Manners and the Bible by Richard Glover

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 23, 1882

Manners and the Bible.

By Richard Glover

THERE is no "model letter-writer" comparable to the New Testament. Let a young man study the letters of St. Paul, and it will have an infinitely better effect on his style than the letters of Lord Chesterfield, and this quite apart from the effect of their moral and spiritual influence. The mere intellectual atmosphere of them will be elevating and refining to an astonishing degree.

And here we may remark on the influence of the Bible on mere manners. It invariably makes its readers more courteous and polite, and just, too, in proportion to the degree in which they are imbued with its spirit and teaching. Let a rough boor become converted, and let him begin to read and love his Bible, and he grows upward toward the gentleman from that hour. "The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple." It cannot be otherwise, because the Bible brings his mind perpetually into "good society." He may be wholly cut off from this in the actual world—though a religious poor man has here an advantage over his irreligious compeer, for, at any rate, on Sundays he comes into contact with superior society in at least the pulpit of his church or chapel—but when he reads his Bible he is brought into the society of the highest and most refined minds that ever existed. And how can it but be that all this should, perhaps insensibly, but at the same time very certainly, elevate, polish, and refine? "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise;" or, as the Persian proverb beautifully expresses it, "Even the pebble will become fragrant if it lie beside the rose;" and he that thus enjoys the society of gentlemen can hardly fail to become one too.

Experience has shown this: other things being equal, as the acquaintance of men with their Bible, so their mien and manners in regard to the standard of mere gentility. Does a parent wish to introduce his child into "good society?" Let him introduce him into a love of his Bible. Are young men and young women ambitious of self-culture even in regard to manners? And would they like to enter a good school of deportment? Let them enter into the society of the characters of the Bible.

But does some sharp reader say, How is it, then, that instances of discourtesy occur among professing Christians? My reply is, first, that it is one thing to be a professing Christian, and another thing to be a real and worthy one; secondly, that it is quite possible to be a truly converted one, and yet be very far from being a model or a winsome one; thirdly, that even in the case of an uncourteous Christian, depend upon it the man's native bearishness would have been vastly more bearish if he had not been a Christian. In such a case, it is not the Christianity of the man that is to blame, but rather his defect of it. He is a defective Christian because he has neglected the special duty "to put off concerning the former conversation the old man"—in his case, that very ugly old man—and to put on by self-discipline, culture and prayer, gentleness and courtesy, and all the other graces of the new man.

Christianity recognizes the fact that Christians have faults. But it does not allow them, and it urges us to correct them. "I speak this to your shame," said St. Paul to Christians. And there is much now that may be spoken to our shame; and we fear that want of courtesy and true graciousness is very conspicuous under this category. But when the Spirit of God says to us by St. Peter, "Adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things," sure we are that he would have us specially remember that exhortation which he gives by the same apostle—"Be courteous."

From Winsome Christianity, by the Rev. Richard Glover.