The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1882-01-13
Huxley ON the Bible.

In the Contemporary Rerie,o Professor
Huxley gives his views on the Bible as fol-
lows:
| have always been strongly in favor OF
secular education In the sense Of education
without theology; but | must confess that
have been no less seriously perplexed TO
| know by what practical measures the religious
| feeling, which is the essential basis of con-
| duct, was 10 be kept mp, in the present utter
| ly chaotic state Of opinion Oh these matters,
without the use of the Bible. The pagan
moraists lack life and color, and even the
noble stole, Marcus Antonius, is too high and
refined for an ordinary child. Take the
Bible as a whole, make the severest deduc-
ton which fair criticism can dict ate for short
conings and positive errors, eliminate, as a
sensible lay teacher would, If left TO him.
self all that is not desirable for children to
| occupy themselves with, and there still re-
mains IN this old literature a vast residuum
of moral grandeur. And then consider tile
great historical fact that for three centuries
this book has been woven into the life of all
that is best and nobest In English history
that it has become the national epic of Brit
ain, and Is familiar to noble and simple,
from John o. Groat's house to Lands End, as
Dante and Tasso were once TO the Italians
that IL was written In the noblest and purest
English, and abounds In exquisite beauties
Of merely literary form and, finally, that
1t forbids the veriest hind, who never left his
native village, to be ignorant of the existence
Of other countries and other civilizations, and
of a great past stretching back TO the funniest
limits of the Oldest nations In the world.
BY the study of what other books could chill
dren be so much humanzed and made to
feel that each figure I'm that vast historical
procession fills, like themselves, but a mo-
meniary space In the interva. between the
Two eternities, and earns the blessings or the
curses of all time, according to its effect TO
do good and hate evil, even as they are earn
ing their payment for their work?
And If Bible reading Is not accompanied
by constraint and solemriiy as IL it were. a
wv hoe
there Is anything In which children take
more pleasure. At least, know that some
of the pleasantest recoilections Of my child
hood are connected with the voluntary study
of an ancient Bible which belonged TO my
grandmother. There were splendid pictures
In IL, to be sure, but reco,lect little or moth
ing about them save portrait Of the high
priest In his vest ments. What comes "ividly
back to my mind are remembrances of my
delight In the histories Of Joseph and David,
and of my keen appreciation Of the chival-
rous kindness Of Abraham In his dealings
with Lot. Like sudden fash there returns
back upon me my utter scorn Of the petit
Jogging meanness of Jacob, and my sympa-
thetc grief over the heart breaking lamen-
tafio. of the cheated EsatI-" Hast thou not
a blessing for me, also, o my father?" And
see, as I'm a cloud, pictures Of the grand
plant asmag' ria of the book Of Revelation.
/ enumerate. as they issue, the childish
impressions which come crowding out of the
pgeon-holes In my brain, In which they have
lain almost undisturbed for forty years. /
prize them "a an.evidence that child Of five
or six years old, left to his own devices may
be deeply interested in the Bible and draw
moral sustenance from IL.