A DIRECT argument is found in what follows, in favor of the utility of the Bible, and its heavenly origin, making it “the Book” for the ages of human trial, the revealer and decider of human destiny. A gentleman in New York was personally acquainted with Thomas Paine, the author of the “Age of Reason,” in which with ribald jest he scoffs at the Bible, the best of books, of which Robert Pollock, the Scotch bard, thus sweetly sings:—
“The book—this mighty book—on every line
Marked with the seal of high divinity;
On every leaf bedewed with drops of love
Divine, and with eternal heraldry
And signature of God Almighty sprinkled
From first to last.”
The gentleman, being often in Paine’s company during the last years of his life, gave the following account of a conversation he had with him respecting the Bible:—
“One evening I found Paine haranguing his disciples on the great mischief done to mankind by the production of the Bible and Christianity. When he paused, I said: ‘Mr. Paine, you have been in Scotland. You know there is not a more rigid set of people in the world than they are in their attachment to the Bible. Is it not one of the school books? Their churches are full of Bibles. When a young man leaves his father’s house, his mother, in packing his chest, always puts a Bible on top of his clothes.’ He replied that it was true. I continued: ‘You have been in Spain and Portugal, where they have no Bibles; and there you can hire a man for a dollar to murder his neighbor, who never gave him any offense.’ He assented. ‘You have been in districts in Europe where not one man in fifty can read, and you have been in Ireland where the majority never saw a Bible. Now you know that it is a historical fact that in one county in England or Ireland there are more capital convictions in six months than there are in the whole population of Scotland in twelve months. Besides this there is not one Scotchman in the almshouse, state’s prison, Bridewell, or penitentiary of New York. Now then if the Bible was so bad a book as you represent it to be, those who use it would be the worst members of society; but the contrary is the fact. Our prisons, almshouses, and penitentiaries are filled with men and women whose ignorance or unbelief prevents their reading the Bible.’”
“It was now near ten o’clock at night. Paine answered not a word, but taking his candle from the table walked up stairs, leaving his friends and myself staring at one another.”
This was indeed the easiest way for him to dispose of the weighty argument; but silence gives consent. This incident is well worth remembering, and invites a more extended examination into all the facts found in connection with our race, pertaining to the free and proper use or the neglect of the Bible, and consequent results. In the light of abundant facts we may well query with Dryden:—
“Whence but from Heaven could men unskilled in
arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths? Or how, or why
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gains—and martyrdom their
price.”