On page 95 of one of these books of anecdotes (on Acts 17:11) I read this from the pen of Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846). Wikipedia says about him that
Readers of his autobiography were struck by the frequency and fervour of the short prayers interspersed throughout the work. Haydon had an overwhelming sense of a personal, overruling and merciful providence, which influenced his relations with his family, and to some extent with the world. He had many enemies, actuated by motives as unworthy as his own were always high-pitched and on abstract grounds laudable.
Of his three great works — Solomon, Entry into Jerusalem and Lazarus — the second is generally regarded as the finest. Solomon shows his executive power at its loftiest, and is of itself enough to place Haydon at the head of British historical painting in his own time. Lazarus is a more unequal performance, and in various respects open to criticism; yet the head of Lazarus is so majestic and impressive that, if its author had done nothing else, we must still pronounce him a potent pictorial genius.
Of his three great works — Solomon, Entry into Jerusalem and Lazarus — the second is generally regarded as the finest. Solomon shows his executive power at its loftiest, and is of itself enough to place Haydon at the head of British historical painting in his own time. Lazarus is a more unequal performance, and in various respects open to criticism; yet the head of Lazarus is so majestic and impressive that, if its author had done nothing else, we must still pronounce him a potent pictorial genius.
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON'S ADVICE TO HIS SON ON READING THE BIBLE DAILY.—The famous English painter, Benjamin Robert Haydon, wrote this excellent advice to his son, at a very critical time in the boy's life :—" Read your Bible daily. There is no more interesting book in the world, and it is becoming more necessary to read it and study it, because I already perceive a tendency among our scientific men, in all their pride of knowledge and what they call discovery, to set the Bible aside as an Oriental legend. Do not believe them. The Mosaic account of the Creation is the most simple and the most natural, and will be found, you may rely on it, confirmed by science, when science has got down to the real facts. Generalisation, founded on our present knowledge of the laws of nature,is the very thing which our present acquaintance with these laws does not justify. I am convinced no thoroughly established and settled scientific theory will be found to contradcict the truths revealed in the Bible. But you are too young yet for me to enter further upon this subject. I only tell you you of it to oput you on your guard. You will find many men, old and grown-up men, who will laugh at the Bible. Don't believe them. Mathematics are all very well ; but the differential calculus, my dear boy, can never prove or disprove the existence of God. Read your Bible, do your duty, and leave the rest to God. Ever your affectionate father, BENJAMIN HAYDON.
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