Suppose, then, that an intelligent child of seven, who has just heard it read out that Jesus excused Himself to his parents for disappearing for three days, on the ground that He was about His father's business, and has then learned that His father's name was Joseph, had said, "Please, teacher, was this the Jesus that gave us the Lord's Prayer?" The teacher answers, "Yes." and suppose the child rejoins, "And is it to His father Joseph that he bids us pray when we say Our Father?" But there are boys of nine, ten, eleven years in Board Schools, and many such boys are intelligent enough to take up the subject of the lesson where the instructor left it. "Please, teacher," asks one of these, "what business was it that Jesus had to do for His father Joseph? Had He stopped behind to get a few orders? Was it true that He had been about Joseph's business? And, if it was not, did He not deserve to be punished?"
Huxley replied on October 16, 1894:—]
Dear Sir,
I am one with you in hating "hush up" as I do all other forms of lying; but I venture to submit that the compromise of 1871 was not a "hush-up." If I had taken it to be such I should have refused to have anything to do with it. And more specifically, I said in a letter to the "Times" (see "Times," 29th April 1893) at the beginning of the present controversy, that if I had thought the compromise involved the obligatory teaching of such dogmas as the Incarnation I should have opposed it.
There has never been the slightest ambiguity about my position in this matter; in fact, if you will turn to one paper on the School Board written by me before my election in 1870, I think you will find that I anticipated the pith of the present discussion.
The persons who agreed to the compromise, did exactly what all sincere men who agree to compromise, do. For the sake of the enormous advantage of giving the rudiments of a decent education to several generations of the people, they accepted what was practically an armistice in respect of certain matters about which the contending parties were absolutely irreconcilable.
The clericals have now "denounced" the treaty, doubtless thinking they can get a new one more favourable to themselves.
From my point of view, I am not sure that it might not be well for them to succeed, so that the sweep into space which would befall them in the course of the next twenty-three years might be complete and final.
As to the case you put to me—permit me to continue the dialogue in another shape.
Boy.—Please, teacher, if Joseph was not Jesus' father and God was, why did Mary say, "Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing"? How could God not know where Jesus was? How could He be sorry?