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Marlborough Express, Volume XLVII, Issue 143, 19 June 1913, Page 2

[to the editor.]

Sir,—As the Bible is credited with being the one book from which we obtain our national, religious, and social, life, and therefore it should form part of the schopl curriculum, it-is well that we should understand exactly what amount of truth is contained in the assertion. Now, the great characteristics of our nation are directly due to our hardy ancestors, and were in existence ages before the . Bible was introduced to them. The only place the Bible occupies in the national life is connected with ceremonious rites, and the position, it there occupies is analogous to the position the fetish ■of the savage occupies in his national life. The statement that the Bible is responsible for our predominance is purely a conjecture, as I will proceed to prove. One great nation k can furnish us with a concrete and magnificent example of the groundless assumption that the Bible is responsible for the position of the British nation. I refer to the Japanese. There are no people more refined, courteous, gentle, amiable, and innately {esthetic than these Latins of the Orient; no people more brave, hardy, or self-controlled. The Japanese army by its perfection of transport, commissariat, and equipment; its passionate patriotism, and its humanity to the conquered, surl?asses the armies of Christian nations who send missionaries to Japan, lafcadio Hearn says: "The percentage of crime has for some years been on the increase in Japan, which proves, among other things, that the struggle for existence has been intensified " Another writer says: "If there has been a serious relapse among us it has been the result, of the shock occasioned by our contact with the new' civilisation." What food for thought—falling off in morality due to over-population and contact with Christian civilisation 1 If the Bible really is at f the root of a nation's greatness, how comes it about that Spain, with her vast religious organisations, has sunk to her present level—proud Spain, once the greatest nation in the world ? One would at least think she would be greater than her noil-Christian neighbor, France—that is, •if this argument is to hold water. In dealwith our social life the point under dispute is, Has the Bible been a power for good? One could make a strong case against the Bible by enlarging upon the inhumanity and immorality of thy Dark Ages and comparing this - with , the far more humane aid moral conduct of man in pre-Christian civilisation. One could point to the rock-graven edicts of Osaka (263-226 c.c.) and show 1 that in the manner of discountenancing slavery, of humanity to prisoners, of denouncing war, of 1 founding hospitals, of abolishing* blqod sacrifices, of inculcating religious toleration and of teaching purity of life, all that! is now so complacently claimed for the Bible and Christianity was anticipated. Or again, one might dwell on the dark sirlc- of Christendom (for which! the Bible is responsible), even, in, this year of grace 1913, and draw some very odious comparisons, especially as we have so recently been presented with the obiioct-lesson or a "heathen" race which excels many, and equals any, of-the Christian, rafces in nearly all those virtues:, we prize and call Christian.' But I have no intention of embarking upon such, a wide sea of controversy. But I cannot pass by the point as' to the root of the whole matter. So accustomed are we to hear evary humane, unselfish deed and every moral act described as Christian ''therefore derived from the Bible) that "good" and "Christian" have become ahnost synonymous terms We never give a second thought to the question, How much are , the humano principles now accepted by nations due to education, experience, sciencel, and evolution; . and how much to the influence of the Bible? All that is beneficial in civilisation is placed to the' credit of the Bible. Because after the Dark Ages, Europe progressed, Asia stagnated, and* ■ Africa retrogressed, is modern' civilisation to be placed to the credit of "Christianity ? A learned Buddhist priest hit the nail on "the head when, on being informed, by a Christian missionary that the West was more- powerful on account of the Bible, replied: "The fact is that nations have become more powerful in the degree to which they have rejected the precepts of Christianity, in the extent to;.which they have .substituted for the Christian maxim of 'Love thy neighbor as thyself' that other Maxim which shoots 300 bullets a minute " The Bible contains many precepts of groat ethical

value, borrowed, as Aye know now } from ancient moralists and teachers. Whence, for example, came that greatest of all precepts: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even sa do unto them"? Listen to Confucius (born b.c. 551): "What you do riot want done io yourself, do not to others." . Lao-tse, a" contemporary of Confucius, says: "Recompense evil with kindness, thus anticipating the Christian precept "Return good for evil.'' All these sayings which axe prized as being revealed by the Bible, were merely gathered into that book from various ancient sources. I have already trespassed too much on your spacer to enter into our "religious life" and its sources; but sufficient has been said to show, that our religious life is not derived from the Bible, but from the religions of the past. lam frequently asked why I do not believe in Bible in schools, and ihis »my apology. UQmSTm