THE SCRIPTURE LESSON BOOK.

Evening Star, Issue 10055, 11 July 1896, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE SCRIPTURE LESSON BOOK.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, —I have only to-day been made aware of Lady Stout’s letter which appeared in your issue of 27th ult. in reply to mine on the Scripture lesson books. She has fallen into the mistake of supposing that I confessed I had not read all the lesson books. I made no such confession. On the contrary, my letter showed sufficiently my acquaintance with these books. The example she points to in the passage referring to the visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth, which is regularly read in all the Anglican churches, is not likely to produce on the minds of children the impression which calls forth her strong denunciation. In contrast with such professed sensitiveness on her part, it is rather startling to find her recommending in this letter the remedy for women whe have not time to instruct their children—viz., to reduce the number of children. I shall not here discuss this unsavory subject, but only express my astonishment at seeing her reference to it. I must correct another mistake into which Lady Stout has fallen in her letter. She says: “lam afraid I must include Dr Copland amongst the benighted. He haa> presumed to insinuate that I am an enemy of Jesus Christ, and to threaten me with eternal damnation and everlasting fire for expressing an opinion in opposition to that which he holds. I did not believe that there remained a solitary man or woman in New Zealand nowadays who would quote such a text and profess belief in such abominable doctrines.”

My letter affords no ground for saying that I passed any judgment on her personally either by insinuation or direct statement. It is not the part of any man to pass judgment on the spiritual state of his fellows. That belongs only to God, who searches the heart and beholds all things in their naked reality. The purpose of my quoting the words of Christ declaring the sentence which He will pass on His enemies when He sits as judge at the last was to show that, although some carp at the judgments of God on wicked nations which are executed in this world as if these were such as Christ would disown, Christ himself, when He sits as judge of all men, will inflict a doom still more terrible ou those who have despised His entreaties and refused His mercy. She “did not believe that there remained a solitary man or woman in New Zealand nowadays who would quote such a text and profess belief iu such abominable doctrines.” Her belief is certainly not according to knowledge, and it might be surprising, were it not so common, that anyone should seek to enlighten the public, through the Press, who shows such ignorance as in the present instance. In one of the services read on the first day of Lent in all the congregations of the Anglican Church throughout the world there occur the words of Christ which I quoted : “ Go, ye cursed, into the fire everlasting, which is prepared for the Devil and his angels,” and every church in Christendom professedly holds this solemn truth. Lady Stout’s opinion or belief will not alter the fact. She may call Christ’s words “ abominable,” and speak of God as the “ God of vengeance,” but she is blinding her eyes to God’s chosen name, which is “ The Lord God merciful and gracious.”

The ‘ Lyceum Guide,’ to which apparently she clings, contained, in addition to many silly things, somesentences which were spoken by Christ, but Christ himself was driven out of it, or treated as uo hotter than such a madman as Comple. To prefer such silly or sentimental teaching to that of the authoritative Word of Cod, by wh ch we shall all be judged at last, need not be characterised. No one who disowns the divine authority of the Scriptures is competent to judge of the propriety of the selections from them contained in the Scripture lesson books. Christian parents who know and prize the Bible •will not be influenced by the opinions of Lady Stout, and those who may approve of her sentiments will receive ample protection, whether they be teachers or parents of school children, in the conscience clause of the Act of Parliament.—l am, etc.,

James Copland,

Gore, July 4