A SUPPLE PROBLEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9124, 4 August 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A SUPPLE PROBLEM.

"Yors'f; Freethinker" writes to say that "in many instances the words of the Bible are untrue as- applied to our own times," and he says : " Take the passage ' Are not two sparrows sold for a fartiring ?' I say they are not." Oh, well, I agree with you, " Young Freethinker," that the passage quoted may not apply to this day and this generation. .But that is the fault of this, generation ; the Bible is all right. It is only we who are all ■wrong. Two sparrows were sold for a farthing then, and 1 don't suppose inspiration it-f-eif could foresee that in the year 1884, in the United States of America, a race of human beings would wring from a starving neighbour a dollar and a half for a spring chicken no bigger than a robin, and two dollars for a squab three days out of the shell, and would make butter out of dead cattle, and when their children asked for fjread, would give them a preparation of alum, and would catch imported sardines off the coast of Maine, and would sell " bob veal" in the public markets, and would mix t-'plit peas in the coffee and sand in the sugar. 3 suppose it was the intention to burn the old globe up before a generation arose that was capable of doing such things. Of course you can't make the Bible fit our day, my ton. Omnipotence couldn't do that without making a hopeless wreck of the Bible. But you can make our day and generation fit fthe Bible. Suppose you try that. Commence at the other end of the bridge, and ;-y the time you get Wail-street fitted 10 the Sermon on the Mount, you will be gratified to see that you have landed the country safely on the old " two sparrows or a farthing" basis. —Burdette.