The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42

No. III

No. III.

I unreservedly admit that there is force in the objection raised by "Censor" to the observations I made in my last paper, relative to the wrangling, jangling, "bells, of the little Bethels." I spoke metaphorically, and meant to say no more and no less than this—that the greatness of "pure religion and undefiled" is completely lost in the petty sectarian differences, and trumpery distinctions to which the sects, severally, attach such infinite importance. When sectarianism, and I might say too, when secularism, is cast adrift from the churches, there may be a hope of agreement on the outlines of religious teaching to be imparted in the schools of the State. Until this happens—and there is not the slightest indication of such an agreement—there is no prospect of teaching religion to the youth of all creeds, assembled together.

It looks simple enough, too, to arrive at a perfect concord in such a matter. We are told, in a few consise words, what true religion really is, and it seems very easy to instruct children to compassionate the fatherless and widows, and ail that are desolate and wretched; all those that suffer, that are oppressed, and that are born to trials and misery. The next point—I am dealing now with the definition of religion in the New Testament—is to learn them to keep themselves unspotted, from the world. If we put these definitions into other words, I think we get at this result—that true religion is a total self-abnegation, and an unfathomable love for our fellow creatures. It is utterly vain to expect to find such a creed in any school whatever, even supposing the only text book there used was the Bible itself. Look round the wide world, and ask yourself have you ever met such a sect anywhere? Call to mind all the people—all the most constant churchgoers and Bible champions—you have ever known, and inquire whether the basis of their religion was this? I have met with a different experience at all events. " Myself" and " my soul," my creed, my belief, my salvation—these are the anxieties of all the professing Christians, I have come across, and in every year, and in every country, I find them exactly the same. I find no fault with them—I do not pretend to express a judgment upon them—I merely state a tact, and so long as the fact is so, so long must there be, either many public schools with different creeds and Bibles, or one State School with no Bible at all.

Why, we find unutterable discord, even amongst the members of each sect, and the disagreement becomes absolute disorder and confusion, when we compare the teachings of the Christian sects with each other. Just take any two doctrines, as test points—say the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, so consoling to the good, and the doctrine of an endless and never ending torment, so appalling to the wicked. On the first I have said something already. An English Churchman quotes a passage from the Book of Job, as a proof of this doctrine, and this is the passage as quoted by him:—"I know that my Redeemer liveth, aud that He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth, and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet, in my flesh, I shall see God." 'That is the way the passage stands in the Bible. But another Churchman says that there is really no such passage in the whole book. Another Churchman—a learned fellow of Oxford says:—"The words in italics have nothing answering to them in the original—they were added by the translators to fill out their interpretation; and for in my flesh, they tell us themselves in the margin that we may read (and, in fact, we ought to read, and must read) ' out of,' or ' without' my flesh. It is but to write out the verses, omitting the conjectural additions, and making that one small but vital correction, to see how frail a support is there for so large a conclusion: 'I know that my Redeemer liveth, and shall stand at the latter upon the earth; and after my skin destroy this; yet without my flesh I shall see God.' If there is any doctrine of a resurrection here, it is a resurrection precisely not of the body, but of the spirit. And now let us only add, that the word translated Redeemer is the technical expression for the 'avenger of blood and that the second paragraph ought to be rendered—'and one to come after me (my next to kin, to whom the avenging my injuries belongs) shall stand upon my dust,' and we shall see how much was to be done towards the mere exegesis of the text. This is an extreme instance, and no one will question the general beauty and majesty of our translation; but there are many mythical and physical allusions scattered over the poem, which, in the sixteenth century, there were positively no means of understanding; and perhaps, too, there were mental tendencies in the translators themselves which prevented them from adequately apprehending even the drift and spirit of the composition." Then, as to eternal torment. In Mr Manson's shop, the other evening, I fell across a little book called the "Catechism of the Wesleyan Methodists for children of tender years." This is what the catechism says, to "children of tender years," concerning hell:—

Q.—What sort of a place is hell?

A.—Hell is a dark and bottomless pit, full of fire and brimstone.

Q.—How will the wicked be punished there?

A.—The wicked will be punished in hell by having their bodies tormented by Are, and their souls by a sense of the wrath of God.

Q.—How long will these torments last?

A.—The torments of hell will last for ever and ever.

At the same time we find Canon Farrar (author of the Life of Christ) declaring from the pupit of Westminster Cathedral, that such an eternal hell does not exist; that there is nothing in the Bible, when properly and accurately translated, to warrant such a doctrine, and that it is in itself a gross and wicked misrepresentation of the character of the benign Author of the Universe. In this view, and in his interpretation of the original words on which this doctrine is erected. Canon Farrar has the concurrence of the scholarly, and genial, and genuine portion of the churchmen of Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Australia, and New Zealand. It is only the frigidly good and rigidly righteous theologians of the church that take delight, in these days, in picturing the burnings and torments, never ending, of erring men and women, when they have done with the toil, and struggle, and sorrows, and sins, and sadness, of this incomprehensible world.

The subject is one on which volumes might be written, but on it I have no more to say just now. Such discussions can but end in leaving us in the obscurity it found us in. It is easy to prove that we know nothing whatever of these things. We can prove nothing more:—

We know not whether Death be good; But
Life, at least, it will not be:
Men will stand, sorrowing, as we stood,
Watch the same fields, and skies as we,
And the same sea.

That's about all we know for certain about it. And so to all, farewell.

Printed by Reid and Co., Weld-street, Hokitika.