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CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 2, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 34.

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CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.

By William Warren Prescott

(Concluded.)
NOW THERE are a few thoughts that I wish to dwell upon in the little time that is left to us, in regard to the relation that should exist between the Bible and the subjects of study, that is, what part the revealed word of God should have in that scheme of study the purpose of which is to lead the student into a more complete knowledge of God as the personal God, Creator, and Redeemer. It is true that, in the first place, these things were written upon the face of nature in God's language just as plainly as they are now written upon the printed page in our language; but, just as the page of the Japanese Bible is really a closed book to me, just so when man lost the ability to read the language of God direct, the book of nature began to be closed to him, and it became necessary, as it were, to translate the language of God upon the leaf of nature to the language of man upon the printed leaf of God's word. How, then, shall we yet be able to understand what is printed in God's language upon this leaf? We must read it as translated into our language upon the printed leaf.
Now, supposing I, being unacquainted with the Japanese language, should take up the Japanese Bible and begin to read to you my idea of what ought to be there, do you suppose I would be very likely to read it correctly? No, the only way that I can know anything of what is printed on that page in the Japanese language is to have it translated into our language. How shall I learn to understand what is written on the leaf of nature in God's language?—It can only be by taking what he himself says is written there, and his saying it in a language that I can read; that is, he adapts it to my power to understand it. I having lost his language, in which there is that complete and perfect revelation of God, he has followed me and has revealed it to me in my language. Now I take my language, which is but the translation of his language, and put his leaf before me, and I read in my language what he says he has written in his language on his leaf, and then I understand the revelation of God in the face of nature. But when I close the written word, and lay that on one side, and attempt to read what God has revealed on the leaf of nature without observing what he himself has told me is there, then I go wrong; and that is the attempt of man to interpret science without the word of God. Now I will read a word upon that point:—
God has permitted a flood of light to be poured upon the world in both science and art; but when professedly scientific men treat upon these subjects from a merely human point of view, they will assuredly come to wrong conclusions. It may be innocent to speculate beyond what God has revealed, if our theories do not contradict facts found in the Scriptures; but those who leave the word of God, and seek to account for his created works upon scientific principles, are drifting, without chart or compass, upon an unknown ocean. The greatest minds, if not guided by the word of God in their research, become bewildered in their attempts to trace the relations of science and revelation. Because the Creator and his works are so far beyond their comprehension that they are unable to explain them by natural laws, they regard Bible history as unreliable. Those who doubt the reliability of the records of the Old and New Testaments, will be led to go a step farther, and doubt the existence of God; and then, having lost their anchor, they are left to beat about upon the rocks of infidelity. These persons have lost the simplicity of faith.
There should be a settled belief in the divine authority of God's holy word. The Bible is not to be tested by men's ideas of science.
In other words, it is like this. Taking God's language upon the leaf, the knowledge of which we have lost, we speculate as to what that is, and, having made up our minds what we think it is, then we require that the direct revelation of him in language that we can understand should be so explained, so adjusted, so modified, that it shall harmonize with our idea of what God has written on this leaf, and not with his own idea. And that, you see, is the difference between true science and false science. All true science is but the interpretation of the handwriting of God in the material universe; but how are we going to know his handwriting when we have lost the ability to read the language?—It must be through the translation. Then we must put that first, and read that leaf [exhibiting leaf of flower] through this leaf [exhibiting Bible]. Then we know we are right, because he has told us so. But when we lay aside this revelation, and seek only to guess, speculate, wonder, and advance as our belief the theories that we may evolve concerning this leaf and the language upon it, we are sure to go astray.
Then what place should the Bible occupy in a true scheme of Christian education?—It should be first, not merely in the fact that everyone should study direct the page of the Bible, not merely in the fact that the Bible should be used as a text-book in which there should be daily study, but in the fact that everything else that is taught in that school should be taught through that word.
I have been trying to present some of these ideas to our instructors at home, to get them to see, as I hope to get myself to see, more clearly how this should come, and we have spent hours and hours studying over these things. Not long since I asked one of them: "What do you think about it now? Do you see these things in any clearer light?" He said, "I think I do, and I want to tell you that you have not a man on your faculty who is educated enough to teach that way." And he was a graduate of a university, too.
It is a fact, too. No man can teach as God would have him teach if he is not acquainted with God in his word and his works, no matter what he teaches, because what he teaches is God all the time. The purpose is to obtain a knowledge of God, and he cannot lead the students to see God where he does not see him; and he cannot teach them to read the handwriting of God where he cannot read it.