The Blind Men and the Elephant.
By Editor
The following humorous poem by J. G. Saxe, offers a well-merited rebuke to that stunted and short-sighted theology which builds a theory upon one or two isolated texts of Scripture, without considering their bearing upon other texts, or that of other texts upon them. A great deal of confusion in the theological world, is, we think, to be attributed to that narrow method of Biblical interpretation; and many of the disputants may well be likened to the blind men in the following fable disputing about an elephant they had never seen, and having only partially examined, had each mistaken his part for the whole. And we offer, as the great recommendation of that system which we call the present truth, that it harmonizes all the Bible into one grand whole. The reader will therefore bear in mind, as he peruses the following lines, that we have not taken the side, tusk, trunk, leg, ear, or tail, of the elephant, alone, but all the parts that go to make up the whole. It is this comprehensive harmony that gives the truth its clearness, and our cause its strength. But to the poem, which is called, “It was six men of Indostan,
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind. The first approached the elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
‘God bless me—but the elephant
Is very like a wall!’ “The second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried; ‘Ho! what have we here,
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an elephant
Is very like a spear!’ “The third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up he spake:
‘I see,’ quoth he, ‘the elephant
Is very like a snake!’ “The fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee;
‘What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,’ quoth he,
‘’Tis clear enough the elephant
Is very like a tree!’ “The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: ‘E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most:
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an elephant
Is very like a fan!’ “The sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
‘I see,’ quoth he, ‘the elephant
Is very like a rope!’ So these six men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion,
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong! So, oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
‘And prate about an elephant
That none of them has seen!’