THE BIBLE AS AN EDUCATOR.
THE following is an extract from an address before the Evangelical Alliance on the Essential Conditions of the Christian School in the Modern State, by Director von Lerber, translated for the Christian Statesman by the Rev. Sylvester F. Scovel. The extract here given is a part of the address which is quoted from a school book of 1865; but it so clearly sets forth the value of the Bible in training the mind and developing the character, aside from the spiritual advantages to be derived from the study of its pages, that we are sure it will be read with interest and profit. The Bible, thanks to its astonishing many-sidedness, develops all the powers of the human soul. The Bible educates the intellect, because through the knowledge of the will of God, the judgment of men concerning all life questions is quickened, corrected, and often new created. Prof. Mounard once said, in his public lecture at Berne: “No book in the world, in so little space, contains so remarkable a number of the seed-principles of culture and civilization as the Bible.” This is true. Let any one show me another book which includes such a manifold variety of histories, life-pictures, portraits, biographical and ethnographical sketches, such a panorama of Heaven and earth, in so diversified a style and tone. Our best reading books are poor and one-sided, compared with it. Yes, truly; these are the waters in which a child may wade and an elephant may swim. What a selection of the most heart-winning stories for the tenderest years! What profound problems for the deepest thinkers! No one has yet been able to think out the Bible. It is beyond us, but we are never beyond it. Our best writings for children have the disadvantage of leaving nothing for the child’s understanding to do, having thrown out of his way the smallest stone. But the Bible furnishes more substantial food. Over its difficulties thought is strengthened, and by its strong speech ease of expression is acquired. Schiller and Goethe, Milton and Racine, have gone to school to the Bible. All the keys to the history of the world lie in the Bible. It is the great land-register of the race. The solution of all the great social and political questions—we surely believe it—is in the word of God. More yet. The Bible is the best hand-book of higher politics; for in it the true causes of war and national revolutions are revealed. In the Bible lies the key to one’s own heart. A believing child who has learned out of the Scriptures the knowledge of his own sinful heart, and the way of salvation, has more true psychology than Hegel, because the child is nearer to the real nature of things than the philosopher was. Who knows himself thoroughly, knows already the half of all other men. One’s self, however, one can learn to know only in the glass of God’s word. Therefore I say, The Bible is an incomparable means for the cultivation of the understanding, and may in this respect prove a perfect substitute for many other studies. A sickly young man found himself in an institution of our country. The physician permitted him only one hour of instruction daily, and the father chose the Bible hour. At the close of the year, this father, a clergyman of high position, expressed his astonishment at the great progress which his son had made, not simply in religious knowledge, but in the formation of character and in ripeness of judgment even about the things of this life. The Bible develops character. It has nothing sweetish about it. It is everywhere large and strong. Its earnestness makes an impression, and educates. Of heroic characters and mighty deeds done by living faith in a living God there is certainly no lack. No wonder that men like Luther and Francke, scholars like Kepler and Newton, heroes like Gustavus Adolphus, General Havelock, Washington, and Lincoln, have grown to greatness when fed on the milk of the word of God. The Bible makes character because it constructs a conscience. Only conviction can make a man independent. The Bible does more. It cultivates the heart unto life eternal. It places the child, the young man, the young woman, always and ever in the presence of God as Creator, and before his holy law. Then the boy grows deeper and daily deeper, knowing that “folly is bound up in his heart,” and that he must give account of his doing and leaving undone in this bodily life, whether it be good or bad. It teaches him unceasingly to practice self-denial and self-control, to drive out the “old man,” to crucify the lusts, and to please God. And when the time comes in which he must from the depths sigh with Schiller, “No; I will no longer wage this battle, this battle with giants for the sake of duty. Here is the crown; let it be lost forever. Take it back, and let me sin;” then there meets him again in the Bible the Man of Golgotha, the Son of God with pierced hands, with head sore wounded and bleeding, the most earnest friend of youth, who also, for the most sinful and the bitterest spirit, has words of comfort and forgiveness, and who knows how to help up again the bruised reed.