402 THE SCHOOL BOARDS XV 



with Lot. Like a sudden flash there returns back 

 upon me, my utter scorn of the pettifogging mean- 

 ness of Jacob, and my sympathetic grief over the 

 heartbreaking lamentation of the cheated Esau, 

 " Hast thou not a blessing for me also, O my 

 father ? " And I see, as in a cloud, pictures 

 of the grand phantasmagoria of the Book of Reve- 

 lation. 



I enumerate, as they issue, the childish inpres- 

 sions which come crowding out of the pigeon-holes 

 in my brain, in which they have lain almost 

 undisturbed for forty years. I prize them as an 

 evidence that a child of five or six years old, left 

 to his own devices, may be deeply interested in 

 the Bible, and draw sound moral sustenance from it. 

 And I rejoice that I was left to deal with the 

 Bible alone; for if I had had some theological 

 " explainer " at my side, he might have tried, as 

 such do, to lessen my indignation against Jacob, 

 and thereby have warped my moral sense for ever ; 

 while the great apocalyptic spectacle of the ulti- 

 mate triumph of right and justice might have been 

 turned to the base purposes of a pious lampooner 

 of the Papacy. 



And as to the second objection costliness 

 the reply is, first, that the rate and the Parlia- 

 mentary grant together ought to be enough, con- 

 sidering that science and art teaching is already 

 provided for ; and, secondly, that if they are not, 

 it may be well for the educational parliament to 



