BIBLE CELEBRATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 146, 23 June 1938, Page 7

BIBLE CELEBRATION

PLACE IN THE WORLD

INSPIRING ADDRESSES

The literary, spiritual, and cultural benefits "bestowed upon the world by the Bible, which; four hundred years ago, ceased to be a subject of suppression and was given to the people of England in the vulgar tongue, were discussed last evening in two inspiring addresses, given in the Terrace Congregational Church in celebration of the anniversary. Miss Irene Wilson, principal of Queen Margaret College, the first speaker, said it seemed almost impossible to dissociate the literary from the spiritual 'value of the Bible. She recalled the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Coronation, when he presented the King with the Bible, "the most valuable thing this world offers." Was it not significant that the first gift of the English people to the new King should be the Bible? In all times of tribulation the people turned to it for comfort; not only was it a treasure worthy of a King, but it had been a treasure to humblest people in his kingdom, and from its impression' on the plastic soul of childhood it had found its way into the homes and hearts of the people. The child knew nothing of the power of the Bible as the word of God, but saw in it lovely stories, drama, greatness, mystery; and what the Bible did for any child it would do for any who went to it with a sincere and open heart. ' ! There was no limit to the power of the Bible to impress the child, but it must be brought to the children when they were young: it was to the people's 'sorrow that the Bible, to the present generation, was no longer a natural heritage. The Bible had always been the people's book, and had become the book of the nation with extraordinary rapidity. Its' strong and homely phrases. were embedded deeply in | every-day intercourse; its allusions flitted across the pages of literature; and in its grander passages it rose to majesty," strength, and dignity. Both speech and literature were saturated with the Bible, and it was impossible to appreciate either unless one had an intimate knowledge of that great book. In a time like the present, when the Empire was one of the ,last strongholds of freedom, it behoved the people to hold tight to the heritage of the Bible. THE WORD OF GOD. Taking as his topic "The Bible is the Word of God," the Rev. Hubert Ryburri, of St. Andrew's Church, Dunedin, who is at present conducting missions in the university colleges, said that in days gone by man looked upon the Bible as the word of God, but in comparatively recent times the modern critic, had seriously undermined that simple faith. The result was that no longer did men turn to the Bible as they used to for guidance, in the simple belief that it contained the word of God. It has been increasingly neglected by multitudes of so-called Christian people. The analytical inquiry that had been made by scholars had been directed at trying to discover the true text of the Bible, and had revealed what might have been expected: that in the laborious process of transmitting and translating the Scriptures mistakes had been made because of the human element. The object of the critical inquiry was to endeavour to detect those errors and arrive at a knowledge, of the original text of the Scriptures. The marvel was, riot that mistakes had been made, but that the Bible had preserved its form so faithfully. Other objects of the inquiry were the historical origins of various writings in the Scriptures and the sources of the Books, and a serious attempt had been made to set the various'literary constituents of the Bible in their historical context.

The scholars making the researches treated the Bible as a human book, and it had to be admitted that, within the limits of such an inquiry the value of the Bible to modern men had been enormqusly enhanced. Valuable as the inquiry might have been, it could not discover in the Bible the word of God. In the Epistle to the Hebrews it wag said, "For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword." The phrase "the word of God" implied a living, speaking God, and, moreover, a God who spoke to man. The Bible was a record of the words God had spoken in the past, and therefore suffered from the disabilities attaching to human records—an attempt had been made to put into words something that was in T expressible. But all that mattered was that the Bible was a testament to the fact that God had spoken to man and still spoke to man.