p. 12 | The Word in the Heart by Marianne Farningham

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Oct 8, 1903

The Word in the Heart

By Marianne Farningham

“Is that a quotation?”

“Yes; do you not recognize it?”

“Is it from the Bible? Don’t you know that it is considered bad form in these days to quote from the Bible? And it is not the way to be understood, for it is an unknown Book to many.”

Yes, I am afraid it is; and the many are so much the poorer in consequence. The old way of quoting from the Psalms, the prophets, and the epistles, in letters and conversation, or in speeches, as John Bright used to do, are quite out of date now, and it is even possible to listen to a sermon in which, with the exception of the reading of the text, the words of Scripture scarcely appear. This marks a curious and, I think, an unhappy change. The old deacons and ministers of one’s youth would have been quite lost if their minds and memories had not been crowded with “Bible words.” The prayers of one superintendent of forty years ago were almost made up of Biblical phrases; his petitions were selections from the supplicatory psalms, and his ascriptions of praise were those which had served all the generations. Often have I heard him pray, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow;” and many a time has he opened the school exercises on Sunday morning with the words, “Lord, I have loved the habitations of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth.”

All the pupils in the school were expected to learn portions of Scripture by heart, both parents and teachers considering this to be the best possible way of storing a child’s mind. The first sixpence I ever earned was given to me for reciting two chapters of the Gospel by St. John—the tenth and the fifteenth. Did I understand them? Do you? I understood enough to make the beautiful words very sweet and helpful to me, and I am always glad that my childhood was lived in those days. Our superintendent’s prayer, in which were very few words of his own, was really quite as good as any of the prayers with which your superintendents opened the school last Sunday. And the sermons preached in those old-fashioned days made quite as much for righteousness as most modern ones, although every point was rounded off and driven home by some illustrative text. How we used to study and love the Book in those days! It was to us the very Word of God. A reference Bible was a greatly treasured possession, and a knowledge of the Scriptures was considered the most important part of the education of a child, or, at all events, a child of Nonconformist parents.

I think that this was an immense gain, and therefore am I sorry for all children who are not growing up with the Bible. Of course, it is not a sealed book to any, and hosts are being taught in homes and Sunday-schools to know and love its pages, but not so universally as was once the case. It was many years ago that the reaction set in. Other methods than learning by rote were adopted. About the time when catechisms were discarded, the practise of learning verses and chapters was also given up. And the new methods, though doubtless better in some ways, are less thorough than the old.

It used to be said, as one of the arguments for discontinuing the plan of committing to memory portions of Scripture, that the practise caused the children to dislike the Bible. But I think that the men and women who in their childhood used it even as a lesson book are quite as fond of it to-day as those who did not. There were some mistaken parents who occasionally set these children long Biblical tasks for punishment. It was a great pity, but some of these children when they grew up forgave even them. As a rule, children used to love the Bible. I remember once giving a tiny girl a whole number of magazines and interesting stories to while away a Sunday evening, but discovered that she had looked about for a Bible, and presently seated herself on the rug, and with a look of great contentment had betaken herself to the re-reading of her favorite bit of literature, the Revelation of St. John the divine! I reminded her of the incident years after.

“Yes,” she said, “the music and the grandeur of the majestic imagery appealed to my imagination, and touched my heart always; and,” she added with a sigh, “I think I understood it quite as well then as now.”

“In any case it did you no harm?”

“No, it greatly enriched my thought and life; and I am glad to have read it so often that I have never been able to forget it. In times of trial some words have never failed to come to my aid. The story of my life would have been different but for one verse, ‘To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.’ Many a time the words have roused me like a rallying cry.”

An old fisherman, deaf, and alone in the world, told me that in his youth he had learned by heart the book of Job, and that his nights on the sea had been comforted and brightened by the arguments in that wonderful poem. I marveled at his choice, and was a little dismayed when he seemed to have resolved to repeat the whole book for my benefit; but he rendered in so dramatic a manner the discussions between Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Job, that I was almost sorry when he stopped at the nineteenth chapter, and only took up the story again at the fortieth. But will any one say that the ignorant fisherman was not greatly the gainer for this knowledge?

If I had children, I would, knowing what I do of life, give them for their inheritance more than a few of the grand old words of the old Bible, securely tucked away in their memories for future needs.—Marianne Farningham, in The Christian World.