Book Minute

The Victorian Era, from 1819 to 1901, was a time of flourishing for the British Empire: military supremacy, the spread of political movements, explorations of Africa and Asia, literature, journalism...and a deep interest in the Bible! What one acknowledged scholar describes as “A People of One Book!”
Even with many texts available to them, the Bible had a dominant presence in discussion and debate—habitually read, quoted, even phrases from the Bible becoming parts of common speech.
People like Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, Nurse Florence Nightingale, Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, Jewish authors, even the agnostic scientist, T. H. Huxley, were, as one scholar described, “preoccupied with the Bible.”
Today, it’s an era associated with the “Protestant work ethic, family values, and institutional faith!"
Let’s start a new conversation about the Bible!