THE CIRCULATION OF THE BIBLE.

Freethought Review, Volume II, Issue 13, 1 October 1884, Page 12

THE CIRCULATION OF THE BIBLE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREETHOUGHT REVIEW. Sir, The enclosed letter was sent to the editor of one of the Timaru papers, but it is unnecessary to say it was rejected. I wonder would it have been rejected if it had been a letter of the regular orthodox type, containing a lot of fulsome adulation of Christianity, interspersed with vulgar abuse of Freethought and Freethinkers ? I think not. Is it any wonder that religious error and superstition continue to flourish when the Secular press lends itself so readily to the deception ? This should cause Freethinkers to set the higher value on their own organ, seeing that the greater portion of the press of this country endeavours to crush out infidelity by a system of misrepresentation and suppression. Without an organ of their own to look to for justice, Freethinkers could be maligned and slandered with all the spleen and venom which religious bigotry is capable of using, and would have no remedy whatever. The following is the letter referred to :

Sir, —I read your leader in last evening's paper anent the proceedings of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and also attended Mr. Baker's lecture on the same subject at the Odd Fellows' Hall. With your permission, I should to make one or two observations on both the leader and the lecture. Taking your leader first, you say—" From the Seventy-ninth Report we find that the free income of this Society has been .£112,428, and the receipts from the sale of Bibles £98,068." From this it will be seen that the amount obtained in the shape of voluntary subscriptions exceeds by nearly £15,000 the whole sum realised by the legitimate sale of the Bible. It would be interesting to know. Sir, how the operations of the Society would be affected by the sudden withdrawal of this voluntary assistance ? Why should the word of God have to rely on the charity of the benevolent, on powerful organisations, on persistent personal canvassing by a great army of paid priests and pedlars, in order to introduce it to races of people who should have had it at the beginning, if the book is really what it professes to be ? The fact that it is not a universal Bible is one of the strongest arguments to prove that it is of purely human origin. A little further on you say :—" The Secularist may deny its Divine origin, and may gainsay its inspiration, but deny that it is the Book of Books, in respect to circulation, no one can." Secularists do not want to deny it. So far as its claim to Divinityis concerned, its circulation is a matter of very little consequence. Does it naturally follow that because it has the largest circulation of any book in the world it must therefore be Divine ? Apply the same argument to anything else, and see now ridiculous it is. The most widely-known medicines in the world are " Holloway's Pills and Ointment." They have been advertised in every newspaper and in every language on the face of the earth, and for every other box of any other kind of medicine you will find at least half-a-dozen boxes of Professor Holloway's—therefore " Holloway's Pills and Ointment" must be Divine ! Wonderful logic, is it not ? Is the truth of any book to be measured by its popularity ? If so, Ouida's novels would contain a greater measure of truth than the " Elements of Euclid," and the reliability of newspapers would be estimated by their circulation. Then you go on to speak about the Herculean efforts of such organisations as the British and Foreign Bible Society to circulate the Word of God. What surprises me is that, in spite of all these stupendous efforts to thrust this particular book upon the world as the veritable Word of God, infidelity should be correspondingly on the increase. Can it be possible that people grow sceptical just in proportion as their knowledge of Scripture increases ? It would seem so. In speaking about the conceit of Rogers, that " men would get up some fine morning and find the Bible a total blank,'" you say that a new Bible could easily be collated from memory, and you go on to reflect upon it thus: —"What an index of the characters of individuals would be got from the several contributions ! The Sectarian parsons would be sure to remember texts that told in favour of their respective views : the man of the world would have his appropriate texts ; the gloomy, melancholic individual would have a special set of verses ; we should see ' each man in his humour and no mistake.' " Why, this is exactly the early history of the Bible. For centuries there were only two or three copies of the Bible in existence, written in a fragmentary fashion, and entrusted to the keeping of a few superstitious, credulous, and fanatical monks. Now, what was to prevent these monks from manipulating the manuscripts just as their caprice or personal interest dictated ? Do we not see the influence, not of one, but of many minds, on the Bible by the readiness with which it'accommodates itself to anyone's opinions, be they good or bad ? Again I ask, is it any wonder that the Bible should have a larger circulation than any other book, considering the powerful agencies at work on its behalf, and the fact that the greater number of those in circulation, especially in heathen countries, have been given away for nothing. It is a poor book that people will not accept for nothing. Concerning Mr. Baker's lecture, with reference to the Society's proceedings in India, Persia, Asia, and elsewhere, I have nothing to say. The lecturer indulged in a good deal of selfglorification at the way in which the Society's agents (himself amongst the number) have been pushing the circulation of the Bible in those countries. Now, I take leave to say that many of the methods adopted by the Society agents to spread the Gospel in those countries are highly discreditable, and taxing the forbearance of the people just a little too far. If Buddhist, Brahmin, or Mahommedan priests were to peddle their sacred wares at every street corner in England, and enter, uninvited, the houses of Christians for the purpose of propagating their religious doctrines, they would very soon come to be looked upon by Christians'

generally as a public nuisance. Christians are fond of pointing to countries where Christianity is the prevailing form of belief, and saying—" See to what a degree of civilisation we have attained through the influence of Christianity ! What would the world be without the Bible ? Wherever you find Christianity you will find civilisation, therefore civilisation is due to the influence of Christianity.” This may be good Christian argument, but it is not sound logic. There is such a thing as taking “ what travels along with a thing as the cause of the thing,” as Ingersoll puts it. One might, with as much reason, say—" See to what a degree of civilisation we have attained through the influence of felt hats and paper collars ! What would the world be without felt hats and paper collars ? Wherever you find felt hats and paper collars yen will find civilisation—therefore civilisation is due to the influence of felt hats and paper collars." It is said that the missionary enters a heathen country with a Bible in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other, Whether this is literally true or not is no great matter, as the one naturally follows, if it does not accompany, the other, Civilisation introduces so many destructive vices into every heathen country that the terms ” civilisation ” and “ extermination ” are coming to be looked upon as almost synonymous. With one hand civilisation offers the heathen something which professes to show him how to obtain “ salvation,” and with the other gives him another thing which so effectually civilises him that very soon there is not a heathen left to ” save.” Mr. Baker admitted that the two most powerful agents in destroying ” caste," especially in India, were the Bible and brandyrather a curious combination, truly! I should like to have reviewed Mr. Baker's lecture at some length, but I am afraid I have already exceeded the space at your disposal. I am well aware that the opinions expressed in this letter are rather heterodox, and doubtless, in the interests of " religion,” you will consign it to the oblivion of the waste-paper basket, but I hold that, in a free country like this, a man should not only have the right to entertain such opinions, but the right to give them through the only available channel—the public press. It may be considered a wise policy to bark discussion on matters that are likely to give offence to people of the “ goody-goody ” type, but it is a policy that will never make permanently popular any public journal adopting it, A newspaper professing to be an "organ of the people" should not only speak the truth itself, but should allow the truth to be spoken, without fear or favour, and should endeavour, as far as possible, to reflect not one side but all sides of public opinion. This I take to be the legitimate function of a newspaper, I am, &c., * J. R. York St., Timaru.