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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to be a school-book. A school-book, 

 as the term is now and has always 

 been understood, is one specially pre- 

 pared for the uses and needs of the 

 school, and containing nothing that 

 is not required for purposes of in- 

 struction. This is not the case with 

 the Bible, which was not written or 

 put together with any such view, and 

 much the larger part of which is quite 

 unsuited to school use. In the second 

 place, parents know that the Bible is 

 not a book which the first comer can 

 interpret ; certainly they are not pre- 

 pared that the first comer should 

 interpret it to their children. In 

 large part it is a repertory of mys- 

 teries which the ordinary certificated 

 teacher has no recognized fitness for 

 handling. If we take even those 

 teachings of the sacred volume which 

 might be considered of the greatest 

 practical importance for purposes of 

 moral instruction, we find that they 

 are far from being viewed in the 

 same light by all professedly Chris- 

 tian parents. Take, for example, the 

 subject of future punishment : the 

 views which one parent might think 

 salutary another would exceedingly 

 object to having placed before his 

 child. We know of a case in which 

 a clergyman of Dean Carmichael's 

 communion was called in to visit a 

 dying man who had previously been 

 visited by a Methodist minister. He 

 found the man's mind greatly dis- 

 turbed by what the Methodist had 

 told him of the nature of sin and 

 the necessity of conversion, and had 

 much difficulty in relieving him from 

 the excessive fears excessive from 

 his point of view which this teach- 

 ing had awakened. Finally, he told 

 the man that what the Methodist had 

 said was all stuff, and that, if he was 

 sorry for his sins, that was enough ; 

 he need have no anxiety. We men- 

 tion this to illustrate the radically 

 different views which different sects 

 hold, not on minor but on major 



and most practical questions of bib- 

 lical doctrine. If on these there are 

 divergent views, what anomaly is 

 there in the general disposition of 

 Christian parents to acquiesce in the 

 disuse of the Bible as a public-school 

 text-book, and to look for its proper 

 interpretation and application to their 

 own chosen and specially -trained 

 spiritual pastors ? 



But these are not the only rea- 

 sons. The fact can not be ignored 

 that there is much in the Bible 

 which, from a scientific and histor- 

 ical point of view, does not harmo- 

 nize with the general character of 

 modern education. Take the several 

 branches of so-called " secular educa- 

 tion," and we find that each bears in 

 the strongest manner the impress of 

 the " positive " spirit. If there is any 

 idea that is excluded more rigorously 

 than any other from the whole com- 

 pass of ordinary scholastic studies it 

 is the idea of the supernatural. No 

 secular history would be read in our 

 schools to-day, or in the schools 

 of any enlightened community, in 

 which the fortunes of nations were 

 represented as controlled by special 

 divine intervention. The time has 

 passed when plagues, earthquakes, 

 and famines could be historically 

 interpreted as expressions of divine 

 displeasure ; and the time has almost 

 passed for any useful introduction of 

 the doctrine of design in connection 

 with the study of Nature. The spirit 

 of the inductive philosophy has pen- 

 etrated everywhere: we should not 

 seek in vain for its signs even in the 

 kindergarten. How, then, we are 

 compelled to ask, can the Bible, 

 which deals in miracle from the first 

 page to the last, be employed as a 

 regular text-book in the schools 

 without either suffering in its influ- 

 ence from the prevalent tone of the 

 other school studies, or marring more 

 or less the effect of those studies 

 by its constant championship of the 



