'All hail' simple teachings on the Bible

Preface

An enthusiastic love of the Bible must be my excuse for publishing this book. To my love of the Bible has been joined a love of Italian art, which has developed during many visits to Italy and which has guided the choice of my illustrations. The book, at first planned for young children, has grown into a serious attempt to help older children and even adults to understand the Bible, to help those, I mean, who have not the use of the best commentaries and the best Bible dictionaries. I have been aided in my work by kind friends to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. Mrs. Thynne's beautiful reproductions of celebrated pictures will, I feel sure, appeal to all. The work of editing has proved very heavy, for much of the book has had to be rewritten. This work has been carried out by an old friend of mine, the Rev. J. Verschoyle, to whom I am deeply grateful. He has done his best, without discussing debated questions, to im'prove a work conceived from the traditional point of view. In my ignorance I did not realise the vast extent and complexity of the task I had undertaken in attempting to deal with the whole Bible, book by book. I realise it now with all humility.

The title of my book, All Hail! came to m'e during a conversation with a friend, and appealed to me as being among the first words (and those words addressed to women) which our Blessed Lord spoke after His Resurrection. St. Matthew xxviii. verse 9 : 'And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail'

Travelling in Italy, I learned to feel that most of its art treasures may be regarded as a beautiful Biblical picture-book. As I emerged from the enthusiasm' of ignorance into the enthusiasm of a little more knowledge, I thought I would like to try to help simple people, and particularly mothers and children, to understand the Book of books. My own standpoint may be expressed in the words of Jeremiah vi. verse 16: 'Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls;' but this standpoint has become modified by taking into consideration the changed and changing conditions of to-day, and the need, which I have

vii viii PREFACE

learned specially in America, of pushing on ahead. My heart goes out to my native land, to Italy, to the Holy Land, to the swarming millions of India, in the longing that all may be brought into the Kingdom and under the influence of our Blessed Lord. My heart goes out to America with the same longing. I pray that these simple teachings on the Bible may be of use to some of the many to whom my heart goes out in goodwill: to people of Canada, of Africa, and of Australia. Our needs are many and various, but the Holy Bible can supply all our needs out of its fulness.

Here I may be permitted to give a passage from a letter to me from Mr. Verschoyle, the friend who has edited my book, which will, I think, be found interesting.

'The Tercentenary of the Authorised Version makes the year 191 1 particularly appropriate for the publication of a popular book on the Bible, designed to help ordinary people to a better understanding of that great library of religious knowledge. Our debt as a nation to the Authorised Version of the Bible is very great, for it has helped to form much of what is best in our national life; and to inspire much of what is best in our national literature.

*In this connection I may quote a passage from page 24 of your book, which deals with the value of the Old Testament as a means of teaching morals to children, and is fairly representative of the contents of the book.

' "At this point we may say a few words on the value of the whole book of Genesis, as indeed of the whole Old Testament as a means of teaching morality to the young, and teaching it as practical religion. The Eastern is the prince of story-tellers, and Genesis in particular, and the Old Testament in general, teach by stories, the very best means for teaching children. Genesis, moreover, even beyond the other Old Testament books, has an atmosphere of its own, the atmosphere of God, which of itself is invaluable, as stimulating the moral and spiritual growth of the child. The moral teaching of the Old Testament is never dull, and no one takes it in more readily than the child. Childhood is obviously the time to learn moral law, for the fullest good effects of obedience to the moral law are only to be had by beginning in childhood the self-mastery which is the secret of the right life. In the hands of competent teachers, of parents in the home, and masters and mistresses in the school, the Old Testament remains the very best practical handbook for the teaching of morals to boy or girl, and it is hoped that these simple readings and explanations of the Bible may be a help and encouragement to parents and even to school

PREFACE ix

teachers to bring home the life-giving contents of the Bible to the children in their charge.

' "It was the Old Testament of which St. Paul wrote to Timothy that it was given by inspiration of God, 'that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.' The effect on the moral life is one of the tests of true inspiration, and the Old Testament emerges triumphantly from this test, in the case of adults, as well as in the case of children. The Bible (the New Testament, of course, but not without the Old) is God's chief instrument for the education of the world, in that which is most important, the power of a righteous life. The regular reading of the Bible and a practical knowledge of its contents have formed the character of the English-speaking race in the past and are needed to continue it in the future. We cannot live without ideals, 'but the Bible,' says Bishop Westcott, 'not only offers to us an ideal of service and sympathy and fellowship, of love to God and man, which answers to the noblest aspirations of all men, but also supplies us with a motive to seek it and power to approach it, the sense of Christ's love for us, and the sense of Christ's presence.' "

'This unrivalled power in the Old Testament of training the moral sense in children is perhaps due to the intense interest aroused in them by jt^ vivi^ Tories of real men and women, full of breathing liie.run arfj o) hni'

'Tolstoy found this power of the Old Testament in rousing interest absolutely unique in his remarkable experiments in the schooling of peasant children: "Of all the oral subjects I tried during three years, nothing so suited the understanding and mental condition of the boys as the Old Testament. The same was the case in all the schools that came under my observation. . . . It seems ta rtle that the book of the childhood of the race will always be the best book for the childhood of each man . . . To alter or to abbreviate the Bible . . . appears to me bad. All, every word, in it is right, both as revelation and as art."

'After Tolstoy had tried in vain with other books and other teaching to win his pupils he says, "Then I tried reading the Bible to them, and quite took possession of them. . . . The- corner of the veil was lifted, and they yielded themselves to me completely. They fell in love with the book and with learning and with me. It only remained for me to guide them on. . . . To reveal to the pupil a new world, and to make him, without possessing knowledge, love knowledge, there is no book but the Bible. There are no other works — at least, I know of none — which in so

X PREFACE

compressed and poetic a form contain all those sides of human thought which the Bible unites in itself. All the questions raised by natural phenomena are there dealt with. Of all the primitive relations of men with one another, the family, the State, and religion, we first become conscious through that book. . . . The development of a child or a man in our society without the Bible is as inconceivable as that of an ancient Greek would have been without Homer. The Bible, both in its form and in its contents, should serve as a model for all children's primers and all reading books. A translation of the Bible into the language of the common folk would be the best book for the people."

'A book which Tolstoy, certainly not an ecclesiastically-minded layman under priestly domination, found absolutely essential to modern education will never, one thinks, be given up in our English elementary schools. But there are ominous signs of a growing disregard of the Bible among adults of the wealthier as well as the poorer classes, which, if it continues, is bound to influence the children. '

'As that great student of the Bible, Bishop Westcott, wrote twelve years ago: "There is much discussion about the Bible, but, as I fear, little knowledge of it. We are curious to inquire — and it is a reasonable curiosity — when this book and that, was written; but- we are contented to be ignorant of what this book or that book contains. We remain blind to the magnificent course of the Divine education of the world . . . nothing less than our national character is at stake in our regard for the Bible. . . . We are beginning to forget, under new conditions of life, what has made England great, and what, as I believe, alone can keep it great."

'Bishop Westcott's words warn us against a national danger, which has not lessened in the last twelve years. This book is an attempt to supply parents and teachers who have not time to consult more ambitious or learned works with an easy help to the better understanding of the Bible which may encourage a closer study of its life-shaping contents.' So ends my extract from Mr. Verschoyle's letter.

With this introduction I leave to the judgment of the public this very humble endeavour to encourage in the average reader a more intelligent study, of the Bible, not forgetting, when we have done our best, what the greatest and most highly-equipped student of the Bible of late years called 'the vast and unapproachable mysteriousness of all truth. Because we see clearly what we do see, we shall know that we do not and we cannot see all.' (I Corinthians

PREFACE xi

xiii. verse 12 (R.V. with marginal reading) : Tor now we see in a mirror darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know fully even as also I have been fully known.'

FREDA DE KNOOP.

Among the books that have been used in preparing this volume, to parts of which it is indebted, are the following: Dr. Hastings' larger Bible Dictionary in five volumes ; the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges ; Bishop Westcott's and Bishop Lightfoot's Commentaries on Books of the New Testament; The Speaker's Commentary. Driver's Genesis and Ramsay's and Farrar's works dealing with the life and work of St. Paul; also Bishop Ryle of Winchester's Early Narratives of Genesis, and the Bishop of London's excellent little books dealing with the diiEficulties of the Old Testament and the New.

Foreword To Children

For you all, dear children, this book has been written, and to j'ou this foreword is addressed. It was for you that the whole book was, in the first instance, conceived and written. It has grown insensibly from' being an attempt to make the Bible intelligible to young children, into a continuous account of all the books of the Bible from a convinced but not a narrow conservative standpoint, a modified traditional point of view.

(You, my dear children, will find the study of many of the books of the Bible too difficult for you at present, but it is my hope that your parents, especially your mothers, and perhaps your school-teachers, will get such help in my chapters as will enable them to instruct you intelligently, and, may I add, with some of the loving enthusiasm with which this book was written.

And now, my dear children, let me say a few words specially to you to whom this book is dedicated.

God is Love. God is Light. God is a Spirit. God is a Consuming Fire. It is the Bible that tells us this. Let us talk about this a little, and together try to find out what this means. Love is the greatest thing in the world. Love can accomplish anything. Whatever wonderful powers we may possess, all is of no value unless we have Love — love for our Creator and love for our fellow-creatures. God is Light. We know what a beautiful thing is light; without it life fails and dies. God is a Spirit. This means that we must not think of God as being as we are, limited by the flesh. Nobody can see Him here with the eyes of the body. When we go to Heaven we shall see Him with the eyes of the soul with which we do already see H'im, to some extent, through the veil of our flesh. His beloved Son Jesus Christ has assured us of this.

During our life on earth we feel God's nearness to us. He chooses our hearts to live in, because that is the best part of us. I am sure you have heard people sometimes say: This man has courage; or, That woman speaks the truth. Can we see courage? No. Courage is not blue or green. Can we touch truth? No. Truth has no corners or edges. And so we come to understand that there are quite a number of things which we cannot see, but which are, nevertheless, of the very greatest importance. Thus, xiv FOREWORD TO CHILDREN

when we are told that God is a Spirit, we begin to realise that this means a great deal.

God is the first cause of everything. Nothing can exist without Him. God is a consuming fire. The explanation of this is, that all wickedness shall finally be destroyed. In its proper time, all wickedness shall be made by God to pass away, so as to give place to Love and Light and Spirit. God is All-Powerful, and unites all good in His One and Only Supreme Being.

My dear little child, have you ever thought anything at all about such things? Who are you? A little boy or a little girl? Perhaps your name is Barbara? Perhaps you have a little sister and a little brother? Perhaps you have a mother and a father. You have a home; you have a garden with flowers in it. You see and feel God's beautiful sunshine. Perhaps you count the raindrops, going pit-a-pat down the window-pane, in your nursery; have you given it a thought who it is that is so kind and loving as to give you such delightful things?

You remember, I am sure, that you had a birthday some time ago, and that you got presents — perhaps a cart and horse ; perhaps a Paris dollie which came across the Channel and wished you many happy returns of the day; perhaps you had a birthday cake, with three, four, five, or even more candles upon it : everything was given to you in order to give you pleasure. Then your mother said to you : 'Are you a happy child ? Will you not come and say, Thank you?'

And have you not felt that you must at once put your arms round her neck and your father's and give them a kiss and a tight lovesqueeze, and tell them how you love them? Well, God is watching over you all the while. He wishes you, little boy and little girl, to love your Heavenly Father because He is the Giver of all good things.

God begins everything and He never ends working. The Lord commands us and all dear children to love Him with all our hearts ; to say to Him : ' "Our Father," pity my simplicity. Look down upon me and teach me to love Thee with all my heart. I wish to please Thee, and to be an obedient child.'

The Lord has loved us from the very beginning, long before we even knew that we had a mother and a father, when we were a tiny long-clothes baby, and when we were taken to church to be christened.

You have not forgotten, have you, when you were taken to church, and saw the holy water of Baptism bein^ put on your little brother's forehead. You were told to be very good and

FOREWORD TO CHILDREN xv

quiet in church, and to pray to God for the tiny baby, asking Him to let the child grow up a good boy. But God does love us so. He it is who puts us into this beautiful world to live in for the present, until that time comes when He calls us into a far more beautiful place still — His Own Home, called Heaven — ^there to live with Him for ever.

God gives you your mother. She prays for you. God puts all good and pure thoughts into her head and heart, to love you so dearly, to care for you so tenderly, to feed you so that you are not hungry, to clothe you so that you are not cold. She teaches you to read your Bible, as her mother taught the Blessed Virgin in our picture. W!hy has the Lord given you, little girlie, your blue eyes? Put your hands over them and close them tight. What happens ? Is it light or dark now ? Do you like it so much when you cannot see? I think that you will say: 'I do not want to keep my hands there any longer ; I want to open my eyes wide.' And I fancy you will say: 'Oh! how glad I am that God has made me able to see.' You will say: 'I am grateful to Him for having given me eyes with which to see so much. I can find my way in the fields ; I can see the blue sky. I can see my dear doggies when they come a walk with me, when they caper about, enjoying themselves, running after the poor little bunnies. I can see my beloved pony when his big, clever eyes look into mine, while he seems to be telling me to get on his back and have a lovely canter all along the breezy downs, feeling the fresh wind on my cheeks.'

There is simply no end to the things you can see. You long to say: 'How I do thank my Heavenly Father for giving me eyes.' Another time you go a walk. It is Sunday. Your nurse takes you past the village church. It is all overgrown with ivy. Little dicky-birds come flying from among the ivy; some of them have their nests snugly tucked away there. The robin redbreast, the busybody sparrow, the sailing swallow, the mellow-voiced skylark, all of them and many others meet together ; leave their respective nests, and raise their notes, singihg away and thinking : *My home is so cosy; I can fly, I can see God's beautiful sunrise and sunset. I want to praise my Maker, I am such a happy birdie.' Away goes he, soaring up, ever higher. You lose sight of him, and you cannot hear him more. You hear something else. What is this? People are singing in church, 'Onward, Christian soldiers.' You keep very quiet, so as not to disturb anybody; you put yoar finger to your mouth and you whisper to your little sister to be quiet. You say to her: 'Listen!' Why do you listen? Because you wish to hear. We love to hear beautiful music. We love to xvi FOREWORD TO CHILDREN

listen to our mother when she sings to us, or to our father when he plays for us. We are thinking of our winter evenings at home, when we children come down after tea.

Then there are our brave soldiers we love to hear playing, when they go marching along following their inspiring band, when we hear and join in 'God save our Gracious King.' All of us love to be able to hear, and we ask ourselves: 1 wonder who it is that gives us our hearing, gives us our sight, gives us our thoughts, gives us our being able to love : in fact, who it is that gives us everything. Is it always the Same One? Is it always our loving Heavenly Father?' And we know it is He and only He. There is nothing that can be thought of, there is nothing that can be done without God. You cannot do one single thing, little or big, without God seeing and knowing it.

God, the Holy Spirit, desires us to love Him. This is His condition. This He expects from us. Only thus can we show Him our gratitude. Although we do not see the Lord, He, because He is the All-powerful God, and can do everything, sees us all the while. The Lord is present everywhere. He sees us, when we are trying to be good, and then He is pleased. He sees us when we are disobedient and then He is sore displeased. Why is the Lord not satisfied with us when we do wrong? Why is He sad? He so great, we so small.

Why does He care about a tiny child? Because the Lord loves it so dearly. You little child, you do not like to see your brother crying when he is in pain and ill, do you ? This makes you very sorry. You cuddle him, and you say: 'There, there, don't cry; it will soon be better.' In the same way, but infinitely more tenderly and wisely, does our Heavenly Father care about each one of us. He wishes us to be happy. He has given us many beautiful gifts, and expects us to be obedient and good, which alone can secure happiness for us. Don't you therefore think that you must try hard to please God, when He has done so much for us?

There is an illness which causes God to be most sad of all. This illness is called a guilty conscience. This means, that when we do wrong, something right inside of us tells us that we have done that which we ought not to have done. We feel very uncomfortable, ill at our ease. Something in our hearts, there where God lives, speaks to us and chides us. We know at once that it is our conscience speaking. God has given us our conscience, and wishes us all always to listen to what it tells us, before it is too late. He has given us our conscience as our best friend. As soon as ever we know that wickedness is driving out

FOREWORD TO CHILDREN xvii

love and light from our hearts, we must pluck it out, fling it away, and make a bonfire of it. God's Fire consumes all wickedness. •Just as the fire burns up the bad weeds in the garden.

I want to say to you some more about our conscience; I hope afterwards you will never more forget what conscience is. Your father has told you never to tell an untruth. Remember that all your life. You must never be afraid of speaking the truth. You can never help feeling very much afraid when you tell an untruth, I will you why it is so. Supposing you speak up bravely and you say: 'I am very sorry indeed, I have broken a glass.' Or you say : T have been unkind, I have snatched away the dollie from my little sister, and I would not let her play with it.' Or you say: T want to beg pardon; I lost my temper, and I scratched the nursery-maid.' Well then, you will be told : 'Indeed, you have been a naughty child.' In future you are expected to give up being naughty. You feel that this is right and fair, that you should be blamed. You are honestly sorry, and you are forgiven.

Now comes the other thing, not speaking the truth. The child says : Tt was not I who spilt the ink. It was some one else who spoiled the tablecloth.' And the child knows that it was not some one else, but he himself. Now this is what is so wicked ; you have no idea how horrid it makes one feel. The child becomes afraid of looking up, and will be found out all the same. The child who spoke the untruth has to be punished; it hid away a nasty dirty thing which soiled its clean and cheerful heart. An untruth makes your heart as ugly as dirt makes your face. Let us take a walk into a lovely garden. Do look at all these happy children playing about, how they are enjoying themselves. Their hearts are clean and healthy, and that is why they are having such a good time. What a pity then it would be to spoil everything.

But such is surely the case as soon as we forget what we have been told, if we are disobedient, if we do wrong. |You have been told not to pluck the flowers from mother's favourite bed in the garden, the lovely pink and white and yellow roses. Now you and your conscience — ^because you cannot leave your conscience behind if you tried — see the roses, bathed in the bright sunshine. Your fingers itch. You think : 'I want them.' 'No,' says your conscience, 'no, you have been forbidden to pluck them.' Had you listened to your conscience, 3^ou would have remained a happy girlie.

What do you do? You forget your promise. You stoop. All people have to stoop when they do wrong, instead of remaining upright as God has made us. You stoop down, break a poor stem xviii FOREWORD TO CHILDREN

in two. You gather the roses. You prick your fingers. That hurts; but your conscience hurts a great deal more. You hold the flowers in your hand tightly. You see the gardener coming. You know that he is going to scold you. You run away. Why?* Because your conscience makes you feel naughty and afraid. You did not want the gardener to see the flowers. You fling them away on the ground, into a bush, in order to hide them. How cruel! They hate to lie withering on the ground. They love the sunshine. They have been plucked off by a naughty child, and lie fading and dying. They can no more drink the dewdrops, or invite the bees to look for honey. All their joy is over, and why? Because of a naughty, disobedient child, who is feeling unhappy too, and a great deal more so than they.

You have done wrong. You have broken your word. You wish to forget all, but you find you cannot. You have trouble written on your face. Your father came into the garden and said to you, 'Why do you look so miserable?' You thought nobody knew about your wrong-doing. You answered, T don't know.' You told an untruth.

Do you remember what we have been talking about? Who it is that sees us all the time? Tell me. You have not forgotten? God had seen you. He had seen a little child. You had not been alone. God is always the same, always present. He had seen everything, and you were most unhappy. You confessed your fault, and God forgave you. The Lord sees us by day and by night. When it is light and when it is dark. When we are awake, when we are asleep. He never leaves us, but takes care of us always. This is a most beautiful and comforting feeling; always to feel we have our loving Heavenly Father with us. He gives us courage and hope and help. Never can we give Him thanks half enough. We must never forget Him. We must ever remember His goodness to us, and praise Him.

When you are a school boy or school girl, your teachers will give you marks for your work. This means they will put underneath your exercise in your copybooks in red ink, 'Very good,' if they know that you have tried your hardest. Then you are so happy. You run and show it to your father and mother, and you make them so happy too. A brave sailor who weathers the storm and the perils of the sea, wears a good-conduct badge on his sleeve. He has been praised by his captain, who said, 'Well done.' Then he is a happy man.

Thus are we all happy, just in so far as we try our hardest to do our best. If we try to live good, honest, upright, truthful lives,

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then the Lord will some day say to us, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.' He says to you His children, 'Come to me.' When that time comes, then He will enable us to see Him, That will be the very best of all things that can possibly happen to us. To be near Him, with Him, and never to leave Him. He has promised us this. Jesus Christ, His Son, our Saviour, is the proof. Let us serve God all the days of our life. Let us love Him as we ought. He is the Truth, and He is our Father.