Botanists -- United States -- Correspondence; Gray, Asa, 1810-1888 -- Correspondence
“The Scriptures,” says that writer, in his “Internal Evidences of
Christianity,” “are not revelations from God, but the history of them.
The revelations themselves are derived from God, but the history of them
is the production of man. If the records of this revelation are supposed
to be the revelation itself, the least defect discovered in them must be
fatal to the whole. What has led many to overlook this distinction is
that common phrase that the Scriptures are the Word of God; and in one
sense they certainly are; that is, they are the sacred repository of all
the revelations, dispensations, promises, and precepts which God has
vouchsafed to communicate to mankind; but by this expression we are not
to understand that every part of this voluminous collection of
historical, poetical, prophetical, theological, and moral writing which
we call the Bible was dictated by the immediate influence of Divine
inspiration.”
He held this ground strongly when the general view of the Bible was
narrower than of late years. As the years went on he grew broader and
sweeter, feeling wider sympathy with all true, devout religious belief.
He was a constant church-goer, everywhere. When traveling he always made
Sunday a resting-day if possible, and would go quietly off in the
morning to find some place of service, in English if he could. He
enjoyed the Episcopal service, though early habit and training had made
him a Presbyterian; but, as he wrote in an early letter, “In fact I have
no more fondness for high Calvinistic theology than for German
neology.... But I have no penchant for melancholy, sober as I sometimes
look, but turn always, like the leaves, my face to the sun.”
He was a teacher in Sunday-schools in New York (the lady with whom he
boarded has still a lively remembrance of his enthusiastic study of
German that he might teach his class of German boys better), and also in
his early years of Cambridge life, until the heavy load of work he was
carrying made the Sunday more imperative as a day of rest. It was his
rule to rest on Sunday. Rest for him was change of intellectual
occupation, and he read all of the day he was not out at church; more
especially on the philosophical questions, whether general or
scientific, which next to botany were his chief interest. Books on these
subjects were the few he bought outside of works on botany; as he said,
he could only afford botanical books and had no money or room for
general literature. He read the leading magazines, and occasionally
biographies and travels, and if he had friends staying with him, Sunday
was the day for talk and discussion. A friend writes such a lively
reminiscence of one of these Sunday discussions, on a stormy winter day
which shut all in the house, that it seems worth giving as a vivid
description of him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account