Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-07-21
A SERMON TO MOTHERS
The Whole Bible is the Text Of the
Discourse.
What TO TEACH and HOW TO TEACH IT
The Revealed Word of God Contains
Wisdom Without Limit; But It Is Of
Value Only to Those Who Give 1t
Close Study.

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some suggestions which may help you
in teaching your child The Bible. This
letter is written in reply to that re-
quest.
The Bible is not q book, 1t is a IL
brary. 1t is composed of sixty-slx diff
ferent books, written by at least forty
or fifty different writers. Over
thousand years elapsed between the
writing of the first and the last Of
these books. They were gathered to-
gether by a process of natural selec-
tion out of considerably larger num-
Der. The Church did not gather them,
Though 1t put its approval on the gath
ering which usage had made. This
! library contains a great variety of lit
erature: legend, myth, folklore, fic-
ton, drama, epic poetry, lyric poetry.
| practical ethics, oratory-written and
spoken, essays, biography, letters.
dream literature. Let me put this
composite character of the Bible be-
fore you little more clearly, in the
main following an admirable state
ment given seven years ago to an au-
dience in the Bedford Branch of the
Brooklyn Y. M. C. A, by DR.. S. Parkes
Cadman.
Genesis is a book Of prehistoric be-
ginnings, stories of the old world re-
written by an unknown prophet; Ex-
odus narrates the birth of a nation;
Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
| give its laws, ecclesiastical and civiI:l
Joshua and Judges, it's colonial his
tory, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra,
and Nehemiah, it's later history down
to the time OF the return OF Israel
| from the exile; Ruth is an exquisite
love story Of primitive life Esther, a
historical romance of the Exile; Job,
an Epic of the Inner Life; the
Psalms, n book of religious lyrics anal
ogous to our church hymn -books;'
Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are pruden-
tial and ethical counsels gathered from
experience and observation; the. Song
of Songs is love drama in which the
supremacy of love over ambition
reaches its splendidly simple conclu-
sion. Love is strong as death; the
Prophets are writings preserved to us
from counsels given to kings and to
people by teachers who were both
statesmen and preachers; the Gospels
are four biographical "reminiscences of
the life and teachings of Jesus; Acts
Is a record of the early life of the
Church; the Epistles are letters Of
counsel to the various churches adapt
ed to their several needs; and, finally,
Revelation is a piece OF dream litera-
ture in its gorgeous imagery unsur-
passed by that Of either Milton or
Dante.
There are two peculiarities about
this collection which the reader is
likely to overlook but which are strik-
ing if he realizes that it is a national
library and that the authors were men
of different temperaments and train
ing, wrote in at least two different
languages, and in different epochs and
without any conscious unity OF pur-
pose. II contains no science or art
and very little that can properly be
called philosophy; and it is all of 1t re-
iigious literature-that is, 1t Is all
written by authors who were inter-
ested in mems moral relations to each
other and in their spiritual relation to
God 1t is this extraordinary spiritual
unity which makes the library appear
like book. All its various books were
written by men who believed in God'
or at least in the divine life, and wrote
to tell their readers their religious ex-
perience. 1t is not an infallible book
about religion; it Is q library Of re-
lGion-that is, of religious experience.
Indeed, a really infallibIe book is IN
conceivable, for the simple reason that
language is not an infallible method
Of communicating ideas.
In introducing your child to the
study of this library recognize frankly
that it contains different types of lit
erature. Recognize the difference be-
tween fact and truth, and do not forget
that fiction is sometimes a better
means than fact of communicating
truth. II you should read in Greek
literature story of a garden with a
talking serpent, d tree of life the fruit
of which if eaten would give to the
eater the knowledge OF good and evil.
and a god walking in the garden In
the cool of the day, you would not
think it history, but fable or parable.
Why should you think it to be history
because you find 1t in Hebrew litera-
ture? If you read Jotham's parable In
the ninth chapter of Judges begin
ming with the statement that the
trees went forth on time to anoint
a king over them" you do not imag-
inc that any such general town-meet-
ing took place in the forest. Why the
theological scholars have interpreted
the third chapter Of Genesis as his
tory and the ninth chapter of Judges
as parable, it is not easy for me, at
least, to understand. On the face OF
it the story of Jonah is a satire on