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Show THE BOOK "BEN HUB" IS. Bishop Orson F. Whitney on Sunday evening gave a lecture on Gen. Wallace's Wal-lace's great book, "Ben Hur," and stated his conclusion about the same In words reported thus: "He believed that Gen, Lew Wallace, In writing his book, did so to prove Christian civilization civ-ilization had overcome Roman and Hebrew civilization and had paved the way for the last dispensation that was revealed to and propagated by the Prophet Joseph F. Smith." It is always a good rule of Interpretation Interpre-tation to avoid the obscure, the unnecessary, un-necessary, the special plea of the partisan, par-tisan, especially when that partisan plea Is in behalf of something absurd, obnoxious, frivolous, or generally unknown un-known or contemptible. The safe rule Is to hold to that which most completely complete-ly explains and which is the obvious lesson to be drawn from the writing. Judged by this rule, which. Is unquestionably un-questionably the true one, Bishop Whitney Is In sad error In this attempt to make the Wallace book a buttress for a dispensation which Wallace could not have had any motive to approve or exploit. In no writing of his Is there the least hint that he had any Interest or leaning In (he way suggested by Bishop Whitney. It Is wholly Incredible, Incred-ible, therefore, that he should have devoted his chief and most famous work to the service of that vagary. On the other hand, the love of Gen. Wallace for the blood horse was notorious; no-torious; he was an enthusiast on the .subject and ho was never so happy as when viewing some choice specimen of the best breed of horses. We, therefore, there-fore, set off against Bishop Whitney's perverse notion, the true theory of "Ben Hur." It was to Illustrate In a striking manner the superiority of the Arab horse, and to proclaim Its triumph tri-umph over all other breeds. Inferen-tlally, Inferen-tlally, It took into the account the infusion in-fusion of the Arab bleod In all the great strains of horseflesh, and taught the lesson that the cold-blooded animals ani-mals of the European strains, and from this the American strains, had to be warmed by the hot-blooded Arab before the choice breeds of modern times could have their origin. This view, of course, would make Ben Hur a pretty good horse book; and our candid opinion Is that it Is a good deal more of a horse book than a doctrinal Mormon book. |