THE UNPARALLELED BOOK.

Evening Star, Issue 21091, 2 May 1932, Page 2

THE UNPARALLELED BOOK.

TO THB EDITOR. Sir, —Thank you for your leader in this evening’s issue under the caption, ‘ The Unparalleled Book.’ if is refreshing to find a secular journal paying homage to the Hebrew Scriptures. It may not be generally known that many years ago a renowned secular writer, even Professor T. li. Huxley, wrote in the ‘ Nineteenth Century ’: “ Greatly to tho surprise of many of my friends, I have always advocated the reading of tho Bible and tho diffusion of the study of that remarkable collection of books among the people. Its teachings are so infinitely superior to thoso of tho sects who are just as busy now as the pharisees were eighteen hundred years ago, in smothering them under the precepts ot men; it is so certain to my mind that tho Bible contains within itself the refutation of nine-tenths of tho mixtine of sophistical metaphysics and old-world superstition, which has been piled round it by so-called Christians of later times; it is so clear that the only immediate and ready antidote to the poison which has been mixed with Christianity, to the intoxication and delusion of mankind, lies in copious draughts from the undefiled spring; that 1 exercise the right and duty ot free judgment on the part of every man, mainly for the purpose of inducing other laymen to follow my example.” In tho course of your eulogy, you remark: “It is to bo feared, however, that, like many another classic, the Bible is more praised nowadays than read and studied.” As tho apostle testified in another connection, 1 would affirm in this, “ This witness is true,” and as a small contribution towards an attempt to remedy a situation, of which you are justly apprehensive, I would bo nappy to furnish, “free, gratis, and for nothing,” to anyone interested, a systematic plan of Bible reading, ny which the Old Testament is completely covered in twelve months and the New Testament twice during the same period. The scheme entails no more than twenty or thirty minutes daily. I have pursued it tor upwards of forty years, and 1 know of others who have been much longer in the field. You are therefore at liberty to communicate my address to any applicant.—l am, etc,, P.H.U. April 30.