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that I wish with all my heart it were so, but it is tolerably notorious that 
this is not the case. If Mr. Row had looked at the book, or had asked what 
book was referred to, when it was stated here that certain professors, in the 
year 1873, had commended to young people a quantity of sophistical 
objections which were intended to show the impossibility of the historic 
narrative, he would have seen that there was a foundation for what was 
said, but I, prudently I think, refrained from mentioning what the book 
was. That was a translation. Of late, Germany not being sufficiently 
negative for our English sceptics, more scepticism has been imported from 
Holland, where three eminent Dutch Professors of Leyden allied themselves 
together to produce a book called “ The Bible for Young People ” * — a book 
with which I am only too familiar. That book was expressly prepared for young 
people, and its object was to shake all to pieces their belief in the historic cha- 
racter of the early books of the Bible. There are all manner of objections ; to 
two or three I have called attention, by way of specimens, and answered them. 
Such are the kind of books that are written for young people by gentlemen 
of literary fame and well-known attainments. They are published in the 
interest of some of the negative religionists— to use a term which they will 
not object to — they are sold largely for children to read, and they give the 
tribal view of Joseph. Perhaps some of my hearers do not know what I 
mean by the tribal view, but there are a few of our friends here who are 
acquainted with my meaning. They take the story of Jacob and Joseph, and 
the twelve sons of Jacob, and so forth, and so handle it as to favour a theory 
as to the position of the tribe of Ephraim. We very well know that the tribe 
of Ephraim was the rival of the tribe of Judah, and this is not the first time 
we have heard about the one envying the other — Ephraim envying Judah. 
There was a tribal rivalry between the two which ended in that terrible 
split by which the kingdom fell into two. They tell us that it is all an cx 
post facto, cooked up business — the whole story of the patriarchs got up in 
the interest of the kingdom of the ten tribes, to magnify the mythical fore- 
father Joseph, who was to be made a hero. Now, does not Mr. Row know 
* The Rev. H. G. Tomkins calls attention to the following extracts from 
The Bible for Young People , Vol. I. : — “ But although we cannot 
accept the accounts of the patriarchs as completely trustworthy, we might 
easily suppose that they had a historical foundation, that such men as 
Abram, Isaac, Jacob, and the rest did really live, and that the stories 
give us, on the whole, a correct account of their fortunes, though in 
an embellished and exaggerated form. But when we come to examine 
these stories closely, and to compare them with one another, we find 
that this is not the case,” &c., p. 129. “No doubt the names of the sons 
of Jacob were simply those of the Israelite tribes, which might easily be 
used as the names of tribal fathers,” &c., p. 133. “ The names of the various 
tribes and districts were made into those of men, and were then brought into 
connection with each other,” p. 135. “ W e shall speak of Abram, Hagar 
Esau, J oseph, and all the others as if they were men who really lived, and 
shall try to strengthen our moral life by marking their faith, and to take 
warning from the description of their sins,” p. 139. 
