And this from Miss Cobbe's pen! This to be written by a woman who has done so much to degrade the Bible from this unique position by the whole tone and drift of her writings! The position held by the Bible in England has been one of the main obstacles to England's progress. It has been used since Shakspere's time to prop the despotism of the Stuarts, to rivet the manacles on the slave, to delay the enfranchisement of men, to maintain a tyrannical Establishment, to resist the emancipation of Jews and of Dissenters, to justify the imprisonment of civil and religious reformers, to perpetuate the subjugation of women. To the charge of what other book can be laid the crimes against liberty which may be justly laid against the Bible? And this because of its "religious importance". As a book, it has much that is interesting and curious in it. As a religious code it has been a curse to the human race.
The changes dealt with in the preceding paragraphs are those which are regarded by Miss Cobbe as the most obvious; she next considers "those less obvious consequences of the downfall of religion which would take place silently".
"The first of these would be the belittling of life . . . . Only when they disappear will men perceive how the two thoughts—of this world as God's world and of ourselves as Immortal beings—have, between them, lighted up in rainbow hues the dull plains of earth. When they fade away, all things, Nature, Art, Duty, Love, and Death, will seem to grow grey and cold. Everything which casts a glamor over life will be gone." I meet this argument by denying the truth of Miss Cobbe's view of earth as well as by objecting to "glamor". The plains of earth are not dull; they are musical with birds, green with trees, gemmed with blossoms, sparkling with the silver threads of winding streams; they "Bask in purple, glow in green, exult in gold". "Rainbow hues" would not add to their glory. Wild rose and clematis, mayflower and harebell, wood-sorrel and violet, have hues as lovely and more lasting than those of the rainbow, while earth's garlands fling on the breezes a fragrance that the colored mist of heaven cannot rival. I accept Miss Cobbe's imagery; better the flowers of earth than the unsubstantial rainbows of the sky.
This, of course, is not argument; it is only phrase-making. But the suggestion underlying Miss Cobbe's image is as false as the image is ill-chosen. Art, Duty, Love, are no more "grey and cold" than the literal plains
