave
on the child's mind the im-
pression that the Devil has been
hanged^ which is^ unfoi^tunately,
not true.

May I conclude by commend-
ing to Sunday-school teachers
two admirable pamphlets written
by Charles Edward Walch^ of
Hobart^ Tasmania; one on Sunday-
school teachings the other on
Gospel Sickness. These are pub-
lished by James Clarke and Co.
They are full of sense and re-
ligion ; they show how an earnest
Sunday-school teacher had him-
self discovered the need of
Biblical criticism before he had
become acquainted with its work ;
and they suggest that a new
day of vital interest in the
Sunday-school and in the home
teaching of children will begin

THE CHILD. 49

when the true view of the Bible
has become generally known and
accepted.

Meanwhile^ every child should
be taught from the first that the
Bible is a compilation of many
different books^ written by diff-
erent authors and at widely distant
periods of time. He should
be taught that these books con-
stitute a rough record of the
stages by which God has been
revealed to the worlds and of the
difficulties^ the doubts_, the rebel-
lions which His gradual self-
revelation has encountered among
men. No word should be said
about the Bible being infallible^
for the term is wholly misleading.
And every effort should be made
to show that Christ is the end of the
law, so that the teaching should
rather be what Christ is, has
done, and is doing in the world
to-day, than the slow and dubious
steps by which the w^orld was
prepared for His coming. The

60 THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD.

latter is a necessary study for
theologians. The former alone is
needed for^ and is capable of
riveting- the attention of^ our little
children.

III.

By

Arthur S. Peake, m.a.,

TUTOR IN BIBLICAL SUBJECTS, PEIMITIVE

METHODIST THEOLOGIAL INSTITUTE,

MANCHESTER.

III.

Among the awkward questions that
the Church has to face we must set
that of the best methods to be
chosen in bringing before our
young people the results of
Biblical criticism. To some it is
not awkward at all^ either because
they are unaware of the attain-
ment of such results^ or because
they roundly refuse to believe in
them. Others will not entertain
it, on the too-popular principle,
" Why can't you let it alone ? "
Those of us who are satisfied that
real results have been won, and
that for the advancement of the
faith it is vital that they should
not be kept back from our young
people, cannot acquiesce in a
conspiracy of silence. However
awkward, the question is most

54 THE BIBLE AND

pressings and on the way it is
answered much of the future
depends. There is not even this
excuse for silence^ that if we say
nothing they will hear nothing.
The truth is quite otherwise. They
will hear much that is crude and
garbled^ but roughly effective none
the less^ and if they hear it all
unprepared their position is dan-
gerous indeed. They have learnt
no defence^ and believe that
Christianity is hit in a vital place.
How much better if they already
laiow^ and know better than those
who flaunt these things in their
face^ what the results of criticism
really are^ and know^ too_, that
their feet are planted on a rock of
certainty which no criticism can
shake. If I may repeat a phrase
I used in an article some years
ago^ criticism ^^has drawn the
fangs of the secularist lecturer/'
perhaps I ought to add : only he
is not aware of it. In other words^,
criticism has swept away many of

V- OF THK ' r ^

UNIVERSITY
THE CHILD. 55^S;2^ALIFOR^

the things most chosen by the
Secularists for attack. It is our
privilege to place our young people
at the right point of view, and
preserve a faith which shall not be
incompatible with intellectual in-
tegrity. "We must vaccinate them
with criticism to save them from
the small-pox of scepticism.

When we pass to the methods
to be employed, it will be readily
seen that the question is largely
one of presuppositions. We find,
a set of ideas about the Bible
already in possession when we
begin our work. Children in
Christian homes form their views
of the Bible from the reverence
always paid to it, its use in family
worship and in the Church, and
all the other indications that it is
to be regarded as a book quite
sacred and apart. Why it should
be so treated they hardly know ; it
is taken for granted as part of the
natural order of things. They
know nothing of Inspiration. I

56

THE BIBLE AND

remember when I was eight years
old reading some of " The Anti-
quities of Josephus." I was very
much interested, and said^ '^^Why
this is just like the Bible." I was
told that Josephus was not inspired.
What with the child is unreasoning
acceptance becomes with the boy
or girl intelligent acceptance^, but
on grounds received without ques-
tion. In this state of mind good
and bad elements mingle^ and the
good probably predominate. It is
highly important that the Bible
should be reverenced as the record
of the revelation and redeeming^
activity of God^ that it should be
set above all other books^ and
indeed placed in a unique position.
But it is not well that this should
be held to involve extravagant
claims for the Bible^ claims beyond
what it makes for itself^ or beyond
what can be established by sound
proof. Yet these are almost uni-
versal, and constitute the great
difficulty of the teacher.

THE CHILD. 57

The first thing to be done^ if our
young people are to be taught the
critical view of the Scriptures^ is
to destroy their illusions. And
this will be done by various lines
of proof. I scarcely venture to
suggest what order should be
followed^ but I will name some of
the points it is necessary to prove.
The corruption of the text both of
the Old and New Testaments must
be urged to prove that Providence
has not attached so much import-
ance to the exact transcription of
the words of the autographs as to
secure miraculous immmiity from
errors of copyists. This may be
used with great force against the
doctrine of verbal inspiration^ and
it should be shown that in many
cases the best scholars are not
agreed as to the true reading.
Another thing that should be
insisted on is that there is no
orthodox doctrine of Inspiration^
in other words, there is no doctrine
to which the Chui'ch is committed.

68 THE BIBLE AISTD

This may be shown by pointing to
the great variety of view that has
prevailed on the subject^ and^
therefore^ since the question is not
closed^ we must claim, as Pro-
testants, the right of private
judgment upon it. In this con-
nection it is well to adduce the
example of the leaders of the
Reformation, Luther and Calvin^
who treated the Bible with con-
siderable freedom. Next, it might
be shown that the popular view of
the Bible has largely come to us
from the rigid scholastic theolo-
gians of the seventeenth century,
whose conclusions in some other
departments of theology we are
almost unanimous in rejecting. It
might then be pointed out that
they came to their doctrine of
Scripture in an a priori way^ and
formed it with very little reference
to facts. The essential irrever-
ence of this method should be
brought out, in that it presumed
to form a theory of what God

THE CHILD.

59

must have done^ instead of humbly
setting to work to discover what
He had actually done. Over
against this false method^ which
has given us the popular view^ the
true scientific and historical method
should be set. The teacher should
make it clear that the only satis-
factory way is not to spin theories
out of one's own inner conscious-
ness^ but to set to work patiently
to investigate the phenomena
which the Bible presents^ and form
the doctrine as a result of the in-
vestigation. It might be well to
enforce this by instances^ from
other departments of knowledge^
of the ignominious end of passion-
ately defended a priori theories.
Another illusion^ which is persis-
tent and troublesome^ is what is
known as the '^ all or nothing "
doctrme. It springs directly from
the popular view that the Bible . is
a whole^ of equal authority and of
equal inspiration from end to end.
If a single error is admitted^ the

60 THE BIBLE AND

Bible cannot be inspired at all.
This is often very difficult to deal
with.^ and the teacher cannot be
too careful in his treatment of it.
Once this has been cleared away
the path will be comparatively
easy. The proof of the falsity of
this position should come from
several sides. The most important
thing is to show that for the pur-
pose for which it is assumed that
the Bible was given, such errors in
matters of fact as are alleged are
unimportant. The moral and reli-
gious value remains unimpaired.
This might be illustrated by those
numerous passages in both Old and
New Testaments which speak to
us with such an immediate and
authentic Divine voice, that they
carry with themselves proof of
their own inspiration. In this
way the impression of inspiration
does not depend on perfect histori-
cal accuracy, as to which we could
never from the nature of things be
sure of our ground, but on the

THE CHILD. 61

conviction that the voice of God
alone could say such things to us.
The testimony is that of our own
religious consciousness. In this
way the belief in inspiration will
be placed on a firmer basis^, while
it will be detached from such an
accretion as a belief in inerrancy.
The '' all or nothing " argument
may be met in another way by
pointing out the unfairness with
which it ti'eats the Bible. If a
man discovers a blunder in his
daily paper he does not jump to
the conclusion I have heard for-
mulated with reference to the
Bible in this way : " If all of it
ain't true, there's none of it true."
A man should treat his Bible as
fairly as he treats his newspaper.
It is unfair in another way. We
have no right to expect of the
Bible more than it professes to
give. And it makes no claims to
' inerrancy. On another side an
effective appeal may be made to
Christian loyalty. We cannot

62 THE BIBLE AND

place the words of any one on tlie
same level as the words of Christ.
This helps us to recognise distinc-
tion of value in various parts of
the Bible^ and the argument may
be reinforced by illustrations of the
fact that some portions of the
Bible speak much more directly to
our souls than others. It is also
of great importance to emphasize
the fact that the Bible is not a
book^ but a collection of books^
gradually formed and fluctuating
in extent^ so that even now Pro-
testant scholars cannot regard the
limits that should be set to the
Canon as fixed beyond dispute.
These may serve as hints of the
way in which this difficulty should
be met.

The removal of illusions is only
one^ though the most important^
part of the preliminary work. It
should be supplemented by the
positive proof that the position '
taken up is better in itself. These
are some points that should be

THE CHILD.

63

made clear. Criticism has made
the Bible more precious to us
because it has made it intelligible
and interesting. It has made the
uniqueness of the religion of Israel
and of Christianity stand out with
far greater clearness. It has driven
us to Christ, the only "^ impregna-
ble rock," as our supreme religious
authority. It has thus withdrawn
apologetics from the useless task
of defending shattered outworks to
the invincible fortress itself. And
if it be urged that the authority of
Christ guarantees the traditional
authorship of Old Testament books,
it must be said in reply that the
Incarnation involved a surrender
of omniscience that He might be
like us in all things except sin,
and that even if His knowledge on
these points transcended that of
His own time, it would have been
to cast a needless stumbling-block
in the way of His hearers to discuss
critical questions with them. The
relation in which the Son stands

64 THE BIBLE AND

to the universe did not cause Christ
to reveal the secrets of nature^
which our own age has so largely
discovered^ nor to correct the
astronomical errors of His con-
temporaries.

One point more may be briefly
mentioned. It is of great moment
that while the teacher is conduct-
ing his class over this delicate
ground he should make abundantly
evident his own devotion to Christ
and the Gospel. The practical
problem that presents itself to the
pupil is : If I revise my views of
the Bible, how do I know that I
shall not end by giving up Chris-
tianity ? Nothing will reassure
him more than the feeling that
the teacher is a living example of
the reconciliation of faith with
criticism.

So much for the preliminaries.
It is so much^ because they are the
most important. Who should the
teacher be ? In most cases^ I think^
the minister — that is^ where he has

THE CHILD. 65

been sufficiently conscientious to
give earnest study to the subject.
I have further assumed that a class
will be formed for the systematic
study of the subject. Such a
course as I have already sketched
will take some time^ and then the
actual teaching of the subject will
begin_, and will need continuous
work. As a rule^ critical questions
should be let alone in the pulpit.
They may unsettle the faith of
older Christians who are unable to
distinguish between form and sub-
stance ; and_, apart from this^ the
pulpit is meant for another purpose.
The class might consist of any who
wished to join^ but I think it would
be prudent to admit none under
fourteen, and perhaps that limit is
too low. A text-book is badly
wanted, and till a satisfactory one
appears each teacher must make
his own. Professor Eobertson's
"The Old Testament and its
Contents^' might be used at a
pinch, but those who are not satis-

66 THE BIBLE AND

fied with a halfway house will
prefer to wait for something more
critical. The question of the New
Testament is less pressing. Dr.
Dods' ^^Introduction to the New
Testament/' or Mr. M'Olymont's
^^The New Testament and its
Writers/' would do as a text-book.
Common sense will indicate the
necessity of placing only those
results before a class which are
generally accepted by critics. As
to the order^ I should suggest that
the Hexateuch be taken firsts since
here the work has been most com-
pletely and perhaps most finally
done. If I were writing for
students^ who wished to examine
the subject for themselves^ I should
recommend a different order^ but
this will^ I think^ be found best in
this case. There is no need to
sketch an outline of study; a
teacher who knows his subject will
find the line that suits him best.
But^ on another pointy is it too
much to ask of the ofiicials and

THE CHILD. 67

Church that if they cannot help
they will at least not hinder the
work ? They cannot be more
anxious for the welfare of the
young people than the minister.
And in his efforts to keep them,
by making Christianity credible to
tliem^ they may rest assured that
he will not play fast and loose with
the essential truths of the religion
in which^ in common with them-
selves^ he finds his highest inspira-
tion and joy. The wisest policy is
to trust him and let him take his
own course. We are in a time of
change^ and the only thing which
will preserve the unity of the
Church is the love that ^^hopeth
all things" and ^^believeth all
things^" even the orthodoxy of the
minister who is a critic.

IV.
By

Walter F. Adeney, m.a.,

PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT

EXEGESIS. HISTORY AND CRITICISM AT

NEW COLLEGE.

IV.

I HAVE no doubt that to many
readers the suggestion that the
Higher Criticism should be brought
into any connection with the
teaching of children must seem
about as absurd as a proposal that
Quain's " Anatomy " should be
made up into reading-lessons for
an infant class. The very associa-
tion of the phrases is painfully
incongruous. It should be re-
membered, however, that when we
refer to the teaching of children
we are not always thinking of the
ABC lessons of lisping babes.
There is more difference in mental
grasp between a child of four years
and a boy or girl of fourteen than
there is between the latter and a
man or woman of forty. Even
young children have an awkward

72 THE BIBLE AND

habit of springing upon us, in the
most unconscious innocence^ ques-
tions which persons who are ac-
quainted with the results of the
latest research can only answer
honestly in the light of that
research. This is the point. It
is not to be supposed that any
sensible people are eager to
transform the rising generation
into an army of critics. The
judgment is the latest faculty to
ripen ; with some of us it seems,
to remain green for a lifetime.
To urge the exercise of it pre-
maturely is only to rear an ugly
crop of prigs.

What^ then^ have children to do
with the Higher Criticism? I
should say that their relation to it
is concerned with the results
rather than with the processes.
Let us clearly understand what we
mean by this often-repeated
phrase^ ^^the Higher Criticism.'^
The angry style in which it is
handled by the more ignorant of

THE CHILD. 73

those people who take upon them-
selves to heap indiscriminate
denunciation upon it would seem
to imply that it is simply an
indication of the self-conceit of its
authors, who mean by the use
of it that their critical methods
are superior to the methods of
less advanced students. A more
ridiculous misinterpretation can
hardly be imagined. Of course, as
every student of its first elements
knows, the Higher Criticism is not
so named as being better than an
inferior criticism that it affects to
despise, but simply in contrast
with another kind of criticism,
which is equally valid in its sphere
— the lower criticism concerning
minute questions of the settlement
of the original text, &c., and the
higher passing on to inquire into
the age, authorship, character, and
tendency of the books it concerns,
as far as these can be ascertained
from an examination of their con-
tents. Surely no reasonable person

If ^

OK ':^^)^.

((UNIVERSITY

74 THE BIBLE AND

can object to such a study being
pursued^ although it is quite open
to any competent person to say
that it is erroneously carried on by
some of its disciples. One thing,
I think, may now be affirmed in
regard to this matter. There are
whole reaches of inquiry that have
been so thoroughly surveyed that
we can no longer treat them as
lying in the mists of uncertainty.
The fog has lifted over these
regions, so that we can see their
outlines. In other cases, where
perhaps we were once accustomed
to think we could discern the capes
and bays of a sharply-marked
coast-line, the powerful telescope
of criticism may prove that we were
only gazing at a bank of clouds.
That cannot but be an unsatifying
result to arrive at ; and yet our
personal disappointment is no
excuse for smashing the telescope.
At all events, it is best to know the
facts. Then the question arises.
If we know the facts, what reason

THE CHILD. 75

or justification have we for con-
tinuing to teach children just as
we did before we had reached
them ? I have no wish to perplex
and puzzle children with abstruse
questions ; but I feel the grave
mistake of ignoring the fairly-
established results of criticism.
We may not be able to explain
Kepler's laws to young children,
but that is no excuse for doggedly
persisting in representing to them
that sun^ moon^ and stars all
revolve round the earth.

One of the commonest mistakes
about the Higher Criticism is that
it only issues in a mass of dreary
negations. I am by no means
ready to take a brief for every
person who chooses to style him-
self a critic. There are men who
come to the consideration of
Biblical problems with a marked
prejudice against the transcen-
dental, the spiritual, everything
that is not in agreement with
everyday London club life — men

76

THE BIBLE AND

who are so obviously blind to the
religious wonder of revelation that
they put themselves out of court
at once when they set forth their
arid negations. Their criticism is
as uncritical as Jeffreys' criticism of
Wordsworth. By every word they
utter they prove themselves to be
inhabitants of another world from
that of the inspired writers^ and
therefore utterly unfit to present
themselves as their judges. There
are men^ too^ with whose character
and temper we may have no reason
to quarrel^ and yet who are mani-
festly so extravagant and one-sided
that what they give out as critical
results must only be accepted by us
as obiter dicta. But when a full
discount has been allowed for all
these eccentricities and irrele-
vances^ there remains a heavy
balance to the credit of sound
criticism^ the accumulated returns
of the labour of a number of sober
workmen whose converging har-
mony of opinion cannot be brushed

THE CHILD. 77

aside without impertinence. Now
here it is that we find results that
are by no means barely negative.
The mining is not all for the
shaking of ancient foundations ;
the best of it is carried on in new
fields for the discovery of hidden
treasure^ and with the result that
already we have been presented
with some precious nuggets of gold.
Is it nothing that this criticism
has quickened our interest in the
Bible — ^that it has given new life
especially to the Old Testament?
Some of us who would still fain
believe we are young men can yet
recollect the time when there was
a manifest danger of the Old
Testament falling altogether into
neglect among the more progres-
sive teachers of Christian truth.
In the present day the study of
the Old Testament has come to be
courted with the keenest interest.
Criticism has thrown new light
upon the history of Israel. For-
merly the writings of the Hebrew

78 THE BIBLE AND

prophets were handled as though
thej were so many scattered
Sibylline leaves. Now they are
made to discourse eloquently
of the ages from which they
sprang, and to re-clothe their
authors with the flesh and blood of
real life. There is no reasoii why
children should not have their
share in these happy gams so far
as they are able to appreciate them.
Then as we pass on to the New
Testament we have still larger and
richer results of sound criticism.
The critical comparison of the
Synoptic Gospels one with another
and with St. John's Gospel has led
to such a clear understanding of
the life and teachings of Jesus
Christ as was probably never
before reached in the history of
Christendom. Until quite lately
it was customary to mix up sayings
of our Lord with texts from any of
the epistles^ not to mention Old
Testament quotations, as though
they all ran on the same plane^ to

THE CHILD. 79

the confusion of any character and
specific meaning. Now we are
able to see the teaching of Jesus in
its own crystalline clearness. That
is an infinite gain. It is much,
too, that the latest criticism has
demonstrated the essential unity
of that teaching as it appears in
all the four Grospels. At the same
time we are able to detect the
different standpoints of the several
evangelists, and when we come to
the apostles, to see their several
ways of presenting the Grospel,
each characteristic, each valuable.
The truth itself is better appre-
hended when regarded in these
various lights than it was when all
differences were blurred by the arti-
ficial contrivances of the harmon-
ists. Thus the New Testament
lives to us with a crispness of outline
and a vividness of colour which it
owes to the clarifying processes of
criticism. Is there any reason why
children should not be introduced to
these fresh and interesting results ?

80 THE BIBLE AND

But now if criticism has yielded
us these profits, it cannot be denied
that it has unsettled some old-
established positions^ and here we
come to the crux of the matter.
The first question will be^ How are
we to deal with the narratives of
the earliest times in the light of
criticism? To be simply silent
about them is to take the feeblest
course imaginable. Though it may
not be desirable to set them as
formal Sunday-school lessons, just
as if they were on a level with the
Gospel story, to throw them aside
altogether would be to follow a
counsel of despair. To put the
matter on the lowest ground^ a
person who had grown up in
ignorance of such time-honoured
narratives must be held to be un-
educated. Moreover, the beauty,
the charm, the moral and religious
significance of many of these
stories will win the hearts of
children in the future as they have
won the hearts of children in the

/ Y* OF THR ' ''

1^ UNIVERSITY

THE CHILD. SI^^^^^LC^LIFORH^^^

past. This winsome grace of the
antique stories is one of the proofs
that they are presented to us with
the power and life of Divine in-
spiration. We cannot afford to
lose sight of them^ say what the
critics may about them. The
child's Bible would be sadly im-
poverished if these favourite parts
were to be missing. But let the
stories be given in their quaint^ old-
world simplicity. When we are deal-
ing with those concerning which
we may think historical grounds of
assurance cannot be made out, it
will be misleading to drag in allu-
sions to modern geographical and
archaeological data. The stories
should be set by themselves, framed
in their own mystery. As soon as
the children are able to understand
it they should be informed quite
simply, and without any painful
sense of reserve, that they are
different from the later history,
because the books in which they
are recorded were not written till

82 THE BIBLE AND

many hundreds of years after the
times to which they refer. Chil-
dren have to learn how all history
begins among the mists of un-
certainty, in the dim ages of a
far-off antiquity. They know this
with regard to the story of Britain^
and it does not make them sceptics
of the history of the Norman and
Tudor lines. If they are told that
possibly King Arthur was a myth,
they are not thereupon so confused
as to doubt the landing of William
the Conqueror. These points of
difference would be above the com-
prehension of very little children ;
I am not now referring to such,
but to boys and girls of some
growth in intelligence. Take^ for
instance, the story of Adam and
Eve. To know nothing of this
would argue gross ignorance ; and
it is better to come upon it in the
grand simplicity of its original
form in Genesis than to meet with
it for the first time clothed in
Milton's strange mingling of

THE CHILD.

83

Puritan theology and sensuous
poetry. This story is not only
touched with antique charm ; it is
replete with profound lessons con-
cerning* man^ his sin^ and his fate
— lessons which^ coming to us as
we receive them in the austere
simplicity of the primitive narra-
tive, awe us with a sense of the
Divine. Yet I suppose very few
educated people take the narra-
tive as prosaic history. Then why
should children not be told that it
is an old tale teaching great
lessons^ and not an account of the
way things actually happened ?

The case of the patriarchs is not
of the same kind. I must confess
that I am old-fashioned enough to
cling to the stories of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob; and certainly
we have had gleams of light from
the desert and the monuments that
suggest points of verification.
Still, it cannot be denied that the
rearrangement of the Pentateuch
has raised questions in many minds

84 THE BIBLE AND

as to grounds of certitude con-
cerning these narratives. Simi-
larly^ the new order in which the
records of the Pentateuch are now
arranged cannot but affect the
whole story of the tabernacle in
the wilderness. The plain state-
ment about these things is that
the narratives in their present form
were written so many hundreds of
years after the events occurred
that we cannot be as certain about
them as we are about contemporary
records. I do not see any reason
why we should not say this to
children who are old enough to
understand what is^ after all^ a
very simple statement. It will be
objected that this is a dangerous
position^ but I venture to affirm
that a furtive and timorous reserve
is a far more dangerous one.

If^ however, criticism touches
the New Testament^ it is natural
to inquire with more anxiety as to
what are its effects. Here we
have come out into broad daylight,

THE CHILD. 85

and the answer can be given with
more assurance of finality. But
here^ too^ criticism brings us no-
thing to fear. The effect of the
most searching and ruthless inquiry
is that the central Figure of all
history and all religion stands out
with a new clearness of outline^
and at the same time with com-
manding majesty^ nay, with the
awfulness of true Divinity, so that
we are constrained to exclaim with
Thomas, ^^My Lord and my God."
After that what do the details
matter? Yet these details are
useful in filling up the background
of the canvas. Now it is not so
much the Higher Criticism as a
mere ordinary literary criticism
that has brought to light certain
small inconsistencies in the several
Gospel narratives. These are puzz-
ling to the historian, whose busi-
ness it is to settle every disputed
point in the story, but they are of
no religious importance whatever.
The dangerous thing is to attempt

86 THE BIBLE ANI>

to smother them up under a con-
fusion of words. The simple,
natural^ straightforward course is
to admit them without perturba-
tion ; for it is not the inconsistency
in the narrative but the perturba-
tion in the teacher that upsets the
child's faith. If children were
not brought up with an unfounded
belief in the verbal inerrancy of
the Bible^ these discrepancies
would run off them as water from
a duck's back^ admittedly real^ but
incapable of penetrating to the
deep regions where faith lives and
where doubt may be bred. I was
almost saying that those people
who so deliberately set the terrible
stumbling-block of verbal inerrancy
in the path of Christ's little ones
are themselves in danger of the
millstone ; but I know they are
acting from the best motives as
the friends of the children. Still,
what a huge blunder they have
fallen into^ and how disastrous are
its consequences ! They believe

THE CHILD. 87

themselves to be defenders of the
faith ; but their feverish anxiety
seems to be engendered by the
unwholesome effluvia of a decaying
creed. Faith can look the whole
world in the face and welcome
light from every quarter, knowing
that the foundation standeth sure.
When we feel the Spirit of God
breathing on us from the pages of
the Bible^ we may regard the work
of criticism with equanimity^ hav-
ing the satisfying inward assurance
that no arguments can touch our
one supreme^ indubitable fact.
Without this perception it matters
not what becomes of the battle of
the critics ; at best it can but issue
in one more literary verdict with
which to cumber the libraries of the
learned. Above all^ while we have
a settled faith in Christ, confirmed
by the experience of the Christian
life, we may as well imagine
that some new theory was about
to filch the sun from our sky as
fear that any criticism could ever

88 THE BIBLE AND

rob US of our Lord. If this is the
right position to take up^ surely it
is our business to lead children
into it by the straightest course
possible.

V.
By the Very Rev.

W. H, Fremantle, d.d.,

DEAN OF EIPON.

The Higher Criticism is often
supposed to mean negative criti-
cism^ but it really means the criti-
cism, not of texts, but of the
underlying ideas of a work ; it is,
therefore, much more congenial to
the faithful and Christian teacher
than the lower criticism, which
deals with manuscripts and read-
ings. Of the works of Lachmann
or Tischendorff, or of Westcott
and Hort^ on the text of the New
Testament only a few scholars can
judge ; but of the questions raised
by Ewald or Kuenen we can all
judge. Could the Book of Deuter-
onomy, they ask, which assumes
that there is only one altar, and
vehemently condemns worship in
the High Places, have been in
existence when Samuel, the chosen

92 THE BIBLE AND

leader and inspired prophet^ sacri-
ficed at the High Place in Eamah ?
or^ Could the words, ^^Who saith
of Cyrus, Thou art my shepherd,
saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be
built, and to the Temple, Thy
foundations shall be laid," have
been written by Isaiah 150 years
before the Temple was destroyed,
and 200 before Cyrus reigned?
Of such questions, I say, we can
all of us judge. And, further, we
are all of us unconsciously among
the '' higher critics " when, for
instance, we read Ps. cxxxvii., and
ask whether the words, '^^ Happy
shall he be that taketh and dasheth
thy little ones against the stones,"
express the mind of the Divine
Spirit, or whether they belong to
a class of ideas and feelings which
have been done away in Christ.
Here Christian faith is itself the
Higher Criticism.

Such questions are sure to be
asked as the child grows into the
man or woman, and it is of the

THE CHILD. 9S

utmost importance that we should
so teach the Bible that they may
not prove a fatal stumbling-block.
The late M. Taine, one of the fore-
most writers and thinkers in France^
became a Protestant because he
felt sure that, if his children were
taught the literalisms which, in
the hands of French priests, made
the Bible a tissue of incredibilities^
they would, as they grew up, cast
away their religion, whereas the
sane explanations of the excellent
Pastors Bersier and HoUard, to
whom he entrusted them, would
make possible a continuance of
belief. We may well ask ourselves
whether the cause of the aliena-
tion from Christian faith is not
often this, that we have bound up
with religion during childhood a
number of ideas which the adult
sees to be untenable, but from
which he finds it impossible to
disentangle it.

This danger may be to a great
extent obviated by showing that

94 THE BIBLE AND

what is paramount in the Scrip-
tures, as explained by criticism^ is
the religious interest. Take the
question of the books of the law^
on which so much criticism has
been expended. The higher critics
have mostly come to the conclusion
that Exodus^ Deuteronomy and
Leviticus contain successive hand-
lings of the law^ the rudiments of
which came from Moses^ just as
the Psalms have their source in
David^ but they believe that each
re-editing of the law has a dis-
tinctly religious purpose. On this^
therefore^ the teacher should fix
the child's attention. He should
show how stress was laid in each
epoch upon the points most need-
ful for the religious life ; firsts in
Exodus^ for the primitive social
life of the nation ; next, in Deuter-
onomy, for the final struggle
against idolatry in the period from
Hezekiah to Josiah ; and lastly^ in
Leviticus, for the time after the
captivity when the sense of sin

THE CHILD. 95

and the need of sacrifice were so
fully developed. It is not neces-
sary to go into minute criticism
with the young ; but it is a distinct
gain to the teacher^ say in reading
Deuteronomy, to be able to
describe the ^^hill-altars" and the
^^Asherim " existing in every
corner of Judaea, and the degrada-
tion of the worship of God as
described by Hosea and the early
prophets, and thence to show the
need of the limitation of sacrificial
worship to the central sanctuary
at Jerusalem. And, similarly, it
is a gain to realise the state of
mind of the Jews in the great
revulsion from idolatry under
Ezekiel and the second Isaiah,
and to associate the lamentations
for national apostasy which we
find in Nehemiah ix. or Ps. cvi.,
or the denunciations of Leviticus
xxvi., with the passionate longing
for atonement with God, which
brought into prominence the
priestly code of Leviticus.

96 THE BIBLE AND

The Psalms and the prophets
and histories are comparatively
easy to deal with in the light of
criticism. In the histories the
chief difficulties are caused by dif-
fering traditions which have been
placed side by side^ as in the vary-
ing accounts of the elevation of
Saul to the kingdom, and of
David's introduction to Saul.
When these are frankly admitted,
as they would be in any other case,
the difficulty is gone, but the
religious lesson is unimpaired. As
to the Psalms, the dates and con-
struction of them are still sub
Judice; but this is of little concern
for their religious bearing; they
are of all ages, and give voice to
the universal needs of the human
soul. The criticisms, however, of
Cheyne, which show that they
have a national as well as an indi-
vidual bearing, should be of use to
us in training the young to public
and social duty, which is among
the greatest needs of our time.

THE CHILD. 97

As to the prophets^ criticism has
made them stand out as vivid,
struggling personalities^ their
words gaining force from the
clearer disclosure of the special
circumstances of their time. How
much more real does such an
utterance as that of Isaiah Ixiv.
10, 11 become: ^'^Zion is a wilder-
ness, Jerusalem a desolation, our
holy and beautiful house wherein
our fathers praised Thee is burned
with fire," when we think of it
as springing warm from the heart
of the great unknown prophet of
the exile as he depicted with pa-
triotic sorrow the actual state of
desolation, than when we try to
conceive of it as written 200 years
before, in the time of Hezekiah,
when the temple stood firm and
Jerusalem was unscathed by fire.

Let us now pass to a different
sphere, that of the narratives
which have created most contro-
versy. Take the account of the
Creation. If we believe it to be a

98 THE BIBLE ANI>

poetic vision of the upgrowth of
the world under the hand of God,
we can surely make the pupil
understand this. To be sure,
children are, as Goethe said,
'' inveterate realists," and are sure
to ask " Was it all true ? " But
the great religious lessons — the
universe a great unity, the mani-
festation of one principle, one
agent, and that the Holy One ;
the world prepared for man, who
is to master it and use it according
to God's will ; the spiritual element
supreme over the material, the
consecration of the whole by its
issue in a Sabbath of holy rest ;
man made after God's image, his
innocence as the witness that sin
is not a necessary part of his
nature, the sanctification of human
love and family and social life by
the blessing on the first parents of
the race — all this is so preponder-
ant, and in the hands of an earnest
teacher can be made to stand out
so clearly, that the mere process

THE CHILD. 99

of creation falls naturally into a
subordinate place.

This may rightly lead us to
consider the attitude which we
should take towards the miracles
of the Old Testament. We should
dwell on the Divine purpose and
its result, not upon the particular
mode of working. The word
miracle^ as used in Scripture (put
Paley aside) ^ is quite undefined,
and simply implies to the religious
mind a wonderful and striking
fact which makes us realise the
presence of God. On the action
of God, therefore, we should fix
the attention. Take the account
of the deliverance of Israel by the
passage of the Red Sea. We may
take the old precritical view
which made even Matthew Arnold
speak of the narrative as instinct
with supematuralism, or we may,
with the Speaker's Commentary,
take it as wholly natural. The
latter is surely the most vivid and
attractive ; we see, and can make

100 THE BIBLE AND

the pupil see^ the sea driven back
by the strong east wind, the storm
cloud helping the Israelites by its
lightnings but beating in the
faces of their enemies^ the sun as
the eye of God looking forth in
the morning watch from the pillar
of cloudy and the tide returning in
its strength. Yet upon none of
these in themselves must the
attention be fixed^ but upon the
combination of all these forces
under the hand of God for the
deliverance of Israel. We need
not be anxious to explain the
processes through which God
wrought either as identical with
or as differing from the processes
known to human experience. What
we want to impress is the sense of
God working out His righteous
and loving purpose, whether in ways
within or in ways beyond our com-
prehension. And further, we
want to make the pupil realise
that the wonder of the old time
is the heightened or concentrated

THE CHILD. 101

example of that which is in its
essence repeated day by day in
the action of God towards us.
Even now, with all our advance
in knowledge^ how little do we
know of the secret forces of
Nature. The saying of Newton
is still true, that we are like
children picking up shells on the
shore of an ocean whose depths
are unexplored. Our philosophers
have to speak of an " energy "
which is the source of all action,
yet is in its essence unknown. We
may, therefore, with entire frank-
ness^ adopt in our teaching such
words as those of the Psalmist :
'*^ Thy way is in the sea, and Thy
paths in the great waters, and
Thy footsteps are not known."

There are, we must admit, some
stories in the Bible which we
cannot take literally, such as that
of the axe-head swimming at the
word of Elisha, or the three
childi'en in the fiery furnace. But
a tactful teacher will know how to

102 THE BIBLE AND

get over the difficulty. In other
cases he will pass it hj, as the
Germans say^ ^^with light foot^''
especially where^ as in the first of
these instances^ no spiritual lesson
is directly connected with it. In
other cases, as in the second of
these instances_, he may rightly
say that, the story being told after
three hundred years, it is quite
possible that its details have been
altered, but that in any case it
represents an instance, such as
has often been known, of faithful
confessors delivered from a cruel
death; and he may thus suggest
what is the real religious use of
the story to us — that Grod's peo-
ple are constantly passing through
the " smoking furnace '^ (Gren. xv.
17 ; compare Deut. iv. 20, 1 Kings
viii. 51), and are like the bush
bathed in fire, which has suggested
the motto of the persecuted
Church, '^ Et tamen non consume-

A similar mode of treatment

THE CHILD. 103

may be adopted as to the moral
difficulties of the Old Testament ;
they must in some cases be
avoided^ in some cases explained.
But here we are on j&rmer ground,
having the plain declarations of
our Lord Himself to guide us. He
admits the doctrine of develop-
ment in moral matters. What
was '^ said to the men of old times '^
needed to be corrected by what He
said. Moses gave laws for the
hardness of men's hearts^ which
He repealed. The disciples were
not to imitate Elijah in calling
down fire from heaven. We need
not scruple^ therefore, to tell our
children, as they are able to bear
it, that expressions like the long
<3urses of Ps. cix., ending with
^^ Let this be the reward of mine
adversaries from the Lord," could
not be allowed in the mouths of
Christians. With the younger
children such passages may best
be left unread, and in devotional
exercises they must not be intro-

104

THE BIBLE ANI>

duced. I presume that few pastors
who have free choice would dwell
upon them in the congregation ;
and I think that^ when these pas-
sages are set down to be read in
the appointed order in church, the
liberty which the law now gives to
vary the Psalms under special cir~
cumstances may be held to justify
the exclusion of expressions of
hatred. Our congregations contain
persons of all classes and all ages^
and we must beware of suggesting-^
to young or old what will be cer-
tainly perplexing, and may lead to
deadly error.

It is in the teaching of the Old
Testament that the difficulties
chiefly arise which it is the design
of these papers to meet. But there
are difficulties also in the New
Testament ; and though these are
not so numerous, they are aggra-
vated by the fact that the critical
results are far less clear. The time at
which the Gospels were composed,
the account to be given of the

THE CHILD.

105

wide variations and the minute
agreements of the first three
Gospels^ and of their relation to
one another and to the fourth
Gospelj, are as yet undetermined.
On the other hand^ many of the
discrepancies which have perplexed
pious souls, and which have been
met by strange evasions or at-
attempts at reconciliation, become
non-existent to us as soon as we
put aside the fictitious assumption
of an exact accuracy in the narra-
tives. We can then say : It
matters nothing whether Christ
healed two blind men going out of
Jericho, as St. Matthew reports, or
one blind man coming into Jericho,
as St. Luke states ; or which of
the versions of the title upon the
cross, which is given differently by
each Evangelist, is the true one.
We hardly ask such questions in
the case of other books, but are
content to say: "These are dif-
ferent versions, slightly varied,
of the same transaction." There is

9^ OF THK

UNIVERSITY

106 THE BIBLE AND

no difficulty in saying the same as
to the Gospel accounts either to
ourselves or to our children. What
is more difficult is to make them
understand the state of human
nature which existed in Palestine
in our Lord's time and long after
— a state in which leprosy and
hysterical affections and demo-
niacal possession were common
phenomena^ and in which^ there-
fore, the presence of a Divine
personality must produce effects to
which our later Western life pre-
sents hardly an analogy. But
something of this kind must be
suggested in order to prevent in
later years a sense of unreality
besetting the subject and obscuring
the character and teaching of
Christ.

In conclusion^ I think that our
own religious experience on these
subjects is our best guide in
teaching. If we are thoroughly
persuaded of the main results of
modern criticism^ and have rear-

THE CHILD.

107

ranged the Bible in our own minds
as the history of an orderly
development culminating in Christy
the true Prince of mankind, and if
this has fortified our own faith by
a sense of historical veracity, we
need not fear to speak plainly to
the young ; for we can hardly fail
to convey to them the consciousness
that the religious aim is paramount
with us, and that we wish it to be
so with them. When they can
realise that, through the results of
criticism. Christian piety and zeal
are not slackened but increased,
and that both the Old Testament
history and Christ Himself are
made to stand out in clearer out-
line, the danger lest light and
truth should in maturer life come
to them as destructive and
disintegrating powers will have
passed away, and we may tinist
that the Bible will grow to them
more real and more precious the
more their knowledge and experi-
ence extends.

VI.
By the Rev.

Washington Gladden, d.d.,

AUTHOR OF
"WHO WROTE THE BIBLE," &c.

VI.

The Bible is the book of religion,
but it is also, by eminence, the
book of literature. Well may we
call it The Book ; it is the prolific
mother of books ; since the inven-
tion of printing the book-makers
have been busy, a good share of
their time, in producing Bibles,
and books about the Bible.

The influence of our English
Bible upon our language in keep-
ing our speech simple and direct
and unstUted is beyond all com-
prehension. Euphuistic dandyism
and Johnsonese magniloquence
have been slain by its homely
eloquence ; and not only have
thirsty souls with joy drawn the
water of life by its aid from the
wells of salvation, but scholars
and writers of books have drawn

112 THE BIBLE AND

the freshness and grace of literary
form from its pure well of English
undefilecl. It is scarcely an ex-
aggeration to say that our greatest
English writers have been the men
who best knew their Bibles. John
Bunyan read almost no other book^
and he contrived to write a book
of which, it is said^ more copies
have been printed than of any
other English book except the
Bible itseK. Of men as far apart
in their view of life as Byron and
Kuskin^ it could with equal truth-
fulness be said that their mastery
of style is largely due to their
perfect familiarity with the English
Bible.

Complaints of the Bible as
archaic and luicouth in its literary
form have not, indeed^ been want-
ing ; and some of the most amusing
books in the language are those
which have undertaken to remedy
this defect. A translation of the
New Testament published in New
England in 1833^ by an Episcopal

THE CHILD. US

clergyman^ exhibits in its intro-
duction the need of such a recon-
structed Bible. *^' While various
other works/' says the translator^
^^ and especially those of the most
trivial attainment^ are diligently
adorned with a splendid and sweetly
flowing diction, why should the
mere uninteresting identity and
paucity of language be so exclu-
sively employed in rendering the
Word of God ? Why should the
Christian Scriptures be divested
even of decent ornament? Why
should not an edition of the
heavenly institutes be furnished
for the reading-room^ saloon and
toilet^ as well as for the churchy
school and nursery ; for the literary
and accomplished gentleman as
well as for the plain and unlettered
citizen?" This is what this fine
writer essays to do, and a few
samples of the way he does it may
be instructive :

When thou art beneficent, let not thy

8

114 THE BIBLE AND

left hand know what thy right hand
performs.

Contemplate the lilies of the field,
how they advance.

At that time Jesus took occasion to
say, I entirely concur with Thee, O
Father, Lord of heaven and earth.

Every plantation which My heavenly
Father has not cultivated shall be extir-
pated.

Salt is salutary; but if the salt
has become vapid, how can it be re-
stored ?

Be not surprised that I announced to
Thee, Ye must be reproducfed.

For this the Father loves Me, because
I gave up My life to be afterwards re-
sumed. No one divests Me of it, but I
personally resign it. I have authority
to resign it, and I have authority to re-
sume it.

There are numerous apartments in My
Father's temple ; if not, I would have
informed you.

This will serve as an illustration
of the kind of writing to which^
for long periods^ we might have
been delivered^ if it had not been
for the better models always in the
hands of the common people^ of

THE CHILD. 115

the strong and simple Saxon of our
English Bible.

Most true is the contention of
Matthew Arnold^ that although
the Bible is the book of religion
and the book of conduct^ we can-
not draw from it the religious and
the moral truth of which it is the
treasuiy unless we treat it as litera-
ture. Literature it is^ beyond all
controversy, and not science nor
philosophy nor theology. Grievously
do we abuse it when we take its
phrases as theological formulas,
and undertake to piece them
together in what we call systematic
theology. ''^To understand that
the language of the Bible is fluid,
passing and literary, not rigid,
fixed and scientific,' is the first
step," says Arnold, '^'^ towards a
right understanding of the Bible."
It is a step which many theologians
have never taken. If our Sunday-
school teachers could get posses-
sion of this truth, a good founda-
tion would be laid for a spiritual

116 THE BIBLE AND

and vital theology. And then it
would be well to go a little deeper
and try to comprehend the fact
that all language is an instrument
which man has devised for himself
— a tool which he has fashioned^
and is all the while reshaping for
his uses ; that it is necessarily im-
perfect and fallible — never^ at its
best estate, an instrument of pre-
cision ; and that the best we can
hope for is an approximation to
the perfect utterance in words of
spiritual realities. That profound
discussion of the nature of lan-
guage in the introduction to Dr.
BushnelPs ^^God in Christ" should
be carefully studied by every one
who tries to interpret the Bible.
In the application of what are
called the exact sciences — as, for
example^ in engineering — it is often
necessary to repeat measurements
or tests a great many times, and
take the average of results that
greatly vary. And in the expres-
sion of highest truth by means of

THE CHILD. 117

human language the same method
must be employed. The thing has
to be said over many times^ in
many ways ; one analogy after
another must be suggested^ one
aspect after another considered,
luitil, by comparison and combina-
tion of all these impressions^ the
mind reaches something like a
complete apprehension.

If we find the writer (says Dr. Bush-
nell) moving with a free motion and
tied to no one symbol, unless in some
popular effort or for some single occa-
sion ; if we find him multiplying anta-
gonisms, offering cross-views, and bring-
ing us round the field to see how it looks
from different points, then we are to
presume that he has some truth in hand
which it becomes us to know. We are
to pass round accordingly with him,
take up all his symbols, catch a view
with him here and another there, use
one thing to qualify another, and the
other to shed light upon that, and by a
process of this kind endeavour to com-
prehend his antagonisms, and settle
into a complete view of his meaning.

This is an excellent statement

118 THE BIBLE AND

of what is meant wlien it is said
that the Bible is literature, and
that it must be studied as litera-
ture in order to understand it.

But while the spiritual and
moral content of the Bible is
always the main subject of our
studj^ it is well worthy of our
attention also on account of its
literary form. It was the archi-
tectural splendour of his capital^
no doubt^ that the poet was think-
ing of when he wrote : " Out of
Zion^ the perfection of beauty,
God hath shined forth." If the
beauty of architecture is one
medium by which He may be
manifested, the beauty of the
moving epic, the rhythmic ode,
the stately oration, the sparkling*
epigram, is another and a far
more perfect medium. The liter-
ary beauty of the Scriptures is not
an accident ; beauty is an essential
element of all Divine revelation^
and as such deserves our most
reverent study.

THE CHILD. 119

What Professor Moulton de-
scribes as '^ literary morphology "
is a matter of interest^ and the
attempt which he has made^ in his
recent volume entitled '^ The Lit-
erary Study of the Bible/' to give
us some account of the leading*
forms of literature preserved for
us in the Scriptures — to show us

how to distinguish one Hterary compo-
sition from another, to say exactly
where each begins and ends ; to recog-
nise epic, lyric, and other forms as they
appear in their Biblical dress, as well as
to distinguish literary forms special to
the sacred writers,

is one to which the attention of
all students of the English Bible
may well be called. But more
important than these technical
distinctions is the recognition of
the grace and loveliness with
which the language of the Bible is
often clothed. The power to dis-
cern this beauty needs to be cul-
tivated. '^ Consider the lilies/'
said the Master. The word seems

120 THE BIBLE AND

to mean that we are to sit down
among them and study them^ to
pore over their loveliness until it
enters into our souls and takes
possession. I know not why so
many of the fair flowers of speech
are strewn upon the pages of the
Book of books, unless it be that
their beauty is meant to appeal to
our thought and to give us a
high and pure pleasure. Consider
these blossoms also. This is an
integral part of the Gospel of
Ood — the revelation of beauty.
He saves from that which is low
and base by offering us pleasure
in that which is high and pure.
'' Let each one of us/' says the
Apostle, ''please his neighbour for
that which is good^ unto edifying."
It is thus that we become the
children of our Father in heaven.
And the Book which above all
other books reveals Him offers to
our minds abundant pleasure in
the graces of beautiful speech.
It may be supposed that such a

THE CHILD. 121

message as the Bible contains
could have been delivered to men
in language as tame and unimagi-
native as that of the Westminster
Confession or the Thirty-nine Ar-
ticles— that God's Bible might
have contained no poetry^ no
music^ no kindling eloquence.
But such a supposition could not
long be entertained by a tho-
roughly sane mind. The tnith
about God's love for man and
man's life in God cannot be told
in cold logical formularies ! the
words into which it is poured will
glow and burn; the sentences
which are charged with it fall into
rhythmic beat and reverberation.
The hope and joy and glory of it
are the best of it^ and these cannot
be put into logical propositions.
The creeds are not the Gospel^, any
more than the skeleton is the man.
The Gospel is not the Gospel when
it is separated from the forms of
beauty with which it came forth
from the heart of God.

122

THE BIBLE AIS^D

The question how the children
who are studying the Bible can be
made to discern and enjoy this
beauty is one to which I am not
inclined to propose any definite
solution. The main thing is that
those who teach the Book shall
themsel^res be filled with a sense
of its beauty; out of the abun-
dance of the heart the mouth will
speak. It would be well for all
teachers to study Mr. Moulton's
book; but it would not be well
for them to burden the minds of
their pupils with the technical
distinctions of literary form.

To read the Bible with the
pupils — if one can read well —
selecting those narratives which
are most dramatic and those poems
which are most beautiful^ is the
best way of conveying to their
minds the sense of its beauty. We
read so much by chapters, and
study so much by scraps and sen-
tences that the sense of literary
unities is scarcely awakened at all.

THE CHILD. 123

To read through^ at one sitting, or
continuously, with judicious omis-
sions, the story of Abraham, or the
story of Joseph, or the story of
EKjah, or the story of David,
or the story of Euth — not stop-
ping to make many expository
comments, and only pointing out
the defective ethical standards
which the stories often imply,
when they are judged by Christ's
perfect rule — would be a most
valuable exercise in a Sunday-
school class. The narratives can
be trusted to make their own
impression, and it would be diffi-
cult to find language more pictur-
esque or attractive than that in
which the Bible clothes them. A
little maid of seven, after listening
with interest to the reading of a
book of Bible stories paraphrased
for children, said, with a sigh,
^^ Yes, that is good ; but I like the
real Bible better."

The readmg of the lyrical j)or-
tions of the Bible with young

124 THE BIBLE AND

people a little more mature might
also be profitable. Such magnifi-
cent odes as the Song of Moses and
Miriam, the Song of Deborah^ the
Song of David^ should be read
through with the pupils^ and not
marred or belittled by a word of
passing comment. To return^
after the readings and call atten-
tion to the music of the phrases^
the march of the rhetoric^ and the
splendour of the imagery^ would be
judicious. But the principal
qualification of the teacher is the
ability to feel^ and to express in
his own reading the lyrical beauty
of the poetry. Many of the Psalms
and the Prophecies^ not a few of
the discourses of our Lord, and
notable passages in the Epistles
and in the Apocalypse^ can be
treated in the same way. The
arrangement of these poetic ma-
terials which Mr. Moulton has
given us^ in strophe and anti-
strophe, and in what he calls
lower and higher parallelisms^

THE CHILD. 125

while sometimes fanciful, is^ on the
whole^ very helpful to the appre-
ciation of the poetry, and would
greatly assist the teacher who
sought^ by such a method, to
convey to his pupils the beauty of
the forms in which the saving*
truth of the Bible is expressed.

VII.
By

Frank C. Porter, Ph.D.,

PEOFESSOR IN THE YALE DIVINITY
SCHOOL.

VII.

The question liow far the results
of the historical criticism of the
Bible should be used in the instruc-
tion of children is^ for those who
accept these results, in part a ques-
tion of truth, and in part of expe-
diency ; but it is also in part a
question of profit, and in this
aspect I wish to consider it. The
historical criticism of the Bible
means the use of its books as
historical sources ; and this means
that the student does not value
the book simply as a book, but is
looking for something that lies
behind the book. The question,
not indeed of the right — let this
be taken for granted — ^but of the
worth of criticism, resolves itself^
therefore, into the question, Which
is of gi'eater value, the book as a

9

130 THE BIBLE AND

book^ or the historical facts
and persons behind the book?
Does critical study take us from
the less to the greater^ or from the
greater to the less ? If it leads to
the less^ we need not trouble
children and the world at large
with it ; if to the greater we must
offer the new treasure to all. We
cannot accept the historian's
natural answer to the question,
for his common thought is an over-
valuation of his work. To be
sure, the movement from fiction to
fact is a movement up^ but the
movement from truth to fact is a
movement down. It does not much
matter whence Shakespeare got
his stories^ and how much fact,
how much fiction they contain;
and the critic^ who must ask these
questions, should not suppose that
he is doing the greater thing in
answering them. Scholars wiU
analyse and excavate in the effort
to go back to Homer, and decide
whether he was one or many, and

THE CHILD. 131

what was f act^ wliat fiction^ about
Troy and its fall. But the story is
worth more than the fact behind it.
It is the universal and the eternal
in Shakespeare and Horner^ not the
local and temporal, that we wish
the child to gain and to love. On
the other hand, there are great
events in human history, whose
significance far surpasses that of
their records, so that to make our
way through records to the facts
is to go from the less to the
greater.

Is the virtue of the Bible, then,
like that of Homer and Shakespeare
in that it lies in the book as books,
or is the virtue in the facts behind
the books ? It is in neither alone,
but is both in very different
degrees ; and upon the recognition
of this fact the solution of our
problem turns. It is worth while
to let children accompany the
historian as fast and as far as they
can, when the events and person-
alities of which a book tells are

132 THE BIBLE ANI>

more profitable than the book
itself for teachmg^ for reproof^ for
correction^ for instruction in
righteousness. But the discovery
that every book in the Bible has
interest and value as a historical
source should not lead us to sup-
pose that this is the chief interest
and value of all alike. The his-
torical interest is^ indeed, now some-
what domineering. It threatens to
deprive us of the free and happy
appreciation of story as story, of
poetry as poetry, in its anxiety to
know facts. In an age of science
we must fight on every hand for
our aesthetic enjoyment, our spiri-
tual appreciation of things as they
are, because we are so possessed
by the passion to get back to things
as they were and as they came to be.
There is in the Bible much story
and poetry which is of value for
the spirit that is in it more than
for the facts that are behind it.
The Hebrew mind expressed its
religious sentiments and ideals by

THE CHILD. 133

preference in imagery and narra-
tive. The Grospels teach us how
effective the parable may be as the
language of religion. And the
parable^ in a large senee^ is much
more extensively used in the Bible
than our prosaic minds readily
perceive. There will be, it is true^
much diversity of opinion regard-
ing the question where the story^
where the fact, is of greater reli-
gious value. Religion may demand
the actual where art would be
contented mth the ideal. But the
case is often clear. It is of far
more use for us to know the mind
of the writer of Job than the facts
or traditions with which he deals.
It is in the book that these get
their value. Of other poetical
books of the Old Testament the
same is time ; of Proverbs, of Ec-
clesiastes and of the Psalms. His- -
torical questions in the case of
these books are peculiarly hard,
for the very reason that their
connection with history is so

134

THE BIBLE AND

slight. But books in the historical
form^ also^ may be more important
as books than as histories. This
is especially true when they are
not the work of individuals, but
are formed in a national tradition
and take into themselves the spirit
of a people's life. The stories of
the beginnings of Israel's history
are such products of the Israelitish
genius. This is the source of their
perennial charm. These products
of the youthful spirit of Israel are,
indeed, in our Bible, mixed with
the work of a later age and a dif-
ferent spirit. One must read the
prophetic apart from the priestly
narratives if he would feel the
breath of the dawn of the nation's
life. For this distinction we are de-
pendent upon the historical critic.
Let us by all means give to chil-
dren the advantage of this distinc-
tion in their reading of the Bible,
and let us explain it to them when
they ask for the explanation or
need it. But let not the critic

THE CHILD. 135

spoil for us, young or old, the
chaiiii of these stories because he
does not know how much in them
is history and how much legend.
Let children read them as they
are, but see that they seize upon
their spirit, so that if questions of
fact afterward arise they may feel
that their treasure in the story
does not depend upon the answer.
But, on the other hand^ the
Bible records events that are in
themselves of the greatest reli-
gious significance, great as evi-
dences of the hand of Grod in
human history, great as causes of
progress and achievement in the
religious life of humanity. Such
events were the exodus from Egypt,
the establishment of the kingdom
of Israel, its division, the fall of
Samaria, the captivity and the
return of Judah. In and through
these events great movements of
life and thought were initiated in
which we are still borne onward —
movements significant not only in

136 THE BIBLE AND

their ideal contents^ but in their
historical actuality. Whatever the
charm of the record^ the facts are
more impressive^ and we are more
concerned to know the facts as
they were than to keep the records
as they are. Here historical science^
in passing through the records to
the facts, contributes to a larger
and truer faith in God. When
criticism pushes aside the over-
growth and brings to light some
hidden flower of rare beauty, its
work is of far greater value to the
spirit of man than when it proceeds
to pull the flower to pieces. Chil-
dren should be shown the flower,
for they cannot find it by them-
selves; but to the deeper know-
ledge of it loving contemplation is
a better way than analysis.

In the events just mentioned
certain actors appear — the prophets
— in regard to whom one hesitates
to say whether they disclosed the
significance of the events, or gave
the events their significance.

THE CHILD.

137

whether the events of these per-
sonalities were the more immediate
work of God. They were certainly
the supreme flower of IsraeFs reli-
gious lif e^ and it is one of the chief
contributions of historical science
to religious faith that it has given
us a closer view of these men. Yet^
just here where the religious value
of historical methods is most evi-
dent, it is perhaps hardest to know
how to make use of them for im-
mature minds.

Behind the Book of Isaiah^ for
example^ stands the prophet Isaiah^
who is greater than the book. Not
only for history^ but for religion^
we value the book chiefly as a
means of acquainting us with one
of the greatest of the men of faith ;
and we are ready to do with the
book whatever will help us to reach
the man. But between us and
Isaiah stands the copyist, and back
of him the scribe. The Revisers
in their preface let us know what
hard work the copyists have made

138 THE BIBLE AND

iis^ and how far textual criticism is
from having undone all their errors
in the Old Testament. But the
scribes have left us a still harder
task. Our Book of Isaiah is their
work, not his. They were wrong
in ascribing all this material to
him. Not only chapters 40 — 66,
but parts of chapters 1 — 39 cannot
be from Isaiah, nor from Isaiah's
age. If we would know him, we
must set these parts aside — ^not
that they are of less value for
history or for religion than the
rest, but that they are not of value
in the search for Isaiah. Further,
the events with reference to which
Isaiah spoke must be known, the
background of his time, and even
what came before and after, the
sources and effects of his hf e, if we
would know him. And, finally,
after all this preparation, there is
needed that sympathetic inward
response of soul to soul, by which
alone one man knows another. So
that our knowledge of Isaiah is

THE CHILD. 139

conditioned on the one side by
much difficult scientific research^
and on the other side by our spiri-
tual capacity^ our inner relation-
ship to him.

Of these two conditions of the
right understanding and good use
of a book of Scripture^ either one
may be over-estimated. If the
condition of scholarship is em-
phasized, we may be forced to
some such position as this. Chil-
dren and untrained persons cannot
follow the hard path just described,
even if they have a guide ; while
the uncritical reading of the book
mil surely lead them astray from
the true path. It is, therefore^
better that they should not read
the book at all, but should receive
its treasures at second hand. Let
the historical expert, through a
highly special kind of skilled
labour, make his way into the
presence of the great personalities
of Biblical history, and get from
the vision and contact fresh moral

140 THE BIBLE AND

and religious impulses whicli shall
become a part of his own personal
life. Then let him impart this
possession to others^ not as he
gained it^ but directly^ in the
language of to-day^ and by the
heightened power of his own per-
sonality. This result has actually
been reached of late by a young
German critic. But such inter-
vention of the scholar between the
Christian and his Bible is as in-
tolerable as the Roman Catholic
intervention of the priest. The
learned have^ as a matter of expe-
rience^ no such advantage over the
unlearned in gaining from the
Scriptures eternal life. Children
and childlike men are not less
fitted than others to apprehend
and appropriate the Christian re-
ligion^ but^ according to the testi-
mony of its founder^ they are
better fitted than the wise.

This brings us to the other
condition for the right use of the
Bible. If childlike himiihty and

THE CHILD. 141

trust alone are needed^ the ques-
tion may arise whether historical
science is at all worth while,
whether it does not rather lead
one aside from the best uses of the
book. This, too^ has been recently
maintained in Germany.^ It has
been asserted that what the Bible,
as it is, offers to the simple and
true-hearted reader is everywhere
of far greater value than anything
that historical science, with all its
uncertainties, can discover behind
the book ; and that the search for
the less is a positive hindrance to
the finding of the greater.

I believe that in both of these
extreme views the difficulties of
the historical process are exag-
gerated. To be sure, path-breakers
in the historical field must be
rarely equipped, but less gifted
minds can pursue the path when
it has once been made, and can
recognise the truth of conclusions
which they could never have
* By Professor Kahler, of Halle.

142 THE BIBLE AND

reached alone. The main concki-
sions of the critical school rest,,
not on matters of philological or
archaeological detail, but upon
considerations which appeal to the
common reason of men ; and in
proportion to their importance and
security are their grounds broad
and general and capable of popu-
larisation. The common mind is
more and more accessible to scien-
tific truths in their large outlines,
and its need is measured by its
capacity.

On the other hand, it is true
that the scientific study of the
Bible is only preparatory, even
when the preparation is quite
essential, to that inward apprecia-
tion, that sympathetic insight,
that response of feeling and will,
which is a matter of character,
not of learning. In the reading
of no other book does this factor
play so large a part. One will
find in the Bible what he has the
moral and spiritual capacity to

THE CHILD. , 143

find. Yet the preparation is
essential. Historical criticism is
only the effort to answer the
characteristic intellectual questions
of our age. We cannot and would
not silence the questions. To
children they will be even more
natural and inevitable than they
are to us, and children have a
right to the best answer we can
give. It is not in point to say
that the past found the spiritual
treasure of the Bible without
asking such questions. For our
age they are vital questions^ and
they must have our attention^
whether we are glad or sorry to
give it^ if the book is to keep its
old power and gain new power
over the heart and will of meit.

I would have the child study the
Book of Isaiah in such a way as to
find the man, beheving that the
sight of the man will call forth
admiration and love, and will be a
greater power in the child's life,
making for faith and righteous-

144 THE BIBLE AND

ness, than the book as it is could
be. The heart of the Bible is the
Grospels^ and here our problem
centres. Here are books of match-
less beauty and power^ yet behind
them stands a person who is
greater than the books. His-
torical students cannot but try to
go back of the books to the
person. By a comparison of the
Gospels with each other^ they will
look for the actual deeds and
w^ords of Jesus ; by a comparison
of these with each other they will
search for His ruling thoughts
and purposes ; by a study of
His race and age they will seek
for the influences that deter-
mined the outward course of His
life, and the direction and form of
His teaching, that they may dis-
tinguish the new from the old, the
inward from the outward, the
spirit from the form. Yet, after
all their efforts to unveil behind
the Gospels the features of Christ,
what they see will depend upon

THE CHILD. 145

what they are, the sight of Christ
being still, as it was when He was
on earth, the testing and the mak-
ing of character. And yet the his-
torical work is a help. The
clearer our outward vision of
Jesus, the easier is the inward
approach to Him, for it is often,er
true that intellectual difficulties
put obstacles in the way of the
impulse of the heart toward
Christ, than that the intellectual
view satisfies the mind and stills
the heart's impulse.

Children, then, should not be
deprived of the help that criticism
can give in the study of the Christ
of the Gospels. Indeed, the
teacher who reads the Gospels in
their relations to one another, and
who puts the life-work of Jesus
in its historical setting, will not
be able to teach the youngest
person without using, directly or
indirectly, the light derived from
these studies. At an early age
the life and words of Jesus should

10

146 THE BIBLE AND

be studied by the comparison of
parallel accounts in the different
Gospels. The study of the Gospels
in their individuality should come
afterwards. The first search is for
Christ Himself. Let the peculiar-
ities of each Gospel be left aside at
firsts and let attention be given to
the material common to two or
more Gospels. The use of Stevens
and Burton's "Harmony of the
Gospels for Historical Study/' or
of Waddy's ^' Harmony of the
Four Gospels ""^ in Sunday-schools
is^ I believe^ advisable. The advan-
tages of such comparative study of
the Gospels are many. Most ob-
viously it brings us nearer to the
very words and deeds of Jesus. It
suggests the answer to many ques-
tions that perplex the child's
mind as well as the man's. It im-

* The Revised Version is used in both ;
the former gives important parallels in
footnotes which do not fall into aharmon-
istic scheme ; the latter gives aid to the
oomparison of the text in detail.

THE CHILD. 147

parts the right view of Scripture
as a whole^ freeing the child at the
outset from that bondage to the
letter from which many have
broken away only to lose^ with the
letter^ the spiritual treasure which
is nowhere else to be found.

Further, the child should be
taught the outward and inward
conditions of the life of Christ.
He could early read such a book
as Morrison's '^ Jews Under Roman
Eule " with interest. And the habit
of viewing the life of Jesus in its
historical connections could easily
be formed. By such a view one's
sense of the uniqueness of Christ is
heightened, and, on the other hand,
the distinction between the form
and the spirit, between the temporal
and the eternal, in the earthly life
of Jesus is more readily perceived.

These two things the child
should learn — to find Christ in the
Gospels, and to find the Eternal in
Christ. When he has done this
he has solved in essence the

148

THE BIBLE AND

problem of his religious life^ and
he has solved also^, in principle,
the lesser problem of the Bible and
its use.

The vision of the person of
Christ is the end of all Biblical
study, and by its relation to the
end all else is to be understood ;
the vision of Christ within^ but
behind and above the Gospels ;
within, so that He may be found
by one who reads the Gospels as
they are with a childlike heart;
but behind, so that if the veil of
writing be somewhat pushed apart.
His form will be more fully dis-
closed; and yet again above, so
that when we see Him and hear
Him as He was, we still need to
translate His words and deeds out
of a language of a certain age and
race into the universal language of
the spirit, that we may hear Him
speaking not to others but to us.

It is the great service of the
historical criticism of the Bible,
that of the Old Testament as well as

THE CHILD. 149

that of the New^ that it gives help^
which is to the modern mind
indispensable^ to the more direct
vision and deeper apprehension of
Christ. One to whom it renders
this service will not withhold it
from children^ and will not do
harm by its misuse.

vin.

By the Rev.

Lyman Abbott, d.d*

^ ^ OF THK '^J-^

UKTVP/DOTT-.^

VIII.

I IMAGINE before me a class of
intelligent boys and girls from
twelve years of age and upwards.
They have studied something of
ancient history^ and know some-
thing of the growth of nations.
To this class of boys and girls I
address myself in this article^ en-
deavouring to tell them^ as far as
it is possible so to do within the
compass of so brief an article,
what the modern scholar thinks
about the construction and growth
of the Old Testament."^

More than three thousand years
ago, before Virgil or Horace had
written their poems, or Cicero or
Demosthenes had delivered their

* Of course all scholars are not agreed.
The views here embodied may be defined
perhaps as those of the more conservative
of the modern school.

154 THE BIBLE AND

orations ; before Csesar had crossed
the Eubicon^ or Alexander had
ridden Bucephalus^ or the Greeks
had met the Persians at the battle
of Marathon; yes, before Homer
had sung the songs which bear his
name, or Trojan and Greek had
met in battle about the walls of
Troy; when everywhere govern-
ment was despotism and religion
was superstition — there dwelt, in
most horrible form of slavery, a
singular people in a province of
Egypt. By a series of remarkable
deliverances they were set free
from bondage, and, crossing a
northern arm of the Eed Sea and
traversing the wilderness of Ara-
bia, encamped in a great plain at
the foot of one of the majestic and
awful mountains in the south of
the Arabian Peninsula. Here
their great leader and prophet
gave them their constitution. It
was at once political and religious.
It was very simple and yet it was
very radical. The Egyptians, from

THE CHILD. 155

whose land this people had come
f orth^ worshipped a great multi-
tude of gods. Their learned men^
indeed^ said to one another that
there really is bi^t one God^ and
that the deities whom the people
worshipped were but manifesta-
tions of Him^ if they were not
merely imaginations of the people.
This belief^ however^ they kept to
themselves. Moses^ by his declara-
tions^ made it the common faith
of the children of Israel. ^' Hear,
O Israel^' ^ he said, '^'^ Jehovah your
Grod is one God." He told them
further that this God was a
righteous God ; that He demanded
righteousness of His children, and
that He demanded nothing else.
This seems very simple to us now,
but it was very strange and very
radical doctrine in the world then.
Founded on this simple principle
he gave this people their religious
and political constitution. It is
known in Hebrew history as the
Book of the Covenant, and is con-

156 THE BIBLE AND

tained in the 20th^ 21st^ 22nd and
23rd chapters of the Book of
Exodus."^ This^ with the possible
exception of a few odes and songs^
is probably the most ancient
writing in the Bible ; it is cer-
tainly its most ancient teaching.
It contains the famous Ten Com-
mandments^ which declare that
the people should reverence God,
honour their parents, respect each
other's rights of person^ the family^
property and reputation. These
simple principles it elaborates and
applies with a number of specific
illustrations. It contains no di-
rections to perform sacrifices, no
instruction respecting ritualism,
and makes no provision for a
priesthood.

The Israelites^ after spending a
number of years in the wilderness,
entered upon a campaign against
the inhabitants of Canaan and

* By some believed to begin with xx.
23, and not to include the Ten Command-
ments.

THE CHILD. 157

took possession of their land. The
story of this campaign is written
in the Book of Joshua. There
followed a period of nearly three
centuries^ which we may describe
as colonial days, the story of which
is contained in the Book of Judges
and the first part of the Book of
Samuel. During this time there
was no true capital, indeed no true
nation. There were a variety of
separate provinces, having almost
as little common life as that of the
American colonies before the for-
mation of the Constitution of the
United States. In war these co-
lonies united, in peace they separ-
ated from each other again. At
length, weary of perpetual jealousy
and strife, and desirous to emu-
late the example of other na-
tions about them, they estab-
lished a monarchy, and David
came as the second king to the
throne. In many respects David
resembles King Alfred the Great
of England. He had a profoundly

158 THE BIBLE AND

religious nature^ and it found ex-
pression in odes and psalms so
striking^ if not so numerous^ that
they have given his name to the
Hebrew hymn-book. He was a
great warrior, and in his early life
the leader of an irresponsible band
of outlaws, though always an in-
tense patriot. He had a pro-
foundly religious spirit, and a
capacity for statesmanship, and
a power of organisation very
remarkable. Under his forty
years of administration the co-
lonies were welded into one
measurably harmonious nation.
How this nation grew in wealth
and splendour, but not in real
prosperity, under Solomon, the
foolish wise king ; how it split
in sunder under his son ; how its
divided life was subsequently car-
ried on in two separate historical
currents, as the life of Israel and
the life of Judah; how the land
became the battle-ground of con-
tending nations — Egypt on the

THE CHILD. 159

south, Assyria^ Persia, Babylon
and Chaldea on the east ; how at
last the Israelites were carried
away captive, dispersed, and have
disappeared from human history ;
how a little later the Jews, or
inhabitants of Judea, were also
carried away captive, but retained
their religious faith and their dis-
tinctive characteristics in the land
of their captivity, is told in the
Books of Kings and Chronicles.
And how of the latter there
returned, after seventy years of
exile, a number of immigrants to
rebuild Jerusalem and take up
again the story of national life,
the mere remnant of a nation, and
under adverse circumstances, is
told in the Books of Ezra and
Nehemiah.

During the progress of this
history there were two religious
forces at work among this people,
very much as during later history
in Europe. These two forces may
be characterised as the ecclesias-

160 THE BIBLE AND

tical and the non-ecclesiastical^ the
priestly and the prophetic. In
European history the priestly ten-
dency was largely represented by
the Roman Catholic Churchy the
prophetic by the Eeformed or
Protestant Churches ; in England
the priestly by the High Church
party in the Established Church,
the prophetic by the Puritan and
Wesleyan movements ; in New
England the priestly or ecclesias-
tical by the Puritan Established
Churchy and the prophetical or
non-ecclesiastical by the Baptists^
the Quakers^ and the Indepen-
dents. But in every church and
in every community both elements
are more or less to be seen— some-
times sharply separated^ some-
times closely commingled.

During the period of Jewish
history both these elements grew
up together. Moses had probably
at the close of his life delivered a
farewell address analogous in some
respects to the famous farewell

THE CHILD. 161

address of Washington. Tradi-
tions of this address had been
preserved^ possibly in documents^
more probably in oral reports. In
that age of the world oral tradition
was far more enduring and trust-
worthy than it is in our time^ when
we trust to written and printed
records in place of verbal memory.
In one of the great reformations
which occurred in the Jewish
history an unknown prophet^ de-
sirous to revive the moral . law and
re-establish its sanctity^ gathered
together these traditions and recast
them in a book which he called
" The Second Giving of the Law."
It was dramatically represented as
being Moses's farewell address,
though the author did not intend
to deceive, nor, in fact, did deceive,
the people of the age in which the
book appeared. This is the Book
of Deuteronomy, supposed to have
been written about eight hundred '
years after the death of Moses.
It has very little to say about

11

162 THE BIBLE AND

church observances and a great
deal to say about practical right-
eousness. It embodies the pro-
phetic ornon-ecclesiastical religious
teaching which had descended from
Moses and had been kept alive in
the nation by his successors.

Meanwhile^ a very different re-
ligious life had been developed in
this nation — the priestly or eccle-
siastical. From a very early period
in human history^ so remote that
scholars do not know when the
practice began^ it has been the
custom among pagan people to
express their religious sentiments,
whether of gratitude for the good-
ness of the gods, of penitence for
sin against the gods, of desire for
the forgiveness of the gods, or of
consecration to the service of the
gods, by sacrifices. Sometimes
these have been of great magni-
tude, hundreds of cattle being
slain at once. Not infrequently
human sacrifices have been offered
to appease the wrath or win the

THE CHILD. 163

favour of supposed deities. The
Jewish ecclesiastical law accepted
this custom and embodied it in the
Jewish ritual^ but it made two
radical changes ; it declared that
the value of the sacrifice depended^
not on the value of the article
sacrificed^ but on the spirit of the
person offering it^ and it laid stress
upon the truth that there was no
legal obligation to offer such ser-
vices^ that to be of any value they
must be the free-will offering of
the worshipper, and must express
his real and sincere sentiment.
^'^He shall offer it of his own
voluntary will at the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation
before the Lord," was the funda-
mental provision of the ecclesias-
tical code. But as time went on
these sacrifices, which at first were
very simple, grew more and more
elaborate. A temple was con-
structed where they were to be
offered. Probably at first custom,
eventually law, forbade offering

164 THE BIBLE AND

them anywhere else. ^ At first a
father might offer for his family,
or a king for his people, but later
the priesthood took the whole con-
trol of the sacrificial system, and
no offerings were counted legiti-
mate except those which passed
through the hands of the priest-
hood. This code, which was nearly
a thousand years in growing up^
was finally embodied in a series of
written regulations, most of which
were contained in the Book of
Leviticus, but some also in Exodus
and some in Numbers. This code,
so strangely different from the
simple moral law of the Book of
the Covenant and the second giving*
of the law — the Book of Deutero-
nomy— embodies the priestly or
ecclesiastical life of the nation as
it had grown up in and around the
Temple in Jerusalem during a
thousand years.

While this growth was taking
place in the prophetic and in the
ecclesiastical life of the kingdom.

THE CHILD.

16^

there was also growing up among
them a literature. The most
notable portion of this literature
consisted of sermons or addresses
delivered by men who were at once
preachers^ reformers and states-
men. They fulfilled this threefold
f luiction much as John Calvin did
in Geneva^ as Knox did in Scotland^
and as the Puritan preachers did
in New England. The preacher in
a theocracy is the public counsellor
both of the ofiicers and of the
people. These sermons or addresses
— sometimes they were songs sung
to the accompaniment of a harp,
and often were poetic in their form
— were^ in the course of time^
collected under the names of the
principal preachers. The book,
however^ not infrequently bore the
name of one preacher^ while it
contained utterances of several.
This is especially the case with the
Book of Isaiah and with that of
Zechariah. In such a case the
principal author gave his name

166 THE BIBLE AND

to the entire collection. Many
of these prophecies are unintel-
ligible^ or -almost unintelligible^
to the reader of our ordinary
English Bible^ because he does not
know the historical conditions
under which they were uttered.
His state of mind in respect to
them is like that of one who should
read Daniel Webster's reply to
Hayne without knowing that there
was a United States of America
and a threatened movement to
nullify the national laws, if not to
secede from the nation.

The hymns of the Jewish nation
which grew up through the long
period of its history from the time
of David, if not from the time of
Moses, down almost to the time of
Christ, were gathered together,
as in our day hymns in common
use are gathered together in hymn-
books. This Hebrew hymn-book
is known as the Book of Psalms .
I have no doubt that David con-
tributed some of the most beautiful

THE CHILD. 167

^^^^^opth:;^^?)^

UNIVERSITY"

of these Psalms to the collection,
though this is doubted by some
scholars. But it is quite certain
that a majority of them were
written at a much later date, and
many of them while the Jews were
captives in Babylon, or after their
return to the Holy Land. The
other books of the Old Testament
would be classified in ordinary
literature, probably as helles-lettres.
How far those which are histori-
cal in their form have a historical
basis of truth we cannot now
judge. They are to be regarded,
however, as literature, not as his-
tory. Such is the Book of Euth—
a beautiful idyll of the colonial
days, illustrating the sincerity
and simplicity of woman's love ;
the Book of Esther — a dra-
matic story, illustrating woman's
courage and glowing with splen-
did patriotism; the Book of
Job, which has been well called
an *^^epic of the inner life," and
which some eminent critics have

J>^

168

THE BIBLE AND

characterised as the noblest poem
in literature ; the Book of Eccle-
siastes — in appearance a mono-
logue^ but in reality a dialogue^ in
which " The Two Voices " in man,
as Tennyson calls them^ the voice
of cynicism and that of spiritual
hope^ struggle for victory ; and the
Song of Solomon — a love drama in
which a maiden resists all the
flatteries and blandishments of the
king who would make her queen of
his harem, and remains faithful to
her peasant lover, to whom at last
she returns in purity and happi-
ness. To these must be added
the Book of Proverbs, a col-
lection of the wise sayings and
apophthegms which grew up in
the nation during the thousand
years of its history, and which took
the name of Solomon because of his
historic reputation for wordly wis-
dom. Had it been written by one
man, we might have described him
as the Benjamin Franklin of his
age and community. Finally, we

THE CHILD. 169

must add^ last of all^ though the
date of its composition is uncer-
tain^ the Book of Genesis — that is^
the Book of Origins. This was
written late in Hebrew history^ as
a kind of introduction to the his-
torical books. In it the author
takes the legends of a prehistoric
time as he finds them floating in
tradition of his own and other
nations^ and rewrites them^ writing
God and Divine truth into them,
somewhat as Tennyson took the
Arthurian legends and rewrote
them in " The Idylls of the King/'
sometimes interpreting moral
beauty which he discovered in
them, sometimes imparting to
them moral beauty which they did
not before possess.

This is the Old Testament. It
is a collection of Hebrew litera-
ture; it includes law, history,
hymjiody, drama, fiction, poetry
and moral and religious teaching ;
perhaps I might say sermons. Its
earliest important writing is the

12

170 THE BIBLE AND

Book of the Covenant ; its latest
probably some of the Psalms. Its
Book of Deuteronomy is an elabora-
tion and amplification of the
political and religious instruction of
the founder of the commonwealth.
Its Book of Leviticus is an elabora-
tion of the liturgical code which
grew up during eight hundred
years or more of Church life. Its
literature is as various and as
splendid as can be found in that
of any other nation in an equal
length of time^ though not as
voluminous. And the whole col-
lection is pervaded by the great,
simple, inspiring, religious ideas
that there is one God, that He is
a righteous Grod, that He demands
righteousness of His children, and
that if they desire righteousness
He will forgive their sins and help
them to become worthy to be
called His children. This message
to Israel by its prophets, this
message of Israel to the world,
this revelation of God and His

THE CHILD. 171

righteousness and His redeeming
love, constitutes the value of a
book which has not only no peer,
but nothing parallel or analogous
to it in this respect in the litera-
ture of the world, and makes it a
fitting preparation for the New
Testament, in which this revela-
tion reaches its climax in the life
of Jesus Christ.

LONDON :

W. SPEAIGHT AND SONS, PRINTERS,

FETTER LANE.

THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW

AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS

WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY

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