The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-10-18
THE RISING GENERATION AND THE
BIBLE.

BIBLE.
In a high school in this city not long
since an instructor had occasion to
ask the senior class, relative to some
point in general history or literature,
who were the three sons of Noah. An
embarrassed silence followed. which
was finally broken by a pupil who vol
unteered the information that they
were Sam. Ham and Jacob" The
rest of the pupils nodded assent and
looked pleased that one of their num-
Der had been able to answer the ques-
ton. Not a single voice was raised
in protest, and yet these young peo-
pie have had more than the ordinary
advantages and come chiefly from
cultivated homes.
Of course, knowledge of the names
of the sons of Noah is not, in itself.
essential to the intellectual or ethical
salvation of our young people, but the
unfamiliarity with the Bible which
such a state of ignorance presupposes
is both mentally and spiritually one
of the sorest deprivations which can
befau plastic and growing mind,
and signs are not lacking that the en-
tire rising generation are the victims
of such an ignorance. The young peo-
pie themselves are not responsible for
this deficiency in education, and 1t is
beyond the function of their instruct
ors to repair it. for in most states the
teaching of the Bible In the public
schools Is held inadvisable, since it
is sure to lead to sectarian strife 1t
is on the parents then, that the weight
of responsibility falls for bringing UP
their children in Ignorance of the treas
ures Of their richest literary inheri-
siderations, there can be no finished
education, no pretension to intellectual
cultivation in an individual who is
unfamiliar with that most marvellous
are these young people who have not
studied Job, Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, the
Proverbs and the Psalms to get their
conceptions of the possibilities of our
mother tongue in the way of sweet
ness, harmony, picturesqueness, sim
plicfty, fexibility, pathos, dignity, pas
sion, power? The great body of Eng
lish literature of which we are so Justly
diffusely, here one quality and there
another, those merits which find such
concentrated expression in the King
James version of the Hebrew poets
and prophets. No literature can show
its like, and it's educational value is
simply incalculable
But familiarity with the Bible is not
only an essential of mental cultiva-
ton, but of the culture of the spirit
as we'll BY this we do not mean that
it is the source of moral precept and
religious dogma but rather that it is
pre-eminently the book of the spirit
ual life, the book in which we find
that life the most vividly, convinc-
ingly and contagiously expressed. Re-
ligious dogmas we could do without
and If the tables of stone were indeed
broken the utilitarian philosophers
would hasten to reconstruct the ten
commandments for US and enforce
them through a conviction of expe-
diency; but If we lose the key that I'M
locks the door of the spiritual world
then are we lost. indeed, for the poets
and the philosophers of all ages Join
with the apostle in the cry that to be
spiritually minded alone is life 1t is
true that the unaided soul of man is
always cropping among the things of
the spirit and making charts Of it's
explorations outside the world of
sense. Amiel is the Ineal descendant
of Job, and il we live long enough we
may yet hear the songs of a modern
David. The Bible is far from being
the only book of the spiritual life. but
it remains. nevertheless, the best book.
1t is as supreme in spirit as in form.
and cannot be superseded until it has
been surpassed.
And it is this book, the one com
pendulum of intellectual and spiritual
cultivation. that the prudent and far