Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1889-02-04


scholars of the world altered no truth.
abrogated no command. 1twas mere
" an adapting of the old truths to
new forms of speech, and affected
none of the vital principles of the
book. Therefore, the teacher who
has the Bible for his text book has
something stable in character. He
may devote his time to it with no fear
that advancing years will compel him
! to unlearn much that has cost him in
tense application. In it he finds
Gods methods of dealing with men
revealed. Revealed in so many
ways, under such a variety of cir
cumstances that every phase of hui
man nature in all the world for all
time finds its corresponding events
portrayed. AS God changes not, we
may learn what to expect when like
conditions to those depicted in Bible
scenes appear in our lives. In its
adaptability to human need the Bible
is unsurpassed.
You may move into another town
or county and find that your child
must have q new set of school books
You may go the world around and
find no place where Bible truth is not
potent factor in all pure life; where
the lessons of faith, love, sympathy,
service, and the ministry of patience
| it inculcates are not needed to make
souls happy and safe. 1t is a fact
the Bible teacher will do well to re-
member, that his teaching is not linn
tied to the time and place of his sta
ted labor, but that the thought he
carries, the truth he enforces upon
his pupils heart may blossom and
develop into kindly acts thousand
miles away after years of latent life.
1t is with masterful forces that he
deals, and he cannot esteem to high
ly his text book.
Such being the case he should
watch with jealous eye any attempt
to contradict the truth the Bible
teaches, or any attempt to belittle its
power. He will find at intervals in
his life those who haughtily discard
the Bible from their confidence.
They will have some glib utterance
concerning a miracle, an historic fact
or profound doctrine by which they
will turn off our ancient faith with q
laugh. They may ask questions
which neither they themselves, the
one questioned, nor any living man
can answer, and yet, because the
Bible student cannot answer they pro-
fess contempt for his faith. To the
teacher this is the more exasperating
because he knows they know the rid
iculous lack of reason they are using
under a semblance of fairness.
But this condition of things must
be met, and the teacher must meet it
boldly. He must admit no conclu-
sion no matter how speciously reach
ed, that contradicts his text book.
He must meet the unanswerable
questions by reference to the finite
ness of man and the infiniteness of
God. If man could understand the
thoughts of God in all their complete
ness he would be God himself. The
teacher cannot be successful in i'm
parting a truth he does not fully be-
lieve himself. The first requisite
then for the teacher is implicit conf
dence in the truth and authority of
his book A confidence which always
turns like the needle to the pole after
every conflict with doubt and error.
One of the chief sources of weakness
in Bible teaching at the present time
is that of admitting the deductions of
science or the speculations of human
philosophy to an eqnal authority with
the Bible even when those deductions
give the lie to divine truth. One
must be willing to accept the epithets
of marrow, "puritanical' ssbigoted''
which will be flung at him for hold
ing to the book, rather than abate one
iota of his devotion to it. He has
good right to make much of his text
book for it comes of divine inspira-
ton. Even doubt could not exist
had there not been the divine affirma-
ton in the first place. When we
think that all the knowledge the race
has of God and the hereafter is con-
tanned in this book, or has been de-
rived from it, we can see how little
ground unbelief has, per Sc, to stand
upon. 1t is unlikely that God max
ing any revelation at all to men
should make one incorrect in fact, or
lacking in adaptation to their needs.
The existence of the book itself is
one of the strongest arguments for
belief of the truth it holds.
But the teacher will make mistake
who attempts to teach all branches
of human knowledge from the Bible.
1t Is not text book on astronomy,
or arithmetic, or chemistry, or book |
keeping, but whenever it alludes to |
any subject of secular knowledge 1t
touches it along the lines of truth.
Its story of creation aligns with sci
entlhc order, or rather as science de-
Yelopes there is seen TO be no conflict /
between the testimony of the rocks
and the testimony of God. Modern
astronomy but confirms the truth .
uttered thousands of years ago ny
the patriarch of Cz-tthe Stretcheth /