,,the ,,greatest ,,english ,,classic ,a ,,study ,,of ,,the ,,king ,,james ,,version ,,of ,,the ,,bible ,,and ,,its ,,influence ,,on ,,life ,,and ,,literature ,,by ,,cleland ,,boyd ,mc,a,f,e,e1 ,d4,d4 ,,author ,,of ,,the ,,growing ,,church ,,mosaic ,,law ,,in ,,modern ,,life ,,studies ,,in ,,the ,,sermon ,,on ,,the ,,mount ,illustration ,,harper ,,brothers ,,publishers ,,new ,,york ,,and ,,london ,,copyright4 #aiab1 ,,by ,,harper ,,brothers ,,printed ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,,of ,,america ,,contents ,,lecture ,,page ,preface v ,i4 ,preparing the ,way--,the ,english ,bible ,before ,king ,james #a ,,ii4 ,the ,making of the ,king ,james ,version2 ,its ,characteristics #dd ,,iii4 ,the ,king ,james ,version as ,english ,literature #hi ,,iv4 ,the ,influence of the ,king ,james ,version on ,english ,literature #acj ,v4 ,the ,king ,james ,version--,its ,influence on ,english and ,american ,history #aie ,,vi4 ,the ,bible in the ,life of ,to-day #bda ,,preface ,the lectures included in this volume were prepared at the request of the ,brooklyn ,institute of ,arts and ,sciences1 and were delivered in the early part of #aiab1 under its auspices4 ,they were suggested by the tercentenary of the ,king ,james version of the ,bible4 ,the plan adopted led to a restatement of the history which prepared for the version1 and of that which produced it4 ,it was natural next to point out its principal characteristics as a piece of literature4 ,two lectures followed1 noting its influence on literature and on history4 ,the course closed with a statement and argument regarding the place of the ,bible in the life of to-day4 ,the reception accorded the lectures at the time of their public delivery1 and the discussion which ensued upon some of the points raised1 encourage the hope that they may be more widely useful4 ,it is a pleasure to assign to ,dr4 ,franklin ,w4 ,hooper1 director of the ,institute1 whatever credit the work may merit4 ,certainly it would not have been undertaken without his kindly urgency4 ,cleland ,boyd ,mc,afee4 ,brooklyn1 ,new ,york1 ,may1 #aiab4 ,,the ,,greatest ,,english ,,classic ,,the ,,greatest ,,english ,,classic ,,lecture ,i ,,preparing ,,the ,,way--,,the ,,english ,,bible ,,before ,,king ,,james ,there are three great ,book-religions--,judaism1 ,christianity1 and ,mohammedanism4 ,other religions have their sacred writings1 but they do not hold them in the same regard as do these three4 ,buddhism and ,confucianism count their books rather records of their faith than rules for it1 history rather than authoritative sources of belief4 ,the three great ,book-religions yield a measure of authority to their sacred books which would be utterly foreign to the thought of other faiths4 ,yet among the three named are two very distinct attitudes4 ,to the ,mohammedan the language as well as the matter of the ,koran is sacred4 ,he will not permit its translation4 ,its original ,arabic is the only authoritative tongue in which it can speak4 ,it has been translated into other tongues1 but always by adherents of other faiths1 never by its own believers4 ,the ,hebrew and the ,christian1 on the other hand1 but notably the ,christian1 have persistently sought to make their ,bible speak all languages at all times4 ,it is a curious fact that a ,book written in one tongue should have come to its largest power in other languages than its own4 ,the ,bible means more to-day in ,german and ,french and ,english than it does in ,hebrew and ,chaldaic and ,greek--more even than it ever meant in those languages4 ,there is nothing just like that in literary history4 ,it is as though ,shakespeare should after a while become negligible for most readers in ,english1 and be a master of thought in ,chinese and ,hindustani1 or in some language yet unborn4 ,we owe this persistent effort to make the ,bible speak the language of the times to a conviction that the particular language used is not the great thing1 that there is something in it which gives it power and value in any tongue4 ,no book was ever translated so often4 ,men who have known it in its earliest tongues have realized that their fellows would not learn these earliest tongues1 and they have set out to make it speak the tongue their fellows did know4 ,some have protested that there is impiety in making it speak the current tongue1 and have insisted that men should learn the earliest speech1 or at least accept their knowledge of the ,book from those who did know it4 ,but they have never stopped the movement4 ,they have only delayed it4 ,the first movement to make the ,scripture speak the current tongue appeared nearly three centuries before ,christ4 ,most of the ,old ,testament then existed in ,hebrew4 ,but the ,jews had scattered widely4 ,many had gathered in ,egypt where ,alexander the ,great had founded the city that bears his name4 ,at one time a third of the population of the city was ,jewish4 ,many of the people were passionately loyal to their old religion and its ,sacred ,book4 ,but the current tongue there and through most of the civilized world was ,greek1 and not ,hebrew4 ,as always1 there were some who felt that the ,book and its original language were inseparable4 ,others revealed the disposition of which we spoke a moment ago1 and set out to make the ,book speak the current tongue4 ,for one hundred and fifty years the work went on1 and what we call the ,septuagint was completed4 ,there is a pretty little story which tells how the version got its name1 which means the ,seventy--that ,king ,ptolemy ,philadelphus1 interested in collecting all sacred books1 gathered seventy ,hebrew scholars1 sent them to the island of ,pharos1 shut them up in seventy rooms for seventy days1 each making a translation from the ,hebrew into the ,greek4 ,when they came out1 behold1 their translations were all exactly alike6 ,several difficulties appear in that story1 one of which is that seventy men should have made the same mistakes without depending on each other4 ,in addition1 it is not historically supported1 and the fact seems to be that the ,septuagint was a long and slow growth1 issuing from the impulse to make the ,sacred ,book speak the familiar tongue4 ,and1 though it was a ,greek translation1 it virtually displaced the original1 as the ,english ,bible has virtually displaced the ,hebrew and ,greek to-day4 ,the ,septuagint was the ,old ,testament which ,paul used4 ,of one hundred and sixty-eight direct quotations from the ,old ,testament in the ,new nearly all are from the ,greek version--from the translation1 and not from the original4 ,we owe still more to translation4 ,while there is accumulating evidence that there was spoken in ,palestine at that time a colloquial ,greek1 with which most people would be familiar1 it is yet probable that our ,lord spoke neither ,greek nor ,hebrew currently1 but ,aramaic4 ,he knew the ,hebrew ,scriptures1 of course1 as any well-trained lad did2 but most of ,his words have come down to us in translation4 ,his name1 for example1 to ,his ,hebrew mother1 was not ,jesus1 but ,joshua2 and ,jesus is the translation of the ,hebrew ,joshua into ,greek4 ,we have ,his words as they were translated by ,his disciples into the ,greek1 in which the ,new ,testament was originally written4 ,by the time the writing of the ,new ,testament was completed1 say one hundred years after ,christ1 while ,greek was still current speech1 the ,roman ,empire was so dominant that the common people were talking ,latin almost as much as ,greek1 and gradually1 because political power was behind it1 the ,latin gained on the ,greek1 and became virtually the speech of the common people4 ,the movement to make the ,bible talk the language of the time appeared again4 ,it is impossible to say now when the first translations into ,latin were made4 ,certainly there were some within two centuries after ,christ1 and by #bej ,a4,d4 a whole ,bible in ,latin was in circulation in the ,roman ,empire4 ,the translation of the ,new ,testament was from the ,greek1 of course1 but so was that of the ,old ,testament1 and the ,latin versions of the ,old ,testament were1 therefore1 translations of a translation4 ,there were so many of these versions1 and they were so unequal in value1 that there was natural demand for a ,latin translation that should be authoritative4 ,so came into being what we call the ,vulgate1 whose very name indicates the desire to get the ,bible into the vulgar or common tongue4 ,jerome began by revising the earlier ,latin translations1 but ended by going back of all translations to the original ,greek1 and back of the ,septuagint to the original ,hebrew wherever he could do so4 ,fourteen years he labored1 settling himself in ,bethlehem1 in ,palestine1 to do his work the better4 ,barely four hundred years 7#djd ,a4,d47 after the birth of ,christ his ,latin version appeared4 ,it met a storm of protest for its effort to go back of the ,septuagint1 so dominant had the translation become4 ,jerome fought for it1 and his version won the day1 and became the authoritative ,latin translation of the ,bible4 ,for seven or eight centuries it held its sway as the current version nearest to the tongue of the people4 ,latin had become the accepted tongue of the church4 ,there was little general culture1 there was little general acquaintance with the ,bible except among the educated4 ,during all that time there was no real room for a further translation4 ,one of the writers#a says3 ,medieval ,england was quite unripe for a ,bible in the mother tongue2 while the illiterate majority were in no condition to feel the want of such a book1 the educated minority would be averse to so great and revolutionary a change4 ,when a man cannot read any writing it really does not matter to him whether books are in current speech or not1 and the majority of the people for those seven or eight centuries could read nothing at all4 ,those who could read anything were apt to be able to read the ,latin4 ,these centuries added to the conviction of many that the ,bible ought not to become too common1 that it should not be read by everybody1 that it required a certain amount of learning to make it safe reading4 ,they came to feel that it is as important to have an authoritative interpretation of the ,bible as to have the ,bible itself4 ,when the movement began to make it speak the new ,english tongue1 it provoked the most violent opposition4 ,latin had been good enough for a millennium2 why cheapen the ,bible by a translation8 ,there had grown up a feeling that ,jerome himself had been inspired4 ,he had been canonized1 and half the references to him in that time speak of him as the inspired translator4 ,criticism of his version was counted as impious and profane as criticisms of the original text could possibly have been4 ,it is one of the ironies of history that the version for which ,jerome had to fight1 and which was counted a piece of impiety itself1 actually became the ground on which men stood when they fought against another version1 counting anything else but this very version an impious intrusion6 ,how early the movement for an ,english ,bible began1 it is impossible now to say4 ,certainly just before #gjj ,a4,d41 that first singer of the ,english tongue1 ,cdmon1 had learned to paraphrase the ,bible4 ,we may recall the ,venerable ,bede's charming story of him1 and how he came by his power of interpretation4 ,bede himself was a child when ,cdmon died1 and the romance of the story makes it one of the finest in our literature4 ,cdmon was a peasant1 a farm laborer in ,northumbria working on the lands of the great ,abbey at ,whitby4 ,already he had passed middle life1 and no spark of genius had flashed in him4 ,he loved to go to the festive gatherings and hear the others sing their improvised poems2 but1 when the harp came around to him in due course1 he would leave the room1 for he could not sing4 ,one night when he had slipped away from the group in shame and had made his rounds of the horses and cattle under his care1 he fell asleep in the stable building1 and heard a voice in his sleep bidding him sing4 ,when he declared he could not1 the voice still bade him sing4 ,what shall ,i sing8 he asked4 ,sing the first beginning of created things4 ,and the words came to him2 and1 still dreaming1 he sang his first hymn to the ,creator4 ,in the morning he told his story1 and the ,lady ,abbess found that he had the divine gift4 ,the monks had but to translate to him bits of the ,bible out of the ,latin1 which he did not understand1 into his familiar ,anglo-,saxon tongue1 and he would cast it into the rugged ,saxon measures which could be sung by the common people4 ,so far as we can tell1 it was so that the ,bible story became current in ,anglo-,saxon speech4 ,bede himself certainly put the ,gospel of ,john into ,anglo-,saxon4 ,at the ,bodleian ,library1 at ,oxford1 there is a manuscript of nearly twenty thousand lines1 the metrical version of the ,gospel and the ,acts1 done near #abej by an ,augustinian monk named ,orm1 and so called the ,ormulum4 ,there were other metrical versions of various parts of the ,bible4 ,midway between ,bede and ,orm came ,langland's poem1 ,the ,vision of ,piers ,plowman1 which paraphrased so much of the ,scripture4 ,yet the fact is that until the last quarter of the fourteenth century there was no prose version of the ,bible in the ,english language4 ,indeed1 there was only coming to be an ,english language4 ,it was gradually emerging1 taking definite shape and form1 so that it could be distinguished from the earlier ,norman ,french1 ,saxon1 and ,anglo-,saxon1 in which so much of it is rooted4 ,as soon as the language grew definite enough1 it was inevitable that two things should come to pass4 ,first1 that some men would attempt to make a colloquial version of the ,bible2 and1 secondly1 that others would oppose it4 ,one can count with all confidence on these two groups of men1 marching through history like the animals into the ark1 two and two4 ,some men propose1 others oppose4 ,they are built on those lines4 ,we are more concerned with the men who made the versions2 but we must think a moment of the others4 ,one of his contemporaries1 ,knighton1 may speak for all in his saying of ,wiclif1 that he had1 to be sure1 translated the ,gospel into the ,anglic tongue1 but that it had thereby been made vulgar by him1 and more open to the reading of laymen and women than it usually is to the knowledge of lettered and intelligent clergy1 and thus the pearl is cast abroad and trodden under the feet of swine2 and1 that we may not be in doubt who are the swine1 he adds3 ,the jewel of the ,church is turned into the common sport of the people4 ,but two strong impulses drive thoughtful men to any effort that will secure wide knowledge of the ,bible4 ,one is their love of the ,bible and their belief in it2 but the other1 dominant then and now1 is a sense of the need of their own time4 ,it cannot be too strongly urged that the two great pioneers of ,english ,bible translation1 ,wiclif and ,tindale1 more than a century apart1 were chiefly moved to their work by social conditions4 ,no one could read the literature of the times of which we are speaking without smiling at our assumption that we are the first who have cared for social needs4 ,we talk about the past as the age of the individual1 and the present as the social age4 ,our fathers1 we say1 cared only to be saved themselves1 and had no concern for the evils of society4 ,they believed in rescuing one here and another there1 while we have come to see the wisdom of correcting the conditions that ruin men1 and so saving men in the mass4 ,there must be some basis of truth for that1 since we say it so confidently2 but it can be much over-accented4 ,there were many of our fathers1 and of our grandfathers1 who were mightily concerned with the mass of people1 and looked as carefully as we do for a corrective of social evils4 ,wiclif1 in the late fourteenth century1 and ,tindale1 in the early sixteenth1 were two such men4 ,the first ,english translations of the ,bible were fruits of the social impulse4 ,wiclif was impressed with the chasm that was growing between the church and the people1 and felt that a wider and fuller knowledge of the ,bible would be helpful for the closing of the chasm4 ,it is a familiar remark of ,miss ,jane ,addams that the cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy4 ,wiclif believed that the cure for the evils of religion is more religion1 more intelligent religion4 ,he found a considerable feeling that the best things in religion ought to be kept from most people1 since they could not be trusted to understand them4 ,his own feeling was that the best things in religion are exactly the things most people ought to know most about2 that people had better handle the ,bible carelessly1 mistakenly1 than be shut out from it by any means whatever4 ,we owe the first ,english translation to a faith that the ,bible is a book of emancipation for the mind and for the political life4 ,john ,wiclif himself was a scholar of ,oxford1 master of that famous ,balliol ,college which has had such a list of distinguished masters4 ,he was an adviser of ,edward ,,iii4 ,twenty years after his death a younger contemporary 7,w4 ,thorpe7 said that he was considered by many to be the most holy of all the men of his age4 ,he was of emaciated frame1 spare1 and well nigh destitute of strength4 ,he was absolutely blameless in his conduct4 ,and even that same ,knighton who accused him of casting the ,church's pearl before swine says that in philosophy he came to be reckoned inferior to none of his time4 ,but it was not at ,oxford that he came to know common life so well and to sense the need for a new social influence4 ,he came nearer to it when he was rector of the parish at ,lutterworth4 ,as scholar and rector he set going the two great movements which leave his name in history4 ,one was his securing1 training1 and sending out a band of itinerant preachers or poor priests to gather the people in fields and byways and to preach the simple truths of the ,christian religion4 ,they were unpaid1 and lived by the kindness of the common people4 ,they came to be called ,lollards1 though the origin of the name is obscure4 ,their followers received the same name4 ,a few years after ,wiclif's death an enemy bitterly observed that if you met any two men one was sure to be a ,lollard4 ,it was the first time in ,english history that an appeal had been made to the people instead of the scholars4 ,religion was to be made rather a matter of practical life than of dogma or of ritual4 ,the poor priests in their cheap brown robes became a mighty religious force1 and evoked opposition from the ,church powers4 ,a generation after ,wiclif's death they had become a mighty political force in the controversy between the ,king and the ,pope4 ,as late as #aeba five hundred ,lollards were arrested in ,london by the bishop4#b ,wiclif's purpose1 however1 was to reach and help the common people with the simpler1 and therefore the most fundamental1 truths of religion4 ,the other movement which marks ,wiclif's name concerns us more2 but it was connected with the first4 ,he set out to give the common people the full text of the ,bible for their common use1 and to encourage them not only in reading it1 if already they could read1 but in learning to read that they might read it4 ,tennyson compares the village of ,lutterworth to that of ,bethlehem1 on the ground that if ,christ1 the ,word of ,god1 was born at ,bethlehem1 the ,word of ,life was born again at ,lutterworth4#c ,the translation was from the ,vulgate1 and ,wiclif probably did little of the actual work himself1 yet it is all his work4 ,and in #achb1 more than five centuries ago1 there appeared the first complete ,english version of the ,bible4 ,wiclif made it the people's ,book1 and the ,english people were the first of the modern nations to whom the ,bible as a whole was given in their own familiar tongue4 ,once it got into their hands they have never let it be taken entirely away4 ,of course1 all this was before the days of printing1 and copies were made by hand only4 ,yet there were very many of them4 ,one hundred and fifty manuscripts1 in whole or in part1 are extant still1 a score of them of the original version1 the others of the revision at once undertaken by ,john ,purvey1 ,wiclif's disciple4 ,the copies belonging to ,edward ,,vi4 and ,queen ,elizabeth are both still in existence1 and both show much use4 ,twenty years after it was completed copies were counted very valuable1 though they were very numerous4 ,it was not uncommon for a single complete manuscript copy of the ,wiclif version to be sold for one hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars1 and ,foxe1 whose ,book of ,martyrs we used to read as children1 tells that a load of hay was given for the use of a ,new ,testament one hour a day4 ,it would be difficult to exaggerate the influence of this gift to the ,english people4 ,it constitutes the standard of ,middle ,english4 ,chaucer and ,wiclif stood side by side4 ,it is true that ,chaucer himself accepted ,wiclif's teaching1 and some of the wise men think that the parson of whom he speaks so finely as one who taught the lore of ,christ and ,his apostles twelve1 but first followed it himself1 was ,wiclif4 ,but the version had far more than literary influence2 it had tremendous power in keeping alive in ,england that spirit of free inquiry which is the only safeguard of free institutions4 ,here was the entire source of the ,christian faith available for the judgment of common men1 and they became at once judges of religious and political dogma4 ,dr4 ,ladd thinks it was not the reading of the ,bible which produced the ,reformation2 it was the ,reformation itself which procured the reading of the ,bible4#d ,but ,dr4 ,rashdall and ,professor ,pollard and others are right when they insist that the ,english ,reformation received less from ,luther than from the secret reading of the ,scripture over the whole country4 ,what we call the ,english spirit of free inquiry was fostered and developed by ,wiclif and his ,lollards with the ,english ,scripture in their hands4 ,out of it has grown as out of no other one root the freedom of the ,english and ,american people4 ,this work of ,wiclif deserves the time we have given it because it asserted a principle for the ,english people4 ,there was much yet to be done before entire freedom was gained4 ,at ,oxford1 in the ,convocation of #adjh1 it was solemnly voted3 ,we decree and ordain that no man hereafter by his own authority translate any text of the ,scripture into ,english1 or any other tongue1 by way of a book1 pamphlet1 or other treatise2 but that no man read any such book1 pamphlet1 or treatise now lately composed in the time of ,john ,wiclif 444 until the said translation be approved by the orderly of the place4 ,but it was too late4 ,it is always too late to overtake a liberating idea once it gets free4 ,tolstoi tells of ,batenkoff1 the ,russian nihilist1 that after he was seized and confined in his cell he was heard to laugh loudly2 and1 when they asked him the cause of his mirth1 he said that he could not fail to be amused at the absurdity of the situation4 ,they have caught me1 he said1 and shut me up here2 but my ideas are out yonder in the streets and in the fields1 absolutely free4 ,they cannot overtake them4 ,it was already too late1 twenty years after ,wiclif's version was available1 to stop the ,english people in their search for religious truth4 ,in the century just after the ,wiclif translation1 two great events occurred which bore heavily on the spread of the ,bible4 ,one was the revival of learning1 which made popular again the study of the classics and the classical languages4 ,critical and exact ,greek scholarship became again a possibility4 ,remember that ,wiclif did not know ,greek nor ,hebrew1 did not need to know them to be the foremost scholar of ,oxford in the fourteenth century4 ,even as late as #aejb there was no professor of ,greek at the proud ,university of ,erfurt when ,luther was a student there4 ,it was after he became a doctor of divinity and a university professor that he learned ,greek in order to be a better ,bible student1 and his young friend ,philip ,melancthon was the first to teach ,greek in the ,university4#e ,but under the influence of ,erasmus and his kind1 with their new insistence on classical learning1 there came necessarily a new appraisal of the ,vulgate as a translation of the original ,bible4 ,for a thousand years there had been no new study of the original ,bible languages in ,europe4 ,the ,latin of the ,vulgate had become as sacred as the ,book itself4 ,but the revival of learning threw scholarship back on the sources of the text4 ,erasmus and others published versions of the ,greek ,testament which were disturbing to the ,vulgate as a final version4 ,the other great event of that same century was the invention of printing with movable type4 ,it was in #adee that ,gutenberg printed his first book1 an edition of the ,vulgate1 now called the ,mazarin ,bible4 ,the bearing of the invention on the spread of common knowledge is beyond description4 ,it is rather late to be praising the art of printing1 and we need spend little time doing so2 but one can see instantly how it affected the use of the ,bible4 ,it made it worth while to learn to read--there would be something to read4 ,it made it worth while to write--there would be some one to read what was written4 ,one hundred years exactly after the death of ,wiclif1 ,william ,tindale was born4 ,he was eight years old when ,columbus discovered ,america4 ,he had already taken a degree at ,oxford1 and was a student in ,cambridge when ,luther posted his theses at ,wittenburg4 ,erasmus either was a teacher at ,cambridge when ,tindale was a student there1 or had just left4 ,sir ,thomas ,more and ,erasmus were close friends1 and ,more's ,utopia and ,erasmus's ,greek ,new ,testament appeared the same year1 probably while ,tindale was a student at ,cambridge4 ,but he came at a troubled time4 ,the new learning had no power to deepen or strengthen the moral life of the people4 ,it could not make religion a vital thing4 ,morality and religion were far separated4 ,the priests and curates were densely ignorant4 ,we need not ask ,tindale what was the condition4 ,ask ,bellarmine1 a cardinal of the ,church3 ,some years before the rise of the ,lutheran heresy there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments2 in morals1 no discipline2 in sacred literature1 no erudition2 in divine things1 no reverence2 religion was almost extinct4 ,or ask ,erasmus1 who never broke with the ,church3 ,what man of real piety does not perceive with sighs that this is far the most corrupt of all ages8 ,when did iniquity abound with more licentiousness8 ,when was charity so cold8 ,and1 as a century before1 ,wiclif had felt the social need for a popular version of the ,bible1 so ,william ,tindale felt it now4 ,he saw the need as great among the clergy of the time as among the laity4 ,in one of his writings he says3 ,if you will not let the layman have the word of ,god in his mother tongue1 yet let the priests have it1 which for the great part of them do understand no ,latin at all1 but sing and patter all day with the lips only that which the heart understandeth not4#f ,so bad was the case that it was not corrected within a whole generation4 ,forty years after ,tindale's version was published1 the ,bishop of ,gloucester1 ,hooper by name1 made an examination of the clergy of his diocese4 ,there were #caa of them4 ,he found #afh1 more than half1 unable to repeat the ,ten ,commandments2 #ca who did not even know where they could be found2 #dj who could not repeat the ,lord's ,prayer2 and nearly as many who did not know where it originated2 yet they were all in regular standing as clergy in the diocese of ,gloucester4 ,the need was keen enough4 ,about #aebc ,tindale began to cast the ,scriptures into the current ,english4 ,he set out to ,london fully expecting to find support and encouragement there1 but he found neither4 ,he found1 as he once said1 that there was no room in the palace of the ,bishop of ,london to translate the ,new ,testament2 indeed1 that there was no place to do it in all ,england4 ,a wealthy ,london merchant subsidized him with the munificent gift of ten pounds1 with which he went across the ,channel to ,hamburg2 and there and elsewhere on the ,continent1 where he could be hid1 he brought his translation to completion4 ,printing facilities were greater on the ,continent than in ,england2 but there was such opposition to his work that very few copies of the several editions of which we know can still be found4 ,tindale was compelled to flee at one time with a few printed sheets and complete his work on another press4 ,several times copies of his books were solemnly burned1 and his own life was frequently in danger4 ,there is one amusing story which tells how money came to free ,tindale from heavy debt and prepare the way for more ,bibles4 ,the ,bishop of ,london1 ,tunstall1 was set on destroying copies of the ,english ,new ,testament4 ,he therefore made a bargain with a merchant of ,antwerp1 ,packington1 to secure them for him4 ,packington was a friend of ,tindale1 and went to him forthwith1 saying3 ,william1 ,i know thou art a poor man1 and ,i have gotten thee a merchant for thy books4 ,who8 asked ,tindale4 ,the ,bishop of ,london4 ,ah1 but he will burn them4 ,so he will1 but you will have the money4 ,and it all came out as it was planned2 the ,bishop of ,london had the books1 ,packington had the thanks1 ,tindale had the money1 the debt was paid1 and the new edition was soon ready4 ,the old document1 from which ,i am quoting1 adds that the ,bishop thought he had ,god by the toe when1 indeed1 he found afterward that he had the devil by the fist4#g ,the final revision of the ,tindale translations was published in #aecd1 and that becomes the notable year of his life4 ,in two years he was put to death by strangling1 and his body was burned4 ,when we remember that this was done with the joint power of ,church and ,state1 we realize some of the odds against which he worked4 ,spite of his odds1 however1 ,tindale is the real father of our ,king ,james version4 ,about eighty per cent4 of his ,old ,testament and ninety per cent4 of his ,new ,testament have been transferred to our version4 ,in the ,beatitudes1 for example1 five are word for word in the two versions1 while the other three are only slightly changed4#h ,dr4 ,davidson has calculated that nine-tenths of the words in the shorter ,new ,testament epistles are ,tindale's1 and in the longer epistles like the ,hebrews five-sixths are his4 ,froude's estimate is fair3 ,of the translation itself1 though since that time it has been many times revised and altered1 we may say that it is substantially the ,bible with which we are familiar4 ,the peculiar genius which breathes through it1 the mingled tenderness and majesty1 the ,saxon simplicity1 the preternatural grandeur1 unequaled1 unapproached1 in the attempted improvements of modern scholars1 all are here1 and bear the impress of the mind of one man1 ,william ,tindale4#i ,we said a moment ago that ,wiclif's translation was the standard of ,middle ,english4 ,it is time to add that ,tindale's version fixed our standard ,english once for all1 and brought it finally into every ,english home4 ,the revisers of #ahha declared that while the authorized version was the work of many hands1 the foundation of it was laid by ,tindale1 and that the versions that followed it were substantially reproductions of ,tindale's1 or revisions of versions which were themselves almost entirely based on it4 ,there was every reason why it should be a worthy version4 ,for one thing1 it was the first translation into ,english from the original ,hebrew and ,greek4 ,wiclif's had been from the ,latin4 ,for ,tindale there were available two new and critical ,greek ,testaments1 that of ,erasmus and the so-called ,complutensian1 though he used that of ,erasmus chiefly4 ,there was also available a carefully prepared ,hebrew ,old ,testament4 ,for another thing1 it was the first version which could be printed1 and so be subject to easy and immediate correction and revision4 ,then also1 ,tindale himself was a great scholar in the languages4 ,he was so skilled in the seven languages1 ,hebrew1 ,greek1 ,latin1 ,italian1 ,spanish1 ,english1 and ,french1 that1 whichever he spoke1 you would suppose it was his native tongue4#aj ,nor was his spirit in the work controversial4 ,i say his spirit in the work with care4 ,they were controversial times1 and ,tindale took his share in the verbal warfare4 ,when1 for example1 there was objection to making any ,english version because the language was so rude that the ,bible could not be intelligently translated into it1 ,tindale replied3 ,it is not so rude as they are false liars4 ,for the ,greek tongue agreeth more with the ,english than with the ,latin1 a thousand parts better may it be translated into the ,english than into the ,latin4#aa ,and when a high church dignitary protested to ,tindale against making the ,bible so common1 he replied3 ,if ,god spare my life1 ere many years ,i will cause a boy that driveth a plow shall know more of the ,scriptures than thou dost4 ,and while that was not saying much for the plowboy1 it was saying a good deal to the dignitary4 ,in language1 ,tindale was controversial enough1 but in his spirit1 in making his version1 there was no element of controversy4 ,for such reasons as these we might expect the version to be valuable4 ,all this while1 and especially between the time when ,tindale first published his ,new ,testament and the time they burned him for doing so1 an interesting change was going on in ,england4 ,the ,king was ,henry ,,viii41 who was by no means a willing ,protestant4 ,as ,luther's work appeared1 it was this same ,henry who wrote the pamphlet against him during the ,diet of ,worms1 and on the ground of this pamphlet1 with its loyal support of the ,church against ,luther1 he received from the ,roman pontiff the title ,defender of the ,faith1 which the kings of ,england still wear4 ,and yet under this king this strange succession of dates can be given4 ,notice them closely4 ,in #aebf ,tindale's ,new ,testament was burned at ,st4 ,paul's by the ,bishop of ,london2 ten years later1 #aecf1 ,tindale himself was burned with the knowledge and connivance of the ,english government2 and yet1 one year later1 #aecg1 two versions of the ,bible in ,english1 three-quarters of which were the work of ,tindale1 were licensed for public use by the ,king of ,england1 and were required to be made available for the people6 ,eleven years after the ,new ,testament was burned1 one year after ,tindale was burned1 that crown was set on his work6 ,what brought this about8 ,three facts help to explain it4 ,first1 the recent years of ,bible translation were having their weight4 ,the fugitive copies of the ,bible were doing their work4 ,spite of the sharp opposition fifty thousand copies of ,tindale's various editions had actually been published and circulated4 ,men were reading them2 they were approving them4 ,the more they read1 the less reason they saw for hiding the ,book from the people4 ,why should it not be made common and free8 ,there was strong ,lutheran opinion in the universities4 ,it was already a custom for ,english teachers to go to ,germany for minute scholarship4 ,they came back with ,german ,bibles in ,luther's version and with ,greek ,testaments1 and the young scholars who were being raised up felt the influence1 consciously or unconsciously1 of the free use of the ,bible which ruled in many ,german universities4 ,the second fact that helps to explain the sudden change of attitude toward the ,bible is this3 the people of ,england were never willingly ruled from without1 religiously or politically4 ,there has recently been a considerable controversy over the history of the ,established ,church of ,england1 whether it has always been an independent church or was at one time officially a part of the ,roman ,church4 ,that is a matter for ecclesiastical history to determine4 ,the foundation fact1 however1 is as ,i worded it a moment ago3 the people of ,england were never willingly ruled from without1 religiously or politically4 ,they were sometimes ruled from without2 but they were either indifferent to it at the time or rebellious against it4 ,those who did think claimed the right to think for themselves4 ,the ,scotch of the north were peculiarly so1 but the ,english of the south claimed the same right4 ,there has always been an immense contrast between the two sides of the ,british ,channel4 ,the ,french people during all those years were deeply loyal to a foreign religious government4 ,the ,english people were never so1 not in the days of the fullest ,roman supremacy4 ,they always demanded at least a form of home government4 ,that made ,england a congenial home for the ,protestant spirit1 which claimed the right to independent study of the sources of religion and independent judgment regarding them4 ,it was only a continuance of the spirit of ,wiclif and the ,lollards4 ,the spirit in a nation lives long1 especially when it is passed down by tradition4 ,those were not the days of newspapers4 ,they were instead the days of great meetings1 more important still of small family gatherings1 where the memory of the older men was called into use1 and where boys and girls drank in eagerly the traditions of their own country as expressed in the great events of their history4 ,newspapers never can fully take the place of those gatherings1 for they do not bring men together to feel the thrill of the story that is told4 ,it must be remembered that the entire population of ,england at that time was only about three millions4 ,and that old spirit of independence was strongly at work in the middle-class villages and among the merchants1 and they were a ruling and dominant class4 ,that was second1 that in those ten years there asserted itself the age-long unwillingness of the ,english people to be ruled from without4 ,the third fact which must be taken into account to explain this remarkable change of front of the public ,english life is ,henry ,,viii4 himself4 ,there is much about him that no country would willingly claim4 ,he was the most habitual bridegroom in ,english history2 he had an almost confirmed habit of beheading his wives or otherwise ridding himself of them4 ,yet many traits made him a typical outstanding ,englishman4 ,he had the characteristic spirit of independence1 the resentment of foreign control1 satisfaction with his own land1 the feeling that of course it is the best land4 ,there are no people in the world so well satisfied with their own country as the people of ,england or the ,british ,isles4 ,they are critical of many things in their own government until they begin to compare it with other countries2 they must make their changes on their own lines4 ,the pamphlet of ,henry ,,viii41 which won him the title of ,defender of the ,faith1 praised the pope2 and1 though ,sir ,thomas ,more urged him to change his expressions lest he should live to regret them1 he would not change them4 ,but that was while the pope was serving his wishes and what he felt was ,england's good4 ,there arose presently the question1 or the several questions1 about his marriage4 ,it sheds no glory on ,henry ,,viii4 that they arose as they did2 but his treatment of them must not be mistaken4 ,he was concerned to have his marriage to ,anne ,boleyn confirmed1 and there are some who think he was honest in believing it ought to be confirmed1 though we need not believe that4 ,what happened was that for the first time ,henry ,,viii4 found that as sovereign of ,england he must take commands from a foreign power1 a power exercising temporal sovereignty exactly as he did1 but adding to it a claim to spiritual power1 a claim to determine his conduct for him and to absolve his people from loyalty to him if he was not obedient4 ,it arose over the question of his divorce1 but it might have arisen over anything else4 ,it was limitation on his sovereignty in ,england4 ,and he let it be seen that all questions that pertain to ,england were to be settled in ,england1 and not in another land4 ,he would rather have a matter settled wrong in ,england than settled right elsewhere4 ,that is how he claimed to be head of the ,english ,church4 ,the people back of him had always held to the belief that they were governed from within1 though they were linked to religion from without4 ,he executed their theory4 ,that assertion of ,english sovereignty came during the eventful years of which we are speaking4 ,here1 then1 are our great facts4 ,first1 thoughtful opinion wanted the ,bible made available1 and at a convention of bishops and university men the ,king was requested to secure the issuance of a proper translation4 ,secondly1 the people wanted it1 the more because it would gratify their ,english instinct of independent judgment in matters of religion4 ,thirdly1 the ,king granted it without yielding his personal religious position1 in assertion of his human sovereignty within his own realm4 ,so ,england awoke one morning in #aecg to discover that it had a translation of the ,bible1 two of them actually1 open to its use1 the very thing that had been forbidden yesterday6 ,and that1 one year after ,tindale had been burned in loyal ,france for issuing an ,english translation6 ,two versions were now authorized and made available4 ,what were they8 ,that of ,miles ,coverdale1 which had been issued secretly two years before1 and that known as the ,matthew ,bible1 though the name has no significance1 issued within a year4 ,details are not to our purpose4 ,neither was an independent work1 but was made largely from the ,latin and the ,german1 and much influenced by ,tindale4 ,coverdale was a ,yorkshire man like ,wiclif1 feminine in his mental cast as ,tindale was masculine4 ,coverdale made his translation because he loved books2 ,tindale because he felt driven to it4 ,but now the way was clear1 and other editions appeared4 ,it is natural to name one or two of the more notable ones4 ,there appeared what is known as the ,great ,bible in #aeci4 ,it was only another version made by ,coverdale on the basis of the ,matthew version1 but corrected by more accurate knowledge4 ,there is an interesting romance of its publication4 ,the presses of ,england were not adequate for the great work planned2 it was to be a marvel of typography4 ,so the consent of ,king ,francis was gained to have it printed in ,france1 and ,coverdale was sent as a special ambassador to oversee it4 ,he was in dread of the ,inquisition1 which was in vogue at the time1 and sent off his printed sheets to ,england as rapidly as possible4 ,suddenly one day the order of confiscation came from the ,inquisitor-,general4 ,only ,coverdale's official position as representing the ,king saved his own life4 ,as for the printed sheets on which so much depended1 they seemed doomed4 ,but in the nick of time a dealer appeared at the printing-house and purchased four great vats full of waste paper which he shipped to ,england--when it was found that the waste paper was those printed sheets4 ,the presses and the printers were all loyal to ,england1 and the edition was finally completed4 ,the ,great ,bible was issued to meet a decree that each church should make available in some convenient place the largest possible copy of the whole ,bible1 where all the parishioners could have access to it and read it at their will4 ,the version gets its name solely from the size of the volume4 ,that decree dates #aech1 twelve years after ,tindale's books were burned1 and two years after he was burned6 ,the installation of these great books caused tremendous excitement--crowds gathered everywhere4 ,bishop ,bonner caused six copies of the great volume to be located wisely throughout ,st4 ,paul's4 ,he found it difficult to make people leave them during the sermons4 ,he was so often interrupted by voices reading to a group1 and by the discussions that ensued1 that he threatened to have them taken out during the service if people would not be quiet4 ,the ,great ,bible appeared in seven editions in two years1 and continued in recognized power for thirty years4 ,much of the present ,english prayer-book is taken from it4 ,but this liberty was so sudden that the people naturally abused it4 ,henry became vexed because the sacred words were disputed1 rimed1 sung1 and jangled in every ale-house4 ,there had grown up a series of wild ballads and ribald songs in contempt of the old faith1 while it was not really the old faith which was in dispute1 but only foreign control of ,english faith4 ,they had mistaken ,henry's meaning4 ,so ,henry began to put restrictions on the use of the ,bible4 ,there were to be no notes or annotations in any versions1 and those that existed were to be blacked out4 ,only the upper classes were to be allowed to possess a ,bible4 ,finally1 the year before his death1 all versions were prohibited except the ,great ,bible1 whose cost and size precluded secret use4 ,the decree led to another great burning of ,bibles in #aedf--,tindale1 ,coverdale1 ,matthew--all but the ,great ,bible4 ,the leading religious reformers took flight and fled to ,european ,protestant towns like ,frankfort and ,strassburg4 ,but the ,bible remained4 ,henry ,,viii4 died4 ,the ,bible lived on4 ,under ,edward ,,vi41 the boy king1 coming to the throne at nine and dying at fifteen1 the regency with ,cranmer at its head earned its bad name4 ,but while its members were shamelessly despoiling churches and enriching themselves they did one great service for the ,bible4 ,they cast off all restrictions on its translation and publication4 ,the order for a ,great ,bible in every church was renewed1 and there was to be added to it a copy of ,erasmus's paraphrase of the four gospels4 ,nearly fifty editions of the ,bible1 in whole or in part1 appeared in those six years4 ,and that was fortunate1 for then came ,mary--and the deluge4 ,of course1 she again gave in the nominal allegiance of ,england to the ,roman control4 ,but she utterly missed the spirit of the people4 ,they were weary with the excesses of rabid ,protestantism2 but they were by no means ready to admit the principle of foreign control in religious matters4 ,they might have been willing1 many of them1 that the use of the ,bible should be restricted1 if it were done by their own sovereign4 ,they were not willing that another sovereign should restrict them4 ,so the secret use of the ,bible increased4 ,martyr fires were kindled1 but by the light of them the people read their ,bibles more eagerly4 ,and this very persecution led to one of the best of the early versions of the ,bible1 indirectly even to the ,king ,james version4 ,the flower of ,english ,protestant scholarship was driven into exile1 and found its way to ,frankfort and ,geneva again4 ,there the spirit of scholarship was untrammeled2 there they found material for scholarly study of the ,bible1 and there they made and published a new version of the ,bible in ,english1 by all means the best that had been made4 ,in later years1 under ,elizabeth1 it drove the ,great ,bible off the field by sheer power of excellence4 ,during her reign sixty editions of it appeared4 ,this was the version called the ,genevan ,bible4 ,it made several changes that are familiar to us4 ,for one thing1 in the ,genevan edition of #aefj first appeared our familiar division into verses4 ,the chapter division was made three centuries earlier2 but the verses belong to the ,genevan version1 and are divided to make the ,book suitable for responsive use and for readier reference4 ,it was taken in large part from the work of ,robert ,stephens1 who had divided the ,greek ,testament into verses1 ten years earlier1 during a journey which he was compelled to make between ,paris and ,lyons4 ,the ,genevan version also abandoned the old black letter1 and used the ,roman type with which we are familiar4 ,it had full notes on hard passages1 which notes1 as we shall see1 helped to produce the ,king ,james version4 ,the work itself was completed after the accession of ,elizabeth1 when most of the religious leaders had returned to ,england from their exile under ,mary4 ,elizabeth herself was not an ardent ,protestant1 not ardent at all religiously1 but an ardent ,englishwoman4 ,she understood her people1 and while she prided herself on being the ,guardian of the ,middle ,way1 she did not make the mistake of submitting her sovereignty to foreign supervision4 ,probably ,elizabeth always counted herself personally a ,catholic1 but not politically subject to the ,roman pontiff4 ,she had no wish to offend other ,catholic powers2 but she was determined to develop a strong national spirit and to allow religious differences to exist if they would be peaceful4 ,the dramatic scene which was enacted at the time of her coronation procession was typical of her spirit4 ,as the procession passed down ,cheapside1 a venerable old man1 representing ,time1 with a little child beside him representing ,truth--,time always old1 ,truth always young--presented the ,queen with a copy of the ,scriptures1 which she accepted1 promising to read them diligently4 ,presently it was found that two versions of the ,bible were taking the field1 the old ,great ,bible and the new ,genevan ,bible4 ,on all accounts the ,genevan was the better and was driving out its rival4 ,yet there could be no hope of gaining the approval of ,elizabeth for the ,genevan ,bible4 ,for one thing1 ,john ,knox had been a party to its preparation2 so had ,calvin4 ,elizabeth detested them both1 especially ,knox4 ,for another thing1 its notes were not favorable to royal sovereignty1 but smacked so much of popular government as to be offensive4 ,for another thing1 though it had been made mostly by her own people1 it had been made in a foreign land1 and was under suspicion on that account4 ,the result was that ,elizabeth's archbishop1 ,parker1 set out to have an authorized version made1 selected a revision committee1 with instructions to follow wherever possible the ,great ,bible1 to avoid bitter notes1 and to make such a version that it might be freely1 easily1 and naturally read4 ,the result is known as the ,bishops' ,bible4 ,it was issued in ,elizabeth's tenth year 7#aefh71 but there is no record that she ever noticed it1 though ,parker sent her a copy from his sick-bed4 ,the ,bishops' ,bible shows the influence of the ,genevan ,bible in many ways1 though it gives no credit for that4 ,it is not of equal merit2 it was expensive1 too cumbersome1 and often unscholarly4 ,only its official standing gave it life1 and after forty years1 in nineteen editions1 it was no longer published4 ,naming one other ,english version will complete the series of facts necessary for the consideration of the forming of the ,king ,james version4 ,it will be remembered that all the ,english versions of the ,bible thus far mentioned were the work of men either already out of favor with the ,roman pontiff1 or speedily put out of favor on that account4 ,thirty years after his death1 ,wiclif's bones were taken up and burned2 ,tindale was burned4 ,coverdale's version and the ,great ,bible were the product of the period when ,henry ,,viii4 was under the ban4 ,the ,genevan ,bible was the work of refugees1 and the ,bishops' ,bible was prepared when ,elizabeth had been excommunicated4 ,that fact seemed to many loyal ,roman churchmen to put the ,church in a false light4 ,it must be made clear that its opposition was not to the ,bible1 not even to popular use and possession of the ,bible1 but only to unauthorized1 even incorrect1 versions4 ,so there came about the ,douai version1 instigated by ,gregory ,martin1 and prepared in some sense as an answer to the ,genevan version and its strongly anti-papal notes4 ,it was the work of ,english scholars connected with the ,university of ,douai4 ,the ,new ,testament was issued at ,rheims in #aehb1 and the whole ,bible in #afji1 just before our ,king ,james version4 ,it is made1 not from the ,hebrew and the ,greek1 though it refers to both1 but from the ,vulgate4 ,the result is that the ,old ,testament of the ,douai version is a translation into ,english from the ,latin1 which in large part is a translation into ,latin from the ,greek ,septuagint1 which in turn is a translation into ,greek from the ,hebrew4 ,yet scholars are scholars1 and it shows marked influence of the ,genevan version1 and1 indeed1 of other ,english versions4 ,its notes were strongly anti-,protestant1 and in its preface it explains its existence by saying that ,protestants have been guilty of casting the holy to dogs and pearls to hogs4 ,the version is not in the direct line of the ascent of the familiar version1 and needs no elaborate description4 ,its purpose was controversial2 it did not go to available sources2 its ,english was not colloquial1 but ecclesiastical4 ,for example1 in the ,lord's ,prayer we read3 ,give us this day our supersubstantial bread1 instead of our daily bread4 ,in ,hebrews xiii3#ag1 the version reads1 ,obey your prelates and be subject unto them4 ,in ,luke iii3#c1 ,john came preaching the baptism of penance4 ,in ,psalm xxiii3#e1 where we read1 ,my cup runneth over1 the ,douai version reads1 ,my chalice which inebriateth me1 how goodly it is4 ,there is a careful retention of ecclesiastical terms1 and an explanation of the passages on which ,protestants had come to differ rather sharply from their ,roman brethren1 as in the matter of the taking of the cup by the people1 and elsewhere4 ,yet it is only fair to remember that this much answer was made to the versions which were preparing the way for the greatest version of them all1 and when the time came for the making of that version1 and the helps were gathered together1 the ,douai was frankly placed among them4 ,it is a peculiar irony of fate that while the purpose of ,gregory ,martin was to check the translation of the ,bible by the ,protestants1 the only effect of his work was to advance and improve that translation4 ,at last1 as we shall see in our next study1 the way was cleared for a free and open setting of the ,bible into ,english4 ,the way had been beset with struggle1 marked with blood1 lighted by martyr fires4 ,wiclif and ,purvey1 ,tindale and ,coverdale1 the refugees at ,geneva and the ,bishops at ,london1 all had trod that way4 ,kings had fought them or had favored them2 it was all one2 they had gone on4 ,loyal zest for their ,book and loving zeal for the common people had held them to the path4 ,now it had become a highway open to all men4 ,and right worthy were the feet which were soon treading it4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,hoare1 ,evolution of the ,english ,bible1 p4 #ci4 #b ,muir1 ,our ,grand ,old ,bible1 p4 #bd4 #c ,not least art thou1 thou little ,bethlehem ,in ,judah1 for in thee the ,lord was born2 ,nor thou in ,britain1 little ,lutterworth1 ,least1 for in thee the word was born again4 --,sir ,john ,oldcastle4 #d ,what ,is the ,bible81 p4 #de4 #e ,mc,giffert1 ,martin ,luther4 #f ,obedience of a ,christian ,man4 #g ,pollard1 ,records of the ,english ,bible1 p4 #aea4 #h ,the fourth reads in his version1 ,blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness2 the seventh1 ,blessed are the maintainers of peace2 the eighth1 ,blessed are they which suffer persecution for righteousness' sake4 #i ,history of ,england1 end of chap4 xii4 #aj ,herman ,buschius4 #aa ,this will mean the more to us when we realize that the literary men of the day despised the ,english tongue4 ,sir ,thomas ,more wrote his ,utopia in ,latin1 because otherwise educated men would not deign to read it4 ,years later ,roger ,ascham apologized for writing one of his works in ,english4 ,putting the ,bible into current ,english impressed these literary men very much as we would be impressed by putting the ,bible into current slang4 ,,lecture ,,ii ,,the ,,making ,,of ,,the ,,king ,,james ,,version2 ,,its ,,characteristics ,early in ,january1 #afjd1 men were making their way along the poor ,english highways1 by coach and carrier1 to the ,hampton ,court ,palace of the new ,english king4 ,they were coming from the cathedral towns1 from the universities1 from the larger cities4 ,many were ,church dignitaries1 many were scholars1 some were ,puritans1 all were loyal ,englishmen1 and they were gathering in response to a call for a conference with the king1 ,james ,i4 ,they were divided in sentiment1 these men1 and those who hoped most from the conference were doomed to complete disappointment4 ,not one among them1 not the ,king1 had the slightest purpose that the conference should do what proved to be its only real service4 ,some of the men1 grave and earnest1 were coming to present their petitions to the ,king1 others were coming to oppose their petitions2 the ,king meant to deny them and to harry the petitioners4 ,and everything came out as it had been planned4 ,yet the largest service of the conference1 the only real service1 was in no one's mind1 for it was at ,hampton ,court1 on the last day of the conference between ,james and the churchmen1 ,january #ah1 #afjd1 that the first formal step was taken toward the making of the so-called ,authorized ,version of the ,english ,bible4 ,if there are such things as accidents1 this great enterprise began in an accident4 ,but the outcome of the accident1 the volume that resulted1 is allowed by all competent authorities to be the first that is1 the chief ,english classic1 if our ,professor ,cook1 of ,yale1 may speak2 is universally accepted as a literary masterpiece1 as the noblest and most beautiful ,book in the world1 which has exercised an incalculable influence upon religion1 upon manners1 upon literature1 and upon character1 if the ,balliol ,college scholar ,hoare can be trusted2 and has made the ,english language1 if ,professor ,march is right4 ,the purpose of this study is to show how that accident occurred1 and what immediately came from it4 99 99 99 99 99 ,with the death of ,elizabeth the ,tudor line of sovereigns died out4 ,the collateral ,stuart line1 descending directly from ,henry ,,vii41 naturally succeeded to the throne1 and ,james ,,vi4 of ,scotland made his royal progress to the ,english capital and became ,james ,i4 of ,england4 ,in him appears the first of that ,stuart line during whose reign great changes were to occur4 ,every one in the line held strongly to the dogma of the divine right of kings1 yet under that line the ,english people transferred sovereignty from the king to ,parliament4#ab ,fortunately for history1 and for the progress of popular government1 the ,stuart line had no forceful figures in it4 ,macaulay thinks it would have been fatal to ,english liberty if they had been able kings4 ,it was easier to take so dangerous a weapon as the divine right of kings from weak hands than from strong ones4 ,so it was that though ,james came out of ,scotland to assert his divine and arbitrary right as sovereign1 by the time ,queen ,anne died1 closing the ,stuart line and giving way to the ,hanoverian1 the real sovereignty had passed into the hands of ,parliament4 ,but the royal traveler1 coming from ,edinburgh to ,london1 is interesting on his own account--interesting at this distance4 ,he is thirty-seven years old1 and ought to be in the beginning of his prime4 ,he is a little over middle height2 loves a good horse1 though he is an ungainly rider1 and has fallen off his horse three or four times during his royal progress2 is a heavy drinker of the liquors of the period1 with horribly coarse1 even gross manners4 ,macaulay is very severe with him4 ,he says that his cowardice1 his childishness1 his pedantry1 his ungainly person and manners1 his provincial accent1 made him an object of derision4 ,even in his virtues and accomplishments there was something eminently unkingly4#ac ,it seemed too bad that royalty should be exhibited to the world stammering1 slobbering1 shedding unmanly tears1 trembling at the drawn sword1 and talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagogue4 ,that is truly not an attractive picture4 ,but there is something on the other side4 ,john ,richard ,green puts both sides3 ,his big head1 his slobbering tongue1 his quilted clothes1 his rickety legs stood out in as grotesque a contrast with all that men recalled of ,henry and ,elizabeth as his gabble and rhodomontade1 his want of personal dignity1 his buffoonery1 his coarseness of speech1 his pedantry1 his contemptible cowardice4 ,under this ridiculous exterior1 however1 lay a man of much natural ability1 a ripe scholar with a considerable fund of shrewdness1 of mother wit and ready repartee4#ad ,some good traits he must have had4 ,he did win some men to him4 ,as some one has said1 ,you could love him2 you could despise him2 you could not hate him4 ,he could say some witty and striking things4 ,for example1 when he was urging the formal union of ,scotland and ,england1 and it was opposed1 he said3 ,but ,i am the husband1 and the whole island is my wife4 ,i hope no one will be so unreasonable as to suppose that ,i1 that am a ,christian king under the ,gospel1 should be a polygamist and husband to two wives4#ae ,after the conference of which we have been speaking1 he wrote to a friend in ,scotland3 ,i have had a revel with the ,puritans and have peppered them soundly4 ,as indeed he had4 ,then1 in some sense at least1 ,james was a born theologian4 ,he had studied the ,bible in some form from childhood2 one of the first things we hear of his doing is the writing of a paraphrase on the book of the ,revelation4 ,in his talk he made easy and free use of ,scripture quotations4 ,to be sure1 his knowledge1 on which he prided himself unconscionably1 was shallow and pedantic4 ,henry ,,iv4 of ,france1 one of his contemporaries1 said that he was the wisest fool in ,christendom4 ,now1 it was this man who was making his royal progress from ,edinburgh to ,london in ,march1 #afjc1 nearly a year before the gathering of men which we were observing at the opening of this study4 ,many things happened on the journey besides his falling off his horse several times2 but one of the most significant was the halting of the progress to receive what was called the ,miliary ,petition1 whose name implies that it was signed by a thousand men--actually somewhat less than that number--mostly ministers of the ,church4 ,the ,petition made no mention of any ,bible version1 yet it was the beginning of the events which led to it4 ,back of it was the ,puritan influence4 ,it asked for reforms in the ,english ,church1 for the correction of abuses which had grown under ,elizabeth's increasing favor of ritual and ceremony4 ,it asked for a better-trained ministry1 for better discipline in the ,church1 for the omission of so many detailed requirements of rites and ceremonies1 and for that perennially desired reform1 shorter church services6 ,very naturally the new ,king replied that he would take it up later1 and promised to call a conference to consider it4 ,and this he did4 ,the conference met at ,hampton ,court in ,january1 #afjd1 and it was for this that the men were coming from many parts of ,england4 ,the gathering was held on the #adth1 #afth1 and #ahth of the month4 ,its sole purpose was to consider that ,miliary ,petition2 but the ,king called to it not only those who had signed the ,petition1 but those who had opposed it4 ,he had no notion of granting any favor to it1 and from the first he gave the ,puritans rough treatment4 ,he told them he would have none of their non-conformity1 he would make them conform or harry them out of the land4 ,some one suggested that since this was a ,church matter there be called a ,synod1 or some general gathering fitted to discuss and determine such things1 rather than leave it to a few ,church dignitaries4 ,for the purposes of the petitioners it was a most unfortunate expression4 ,james had just come from ,scotland1 where the ,presbyterians were with their ,synod1 and where ,calvinism was in full swing4 ,he was much in favor of some elements of ,calvinism2 but he could not see how all the elements held together4 ,predestination1 for example1 which offends so many people to-day1 was a precious doctrine to ,king ,james1 and he insisted that his subjects ought to see how clearly ,god had predestined him to rule over them6 ,but he could not tolerate the necessary logical inference of ,calvinism that all men must be equal before ,god1 and so men can make and unmake kings as they need to do so1 the matter of king or subject being purely an incidental one4 ,he remembered the time when ,andrew ,melville1 one of the ,scotch ministers1 had plucked him by his royal sleeve and called him ,god's silly vassal right to his face4 ,so1 when some one said ,synod it brought the ,king up standing4 ,he burst out3 ,if that is what you mean1 if you want what the ,scotch mean by their ,synod and their ,presbytery1 then ,i tell you at once that ,i will have none of it4 ,presbytery agrees with monarchy very much as ,god agrees with the devil4 ,if you have no bishop1 you will soon have no king4 ,he was perfectly right1 with reference to the kind of king he meant4 ,these things were to be settled1 he meant1 by authority1 and not by conference4 ,that is the point to which ,gardiner refers when he says that in two minutes ,james sealed his own fate and that of ,england forever4#af ,after that there was only a losing fight for the petitioners4 ,they had touched a sore spot in ,james's history4 ,but it was when they touched that sore spot again that they started the movement for a new version of the ,bible4 ,it was on the second day of the conference1 ,january #afth1 that ,dr4 ,reynolds1 president of ,corpus ,christi ,college1 ,oxford1 who represented the moderate ,puritan position1 and1 like many moderate men1 was rather suspected by both extreme wings1 instanced as one of the hardships of the ,puritans that they were compelled to use the prayer-book of the time1 and that it contained many mistranslations of ,scripture1 some of which he quoted4 ,now1 it so happens that the errors to which he referred occur in the ,bishops' and the ,great ,bible1 which were the two authorized versions of the time1 but are all corrected in the ,genevan version4 ,we do not know what point he was trying to make1 whether he was urging that the ,genevan version should supplant these others1 or whether he was calling for a new translation4 ,indeed1 we are not sure that he even mentioned the ,genevan version4 ,but ,james spoke up to say that he had never yet seen a ,bible well translated into ,english2 but the worst of all he thought the ,genevan to be4 ,he spoke as though he had just had a copy given him by an ,english lady1 and had already noted what he called its errors4 ,that was at the very least a royal evasion1 for if there was any ,book he did know it was the ,genevan version4 ,he had been fairly raised on it2 he had lived in the country where it was commonly used4 ,it had been preached at him many and many a time4 ,indeed1 he had used it as the text for that paraphrase of the ,revelation of which we spoke a moment ago4 ,and he knew its notes--well he knew them--knew that they were from republican ,geneva1 and that kingly pretensions had short shrift with them4 ,james told the conference that these notes were very partial1 untrue1 seditious1 savoring too much of traitorous and dangerous conceits1 supporting his opinion by two instances which seemed disrespectful to royalty4 ,one of these instances was the note on ,exodus i3#ag1 where the ,egyptian midwives are said to have disobeyed the king in the matter of destroying the children4 ,the note says3 ,their disobedience to the king was lawful1 though their dissembling was not4 ,james quoted that1 and said3 ,it is false2 to disobey the king is not lawful1 and traitorous conceits should not go forth among the people4 ,some of the ,high ,church party objected that there were translations enough already2 but it struck ,james's fancy to set them all aside by another version1 which he at once said he would order4 ,it was to be made by the most learned of both universities1 then to be revised by the bishops and other ,church dignitaries1 then presented to the ,privy ,council1 and finally to be passed upon by himself4 ,there is the echo of some sharp ,scotch experiences in his declaration that there were to be no marginal notes in that new version4 ,when they looked back on the conference1 the ,puritans felt that they had lost everything1 and the ,high ,church people that they had gained everything4 ,one of the bishops1 in a very servile way1 and on his knee1 gave thanks to ,god for having given the country such a king1 whose like had never been seen since ,christ was on earth4 ,certainly hard times were ahead for the ,puritans4 ,the ,king harried them according to his word4 ,within sixteen years some of them landed at ,plymouth ,rock1 and things began to happen on this side4 ,that settlement at ,plymouth was the outcome of the threat the ,king had made at the ,hampton ,court conference4 ,but looking back one can see that the conference was worth while for the beginning of the movement for the new version4 ,the ,king was true to his word in this line also1 and before the year was out had appointed the fifty-four best ,bible scholars of the realm to make the new version4 ,they were to sit in six companies of nine each1 two at ,oxford1 two at ,cambridge1 and two at ,westminster4 ,the names of only forty-seven of them have come down to us1 and it is not known whether the other seven were ever appointed1 or in what way their names have been lost4 ,it must be said for the ,king that the only principle of selection was scholarship1 and when those six groups of men met they were men of the very first rank1 with no peers outside their own numbers--with one exception1 and that exception is of some passing interest4 ,hugh ,broughton was probably the foremost ,hebrew scholar of ,england1 perhaps of the world1 at the time1 and apparently he was not appointed on the committee4 ,chiefly1 it seems to have been because he was a man of ungovernable temper and utterly unfitted to work with others4 ,failure to appoint him1 however1 bit and rankled1 and the only keen and sharp criticism that was passed on the version in its own day was by ,hugh ,broughton4 ,he sent word to the ,king1 after it was completed1 that as for himself he would rather be rent to pieces by wild horses than have had any part in the urging of such a wretched version of the ,bible on the poor people4 ,that was so manifestly pique1 however1 that it is only to be regretted that the translation did not have the benefit of his great ,hebrew knowledge4 ,john ,selden1 at his prime in that day1 voiced the feeling of most scholars of the times1 that the new translation was the best in the world and best gave the sense of the original4 ,we do not know much of the personnel of the company4 ,their names would mean very little to us at this distance4 ,all were clergymen except one4 ,there were bishops1 college principals1 university fellows1 and rectors4 ,dr4 ,reynolds1 who suggested it in the first place1 was a member1 though he did not live to see the work finished4 ,this ,dr4 ,reynolds1 by the way1 was party to a most curious episode4 ,he had been an ardent ,roman ,catholic1 and he had a brother who was an equally ardent ,protestant4 ,they argued with each other so earnestly that each convinced the other2 the ,roman ,catholic became a ,protestant1 and the ,protestant became a ,roman ,catholic6 ,dr4 ,lancelot ,andrewes1 chairman of one of the two companies that met at ,westminster1 was probably the most learned man in ,england4 ,they said of him that if he had been present at the tower of ,babel he could have interpreted for all the tongues present4 ,the only trouble was that the world lacked learning enough to know how learned he was4 ,his company had the first part of the ,old ,testament1 and the simple dignity of the style they used shows how scholarship and simplicity go easily together4 ,most people would consider that the least satisfactory part of the work is the second section1 running from ,i ,chronicles to ,ecclesiastes4 ,a convert from another faith1 who learned to read the ,bible in ,english1 once expressed to a friend of my own his feeling that except for the ,psalms and parts of ,job1 there seemed to be here a distinct letting-down of the dignity of the translation4 ,there is good excuse for this1 if it is so1 for two leading members of the company who had that section in charge1 both eminent ,cambridge scholars1 died very early in the work1 and their places were not filled4 ,the third company1 sitting at ,oxford1 were peculiarly strong1 and had for their portion the hardest part of the ,old ,testament--all the prophetical writings4 ,but they did their part with finest skill4 ,the fourth company1 sitting at ,cambridge1 had the ,apocrypha1 the books which lie between the ,old and the ,new ,testaments for the most part1 or else are supplemental to certain ,old ,testament books4 ,their work was rather hastily and certainly poorly done1 and has been dropped out of most editions4 ,the fifth company1 sitting at ,oxford1 with great ,greek scholars on it1 took the ,gospels1 the ,acts1 and the ,revelation4 ,this company had in it the one layman1 ,sir ,henry ,savile1 then the greatest ,greek scholar in ,england4 ,it is the same ,sir ,henry ,savile who heard1 on his death-bed in #afba1 that ,james had with his own hands torn from the ,journal of ,parliament the pages which bore the protest in favor of free speech in ,parliament4 ,hearing it1 the faithful scholar prayed to die1 saying3 ,i am ready to depart1 the rather that having lived in good times ,i foresee worse4 ,the sixth company met at ,westminster and translated the ,new ,testament epistles4 ,it was the original plan that when one company had finished its part1 the result should go to each of the other companies1 coming back with their suggestions to the original workers to be recast by them4 ,the whole was then to be reviewed by a smaller committee of scholars to give it uniformity and to see it through the press4 ,the records are not extant that tell whether this was done in full detail1 though we may presume that each section of the ,scripture had the benefit of the scholarship of the entire company4 ,we know a good deal of the method of their work4 ,we shall understand it better by recalling what material they had at hand4 ,they were enabled to use the result of all the work that had been done before them4 ,they were instructed to follow the ,bishops' ,bible wherever they could do so fairly2 but they were given power to use the versions already named from ,wiclif down1 as well as those fragmentary versions which were numerous1 and of which no mention has been made4 ,they ransacked all ,english forms for felicitous words and happy phrases4 ,it is one of the interesting incidents that this same ,hugh ,broughton1 who was left off the committee and took it so hard1 yet without his will contributed some important matter to the translation1 because he had on his own authority made translations of certain parts of the ,scripture4 ,several of our capital phrases in the ,king ,james version are from him4 ,there was no effort to break out new paths4 ,preference was always given to a familiar phrase rather than to a new one1 unless accuracy required it4 ,first1 then1 they had the benefit of all the work that had been done before in the same line1 and gladly used it4 ,in addition1 they had all other versions made in the tongues of the time4 ,chiefly there was ,luther's ,german ,bible1 already become for the ,german tongue what their version was destined to be for the ,english tongue4 ,there were parts of the ,bible available in ,spanish1 ,french1 and ,dutch4 ,they were kept at hand constantly for any light they might cast on difficult passages4 ,for the ,old ,testament there were very few ,hebrew texts4 ,there had been little critical work yet done on them1 and for the most part there were only different editions running back over the centuries4 ,we have little more than that now1 and there is almost no new material on the ,old ,testament since the days of the ,king ,james translators4 ,there was1 of course1 the ,septuagint1 the ,greek translation from the ,hebrew made before ,christ1 with the guidance it could give in doubtful places on the probable original4 ,and finally there was the ,vulgate1 made into ,latin out of the ,greek and ,hebrew4 ,this was all the ,old ,testament material they had1 or that any one could have in view of the antiquated original sources4 ,the ,new ,testament material was more abundant1 though not nearly so abundant as to-day4 ,there were few manuscripts of the early days to which they could refer2 but there were the two great critical versions of the ,new ,testament in ,greek1 that by ,erasmus and the ,complutensian1 which had made use of the best manuscripts known4 ,then1 finally again1 there was the ,vulgate4 ,we must stop a moment to see what was the value of the ,vulgate in this work4 ,it is impossible to reckon the number of the early ,new ,testament manuscripts that have been lost4 ,in the earlier day the ,scriptures were transmitted from church to church1 and from age to age1 by manuscripts4 ,many of them were made as direct copies of other manuscripts2 but many were made by scribes to whom the manuscripts were read as they wrote1 so that there are many1 though ordinarily comparatively slight1 variations among the manuscripts which we now know4 ,more manuscripts are coming to light constantly1 manuscripts once well known and then lost4 ,many of them1 perhaps many earlier than we now have1 must have been familiar to ,jerome four hundred years after ,christ4 ,when1 therefore1 there is a plain difference between the ,vulgate and our early ,greek manuscripts1 the ,vulgate may be wrong because it is only a translation2 but it may be right because it is a translation of earlier manuscripts than some of ours4 ,it is steadily losing its value at that point1 for ,greek manuscripts are all the time coming to light which run farther back4 ,but we must not minimize the value of the ,vulgate for our ,king ,james translation4 ,with all this material the scholars of the early seventeenth century set to work4 ,each man in the group made the translation that seemed best to him1 and together they analyzed the results and finally agreed on the best4 ,they hunted the other versions to see if it had been better done elsewhere4 ,the shade of ,tindale was over it all4 ,the ,genevan version was most influential4 ,the ,douai had its share1 and the ,bishops' was the general standard1 altered only when accuracy required it4 ,on all hard passages they called to their aid the appropriate departments of both universities4 ,all scholars everywhere were asked to send in any contributions1 to correct or criticize as they would4 ,public announcement of the work was made1 and all possible help was besought and gladly accepted4 ,very faithfully these greatest scholars of their time wrought4 ,no one worked for money1 and no one worked for pay1 but each for the joy of the working4 ,three years they spent on the original work1 three years on careful revision and on the marginal references by which ,scripture was made to throw light on ,scripture4 ,then in six months a committee reviewed it all1 put it through the press1 and at last1 in #afaa1 with the imprint of ,robert ,barker1 ,printer to the ,king's ,most ,excellent ,majesty1 the ,king ,james version appeared4 ,the name ,authorized ,version is not a happy one1 for so far as the records go it was never authorized either by the ,king or the bishop2 and1 even if it were1 the authority does not extend beyond the ,english ,church1 which is a very small fraction of those who use it4 ,on the title-page of the original version1 as on so many since1 is the familiar line1 ,appointed to be ,read in ,churches1 but who made the appointment history does not say4 ,the version did not at once supersede the ,genevan and the ,bishops'2 but it was so incomparably better than either that gradually they disappeared1 and by sheer excellence it took the field1 and it holds the field to-day in spite of the numerous supposedly improved versions that have appeared under private auspices4 ,it holds the field1 also1 in spite of the excellent revised version of #ahha made by authority1 and the more excellent version issued in #aija by the ,american ,revision ,committee1 to-day undoubtedly the best version in existence1 considered simply as a reproduction of the sense of the original4 ,and for reasons that may later appear1 the ,king ,james version bids fair to hold the field for many years to come4 ,when we turn from the history of its making to the work itself1 there is much to say4 ,we may well narrow our thought for the remainder of the study to its traits as a version of the ,bible4 ,i4 ,name this first1 that it is an honest version4 ,that is1 it has no argumentative purpose4 ,it is not1 as the scholars say1 apologetic4 ,it is simply an out-and-out version of the ,scripture1 as honestly as they could reproduce it4 ,there were ,puritans on the committee2 there were extreme ,high ,churchmen2 there were men of all grades between4 ,but there is nowhere any evidence that any one was set on making the ,bible prove his point4 ,there were strong anti-papal believers among them2 but they made free use of the ,douai version1 and1 of course1 of the ,vulgate4 ,they knew the feeling that ,hugh ,broughton had toward them2 but they made generous use of all that was good in his work4 ,they were working under a royal warrant1 and their dedication to ,king ,james1 with its absurd and fulsome flattery1 shows what they were capable of when they thought of the ,king4 ,but there is no twist of a text to make it serve the purposes of royalty4 ,they might be servile when they thought of ,king ,james2 but there was not a touch of servility in them when they thought of the ,scripture itself4 ,they were under instruction not to abandon the use of ecclesiastical terms4 ,for instance1 they were not to put congregation in place of church1 as some ,puritans wanted to do4 ,some thought that was meant to insure a ,high ,church version2 but the translators did not understand it so for a moment4 ,they understood it only to safeguard them against making a partisan version on either side1 and to help them to make a version which the people could read understandingly at once4 ,it was not to be a ,puritan ,book nor a ,high ,church ,book4 ,it was to be an honest version of the ,bible1 no matter whose side it sustained4 ,now1 if any one thinks that is easy1 or only a matter of course1 he plainly shows that he has never been a theologian or a scholar in a contested field4 ,ask any lawyer whether it is easy to handle his authorities with entire impartiality1 whether it is a matter of course that he will let them say just what they meant to say when his case is involved4 ,of course1 he will seek to do it as an honest lawyer1 but equally1 of course1 he will have to keep close watch on himself or he will fail in doing it4 ,ask any historian whether it is easy to handle the original documents in a field in which he has firm and announced opinions1 and to let those documents speak exactly what they mean to say1 whether they support him or not4 ,the greater historians will always do it1 but they will sometimes do it with a bit of a wrench4 ,even a scholar is human1 and these men sitting in their six companies would all have to meet this ,book afterward1 would have their opinions tried by it4 ,there must have been times when some of them would be inclined to salt the mine a little1 to see that it would yield what they would want it to yield later4 ,so far as these men were able to do it1 they made it say in ,english just what it said in ,hebrew and ,greek4 ,they showed no inclination to use it as a weapon in their personal warfare4 ,one line of that honest effort is worth observing more closely4 ,when points were open to fair discussion1 and scholarship had not settled them1 they were careful not to let their version take sides when it could be avoided4 ,on some mooted words they did not try translation1 but transliteration instead4 ,that is1 they brought the ,greek or ,hebrew word over into ,english1 letter by letter4 ,suppose scholars differed as to the exact meaning in ,english of a word in the ,greek4 ,some said it has this meaning1 and some that it has that4 ,now1 if the version committed itself to one of those meanings1 it became an argument at once against the other and helped to settle a question on which scholarship was not yet agreed4 ,they could avoid making a partisan ,book by the simple device of bringing the word which was disputed over into the new translation4 ,that left the discussion just where it was before1 but it saved the work from being partisan4 ,the method of transliteration did not always work to advantage1 as we shall see1 but it was intended throughout to save the ,book from taking sides on any question where honest men might differ as to the meaning of words4 ,they did that with all proper names1 and that was notable in the ,old ,testament1 because most ,old ,testament proper names can be translated4 ,they all mean something in themselves4 ,adam is the ,hebrew word for man2 ,abraham means ,father of a ,great ,multitude2 ,david is the ,hebrew word for ,beloved2 ,malachi means ,my ,messenger4 ,yet as proper names they do not mean any of those things4 ,it is impossible to translate a proper name into another tongue without absurdity4 ,it must be transliterated4 ,yet there is constant fascination for translators in the work of translating these proper names1 trying to make them seem more vivid4 ,it is quite likely1 though it is disputed1 that proper names do all go back to simple meanings4 ,but by the time they become proper names they no longer have those meanings4 ,the only proper treatment of them is by transliteration4 ,the ,king ,james translators follow that same practice of transliteration rather than translation with another word which is full of controversial possibility4 ,i mean the word baptism4 ,there was dispute then as now about the method of that ordinance in early ,christian history4 ,there were many who held that the classical meaning which involved immersion had been taken over bodily into the ,christian faith1 and that all baptism was by immersion4 ,there were others who held that while that might be the classical meaning of the word1 yet in early ,christian custom baptism was not by immersion1 but might be by sprinkling or pouring1 and who insisted that no pressure on the mode was wise or necessary4 ,that dispute continues to this day4 ,early versions of the ,bible already figured in the discussion1 and for a while there was question whether this ,king ,james version should take sides in that controversy1 about which men equally loyal to truth and early ,christian history could honestly differ4 ,the translators avoided taking sides by bringing the ,greek word which was under discussion over into ,english1 letter by letter4 ,our word baptism is not an ,english word nor a ,saxon word2 it is a purely ,greek word4 ,the controversy has been brought over into the ,english language2 but the ,king ,james version avoided becoming a controversial book4 ,a number of years ago the convictions of some were so strong that another version of the ,bible was made1 in which the word baptism was carefully replaced by what was believed to be the ,english translation1 immersion1 but the version never had wide influence4 ,in this connection it is well to notice the effort of the ,king ,james translators at a fair statement of the divine name4 ,it will be remembered that it appears in the ,old ,testament ordinarily as ,,lord1 printed in small capitals4 ,a very interesting bit of verbal history lies back of that word4 ,the word which represents the divine name in ,hebrew consists of four consonants1 ,j or ,y1 ,h1 ,v1 and ,h4 ,there are no vowels2 indeed1 there were no vowels in the early ,hebrew at all4 ,those that we now have were added not far from the time of ,christ4 ,no one knows the original pronunciation of that sacred name consisting of four letters4 ,at a very early day it had become too sacred to pronounce1 so that when men came to it in reading or in speech1 they simply used another word which is1 translated into ,english1 ,lord1 a word of high dignity4 ,when the time came that vowels were to be added to the consonants1 the vowels of this other word ,lord were placed under the consonants of the sacred name1 so that in the word ,jehovah1 where the ,j ,h ,v ,h occur1 there are the consonants of one word whose vowels are unknown and the vowels of another word whose consonants are not used4 ,illustrate it by imagining that in ,american literature the name ,lincoln gathered to itself such sacredness that it was never pronounced and only its consonants were ever printed4 ,suppose that whenever readers came to it they simply said ,washington1 thinking ,lincoln all the while4 ,then think of the displacement of the vowels of ,lincoln by the vowels of ,washington4 ,you have a word that looks like ,lancilon or ,lanicoln2 but a reader would never pronounce so strange a word4 ,he would always say ,washington1 yet he would always think the other meaning4 ,and while he would retain the meaning in some degree1 he would soon forget the original word1 retaining only his awe of it4 ,which is just what happened with the divine name4 ,the ,hebrews knew it was not ,lord1 yet they always said ,lord when they came to the four letters that stood for the sacred word4 ,the word ,jehovah1 made up of the consonants of an unknown word and the vowels of a familiar word1 is in itself meaningless4 ,scholarship is not yet sure what was the original meaning of the sacred name with its four consonants4 ,these translators had to face that problem4 ,it was a peculiar problem at that time4 ,how should they put into ,english the august name of ,god when they did not know what the true vowels were8 ,there was dispute among scholars4 ,they did not take sides as our later ,american ,revision has done1 some of us think quite unwisely4 ,they chose to retain the ,hebrew usage1 and print the divine name in unmistakable type so that its personal meaning could not be mistaken4 ,on the other hand1 disputes since their day have shown how they translated when transliteration would have been wiser4 ,illustrate with one instance4 ,there is a ,hebrew word1 ,sheol1 with a ,greek word1 ,hades1 which corresponds to it4 ,usage had adopted the ,anglo-,saxon word ,hell as the equivalent of both of these words1 so they translated ,sheol and ,hades with the ,english word ,hell4 ,the only question that had been raised was by that ,hugh ,broughton of whom we were speaking a moment ago1 and it had not seemed a serious one4 ,certainly the three terms have much in common1 and there are places where both the original words seemed to be virtually equivalent to the ,anglo-,saxon ,hell1 but they are not the same4 ,the ,revised ,version of our own time returned to the original1 and instead of translating those words whose meaning can be debated1 it transliterated them and brought the ,hebrew word ,sheol and the ,greek word ,hades over into ,english4 ,that1 of course1 gave a chance for paragraphers to say that the ,revised ,version had read ,hell out of the ,scriptures4 ,all that happened was that cognizance was taken of a dispute which would have guided the ,king ,james translators if it had existed in their time1 and we should not have become familiar with the ,anglo-,saxon word ,hell as the translation of those disputed ,hebrew and ,greek words4 ,we need not seek more instances4 ,these are enough to illustrate the saying that here is an honest version1 the fruit of the best scholarship of the times1 without prejudice4 ,,ii4 ,a second trait of the work as a version is its remarkable accuracy4 ,it is surprising that with all the new light coming from early documents1 with all the new discoveries that have been made1 the latest revision needed to make so few changes1 and those for the most part minor ones4 ,there are1 to be sure1 some important changes1 as we shall see later2 the wonder is that there are not many more4 ,the ,king ,james version had1 to be sure1 the benefit of all the earlier controversy4 ,the whole ground had been really fought over in the centuries before1 and most of the questions had been discussed4 ,they frankly made use of all the earlier controversy4 ,they say in their preface3 ,truly1 good ,christian reader1 we never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation1 nor yet to make a bad one a good one1 but to make a good one better4 ,that hath been our endeavor1 that our work4 ,also1 they had the advantage of deliberation4 ,this was the first version that had been made which had such sanction that they could take their time1 and in which they had no reason to fear that the results would endanger them4 ,they say in their preface that they had not run over their work with that posting haste that had marked the ,septuagint1 if the saying was true that they did it all in seventy-two days2 nor were they barred and hindered from going over it again1 as ,jerome himself said he had been1 since as soon as he wrote any part it was snatched away from him and published2 nor were they working in a new field1 as ,origen was when he wrote his first commentary on the ,bible4 ,both these things--their taking advantage of earlier controversies which had cleared many differences1 and their deliberation--were supplemented by a third which gave great accuracy to the version4 ,that was their adoption of the principle of all early translators1 perhaps worded best by ,purvey1 who completed the ,wiclif version3 ,the best translation is to translate after the sentence1 and not only after the words1 so that the sentence be as open in ,english as in ,latin4 ,that makes for accuracy4 ,it is quite impossible to put any language over1 word for word1 into another without great inaccuracy4 ,but when the translators sought to take the sentence of the ,hebrew or the ,greek and put it into an exactly equivalent ,english sentence1 they had larger play for their language and they had a fairer field for accuracy4 ,these were the three great facts which made the remarkable accuracy possible1 and it may be interesting to note three corresponding results which show the effort they made to be absolutely accurate and fair in their translation4 ,the first of those results is visible in the italicized words which they used4 ,in the ,king ,james version words in italics are a frank acknowledgment that the ,greek or the ,hebrew cannot be put into ,english literally4 ,these are ,english words which are put in because it seems impossible to express the meaning originally intended without certain additions which the reader must take into account in his understanding of the version4 ,we need not think far to see how necessary that was4 ,the arrangement of words in ,greek1 for example1 is different from that in ,english4 ,the ,greek of the first verse of the ,gospel of ,john reads that ,god was the ,word1 but the ,english makes its sentences in a reversed form1 and it really means1 the ,word was ,god4 ,so the ,greek uses particles where the ,english does not4 ,often it would say the ,god where we would say simply ,god4 ,those particles are ordinarily wisely omitted4 ,so the ,greek does not use verbs at some points where it is quite essential that the ,english shall use them4 ,but it is only fair that in reading a version of the ,scripture we should know what words have been put in by translators in their effort to make the version clear to us2 and the italicized words of the ,king ,james version are a frank effort to be accurate and yet fair4 ,the second result which shows their effort at accuracy is in the marginal readings4 ,most of these are optional readings1 and are preceded by the word or1 which indicates that one may read what is in the text1 or substitute for it what is in the margin with equal fairness to the original4 ,but sometimes1 instead of that familiar or1 occur letters which indicate that the ,hebrew or the ,greek literally means something else than what is given in the ,english text1 and what it literally means is given in the margin4 ,the translators thereby say to the reader that if he can take that literal meaning and put it into the text so that it is intelligible to him1 here is his chance4 ,as for them1 they think that the whole context or meaning of the sentence rather involves the use of the phrase which they put into the text4 ,but the marginal references are of great interest to most of us as showing how these men were frank to say that there were some things they could not settle4 ,they were rather blamed for it1 chiefly by those who had committed themselves to the ,douai version1 which has no marginal readings1 on the ground that the translation ought to be as authoritative as the original4 ,the ,king ,james translators repudiate that theory and frankly say that the reason they put these words in the margin was because they were not sure what was the best reading4 ,in the margin of the epistle to the ,romans there are eighty-four such marginal readings1 and the proportion will hold throughout most of the version4 ,they were only trying to be accurate and to give every one a chance to make up his own mind where there was fair reason to question their results4 ,the third thing which shows their effort at accuracy is their explicit avoidance of uniformity in translating the same word4 ,they tried to put the meaning into ,english terms4 ,so1 as they say1 the one word might become either journeying or traveling2 one word might be thinking or supposing1 joy or gladness1 eternal or everlasting4 ,one of the reasons they give for this is quaint enough to quote4 ,they said they did not think it right to honor some words by giving them a place forever in the ,bible1 while they virtually said to other equally good words3 ,get ye hence and be banished forever4 ,they quote a certaine great philosopher who said that those logs were happy which became images and were worshiped1 while other logs as good as they were laid behind the fire to be burned4 ,so they sought to use as many ,english words1 familiar in speech and commonly understood1 as they might1 lest they should impoverish the language1 and so lose out of use good words4 ,there is no doubt that in this effort both to save the language1 and to represent accurately the meaning of the original1 they sometimes overdid that avoidance of uniformity4 ,there were times when it would have been well if the words had been more consistently translated4 ,for example1 in the epistle of ,james ii3#b1 #c1 you have goodly apparel1 vile raiment1 and gay clothing1 all translating one ,greek word4 ,our revised versions have sought to correct such inconsistencies4 ,but it was all done in the interest of an accuracy that should yet not be a slavish uniformity4 ,this will be enough to illustrate what was meant in speaking of the effort of the translators to achieve accuracy in their version4 ,,iii4 ,the third marked trait of the work as a version of the ,scripture is its striking blending of dignity and popularity in its language4 ,at any period of a living language1 there are three levels of speech4 ,there is an upper level used by the clearest thinkers and most careful writers1 always correct according to the laws of the language1 generally somewhat remote from common life--the habitual speech of the more intellectual4 ,there is also the lower level used by the least intellectual1 frequently incorrect according to the laws of the language1 rough1 containing what we now call slang1 the talk of a knot of men on the street corner waiting for a new bulletin of a ball game1 cheap in words1 impoverished in synonyms1 using one word to express any number of ideas1 as slang always does4 ,those two levels are really farther apart than we are apt to realize4 ,a book or an article on the upper level will be uninteresting and unintelligible to the people on the lower level4 ,and a book in the language of the lower level is offensive and disgusting to those of the upper level4 ,that is not because the ideas are so remote1 but because the characteristic expressions are almost unfamiliar to the people of the different levels4 ,the more thoughtful people read the abler journals of the day2 they read the editorials or the more extended articles2 they read also the great literature4 ,if they take up the sporting page of a newspaper to read the account of a ball game written in the style of the lower level of thought1 where words are misused in disregard of the laws of the language1 and where one word is made to do duty for a great many ideas1 they do it solely for amusement4 ,they could never think of finding their mental stimulus in that sort of thing4 ,on the other hand1 there are people who find in that kind of reading their real interest4 ,if they should take up a thoughtful editorial or a book of essays1 they would not know what the words mean in the connection in which they are used4 ,they speak a good deal about the vividness of this lower-level language1 about its popularity2 they speak with a sneer about the stiffness and dignity of that upper level4 ,these are1 however1 only the two extremes1 for there is always a middle level where move words common to both1 where are avoided the words peculiar to each4 ,it is the language that most people speak4 ,it is the language of the street1 and also of the study1 of the parlor1 and of the shop4 ,but it has little that is peculiar to either of those other levels1 or to any one place where a man may live his life and do his talking4 ,if we illustrate from other literature1 we can say that ,macaulay's essays move on the upper level1 and that much of the so-called popular literature of our day moves on the lower level1 while ,dickens moves on the middle level1 which means that men whose habitual language is that of the upper and the lower levels can both enter into the spirit of his writing4 ,now1 originally the ,bible moved on that middle level4 ,it was a colloquial book4 ,the languages in which it first appeared were not in the classic forms4 ,they are the languages of the streets where they were written4 ,the ,hebrew is almost our only example of the tongue at its period1 but it is not a literary language in any case4 ,the ,greek of the ,new ,testament is not the ,eolic1 the language of the lyrics of ,sappho2 nor the ,doric1 the language of war-songs or the chorus in the drama2 nor the ,ionic1 the dialect of epic poetry2 but the ,attic ,greek1 and a corrupted form of that1 a form corrupted by use in the streets and in the markets4 ,that was the original language of the ,bible1 a colloquial language4 ,but that fact does not determine the translation4 ,whether it shall be put into the ,english language on the upper level or on the lower level is not so readily determined4 ,efforts have been made to put it into the language of each level4 ,we have a so-called elegant translation1 and we have the ,bible cast into the speech of the common day4 ,the ,king ,james version is on the middle level4 ,it is a striking blending of the dignity of the upper level and the popularity of the lower level4 ,there is tremendous significance in the fact that these men were making a version which should be for all people1 making it out in the open day with the king and all the people behind them4 ,it was the first independent version which had been made under such favorable circumstances4 ,most of the versions had been made in private by men who were imperiling themselves in their work4 ,they did not expect the ,book to pass into common use2 they knew that the men who received the result of their work would have to be those who were earnest enough to go into secret places for their reading4 ,but here was a changed condition4 ,these men were making a version by royal authority1 a version awaited with eager interest by the people in general4 ,the result is that it is a people's ,book4 ,its phrases are those of common life1 those that had lived up to that time4 ,it is not in the peculiar language of the times4 ,if you want to know the language of their own times1 read these translators' servile1 unhistorical dedication to the king1 or their far nobler preface to the reader4 ,that is the language peculiar to their own day4 ,but the language of the ,bible itself is that form which had lived its way into common use4 ,one hundred years after ,wiclif it yet speaks his language in large part1 for that part had really lived4 ,in the ,bibliotheca ,pastorum ,ruskin makes comment on ,sir ,philip ,sidney and his metrical version of the ,psalms in these words3 ,sir ,philip ,sidney will use any cow-boy or tinker words if they only help him to say precisely in ,english what ,david said in ,hebrew2 impressed the while himself so vividly of the majesty of the thought itself that no tinker's language can lower it or vulgarize it in his mind4 ,the ,king ,james translators were most eager to say what the original said1 and to say it so that the common man could well understand it1 and yet so that it should not be vulgarized or cheapened by adoption of cheap words4 ,in his ,history ,hallam passes some rather sharp strictures on the ,english of the ,king ,james version1 remarking that it abounds in uncouth phrases and in words whose meaning is not familiar1 and that whatever is to be said it is1 at any rate1 not in the ,english of the time of ,king ,james4 ,and that latter saying is true1 though it must be remembered that ,hallam wrote in the period when no ,english was recognized by literary people except that of the upper level1 when they did not know that these so-called uncouth phrases were to return to common use4 ,to-day it would be absurd to say that the ,bible is full of uncouth phrases4 ,professor ,cook has said that the movement of ,english diction1 which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was on the whole away from the ,bible1 now returns with ever-accelerating speed toward it4 ,if the phrases went out1 they came back4 ,but it is true that the ,english of the ,king ,james version is not that of the time of ,james ,i41 only because it is the ,english of the history of the language4 ,it has not immortalized for us the tongue of its times1 because it has taken that tongue from its beginning and determined its form4 ,it carefully avoided words that were counted coarse4 ,on the other hand1 it did not commit itself to words which were simply refinements of verbal construction4 ,that1 ,i say1 is a general fact4 ,it can be illustrated in one or two ways4 ,for instance1 a word which has become common to us is the neuter possessive pronoun its4 ,that word does not occur in the edition of #afaa1 and appears first in an edition in the printing of #affj4 ,in place of it1 in the edition of #afaa1 the more dignified personal pronoun his or her is always used1 and it continues for the most part in our familiar version4 ,in this verse you notice it3 ,look not upon the wine when it is red2 when it giveth his color aright in the cup4 ,in the ,levitical law especially1 where reference is made to sacrifices1 to the articles of the furniture of the tabernacle1 or other neuter objects1 the masculine pronoun is almost invariably used4 ,in the original it was invariably used4 ,you see the other form in the familiar verse about charity1 that it doth not behave itself unseemly1 seeketh not her own1 is not easily provoked4 ,now1 there is evidence that the neuter possessive pronoun was just coming into use4 ,shakespeare uses it ten times in his works1 but ten times only1 and a number of writers do not use it at all4 ,it was1 to be sure1 a word beginning to be heard on the street1 and for the most part on the lower level4 ,the ,king ,james translators never used it4 ,the dignified word was that masculine or feminine pronoun1 and they always use it in place of the neuter4 ,on the other hand1 there was a word which was coming into use on the upper level which has become common property to us now4 ,it is the word anxiety4 ,it is not certain just when it came into use4 ,i believe ,shakespeare does not use it2 and it occurs very little in the literature of the times4 ,probably it was known to these translators4 ,when they came1 however1 to translating a word which now we translate by anxious or anxiety they did not use that word4 ,it was not familiar4 ,they used instead the word which represented the idea for the people of the middle level2 they used the word thought4 ,so they said1 ,take no thought for the morrow1 where we would say1 ,be not anxious for the morrow4 ,there is a contemporary document which illustrates how that word thought was commonly used1 in which we read3 ,in five hundred years only two queens died in child birth1 ,queen ,catherine ,parr having died rather of thought4 ,that was written about the time of the ,king ,james version1 and thought evidently means worry or anxiety4 ,neither of those words1 the neuter possessive pronoun or the new word anxious1 got into the ,king ,james version4 ,one was coming into proper use from the lower level1 and one was coming into proper use from the upper level4 ,they had not yet so arrived that they could be used4 ,one result of this care to preserve dignity and also popularity appears in the fact that so few words of the ,english version have become obsolete4 ,words disappear upward out of the upper level or downward out of the lower level1 but it takes a long time for a word to get out of a language once it is in confirmed use on the middle level4 ,of course1 the version itself has tended to keep words familiar2 but no book1 no matter how widely used1 can prevent some words from passing off the stage or from changing their meaning so noticeably that they are virtually different words4 ,yet even in those words which do not become common there is very little tendency to obsolescence in the ,king ,james version4 ,more words of ,shakespeare have become obsolete or have changed their meanings than in the ,king ,james version4 ,there is one interesting illustration to which attention has been called by ,dr4 ,davidson1 which is interesting4 ,in the ninth chapter of the ,judges1 where we are told about ,abimelech1 the fifty-third verse reads that a woman cast a stone down from the wall and all to break his skull4 ,that is confessedly rather obscure4 ,our ordinary understanding of it would be that she did that for no other purpose than just to break the skull of ,abimelech4 ,as a matter of fact1 that expression is a printer's bungling way of giving a word which has become obsolete in the original form4 ,when the ,king ,james translators wrote that1 they used the word alto1 which is evidently the beginning of altogether1 or wholly or utterly1 and what they meant was that she threw the stone and utterly broke his skull4 ,but that abbreviated form of the word passed out of use1 and when later printers--not much later--came to it they did not know what it meant and divided it as it stands in our present text4 ,it is one of the few words that have become obsolete4 ,but so few are there of them1 that it was made a rule of the ,revised ,version not to admit to the new version1 where it could be avoided1 any word not already found in the ,authorized ,version1 and also not to omit from the ,revised ,version1 except under pressure of necessity1 any word which occurred there4 ,it is largely this blending of dignity and popularity that has made the ,king ,james version so influential in ,english literature4 ,it talks the language not of the upper level nor of the lower level1 but of that middle level where all meet sometimes and where most men are all the while4 ,these are great traits to mark a book1 any book1 but especially a translation--that it is honest1 that it is accurate1 and that its language blends dignity and popularity so that it lowers the speech of none4 ,they are all conspicuous traits of our familiar version of the ,bible1 and in them in part lies its power with the generations of these three centuries that have followed its appearance4 ,,footnotes3 #ab ,trevelyan1 ,england ,under the ,stuarts4 #ac ,history of ,england1 chap4 i4 #ad ,short ,history of the ,english ,people1 chap4 viii1 sec4 ii4 #ae ,trevelyan1 ,england ,under the ,stuarts1 p4 #ajg4 #af ,history of ,england1 #afjc-db4 ,,lecture ,,iii ,,the ,,king ,,james ,,version ,,as ,,english ,,literature ,let it be plainly said at the very first that when we speak of the literary phases of the ,bible we are not discussing the book in its historic meaning4 ,it was never meant as literature in our usual sense of the word4 ,nothing could have been further from the thought of the men who wrote it1 whoever they were and whenever they wrote1 than that they were making a world literature4 ,they had the characteristics of men who do make great literature--they had clear vision and a great passion for truth2 they loved their fellows mightily1 and they were far more concerned to be understood than to speak4 ,these are traits that go to make great writers4 ,but it was never in their minds that they were making a world literature4 ,the ,bible is a book of religious significance from first to last4 ,if it utterly broke down by the tests of literature1 it might be as great a book as it needs to be4 ,it is a subordinate fact that by the tests of literature it proves also to be great4 ,prof4 ,gardiner1 of ,harvard1 whose book called ,the ,bible as ,english ,literature makes other such works almost unnecessary1 frankly bases his judgment on the result of critical study of the ,bible1 but he serves fair warning that he takes inspiration for granted1 and thinks it obvious that no literary criticism of the ,bible could hope for success which was not reverent in tone4 ,a critic who should approach it superciliously or arrogantly would miss all that has given the ,book its power as literature and its lasting and universal appeal4#ag ,farther over in his book he goes on to say that when we search for the causes of the feelings which made the marvelous style of the ,bible a necessity1 explanation can make but a short step1 for we are in a realm where the only ultimate explanation is the fact of inspiration2 and that is only another way of saying that we are in the presence of forces above and beyond our present human understanding4#ah ,however1 we may fairly make distinction between the ,bible as an original work and the ,bible as a work of ,english literature4 ,for the ,bible as an original work is not so much a book as a series of books1 the work of many men working separately over a period of at least fifteen hundred years1 and these men unconscious for the most part of any purpose of agreement4 ,this series of books is made one book in the original by the unity of its general purpose and the agreement of its parts4 ,the ,bible in ,english is1 however1 not a series of books1 but properly one book1 the work of six small groups of men working in conscious unity through a short period of years4 ,and while there is variation in style1 while there are inequalities in result1 yet it stands as a single piece of ,english literature4 ,it has a literary style of its own1 even though it feels powerfully the ,hebrew influence throughout4 ,and while it would not be a condemnation of the ,bible if it were not great literature in ,english or elsewhere1 it is still part of its power that by literary standards alone it measures large4 ,it is so that men of letters have rated it since it came into existence4 ,it holds a place of pre-eminence in the republic of letters4 ,when ,john ,richard ,green comes to deal with it1 he says3 ,as a mere literary monument the ,english version of the ,bible remains the noblest language of the ,english tongue1 while its perpetual use made of it from the instant of its appearance the standard of our language4#ai ,and in ,macaulay's essay on ,dryden1 while he is deploring the deterioration of ,english style1 he yet says that in the period when the ,english language was imperiled there appeared the ,english ,bible1 a book which if everything else in our language should perish would alone suffice to show the extent of its beauty and power4 ,the mere fact that the ,english ,bible contains a religion does not affect its standing as literature4 ,homer and ,virgil are ,greek and ,roman classics1 yet each of them contains a definite religion4 ,you can build up the religious faith of the ,greeks and ,romans out of their great literature4 ,so you can build up the religious faith of the ,hebrews and the early ,christians from the ,old and ,new ,testaments4 ,for fifteen centuries a ,hebrew ,book1 the ,bible1 contained almost the whole literature and learning of a whole nation1 while it was also the book of their religion4 ,as literature1 however1 apart from its religious connection1 it is subject to any of the criteria of literature4 ,in so far it is the fair subject of criticism4 ,it must stand or fall when it enters the realm of literature by the standards of other books4 ,indeed1 many questions regarding its dates1 the authorship of unassigned portions1 the meaning of its disputed passages may be answered most fairly by literary tests4 ,that is always liable to abuse2 but literary tests are always liable to that4 ,there have been enough blunders made in the knowledge of us all to require us to go carefully in such a matter4 ,the ,waverley ,novels were published anonymously1 and1 while some suspected ,scott at once1 others were entirely clear that on the ground of literary style his authorship was entirely impossible6 ,let a magazine publish an anonymous serial1 and readers everywhere are quick to recognize the writer from his literary style and his general ideas1 but each group recognizes a different writer4 ,arguments based chiefly on style overlook the large personal equation in all writing4 ,the same writer has more than one natural style4 ,it is not until he becomes in a certain sense affected--grows proud of his peculiarities--that he settles down to one form4 ,and it is quite impossible to assign a book to any narrow historical period on the ground of its style alone4 ,but though large emphasis could be laid upon the literary merits of the ,bible to the obscuring of its other more important merits1 it is yet true that from the literary point of view the ,bible stands as an ,english classic1 indeed1 as the outstanding ,english classic4 ,to acknowledge ignorance of it is to confess one's self ignorant of our greatest literary possession4 ,a moment ago it was said that as a piece of literature the ,bible must accept the standards of other literary books4 ,for all present purposes we can define great literature as worthy written expression of great ideas4 ,if we may take the word written for granted1 the rough definition becomes this3 that great literature is the worthy expression of great ideas4 ,works which claim to be great in literature may fail of greatness in either half of that test4 ,petty1 local1 unimportant ideas may be well clothed1 or great ideas may be unworthily expressed2 in either case the literature is poor4 ,it is not until great ideas are wedded to worthy expression that literature becomes great4 ,failure at one end or the other will explain the failure of most of the work that seeks to be accounted literature4 ,the literary value of a book cannot be determined by its style alone4 ,it is possible to say nothing gracefully1 even with dignity1 symmetry1 rhythm2 but it is not possible to make literature without ideas4 ,abiding literature demands large ideas worthily expressed4 ,now1 of course1 large and small are not words that are usually applied to the measurement of ideas2 but we can make them seem appropriate here4 ,let us mean that an idea is large or small according to its breadth of interest to the race and its length of interest to the race4 ,if there is an idea which is of value to all the members of the human race to-day1 and which does not lose its value as the generations come and go1 that is the largest possible idea within human thought4 ,transient literature may do without those large ideas4 ,a gifted young reporter may describe a dog fight or a presidential nominating convention in such terms as lift his article out of carelessness and hasty newspaper writing into the realm of real literature2 but it cannot become abiding literature4 ,it has not a large enough idea to keep it alive4 ,and to any one who loves worthy expression there is a sense of degradation in the use of fine literary powers for the description of purely transient local events4 ,it is always regrettable when men with literary skill are available for the description of a ball game1 or are exploited as worthy writers about a prize-fight4 ,if a man has power to express ideas well1 he ought to use that power for the expression of great ideas4 ,many of us have seen a dozen books hailed as classic novels sure to live1 each of them the great ,american novel at last1 the author to be compared with ,dickens and ,thackeray and ,george ,eliot4 ,and the books have gone the way of all the earth4 ,with some1 the trouble is a weak1 involved1 or otherwise poor style4 ,with most the trouble is lack of real ideas4 ,charles ,dickens1 to be sure1 does deal with boarding-schools in ,england1 with conditions which in their local form do not recur and are not familiar to us2 but he deals with them as involving a great principle of the relation of society to youth1 and so ,david ,copperfield or ,oliver ,twist becomes a book for the life of all of us1 and for all time4 ,and even here it is evident that not all of ,dickens's work will live1 but only that which is least narrowly local and is most broadly human4 ,there is a further striking illustration in a familiar event in ,american history4 ,most young people are required to study ,webster's speech in reply to ,robert ,hayne in the ,united ,states ,senate1 using it as a model in literary construction4 ,the speech of ,hayne is lost to our interest1 yet the fact is that ,hayne himself was gifted in expression1 that by the standards of simple style his speech compares favorably with that of ,webster4 ,yet reading ,webster's reply takes one not to the local condition which was concerning ,hayne1 but to a great principle of liberty and union4 ,he shows that principle emerging in history2 the local touches are lost to thought as he goes on1 and a truth is expressed in terms of history which will be valid until history is ended4 ,it is not simply ,webster's style2 it is that with his great idea which made his reply memorable4 ,that neither ideas nor style alone can keep literature alive is shown by literary history after ,shakespeare4 ,just after him you have the mellifluous poets of the next period on the one hand1 with style enough1 but with such attenuated ideas that their work has died4 ,who knows ,drayton or ,brown or ,wither8 ,on the other hand1 there came the metaphysicians with ideas in abundance1 but not style1 and their works have died4 ,here1 then1 is the ,english ,bible becoming the chief ,english classic by the wedding of great ideas to worthy expression4 ,from one point of view this early seventeenth century was an opportune time for making such a classic4 ,theology was a popular subject4 ,men's minds had found a new freedom1 and they used it to discuss great themes4 ,they even began to sing4 ,the reign of ,elizabeth had prepared the way4 ,the ,english scholar ,hoare traces this new liberty to the sailing away of the ,armada and the releasing of ,england from the perpetual dread of ,spanish invasion4 ,he says that the birds felt the free air1 and sang as they had never sung before and as they have not often sung since4 ,but this was not restricted to the birds of ,english song4 ,it was a period of remarkable awakening in the whole intellectual life of ,england1 and that intellectual life was directing itself among the common people to religion4 ,another ,english writer1 ,eaton1 says a profounder word in tracing the awakening to the reformation1 saying that it could not fail1 from the very nature of it1 to tinge the literature of the ,elizabethan era4 ,it gave a logical and disputatious character to the age and produced men mighty in the ,scriptures4#bj ,a ,french visitor went home disgusted because people talked of nothing but theology in ,england4 ,grotius thought all the people of ,england were theologians4 ,james's chief pride was his theological learning4 ,it did not prove difficult to find half a hundred men in small ,england instantly recognized as experts in ,scripture study4 ,the people were ready to welcome a book of great ideas4 ,let us pass by those ideas a moment1 remembering that they are not enough in themselves to give the work literary value1 and turn our minds to the style of the ,english ,bible4 ,from this point of view the times were not perfectly opportune for a piece of pure ,english literature1 though it was the time which produced ,shakespeare4 ,a definite movement was on to refine the language by foreign decorations4 ,not even ,shakespeare avoids it always4 ,no writer of the time avoids it wholly4 ,the dedication of the ,king ,james version shows that these scholars themselves did not avoid it4 ,in that dedication1 and their preface1 they give us fine writing1 striving for effect1 ornamental phrases characteristic of the time4 ,men were feeling that this ,english language was rough and barbarous1 insufficient1 needing enlargement by the addition of other words constructed in a foreign form4 ,the essays of ,lord ,bacon are virtually contemporaneous with this translation4 ,macaulay says a rather hard word in calling his style odious and deformed1#ba but when one turns from ,bacon to the ,english ,bible there is a sharp contrast in mere style1 and it favors the ,bible4 ,the contrast is as great as that which ,carlyle first felt between the ideas of ,shakespeare and those of the ,bible when he said that this world is a catholic kind of place2 the ,puritan gospel and ,shakespeare's plays3 such a pair of facts ,i have rarely seen save out of one chimerical generation4#bb ,and that gives point to the word already quoted from ,hallam that the ,english of the ,king ,james version is not the ,english of ,james ,i4 ,four things helped to determine the simplicity and pure ,english--unornamented ,english--of the ,king ,james version1 made it1 that is1 the ,english classic4 ,two of these things have been dealt with already in other connections4 ,first1 that it was a ,book for the people1 for the people of the middle level of language2 a work by scholars1 but not chiefly for scholars1 intended rather for the common use of common people4 ,secondly1 that the translators were constantly beholden to the work of the past in this same line4 ,where ,wiclif's words were still in use they used them4 ,that tended to fix the language by the use which had already become natural4 ,the other two determining influences must be spoken of now4 ,the third lies in the fact that the ,english language was still plastic4 ,it had not fallen into such hard forms that its words were narrow or restricted4 ,the truth is that from the point of view of pure literature the ,bible is better in ,english than it is in ,greek or ,hebrew4 ,that is1 the ,english of the ,king ,james version as ,english is better than the ,greek of the ,new ,testament as ,greek4 ,as for the ,hebrew there was little development for many generations2 ,renan thinks there was none at all4 ,the difference comes from the point of time in the growth of the tongue when the ,book was written4 ,the ,greek was written when the language was old1 when it had differentiated its terms1 when it had become corrupted by outside influence4 ,the ,english version was written when the language was new and fresh1 when a word could be taken and set in its meaning without being warped from some earlier usage4 ,the study of the ,greek ,testament is always being complicated by the effort to bring into its words the classical meaning1 when so far as the writers of the ,new ,testament were concerned they had no interest in the classical meaning1 but only in the current meaning of those words4 ,in the ,english language there was as yet no classical meaning2 it was exactly that meaning that these writers were giving the words when they brought them into their version4#bc ,there is large advantage in the fact that the age was not a scientific one1 that the language had not become complicated4 ,so it becomes interesting to observe with ,professor ,march that ninety-three per cent4 of these words1 counting also repetitions1 are native ,english words4 ,the language was new1 was still plastic4 ,it had not been stiffened by use4 ,it received its set more definitely from the ,english ,bible than from any other one work--more than from ,shakespeare1 whose influence was second4 ,the fourth fact which helped to determine its ,english style is the loyalty of the translators to the original1 notably the ,hebrew4 ,it is a common remark of the students of the original tongues that the ,hebrew and ,greek languages are peculiarly translatable4 ,that is notable in the ,hebrew4 ,it is not a language of abstract terms4 ,the tendency of language is always to become vague1 since we are lazy in the use of it4 ,we use one word in various ways1 and a pet one for many ideas4 ,language is always more concrete in its earlier forms4 ,in this period of the concrete ,english language1 then1 the translation was made from the ,hebrew1 which was also a concrete1 figurative language itself4 ,the structure of the ,hebrew sentence is very simple4 ,there are no extended paragraphs in it4 ,it is somewhat different in the ,new ,testament1 where these paragraphs are found1 certainly in the ,pauline ,greek2 but even there the extended sentences are broken into clauses which can be taken as wholes4 ,the ,english version shows constantly the marks of the ,hebrew influence in the simplicity of its phrasing4 ,renan says that the ,hebrew knows how to make propositions1 but not how to link them into paragraphs4 ,so the earlier ,bible stories are like a child's way of talking4 ,they let one sentence follow another1 and their unity is found in the overflowing use of the word and--one fact hung to another to make a story1 but not to make an argument4 ,in the first ten chapters of ,i ,samuel1 for example1 there are two hundred and thirty-eight verses2 one hundred and sixty of them begin with and4 ,there are only twenty-six of the whole which have no connective word that thrusts them back upon the preceding verse4 ,in the ,hebrew language1 also1 most of the emotions are connected either in the word used or in the words accompanying it with the physical condition that expresses it4 ,over and over we are told that he opened his mouth and said1 or1 he was angry and his countenance fell4 ,anger is expressed in words which tell of hard breathing1 of heat1 of boiling tumult1 of trembling4 ,we would not trouble to say that4 ,the opening of the mouth to speak or the falling of the countenance in anger1 we would take for granted4 ,the ,hebrew does not4 ,even in the description of ,god you remember the terms are those of common life2 ,he is a shepherd when shepherds are writing2 ,he is a husbandman threshing out the nations1 treading the wine-press until ,he is reddened with the wine--and so on4 ,that is the natural method of the ,hebrew language--concrete1 vivid1 never abstract1 simple in its phrasing4 ,the ,king ,james translators are exceedingly loyal to that original4 ,professor ,cook1 of ,yale1 suggests that four traits make the ,bible easy to translate into any language3 universality of interest1 so that there are apt to be words in any language to express what it means1 since it expresses nothing but what men all talk about2 then1 the concreteness and picturesqueness of its language1 avoiding abstract phrases which might be difficult to reproduce in another tongue2 then1 the simplicity of its structure1 so that it can be taken in small bits1 and long complicated sentences are not needed2 and1 finally1 its rhythm1 so that part easily follows part and the words catch a kind of swing which is not difficult to imitate4 ,that is a very true analysis4 ,the ,bible is the most easily translated book there is1 and has become the classic for more languages than any other one book4 ,it is brought about in part in our ,english version by the faithfulness of the translators to the original4 99 99 99 99 99 ,passing from these general considerations1 let us look directly at the ,english ,bible itself and its literary qualities4 ,the first thing that attracts attention is its use of words1 and since words lie at the root of all literature it is worth while to stop for them for a moment4 ,two things are to be said about the words3 first1 that they are few2 and1 secondly1 that they are short4 ,the vocabulary of the ,english ,bible is not an extensive one4 ,shakespeare uses from fifteen to twenty thousand words4 ,in ,milton's verse he uses about thirteen thousand4 ,in the ,old ,testament1 in the ,hebrew and ,chaldaic tongue1 there are fifty-six hundred and forty-two words4 ,in the ,new ,testament1 in the ,greek1 there are forty-eight hundred4 ,but in the whole of the ,king ,james version there are only about six thousand different words4 ,the vocabulary is plainly a narrow one for a book of its size4 ,while1 as was said before1 the translators avoided using the same word always for translation of the same original1 they yet managed to recur to the same words often enough so that this comparatively small list of six thousand words1 about one-third ,shakespeare's vocabulary1 sufficed for the stating of the truth4 ,then1 secondly1 the words are short1 and in general short words are the strong ones4 ,the average word in the whole ,bible1 including the long proper names1 is barely over four letters1 and if all the proper names are excluded the average word is just a little under four letters4 ,of course1 another way of saying that is that the words are generally ,anglo-,saxon1 and1 while in the original spelling they were much longer1 yet in their sound they were as brief as they are in our present spelling4 ,there is no merit in ,anglo-,saxon words except in the fact that they are concrete1 definite1 non-abstract words4 ,they are words that mean the same to everybody2 they are part of common experience4 ,we shall see the power of such words by comparing a simple statement in ,saxon words from the ,english ,bible with a comment of a learned theologian of our own time on them4 ,the phrase is a simple one in the ,communion service3 ,this is my body which is given for you4 ,that is all ,saxon4 ,when our theologian comes to comment on it he says we are to understand that the validity of the service does not lie in the quality of external signs and sacramental representation1 but in its essential property and substantial reality4 ,now there are nine words abstract in their meaning1 ,latin in their form4 ,it is in that kind of words that the ,bible could have been translated1 and in our own day might even be translated4 ,addison speaks of that3 ,if any one would judge of the beauties of poetry that are to be met with in the divine writings1 and examine how kindly the ,hebrew manners of speech mix and incorporate with the ,english language1 after having perused the ,book of ,psalms1 let him read a literal translation of ,horace or ,pindar4 ,he will find in these two last such an absurdity and confusion of style with such a comparative poverty of imagination1 as will make him very sensible of what ,i have been here advancing4#bd ,the fact that the words are short can be quickly illustrated by taking some familiar sections4 ,in the ,ten ,commandments there are three hundred and nineteen words in all2 two hundred and fifty-nine of them are words of one syllable1 and only sixty are of two syllables and over4 ,there are fifty words of two syllables1 six of three syllables1 of which four are such composite words that they really amount to two words of one and two syllables each1 with four words of four syllables1 and none over that4 ,make a comparison just here4 ,there is a paragraph in ,professor ,march's lectures on the ,english language where he is urging that its strongest words are purely ,english1 not derived from ,greek or ,latin4 ,he uses the ,king ,james version as illustration4 ,if1 now1 we take three hundred and nineteen words at the beginning of that paragraph to compare with the three hundred and nineteen in the ,ten ,commandments1 the result will be interesting4 ,where the ,ten ,commandments have two hundred and fifty-nine words of one syllable1 ,professor ,march has only one hundred and ninety-four2 over against the fifty two-syllable words in the ,ten ,commandments1 ,professor ,march has sixty-five2 over against their six words of three syllables1 he has thirty-five2 over against their four words of four syllables1 he uses eighteen2 and while the ,ten ,commandments have no word longer than four syllables1 ,professor ,march needs five words of five syllables and two words of six syllables to express his ideas4#be ,the same thing appears in the familiar #bc;d ,psalm1 where there are one hundred and nineteen words in all1 of which ninety-five are words of one syllable1 and only three of three syllables1 with none longer4 ,in the ,sermon on the ,mount eighty-two per cent4 of the words in our ,english version are words of one syllable4 ,the only point urged now is that this kind of thing makes for strength in literature4 ,short words are strong words4 ,they have a snap and a grip to them that long words have not4 ,very few men would grow angry over having a statement called a prevarication or a disingenuous entanglement of ideas1 but there is something about the word lie that snaps in a man's face4 ,unjustifiable hypothecation may be the same as stealing1 but it would never excite one to be called an unjustifiable hypothecator as it does to be called a thief4 ,at the very foundation of the strength of the literature of the ,english ,bible there lies this tendency to short1 clear-cut words4 ,rising now from this basal element in the literature of the version1 we come to the place where its style and its ideas blend in what we may call its earnestness4 ,that is itself a literary characteristic4 ,there is not a line of trifling in the book4 ,no man would ever learn trifling from it4 ,it takes itself with tremendous seriousness4 ,here are earnest men at work2 to them life is joyous1 but it is no joke4 ,that is why the element of humor in it is such a small one4 ,it is there1 to be sure4 ,many of its similes are intended to be humorous4 ,a few of its incidents are humorous2 but it has little of that element in it1 as indeed little of our literature has that element markedly in it4 ,we have a few exceptions4 ,but what ,george ,eliot says in ,adam ,bede is true1 that wit is of a temporary nature1 and does not deal with the deep and more lasting elements in life4 ,the ,bible is not a sad book4 ,there are children at play in it2 there are feasts and buoyant gatherings fully recounted4 ,but it never trifles nor jests4 ,so it has given us a language of great dignity4 ,let ,addison speak again3 ,how cold and dead does a prayer appear that is composed in the most elegant and polite forms of speech1 which are natural to our tongue1 when it is not heightened by that solemnity of phrase which may be drawn from the sacred writings4 ,it has been said by some of the ancients that if the gods were to talk with men1 they would certainly speak in ,plato's style2 but ,i think we may say1 with justice1 that when mortals converse with their ,creator they cannot do it in so proper a style as in that of the ,holy ,scriptures4 ,as that earnestness of the literature of the original precluded any great amount of humor in the wide range of its literary forms1 so in the ,king ,james version it precluded any trifling expressions1 any plays on words1 even the duplication of such plays as can be found in the ,hebrew or the ,greek4 ,you seldom find any turn of a word in the ,king ,james version1 though you do occasionally find it in the ,hebrew4 ,one such punning expression occurs in the story of ,samson 7,judges xv3#af71 where our version reads3 ,with the jawbone of an ass1 heaps upon heaps1 with the jawbone of an ass have ,i slain a thousand men4 ,in the ,hebrew the words translated ass and heaps are variants of the same word4 ,it comes near the ,hebrew to say3 ,with the jawbone of an ass1 masses upon masses1 and so on4 ,these translators would not risk reproducing such puns for fear of lowering the dignity of their results4 ,there is a deadly seriousness about their work and so they never lose strength as they go on4 ,that earnestness grows out of a second fact which may be emphasized--namely1 the greatness of the themes of ,bible literature4 ,here is history1 but it is not cast into fiction form4 ,history always becomes more interesting for a first reading when it is in the form of fiction2 but it always loses greatness in that form4 ,test it by turning from a history of the ,american revolutionary or civil war to an historical novel that deals with the same period2 or from a history of ,scotland to the ,waverley novels4 ,in some degree the earnestness of the time is lost2 the same facts are there2 but they do not loom so large1 nor do they seem so great4 ,so there is power in the fact that the historical elements of the version are in stately form and are never sacrificed to the fictional form4 ,these great themes save the work from being local4 ,it issues from life1 but from life considered in the large4 ,the themes of great literature are great enough to make their immediate surroundings forgotten4 ,the ,english ,bible deals with the great facts and the great problems4 ,it is from the point of view of those great facts that it handles even commonplace things1 and you forget the commonplaceness of the things in the greatness of the dealing4 ,take its attitude toward ,god4 ,one needs the sense of that great theme to read it fairly4 ,it quietly overlooks secondary causes1 goes back of them to ,god4 ,partly that was because the original writers were ignorant of some of those secondary causes2 partly that they knew them1 but wanted to go farther back4 ,take the most outstanding instance1 that of the ,book of ,jonah4 ,all its facts1 without exception1 can be told without mention of ,god1 if one cared to do it4 ,but there could not be anything like so great a story if it is told that way4 ,one of his biographers says of ,lincoln that there is nothing in his whole career which calls for explanation in other than a purely natural and human way4 ,that is true1 if one does not care to go any farther back than that4 ,but the greatest story cannot be made out of ,lincoln's life on those terms4 ,there is not material enough2 the life must be delocalized4 ,it can be told without that larger view1 so that it will be of interest to ,america and ,american children1 but not so that it will be of value to generations of men in all countries and under all circumstances if it is told on those terms4 ,part of the greatness of ,scripture1 from a literary point of view1 is that it has such a tremendous range of theme1 and is saved from a mere narration of local events by seeing those events in the light of larger considerations4 ,let that stand for one of the great facts4 ,now take one of the great problems4 ,the thing that makes ,job so great a classic is the fact that1 while it is dealing with a character1 he is standing for the problem of undeserved suffering4 ,a man who has that before him1 if he has at all the gift of imagination1 is sure to write in a far larger way than when he is dealing with a man with boils as though he were finally important4 ,one could deal with ,job as a character1 and do a small piece of work4 ,but when you deal with ,job as a type1 a much larger opportunity offers4 ,it is these great ideas1 as to either facts or problems1 that give the seriousness1 the earnestness to the literature of the ,bible4 ,men who express great ideas in literary form are not dilettante about them4 ,one of the ,english writers just now prominent as an essayist is often counted whimsical1 trifling4 ,one of his near friends keenly resents that opinion1 insists instead that he is dead in earnest1 serious to the last degree1 purposeful in all his work4 ,what makes that so difficult to believe is that there is always a tone of chaffing in his essays4 ,he seems always to be making fun of himself or of other people2 and if he is dead in earnest he has the wrong style to make great literature or literature that will live long4 ,it is that earnestness and greatness of theme which puts the tang into the ,english of the ,bible4 ,coleridge says that after reading ,isaiah or the ,epistle to the ,hebrews1 ,homer and ,virgil are disgustingly tame1 ,milton himself barely tolerable4 ,it need not be put quite so strongly as that2 but there is large warrant of fact in that expression4 ,go a little farther in thought of the literary characteristics of the ,bible4 ,notice the variety of the forms involved4 ,recall ,professor ,moulton's four cardinal points in literature1 all of it taking one of these forms3 either description1 when a scene is given in the words of the author1 as when ,milton and ,homer describe scenes without pretending to give the words of the actors throughout2 or1 secondly1 presentation1 when a scene is given in the words of those who took part in it1 and the author does not appear1 as1 of course1 in the plays of ,shakespeare1 when he never appears1 but where all his sentiments are put in the words of others4 ,as between those two1 the ,bible is predominantly a book of description1 the authors for the most part doing the speaking1 though there is1 of course1 an element of presentation4 ,professor ,moulton goes on with the two other phases of literary form3 prose1 moving in the region limited by facts1 as history and philosophy deal only with what actually has existence2 and poetry1 which by its ,greek origin means creative literature4 ,he reminds us that1 however literature starts1 these are the points toward which it moves1 the paths it takes4 ,all four of them appear in the literature of the ,english ,bible4 ,you have more of prose and less of poetry2 but the poetry is there1 not in the sense of rhyme1 but in the sense of real creative literature4 ,a more natural way of considering the literature has been followed by ,professor ,gardiner4 ,he finds four elements in the literature of the ,bible3 its narrative1 its poetry1 its philosophizing1 and its prophecy4 ,it is not necessary for our purpose to go into details about that4 ,we shall have all we need when we realize that1 small as the volume of the book is1 it yet does cover all these types of literature4 ,its difference from other books is that it deals with all of its subjects so compactly4 ,it will accent this fact of its variety if we note the musical element in the literature of the ,bible4 ,it comes in part from the form which marks the original ,hebrew poetry4 ,it has become familiar to say that it is not of the rhyming kind4 ,rather it is marked by the balancing of phrases or of ideas1 so that it runs in couplets or in triplets throughout4 ,in the ,psalms there is always a balance of clauses4 ,they are sometimes adversative2 sometimes they are simply cumulative4 ,take several instances from the #aaith ,psalm1 each a complete stanza of ,hebrew poetry2 7verse #ae7 ,i will meditate in thy precepts1 and have respect unto thy ways2 or this 7verse #bc71 ,princes also did sit and speak against me3 but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes2 or this 7verse #de71 ,and ,i will walk at liberty3 for ,i seek thy precepts2 7verse #ea71 ,the proud have had me greatly in derision3 yet have ,i not inclined from thy law4 ,each presents a parallel or a contrast of ideas4 ,that is the characteristic mark of ,hebrew poetry4 ,it results in a kind of rhythm of the ,english which makes it very easy to set to music4 ,some of it can be sung1 though for some of it only the thunder is the right accompaniment4 ,but it is not simply in the balance of phrases that the musical element appears4 ,sometimes it is in a natural but rhythmic consecution of ideas4 ,the #ceth chapter of ,isaiah1 for example1 is not poetic in the ,hebrew1 yet it is remarkably musical in the ,english4 ,read it aloud from our familiar version3 ,the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them2 and the desert shall rejoice1 and blossom as the rose4 ,it shall blossom abundantly1 and rejoice even with joy and singing2 the glory of ,lebanon shall be given unto it1 the excellency of ,carmel and ,sharon2 they shall see the glory of the ,lord1 and the excellency of our ,god4 ,strengthen ye the weak hands1 and confirm the feeble knees4 ,say to them that are of a fearful heart1 ,be strong1 fear not3 behold1 your ,god will come with vengeance1 even ,god with a recompense2 ,he will come and save you4 ,then the eyes of the blind shall be opened1 and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped4 ,then shall the lame man leap as a hart1 and the tongue of the dumb sing3 for in the wilderness shall waters break out1 and streams in the desert4 ,and the parched ground shall become a pool1 and the thirsty land springs of water3 in the habitation of dragons1 where each lay1 shall be grass with reeds and rushes4 ,and a highway shall be there1 and a way1 and it shall be called ,the way of holiness2 the unclean shall not pass over it2 but it shall be for those3 the wayfaring men1 though fools1 shall not err therein4 ,no lion shall be there1 nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon1 it shall not be found there2 but the redeemed shall walk there3 and the ransomed of the ,lord shall return1 and come to ,zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads2 they shall obtain joy and gladness1 and sorrow and sighing shall flee away4 ,that can be set to music as it stands4 ,you catch the same form in the familiar #acth chapter of ,i ,corinthians1 the chapter on ,charity4 ,it could be almost sung throughout4 ,this musical element is in sharp contrast with much else in the ,scripture1 where necessity does not permit that literary form4 ,for example1 in the ,epistle to the ,hebrews1 which is argumentative throughout1 there is no part except its quotations which has ever been set to music for uses in ,christian worship4 ,it is rugged and protracted in its form1 and has no musical element about it4 ,the contrast within the ,scripture of the musical and the unmusical is a very marked one4 ,add to the thought of the earnestness and variety of the ,scripture a word about the simplicity of its literary expression4 ,there is nothing meretricious in its style4 ,there is no effort to say a thing finely4 ,the translators have avoided all temptation to grow dramatic in reproducing the original4 ,contrast the actual ,english ,bible with the narratives or other literary works that have been built up out of it4 ,read all that the ,bible tells about the loss of ,paradise1 and then read ,milton's ,paradise ,lost4 ,nearly all of the conceptions of ,milton's greatest poem are built up from brief ,scripture references4 ,but ,milton becomes subtle in his analysis of motives2 he enlarges greatly on events4 ,scripture never does that4 ,it gives us very few analyses of motive from first to last4 ,that is not the method nor the purpose of ,scripture4 ,it tells the story in terms that move on the middle level of speech and the middle level of understanding1 while ,milton labors with it1 complicates it1 entangling it with countless details which are to the ,scripture unimportant4 ,it goes straight to the simple and fundamental elements in the account4 ,take a more modern illustration4 ,probably the finest poem of its length in the ,english language is ,browning's ,saul4 ,it is built out of one incident and a single expression in the ,bible story of ,saul and ,david4 ,the incident is ,david's being called from his sheep to play his harp and to sing before ,saul in the fits of gloom which overcome him2 the expression is the single saying that ,david loved ,saul4 ,taking that incident and that expression1 ,browning writes a beautiful poem with many decorative details1 with keen analysis of motive1 with long accounts of the way ,david felt when he rendered his service1 and how his heart leaped or sang4 ,imagine finding ,browning's familiar phrases in ,scripture3 ,the lilies we twine round the harp-chords1 lest they snap neath the stress of the noontide--those sunbeams like swords2 ,oh1 the wild joy of living6 ,spring's arrowy summons1 going straight to the aim4 ,that is very well for ,browning1 but it is not the ,scripture way2 it is too complicated4 ,all that the ,bible says can be said anywhere2 ,browning's ,saul could not possibly be reproduced in other languages4 ,it would need a glossary or a commentary to make it intelligible4 ,it is beautiful ,english1 and great because it has taken a great idea and clothed it in worthy expression4 ,but the simplicity of the ,bible narrative appears in sharp contrast with it4 ,in my childhood my father used to tell of a man who preached on the creation1 and with great detail and much elaboration and decoration told the story of creation as it is suggested in the first chapter of ,genesis4 ,when it was over he asked an old listener what he thought of his effort1 and the only comment was1 ,you can't beat ,moses6 ,well1 it would be difficult to surpass these ,bible writers in simplicity1 in going straight to the point1 and making that plain and leaving it4 ,where the ,bible takes a hundred words to tell the whole story ,browning takes several hundred lines to tell it4 ,the simplicity of the ,bible is largely because there is so little abstract reasoning in it4 ,having few or no abstract ideas1 it does not need abstract words4 ,rather1 it groups its whole movement around characters4 ,three eminent literary men were once asked to select the best reviews of a novel which had just appeared4 ,one of the three statements which they rated highest said of the book that it achieves the true purpose of a novel1 which is to make comprehensible the philosophy of life of a whole community or race of men by showing us how that philosophy accords with the impulses and yearnings of typical individuals4 ,few phrases could be more foreign to ,bible phrases than those4 ,but there is valuable suggestion in it for more than the literature of the novel4 ,that is exactly what the ,scripture does4 ,its reasoning is kept concrete by the fact that it is dealing with characters more than movements1 and so it can speak in concrete words4 ,that always makes for simplicity4 ,there are two elements common to the history of literature about which a special word is deserved4 ,i mean the dramatic and the oratorical elements4 ,the difference between the dramatic and the oratorical is chiefly that in dramatic writing there is a scene in which many take part1 and in the oratorical writing one man presents the whole scene1 however dramatic the surroundings4 ,there is not a great deal of either in the ,scripture4 ,there is no formal drama1 nothing that could be acted as it stands4 ,it is true1 to be sure1 that ,job can be cast into dramatic form by a sufficient manipulation1 but it is quite unlikely1 in spite of some scholars1 that it was ever meant to be a formal drama for action4 ,it does move in cycles in the appearance of its characters1 and it does close in a way to take one back to the beginning4 ,it has many marks of the drama1 and yet it seems very unlikely that it was ever prepared with that definitely in mind4 ,on the other hand1 a most likely explanation of the ,song of ,solomon is that it is a short drama which appears in our ,bible without any character names1 as though you should take ,hamlet and print it continuously1 indicating in no way the change of speakers nor any movement4 ,the effort has been measurably successful to discover and insert the names of the probable speakers4 ,that seems to be the one exception to the general statement that there is no formal drama in the ,scripture4 ,but there are some very striking dramatic episodes1 and they are made dramatic for us very largely by the way they are told4 ,one of the earlier is in ,i ,kings xviii3#ba-ci4 ,and ,elijah came unto all the people1 and said1 ,how long halt ye between two opinions8 if the ,lord be ,god1 follow him3 but if ,baal1 then follow him4 ,and the people answered him not a word4 ,then said ,elijah unto the people1 ,i1 even ,i only1 remain a prophet of the ,lord2 but ,baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men4 ,let them therefore give us two bullocks2 and let them choose one bullock for themselves1 and cut it in pieces1 and lay it on wood1 and put no fire under2 and ,i will dress the other bullock1 and lay it on wood1 and put no fire under3 and call ye on the name of your gods1 and ,i will call on the name of the ,lord3 and the ,god that answereth by fire1 let him be ,god4 ,and all the people answered and said1 ,it is well spoken4 ,and ,elijah said unto the prophets of ,baal1 ,choose you one bullock for yourselves1 and dress it first2 for ye are many2 and call on the name of your gods1 but put no fire under4 ,and they took the bullock which was given them1 and they dressed it1 and called on the name of ,baal from morning until noon1 saying1 ,o ,baal1 hear us4 ,but there was no voice1 nor any that answered4 ,and they leaped upon the altar which was made4 ,and it came to pass at noon1 that ,elijah mocked them1 and said1 ,cry aloud2 for he is a god2 either he is talking1 or he is pursuing1 or he is in a journey1 or peradventure he sleepeth1 and must be awakened4 ,and they cried aloud1 and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets1 till the blood gushed out upon them4 ,and it came to pass1 when midday was past1 and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice1 that there was neither voice1 nor any to answer1 nor any that regarded4 ,and ,elijah said unto all the people1 ,come near unto me4 ,and all the people came near unto him4 ,and he repaired the altar of the ,lord that was broken down4 ,and ,elijah took twelve stones1 according to the number of the tribes of the sons of ,jacob1 unto whom the word of the ,lord came1 saying1 ,israel shall be thy name4 ,and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the ,lord2 and he made a trench about the altar1 as great as would contain two measures of seed4 ,and he put the wood in order1 and cut the bullock in pieces1 and laid him on the wood1 and said1 ,fill four barrels with water1 and pour it on the burnt sacrifice1 and on the wood4 ,and he said1 ,do it the second time4 ,and they did it the second time4 ,and he said1 ,do it the third time4 ,and they did it the third time4 ,and the water ran round about the altar2 and he filled the trench also with water4 ,and it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice1 that ,elijah the prophet came near1 and said1 ,lord ,god of ,abraham1 ,isaac1 and of ,israel1 let it be known this day that thou art ,god in ,israel1 and that ,i am thy servant1 and that ,i have done all these things at thy word4 ,hear me1 ,o ,lord1 hear me1 that this people may know that thou art the ,lord ,god1 and that thou hast turned their heart back again4 ,then the fire of the ,lord fell1 and consumed the burnt sacrifice1 and the wood1 and the stones1 and the dust1 and licked up the water that was in the trench4 ,and when all the people saw it1 they fell on their faces3 and they said1 ,the ,lord1 he is the ,god2 the ,lord1 he is the ,god4 ,that is not simply a dramatic event2 that is a striking telling of it4 ,it is more than a narrative4 ,in narrative literature the scene is accepted as already constructed4 ,in dramatic literature such appeal is made to the imagination that the reader reconstructs the scene for himself4 ,we are not told in this how ,elijah felt1 or how he acted1 nor how the people as a whole looked1 nor the setting of the scene2 but if one reads it with care it makes its own setting4 ,the scene constructs itself4 ,the dramatic style does not prevail at most important points of the ,scripture1 because it is a fictitious style for the presenting of truth4 ,it inevitably suggests superficiality4 ,things actually do not happen in life as they do in drama4 ,one of our latest biographers says that a scientific historian is always suspicious of dramatic events4#bf ,they may be true1 but they are more liable to be afterthoughts1 like the bright answers we could have made to our opponents if we had only thought of them at the time4 ,you never lose the sense of unreality in the very construction of a drama4 ,life cannot be crowded into two or three hours1 and justice does not come out as the drama makes it do4 ,so that at most important points of the ,scripture dramatic writing does not appear4 ,the account of the carrying away into captivity of the children of ,israel is at no point dramatic1 though you can see instantly what a great opportunity there was for it4 ,it is simply narrative4 ,it is noticeable that none of the accounts of the crucifixion is at all dramatic4 ,they are all simply narrative4 ,the imagination does not immediately conjure up the scene4 ,there may be two reasons for that4 ,one is that there are involved several hours in which there is no action recorded4 ,the other is that by the time the accounts were written the actual events were submerged in importance by their unworded meaning4 ,the account of the conversion of ,paul1 on the other hand1 brief as it is1 has at least minor dramatic elements in it4 ,on the whole1 the ,old ,testament is far more dramatic than the ,new4 ,there is even less of the oratorical element in the ,scripture4 ,there is1 to be sure1 a considerable amount of quotation1 and men do speak at some length1 but seldom oratorically4 ,the prophetical writings are generally too fragmentary to suggest oratory1 and the quotations in the ,new ,testament1 especially from the preaching of our ,lord1 are evidently for the most part excerpts from longer addresses than are given4 ,there are few of the statements of ,paul1 as in the #bfth chapter of ,acts1 which could be delivered oratorically2 but here again the ,old ,testament is more marked than the ,new4 ,the earliest specimen of oratory is also one of the finest specimens4 ,it is in the #ddth chapter of ,genesis1 and is the account of ,judah's reply to his unrecognized brother ,joseph3 ,then ,judah came near unto him1 and said1 ,o my lord1 let thy servant1 ,i pray thee1 speak a word in my lord's ears1 and let not thine anger burn against thy servant3 for thou art even as ,pharoah4 ,my lord asked his servants1 saying1 ,have ye a father1 or a brother8 ,and we said unto my lord1 ,we have a father1 an old man1 and a child of his old age1 a little one2 and his brother is dead1 and he alone is left of his mother1 and his father loveth him4 ,and thou saidst unto thy servants1 ,bring him down unto me1 that ,i may set mine eyes upon him4 ,and we said unto my lord1 ,the lad cannot leave his father3 for if he should leave his father1 his father would die4 ,and thou saidst unto thy servant1 ,except your youngest brother come down with you1 ye shall see my face no more4 ,and it came to pass when we came up unto thy servant my father1 we told him the words of my lord4 ,and our father said1 ,go again and buy us a little food4 ,and we said1 ,we cannot go down2 if our youngest brother be with us1 then we will go down3 for we may not see the man's face1 except our youngest brother be with us4 ,and thy servant my father said unto us1 ,ye know that my wife bare me two sons3 and the one went out from me1 and ,i said1 ,surely he is torn in pieces2 and ,i saw him not since3 and if ye take this also from me1 and mischief befall him1 ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave4 ,now therefore when ,i come to thy servant my father1 and the lad be not with us2 seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life2 it shall come to pass1 when he seeth that the lad is not with us1 that he will die3 and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave4 ,for thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father1 saying1 ,if ,i bring him not unto thee1 then ,i shall bear the blame to my father for ever4 ,now therefore1 ,i pray thee1 let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord2 and let the lad go up with his brethren4 ,for how shall ,i go up to my father1 and the lad be not with me8 lest peradventure ,i see the evil that shall come on my father4 ,that is pure oratory1 and it is greatly helped by the ,english expression of it4 ,here our ,king ,james version is finer than either of the other later versions1 as indeed it is in almost all these sections where the phraseology is important for the ear4 ,we need not go farther4 ,part of these outstanding characteristics come to our version from the original1 and might appear in any version of the ,bible4 ,yet nowhere do even these original characteristics come to such prominence as in the ,king ,james translation2 and it adds to them those that are peculiar to itself4 ,,footnotes3 #ag ,preface1 p4 vii4 #ah ,page #abd4 #ai ,short ,history of the ,english ,people1 ,book vii1 chap4 i4 #bj ,t4 ,r4 ,eaton1 ,shakespeare and the ,bible1 p4 #b4 #ba ,essay on ,john ,dryden4 #bb ,historical ,sketches1 ,hampton ,court ,conference4 #bc ,trevelyan1 ,england under the ,stuarts1 p4 #ed4 #bd ,the ,spectator1 ,no4 #dje4 #be ,this table will show the comparison at a glance3 ,syllables #a #b #c #d #e #f ,the ,commandments #bei #ej #f #d #j #j #cai ,professor ,march #aid #fe #ce #ah #e #b #cai #bf ,mc,giffert1 ,life of ,martin ,luther4 ,,lecture ,,iv ,,the ,,influence ,,of ,,the ,,king ,,james ,,version ,,on ,,english ,,literature ,the ,bible is a book-making book4 ,it is literature which provokes literature4 ,it would be a pleasure to survey the whole field of literature in the broadest sense and to note the creative power of the ,king ,james version2 but that is manifestly impossible here4 ,certain limitations must be frankly made4 ,leave on one side1 therefore1 the immense body of purely religious literature1 sermons1 expositions1 commentaries1 which1 of course1 are the direct product of the ,bible4 ,no book ever caused so much discussion about itself and its teaching4 ,that is because it deals with the fundamental human interest1 religion4 ,it still remains true that the largest single department of substantial books from our ,english presses is in the realm of religion1 and after the purely recreative literature they are probably most widely read4 ,yet1 they are not what we mean at this time by the literary result of the ,english ,bible4 ,leave on one side also the very large body of political and historical writing4 ,much of it shows ,bible influence4 ,in the nature of the case1 any historian of the past three hundred years must often refer to and quote from the ,english ,bible1 and must note its influence4 ,an entire study could be devoted to the influence of the ,english ,bible on ,green or ,bancroft or ,freeman or ,prescott--its influence on their matter and their manner4 ,another could be given to its influence on political writing and speaking4 ,no great orator of the day would fail us of material1 and the great political papers and orations of the past would only widen the field4 ,yet while some of this political and historical writing is recognized as literature1 most of it can be left out of our thought just now4 ,it may aid in the limiting of the field to accept what ,dean ,stanley said in another connection3 ,by literature1 ,i mean those great works that rise above professional or commonplace uses and take possession of the mind of a whole nation or a whole age4#bg ,this is one of the matters which we all understand until we begin to define it2 we know what we mean until some one asks us4 ,the literature of which we are thinking in this narrower sense is in the sphere of art rather than in the sphere of distinct achievement4 ,de ,quincey's division is familiar3 the literature of knowledge1 and the literature of power4 ,the function of the first is to teach2 the function of the second is to move4 ,professor ,dowden points out that between the two lies a third field1 the literature of criticism4 ,it seeks both to teach and to move4 ,our concern is chiefly with ,de ,quincey's second field--the literature of power4 ,in the first field1 the literature of knowledge1 must lie all history1 with ,hume and ,gibbon2 all science1 with ,darwin and ,fiske2 all philosophy1 with ,spencer and ,william ,james2 all political writing1 with ,voltaire and ,webster4 ,near that same field must lie many of those essays in criticism of which ,professor ,dowden speaks4 ,this which we omit1 this literature of knowledge1 is powerful literature1 though its main purpose is not to move1 but to teach4 ,we are only reducing our field so that we can survey it4 ,for our uses just now we shall find pure literature taking the three standard forms3 the poem1 the essay1 and the story4 ,it is the influence of the ,english ,bible on this large field of literature which we are to observe4 ,just for safety's sake1 accept another narrowing of the field4 ,the effect of the ,bible and its religious teaching on the writer himself is a separate study1 and is for the most part left out of consideration4 ,it sounds correct when ,milton says3 ,he who would not be frustrate of his power to write well ought himself to be a true poem4 ,but there is ,milton himself to deal with2 irreproachable in morals1 there are yet the unhappy years of his young wife to trouble us1 and there were his daughters1 who were not at peace with him1 and whom after their service in his blindness he yet stigmatizes in his will as undutiful children4 ,then1 if you think of ,shelley or ,byron1 you are troubled by their lives2 or even ,carlyle1 the very master of the ,victorian era--one would not like to scan his life according to the laws of true poetry4 ,then there is ,coleridge1 falling a prey to opium until1 as years came1 conscience and will seemed to go4 ,only a very ardent ,scot will feel that he can defend ,robert ,burns at all points1 and we would be strange ,americans if we felt that ,edgar ,allan ,poe was a model of propriety4 ,that is a large and interesting field1 but the ,bible seems even to gain power as a book-making book when it lays hold on the book-making proclivities of men who are not prepared to yield to its personal power4 ,they may get away from it as religion2 they do not get away from it as literature4 ,the first and most notable fact regarding the influence of the ,bible on ,english literature is the remarkable extent of that influence4 ,it is literally everywhere4 ,if every ,bible in any considerable city were destroyed1 the ,book could be restored in all its essential parts from the quotations on the shelves of the city public library4 ,there are works1 covering almost all the great literary writers1 devoted especially to showing how much the ,bible has influenced them4 ,the literary effect of the ,king ,james version at first was less than its social effect2 but in that very fact lies a striking literary influence4 ,for a long time it formed virtually the whole literature which was readily accessible to ordinary ,englishmen4 ,we get our phrases from a thousand books4 ,the common talk of an intelligent man shows the effect of many authors upon his thinking4 ,our fathers got their phrases from one great book4 ,their writing and their speaking show the effect of that book4 ,it is a study by itself1 and yet it is true that world literature is1 as ,professor ,moulton puts it1 the autobiography of civilization4 ,a national literature is a reflection of the national history4 ,books as books reflect their authors4 ,as literature they reflect the public opinion which gives them indorsement4 ,when1 therefore1 public opinion keeps alive a certain group of books1 there is testimony not simply to those books1 but to the public opinion which has preserved them4 ,the history of popular estimates of literature is itself most interesting4 ,on the other hand1 some writers have been amusingly overestimated4 ,no doubt ,edward ,fitzgerald1 who gave us the ,rubaiyat of ,omar ,khayym did some other desirable work2 but ,professor ,moulton quotes this paragraph from a popular life of ,fitzgerald1 published in ,dublin3 ,not ,greece of old in her palmiest days--the ,greece of ,homer and ,demosthenes1 of ,eschylus1 ,euripides1 and ,sophocles1 of ,pericles1 ,leonidas1 and ,alcibiades1 of ,socrates1 ,plato1 and ,aristotle1 of ,solon and ,lycurgus1 of ,apelles and ,praxiteles--not even this ,greece1 prolific as she was in sages and heroes1 can boast such a lengthy bead-roll as ,ireland can of names immortal in history6 ,but this was for ,irish consumption4 ,and popular opinion and even critical opinion has sometimes gone far astray in its destructive tendency4 ,there were authoritative critics who declared that ,wordsworth1 ,shelley1 and ,coleridge wrote unintelligible nonsense4 ,george ,meredith's style1 especially in his poetry1 was counted so bad that it was not worth reading4 ,we are all near enough the ,browning epoch to recall how the obscurity of his style impressed some and oppressed others4 ,alfred ,austin1 in #ahfi1 said that ,mr4 ,tennyson has no sound pretensions to be called a great poet4 ,contemporary public opinion is seldom a final gauge of strength for a piece of literature4 ,it takes the test of time4 ,how many books we have seen come on the stage and then pass off again6 ,yet the books that have stayed on the stage have been kept there by public opinion expressing itself in the long run4 ,the social influence of the ,king ,james version1 creating a public taste for certain types of literature1 tended to produce them at once4 ,english literature in these three hundred years has found in the ,bible three influential elements3 style1 language1 and material4 ,first1 the style of the ,king ,james version has influenced ,english literature markedly4 ,professor ,gardiner opens one of his essays with the dictum that in all study of ,english literature1 if there be any one axiom which may be accepted without question1 it is that the ultimate standard of ,english prose style is set by the ,king ,james version of the ,bible4#bh ,you almost measure the strength of writing by its agreement with the predominant traits of this version4 ,carlyle's weakest works are those that lose the honest simplicity of its style in a forced turgidity and affected roughness4 ,his ,heroes and ,hero ,worship or his ,french ,revolution shows his distinctive style1 and yet shows the influence of this simpler style1 while his ,frederick the ,great is almost impossible because he has given full play to his broken and disconnected sentences4 ,on the other hand1 ,macaulay fails us most in his striving for effect1 making nice balance of sentences1 straining his either-or1 or his while-one-was-doing-this-the-other-was-d oing-that4 ,then his sentences grow involved1 and his paragraphs lengthen1 and he swings away from the style of the ,king ,james version4 ,one can say that if any writing departs very far from the characteristics of the ,english ,bible it is not good ,english writing4 ,the second element which ,english literature finds in the ,bible is its language4 ,the words of the ,bible are the familiar ones of the ,english tongue1 and have been kept familiar by the use of the ,bible4 ,the result is that the path of literature lies parallel to that of religion4 ,they are old and dear companions1 brethren indeed of one blood2 not always agreeing1 to be sure2 squabbling rather in true brotherly fashion now and then2 occasionally falling out very seriously and bitterly2 but still interdependent and necessary to each other4#bi ,years ago a writer remarked that every student of ,english literature1 or of ,english speech1 finds three works or subjects referred to1 or quoted from1 more frequently than others4 ,these are the ,bible1 tales of ,greek and ,roman mythology1 and sop's ,fables4 ,of these three1 certainly the ,bible furnishes the largest number of references4 ,there is reason for that4 ,a writer wants an audience4 ,very few men can claim to be independent of the public for which they write4 ,there is nothing the public will be more apt to understand and appreciate quickly than a passing reference to the ,english ,bible4 ,so it comes about that when ,dickens is describing the injustice of the ,murdstones to little ,david ,copperfield1 he can put the whole matter before us in a parenthesis3 ,though there was ,one once who set a child in the midst of the disciples4 ,dickens knew that his readers would at once catch the meaning of that reference1 and would feel the contrast between the scene he was describing and that simple scene4 ,take any of the great books of literature and black out the phrases which manifestly come directly from the ,english ,bible1 and you would mark them beyond recovery4 ,but ,english literature has found more of its material in the ,bible than anything else4 ,it has looked there for its characters1 its illustrations1 its subject-matter4 ,we shall see1 as we consider individual writers1 how many of their titles and complete works are suggested by the ,bible4 ,it is interesting to see how one idea of the ,scripture will appear and reappear among many writers4 ,take one illustration4 ,the ,faust story is an effort to make concrete one verse of ,scripture3 ,what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul8 ,professor ,moulton reminds us that the ,faust legend appeared first in the ,middle ,ages4 ,in early ,english1 ,marlowe has it1 ,calderon put it into ,spanish1 the most familiar form of it is ,goethe's1 while ,philip ,bailey has called his account of it ,festus4 ,in each of those forms the same idea occurs4 ,a man sells his soul to the devil for the gaining of what is to him the world4 ,that is one of a good many ideas which the ,bible has given to literature4 ,the prodigal son has been another prolific source of literary writing4 ,the guiding star is another4 ,others will readily come to mind4 ,with that simple background let our minds move down the course of literary history4 ,style1 language1 material--we will easily think how much of each the ,bible has given to all our great writers if their names are only mentioned4 ,there are four groups of these writers4 #a4 ,the ,jacobean1 who wrote when and just after our version was made4 #b4 ,the ,georgian1 who graced the reigns of the kings whose name the period bears4 #c4 ,the ,victorian4 #d4 ,the ,american4 ,there is an attractive fifth group comprising our present-day workers in the realm of pure literature1 but we must omit them and give our attention to names that are starred4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is familiar that in the time of ,elizabeth1 ,england became a nest of singing birds4 ,in the fifty years after the first ,english theater was erected1 the middle of ,elizabeth's reign1 fifty dramatic poets appeared1 many of the first order4 ,some were distinctly irreligious1 as were many of the people whose lives they touched4 ,such men as ,ford1 ,marlowe1 ,massinger1 ,webster1 ,beaumont1 and ,fletcher stand like a chorus around ,shakespeare and ,ben ,jonson as leaders4 ,as ,taine puts it3 ,they sing the same piece together1 and at times the chorus is equal to the solo2 but only at times4#cj ,cultured people to-day know the names of most of these writers1 but not much else1 and it does not heavily serve our argument to say that they felt the ,puritan influence2 but they all did feel it either directly or by reaction4 ,edmund ,spenser and his friend1 ,sir ,philip ,sidney1 had closed their work before the ,king ,james version appeared1 yet the ,faerie ,queene in its religious theory is ,puritan to the core1 and ,sidney is best remembered by his paraphrases of ,scripture4 ,the influence of both was even greater in the ,jacobean than in their own period4 ,it is hardly fair even to note the ,elizabethan ,shakespeare as under the influence of the ,king ,james version4 ,the ,bible influenced him markedly1 but it was the ,genevan version prepared during the exile of the scholars under ,bloody ,mary1 or the ,bishops' ,bible prepared under ,elizabeth4 ,those versions were familiar as household facts to him4 ,no writer has assimilated the thoughts and reproduced the words of ,holy ,scripture more copiously than ,shakespeare4 ,dr4 ,furnivall says that he is saturated with the ,bible story1 and a century ago ,capel ,lofft said quaintly that ,shakespeare had deeply imbibed the ,scriptures4 ,but the ,king ,james version appeared only five years before his death1 and it is in some sense fairer to say that ,shakespeare and the ,king ,james version are formed by the same influence as to their ,english style4 ,the ,bishop of ,st4 ,andrews even devotes the first part of his book on ,shakespeare and the ,bible to a study of parallels between the two in peculiar forms of speech1 and thinks it probable that our translators of #afaa owed as much to ,shakespeare as1 or rather far more than1 he owed to them4#ca ,it is generally agreed that only two of his works were written after our version appeared4 ,several other writers have devoted separate volumes to noting the frequent use by ,shakespeare of ,biblical phrases and allusions and characters taken from early versions4 ,it is a very tempting field1 and we pass it by only because it is hardly in the range of the study we are now making4 ,when1 however1 we come to ,john ,milton 7#afjh-afgd71 we remember he was only three years old when our version was issued2 that when at fifteen1 an undergraduate in ,cambridge1 he made his first paraphrases1 casting two of the ,psalms into meter1 the version he used was this familiar one4 ,a biographer says he began the day always with the reading of ,scripture and kept his memory deeply charged with its phrases4 ,in later life the morning chapter was generally from the ,hebrew1 and was followed by an hour of silence for meditation1 an exercise whose influence no man's style could escape4 ,as a writer he moved steadily toward the ,scripture and the religious teaching which it brought his age4 ,his earlier writing is a group of poems largely secular1 which yet show in phrases and expressions much of the influence of his boyhood study of the ,bible1 as well as the familiar use of mythology4 ,the memorial poem ,lycidas1 for example1 contains the much-quoted reference to ,peter and his two keys-- ,last came and last did go ,the pilot of the ,galilean lake2 ,two massy keys he bore of metals twain1 7,the golden opes1 the iron shuts amain74 ,but after these poems came the period of his prose1 the work which he supposed was the abiding work of his life4 ,george ,william ,curtis told a friend that our civil war changed his own literary style3 ,that roused me to see that ,i had no right to spend my life in literary leisure4 ,i felt that ,i must throw myself into the struggle for freedom and the ,union4 ,i began to lecture and to write4 ,the style took care of itself4 ,but ,i fancy it is more solid than it was thirty years ago4 ,that is what happened to ,milton when the protectorate came4#cb ,it made his style more solid4 ,he did not mean to live as a poet4 ,he felt that his best energies were being put into his essays in defense of liberty1 on the freedom of the press and on the justice of the beheading of ,charles1 in which service he sacrificed his sight4 ,all of it is shot through with ,scripture quotations and arguments1 and some of it1 at least1 is in the very spirit of ,scripture4 ,the plea for larger freedom of divorce issued plainly from his own bitter experience2 but his main argument roots in a few ,bible texts taken out of their connection and urged with no shadow of question of their authority4 ,indeed1 when he comes to his more religious essays1 his heavy argument is that there should be no religion permitted in ,england which is not drawn directly from the ,bible2 which1 therefore1 he urges must be common property for all the people4 ,there is a curious bit of evidence that the men of his own time did not realize his power as a poet4 ,in ,pierre ,bayle's critical survey of the literature of the time1 he calls ,milton the famous apologist for the execution of ,charles ,i41 who meddled in poetry and several of whose poems saw the light during his life or after his death6 ,for all that1 ,milton was only working on toward his real power1 and his power was to be shown in his service to religion4 ,his three great poems1 in the order of their value1 are1 of course1 ,paradise ,lost1 ,samson ,agonistes1 and ,paradise ,regained4 ,whoever knows anything of ,milton knows these three and knows they are ,scriptural from first to last in phrase1 in allusion1 and1 in part at least1 in idea4 ,there is not time for extended illustration4 ,one instance may stand for all1 which shall illustrate how ,milton's mind was like a garden where the seeds of ,scripture came to flower and fruit4 ,he will take one phrase from the ,bible and let it grow to a page in ,paradise ,lost4 ,here is an illustration which comes readily to hand4 ,in the ,genesis it is said that the spirit of ,god moved on the face of the waters4 ,the verb suggests the idea of brooding4 ,there is only one other possible reference 7,psalm xxiv3#b7 which is included in this statement which ,milton makes out of that brief word in the ,genesis3 ,on the watery calm ,his broadening wings the ,spirit of ,god outspread1 ,and vital virtue infused1 and vital warmth ,throughout the fluid mass1 but downward purged ,the black tartareous cold infernal dregs1 ,adverse to life2 then formed1 then con-globed1 ,like things to like2 the rest to several place ,disparted1 and between spun out the air-- ,and earth self-balanced on her center swung4 ,any one familiar with ,milton will recognize that as a typical instance of the way in which a seed idea from the ,scripture comes to flower and fruit in him4 ,the result is that more people have their ideas about heaven and hell from ,milton than from the ,bible1 though they do not know it4 ,it seems hardly fair to use ,john ,bunyan 7#afbh-afhh7 as an illustration of the influence of the ,english ,bible on literature1 because his chief work is composed so largely in the language of ,scripture4 ,pilgrim's ,progress is the most widely read book in the ,english language after the ,bible4 ,its phrases1 its names1 its matter are either directly or indirectly taken from the ,bible4 ,it has given us a long list of phrases which are part of our literary and religious capital4 ,thackeray took the motto of one of his best-known books from the ,bible2 but the title1 ,vanity ,fair1 comes from ,pilgrim's ,progress4 ,when a discouraged man says he is in the slough of despond1 he quotes ,bunyan2 and when a popular evangelist tells the people that the burden of sin will roll away if they look at the cross1 according to the ,bible1 he ought to say according to ,bunyan4 ,but all this was only the outcome of the familiarity of ,bunyan with the ,scripture4 ,it was almost all he did know in a literary way4 ,macaulay says that he knew no language but the ,english as it was spoken by the common people2 he had studied no great model of composition1 with the exception of our noble translation of the ,bible4 ,but of that his knowledge was such that he might have been called a living concordance4#cc ,after these three--,shakespeare1 ,milton1 and ,bunyan--there appeared another three1 very much their inferiors and having much less influence on literary history4 ,i mean ,dryden1 ,addison1 and ,pope4 ,it is not necessary to credit the ,scripture with much of ,dryden's spirit1 nor with much of his style1 and certainly not with his attitude toward his fellows2 but it is a constant surprise in reading ,dryden to discover how familiar he was with the ,king ,james version4 ,walter ,scott insists that ,dryden was at heart serious1 that his indelicacy was like the forced impudence of a bashful man4 ,that is generous judgment4 ,but there is this to be said3 as he grows more serious he falls more into ,bible words4 ,if he writes a political pamphlet he calls it ,absalom and ,ahithophel4 ,in it he holds the men of the day up to scorn under ,bible names4 ,they are ,zimri and ,shimei1 and the like4 ,when he is falling into bitterest satire1 his writing abounds in these ,biblical allusions which could be made only by one who was very familiar with the ,book4 ,quotations cannot be abundant1 of course1 but there is a great deal of this sort of thing3 ,sinking1 he left his drugget robe behind1 ,borne upward by a subterranean wind1 ,the mantle fell to the young prophet's part1 ,with double portion of his father's art4 ,in his ,epistles there is much of the same sort4 ,when he writes to ,congreve he speaks of the fathers1 and says3 ,their's was the giant race before the flood4 ,farther on he says3 ,our builders were with want of genius curst1 ,the second temple was not like the first4 ,now ,dryden may have been1 as ,macaulay said1 an illustrious renegade1 but all his writing shows the influence of the language and the ideas of the ,king ,james version4 ,whenever we sing the ,veni ,creator we sing ,john ,dryden4 ,so we sing ,addison in the paraphrase of ,scripture1 which ,haydn's music has made familiar3 ,the spacious firmament on high1 ,with all the blue ethereal sky4 ,while ,dryden yielded to his times1 ,addison did not1 and the ,spectator became not only a literary but a moral power4 ,in the effort to make it so he was thrown back on the largest moral influence of the day1 the ,bible1 and throughout the ,spectator and through all of ,addison's writing you find on all proper occasions the ,bible pressed to the front4 ,here again ,taine puts it strikingly3 ,it is no small thing to make morality fashionable2 ,addison did it1 and it remains fashionable4 ,if we speak of singing1 we may remember that we sing the hymn of even poor little dwarfed invalid ,alexander ,pope4 ,he was born the year ,bunyan died1 born at cross-purposes with the world4 ,he could write a bitter satire1 like the ,dunciad2 he could give the world ,the ,iliad and ,the ,odyssey in such ,english that we know them far better than in the ,greek of ,homer2 but in those rare moments when he was at his better self he would write his greater poem1 ,the ,messiah1 in which the movement of ,scripture is outlined as it could be only by one who knew the ,english ,bible4 ,and when we sing-- ,rise1 crowned with light1 imperial ,salem1 rise-- it is worth while to realize that the voice that first sung it was that of the irritable little poet who found some of his scant comfort in the grand words and phrases and ideas of our ,english ,bible4 ,with these six--,shakespeare1 ,milton1 ,bunyan1 ,dryden1 ,addison1 and ,pope--the course of the ,jacobean literature is sufficiently measured4 ,there are many lesser names1 but these are the ones which made it an epoch in literature1 and these are at their best under the power of the ,bible4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in the ,georgian group we need to call only five great names which have had creative influence in literature4 ,ordinary culture in literature will include some acquaintance with each of them4 ,in the order of their death they are ,shelley 7#ahbb71 ,byron 7#ahbd71 ,coleridge 7#ahca71 ,walter ,scott 7#ahcb71 and ,wordsworth 7#ahej74 ,the last long outlived the others2 but he belongs with them1 because he was born earlier than any other in the group and did his chief work in their time and before the later group appeared4 ,except ,wordsworth1 all these were gone before ,queen ,victoria came to the throne in #ahcg4 ,three other names could be called3 ,keats1 ,robert ,burns1 and ,charles ,lamb4 ,all would illustrate what we are studying4 ,keats least of all and ,burns most4 ,they are omitted here not because they did not feel the influence of the ,english ,bible1 not because they do not constantly show its influence1 but because they are not so creative as the others2 they have not so influenced the current of literature4 ,at any rate1 the five named will represent worthily and with sufficient completeness the ,georgian period of ,english literature4 ,nothing could reveal more clearly than this list how we are distinguishing the ,bible as literature from the ,bible as an authoritative book in morals4 ,one would much dislike to credit the ,bible with any part of the personal life of ,shelley or ,byron4 ,they were friends2 they were geniuses2 but they were both badly afflicted with common moral leprosy4 ,it is playing with morals to excuse either of them because he was a genius4 ,nothing in the genius of either demanded or was served by the course of cheap immorality which both practised4 ,it was not because ,shelley was a genius that he married ,harriet ,westbrook1 then ran away with ,mary ,godwin1 then tried to get the two to become friends and neighbors until his own wife committed suicide2 it was not his genius that made him yield to the influence of ,emilia ,viviani and write her the poem ,epipsychidion1 telling her and the world that he was never attached to that great sect who believed that each one should select out of the crowd a mistress or a friend and let the rest go4 ,that was not genius1 that was just common passion2 and our divorce courts are full of ,shelleys of that type4 ,so ,byron's personal immorality is not to be explained nor excused on the ground of his genius4 ,it was not genius that led him so astray in ,england that his wife had to divorce him1 and that public opinion drove him out of the land4 ,it was not his genius that sent him to visit ,shelley and his mistress at ,lake ,geneva and seduce their guest1 so that she bore him a daughter1 though she was never his wife4 ,it was not genius that made him pick up still another companion out of several in ,italy and live with her in immoral relation4 ,in the name of common decency let no one stand up for ,shelley and ,byron in their personal characters6 ,there are not two moral laws1 one for geniuses and one for common people4 ,byron1 at any rate1 was never deceived about himself1 never blamed his genius nor his conscience for his wrong4 ,these are striking lines in ,childe ,harold1 in which he disclaims all right to sympathy1 because1 ,the thorns which ,i have reaped are of the tree ,i planted1--they have torn me and ,i bleed4 ,i should have known what fruit would spring from such a tree4 ,shelley's wife would not say that for him4 ,in all ,shelley did1 she says1 he at the time of doing it believed himself justified to his own conscience4 ,well1 so much the worse for ,shelley6 ,geniuses are not the only men who can find good reason for doing what they want to do4 ,one of ,shelley's critics suggests that the trouble was his introduction into personal conduct of the imagination which he ought to have saved for his writing4 ,perhaps we might explain ,byron's misconduct by reminding ourselves of his club-foot1 and applying one code of morals to men with club-feet and another to men with normal feet4 ,if we speak of the influence of the ,bible on these men1 it must be on their literary work2 and when we find it there1 it becomes peculiar mark of its power4 ,they had little sense of it as moral law4 ,their consciences approved it and condemned themselves1 or else their delicate literary taste sensed it as a book of power4 ,this is notably true of ,shelley4 ,when he was still a student in ,oxford he committed himself to the opinion of another writer1 that the mind cannot believe in the existence of ,god4 ,he tries to work that out fully in his notes on ,queen ,mab4 ,when he was hardly yet of age he himself wrote that ,the genius of human happiness must tear every leaf from the accursed ,book of ,god1 ere man can read the inscription on its heart4 ,he once said that his highest desire was that there should be a monument to himself somewhere in the ,alps which should be only a great stone with its face smoothed and this short inscription cut in it1 ,percy ,bysshe ,shelley1 ,atheist4 ,it would seem that whatever ,shelley drew of strength or inspiration from the ,bible would be by way of reaction2 but it is not so4 ,however he may have hated the accursed ,book of ,god1 his wife tells in her note on ,the ,revolt of ,islam that ,shelley debated whether he should devote himself to poetry or metaphysics1 and1 resolving on the former1 he educated himself for it1 engaging himself in the study of the poets of ,greece1 ,england1 and ,italy4 ,to these1 may be added1 she goes on1 a constant perusal of portions of the ,old ,testament1 the ,book of ,psalms1 ,job1 ,isaiah1 and others1 the sublime poetry of which filled him with delight4 ,not only did he catch the spirit of that poetry1 but its phrases haunted his memory4 ,in his best prose work1 which he called ,a ,defense of ,poetry1 there is an interesting revelation of the influence of his ,bible reading upon him4 ,toward the end of the essay these two sentences occur3 ,it is inconsistent with this division of our subject to cite living poets1 but posterity has done ample justice to the great names now referred to4 ,their errors have been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance2 if their sins are as scarlet1 they are now white as snow2 they have been washed in the blood of the mediator and redeemer1 ,time4 ,there is no more eloquent passage in the essay than the one of which this is part1 and yet it is full of allusion to this ,book from which all pages must be torn6 ,even in ,queen ,mab he makes ,ahasuerus1 the wandering ,jew1 recount the ,bible story in such broad outlines as could be given only by a man who was familiar with it4 ,when ,shelley was in ,italy and the word came to him of the massacre at ,manchester1 he wrote his ,masque of ,anarchy4 ,there are few more melodious lines of his writing than those which occur in this long poem in the section regarding freedom4 ,four of those lines are often quoted4 ,they are at the very heart of ,shelley's best work4 ,addressing freedom1 he says3 ,thou art love3 the rich have kissed ,thy feet1 and1 like him following ,christ1 ,gave their substance to the free1 ,and through the rough world follow thee4 ,page after page of ,shelley reveals these half-conscious references to the ,bible4 ,there were two sources from which he received his passionate democracy4 ,one was the treatment he received at ,eton1 and later at ,oxford2 the other is his frequent reading of the ,english ,bible1 even though he was in the spirit of rebellion against much of its teaching4 ,in ,browning's essay on ,shelley1 he reaches the amazing conclusion that had ,shelley lived1 he would finally have ranged himself with the ,christians1 and seeks to justify it by showing that he was moving straight toward the positions of ,paul and of ,david4 ,some of us may not see such rapid approach1 but that ,shelley felt the drawing of ,god in the universe is plain enough4 ,the influence of the ,bible is still more marked on ,byron4 ,he spent his childhood years at ,aberdeen4 ,there his nurse trained him in the ,bible2 and1 though he did not live by it1 he never lost his love for it1 nor his knowledge of it4 ,he tells of his own experience in this way3 ,i am a great reader of those books the ,bible1 and had read them through and through before ,i was eight years old2 that is to say1 the ,old ,testament1 for the ,new struck me as a task1 but the other as a pleasure4#cd ,one of the earliest bits of his work is a paraphrase of one of the ,psalms4 ,his physical infirmity put him at odds with the world1 while his striking beauty drew to him a crowd of admirers who helped to poison every spring of his genius4 ,even so1 he held his love for the ,bible4 ,while ,shelley often spoke of it in contempt1 while he prided himself on his divergence from the path of its teaching1 ,byron never did4 ,he wandered far1 but he always knew it2 and1 though he could hardly find terms to express his contempt for the ,church1 there is no line of ,byron's writing which is a slur at the ,bible4 ,on the other hand1 much of his work reveals a passion for the beauty of it as well as its truth4 ,his most melodious writing is in that group of ,hebrew melodies which were written to be sung4 ,they demand far more than a passing knowledge of the ,bible both for their writing and their understanding4 ,there is a long list of them1 but no one without a knowledge of the ,bible would have known what he meant by his poem1 ,the ,harp the ,monarch ,minstrel ,swept4 ,jephtha's ,daughter presumes upon a knowledge of the ,old ,testament story which would not come to one in a passing study of the ,bible4 ,the ,song of ,saul ,before his ,last ,battle and the poem headed ,saul could not have been written1 nor can they be read intelligently by any one who does not know his ,bible4 ,among ,byron's dramas1 two of which he thought most1 were1 ,heaven and ,earth and ,cain4 ,when he was accused of perverting the ,scripture in ,cain1 he replied that he had only taken the ,scripture at its face value4 ,both of the dramas are not only built directly out of ,scriptural events1 but imply a far wider knowledge of ,scripture than their mere titles suggest4 ,there are striking references in many other poems1 even in his almost vile poem1 ,don ,juan4 ,the most notable instance is in the fifteenth canto1 where he is speaking of persecuted sages and these lines occur3 ,was it not so1 great ,locke8 and greater ,bacon8 ,great ,socrates8 ,and ,thou ,diviner still1 ,whose lot it is by men to be mistaken1 ,and ,thy pure creed made sanction of all ill8 ,redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken1 ,how was ,thy toil rewarded8 ,in a note on this passage ,byron says3 ,as it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity1 ,i say that ,i mean by ',diviner still' ,christ4 ,if ever ,god was man--or man ,god--,he was both4 ,i never arraigned ,his creed1 but the use or abuse of it4 ,mr4 ,canning one day quoted ,christianity to sanction slavery1 and ,mr4 ,wilberforce had little to say in reply4 ,and was ,christ crucified that black men might be scourged8 ,if so1 ,he had better been born a mulatto1 to give both colors an equal chance of freedom1 or at least salvation4 ,byron could live far from the influence of the ,bible in his personal life2 but he never escaped its influence in his literary work4 ,of ,coleridge less needs to be said1 because we think of him so much in terms of his more meditative musings1 which are often religious4 ,he himself tells of long and careful rereadings of the ,english ,bible until he could say3 ,in the ,bible there is more that finds me than ,i have experienced in all other books together2 the words of the ,bible find me at greater depths of my being4 ,of course1 that would influence his writing1 and it did4 ,even in the ,rime of the ,ancient ,mariner much of the phraseology is ,scriptural4 ,when the albatross drew near1 ,as if it had been a ,christian soul1 ,we hailed it in ,god's name4 ,when the mariner slept he gave praise to ,mary1 ,queen of ,heaven4 ,he sought the shriving of the hermit-priest4 ,he ends the story because he hears the little vesper bell which bids him to prayer4 ,when you read his ,hymn ,before ,sunrise in the ,vale of ,chamounix you find yourself reading the ,nineteenth ,psalm4 ,he calls on the motionless torrents and the silent cataracts and the great ,mont ,blanc itself to praise ,god4 ,coleridge never had seen ,chamounix1 nor ,mont ,blanc1 nor a glacier1 but he knew his ,bible4 ,so he has his ,christmas ,carol along with all the rest4 ,his poem of the ,moors after the ,civil ,war under ,philip ,,ii4 is ,scriptural in its phraseology1 and so is much else that he wrote4 ,frankly and willingly he yielded to its influence4 ,in his ,table ,talk he often refers to the value of the ,bible in the forming of literary style4 ,once he said3 ,intense study of the ,bible will keep any writer from being vulgar in point of style4#ce ,the very mention of ,coleridge makes one think of ,wordsworth4 ,they had a ,damon and ,pythias friendship4 ,the ,wordsworths were poor2 they had only seventy pounds a year1 and they were not ashamed4 ,coleridge called them the happiest family he ever saw4 ,wordsworth was not narrowly a ,christian poet1 he was not always seeking to put ,christian dogma into poetry1 but throughout he was expressing the ,christian spirit which he had learned from the ,bible4 ,his poetry was one long protest against banishing ,god from the universe4 ,it was literally true of him that the meanest flower that grows can give thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears4 ,if this were the time to be critical1 one would think that too much was sometimes made of very minute occurrences2 but this tendency to get back of the event and see how ,god is moving is learned best from ,scripture1 where ,wordsworth himself learned it4 ,if you read his ,intimations of ,immortality1 or the ,ode to ,duty1 or ,tintern ,abbey1 or even the rather labored ,excursion1 you find yourself under the ,scriptural influence4 ,there remains in this ,georgian group the great prose master1 ,walter ,scott4 ,mr4 ,gladstone said he thought ,scott the greatest of his countrymen4 ,john ,morley suggested ,john ,knox instead4 ,mr4 ,gladstone replied3 ,no1 the line must be drawn firmly between the writer and the man of action--no comparison there4#cf ,he went on to say that ,burns is very fine and true1 no doubt1 but to imagine a whole group of characters1 to marshal them1 to set them to work1 and to sustain the action1 ,i must count that the test of highest and most diversified quality4 ,all who are fond of ,scott will realize how constantly the scenes which he is describing group themselves around religious observances1 how often men are held in check from deeds of violence by religious conception4 ,many of these scenes crystallize around a ,scriptural event4 ,scott's boyhood was spent in scenes that reminded him of the power the ,scripture had4 ,he was drilled from his childhood in the knowledge of its words and phrases1 and while his writing as a whole shows more of the ,old ,testament influence than of the ,new1 even in his style he is strongly under ,bible influence4 ,the preface to ,guy ,mannering tells us it is built around an old story of a father putting a lad to test under guidance of an ancient astrologer1 shutting him up in a barren room to be tempted by the ,evil ,one1 leaving him only one safeguard1 a ,bible1 lying on the table in the middle of the room4 ,in his introduction to ,the ,heart of ,midlothian1 ,scott makes one of the two men thrown into the water by the overturned coach remind the other that they cannot complain1 like ,cowley1 that ,gideon's fleece remains dry while all around is moist2 this is the reverse of the miracle4 ,a little later a speaker describes novels as the ,delilahs that seduce wise and good men from more serious reading4 ,in the dramatic scene when ,jeanie ,deans faces the wretched ,george ,staunton1 who has so shamed the household1 she exclaims3 ,o sir1 did the ,scripture never come into your mind1 ',vengeance is mine1 and ,i will repay it8' ,scripture6 he sneers1 why ,i had not opened a ,bible for five years4 ,wae's me1 sir1 said ,jeanie--and a minister's son1 too6 ,anthony ,foster1 in ,kenilworth1 looks down on poor ,amy's body in the vault into which she has fallen1 in response to what she thought was ,leicester's whistle1 and exclaims to ,varney3 ,oh1 if there be judgment in heaven1 thou hast deserved it1 and will meet it6 ,thou hast destroyed her by means of her best affections--it is the seething of the kid in the mother's milk6 ,and when1 next morning1 ,varney was found dead of the secret poison and with a sneering sarcasm on his ghastly face1 ,scott dismisses him with the phrase3 ,the wicked man1 saith the ,scripture1 hath no bonds in his death4 ,his characters use freely the familiar ,bible events and phrases4 ,in the ,fortunes of ,nigel1 a story of the very period when our ,king ,james version was produced1 ,hildebrod declares that if he had his way ,captain ,peppercull should hang as high as ,haman ever did4 ,in ,kenilworth1 when ,leicester gives ,varney his signet-ring1 he says1 significantly3 ,what thou dost1 do quickly4 ,of course1 ,isaac1 the ,jew in ,ivanhoe1 exclaims frequently in ,old ,testament terms4 ,he wishes the wheels of the chariots of his enemies may be taken off1 like those of the host of ,pharoah1 that they may drive heavily4 ,he expects the ,palmer's lance to be as powerful as the rod of ,moses1 and so on4 ,scott was writing of the period when men stayed themselves with ,scripture1 and his men are all sure of ,god and ,satan and angels and judgment and all eternal things4 ,his son-in-law vouches for the old story that when ,sir ,walter was on his death-bed he asked ,lockhart to read him something from the ,book1 and when ,lockhart asked1 ,what book8 ,scott replied3 ,why do you ask8 ,there is but one book1 the ,bible4 ,all this is scant justice to the ,georgian group2 but it may give a hint of what the ,bible meant even at that period1 the period when its grip on men was most lax in all the later ,english history4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is in the ,victorian age 7#ahdj-aijj7 that the field is most bewildering4 ,it is true1 as ,frederick ,harrison says1 that this ,victorian age has no ,shakespeare or ,milton1 no ,bacon or ,hume1 no ,fielding or ,scott--no supreme master in poetry1 philosophy1 or romance whose work is incorporated with the thought of the world1 who is destined to form an epoch1 to endure for centuries4#cg ,the genius of the period is more scientific than literary1 yet we would be helpless if we had not already eliminated from our discussion everything but the works and writers of pure literature4 ,the output of books has been so tremendous that it would be impossible to analyze the influences which have made them4 ,there are in this ,victorian period at least twelve great ,english writers who must be known1 whose work affects the current of ,english literature4 ,many other names would need mention in any full history or any minute study2 but it is not harsh judgment to say that the main current of literature would be the same without them4 ,a few of these lesser names will come to mind1 and in the calling of them one realizes the influence1 even on them1 of the ,english ,bible4 ,anthony ,trollope wrote sixty volumes1 the titles of most of which are now popularly unknown4 ,he told ,george ,eliot that it was not brains that explained his writing so much1 but rather wax which he put in the seat of his chair1 which held him down to his daily stint of work4 ,he could boast1 and it was worth the boasting1 that he had never written a line which a pure woman could not read without a blush4 ,his whole ,framley ,parsonage series abounds in ,bible references and allusions4 ,so ,charlotte ,bront is in ,english literature1 and ,jane ,eyre does prove what she was meant to prove1 that a commonplace person can be made the heroine of a novel2 but on all ,charlotte ,bront's work is the mark of the rectory in which she grew up4 ,so ,thomas ,grey has left his ,elegy and his ,hymn to ,adversity1 and some other writing which most of us have forgotten or never knew4 ,then there are ,maria ,edgeworth and ,jane ,austen4 ,we may even remember that ,macaulay thought ,jane ,austen could be compared with ,shakespeare1 as1 of course1 she can be1 since any one can be2 but neither of these good women has strongly affected the literary current4 ,many others could be named1 but ,english literature would be substantially the same without them2 and1 though all might show ,biblical influence1 they would not illustrate what we are trying to discover4 ,so we come1 without apology to the unnamed1 to the twelve1 without whom ,english literature would be different4 ,this is the list in the order of the alphabet3 ,matthew ,arnold1 ,robert ,browning 7,mrs4 ,browning being grouped as one with him71 ,carlyle1 ,dickens1 ,george ,eliot1 ,charles ,kingsley1 ,macaulay1 ,ruskin1 ,robert ,louis ,stevenson1 ,swinburne1 ,tennyson1 and ,thackeray4 ,it is dangerous to make such a list2 but it can be defended4 ,literary history would not be the same without any one of them1 unless possibly ,swinburne1 whose claim to place is rather by his work as critic than as creator4 ,nor is any name omitted whose introduction would change literary history4 ,benjamin ,jowett thought ,arnold too flippant on religious things to be a real prophet4 ,at any rate1 this much is true1 that the books in which ,arnold dealt with the fundamentals of religion are his profoundest work4 ,in his poetry the best piece of the whole is his ,rugby ,chapel4 ,his ,religion and ,dogma he himself calls an essay toward a better apprehension of the ,bible4 ,all through he urges it as the one ,book which needs recovery4 ,all that the churches can say about the importance of the ,bible and its religion we concur in4 ,the book throughout is an effort to justify his own faith in terms of the ,bible4 ,the effort is sometimes amusing1 because it takes such a logical and verbal agility to go from one to the other2 but he is always at it4 ,he is afraid in his soul that ,england will swing away from the ,bible4 ,he fears it may come about through neglect of the ,bible on one hand1 or through wrong teaching about it on the other4 ,not in his ideas alone1 but markedly in his style1 ,arnold has felt the ,biblical influence4 ,he came at a time when there was strong temptation to fall into cumbrous ,german ways of speech4 ,against that ,arnold set a simple phraseology1 and he held out the ,english ,bible constantly as a model by which the men of ,england ought to learn to write4 ,he never gained the simplicity of the old ,hebrew sentence1 and sometimes his secondary clauses follow one another so rapidly that a reader is confused2 but his words as a whole are simple and direct4 ,there is no need of much word on the spell of the ,bible over ,robert ,browning and ,mrs4 ,browning4 ,it is not often that two singing-birds mate2 but these two sang in a key pitched for them by the ,scripture as much as by any one influence4 ,many of their greatest poems have definite ,biblical themes4 ,in them and in others ,biblical allusions are utterly bewildering to men who do not know the ,bible well4 ,for five years 7#ahda-ahdf7 ,browning's poems appeared under the title ,bells and ,pomegranates4 ,scores of people wondered then1 and wonder still1 what ,pippa ,passes and ,a ,blot in the ,scutcheon and the others have to do with such a title4 ,they have never thought1 as ,browning did1 of the border of the beautiful robe of the high priest described in the ,book of ,exodus4 ,the finest poem of its length in the ,english language is ,browning's ,saul2 but it is only the story of ,david driving the evil spirit from ,saul1 sweeping on to the very coming of ,christ4 ,the ,death in the ,desert is the death of ,john1 the beloved disciple4 ,karshish1 the ,arab ,physician tells in his own way of the raising of ,lazarus4 ,the text of ,caliban upon ,setebos is1 ,thou thoughtest that ,i was altogether such an one as thyself4 ,the text of ,cleon is1 ,as certain of your own poets have said4 ,in ,fifine at the ,fair the ,cur expounds the experience of ,jacob and his stone-pillow with better insight than some better-known expositors show4 ,in ,pippa ,passes1 when ,bluphocks1 the ,english vagabond1 is introduced1 ,browning seems to justify his appearance by the single foot-note3 ,he maketh ,his sun to rise on the evil and on the good1 and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust2 and ,mr4 ,bluphocks shows himself amusingly familiar with ,bible facts and phrases4 ,mr4 ,sludge1 the ,medium1 thinks the ,bible says the stars are set for signs when we should shear sheep1 sow corn1 prune trees1 and describes the skeptic in the magic circle of spiritual investigators as the guest without the wedding-garb1 the doubting ,thomas4 ,some one has taken the trouble to count five hundred ,biblical phrases or allusions in ,the ,ring and the ,book4 ,mrs4 ,browning's ,drama of ,exile is the woman's side of the fall of ,adam and ,eve4 ,ruskin thought her ,aurora ,leigh the greatest poem the century had produced at that time4 ,it abounds in ,scriptural allusions4 ,browning came by all this naturally4 ,raised in the ,church by a father who delighted to surround him with books1 notably old and rare ,bibles1 and a mother ,carlyle called a true type of a ,scottish gentlewoman1 with all the skill in the ,bible that that implies1 he never lost his sense of the majesty of the movement of ,scripture ideas and phrases4 ,we need spend little time in discussing the influence of the ,english ,bible on ,thomas ,carlyle4 ,he does not often use the ,scripture for his main theme2 but he is constantly making ,biblical allusions4 ,on a railway journey when ,i was rereading ,carlyle's ,historical ,sketches1 ,i found a direct ,biblical reference for every five pages1 and almost numberless allusions beside4 ,the ,everlasting ,yea1 of which he says much1 he gets1 as you at once recognize1 from the ,scripture4 ,his ,heroes and ,hero ,worship is based on an idea of heroism which he learned from the ,bible4 ,he is an ,old ,testament prophet of present times2 and1 while he degenerated into a scold before he was through with it1 he yet spoke with the thunderous voice of a true prophet1 and much of the time in the language of the prophets4 ,some one said once that the only real reverence ,carlyle ever had was for the person of ,christ4 ,certainly there is no note of sneer1 but of the profoundest regard for the teaching1 the ideas and the history of the ,scripture4 ,the name of ,charles ,dickens suggests a different atmosphere4 ,he is a ,new ,testament prophet4 ,where ,carlyle has caught the spirit of rugged power in the ,old ,testament1 ,dickens has caught the sense of kindly love in the ,new ,testament4 ,dickens's love for the child1 the fact that he could draw children as he could draw no one else and make them lovable1 suggests the value to him of those frequent references which he makes to ,christ setting a child in the midst of the disciples4 ,it is notable1 too1 how often ,dickens uses the great ,scripture phrases for his most dramatic climaxes4 ,there are not in literature many finer uses of ,scripture than the scene in ,bleak ,house1 where the poor waif ,joe is dying1 and while his friend teaches him the ,lord's ,prayer he sees the light coming4 ,a ,christmas season without ,dickens's ,christmas ,carol would be incomplete2 but there again is the ,scripture idea pressed forward4 ,george ,eliot surely1 if any writer1 was under the spell of the ,scripture4 ,one of her critics calls her the historian of conscience4 ,all of her heroes and heroines know the lash of the law4 ,she knows very little about the ,new ,testament1 one would judge2 but the one thing about which she has no doubt is certainly the reign of moral law4 ,if a man will not yield to its power1 it will break him4 ,there is no such thing as breaking the moral law2 there is nothing but being broken by it4 ,her characters are always quoting the ,bible4 ,they preach a great deal4 ,she tells that she herself wrote ,dinah ,morris's sermon on the green with tears in her eyes4 ,she meant it all4 ,while her own religious faith was clouded1 her finest characters are never clouded in their religious faith1 and she grounds their faith quite invariably on their early training in the ,scripture4 ,it is an interesting fact that ,george ,eliot has no principal story which has not in it a church1 and a priest or a preacher1 with all that they involve4 ,charles ,kingsley is grouped hardly fairly in this list1 because he was himself a preacher1 and naturally all his work would feel the power of the ,book1 which he chiefly studied4 ,professor ,masson says that there is not one of his novels which has not the power of ,christianity for its theme4 ,no voice was raised more effectively for the beginning of the new social era in ,england than his4 ,alton ,locke and ,yeast are epoch-making books in the life of the common people of ,england4 ,even ,hypatia1 which is supposed to have been written to represent entirely pagan surroundings1 is full of ,bible phrases and ideas4 ,lord ,macaulay had been held up for many a day as one of the masters of style4 ,such great writing is not to be traced to any one influence4 ,it could not have been easy to write as ,macaulay wrote4 ,thackeray may have exaggerated in saying that ,macaulay read twenty books to write a sentence1 and traveled a hundred miles to make a description2 but all his writing shows the power of taking infinite pains4 ,it becomes the more important1 therefore1 that ,macaulay held the ,bible in such estimate as he did4 ,in calling upon ,lady ,holland one day1 ,lord ,macaulay was led to bring the attention of his fair hostess to the fact that the use of the word 'talent' to mean gifts or powers of the mind1 as when we speak of men of talent1 came from the use of the word in ,christ's parable of the talents4 ,in a letter to his sister ,hannah he describes the incident1 and says that ,lady ,holland was evidently ignorant of the parable4 ',i did not tell her1' he adds1 'though ,i might have done so1 that a person who professes to be a critic in the delicacies of the ,english language ought to have the ,bible at his fingers' ends4' ,that ,macaulay practised his own preaching you would quickly find by referring to his essays4 ,take three sentences from the ,essay on ,milton3 ,the principles of liberty were the scoff of every growing courtier1 and the ,anathema ,maranatha of every fawning dean4 ,in every high place worship was paid to ,charles and ,james1 ,belial and ,moloch1 and ,england propitiated these obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her best and brightest children4 ,crime succeeded to crime1 and disgrace to disgrace1 until the race1 accursed of ,god and man1 was a second time driven forth to wander on the face of the earth and to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations4 ,in three sentences here are six allusions to ,scripture4 ,in that same essay1 in the paragraphs on the ,puritans1 the allusions are a multitude4 ,they are not even quoted4 ,they are taken for granted4 ,in his ,essay on ,machiavelli1 though the subject does not suggest it1 he falls into ,scriptural phrases over and over4 ,listen to this1 ,a time was at hand when all the seven vials of the ,apocalypse were to be poured forth and shaken out over those pleasant countries2 or this1 ,all the curses pronounced of old against ,tyre seemed to have fallen on ,venice4 ,her merchants already stood afar off lamenting for their great city2 or this1 ,in the energetic language of the prophet1 ,machiavelli was mad for the sight of his eyes which he saw4 ,and if ,macaulay is baffling in the abundance of material1 surely ,john ,ruskin is worse4 ,carlyle's ,english style ran into excess of roughness2 ,macaulay's ran into excess of balance and delicacy4 ,john ,ruskin's continued to be the smoothest1 easiest style in our ,english literature4 ,he also was a ,hebraic spirit1 but of the gentler type4 ,mr4 ,chapman calls him the ,elisha to ,carlyle's ,elijah1 a capital comparison4#ch ,ruskin is one of the few writers who have told us what formed their style4 ,in the first chapter of ,prterita he pays tribute to his mother4 ,he himself chose to read ,walter ,scott and ,pope's ,homer2 but he says3 ,my mother forced me by steady daily toil to learn long chapters of the ,bible by heart1 as well as to read it1 every syllable aloud1 hard names and all1 from ,genesis to the ,apocalypse about once a year2 and to that discipline--patient1 accurate1 and resolute--,i owe not only a knowledge of the ,book which ,i find occasionally serviceable1 but much of my general power of taking pains and the best part of my taste in literature4 ,he thinks reading ,scott might have led to other novels of a poorer sort4 ,reading ,pope might have led to ,johnson's or ,gibbon's ,english2 but it was impossible to write entirely superficial and formal ,english while he knew by heart the thirty-second of ,deuteronomy1 the fifteenth of #a ,corinthians1 the ,one hundred and nineteenth ,psalm1 or the ,sermon on the ,mount4 ,in the second chapter of ,prterita he is even more explicit4 ,i have next with deeper gratitude to chronicle what ,i owed to my mother for the resolute persistent lessons which so exercised me in the ,scripture1 as to make every word of them familiar in my ear as habitual music1 yet in that familiarity reverenced as transcending all thought and ordering all conduct4 ,he tells how his mother drilled him4 ,as soon as he could read she began a course of ,bible work with him4 ,they read alternate verses from the ,genesis to the ,revelation1 names and all4 ,daily he had to commit verses of the ,scripture4 ,he hated the ,one hundred and nineteenth ,psalm most2 but he lived to cherish it most4 ,in his old ,bible he found the list of twenty-six chapters taught by his mother4 ,not only was ,ruskin well trained in the ,bible1 but he was a great teacher of it4 ,in his preface to the ,crown of ,wild ,olives he answers his critics by saying he has used the ,book for some forty years4 ,my endeavor has been uniformly to make men read it more deeply than they do2 trust it1 not in their own favorite verses only1 but in the sum of it all2 treat it not as a fetish or a talisman which they are to be saved by daily repetition of1 but as a ,captain's order1 to be held and obeyed at their peril4 ,in the introduction to the ,seven ,lamps of ,architecture he urges that we are in no danger of too much use of the ,bible4 ,we use it most reverently when most habitually4 ,many of ,ruskin's most striking titles come straight out of the ,scripture4 ,crown of ,wild ,olives1 ,seven ,lamps1 ,unto this ,last--all these are suggested by the ,bible4 ,it is almost superfluous to speak of ,robert ,louis ,stevenson4 ,john ,kelman has written a whole book on the religion of ,stevenson1 and it is available for all readers4 ,he was raised by ,cummy1 his nurse1 whose library was chiefly the ,bible1 the shorter catechism1 and the ,life of ,robert ,murray ,mc,cheyne4 ,he said that the fifty-eighth chapter of ,isaiah was his special chapter1 because it so repudiated cant and demanded a self-denying beneficence4 ,he loved ,bunyan's ,pilgrim's ,progress2 but the ,bible most stood him in hand4 ,every great story or essay shows its influence4 ,he was not critical with it2 he did not understand it2 he did not interpret it fairly2 but he felt it4 ,his ,dr4 ,jekyll and ,mr4 ,hyde is only his way of putting into modern speech ,paul's old distinction between the two men who abide in each of us4 ,they told him he ought not to work in ,samoa1 and he replied that he could not otherwise be true to the great ,book by which he and all men who meant to do great work must live4 ,over the shoulder of our beloved ,robert ,louis ,stevenson you can see the great characters of ,scripture pressing him forward to his best work4 ,not so much can be said of ,swinburne4 ,there was a strong infusion of acid in his nature1 which no influence entirely destroyed4 ,he is apt to live as a literary critic and essayist1 though he supposed himself chiefly a poet4 ,his own thought of poetry can be seen in his protest in behalf of ,meredith4 ,when he had been accused of writing on a subject on which he had no conviction to express 7,modern ,love71 ,swinburne denied that poets ought to preach anyway4 ,there are pulpits enough for all preachers of prose1 and the business of verse writing is hardly to express convictions4 ,yet it is impossible to forget ,milton and his purpose to assert ,eternal ,providence1 and justify the ways of ,god to men4 ,naturally1 most poets do preach and preach well4 ,wordsworth declared he wanted to be considered a teacher or nothing4 ,mrs4 ,browning thought that poets were the only truth-tellers left to ,god4 ,but ,swinburne could not help a little preaching at any rate4 ,his ,masque on ,queen ,bersaba is an old miracle play of ,david and ,nathan4 ,his ,christmas ,antiphones are hardly ,christian1 though they are abundant in their allusions to ,scripture4 ,the first is a prayer for peace and rest in the coming of the new day of the birth of ,christ4 ,the second is a protest that neither ,god nor man has befriended man as he should1 and the third is an assurance that men will do for man even if ,god will not4 ,now1 that is not ,christian1 but the ,bible phrases are all through it4 ,so when he writes his poem bemoaning ,poland1 he needs must head it ,rizpah4 ,at the same time it must be said that ,swinburne shows less of the influence of the ,bible in his style and in his spirit than any other of our great ,english writers4 ,we come back again into the atmosphere of strong ,bible influence when we name ,alfred ,tennyson4 ,when ,byron died1 and the word came to his father's rectory at ,somersby1 young ,alfred ,tennyson felt that the sun had fallen from the heavens4 ,he went out alone in the fields and carved in the sandstone1 as though it were a monument3 ,byron is dead4 ,that was in the early stage of his poetical life4 ,at first ,carlyle could not abide ,tennyson4 ,he counted him only an echo of the past1 with no sense for the future2 but when he read ,tennyson's ,the ,revenge1 he exclaimed1 ,eh1 he's got the grip o' it2 and when ,richard ,monckton ,milnes excused himself for not getting ,tennyson a pension by saying his constituents had no use for poetry anyway1 ,carlyle said1 ,richard ,milnes1 in the day of judgment when you are asked why you did not get that pension1 you may lay the blame on your constituents1 but it will be you who will be damned6 ,dr4 ,henry van ,dyke studied ,tennyson to best effect at just this point4 ,in his chapter on ,the ,bible in ,tennyson are many such sayings as these3 ,it is safe to say that there is no other book which has had so great an influence upon the literature of the world as the ,bible4 ,we hear the echoes of its speech everywhere1 and the music of its familiar phrases haunts all the field and grove of our fine literature4 ,at least one cause of his popularity is that there is so much ,bible in ,tennyson4 ,we cannot help seeing that the poet owes a large debt to the ,christian ,scriptures1 not only for their formative influence on his mind and for the purely literary material in the way of illustrations and allusions which they have given him1 but also for the creation of a moral atmosphere1 a medium of thought and feeling in which he can speak freely and with an assurance of sympathy to a very wide circle of readers4 ,i need not stop to indicate the great poems in which ,tennyson has so often used ,scripture4 ,the mind runs quickly to the little maid in ,guinevere1 whose song1 ,late1 ,late1 so ,late1 is only a paraphrase of the parable of the foolish virgins4 ,in ,memoriam came into the skeptical era of ,england1 with its new challenge to faith1 and stopped the drift of young men toward materialism4 ,recall the fine use he makes1 in the heart of it1 of the resurrection of ,lazarus1 and other ,biblical scenes4 ,dr4 van ,dyke's four hundred direct references to the ,bible do not exhaust the poems4 ,no one can get ,tennyson's style without the ,english ,bible1 and no one can read ,tennyson intelligently without a fairly accurate knowledge of the ,bible4 ,in this ,victorian group the last name is ,thackeray's4 ,he is another whose mother trained him in the ,english ,bible4 ,the title of ,vanity ,fair is from ,pilgrim's ,progress1 but the motto is from the ,scripture2 and he wrote his mother regarding the book3 ,what ,i want is to make a set of people living without ,god in the world 7only that is a cant phrase47 ,it is certain his mother did not count it a cant phrase1 for he learned it from the ,scripture4 ,the subtitle of his ,adventures of ,philip says he is to show who robbed him1 who helped him1 and who passed him by4 ,thackeray got those expressions from the ,bible4 ,somewhere very early in any of his works he reveals the influence of his childhood and manhood knowledge of the ,english ,bible4 ,all this about the ,victorian group is meant to be very familiar to any who are fresh from the reading of literature4 ,they are great names1 and they have differences as wide as the poles2 but they have this in common1 that they have drunk lightly or deeply from the same fountain2 they have drawn from it ideas1 allusions1 literary style4 ,each of them has weakened as he has gotten farther from it1 and loyalty to it has strengthened any one of them4 99 99 99 99 99 ,turn now to the ,american group of writers4 ,if we except theological writers with ,jonathan ,edwards1 ,horace ,bushnell1 ,henry ,ward ,beecher1 and their like1 and political writers with ,jefferson1 ,webster1 and their like1 the list need not be a long one4 ,only one writer in our narrower sense of literature must be named in the earlier day--,benjamin ,franklin4 ,in the period before the ,civil ,war must be named ,edgar ,allan ,poe 7died #ahdi7 and ,washington ,irving 7died #ahei74 ,the ,civil ,war group is the large one1 and its names are those of the later group as well4 ,let them be alphabetical1 for convenience3 ,william ,cullen ,bryant1 poet and critic2 ,george ,william ,curtis1 essayist and editor2 ,emerson1 our noblest name in the sphere of pure essay literature2 ,hawthorne1 the novelist of conscience1 as ,socrates was its philosopher2 ,oliver ,wendell ,holmes1 whose two chief hatreds were orthodoxy in religion and heterodoxy in medicine2 ,james ,russell ,lowell1 essayist and poet1 apt to live by his essays rather than by his poetry2 ,longfellow1 whose ,psalm of ,life and ,hiawatha have lived through as much parody and ridicule as any two bits of literature extant1 and have lived because they are predestined to live2 ,thoreau1 whose ,walden may show1 as ,lowell said1 how much can be done on little capital1 but which has the real literary tang to it2 and ,whittier1 whose poetry is sung the world around4 ,that makes only twelve names from ,franklin to ,whittier4 ,others could be included2 but they are not so great as these4 ,no one of these could be taken out of our literature without affecting it and1 in some degree at least1 changing the current of it4 ,this is not to forget ,bret ,harte nor ,samuel ,l4 ,clemens4 ,but each is dependent for his survival on a taste for a certain kind of humor1 not delicate like ,irving's and ,holmes's1 but strong and sudden and a bit sharp4 ,if we should forget the ,luck of ,roaring ,camp1 ,truthful ,james1 and the ,heathen ,chinee1 we would also forget ,bret ,harte4 ,we are not apt to forget ,tom ,sawyer1 nor perhaps ,the ,innocents ,abroad1 but we are forgetting much else of ,mark ,twain4 ,whitman is not named4 ,his claims are familiar1 but in spite of his admirers he seems so charged with a sensuous egotism that he is not apt to be a formative influence in literary history4 ,it is still interesting1 however1 to remember how frequently he reveals his reading of ,scripture4 ,fortunately1 all these writers are so near1 and their work is so familiar1 that details regarding them are not needed4 ,two or three general words can be said4 ,in the first place1 observe the high moral tone of all these first-grade writers1 and1 indeed1 of the others who may be spoken of as in second rank4 ,there is not a meretricious or humiliating book in the whole collection4 ,there is not one book which has lived in ,american literature which has the tone of ,fielding's ,tom ,jones4 ,whether it is that the ,puritan strain continues in us or not1 it is true that the ,american literary public has not taken happily to stories that would bring a blush in public reading4 ,professor ,richardson1 of ,dartmouth1 gives some clue to the reason of that4 ,he says that since #ahgj or #ahhj in ,america there has been a marked increase of strength of theistic and spiritual belief and argument among scientific men1 students of philosophy1 religious 'radicals1' and others4 ,he adds that while much contemporary ,american literature and thought is outside the accepted orthodox lines1 yet it is not hostile to ,christianity2 to the principles of its ,founder it is for the most part sincerely attached4 ,on the other hand1 materialism has scarcely any hold upon it4 ,then follows a very notable sentence which is sustained by the facts3 ,not an ,american book of the first class has ever been written by an atheist or denier of immortality4 ,that sentence need not offend an admirer of ,walt ,whitman1 for he accepts both theism and the doctrine of the future life4 ,american thought has remained loyal to the great ,trinity1 ,god1 ,freedom1 and ,immortality4 ,so it comes about that while there are a number of these writers who could be put under the ban of the strongly orthodox in religion1 every one of them shows the effect of early training in religion and in the ,scripture4#ci ,another thing to be said is that ,america has a unique history among great nations in that it has never been affected by any great religious influence except that which has issued from the ,scriptures4 ,no religion has ever been influential in ,america except ,christianity4 ,for many years there have been sporadic and spasmodic efforts to extend the influence of ,buddhism or other ,indian cults4 ,they have never been successful1 because the ,american spirit is practical1 and not meditative4 ,we are not an introspective people4 ,we do not look within ourselves for our religion4 ,whatever moral and religious influence our literature shows gets back first or last to our ,scriptures4 ,the point of view of nature that is taken by our writers like ,bryant and ,thoreau is that of the ,nineteenth ,psalm4 ,moreover1 we have been strongly under the ,english influence4 ,irving insisted that we ought to be1 that we were a young nation1 that we ought frankly to follow the leadership of more experienced writers4 ,longfellow thought we had gone too far that way1 and that our poets1 at least1 ought to be more independent1 ought to write in the spirit of ,america and not of traditional poetry4 ,whether we ought to have yielded to it or not1 it is true that ,english influence has told very strongly upon us1 and the writers who have influenced our writers most have been those whom we have named as being themselves under the ,bible influence4 ,we need not go into detail about these writers1 though they are most attractive4 ,bryant did for us what ,wordsworth did for ,england4 ,he made nature seem vocal4 ,thanatopsis is not a ,christian poem in the narrow sense of the word1 and yet it could hardly have been written except under ,christian influence4 ,his own genial1 beautiful character was itself a tribute to ,christian civilization1 and his life1 as critic and essayist1 has left an impression which we shall not soon lose4 ,professor ,richardson thinks that the three problematical characters in ,american literature are ,emerson1 ,hawthorne1 and ,poe4 ,the shrewdest estimate of ,poe that has ever been given us is in ,lowell's ,fable for ,critics3 ,there comes ,poe with his raven like ,barnaby ,rudge1 ,three-fifths of him genius1 and two-fifths sheer fudge1 ,who has written some things quite the best of their kind1 ,but the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind4 ,that says it exactly4 ,poe knew many horrible situations1 but he did not know the way out2 and of all our ,american writers laying claim to place in the first class ,poe shows least influence of the ,bible1 and apparently needs it most4 ,irving was the first ,american writer who stood high enough to be seen across the water4 ,thackeray's most beautiful essay is on ,irving and ,macaulay1 who died just one month apart4 ,in it he describes ,irving as the best intermediary between the nations1 telling us ,americans that the ,english are still human1 and assuring the ,english that ,americans are already human4 ,irving was trained early and thoroughly in the ,bible4 ,all his life he was an old-fashioned ,episcopalian with no concern for new religious ideas and with no rough edges anywhere4 ,charles ,dudley ,warner1 speaking of ,irving's moral quality1 says3 ,i cannot bring myself to exclude it from a literary estimate1 even in the face of the current gospel of art for art's sake4#dj ,like ,scott1 he recognized the abiding value in literature of integrity1 sincerity1 purity1 charity1 faith4 ,these are beneficences1 and ,irving's literature1 walk around it and measure it by whatever critical instruments you will1 is a beneficent literature4 ,then there is ,emerson1 a son of the manse and once a minister himself4 ,he was1 therefore1 perfectly familiar with the ,english ,bible4 ,he did not accept it in all its religious teaching4 ,indeed1 we have never had a more marked individualist in our ,american public life than ,emerson4 ,at every point he was simply himself4 ,there is very little quotation in his writing1 very little visible influence of any one else4 ,he was not a follower of ,carlyle1 though he was his friend4 ,if there is any precedent for the construction of his sentences1 and even of his essays1 it is to be found in the ,hebrew prophets4 ,as some one puts it1 he uttered sayings4 ,in many of his essays there is no particular reason why the paragraphs should run one1 two1 three1 and not three1 two1 one1 or two1 one1 three1 or in any other order4 ,but ,mr4 ,emerson was just himself4 ,it is yet true that his value for the world at large lies in the fact that after all he is incurably religious4 ,it is true that he could not see any importance in forms1 or in ordinary declarations of faith4 ,he would fight no battle for prelacy1 nor for the ,westminster confession1 nor for the ,trinity1 but as against atheism1 pessimism1 and materialism1 he was an ally of ,christianity4 ,the influence of the ,bible on ,emerson is more marked in his spirit than in anything else4 ,once in a while1 as in that familiar address at ,concord 7#ahgc71 you run across ,scripture phrases3 ,shall not they who receive the largest streams spread abroad the healing waters8 ,that figure appears in literature only in the ,bible1 and there are others like it in his writings4 ,as for ,longfellow1 he is shot through with ,scripture4 ,no man who did not know ,scripture in more than a passing way could have written such a sentence as this3 ,there are times when the grasshopper is a burden1 and thirsty with the heat of labor the spirit longs for the waters of ,shiloah1 that go softly4 ,there are two strikingly beautiful expressions from ,scripture4 ,take another familiar saying in the same essay when he says the prospect for poetry is brightening1 since but a short time ago not a poet moved the wing or opened the mouth or peeped4 ,he did not run across that in general current writing4 ,he got that directly from the ,bible4 ,in his poems is an amazing amount of reference to the ,bible4 ,one would expect much in the ,courtship of ,miles ,standish1 for that is a story of the ,puritans1 and they spoke1 naturally1 in terms of the ,bible2 yet1 of course1 they could not do it in ,longfellow's poem1 if ,longfellow did not know the language of the ,bible very well4 ,one might not expect to find it so much in ,evangeline1 but it is there from beginning to end4 ,in ,acadia1 the cock crowed ,with the self-same ,voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent ,peter4 ,and1 ,wild with the winds of ,september1 ,wrestled the trees of the forest1 as ,jacob of old with the angel4 ,evangeline saw the moon pass ,forth from the folds of the cloud1 and one star followed her footsteps1 ,as out of ,abraham's tent young ,ishmael ,wandered with ,hagar4 ,there is a great deal of that sort of thing in his writing4 ,he has done for many what he did for ,lowell one day4 ,discouraged in settling the form of a new edition of his own poems1 ,lowell took up a volume of ,longfellow just to see the type1 and presently found that he had been reading two hours4 ,he wrote ,longfellow he could understand his popularity1 saying3 ,you sang me out of all my worries4 ,that is a great thing to do1 and ,longfellow learned from the ,scripture how to do that in the ,psalm of ,life and all his other poems4 ,we need only a word about ,lowell himself4 ,he was the son of a minister1 and so knew the ,bible from his infancy4 ,he belonged to the ,brahman caste himself1 but a good deal of the ruggedness of the ,old ,testament got into his writing4 ,it is in ,the ,vision of ,sir ,launfal4 ,it is in his plea for international copyright where the familiar lines occur3 ,in vain we call old notions fudge1 ,and bend our conscience to our dealing1 ,the ,ten ,commandments will not budge1 ,and stealing will continue stealing4 ,there is hint of it in his quizzical lines about himself in the ,fable for ,critics4 ,he says that he is in danger of rattling away ,until he is as old as ,methusalem1 ,at the head of the march to the last ,new ,jerusalem4 ,whittier needs no words of ours4 ,his hymns are part of our religious equipment4 ,snow-bound and all the rest of the beautiful1 quiet1 ,quaker-like writing of this beloved poet are among our national assets4 ,we join in his sorrow as he writes the doom of ,webster and his fame1 and we do not wonder that he chose for it the ,scriptural title ,ichabod4 ,whatever is to be said about an individual here or there1 it is true that great ,american literature shows the influence of the ,bible4 ,like everything else in ,america1 it has been founded on a religious purpose4 ,writers in all lines have been trained in the ,bible4 ,if they feel any religious influence at all1 it is the ,bible influence4 ,this has been a long journey from ,shakespeare to ,whittier1 and it leaves untouched the great field of present-day writers4 ,let the unstarred names wait their time4 ,among them are many who can say in their way what ,hall ,caine has said of himself3 ,i think ,i know my ,bible as few literary men know it4 ,there is no book in the world like it1 and the finest novels ever written fall far short in interest of any one of the stories it tells4 ,whatever strong situations ,i have in my books are not of my creation1 but are taken from the ,bible4 ,the ,deemster is a story of the ,prodigal ,son4 ,the ,bondman is the story of ,esau and ,jacob4 ,the ,scapegoat is the story of ,eli and his sons1 but with ,samuel as a little girl2 and ,the ,manxman is the story of ,david and ,uriah4 ,take up any of the novels of the day1 even the poorer ones1 but notably the better ones1 and see how uniformly they show the ,scriptural influence in material1 in idea1 and in spirit4 ,what the literature of the future will be no one can say4 ,this much is as sure as any fact in literary history1 that the ,english ,bible is part of the very fiber of great literature from the day it first appeared in our tongue to this hour4 ,,footnotes3 #bg ,thoughts that ,breathe4 #bh ,atlantic ,monthly1 ,may1 #aijj1 p4 #fhd4 #bi ,chapman1 ,english ,literature in ,account with ,religion4 #cj ,history of ,english ,literature1 chap4 iii4 #ca ,wordsworth1 ,shakespeare's ,knowledge and ,use of the ,bible1 p4 #i4 #cb ,strong1 ,the ,theology of the ,poets4 #cc ,history of ,england1 vol4 ,,iii41 p4 #bbj4 #cd ,taine1 ,english ,literature1 ,,ii41 #bgi4 #ce ,june #ad1 #ahcj4 #cf ,morley1 ,life of ,gladstone1 vol4 iii1 p4 #dbd4 #cg ,early ,victorian ,literature1 p4 #i4 #ch ,english ,literature in ,account with ,religion4 #ci ,this is fully worked out in ,professor ,richardson's ,american ,literature1 with ample illustration and argument4 #dj ,american ,men of ,letters ,series1 ,washington ,irving1 p4 #cjb4 ,,lecture ,v ,,the ,,king ,,james ,,version--,,its ,,influence ,,on ,,english ,,and ,,american ,,history ,the ,king ,james version of the ,bible is only a book4 ,what can a book do in history8 ,well1 whatever the reason1 books have played a large part in the movements of men1 specially of modern men4 ,they have markedly influenced the opinion of men about the past4 ,it is commonly said that ,hume's ,history of ,england1 defective as it is1 has yet by its method revolutionized the writing of history1 and that is true4 ,nearer our own time1 ,carlyle's ,life of ,cromwell reversed the judgment of history on ,cromwell1 gave all readers of history a new conception of him and his times and of the movement of which he was the life4 ,after the ,restoration none were so poor as to do ,cromwell reverence until ,carlyle's book gave him anew to the world4 ,there are instances squarely in our own time by which their mighty influence may be tested4 ,they are of books of almost ephemeral value save for the student of history4 ,as literature they will be quickly forgotten2 but as forces they must be reckoned with4 ,there is ,uncle ,tom's ,cabin4 ,it would be absurd to say that it brought the ,american ,civil ,war1 or freed the negroes1 or saved the ,union4 ,it did none of those great things4 ,yet it is not at all absurd to name it among the potent powers in all three4 ,it is not to our purpose whether it is true or not as a statement of the whole fact4 ,doubtless it was not true of the general and common circumstances of ,southern slavery2 but everything in it was possible1 and even frequent enough so that it could not be questioned4 ,it pretended no more4 ,but its influence was simply tremendous4 ,in book form it became available in #aheb1 and within three years1 #ahee1 it was common property of ,english-speaking people4 ,no other book ever produced so extraordinary an effect so quickly in the public mind4#da ,it held up slavery to judgment4 ,it crystallized the thoughts of common people4 ,the work of those strenuous years in the '#fj's could not have been done without the result of that book4 ,it made history4 ,come nearer our own day4 ,we could not be long in ,london without feeling the concern of the better people for conditions in the ,east ,end4 ,a new social impulse has seized them4 ,to be sure1 it lacks much yet of success2 but more has been done than most people realize4 ,the new movement1 the awakening of that social sense1 traces back to the book of ,gen4 ,william ,booth1 ,in ,darkest ,england 7#ahij74 ,it has helped to change the life of a large part of ,london4 ,on this side1 the new concern for city conditions dates from the book of a newspaper reporter1 ,jacob ,a4 ,riis1 ,how the ,other ,half ,lives4 ,it thrust the ,other ,half into such prominence that it has never been possible to forget it4 ,marked advance in all ,american cities1 in legislation and life1 goes straight back to it4 ,name one other book still in the field of social service1 even so unpleasant1 so terrible1 so obnoxious a book as ,upton ,sinclair's ,the ,jungle4 ,it started and sustained movements which have unsettled business and political life ever since it appeared4 ,it made some conditions vivid1 unescapable4 ,do not misunderstand the argument4 ,no man can tell what will be said in the histories a century from now about these lesser books4 ,we can never go beyond guesses as to the whole cause of any chain of events4#db ,as time passes1 incidental elements in the causes gradually sink out of sight and a few great forces take the whole horizon4 ,whatever the histories a century from now say about the relative place of such books as we have named1 it is certain that they have influenced the movements mightily4 ,the literary histories will say nothing at all about them4 ,they are not great literature1 but they were born of a passion of the times and voiced and aroused it anew4 ,when1 therefore1 it is urged that the ,english ,bible has influenced history1 it is not making an undue claim for it4 ,when it is further urged that of all books in ,english literature it has been most influential1 it has most made history1 it has most determined great movements1 the argument only claims for it the highest place among books4 ,and it would not be surprising if it should have such influence4 ,it is the one great piece of ,english literature which is universal property4 ,since the day it was published it has been kept available for everybody4 ,no other book has ever had its chance4 ,english-speaking people have always been essentially religious4 ,they have always had a profound regard for the terms1 the institutions1 the purposes of religion4 ,partly that has been maintained by the ,bible2 but the ,bible in its turn has been maintained by it4 ,so it has come about that ,english-speaking people1 though they have many books1 are essentially people of one ,book4 ,wherever they are1 the ,bible is4 ,queen ,victoria has it near by when the messenger from the ,orient appears1 and lays her hand upon it to say that this is the foundation of the prosperity of ,england4 ,but the poor housewife in the cottage1 with only a crust for food1 stays her soul with it4 ,the ,puritan creeps into hiding with the ,book1 while his brother sails away to the new land with the ,book4 ,the settler may have his ,shakespeare2 he will surely have his ,bible4 ,as the long wagon-train creeps across the plain to seek the ,western shore1 there may be no other book in all the train2 but the ,bible will be there4 ,find any settlement of men who speak the ,english tongue1 wherever they make their home1 and the ,bible is among them4 ,when did any book have such a chance to influence men8 ,it is the one undisturbed heritage of all who speak the ,english tongue4 ,it binds the daughter and the mother country together1 and gathers into the same bond the scattered remnants of the ,english-speaking race the world around4 ,its language is the one speech they all understand4 ,strange it would be if it had not a profound influence upon history6 ,another fact that has helped to give the ,bible its great influence is the power of the preaching it has inspired4 ,the periods of greatest preaching have always been the periods of freest access to the ,bible4 ,no one can overlook the immense power of the sermons of history4 ,there have been poor1 inept1 banal expositors1 doubtless2 but even they turned men's minds to the ,bible4 ,reading the ,bible makes men thinkers1 and so makes preachers inevitably4 ,witness the ,scotch4 ,james was raised in ,scotland and believed in the power of preaching4 ,at one time he wanted to settle endowments for the maintenance of preaching under government control4 ,but ,archbishop ,whitgift convinced him that much preaching was an innovation and dangerous1 since it is quite impossible to control a man's mouth once it is given a public chance4 ,under ,charles ,i4 the sermon was mighty in the service of the ,puritans until it was suppressed or restricted4 ,then men became lecturers and expounded the ,bible or taught religious truth in public or private4 ,rich men engaged private chaplains since public meetings could not be held4 ,somehow they taught the ,bible still4 ,archbishop ,laud forbade both4 ,yet the leaven worked the more for its restriction4 ,at least one good cook ,i know says that if you want your dough to rise and the yeast to work1 you must cover it4 ,laud did not want it to rise1 but he made the mistake of covering it4 ,there has never been a book which has provoked such incessant preaching and discussion as has the ,bible4 ,the believers in the ,koran teach it as it is1 word for word4 ,believers in the ,bible have never stopped with that4 ,they have always tried to come together and hear it expounded4 ,such gatherings and such constant pressure of the ,book on groups of hearers would inevitably give the ,bible great influence4 ,when it is remembered that in ,america alone there are each week approximately four hundred thousand gatherings of people which have for their avowed purpose instruction or inspiration in religion1 and that the instruction and inspiration are professedly and openly drawn from the ,bible1 that more than three hundred thousand sermons are preached every week from it and passages of it read in all the gatherings1 it appears that the ,bible had and still has such a chance to influence life as no other book has had4 ,president ,schurman traces a large part of our own stronger ,american life to the educative power of our ,sundays4 ,but central in the education of those days is now1 and has been from the first of our national history1 the ,english ,bible4 ,the influence of the ,bible comes also from the fact that it makes its chief appeal to the deeper elements in life4 ,human history in its real character is not an account of kings and of wars2 it is the unfolding of the moral1 the political1 the artistic1 the social1 and the spiritual progress of the human family4 ,the time will yet come when the names of dynasties and of battles shall not form the titles of its chapters4 ,the truths revealed in the ,bible have been the touchstone which has tried men's spirits4#dc ,those words go to the heart of the fact4 ,the influence of the ,english ,bible on ,english-speaking history for the last three hundred years is only the influence of its fundamental truths4 ,it has moved with tremendous impact on the wills of men4 ,it has made the great human ideals clear and definite2 it has made them beautiful and attractive2 but that has not been enough4 ,it has reached also the springs of action4 ,it has given men a sense of need and also a sense of strength1 a sense of outrage and a sense of power to correct the wrong4 ,there it has differed from most books4 ,frederick ,robertson said that he read only books with iron in them1 and1 as he read1 their atoms of iron entered the blood1 and it ran more red for them4 ,there is iron in this ,book1 and it has entered the blood of the human race4 ,where it has entered most freely1 the red has deepened2 and nowhere has it deepened more than in our ,english-speaking races4 ,the iron of our blood is from this ,king ,james version4 ,bismarck explained the victories of the ,germans over the ,french by the fact that from childhood the ,germans had been trained in the sense of duty1 as the ,french had not been trained1 and as soldiers had learned to feel that nothing could escape the ,eye which ever watched their course4 ,they learned that1 ,bismarck said1 from the religion which they had been taught4 ,there is no mistaking the power of religion in rousing and sharpening the sense of duty4 ,webster spoke for the ,english-speaking races1 and found his phrases in the ,bible1 when he said that this sense pursues us ever4 ,it is omnipresent like the ,deity4 ,if we take to ourselves the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea1 duty performed or duty violated is still with us for our happiness or our misery4 ,if we say the darkness shall cover us1 in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us4 ,we cannot escape from their power or fly from their presence4 ,it is religion which makes that sense of duty keen2 and1 whatever religion has done among ,english-speaking races1 the ,english ,bible has done1 for it has been the text-book and the final authority of those races in the moving things of their faith4 ,it would be easiest in making the argument to single out here and there the striking events in which the ,bible has figured and let them stand for the whole4 ,there are many such events1 and they are attractive4 ,we can imagine ourselves standing on the shore at ,dover in #affj1 fifty years after the version was issued1 waiting with the crowd to see the banished ,king return4 ,the civil war is over1 the protectorate under ,cromwell is past4 ,charles ,,ii41 thick-lipped1 sensuous1 seeming to belong rather to southern ,europe than to ,puritan ,england1 is about to land from ,france1 whence the people1 wearied with ,puritan excesses1 have called him back4 ,there is a great crowd1 but they do not cheer wildly4 ,there is something serious on hand4 ,they mean to welcome the ,king2 but it is on condition4 ,their first act is when the ,mayor of ,dover places in his hands a copy of the ,english ,bible1 which the ,king declares he loves above all things in the world4 ,it proves only a sorry jest2 but the ,english people think it is meant for truth1 and they go to their homes rejoicing4 ,they rejoiced too soon1 for this is that utterly faithless king for whom his witty courtier proposed an epitaph3 ,here lies our sovereign lord1 the king1 ,whose word no man relies on2 ,who never said a foolish thing1 ,and never did a wise one4#dd ,as at other times1 the ,king was only talking with no meaning2 but the people did not know him yet4 ,they had made their ,bible the great test of their liberties3 will a king stand by that or will he not8 ,if he will not1 let him remember ,charles the ,first6 ,and from that day no ,english king1 no ,american leader1 has ever successfully restricted ,english-speaking people from free access to their great ,book4 ,it has become a banner of their liberties4 ,the child was wiser than he knew when he was asked what lesson we may learn from ,charles ,i41 and replied that we may learn that a man should not lose his head in times of excitement4 ,charles lost his head long before he laid it on the block4 ,besides the scene at ,dover1 we may watch that great emigration of the ,scotch-,irish from ,ulster1 beginning in #afhi1 seventy years after the ,puritan exodus and eighty years after the version was issued1 which peopled the backwoods of ,america with a choice1 strong population4 ,they were only following the right to worship freely1 the right to their ,bible without chains on its lids or on the lips of its preachers4 ,they were making no protest against ,romanism nor against ,anglicanism in themselves4 ,they only claimed the right to worship as they would4 ,under ,william and ,mary1 after ,james ,,ii4 had fled to ,france1 toleration became the law in ,england2 but when ,ireland was reconquered by ,william's generals1 the act of toleration was not extended to it4 ,baptists1 ,presbyterians1 all except the small ,anglican ,church1 were put under the ban and forbidden to worship4 ,but the ,bible had made submission impossible1 and there came about that great exodus to the new land which has so blessed it4 ,there are other signal events which might be observed4 ,but all the while there would be danger of magnifying the importance of events which seem to prove the point4 ,the view needs to be a more general one instead4 ,the period is not long--three hundred years at the most--though it has a background of all ,english history4 ,we have already seen how from the first there have been determined efforts to make the ,bible common to the people2 yet1 of course1 the influence of our version can appear only in these three hundred years since it was issued4 ,that short period has not only been interesting almost to the point of excitement in ,english life1 but it covers virtually all ,american life4 ,take1 therefore1 the broader view of the influence of the ,english ,bible on history1 apart from these striking events4 ,it is to be assumed at once that much of its influence is indirect4 ,indeed1 its chief influence must be through men who prove to be leaders and through that public sentiment without which leaders are powerless4 ,if leaders live by it and stand or fall by its teaching1 then their work is its work4 ,if they find a public sentiment issuing from it which gives them power1 a sentiment which crystallizes around them when they appear1 because it is of kindred spirit with themselves1 then the power of that sentiment is the power of the ,bible4 ,the influence of ,pilgrim's ,progress or ,the ,saint's ,rest is the influence of ,bunyan and ,baxter2 but back of them is the ,bible4 ,in language1 in idea1 in spirit1 they were only making the ,bible a common ,book to their readers4 ,their value for life and history is the ,bible's value for life and history4 ,the power of great souls is frequently and easily underestimated4 ,scientific study has tended to that by magnifying visible conditions and by trying to calculate the force of laws which are in plain sight4 ,buckle's theory of civilization has influenced our times greatly4 ,it explains national character as the outcome of natural conditions1 and lays such stress on circumstances as left it possible for ,buckle to declare that history and biography are in different spheres4 ,it is still true1 however1 that most history turns on biography4 ,great souls have been the chief factors in great movements4 ,whether the movement could have occurred without them will never be possible to decide1 if it should be disputed4 ,in a chemical laboratory the essential factors of any phenomenon can be determined by the process of elimination4 ,all the elements which preceded it except one can be introduced2 if the result is the same as in its presence1 manifestly it is not essential4 ,so the experiment can go on until the result becomes different1 when it is evident that the last omitted element is an essential one4 ,but no such process is possible in great historical movements4 ,the only course open to us is to consider carefully the elements which do appear4 ,take three great movements which are easiest to follow in these three centuries4 ,whether the spiritual independence of ,england would have been secured without the ,quakers may be debated2 but this fact can hardly be debated3 certainly it was not so secured2 whether or not the ,quakers could have been without ,george ,fox1 certainly they did not occur without him4 ,take the second3 whether or not some other movement could have done what ,puritanism did is hardly a question for history2 ,puritanism actually did the work for ,england and ,america which gave both their strongest qualities4 ,there is no testing the period to see whether ,puritanism could be left out4 ,there it stands as a powerful factor1 and no analysis of the history can possibly omit it4 ,or the third3 it is not a question for a historian whether ,english history could have been the same without ,methodism and whether ,methodism could have been at all without the ,wesleys2 certainly nothing took its place1 nor did any one else stand at the head of the movement4 ,here are these three great movements1 not to seek others4 ,all of them have had tremendous influence in the religious and political history of both the nations where they have moved most freely4 ,each of them is a direct and undisputed result of the influence of the ,bible4 ,much has already been said of the ,puritans in ,england1 and there will be occasion to see what was their influence in ,america4 ,but think for a moment of the ,quakers4 ,james ,freeman ,clark calls them the ,english mystics2 certainly they were more than that4#de ,george ,fox had little learning but the ,bible2 that he knew well4 ,he first came to himself out in the fields alone with the ,bible4 ,he was not stirred to the origin of the movement nor to his greatest activity by experiences he had in public places4 ,he came to those public places profoundly affected by his familiarity with the ,english ,bible4 ,he came at a time when his protest was needed1 a protest against formalism1 against mere outward conformity4 ,a thousand years before1 ,mohammedanism had really saved the ,christian faith by its protest1 violent and merciless1 against its errors1 challenging it to purity in faith and life4 ,now ,fox and the ,quakers saved church life by protest against church life4 ,the ,bible was still the law1 but not the ,bible which you read for me1 but that which you read for you and ,i for me1 each of us guided by an inner light4 ,the ,quaker movement was a distinct protest against church formalism in the interests of freedom of the ,bible4 ,that ,quaker influence was far stronger in ,america than it ever proved to be in ,england4 ,george ,fox himself visited the colonies and extended its influence4 ,three great effects are easily traceable4 ,the very presence of the ,quakers in the ,new ,england colonies1 notably in ,massachusetts1 and the persecutions which they endured1 did more to purify the ,puritans than any other one influence4 ,one is only loyal to the ,puritan character and teaching in declaring that in the manner of the ,puritans toward the ,quakers they were wrong2 they were wrong because they were untrue to their own belief1 untrue to their own ,bibles1 and when the more thoughtful among them found that they were taking the attitude toward the ,quakers which they had resented toward themselves1 remembering that the ,quakers were drawing their teaching from the same ,bible as themselves1 they were naturally checked4 ,and1 while the ,quakers in ,new ,england suffered greatly1 their suffering proved the purification of the ,puritans4 ,it accented and so it removed the narrowness of ,puritan practice4 ,further1 the ,quaker movement gave to ,american history ,william ,penn and the whole constitution of ,pennsylvania4 ,it was there that a state first lived by the principle which ,william ,penn pronounced3 ,any government is free where the people are a party to the laws enacted4 ,so it came about that ,independence ,hall is on ,quaker soil4 ,the ,declaration of ,independence appeared there1 and not on ,puritan soil4 ,it may be there was more freedom of thought in ,pennsylvania4 ,it may be explained on purely geographical ground1 ,philadelphia being the most convenient center for the colonies4 ,but it remains significant that not on ,cavalier soil in ,virginia1 not on ,dutch soil in ,new ,york1 not on ,puritan soil in ,boston1 but on ,quaker soil in ,philadelphia the movement for national independence crystallized around a general principle that any government is free where the people are a party to the laws enacted1 but that no government is free whose people have not a voice4 ,that is not minimizing the power of ,puritanism1 nor forgetting ,fanueil ,hall and the ,tea ,party4 ,it only accents what should be familiar3 that ,puritanism drew into itself more of the fighting element of ,scripture1 while the ,quaker movement drew into itself more of the uniting1 pacifying element of ,scripture4 ,the third effect of the ,quaker movement is ,john ,greenleaf ,whittier1 with his gentle but never weak demand that national freedom should not mean independence of other people alone1 but the independence of all people within the nation4 ,so that while the ,quaker spirit helped the colonies to break loose from foreign control and become a nation1 it helped the nation in turn to break loose from internal shackles4 ,the nation stood free within itself as well as free from others4 ,yet the ,quaker movement--and this is the argument--is itself the result of the ,english ,bible1 and the ,quaker influence is the influence of the ,english ,bible on history4 ,there is not need for extended word about the great ,wesleyan movement in the midst of this period1 which has so profoundly affected both ,english and ,american history4 ,it has not worked out into such visible political forms4 ,but any movement that makes for larger spiritual life makes for the strengthening of the entire life of the nation4 ,the mere figures of the early ,wesleyan movement are almost appalling4 ,here was a man1 ,john ,wesley1 an ,oxford scholar1 who spent nearly fifty years traveling up and down and back and forth through ,england on horseback1 covering more than two hundred and fifty thousand miles1 preaching everywhere more than forty thousand times1 writing1 translating1 editing two hundred works4 ,when death ended his busy life there were in his newly formed brotherhood one hundred and thirty-five thousand members1 with five hundred and fifty itinerants who were following his example with incessant preaching and ,bible exposition4 ,it was the old ,wiclif-,lollard movement over again4 ,and here was the other ,wesley1 ,charles1 teaching ,england to sing again1 teaching the old truths of the ,bible in rhyme to many who could not read1 so that they became familiar1 writing on horseback1 in stage-coaches1 everywhere1 writing with one passion1 to help ,england back to the ,bible and its truth4 ,such activity could not leave the nation unmoved2 all its religious life felt it1 and its political life from serf to king was deeply affected by it4 ,it is a common saying that the ,wesleyan movement saved ,english liberty from ,european entanglement4 ,yet the ,wesleyan movement issued from the ,bible and led ,england back to the ,bible4 ,but apart from these wide movements and the great souls who led them1 there is time for thought of one typical character on each side of the sea who did not so much make a movement as he proved the point around which a great fluid idea crystallized into strength4 ,across the sea the character shall be that man whom ,carlyle gave back to us out of obloquy and misunderstanding1 ,oliver ,cromwell4 ,choosing him1 we pass other names which crowd into memory1 names of men who have served the need of ,england well--,wilberforce1 ,john ,howard1 ,shaftesbury1 ,gladstone--who drew their strength from this ,book4 ,yet we choose ,cromwell now for argument4 ,on this side it must be that best known1 most beloved1 most typical of all ,americans1 ,abraham ,lincoln4 ,an ,english historian has said that the most influential1 the most unescapable years in ,english history are those of the ,protectorate4 ,that is a strong saying4 ,they were brief years4 ,there were many factors in them4 ,oliver ,cromwell was only one1 but he was chief of all4 ,he was not chief in the councils which resulted in the beheading of ,charles ,i4 on that #cjth of ,january1 #afdi1 though he took part in them4 ,increasingly in the movements which led to that event and which followed it he was growing into prominence4 ,after ,marston ,moor1 ,prince ,rupert named him ,ironsides1 and his regiment of picked men1 picked for their spirit1 went always into battle singing psalms1 and were never beaten4 ,as he rode out to the field at ,naseby 7#afde7 he knew he faced the flower of the loyalist army1 while with him were only untrained men2 yet he smiled1 as he said afterward1 in the assurance that ,god would1 by things that are not1 bring to naught things that are4 ,then he adds1 ,god did it4 ,never did he raise his flag but in the interests of the liberty of the people1 and back of every movement of his army there was his confidence in the ,bible1 which was his mainstay4 ,they offered him the throne2 he would not have it4 ,he dissolved the ,parliament which had dragged on until the patience of the people was exhausted4 ,he called another to serve their need4 ,the evening before it met he spent in meditation on the ,one hundred and third ,psalm4 ,the evening before the second ,parliament of his ,protectorate he brooded on the ,eighty-fifth ,psalm1 and opened the ,parliament next day with an exposition of it4 ,the man was saturated with ,scripture4 ,yes1 the times were rude4 ,it was an ,old ,testament age1 and in right ,old ,testament spirit did ,cromwell work4 ,and it seemed that his work failed4 ,there was no one to succeed him1 and soon after his death came the ,restoration and the return of ,charles ,,ii41 of which we have already spoken1 in which occurred that hint of the real sentiment of the ,english people which a wise man had better have taken4 ,yet1 recall what actually happened4 ,misunderstanding the spirit of the ,english people1 which ,cromwell had helped to form1 but which in turn had made ,cromwell possible1 the servile courtiers of the false king unearthed the ,protector's body1 three years buried1 hanged it on a gallows in ,tyburn for a day1 beheaded it1 and threw the trunk into a pit4 ,his head they mockingly set on a pinnacle of the ,parliament ,hall1 whence for some weeks it looked over the city which he had served4 ,then1 during a great storm1 it came clattering down1 only a poor dried skull1 and disappeared no one knows where4 ,but when you stand opposite the great ,parliament buildings in ,london to-day1 the most beautiful buildings for their purpose in the world1 the buildings where the liberties of the ,english express themselves year after year1 whose is the one statue that finds place within the inclosure1 near the spot where that poor skull came rattling down8 ,not ,charles ,,ii4--you shall look in vain for him4 ,not ,george ,monk1 who brought back the ,king--you shall not find him there4 ,the one statue which ,england has cared to plant beside its ,parliament buildings is that of ,oliver ,cromwell1 its ,lord ,protector4 ,there he stands1 warning kings in the interests of liberty4 ,john ,morley makes no ideal of him4 ,he thinks he rather closed the medieval period than opened the modern period2 but he will not have ,cromwell compared to ,frederick the ,great1 who spoke with a sneer of mankind4 ,cromwell belonged to the rarer and nobler type of governing men1 who see the golden side1 who count faith1 piety1 hope among the counsels of practical wisdom1 and who for political power must ever seek a moral base4 ,that is a rare and noble type of men1 whether they govern or not4 ,but no man of that type governs without red blood in his veins2 and the iron that made this man's blood run red came from the ,english ,bible4 ,it is a far cry from ,oliver ,cromwell to ,abraham ,lincoln--far in years1 far in deeds1 far in methods1 but not far in spirit4 ,great men are kindred1 generations over4 ,we pass from the ,old ,testament into the ,new when we pass from ,cromwell to ,lincoln2 but we still feel the spirit of liberty4 ,from the days of the ,puritans1 the ,quakers and the ,dutch1 history had been preparing for this time4 ,benjamin ,franklin had done his great work for human liberty2 he had summed up his hope for the nation in his memorable address in #aghg1 when he stood eighty-one years old1 before the convention assembled to frame a constitution for the new government4 ,he reminded them that at the beginning of the contest with the ,british they had had daily prayers in that room in ,philadelphia for the ,divine protection1 and said3 ,i have lived for a long time1 and the longer ,i live the more convincing proof ,i see of this truth1 that ,god governs in the affairs of men4 ,and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without ,his notice1 is it probable that an empire can rise without ,his aid8 ,we have been assured1 ,sir1 in the sacred writings1 that ',except the ,lord build the house1 they labor in vain that build it4' ,i firmly believe this1 and ,i also believe that without ,his concurring aid we shall proceed in this political building no better than the builders of ,babel4 ,i therefore beg leave to move that1 henceforth1 prayers imploring the assistance of ,heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business1 and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service4 ,george ,washington sounded a familiar note in his farewell address3 ,of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity1 religion and morality are indispensable supports4 ,a volume could not trace all their connection with private and public felicity4 ,let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion4 ,whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure1 reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles4 ,thomas ,jefferson1 of whom it is sometimes said that he was indifferent to religion1 had yet done his great work under inspiration1 which he himself acknowledges in his inaugural address1 when he speaks of the nation as enlightened by a benign religion1 professed indeed1 and practised in various forms1 yet all of them inculcating honesty1 truth1 temperance1 gratitude1 and the love of man2 acknowledging and adoring an overruling ,providence1 which by all its dispensation proves that it results in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter4 ,greater than ,jefferson had appeared ,john ,marshall1 greatest of our ,chief ,justices1 like in spirit to that ,john ,marshall ,harlan1 whose death marked the year which has just closed1 of whom his colleagues said that he went to his rest each night with one hand on the ,bible and the other on the ,constitution of the ,united ,states1 a description which could almost be transferred to his great predecessor in that court4 ,moreover1 when ,lincoln came1 ,joseph ,story1 the greatest teacher of law which our country had produced1 had only just died from his place on the ,supreme ,bench4 ,in his ,phi ,beta ,kappa address at ,harvard 7#ahbf71 in a brilliant and masterful analysis of ,the ,characteristics of the ,age1 he had paid tribute after tribute to the power of religion and the ,bible4 ,he had declared his belief that the religion of the ,bible had established itself in the hearts of men by all which genius could bring to illumine or eloquence to grace its sublime truths4 ,of the same period with ,lincoln was also ,webster1 who was called the concordance of the ,house4 ,many of his stately periods and great ideas came from the ,bible4 ,indeed1 there is no oratory of our history1 which has survived the waste of the years1 which does not feel and show the power of the ,scriptures4 ,the ,english ,bible has given our finest eloquence its ideas1 its ideals1 its illustrations1 its phrases4 ,the line is unbroken4 ,and it leads to this tall figure1 crowned with a noble head1 his face the saddest in ,american history1 who knew ,gethsemane in all its paths4 ,the heart of the ,american people has always been touched by his early years of abject poverty4 ,but there were compensations4 ,he had few books1 and they entered his blood and fiber4 ,in his earliest formative years there were six books which he read and re-read4 ,nicolay and ,hay name the ,bible first in the list1 with ,pilgrim's ,progress as the fourth4 ,mr4 ,morse calls it a small library1 but nourishing1 and says that ,lincoln absorbed into his own nature all the strong juice of the books4#df ,how much he drew from the pages of the ,holy ,book let any reader of his speeches say4 ,quotation1 reference1 illustration crowd each other4 ,the phrases are familiar4 ,the man is full of the ,book4 ,and what the man does is part of the work of the ,book4 ,one of his biographers says that there is nothing in the life or work of ,lincoln which cannot be explained without reference to any supernatural influence or power4 ,that depends on what is meant by supernatural4 ,there were no miracles1 no astounding visions nor experiences4 ,but there ran into ,lincoln's life from his young manhood onward this steady and strong current of ideas and ideals from the ,bible4 ,in his second inaugural address he worded the thought that was the deepest horror of the ,civil ,war--that on both sides of the strife men were reading the same ,bible1 praying to the same ,god1 and invoking ,his aid against each other6 ,in that very brief inaugural ,mr4 ,lincoln quotes in full three ,bible verses1 and makes reference to two others1 and the whole address lasted barely four minutes4 ,there could be no mistaking the solemn importance of the fact to which he referred in the inaugural1 the presence on the other side of men who held their ,bibles high in regard4 ,stonewall ,jackson was devout beyond most men4 ,the two books always at his hand were his ,bible and the ,manual of the ,rules of ,war4 ,robert ,e4 ,lee was a cultured1 ,christian gentleman1 as were many others with him1 while throughout the ,south were multitudes who loved and reverenced the ,bible as fully as could any in the ,north4 ,as we look back over half a century1 this comes out plainly3 that so far as the ,american civil war was a strife about union pure and simple1 having one nation or two here in our part of the continent1 it was matter of judgment1 not of religion4 ,there grew around that question certain others of national honor and obligation1 which were not so clear then as now4 ,but men on opposite sides of the question might read the same ,bible without finding authoritative word about it4 ,in so far1 however1 as the war had at its heart the matter of human slavery1 it was possible for men to differ only when one side read the letter of the ,bible while the other read its manifest spirit4 ,written in times when slavery was counted matter of course1 its letter dealt with slavery as a fact4 ,it could be read as though it approved slavery4 ,but long before this day men had found its true spirit4 ,england had abolished slavery 7#ahjh7 under the insistence that it was foreign to all right understanding of ,god's ,word4 ,lincoln knew its letter well2 he cared for its spirit more1 and he found his strength not in the familiar saying that ,god was on his side1 but in the more forceful one that he believed himself to be on ,god's side4 ,so he became a point around which the great fluid idea crystallized into strength--a point made and sustained by the influence of the ,bible1 which he knew only in the ,king ,james version4 99 99 99 99 99 ,we have spoken of some wide movements and of men around whom they crystallized1 finding in them the influence of the ,bible4 ,it will be well to note two outstanding traits of the ,bible which in ,english or any other tongue would inevitably tend to strong and favorable influence on the history of men4 ,those two traits are1 first1 its essential democracy1 and1 secondly1 its persistent moral appeal4 ,here must be recalled that century before the ,king ,james version1 when by slow filtration the fundamental ideas of the ,bible were entering ,english life4 ,surely it is beyond words that the ,bible made ,puritanism1 though it was in strong swing when ,james came to the throne4 ,now ,john ,richard ,green is well within the fact when he says that ,puritanism may fairly claim to be the first political system which recognized the grandeur of the people as a whole4#dg ,it was the magnifying of the people as a whole over against some people as having peculiar rights which marked ,puritanism1 and which is democracy4 ,shakespeare knew nothing of it1 and had no influence on the movement for larger democracy4 ,after we have said our strong word of ,shakespeare's powerful influence upon literature it yet must be said that it is difficult to lay finger on one single historical movement except the literary one which ,shakespeare even remotely influenced4 ,the ,bible1 meanwhile1 was absolutely creating this movement4 ,under its influence the meanest peasant felt himself ennobled as the child of ,god1 the proudest noble recognized a spiritual equality with the meanest saint4 ,that was the inevitable result of a fresh reading of the ,bible in every home4 ,it assured each man that he is a son of ,god1 equal in that sonship with all other men4 ,it assured him no man has right to lord it over others1 as though his relation to ,god were peculiar4 ,the ,bible constantly impresses men that this relation to ,god is the essential one4 ,everything else is incidental4 ,granted now a people freshly under the influence of that teaching1 you have a large explanation of the movement which followed the issuance of this version4 ,james opened his first parliament 7#afjd7 with a speech claiming divine right1 a doctrine which had really been raised to meet the claim of the right of the pope to depose kings4 ,james argued that the state of monarchy is the supremest thing on earth1 for kings are not only ,god's lieutenants on earth and set upon ,god's throne1 but even by ,god ,himself are called gods4 7,he never found that in the ,genevan version or its notes67 ,as to dispute what ,god may do is blasphemy1 so it is sedition in subjects to dispute what the king may do in the height of his power4 ,i will not be content that my power be disputed on4 ,the ,house of ,commons sat by his grace and not of any right4 ,set that idea of ,james over against the idea which the ,bible was constantly developing in the mind of the people1 and you see why ,trevelyan says that the ,bible brought in democracy1 and why he thinks1 as we have already seen1 that the greatest contribution ,england has made to government is its treatment of the ,stuarts1 when it transferred sovereignty from the king to ,parliament4 ,among the men who listened to that kind of teaching were ,eliot1 ,hampden1 ,pym1 all ,puritans under the spell of the ,bible4 ,but the strife grew larger than a merely ,puritan one4 ,the people themselves were strongly feeling their rights4 ,to the devout ,englishman1 much as he might love his prayer-book and hate the dissenters1 the core of religion was the life of family prayer and ,bible study1 which the ,puritans had for a hundred years struggled not in vain to make the custom of the land4 ,it was this spirit which ,james met4 ,we have already thought sufficiently of the events which actually followed4 ,the final rupture of ,charles ,i4 with parliamentary institutions was due to the religious situation4 ,there were many ,bible-reading families1 learning their own rights1 while kings and favorites were plotting war4 ,laud and the bishops forbade non-conforming gatherings1 but they could not prevent a man's gathering his household about him while he read the great stories of the ,bible1 in which no king ruled when he had ceased to advance his kingdom1 in which each man was shut up to ,god in the most vital things of his life4 ,the discussion of the time grew keen about predestination and free-will4 ,one meant that only ,god had power2 the other meant that men1 and if men1 then specially kings1 might control other men if only they could4 ,not fully1 but vaguely1 the crowd understood4 ,very fully1 and not vaguely1 the leaders understood4 ,predestination and ,parliament became a cry4 ,that is1 control lifted out of the hands of the free-will of some monarch into the hands of a sovereign ,god to whom every man had the same access that any other man had4 ,laud decreed that all such discussion should cease4 ,he revived an old decree that no book could be printed without consent of an archbishop or the ,bishop of ,london4 ,so the books became secret and more virulent each year4 ,the civil war 7#afdb-df7 between ,charles and ,parliament was a war of ideas4 ,it is sometimes called a war of religion1 not quite fairly4 ,it was due to the religious situation1 but actually it was for the liberties of the people against the power of the king4 ,and that question rooted far down in another regarding the rights of men to be free in their religious life4 ,charles struck his coin at ,oxford with the ,latin inscription3 ,the ,protestant religion2 the laws of ,england2 the liberties of ,parliament4 ,but he struck it too late4 ,he had been trifling with the freedom of the people1 and they had learned from their fireside ,bibles and from their pulpits that no man may command another in his relation to ,god4 ,it was long after that ,burns described ,the ,cottar's ,saturday ,night2 but he was only describing a condition which was already in vogue1 and which was having tremendous influence in ,england as well as in ,scotland3 ,the cheerfu' supper done1 wi' serious face1 ,they1 round the ingle1 form a circle wide2 ,the sire turns o'er1 wi' patriarchal grace1 ,the big ha' ,bible1 ance his father's pride3 ,his bonnet rev'rently is laid aside1 ,his lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare2 ,those strains that once did sweet in ,zion glide1 ,he wales a portion with judicious care1 ,and ',let us worship ,god6' he says1 with solemn air4 ,under such guidance as this the people of ,england1 ,puritans and others1 relaxed the power of the ,stuarts and became a democracy4 ,for democracy is not a form of government4 ,it can exist under monarchy1 provided the monarchy is a convenience of the will of the people1 as it is in ,england4 ,it can exist under institutions like our own1 provided they also are held as a convenience of the people4 ,this was no rebellion against some form of monarchy4 ,it was simply a claim of every man to have his rights before ,god4 ,under the ,parliament of eighteen years duration1 the ,independents1 ,presbyterians1 and all other non-conforming bodies suffered as heavily as under ,james and ,charles1 yet they did not flee the land4 ,their battle was really won4 ,they believed the time would come when they as part of the people who now governed should assert themselves4 ,if they were persecuted1 it was under a government where yet they might hope for their rights4 ,fleeing from ,england in #afbj was heroism2 fleeing in #afdj would have been cowardly4 ,it is impossible to calculate what was the revelation to the readers of the ,english ,bible of their rights4 ,let ,trevelyan tell the story3 ,while other literary movements1 however noble in quality1 affect only a few1 the study of the ,bible was becoming the national education4 ,recommended by the king1 translated by the ,bishops1 yet in chief request with the ,puritans1 without the rivalry of books and newspapers1 the ,bible told to the unscholarly the story of another age and race1 not in bald generalization and doctrinal harangue1 but with such wealth of simple narrative and lyrical force that each man recognized his own dim strivings after a new spirit1 written clear in words two thousand years old4 ,a deep and splendid effect was wrought by the monopoly of this ,book as the sole reading of common households1 in an age when men's minds were instinct with natural poetry and open to receive the light of imagination4 ,a new religion arose1 of which the mythus was the ,bible stories and the pervading spirit the direct relations of man with ,god1 exemplified in the human life4 ,and1 while imagination was kindled1 the intellect was freed by this private study of the ,bible4 ,for its private study involved its private interpretation4 ,each reader1 even if a ,churchman1 became in some sort a church to himself4 ,hence the hundred sects and thousand doctrines that astonished foreigners and opened ,england's strange path to intellectual liberty4 ,the ,bible cultivated here1 more than in any other land1 the growth of intellectual thought and practice4#dh ,all that has seemed to refer only to ,england1 but the same essential democracy of the ,bible came to ,america and founded the new nation4 ,it was a handful of ,puritans turned ,pilgrims who set out in the ,mayflower to give their ,bible ideas free field4 ,in a dozen years 7#afbh-dj71 under ,laud's persecution1 twenty thousand ,englishmen fled to join those ,pilgrims4 ,and how much turned on that6 ,suppose it had not happened4 ,then the ,french of the ,north and the cavaliers of ,virginia1 with the ,spanish of the ,south1 would have had only the ,dutch between them4 ,and of the four1 only the ,dutch had free access to the ,bible4 ,the new land would not have been ,english4 ,it is an ,english writer who says that ,north ,america is now preparing the future of the world1 and ,english speech is the mold in which the folk of all the world are being poured for their final shaping4#di ,it is the democracy of the ,bible which is the fundamental democracy of ,america1 in which every man has it accented to him that he is so much a child of ,god that his rights are inalienable4 ,they cover life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness4 ,and though we have held that principle of democracy inconsistently at times1 and have paid a terrible price for our inconsistency in the past1 and may pay it in the future again1 it is still true that the fundamental democracy of our ,american life is only that essential democracy of the ,bible1 where every man is made the equal of his fellow by being lifted into the same relation with ,almighty ,god4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ,bible makes its moral appeal on the same basis4 ,if a man is a child of ,god1 then he is shut up to duties which cannot be avoided4 ,some one else may tell a man his duty in a true monarchy4 ,in a democracy each man stands alone at the most solemn point of his duty4 ,there is no safe democracy where men refuse to stand alone there4 ,in ,jefferson's great speech1 replying to the forebodings of ,patrick ,henry1 he insisted that if men were not competent to govern themselves they were not competent to govern other people4 ,the first duty of any man is to take his independent place before ,god4 ,democracy is the social privilege that grows out of the meeting of these personal obligations4 ,several facts strengthen this persistent moral appeal4 ,for one thing1 the ,book is absolutely fair to humanity4 ,it leaves out no line or wrinkle2 but it adds none4 ,the men with whom it deals are typical men4 ,the facts it presents are typical facts4 ,there are books which flatter men1 make them out all good1 prattle on about the essential goodness of humanity1 while men who know themselves 7and these are the only ones who do things7 know that the story is not true4 ,on the other hand1 there are books which are depressing4 ,their pigments are all black4 ,they move from the dignity of ,schopenhauer's pessimism to the bedlam of ,nietzsche's contempt for life and goodness4 ,but here1 also1 the sane common sense of humanity comes to the rescue4 ,the picture is not true if it is all white or all black4 ,the ,bible is absolutely fair to humanity4 ,it moves within the circle of man's experience2 and1 while it deals with men1 it results in a treatment of man4 ,that is how it comes about that the ,bible inspires men1 and puts them at their best4 ,no moral appeal can be successful if it fails to reach the better part of a man1 and lays hold on him there4 ,just what it did for the ,english people4 ,no greater moral change ever passed over a nation than passed over ,england during the years that parted the middle of the reign of ,elizabeth from the meeting of the ,long ,parliament4 ,england became the people of a ,book1 and that ,book was the ,bible4#ej ,add to that personal appeal and that absolute fairness to humanity the constant challenge of the ,bible to the nobler elements of humanity4 ,it never trifles4 ,it is in deadly earnest4 ,and it makes earnest men4 ,probably we cannot illustrate that earnestness more clearly than by a study of one element in ,puritan history1 which is confused in many minds4 ,it is the matter of the three great antagonisms of ,puritanism in ,england and ,america4 ,they can never be understood by moral triflers4 ,they may not be approved by all the morally serious1 but they will be understood by them4 ,what are those three marked antagonisms8 ,the antagonism to the stage1 to popular frivolity1 and to the pleasure of ,sabbath4 #a4 ,the early ,english stage had the approval of virtually all the people4 ,there were few voices raised against the dramas of ,shakespeare4 ,but the cleavage between the ,puritans and the stage grew greater as the years went on4 ,there were riotous excesses4 ,the later comedy after ,shakespeare was incredibly gross4 ,the tragedies were shallow1 they turned not on grave scenes of conscience1 but on common and cheap intrigues of incest and murder4 ,in the mean time1 the hatred of the ,puritans for the stage was only the honest hatred of ,god-fearing men against the foulest depravity presented in poetic and dramatic forms4 ,the ,bible was laying hold on the imagination of the people1 making them serious1 thoughtful1 preparing them for the struggle for liberty which was soon to come4 ,the plays of the time seemed too trifling or else too foul4 ,the ,puritans and the ,english people of the day were willing to be amused1 if the stage would amuse them4 ,they were willing to be taught1 if the stage would teach them4 ,but they were not willing to be amused by vice and foulness1 and they were not willing to be taught by lecherous actors who parroted beautiful sentiments of virtue on the stage and lived filthy lives of incest and shame off the stage4 ,life had to be whole to the ,puritan1 as indeed it has to be to other thoughtful men4 ,and the ,bible taught him that4 ,his concern was for the higher elements of life2 his appeal was to the worthier values in men4 ,the concern of the stage of his day was for the more volatile elements in men4 ,the test of a successful play was whether the crowds1 any crowds1 came to it4 ,and as always happens when a man wants to catch the interest of a crowd1 the stage catered to its lowest interests4 ,you can hardly read the story of the times without feeling that the ,puritan made no mistake in his day4 ,he could not have been the thoughtful man who would stand strong in the struggle for liberty on that side of the sea and the struggle for life on this side of the sea without opposing trifling and vice4 #b4 ,the antagonism of the early ,puritan to popular frivolity needs to have the times around it to be understood4 ,no great movement carries everybody with it1 and while it is still struggling the majority will be on the opposing side4 ,while the real leadership of ,england was passing into the stronger and more serious hands the artificial excesses of life grew strong on the people4 ,fortunes were being sunk and estates mortgaged in order that men should wear jewels and dress in colored silks4#ea ,in the pressure of grave national needs men persisted in frivolity4 ,the two reigning vices were drunkenness and swearing4 ,in their cups men were guilty of the grossest indecencies4 ,even their otherwise harmless sports were endangered4 ,the popular notion of the ,may-pole dances misses the real point of the ,puritan opposition to it in ,old and ,new ,england4 ,it was not an innocent1 jovial out-door event4 ,once it may have been that4 ,very often it was only part of a day which brought immorality and vice in its train4 ,it was part of a rural paganism4 ,some of the customs involved such grave perils1 with their seclusion of young people from early dawn in the forests1 as to make it impossible to approve it4 ,over against all these things the ,puritans set themselves4 ,sometimes they carried this solemnity to an absurd length1 justifying it by ,scripture verses misapplied4 ,against the affected elegancies of speech they set the plain yea1 yea and nay1 nay of ,scripture4 ,in their clothing1 their homes1 their churches1 they1 and in even more marked degree1 the ,quakers1 registered their solemn protest against the frivolity of the times4 ,if they went too far1 it is certain their protest was needed4 ,macaulay's epigram is familiar1 that the ,puritan hated bear-baiting1 not because it gave pain to the bear1 but because it gave pleasure to the spectators4 ,in so far as that is true1 it is to the credit of the ,puritan2 for the bear can stand the pain of being baited far better than human nature can stand the coarsening effects of baiting him1 and it is nobler to oppose such sport on human grounds than on animal grounds4 ,but1 of course1 the epigram is ,macaulay's1 and must be read with qualification4 ,the fact is1 and he says it often enough without epigrams1 that the times had become trifling except as this grave1 thoughtful group influenced them4 #c4 ,the attitude of the ,puritans toward the ,sabbath came from their serious thought of the ,bible4 ,puritanism gave ,england the ,sabbath again and planted it in ,america as an institution4 ,of course1 these men learned all that they knew of it from the ,bible4 ,from that day1 in spite of much change in thought of it1 ,english-speaking people have never been wilful abusers of the ,sabbath4 ,but the condition in that day was very different4 ,most of the games were on the day set apart as the ,sabbath4 ,there were bull-baiting1 bear-baiting1 and football on ,sunday4 ,calvin himself1 though not in ,england1 bowled on ,sunday1 and poor ,knox attended festivities then1 saying grimly that what little is right on week-days is not wrong on ,sundays4 ,after the service on ,sunday morning the people thronged to the village green1 where ale flowed freely and games were played until the evening dance was called4 ,it was a work-day4 ,elizabeth issued a special injunction that people work after service on ,sundays and holidays if they wished to do so4 ,employers were sustained in their demand for ,sunday work4 ,there are always people in every time who count that the ideal ,sabbath4 ,the ,puritans found it when they appeared4 ,the ,english ,reformation found it when it came4 ,and the ,bible found it when at last it came out of obscurity and laid hold on national conditions4 ,whatever is to be said of other races1 every period of ,english-speaking history assures us that our moral power increases or weakens with the rise or fall of ,sabbath reverence4 ,the ,puritans saw that4 ,they saw1 as many other thoughtful people saw1 that the steady1 repeated observance of the ,sabbath gave certain national influences a chance to work2 reminded the nation of certain great underlying and undying principles2 in short1 brought ,god into human thought4 ,the ,sunday of pleasure or work could never accomplish that4 ,both as religionists and as patriots1 as lovers of ,god and lovers of men1 they opposed the pleasure-,sunday and held for the ,sabbath4 ,but that comes around again to the saying that the persistent moral appeal of the ,bible gives it inevitable influence on history4 ,it centers thought on moral issues4 ,it challenges men to moral combats4 ,such a force persistently working in men's minds is irresistible4 ,it cannot be opposed2 it can only fail by being neglected4 ,and this is the force which has been steadily at work everywhere in ,english-speaking history since the ,king ,james version came to be4 ,,footnotes3 #da ,rhodes4 ,history of the ,united ,states1 vol4 i1 pp4 #ahe-cjc4 #db ,mac,phail1 ,essays on ,puritanism1 p4 #bgh4 #dc ,h4 ,b4 ,smith1 ,faith and ,philosophy1 p4 #ed4 #dd ,white1 in his ,history of ,england1 says that ,charles replied that the explanation was easy3 ,his discourses were his own1 his actions were his ministry's6 #de ,david ,gregg1 ,the ,quakers in ,america4 #df ,american ,statesman ,series1 ,abraham ,lincoln1 i1 #ab1 #ac4 #dg ,short ,history of the ,english ,people1 chap4 vii1 sec4 vii4 #dh ,england under the ,stuarts4 #di ,trevelyan1 ,england under the ,stuarts1 p4 #agd4 #ej ,green1 ,short ,history of the ,english ,people4 #ea ,trevelyan1 ,england under the ,stuarts1 p4 #ff4 ,,lecture ,,vi ,,the ,,bible ,,in ,,the ,,life ,,of ,,to-,,day ,this lecture must differ at two points from those which have preceded it4 ,in the first place1 the other lectures have dealt entirely with facts4 ,this must deal also with judgments4 ,in the earlier lectures we have avoided any consideration of what ought to have been and have centered our interest on what actually did occur4 ,we especially avoided any argument based on a theory of the literary characteristics or literary influence of the ,bible1 but sought first to find the facts and then to discover what explained them4 ,it might be very difficult to determine what is the actual place of the ,bible in the life of to-day4 ,perhaps it would be impossible to give a broad1 fair judgment4 ,it is quite certain that the people of ,james's day did not realize the place it was taking4 ,it is equally certain that many of those whom it most influenced were entirely unconscious of the fact4 ,it is only when we look back upon the scene that we discover the influence that was moving them4 ,but1 while it is difficult to say what the place of the ,bible actually is in our own times1 the place it ought to have is easier to point out4 ,that will involve a study of the conditions of our times1 which suggest the need for its influence4 ,while we must consider the facts1 therefore1 we will be compelled to pass some judgments also1 and therein this lecture must differ from the others4 ,the second fact of difference is that while the earlier lectures have dealt with the ,king ,james version1 this must deal rather with the ,bible4 ,for the ,king ,james version is not the ,bible4 ,there are many versions2 there is but one ,bible4 ,whatever the translators put into the various tongues1 the ,bible itself remains the same4 ,there are values in the new versions2 but they are simply the old value of the ,bible itself4 ,it is a familiar maxim that the newest version is the oldest ,bible4 ,we are not making the ,bible up to date when we make a new version2 we are only getting back to its date4 ,a revision in our day is the effort to take out of the original writings what men of ,king ,james's day may have put in1 and give them so much the better chance4 ,there is no revised ,bible2 there is only a revised version4 ,readers sometimes feel disturbed at what they consider the changes made in the ,bible4 ,the fact is1 the revision which deserves the name is lessening the changes in the ,bible2 it is giving us the ,bible as it actually was and taking from us elements which were not part of it4 ,one can sympathize with the eloquent ,dr4 ,storrs1 who declared1 in an address in #ahgi1 that he was against any new version because of the history of the ,king ,james version1 describing it as a great oak with roots running deep and branches spreading wide4 ,he declared we were not ready to give it up for any modern tulip-tree4 ,there is something in that1 though such figures are not always good argument4 ,yet the value to any book of a worthy translation is beyond calculation4 ,the outstanding literary illustration of that fact is familiar4 ,the ,rubaiyat of ,omar ,khayym lay in ,persian literature and in different ,english translations long before ,fitzgerald made it a household classic for literary people4 ,the translator made the book for us in a more marked way than the original writer did4 ,in somewhat the same way the ,king ,james version gave to the ,english-speaking people the ,bible2 and no other version has taken its place4 ,yet that was not a mistaken move nearly forty years ago1 when the revision of the ,king ,james version was proposed and undertaken4 ,thirty years ago 7#ahha7 it was completed in what we ordinarily call the ,revised ,version1 and ten years ago 7#aija7 the ,american form of that ,revised ,version appeared4 ,few things could more definitely prove the accepted place of the ,king ,james version than the fact that we seem to hear less to-day of the ,revised ,version than we used to hear1 and that1 while the ,american ,revised ,version is incomparably the best in existence in its reproduction of the original1 even it makes way slowly4 ,in less than forty years the ,king ,james version crowded all its competitors off the field4 ,the presence of the ,revised ,version of #ahha has not appreciably affected the sales or the demand for the ,king ,james version4 ,in the minds of most people the ,english and the ,american revisions stand as admirable commentaries on the ,king ,james version4 ,if one wishes to know wherein the ,king ,james version failed of representing the original1 he will learn it better from those versions than from any number of commentaries2 but the number of those to whom one or other of the versions has supplanted the ,king ,james version is not so large as might have been expected4 ,there were several reasons for a new ,english version of the ,bible4 ,it was1 of course1 no indignity to the ,king ,james version4 ,those translators frankly said that they had no hope to make a final version of the ,scriptures4 ,it would be very strange if in three hundred years language should not have grown by reason of the necessities of the race that used it1 so that at some points a book might be outgrown4 ,in another lecture it has been intimated that the ,english ,bible1 by reason of its constant use1 has tended to fix and confirm the ,english language4 ,but no one book1 nor any set of books1 could confine a living tongue4 ,some of the reasons for a new version which give value to these two revisions may be mentioned4 #a4 ,though the ,king ,james version was made just after the literary renaissance1 the classical learning of to-day is far in advance of that day4 ,the ,king ,james version is occasionally defective in its use of tenses and verbs in the ,greek and also in the ,hebrew4 ,we have ,greek and ,hebrew scholars who are able more exactly to reproduce in ,english the meaning of the original4 ,it would be strange if that were not so4 #b4 ,then there have been new and important discoveries of ,biblical literature which date earlier in ,christian history than any our fathers knew three hundred years ago4 ,in some instances those earlier discoveries have shown that a phrase here or there has been wrongly introduced into the text4 ,there has been no marked instance where a phrase was added by the revisers2 that is1 a phrase dropped out of the original and now replaced4 ,one illustration of the omission of a phrase will be enough4 ,in the fifth chapter of ,i ,john the seventh verse reads3 ,for there are three that bear record in heaven1 the ,father1 the ,word1 and the ,holy ,ghost1 and these three are one4 ,in the revised versions it is omitted1 because it seems quite certain that it was not in the original writing4 ,it does not at all alter the meaning of ,scripture4 ,while it appears in most of the best manuscripts which were available for the ,king ,james translators1 earlier manuscripts found since that time have shown that it was formerly written at the side as a gloss1 and was by some transcriber set over in the text itself4 ,the process of making the early manuscripts shows how easily that could have occurred4 ,let us suppose that two or three manuscripts were being made at once by different copyists4 ,one was set to read the original2 as he read1 the others wrote4 ,it would be easy to suppose that he might read this marginal reference as a suitable commentary on the text1 and that one or more of the writers could have written it in the text4 ,it could easily happen also that a copyist1 even seeing where it stood1 might suppose it had been omitted by the earlier copyist1 and that he had completed his work by putting it on the margin4 ,so the next copyist would put it into his own text4 ,once in a manuscript1 it would readily become part of the accepted form4 ,discoveries that bring that sort of thing to light are of value in giving us an accurate version of the original ,bible4 #c4 ,then there are in our ,king ,james version a few archaic and obsolete phrases4 ,we have already spoken of them4 ,most of them have been avoided in the revised versions4 ,the neuter possessive pronoun1 for example1 has been put in4 ,animal names have been clarified1 obsolete expressions have been replaced by more familiar ones1 and so on4 #d4 ,then there were certain inaccuracies in the ,king ,james version4 ,the fact is familiar that they transliterated certain words which they could not well translate4 ,in the revised versions that has been carried farther still4 ,the words which they translated hell have been put back into their ,hebrew and ,greek equivalents1 and appear as ,sheol and ,hades4 ,another instance is that of an ,old ,testament word1 ,asherah1 which was translated always grove1 and was used to describe the object of worship of the early enemies of ,israel4 ,the translation does not quite represent the fact1 and the revisers have therefore replaced the old ,hebrew word ,asherah4 ,the transliterations of the ,king ,james version have not been changed into translations4 ,instead1 the number of transliterations has been increased in the interest of accuracy4 ,at one point one might incline to be adversely critical of the ,american revisers4 ,they have transliterated the ,hebrew word ,jehovah2 so they have taken sides in a controversy where scholars have room to differ4 ,the version would have gained in strength if it had retained the dignified and noble word ,lord1 which comes as near representing the idea of the ,hebrew word for ,god as any word we could find4 ,it must be added that the ,english of neither of our new versions has the rhythm and movement of the old version4 ,that is partly because we are so accustomed to the old expressions and new ones strike the ear unpleasantly4 ,in any case1 the versions differ plainly in their ,english4 ,it seems most unlikely that either of these versions shall ever have the literary influence of the ,king ,james1 though any man who will prophesy about that affects a wisdom which he has not4 ,these1 then1 are the two differences between this lecture and the preceding ones1 that in this lecture we shall deal with judgments as well as facts1 and that we shall deal with the ,bible of to-day rather than the ,king ,james version4 ,passing to the heart of the subject1 the question appears at once whether the ,bible has or can have to-day the influence or the place which it seems to have had in the past4 ,two things force that question3 ,has not the critical study of the ,bible itself robbed it of its place of authority1 and have not the changes of our times destroyed its possibilities of influence8 ,that is1 on the one hand1 has not the ,bible been changed8 ,on the other hand1 has it not come into such new conditions that it cannot do its old work8 ,it is a natural but a most mistaken idea that the critical study of the ,bible is a new thing4 ,from long before the childhood of any of us there has been sharp controversy about the ,bible4 ,it is a controversy-provoking ,book4 ,it cannot accept blind faith4 ,it always has made men think1 and it makes them think in the line of their own times4 ,the days when no questions were raised about the ,bible were the days when men had no access to it4 ,there are some who take all the ,bible for granted4 ,they know that there is indifference to it among friends and in their social circle2 but how real the dispute about the ,bible is no one realizes until he comes where new ideas1 say ideas of socialism1 are in the air4 ,there1 with the breaking of other chains1 is a mighty effort to break this bond also4 ,in such circles the ,bible is little read4 ,it is discussed1 and time-worn objections are bandied about1 always growing as they pass4 ,in these circles also every supposedly adverse result of critical study is welcomed and remembered4 ,if it is said that there are unexplained contradictions in the ,bible1 that fact is remembered4 ,but if it is said further that those contradictions bid fair to yield to further critical study1 or to a wiser understanding of the situations in which they are involved1 that fact is overlooked4 ,the tendency in these circles is to keep alive rather the adverse phases of critical study than its favorable phases4 ,some of those who speak most fiercely about the study of the ,bible1 by what is known as higher criticism1 are least intelligent as to what higher criticism actually means4 ,believers regret it1 and unbelievers rejoice in it4 ,as a matter of fact1 in developing any strong feeling about higher criticism one only falls a prey to words2 he mistakes the meaning of both the words involved4 ,criticism does not mean finding fault with the ,bible4#eb ,it is almost an argument for total depravity that we have made the word gain an adverse meaning1 so that if the average man were told that he had been criticized by another he would suppose that something had been said against him4 ,of course1 intelligent people know that that is not necessarily involved4 ,when ,kant wrote ,the ,critique of ,pure ,reason he was not finding fault with pure reason4 ,he was only making careful analytical study of it4 ,now1 critical study of the ,bible is only careful study of it4 ,it finds vastly more new beauties than unseen defects4 ,in the same way the adjective higher comes in for misunderstanding4 ,it does not mean superior2 it means more difficult4 ,lower criticism is the study of the text itself4 ,what word ought to be here1 and exactly what does that word mean8 ,what is the comparative value of this manuscript over against that one8 ,if this manuscript has a certain word and that other has a slightly different one1 which word ought to be used8 ,take one illustration from the ,old ,testament and one from the ,new to show what lower or textual criticism does4 ,in the ninth chapter of ,isaiah the third verse reads3 ,thou hast multiplied the nation and not increased the joy4 ,that word not is troublesome4 ,it disagrees with the rest of the passage4 ,now it happens that there are two ,hebrew words pronounced lo1 just alike in sound1 but spelled differently4 ,one means not1 the other means to him or his4 ,put the second word in1 and the sentence reads3 ,thou hast multiplied the nation and increased its joy4 ,that fits the context exactly4 ,lower criticism declares that it is therefore the probable reading1 and corrects the text in that way4 ,the other illustration is from the ,epistle of ,james1 where in the fourth chapter the second verse reads3 ,ye lust1 and have not2 ye kill1 and desire to have1 and cannot obtain2 ye fight and war1 yet ye have not1 because ye ask not4 ,now there is no commentator nor thoughtful reader who is not arrested by that word kill4 ,it does not seem to belong there4 ,it is far more violent than anything else in the whole text1 and it is difficult to understand in what sense the persons to whom ,james was writing could be said to kill4 ,yet there is no ,greek manuscript which does not have that word4 ,well1 it is in the field of lower criticism to observe that there is a ,greek word which sounds very much like this word kill1 which means to envy2 that would fit exactly into the whole text here4 ,all that lower criticism can do is to point out such a probability4 ,when this form of criticism has done its part1 and careful study has yielded a text which holds together and which represents the very best which scholarship can find for the original1 there is still a field more difficult than that1 higher in the sense that it demands a larger and broader view of the whole subject4 ,here one studies the meaning of the whole1 the ideas in it1 seeks to find how the revelation of ,god has progressed according to the capacities of men to receive it4 ,higher criticism is the careful study of the historical and original meanings of ,scripture1 the effort to determine dates and times and1 so far as may be1 the author of each writing1 analyzing its ideas1 the general ,greek or ,hebrew style1 the relation of part to part4 ,that is not a thing to be afraid of4 ,it is a method of study used in every realm4 ,it is true that some of the men who have followed that method have made others afraid of it1 because they were afraid of these men themselves4 ,it is possible to claim far too much for such study4 ,but if the result of higher criticism should be to show that the latter half of the prophecy of ,isaiah is much later than the earlier half1 that is not a destruction of the ,word of ,god4 ,it is not an irreverent result of study4 ,if the result of higher criticism is to show that by reason of its content1 and the lessons which it especially urges1 the ,epistle to the ,hebrews was not written by the ,apostle ,paul1 as it does not at any point claim to have been1 why1 that is not irreverent1 that is not destructive4 ,there is a destructive form of higher criticism2 against that there is reason to set up bulwarks4 ,but there is a constructive form of it also4 ,scholarly opinion will tell any one who asks that criticism has not affected the fundamental values of the ,bible4 ,in the studies which have just now been made we have not instanced anything in the ,bible that is subject to change4 ,no matter what the result of critical study may be1 the fundamental democracy of the ,scripture remains4 ,it continues to make its persistent moral appeal on any terms4 ,both those great facts continue4 ,other great facts abide with them4 ,and on their account it is to our interest to know as much as we can learn about it4 ,the ,bible has not been lessened in its value1 has not been weakened in itself1 by anything that has taken place in critical study4 ,on the other hand1 the net result of such studies as archaeology has been the confirmation of much that was once disputed4 ,sir ,william ,ramsay is the authority for saying that the spade of the excavator is to-day digging the grave of many enemies of the ,bible4 ,take the second question1 whether these times have not in them elements that weaken the hold of the ,bible4 ,there again we must distinguish between facts and judgments4 ,there are certain things in these times which relax the hold of any authoritative book4 ,there is a general relaxing of the sense of authority4 ,it does not come alone from the intellectual awakening1 because so far as that awakening is concerned1 it has affected quite as much men who continue loyal to the authority of the ,bible as others4 ,no1 this relaxing of the sense of authority is the result of the first feeling of democracy which does not know law4 ,democracy ought to mean that men are left independent of the control of other individuals because they realize and wish to obey the control of ,god or of the whole equally with their fellows4 ,when1 instead1 one feels independent of others1 and adds to that no sense of a higher control which he must be free to obey1 the result is not democracy1 but individualism4 ,democracy involves control2 individualism does not4 ,a vast number of people in passing from any sense of the right of another individual to control them have also passed out of the sense of the right of ,god or of the whole to control them4 ,so that from a good many all sense of authority has passed4 ,it is characteristic of our age4 ,and it is a stage in our progress toward real democracy1 toward true human liberty4 ,observe that relaxed sense of authority in the common attitude toward law4 ,most men feel it right to disregard a law of the community which they do not like4 ,it appears in trivial things4 ,if the community requires that ashes be kept in a metal receptacle1 citizens approve it in general1 but reserve to themselves the right to consider it a foolish law and to do something else if that is not entirely convenient4 ,if the law says that paper must not be thrown on the sidewalk1 it means little that it is the law4 ,those who are inclined to be clean and neat and do not like to see paper lying around will keep the law2 those who are otherwise will be indifferent to it4 ,that is at the root of the matter-of-course saying that a law cannot be enforced unless public opinion sustains it4 ,under any democratic system laws virtually always have the majority opinion back of them2 but the minority reserve the right to disregard them if they choose1 and the minority will be more aggressive4 ,rising from those relaxations of law into far more important ones1 it appears that men in business life1 feeling themselves hampered by legislation1 set themselves to find a way to evade it1 justifying themselves in doing so4 ,the mere fact that it is the law does not weigh heavily4 ,this is1 however1 only an inevitable stage in progress from the earliest periods of democracy to later and more substantial periods4 ,it is a stage which will pass4 ,there will come a democracy where the rule of the whole is frankly recognized1 and where each man holds himself independent of his fellows only in the sense that he will claim the right to hold such relation to ,god and his duty as he himself may apprehend4 ,in these times1 also1 the development of temporal and material prosperity with the intellectual mood which is involved in that affects the attitude of the age toward the ,bible4 ,sometimes it is spoken of as a scientific age over against the earlier philosophical ages4 ,perhaps that will do for a rough statement of the facts4 ,it is the age of experiment1 of trying things out1 and there naturally works into men a feeling that the things that will yield to the most material scientific experimentation are the things about which they can be certain and which are of real value4 ,that naturally involves a good deal of appreciation of the present1 and calls for the improvement of the conditions of present life first of all4 ,it looks more important to see that a man is well fed1 well housed1 well clothed1 and well educated than that he should have the interests of eternity pressed on his attention4 ,that is a comparatively late feeling4 ,it issues partly from the fact that this is a scientific age1 when science has had its attention turned to the needs of humanity4 ,another result of our scientific age is the magnifying of the natural1 while the ,bible frankly asserts the supernatural4 ,no effort to get the supernatural out of the ,bible1 in order to make it entirely acceptable to the man who scouts the supernatural1 has thus far proved successful4 ,of course1 the supernatural can be taken out of the ,bible2 but it will destroy the ,bible4 ,nor is there much gain in playing with words and insisting that everything is supernatural or that everything is natural4 ,there is a difference between the two1 and in an age which insists upon nature or natural laws or forces or events as all-sufficient it is almost inevitable that the ,bible should lose its hold1 at least temporarily4 ,regarding all this there are some things that need to be said4 ,for one thing1 this1 too1 is a passing condition4 ,as a matter of fact1 men are not creatures of time4 ,they actually have eternal connections1 and the great outstanding facts which have always made eternity of importance continue4 ,the fact is that men continue to die1 and that the men who are left behind cannot avoid the sense of mystery and awe which is involved in that fact4 ,the fact also is that the human emotions cannot be explained on the lower basis1 and the only reason men think they can be is because they have in the back of their minds the old explanations which they cast into the lower forms1 deceiving themselves into thinking they are new ideas when they are not4 ,it ought to be added that the ,bible has greatly suffered in all its history at the hands of men who have believed in it and have fought in its behalf4 ,many of the controversies which were hottest were needless and injurious4 ,all the folly has not been on one side4 ,some one referred the other day to a list of more than a hundred scientific theories which were proposed at the beginning of the last century and abandoned at the end of it4 ,scientific men are feeling their way1 many of them reverently and devoutly1 some of them rather blatantly and with a readiness for publication1 which hastens them into notoriety4 ,but there has been enough folly on both sides to make every one go cautiously4 ,it has been remarked that in ,dr4 ,draper's book ,the ,conflict ,between ,science and ,religion he makes science appear as a strong-limbed angel of ,god whereas religion is always a great ass4 ,the title of the book itself is not fair4 ,in no proper understanding of the words can there be any conflict between science and religion4 ,there can be a conflict1 as ,dr4 ,andrew ,d4 ,white puts it1 between science and theology4 ,there can certainly be contest between scientists and religionists4 ,science and religion have no conflict4 ,it is interesting to observe how far back most of the supposed conflicts actually lie4 ,there is no warfare now2 and1 while our fathers one or two generations ago felt that they must fly to the defense of religion against the attacks of science1 no man wastes his strength doing that to-day4 ,that period has passed4 ,the trouble is that some good people do not know it1 and are just fond enough of a bit of a tussle to keep up the fighting in the mountain-passes while out in the plain the main armies have laid down their arms and are busy tilling the soil4 ,the period of conflict is past1 partly because we are learning to distinguish between the ,bible as it really is and certain long-established ideas about the ,bible which came from other sources and have become attached to it until it seemed to sustain them4 ,the proper doctrine of evolution is entirely compatible with the ,bible4 ,the great ,dr4 ,hodge declared that the consistent ,darwinian must be an atheist4 ,for that matter1 ,shelley defended himself by saying that1 of course1 the consistent ,newtonian must necessarily be an atheist4 ,but fifty years have made great changes in the doctrine of evolution1 and the old scare has been over for some time4 ,newton is honored in the church quite as much as in the university1 and ,darwin is not a name to frighten anybody4 ,understanding evolution better and knowing the ,bible better1 the two do not jangle out of tune so badly but that harmony is promised4 ,the doctrine of the antiquity of the world is entirely compatible with the ,bible1 though it is not compatible with the dates which ,archbishop ,ussher1 in the time of ,king ,james1 put at the head of the columns4 ,that is so with other scientific theories4 ,any one who has read much of history has attended the obsequies of so many theories in the realm of science that he ought to know that he is wasting his strength in trying to bring about a constant reconciliation between scientific and religious theories4 ,it is his part to keep an open mind in assurance of the unity of truth1 an assurance that there is no fact which can possibly come to light and no true theory of facts which can possibly be formed which does not serve the interest of the truth1 which the ,bible also presents4 ,the ,bible does not concern itself with all departments of knowledge4 ,so far as mistakes have been made on the side of those who believe it1 they have issued from forgetting that fact more than from any other one cause4 ,on the other hand1 it has sometimes occurred that believers in the ,bible have been quite too eager to accommodate themselves to purely passing phases of objection to it4 ,the matter mentioned a moment ago1 the excision of the supernatural1 is a case in point4 ,the easy and glib way in which some have sought to get around difficulties1 by talking in large terms about the progressiveness of the revelation1 as though the progress were from error to truth1 instead of from half light to full light1 is another illustration4 ,the nimble way in which we have turned what is given as history into fiction1 and allowed imagination to roam through the ,bible1 is another illustration4 ,one of our later writers tells the story of ,jonah1 and says it sounds like fiction2 why not call it fiction8 ,another tells the story of the exodus from ,egypt1 and says it sounds like fiction2 why not call it fiction8 ,well1 certainly the objection is not to the presence of fiction in the ,bible4 ,it is there1 openly1 confessedly1 unashamed4 ,fiction can be used with great profit in teaching religious truth4 ,but fiction may not masquerade in the guise of history1 if men are to be led by it or mastered by it4 ,if the way to be rid of difficulties in a narrative is to turn it into pious fiction1 there are other instances where it might be used for relief in emergencies4 ,the story of the crucifixion of ,christ can be told so that it sounds like fiction2 why not call it fiction8 ,certainly the story of the conversion of ,paul can be made to sound like fiction2 why not call it fiction8 ,and there is hardly any bit of narrative that can be made to sound so like fiction as the landing of the ,pilgrims2 why not call that fiction8 ,it is the easy way out2 the difficulties are all gone like ,alice's cat1 and there is left only the broad smile of some moral lesson to be learned from the fiction4 ,it is not1 however1 the courageous nor the perfectly square way out4 ,violence has to be done to the plain narrative2 historical statement has to be made only a mask4 ,and the only reason for it is that there are difficulties not yet cleared4 ,as for the characters involved1 ,charles ,reade1 the novelist1 calling himself a veteran writer of fiction1 declares that the explanation of these characters1 ,jonah being one of them1 by invention is incredible and absurd3 ,such a man as himself knows the artifices and the elements of art4 ,here the artifices are absent1 and the elements surpassed4 ,it is not uncommon for one who has found this easy way out of difficulties to declare with a wave of his hand1 that everybody now knows that this or that book in the ,bible is fiction1 when1 as a matter of fact1 that is not at all an admitted opinion4 ,the ,bible will never gain its place and retain its authority while those who believe in it are spineless and topple over at the first touch of some one's objection4 ,it could not be a great ,book2 it could not serve the purposes of a race if it presented no problems of understanding and of belief1 and all short and easy methods of getting rid of those problems are certain to leave important elements of them out of sight4 ,all this means that the changes of these times rather present additional reason for a renewed hold on the ,bible4 ,it presents what the times peculiarly need4 ,instead of making the influence of the ,bible impossible1 these changes make the need for the ,bible the greater and give it greater opportunity4 99 99 99 99 99 ,add three notable points at which these times feel and still need the influence of the ,bible4 ,first1 they have and still need its literary influence4 ,so far as its ideas and forces and words are interwoven in the great literature of the past1 it is essential still to the understanding of that literature4 ,it remains true that ,english literature1 certainly of the past and also of the present1 cannot be understood without knowledge of the ,bible4 ,the ,yale professor of literature1 quoted so often1 says3 ,it would be worth while to read the ,bible carefully and repeatedly1 if only as a key to modern culture1 for to those who are unfamiliar with its teachings and its diction all that is best in ,english literature of the present century is as a sealed book4 ,from time to time there occur painful reminders of the fact that men supposed to know literature do not understand it because they are not familiar with the ,bible4 ,some years ago a college president tested a class of thirty-four men with a score of extracts from ,tennyson1 each of which contained a ,scriptural allusion1 none of them obscure4 ,the replies were suggestive and quite appalling4 ,tennyson wrote1 in the ,supposed ,confessions3 ,my sin was a thorn among the thorns that girt ,thy brow4 ,of these thirty-four young men nine of them did not understand that quotation4 ,tennyson wrote3 ,like ,hezekiah's1 backward runs ,the shadow of my days4 ,thirty-two of the thirty-four did not know what that meant4 ,the meaning of the line1 ,for ,i have flung thee pearls and find thee swine1 was utterly obscure to twenty-two of the thirty-four4 ,one of them said it was a reference to good opportunities given but not improved4 ,another said it was equivalent to the counsel not to expect to find gold in a hay-stack4 ,even the line1 ,a ,jonah's gourd ,up in one night1 and due to sudden sun1 was utterly baffling to twenty-eight of the thirty-four4 ,one of them spoke of it as an allusion to the uncertainty of the length of life4 ,another thought it was a reference to the occasion of ,jonah's being preserved by the whale4 ,another counted it an allusion to the emesis of ,jonah by the whale4 ,another considered it a reference to the swallowing of ,jonah by a whale1 and yet another considered that it referred to things grand1 but not worthy of worship because they are perishable4 ,it is amazing to read that in response to ,tennyson's lines1 ,follow ,light and do the ,right--for man can half control his doom-- ,till you find the deathless ,angel seated in the vacant tomb1 only sixteen were able to give an explanation of its meaning6 ,the lines from the ,holy ,grail were equally baffling3 ,perhaps like ,him of ,cana in ,holy ,writ1 ,our ,arthur kept his best until the last4 ,twenty-four of these thirty-four young men could not recall what that meant4 ,one said that the keeping of the best wine until the last meant waiting till the last moment to be baptized6 ,all that may be solely the fault of these young men4 ,professor ,lounsbury once said that his experience in the class-room had taught him the infinite capacity of the human mind to withstand the introduction of knowledge4 ,very likely earnest effort had been made to teach these young men the ,bible2 but it is manifest that they had successfully resisted the efforts4 ,if ,tennyson were the only poet who could not be understood without knowledge of the ,bible1 it might not matter so much1 but no one can read ,browning nor ,carlyle nor ,macaulay nor ,huxley with entire intelligence without knowledge of the greater facts and forces of ,scripture4 ,the value of the allusions can be shown by comparing them with those of mythology4 ,no one can read most of ,shelley with entire satisfaction without a knowledge of ,greek mythology4 ,that is one reason why ,shelley has so much passed out of popularity4 ,we do not know ,greek mythology1 and we have very largely lost ,shelley from our literary possession4 ,the chief power of these other great writers will go from us when our knowledge of the ,scripture goes4 ,the danger is not simply with reference to the great literature of the past4 ,there is danger of losing appreciation of the more delicate touches of current literature1 sometimes of a complete missing of the meaning4 ,an orator describing present political and social conditions used a fine phrase1 that it is time the nation camped for a season at the foot of the mount4 ,only a knowledge of ,bible history will bring as a flash before one the nation in the desert at ,sinai learning the meaning and power of law4 ,yet an intelligent man1 hearing that remark1 said that he counted it a fine figure1 that he thought there did come in the life of every nation a time before it began its ascent to the heights when it ought to pause and camp at the foot of the mountain to get its breath6 ,after ,lincoln's assassination ,garfield stood on the steps in ,new ,york1 and said3 ,clouds and darkness are around about him6 ,god reigns and the government at ,washington still lives6 ,years after1 some one referring to that1 said that it was a beautiful sentence1 that the reference to clouds and darkness was a beautiful symbolism1 but that ,garfield had a great knack in the building-up of fine phrases6 ,he lacked utterly the background of the great ,psalm which was in ,garfield's mind1 and which gives that phrase double meaning4 ,if we go back to ,tennyson again1 some one has proposed the inquiry why he should have called one of his poems ,rizpah1 since there was no one of that name mentioned in the whole poem6 ,when1 some years ago1 a book was published1 ,the ,children of ,gideon1 one of the reviewers could not understand why that title was used1 since no one of that name appeared in the entire volume4 ,and when ,mrs4 ,wharton's book1 ,the ,house of ,mirth1 came out some one spoke of the irony of the title2 but it is the irony of the ,scriptures and the book calls for a ,scriptural knowledge for its entire understanding4 ,take even an encyclopedia article4 ,who can understand these two sentences without instant knowledge of ,scripture8 ,marlowe and ,shakespeare1 the young ,davids of the day1 tried the armor of ,saul before they went out to battle1 then wisely laid it off4 ,arnold1 like ,aaron of old1 stands between the dead and the living2 but1 unlike ,aaron1 he holds no smoking censor of propitiation to stay the plague which he feels to be devouring his generation4#ec ,that is in an encyclopedia to which young people are often referred4 ,what will they make out of it without the ,bible8 ,in a widely distributed school paper1 in the question-and-answer department1 occurs the inquiry3 ,who composed the inscription on the ,liberty ,bell8 ,the inscription is1 ,proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof4#ed ,it is to be hoped it was a very young person who needed to ask who composed that expression6 ,this applies to all the great classics4 ,there has come about a decay of literary allusions1 as one of our papers editorially says4 ,in much of our writing1 either the transient or the permanent1 men can no longer risk easy reference to classical literature4 ,readers of ,american biography must often be struck with the important part which literary recollection played in the life of a cultured person a generation or two ago4 ,these men had read ,homer1 ,xenophon and ,virgil1 ,shakespeare1 ,byron and ,wordsworth1 ,lamb1 ,de ,quincey and ,coleridge4 ,they were not afraid of being called pedants because they occasionally used a ,latin phrase or referred to some great name of ,greece or ,rome4 ,that is not so commonly true to-day4 ,especially is there danger of losing easy acquaintance with the great ,bible references4 ,there are familiar reasons for it4 ,for one thing1 there has been a great increase of literature4 ,once there was little to read1 and that little became familiar4 ,one would have been ashamed to pretend to culture and not to know such literature well4 ,now there is so much that one cannot know it all1 and most men follow the line of least resistance4 ,that line is not where great literature lies4 ,once the problem was how to get books enough for a family library4 ,now the problem is how to get library enough for the books4 ,magazines1 papers1 volumes of all grades overflow4 ,the ,bible has been buried beneath a landslide of books4 ,the result is that the greatest literary landmark of the ,english tongue threatens to become unknown1 or else to be looked upon as of antiquarian rather than present worth4 ,there our ,puritan fathers had the advantage4 ,as ,president ,faunce puts it3 ,for them the ,bible was the norm and goal of all study4 ,they had achieved the concentration of studies1 and the ,bible was the center4 ,they learned to read that they might read the literature of ,israel2 their writing was heavy with noble ,old ,testament phrases2 the names of ,old ,testament heroes they gave to their children2 its words of immortal hope they inscribed on their tombstones2 its ,mosaic commonwealth they sought to realize in ,england and ,america2 its decalogue was the foundation of their laws1 and its prophecies were a light shining in a dark place4 ,such a unification of knowledge produced a unified character1 simple1 stalwart1 invincible4 ,it is very different in our own day4 ,as so-called literature increases it robs great literature of its conspicuous outstanding character1 and many men who pride themselves on the amount they read would do far better to read a thousandth part as much and let that smaller part be good4 ,another reason for this decay of the influence of literary knowledge of the ,bible is the shallowness of much of our thinking4 ,if the ,bible were needed for nothing else in present literary life1 it would be needed for the deepening of literary currents4 ,the vast flood of flotsam and jetsam which pours from the presses seldom floats on a deep current4 ,it is surface matter for the most part4 ,it does not take itself seriously1 and it is quite impossible to take it seriously4 ,it does not deal with great themes1 or when it touches upon them it deals with them in a trifling way4 ,to men interested chiefly in literature of this kind the ,bible cannot be of interest4 ,that is a passing condition1 and out of it is certain to come here and there a masterpiece of literature4 ,when it does appear1 it will be found to reveal the same influences that have made great literature in the past1 issuing more largely from the ,bible than from any other book4 ,that is the main point of a bit of counsel which ,professor ,bowen used to give his ,harvard students4 ,to form a good ,english style1 he told them1 a student ought to keep near at hand a ,bible1 a volume of ,shakespeare1 and ,bacon's essays4 ,that group of books would enlarge the vocabulary1 would supply a store of words1 phrases1 and allusions1 and save the necessity of ransacking a meager and hide-bound diction in order to make one's meaning plain4 ,coleridge in his ,table-,talk adds that intense study of the ,bible will keep any writer from being vulgar in point of style4 ,so it may be urged that these times have and still need the literary influence of the ,bible4 ,add that the times have and still need its moral steadying4 ,every age seems to its own thoughtful people to lack moral steadiness1 and they tend to compare it with other ages which look steadier4 ,that is a virtually invariable opinion of such men4 ,the comparison with other ages is generally fallacious1 yet the fact is real for each age4 ,many things tend in this age to unsettle moral solidity4 ,some of them are peculiar to this time1 others are not4 ,but one of the great influences which the ,bible is perpetually tending to counteract is stated in best terms in an experience of ,henry ,m4 ,stanley4 ,it was on that journey to ,africa when he found ,david ,livingstone1 under commission from one of the great newspapers4 ,naturally he had made up his load as light as possible4 ,of books he had none save the ,bible2 but wrapped about his bottles of medicine and other articles were many copies of newspapers4 ,stanley says that strangest of all his experiences were the changes wrought in him by the reading of the ,bible and those newspapers in melancholy ,africa4 ,he was frequently sick with ,african fever1 and took up the ,bible to while away his hours of recovery4 ,during the hours of health he read the newspapers4 ,and thus1 somehow or other1 my views toward newspapers were entirely recast1 while he held loyal to his profession as a newspaper man4 ,this is the critical sentence in ,stanley's telling of the story3 ,as seen in my loneliness1 there was this difference between the ,bible and the newspapers4 ,the one reminded me that apart from ,god my life was but a bubble of air1 and it made me remember my ,creator2 the other fostered arrogance and worldliness4#ee ,there is no denying such an experience as that4 ,that is precisely the moral effect of the ,bible as compared with the moral effect of the newspaper accounts of current life4 ,democracy should always be happy2 but it must always be serious1 morally steady4 ,anything that tends to give men light views of wrong1 to make evil things humorous1 to set out the ridiculous side of gross sins is perilous to democracy4 ,it not only is injurious to personal morals2 it is bound sooner or later to injure public morals4 ,there is nothing that so persistently counteracts that tendency of current literature as does the ,bible4 ,from an ethical point of view1 the ethical content of ,paul is quite as important for us as the system of ,schopenhauer or ,nietzsche4 ,the organization of the ,new ,england town meeting is no more weighty for the ,american boy than the organization of the early ,christian ,church4 ,john ,adams and ,john ,hancock and ,abraham ,lincoln are only the natural successors of the great ,hebrew champions of liberty and righteousness who faced ,pharoah and ,ahab and put to flight armies of aliens4 ,but aside from the definite ethical teaching of the ,bible there is need for that strong impression of ethical values which it gives in the characters around which it has gathered4 ,the conception of the ,bible which makes it appear as a steady progression should add to its authority1 not take from it4 ,the development is not from error to truth1 but from light to more light4 ,it is sometimes said that the standards of morality of some parts of ,scripture are not to be commended4 ,but they are not the standards of morality of ,scripture1 but of their times4 ,they are not taught in ,scripture2 they are only stated2 and they are so stated that instantly a thoughtful man discovers that they are stated to be condemned4 ,when did it become true that all that is told of a good man is to be approved8 ,it is not pretended that ,abraham did right always4 ,david was confessedly wrong4 ,they move much of the time in half-light1 yet the sum total of the impression of their writings is inevitably and invariably for a more substantial morality4 ,these times need the moral steadying of the ,bible to make men1 not creatures of the day and not creatures of their whims1 but creatures of all time and of fundamental laws4 ,add the third fact1 that our times have and still need the religious influence of the ,bible4 ,no democracy can dispense with religious culture4 ,no book makes for religion as does the ,bible4 ,that is its chief purpose4 ,no book can take its place2 no influence can supplant it4 ,max ,muller made lifelong study of the ,buddhist and other ,indian books4 ,he gave them to the ,english-speaking world4 ,yet he wrote to a friend of his impression of the immense superiority of the ,bible in such terms that his friend replied3 ,yes1 you are right2 how tremendously ahead of other sacred books is the ,bible6 ,the difference strikes one as almost unfairly great4#ef ,writing in an ,india paper1 ,the ,kayestha ,samachar1 in ,august1 #aijb1 a ,hindu writer said3 ,i am not a ,christian2 but half an hour's study of the ,bible will do more to remodel a man than a whole day spent in repeating the slokas of the ,purinas or the mantras of the ,rig-,veda4 ,in the earlier chapters of the ,koran ,christians are frequently spoken of as people of the ,book4 ,it is a suggestive phrase4 ,if ,christianity has any value for ,american life1 then the ,bible has just that value4 ,christianity is made by the ,bible2 it has never been vital nor nationally influential for good without the ,bible4 ,sometimes1 because of his strong words regarding the conflict between science and theology1 the venerable ,american diplomat and educator1 ,dr4 ,andrew ,d4 ,white1 is thought of as a foe to religion4 ,no one who reads his biography can have that impression half an hour4 ,near the close of it is a paragraph of singular insight and authority which fits just this connection3 ,it will1 in my opinion1 be a sad day for this or for any people when there shall have come in them an atrophy of the religious nature2 when they shall have suppressed the need of communication1 no matter how vague1 with a supreme power in the universe2 when the ties which bind men of similar modes of thought in the various religious organizations shall be dissolved2 when men1 instead of meeting their fellow-men in assemblages for public worship which give them a sense of brotherhood1 shall lounge at home or in clubs2 when men and women1 instead of bringing themselves at stated periods into an atmosphere of prayer1 praise1 and aspiration1 to hear the discussion of higher spiritual themes1 to be stirred by appeals to their nobler nature in behalf of faith1 hope1 and charity1 and to be moved by a closer realization of the fatherhood of ,god and the brotherhood of man1 shall stay at home and give their thoughts to the ,sunday papers1 or to the conduct of their business1 or to the languid search for some refuge from boredom4#eg ,those are wise1 strong words1 and they sustain to the full what has been urged1 that these times still need the religious influence of the ,bible4 ,the influence of the ,bible on the literary1 moral1 and religious life of the times is already apparent4 ,but that influence needs to be constantly strengthened4 ,there remains1 therefore1 to suggest some methods of giving the ,bible increasing power4 ,it should be recognized first and last that only thoughtful people will do it4 ,no help will come from careless people4 ,moreover1 only people who believe in the common folk will do it4 ,those who are aristocrats in the sense that they do not believe that common people can be trusted will not concern themselves to increase the power of the ,bible4 ,but for those who are thoughtful and essentially democratic the duty is a very plain one4 ,there are four great agencies which may well magnify the ,bible and whose influence will bring the ,bible into increasing power in national life4 ,first among these1 of course1 must be the ,church4 ,the accent which it will place on the ,bible will naturally be on its religious value1 though its moral value will take a close second place4 ,it is essential for the ,church to hold itself true to its religious foundations4 ,only men who have some position of leadership can realize the immense pressure that is on to-day to draw the ,church into forms of activity and methods of service which are much to be commended1 but which have to be constantly guarded lest they deprive it of power and concern in the things which are peculiar to its own life and which it and it alone can contribute to the public good4 ,the ,church needs to develop for itself far better methods of instruction in the ,bible1 so that it may as far as possible drill those who come under its influence in the knowledge of the ,bible for its distinctive religious value4 ,this is neither the time nor the place for a full statement of that responsibility4 ,it is enough to see how the very logic of the life of the ,church requires that it return with renewed energy to its magnifying and teaching of the ,bible4 ,the second agency which may be called upon is the press4 ,the accent of the press will be on the moral value of the ,bible1 the service which its teaching renders to the national and personal life4 ,there seems to be a hopeful returning tendency to allusions to the ,scripture in newspaper and magazine publications4 ,it is rare to find among the higher-level newspapers an editorial page1 where the most thoughtful writing appears1 in which on any day there do not appear ,scripture allusions or references4 ,when that is seriously done1 when ,scripture is used for some other purpose than to point a jest1 it helps to restore the ,bible to its place in public thought4 ,in recent years there has been a noticeable return of the greater magazines to consideration of the moral phrases of the ,scripture4 ,that has been inevitably connected with the development of a social sense which condemns men for their evil courses because of their damage to society4 ,the ,old ,testament prophets are living their lives again in these days1 and the more thoughtful men are being driven back to them for the great principles on which they may live safely4 ,the third agency which needs to magnify the ,bible is the school4 ,the accent which it will choose will naturally be the literary value of the ,bible1 though it will not overlook its moral value as well4 ,incidental references heretofore have suggested the importance of religion in a democracy4 ,but there are none of the great branches of the teaching of the schools1 public or private1 which do not involve the ,bible4 ,it is impossible to teach history fairly and fully without a frank recognition of the influence of the ,bible4 ,study the ,reformation1 the ,puritan movement1 the ,pilgrim journeys1 the whole of early ,american history6 ,we can leave the ,bible out only by trifling with the facts4 ,certainly literature cannot be taught without it4 ,and if it is the purpose of the schools to develop character and moral life1 then there is high authority for saying that the ,bible ought to have place4 ,forty years ago ,mr4 ,huxley1 in his essay on ,the ,school ,boards3 ,what ,they ,can ,do1 and ,what ,they ,may ,do1 laid a broad foundation for thinking at this point1 and his words bear quoting at some length3 ,i have always been strongly in favor of secular education1 in the sense of education without theology2 but ,i must confess ,i have been no less seriously perplexed to know by what practical measures the religious feeling1 which is the essential basis of conduct1 was to be kept up1 in the present utterly chaotic state of opinion on these matters1 without the use of the ,bible4 ,the pagan moralists lack life and color1 and even the noble stoic1 ,marcus ,aurelius ,antoninus1 is too high and refined for an ordinary child4 ,take the ,bible as a whole2 make the severest deductions which fair criticism can dictate for shortcomings and positive errors2 eliminate1 as a sensible lay teacher would do if left to himself1 all that is not desirable for children to occupy themselves with2 and there still remains in this old literature a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur4 ,and then consider the great historical fact that1 for three centuries1 this ,book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in ,english history2 that it has become the national epic of ,britain1 and is as familiar to noble and simple1 from ,john-o'-,groat's ,house to ,land's ,end1 as ,dante and ,tasso once were to the ,italians2 that it is written in the noblest and purest ,english1 and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form2 and1 finally1 that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other civilizations1 and of a great past1 stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations of the world4 ,by the study of what other book could children be so much humanized and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills1 like themselves1 but a momentary space in the interval between two eternities2 and earns the blessings or the curses of all time1 according to its effort to do good and hate evil1 even as they also are earning their payment for their work8 ,on the whole1 then1 ,i am in favor of reading the ,bible1 with such grammatical1 geographical1 and historical explanations by a lay teacher as may be needful1 with rigid exclusion of any further theological teaching than that contained in the ,bible itself4 ,mr4 ,huxley is an ,englishman1 though1 as ,professor ,moulton says1 ,we divide him between ,england and ,america4 ,but ,professor ,moulton himself is very urgent in this same matter4 ,if the classics of ,greece and ,rome are in the nature of ancestral literature1 an equal position belongs to the literature of the ,bible4 ,if our intellect and imagination have been formed by ,greece1 have we not in similar fashion drawn our moral and emotional training from ,hebrew thought8 ,it is one of the curiosities of our civilization that we are content to go for our liberal education to literatures which morally are at opposite poles from ourselves2 literatures in which the most exalted tone is often an apotheosis of the sensuous1 which degrade divinity1 not only to the human level1 but to the lowest level of humanity4 ,it is surely good that our youth during the formative period should have displayed to them1 in a literary dress as brilliant as that of ,greek literature1 a people dominated by an utter passion for righteousness1 a people whose ideas of purity1 of infinite good1 of universal order1 of faith in the irresistible downfall of moral evil1 moved to a poetic passion as fervid and speech as musical as when ,sappho sang of love or ,eschylus thundered his deep notes of destiny4#eh ,but there is a leading ,american voice which will speak in that behalf1 in ,president ,nicholas ,murray ,butler1 of ,columbia ,university4 ,in his address as ,president of the ,national ,educational ,association1 ,president ,butler makes strong plea for the reading of the ,bible even in public schools4 ,his reason had no connection with religion4 ,it was based on altogether different ground4 ,he regarded an acquaintance with the ,bible as absolutely indispensable to the proper understanding of ,english literature4 ,it is unfortunate in the extreme1 he thought1 that so many young men are growing up without that knowledge of the ,bible which every one must have if he means to be capable of the greatest literary pleasure and appreciation of the literature of his own people4 ,not only the allusions1 but the whole tone and bias of many ,english authors will become to one who is ignorant of the ,bible most difficult and even impossible of comprehension4 ,the difficulties of calling public schools to this task appear at once4 ,it would be monstrous if they should be sectarian or proselytizing4 ,but the ,bible is not a sectarian ,book4 ,it is the ,book of greatest literature4 ,it is the ,book of mightiest morals4 ,it is governing history4 ,it is affecting literature as nothing else has done4 ,a thousand pities that any petty squabbling or differences of opinion should prevent the young people in the schools from realizing the grandeur and beauty of it6 ,but the final and most important agency which will magnify the influence of the ,bible must necessarily be the home4 ,it will gather up all its traits1 religious1 moral1 and literary4 ,here is the fundamental opportunity and the fundamental obligation4 ,robert ,burns was right in finding the secret of ,scotia's power in such scenes as those of ,the ,cottar's ,saturday ,night4 ,one can almost see ,carlyle going back to his old home at ,ecclefechan and standing outside to hear his old mother making a prayer in his behalf4 ,a newspaper editorial of recent date says this decay of literary allusion is traceable in part to the gradual abandonment of family prayers4 ,answering ,president ,butler1 it is urged that it is not so important that the ,bible be in the public schools as that it get back again into the homes4 ,thorough acquaintance with the ,bible is desirable2 it should be fostered4 ,the person who will have to foster it1 though1 says this writer1 is not the teacher1 but the parent4 ,the parent is the person whom ,dr4 ,butler should try to convert4 ,well1 while there may be differences about the school1 there can be none about the place of the ,bible in the home4 ,it needs to be bound up with the earliest impressions and intertwined with those impressions as they deepen and extend4 ,so1 by the ,church1 which will accent its religious value2 by the press1 which will accent its moral power2 by the school1 which will spread its literary influence2 and by the home1 which will realize all three and make it seem a vital concern from the beginning of life1 the ,bible will be put and held in the place of power to-day which it has had in the years that are gone1 and will steadily gain greater power4 ,,footnotes3 #eb ,jefferson1 ,things ,fundamental1 p4 #ij4 #ec ,new ,international ,encyclopedia1 art4 on ,english ,literature4 #ed ,current ,events1 ,january #ab1 #aiab4 #ee ,autobiography1 p4 #beb4 #ef ,speer1 ,light of the ,world1 iv4 #eg ,autobiography1 vol4 ii1 p4 #egj4 #eh ,literary ,study of the ,bible1 passim4 ,,the ,,end 99 99 99 99 99 ,,transcriber',s ,,notes ,occasional missing punctuation marks have been inserted4 ,the variant forms non-conformity 7p4 #ej7 and non-conforming 7pp4 #bbg1 #bbi7 appear in this text4 ,on p4 #ga1 ,illustrate with one instance should perhaps read ,i'll illustrate with one instance but has been left unchanged4 ,the following amendments have been made to the text3 ,on p4 #cf ,crammer amended to ,cranmer4 ,on p4 #aji eighty two amended to eighty-two4 ,on p4 #aab ,waverly amended to ,waverley4 ,on p4 #aag 7verse #ea17 amended to 7verse #ea714 ,on p4 #acc ,edgar ,allen ,poe amended to ,edgar ,allan ,poe4 ,on p4 #ada exile of ths scholars amended to exile of the scholars4 ,on p4 #adb ,capel ,lloft amended to ,capel ,lofft4 ,on p4 #aeg footnote1 ,english ,literature italicised as ,english ,literature4 ,on p4 #afa ,tintern ,abbay amended to ,tintern ,abbey4 ,on p4 #agj ',drama of ,exile amended to ,drama of ,exile4 ,on p4 #agd every growing courtier amended to every grinning courtier4 ,on p4 #bcb democracry amended to democracy4 ,on p4 #bcd ,just that it did amended to ,just what it did2 and pleasure ,sabbath amended to pleasure of ,sabbath4 ,on p4 #bdc ,khayym amended to ,khayym2 and in more marked way amended to in a more marked way4 ,on p4 #bed is authority amended to is the authority4 ,on p4 #bha phases amended to phrases4