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Show The Church and the Scriptures. IT SEEMS ALWAYS to have been a traditional belief among our Protestant Prot-estant brethren that the church has been hostile to a free use and study of the Bible. Recent acts emanating from as high a source as the Vatican have given a very severe shock to these traditional tra-ditional .charges of the Protestant world. A papal commission has recently re-cently been appointed for the purpose of outlining a. Bible-course, nor is this by any means an innovation of mother church. The writer remembers that the earliest study given in a Catholic school was Bible history suitable to juvenile interpretation; later came the Testaments with a thorough study of catachism and scriptural proof with text given for each thing studied and this in a young ladies' academy some years ago! Recently the Osservatore Romano, the official organ of the Vatican, published pub-lished a series of articles on the importance, im-portance, of Bible study, of which the following contains the main sentiment therein: "The reading of the Holy Scriptures is the best means for the support of the true and genuine apostolic office, and is entirely adapted to awaken in the people a truly Christian knowledge and conscience, which can then be perverted per-verted by nobody. What an inestimable inesti-mable blessing it would be if every Christian, family would be assembled daily and read a chapter from the gospels! gos-pels! In this way the divine language of the book, together with its sublime simplicity, would become common property; the Image of Jesus Christ would become clearer and more deeply impressed on the" hearts of the people; a thorough religious training would be imparted on all . sides, and in this way the most dangerous results of ignorance ignor-ance and Indifference would be removed. re-moved. If it would only be mad a possi- " '-' i ble to have this constant and steady reading of the Scriptures Introduced into many families, as is the case In a number of countries in northern Europe, Eu-rope, what an immense gain this would be for the church and the faithful!" These articles have called forth many exclamations from the Protestant press. The Osservatore further announces an-nounces that the Vatican press has in preparation a new Italian translation of the four gospels and of the Acts which can be bought for the mere sum of one franc (20 cents). A committee has been appointed to see to the distribution distri-bution of this edition, its duties being the same as those of a Bible society. From a standpoint of literature pure and simple the Bible stands unrivaled a3 a gem. Where could we find the beauty and simplicity of style com bined with wonderful strength? Where such exquisite nicety as to similies and metaphors? Taken historically, have we anything to which we can go with such a feeling feel-ing of surety, and again, where can we find life's story in its infant days more graphic-ally told? The church not only encourages the study of the Bible now it has always done so but we must remember in early Christian times that, a Bible was worth a king's ransom. ran-som. Again, the 'people were ignorant and unable to read, let alone interpret the book for themselves. As conditions condi-tions arose by which the people could take the Divine Word and read it for themselves, the church has most strongly encouraged the people to do so. And surely in no study could we be more richly repaid with a wealth of beautiful thoughts than by going to the Good Book. |