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Observer, April 1, '72.

Willinghood is the great law of the Bible and of Christianity. To man is not committed the authority to compel his fellow men to worship; nor is it given him to compel them to pay for the worship of others, nor for printing, circulating, preaching, teaching the Bible. To the Church-to those who will-is left the honour, the responsibility, the labour, the cost of disseminating the Bible and its truths. Let the Bible go into every family, into every school, into every hand into which, upon this principle, it can be got; but, rather let us go back to the time when but few copies were found in a parish than keep up, or extend, its circulation by means of rates and taxes imposed upon those who are opposed to Bible teaching or unwilling to have it expounded by teachers for whose support their money is appropriated.

Among the great questions of the day, in this country, in Australia, in Germany and in America is the question of National Education. It has long been a disgrace to Great Britain that common school learning has not been placed within the reach of every child in the kingdom. What an imposition is that of having thrown the common school education of hundreds of thousands of children upon the religious denominations! It no more appertains to the church to find schooling for untaught children than it does to supply the community with public baths, wash-houses and water carts.

But the denominations have largely devoted their means to educational work, and thus have done benevolent service, which the Lord will not disregard. In so doing they have made the Bible a school-book, and rightly, because with the book they have supplied believing and earnest teachers, and have paid the cost from their own pockets. In every such school, by all means, let us have the Bible. But this system leaves millions of children outside the schools and the country is disgraced and afflicted by the consequent ignorance and its results. State aid has been largely given to denominational schools, and thus those who do not believe in the dogmas of Rome, the catechisms of the Church of England, and other sectarian doctrines, have been compelled to contribute for teaching the To the extent that this has been done there is violation of the true voluntary element of Bible Christianity. By the Government Education Bill, so recently become law, provision is made to enforce that violation upon every section of England and Wales.

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True, catechisms and creeds are excluded, but the Bible is retained and in the exposition thereof, by the teacher, every point of the excluded standards may be taught. Apply this principle to Scotland and Ireland, which justice requires (if it be continued here), and you have, to a large extent, the schools in England and Wales subsidized by public money to teach Church of Englandism, the schools in Scotland to teach Presbyterian dogmas, and the schools in Ireland instruments for the inculcation of the Romish faith. Rates are now imposed, and School Boards have resolved to pay fees to denominational schools. Already property belonging to .those who cannot conscientiously pay for the inculcation of religious tenets which they do not believe, have been seized to pay school rates. But the Nonconformists of this country, as represented by nearly 2,000 delegates at the Manchester Conference, have resolved "That in any national system of education the School Board and the State should make provision solely for the secular instruction which all children may receive in common, and that the responsibility of the religious education of each district should be thrown upon voluntary effort." Now, this resolution

Observer, April 1, "72.*

accords with the Bible, and justice cannot be done on any other principle. The whole nation is taxed to supply what the entire population holds as right and good-a literary or secular education. In matters of faith, upon which men differ, let each faith be taught by teachers who hold that faith, and let the cost of that teaching be paid by the voluntary contributions of those who believe in it. But to apply this principle fairly and fully, the Bible must be excluded from State-aided schools. We may be told that the Bible is not a sectarian book, that it might be used without note or comment, and that in that case there would be no violation of principle.

But surely friends who so hold have failed to look closely into the matter. Let us see what would follow, Within sight of my house reside a Jew, an Infidel and a Roman Catholic. These will, with myself, shortly be compelled to pay School-rates. The Jew finds that he is compelled to pay for teaching Christianity as exhibited in the New Testament, which he considers contrary to revelation and offensive to God. The Romanist finds that he is compelled to pay for the use of the Protestant Bible, which he denounces as considerably false and which, if it were not, he considers objectionable unless in the hands of a priest of his church. The Infidel feels, that though he holds the book as false, unfit for children, injurious to mankind and bad in every way-yet, by church influence, he, through the law, is compelled to pay for what he thus abhors, and he hates the book the more because he is thus compelled to pay for it. Now we have not so learned the Bible as to be able to believe that so using it is any thing short of a direct violation of its precepts and principles. Nor would we consider of much worth the dry unexplained reading of a chapter of the Bible, in school hours, by thoughtless children. Bible reading in schools where the teacher is prohibited from exposition and enforcement is of but little value; while if you admit exposition by the teacher then you have all the evils of concurrent endowment, the sects in that case being privileged to teach their opposing dogmas to the young at the expense of the State. Let then the government see to it, that for every child in the nation there shall be provided instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic and, so far as may be deemed proper, the elements of a good literary or secular education. Let the Bible be the book of the Christian and the Church. Let those who believe in it see that it is taught, not merely to their own children, but to all the children they can bring under its influence. Let Sunday schools be re-modelled, as the government schools come into operation. Cast out from your church schools all that belongs to the common schools, and teach and preach to the children Bible truths only. Add evening classes for the same purpose, leading up from the most simple and pleasing exhibition of Bible and Gospel truths, for the very young, to advanced classes for the study of the evidences of Christianity, the original languages of the Bible, and whatever may be useful to a complete understanding of the Book of God's Revelation. Let the Church do this! Let the believers in the Bible do this! Let them depend upon God; upon their own labour; and upon their own resources. Let them not go cringing to the devil by requiring the State to use the argument of the stick (the broker and the policeman), to obtain the costs of teaching the Bible to the young from those who do not believe it and who are unwilling to pay.

Would we have the Bible excluded from all schools? Certainly not! If churches please to establish day schools for general education, let the

Observer, April 1, '72.

Bible be therein used, by teachers who believe and live its truths, and let them do their best to plant its precious seed in the hearts of their pupils. But then let the church, or those who send their children or who desire to contribute, pay the costs. If such schools were established, Christian parents should send their children to those schools in preference to a rateaided school, from which the Bible is properly excluded. provided only that the Bible exposition therein given is deemed accordant with the Bible itself. Surely we may rejoice in the speedy coming of the time when the church shall have done with the A B C of the common schools, and when the state shall neither endow a church, nor compel men to pay for teaching religious dogmas they do not believe, nor subject them to disabilities on account of their faith. To the church we say, Arise, take the Bible; fill your schools; teach and preach to the young, book in hand; pay the cost; go forth in faith, and the God of the Bible will be with you!

THE APPEAL TO MIRACLES.

BY CHARLES DALLAS MARSTON, M.A.

Now, it is proposed to reject from the Gospel of St. John every account of a miracle, every allusion to one, and, in order that we may be thoroughly consistent, every portion of the Gospel based upon, or in any way related to, a miracle said to have been wrought. When this has been effectually done, we will ask ourselves, What have we remaining? I will put myself in the place of a so-called conscientious objector to miracles.

The first chapter may be allowed to stand, at least for the present. The second chapter must be entirely given up; because the opening portion is concerned with the narrative of Christ's turning the water into wine at the marrage feast; because in the 15th verse we find our Lord miraculously clearing the temple; because, too, in the 23rd verse we are told, in close connection with what has gone before," Many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did." I must, therefore, sacrifice the whole of the second chapter. When I come to the third chapter, that one which contains such marvellous truths, I do not feel that I can retain the first twenty-one verses, because the discourse which occupies these verses springs from an admission on the part of Nicodemus that Jesus Christ wrought miracles. I, therefore, can only keep of the third chapter the portion which extends from the 22nd verse to the end. We arrive at the fourth chapter, which tells of the visit of Jesus to Samaria. Of this fourth chapter, from the 46th verse to the end must be given up, because it consists of an account of the miracle of the healing of the nobleman's son. The fifth chapter must also be swept away, for the discourse with which that chapter closes necessarily springs from the healing of the impotent man by a miraculous action on the part of our Lord. The sixth chapter we must also resign, on account of the miracle of the feeding of the multitude, the multitude of which the Lord asserts, "Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled." The seventh chapter must likewise go; from the language of the 3rd and 4th verses; from what Jesus himself says in the 21st and 23rd verses; and from the allusion to His miraculous power in the 31st verse. be noticed, in passing, that these chapters are to be taken entire. They are not mere pieces of patchwork, but one portion leads directly to another.

It is to

Observer, April 1, '72.

The eighth chapter, like the first, may be allowed to remain; but when we come to the ninth we must expunge it, because the contents of this chapter turn upon the miracle which our Lord wrought upon the man who was born blind. And now we reach the tenth chapter, in which Jesus speaks of Himself as the Good Shepherd. But what do we find in the 21st verse? "Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" In the 25th verse we read, "Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not; the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me." Then, in the 37th verse it is written, "If I do not the works of my father, believe me not ;" and in the 41st verse, "And many resorted unto him, and said, John did no miracle; But all things that John spake of this man were true." How can this chapter remain? We come to the eleventh, that chapter most precious to a believer's heart, that chapter, the glowing words of which cheer us each time we stand sorrowing by the grave; "I am the resurrection and the life." But what is the chapter worth if miracles are not true? The whole turns upon this: Lazarus, who was dead, was raised from the dead by the miraculous power of Jesus Christ. This eleventh chapter, then, must be resigned, as necessarily must be the greater part of the twelfth, for it begins with an allusion to Lazarus, an allusion repeated in the 9th, 10th, 17th, and 18th verses, while in the 28th and following verses we find our Lord referring to the miraculous voice from Heaven, and saying, "This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes," The thirteenth chapter may be allowed to stand. In the fourteenth and following we have, as we know, our Lord's parting consolatory discourse. But is not this section in jeopardy? Must I not give up at least a portion of this so sweet address? In the 11th and 12th verses of chapter xiv., the Lord pointedly refers to the works which He had done; and in the fifteenth chapter and 24th verse we find Him saying, "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin." Here in the last portion of His discourse, does Jesus refer, so far as need arises to the works which He has performed.

What, now, is the result thus far? Even if I pause here, what a mutilated, curtailed, disjointed, imperfect Gospel do I now give you? I found you in possession of what you considered a chain of purest gold? but alas! in the assay to which it has been subjected, the greater part is shown to be but brass, and at most you have but a few scattered golden links here and there, which you may string together as best you can. But I cannot stop here. I must urge you farther on, and take you to that part of the Gospel which speaks of the risen Saviour. Read what the Evangelist writes in chap. xx. 30, 31: "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name." Here, then, St. John towards the close of his record deliberately stamps the whole with a seal of miracles throughout; and says expressly that his narration of" signs" is made for the very purpose of ensuring belief that Jesus was the Messiah, one sent by God, one who is the son of God. Yet, how can we receive this testimony, how pay any regard to the efforts which the evangelist has made, when we are called upon to discard miracles; to think the signs," impossible or unreal, and therefore unworthy of credit? And as though the whole composition were to be branded as valueless, upon the supposition that miracles are not a species of evidence suited for reception in all ages, the Gospel closes with a

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Observer, April 1, '7%.

chapter, the whole contents of which are taken up with the incidents of a miracle and incidents resulting from it.

You will, I trust, be able to appreciate the line of argument which has been adopted. I have put myself in the position of a man, and there are not a few such who profess Christianity, who even parades his Christianity, who speaks high-sounding words about Christ, His character, teaching, and excellence; but who at the same time says that he has his difficulties about miracles; that he cannot receive miracles; that he feels it incumbent upon him to give up miracles. I have, as it were, taken the Gospel of St. John in my hands, and with a pair of scissors have cut out every passages which in any way involves or alludes to a miracle; and now that I have done this, I ask myself, What is there left to me of this Gospel record, this record of the life of Jesus of Nazareth upon earth, this record of the origin of Christianity, the Christianity that I profess to hold, to love to live for, and to live by? I may well ask, What have I left indeed? Virtually, nay, almost literally nothing.

Can we then fail to see that it is clear by a demonstration as conclusive as any attached to a proposition of Euclid, that you cannot tamper with miracles; and that in whatever proportion you tamper with them, in the same do you spoil the records of the Gospel in their very essence? Is it possible, then, to depreciate miracles as testimony? Can we avoid perceiving, if we take the right point of view, that the miracles of Jesus Christ were an evidence to which He could apply with confidence, and which we do right to value most highly? Be assured, there is no more dangerous error than the rejection of miracles, no more hurtful snare than the opinion that you may admit and yet depreciate them. It is impossible that those operations could have been unreal, or can be unimportant, which give, as we have seen, a special character to the Gospel history, and on which the most evangelic discourses of the Lord were made to depend.

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THE STATE CHURCH.

FOR whose especial benefit the Established Church is kept up, is becoming a more and more important question. As light gradually breaks upon it, the very serious fact is looming out to the conviction of Churchmen-for Dissenters have long enough known it-that whoever gets the benefit of it, the poor do not. The Bishop of Gloucester, in lately addressing a working men's meeting at Bristol upon this subject, endeavoured to prove to the working men that the Church was their real friend. But why should such a matter want any proof? It ought to be obvious enough. "A man that hath friends will show himself friendly;" but, somehow or other, the degree of friendliness that exists between the Church and the poor has become so small, that a Bishop is obliged to set to work to prove, as a matter of fact, that some friendliness does actually exist.

The Times disposes of the Bishop very summarily. In its opinion, "it needs a sanguine Churchman to believe that in London, for instance, the worship and the doctrines of the Church of England hold any commanding position in the thoughts and tendencies of the working classes. They are not, as a rule, church-goers." The Times naturally thinks that "this is not a satisfactory result." Whatever may have been the case in the past, "large masses of the working class seem, as it were

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