Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1896-04-09
BIBLE AND COLLEGE.

A condition which has inter-
ested not anly theologians but all
students of sociological and COR
related problems arises out of
the prevailing ignorance Of the
Bible among college graduates
All the commentators agree as to
the fact. A want Of Biblical
knowledge is admitted as an eff
feet, but there is variety of
opinion as to the cause or causes
producing it.
Charles Dudley Warner is one
literature of the subject. Mr.
! Warner believes that the igncr~
ance of college students and
graduates concerning the Bible
and the marvellous histories and
allegories 1t ntains is want of
proper training aud education in
the home. IF its treasures are
not part of growing child~
hood" says he, 'they will AL
ways be found external to its
late possesscrs. He contends
that it is IN the family this edu-
cation must begin, and that lit
will then be, as it used to be, an
easy and unconscious educa tion
a,stimulus to the imagination and
a ready key to the great world of
tradition, custom, history and
| literature.
The world will grow in grace
at rate never heretofore at
tained when family worship be>
comes an every day incident of
family life. It would be inter
esting to know in how many of
the families of this country,
where both the father aud mother
are protesting Christians, both
the morning and evening find
religious services in progress.
Or to restric- the inquiry, how
many such families are there
where the word of God is read
in "a hours? We venture to as
sert that the custom of family
worship is not observed in two
per cent of the Christian homes
of our land. In a larger percent
age of such homes the head of
the family goes through what
is termed by courtesy saying
of grace" over meat. This is sure
to become in time a perfunctory
ceremony unless a man is ems
dowed with a versatility which
enables him to say ething
new three times day for years
Il loses character as religious
observance and yet, in the great
majority of Christian homes, it is
made to do duty for family wor
ship,
The bible is a never ceasing
we'll spring of inspiration
It could never become monoton-
Gus when read by judicious
father to his family. Burns had
the right idea of what should
constitute family worship when
in the ''Cotter's Saturday Night"
be wrote how the venerable
father OF the flock "reads por-
tion with judicious care" This
does not mean. as it is too often
understood to mean; that the
reader was under moral Obliga-
tion to his audience to avoid
certain portions Of Scripture, ais
though it might mean that and
still not destroy the beauty
of household worship as a re
ligious form and observance.
What the poet meant to say was
that the father Of the cottage judi
ciously sought to find those pas
sages of the old, old story which
should most earnestly and ire
sjstibly address themselves to the
hearts and minds of his hearers. |
Burns tells US what he read, |
one of the most beautiful of all
the beautiful things in the Book.
But it is an endless treasure, and
the cottager might never exhaust
it. For there IS no portion Of
Scripture that will not bear re-
reading, and those portions
which reach sublimity Of beauty
in thought and expression will
bear reading hundred or a
thousand times. They are i'm
morta..
There is another point Of view
from which TO contemplate the
admitted ignorance of collegians
in this respect. Most of these
young men term themselves scis
entists. They have nibbled at
Darwin and fooled along the
edges of Spencer and Huxley.
The stupendous intellectual task
of plungipg into the depths of
those great thinkers has appalled,
them, and they have not attempts
ed it. Never was the truth
of Pope's lines,
A little learning is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian
Spring,
more forcibly illustrated than in
their cases. They return home
to condemn the Bible they have
never read, and to earn the con
tempt of men who have read both
science and revelation with zeal
born of fierce despair and who
have found no inherent conflict.
No man is educated who is not
familiar with the Scriptures. No
man is master of concise and
forcof,,l oyr,raSSion who has NOT