Bible the Most Important Book for Education in Our Schools
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subjects of eternal importance, leaving the cheaper and insignificant
matters to drop as a dead weight.
All unnecessary matters need to be weeded from the course of
study, and only such studies placed before the student as will be of
real value to him. With these alone he needs to become familiarized,
that he may secure for himself that life which measures with the life of
God. And as he learns of these, his mind will strengthen and expand
as did the mind of Christ and of John the Baptist. What was it that
made John great?—He closed his mind to the mass of tradition taught
by the teachers of the Jewish nation, opening it to the wisdom “which
cometh down from above.” Before his birth, the Holy Spirit testified
of John: “For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink
neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy
Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And many of the children of
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Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before Him
in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the
children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready
a people prepared for the Lord.” And in his prophecy, Zacharias said
of John, “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest:
for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways; to
give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their
sins, through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring
from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts
till the day of his showing unto Israel.”
Simeon said of Christ, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant de-
part in peace, according to Thy word: for mine eyes have seen Thy
salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a
light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.” “And
Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and
man.” Jesus and John were represented by the educators of that day
as ignorant, because they had not learned under them. But the God of
heaven was their teacher, and all who heard were astonished at their
knowledge of the Scripture, having never learned. Of them, they had
not, truly; but from God they had learned the highest kind of wisdom.
The judgment of men, even of teachers, may be very wide of the
mark as to what constitutes true education. The teachers in the days