THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12240, 8 April 1903, Page 7

THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Your correspondent, Mr. Creagb, in his letter of the Ist inst. is to my thinking singularly unhappy in his selection of a passage from Sir N. Anderson's book on the above subject. His comparison of the child who pulls a watch to pieces to examine the works with " the foreign infidel type of scholar, ignorant of God and His ways, who sets himself with a li'-ht heart 'to tear the Bible to pieces," displays in the writer an utter ignorance of the trend and drift of modem thought and research in respect of the Biblical text. To speak of the foreign infidel scholars, including, I suppose, such a man as Professor Dslitzch, who recently lectured before the German Ehiperor, " as ignorant of God and His ways as a monkey, and from mere recklessness desiring tc discredit the Bible." r foolishness almost outside the range of criticism. Many Christian ministers, with a candour ■ that does them credit, acknowledge their adherence to the doctrine of evolution, now accepted by all ill.-- gr»>at scholars of Hi* world but they fail to realise they are blind to all that such acceptanoe implies. Let me quote for Mr. Creagh's enlightenment a passage or two from i. recent work entitled " Anticipations," by H. G. Walls, a book, in the words of the author, intended a3 a sincere forecast of the way things will go in this new century:— "The mass of criticism that centres about Darwin effectually destroyed the dogma of til" .''al'. unto wlvr-h tli" whole in'-"' "ctual fabric of Christianity rests. For without a Fall there m no r»d<'mnHon : s>nd th? whole theory and meaning of the Paulino system is vain. In conjunction with the revelation made by geological and astronomical discovery, the nineteenth century has indeed lost the very habit of thought from which the belief in the Fall arose." . _• . 'The purpose the older theologians saw in the world was no mora than the revenge— centuated by the . special treatment of a favoured minority of a mvsfk ously incompetei' deity exasperated by an unsatisfactory crei tion. But modern thought is altogether toe? constructive and creative to tolerate such

a conception,' and in the vaster past that has opened to us, it can find neither offence, nor promise, only a spacious scheme of events, opening —perpetually opening °" — wl ' a final quality of purpose a3 irresistible to most men's minds as it is incomprehensible, opening out with all that inexplicable quanty C! <.-:«!! inn' lor *; mpi - ,r ({''•''•, !<-'• <•'© of music, some symphony of Beethoven s conveys." These extracts will give some flight I idea of the direction which in Mr. Wells view i the religion of the future will take, but the ! entire chapter on " The Faith of the New Republic " should be read and pondered over.— : I am, etc., H. J. Blyth. ! Epsom, April 3, 1903.