{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40822/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40822","id":"gutenberg_40822","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40822","summary":null,"tags":["Bible -- History","Bible -- Influence","Bible and literature","Bible. English -- Versions -- Authorized","Category: American Literature","Category: British Literature","Category: History - British","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"THE GREATEST\nENGLISH CLASSIC\n\nA STUDY OF THE\nKING JAMES VERSION OF THE BIBLE\nAND ITS INFLUENCE ON LIFE\nAND LITERATURE\n\nBY\n\nCLELAND BOYD McAFEE, D.D.\n\nAUTHOR OF\n\"THE GROWING CHURCH\" \"MOSAIC LAW IN MODERN LIFE\"\n\"STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\nHARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS\nNEW YORK AND LONDON\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT. 1912, BY HARPER & BROTHERS\n\nPRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nLECTURE                                                   PAGE\n\nPreface                                                     v\n\nI. Preparing the Way--The English Bible Before\nKing James                                                  1\n\nII. The Making of the King James Version; Its\nCharacteristics                                            44\n\nIII. The King James Version as English Literature          89\n\nIV. The Influence of the King James Version on\nEnglish Literature                                        130\n\nV. The King James Version--Its Influence on English\nand American History                                      195\n\nVI. The Bible in the Life of To-day                       241\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe lectures included in this volume were prepared at the request of the\nBrooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and were delivered in the early\npart of 1912, under its auspices. They were suggested by the tercentenary\nof the King James version of the Bible. The plan adopted led to a\nrestatement of the history which prepared for the version, and of that\nwhich produced it. It was natural next to point out its principal\ncharacteristics as a piece of literature. Two lectures followed, noting\nits influence on literature and on history. The course closed with a\nstatement and argument regarding the place of the Bible in the life of\nto-day.\n\nThe reception accorded the lectures at the time of their public delivery,\nand the discussion which ensued upon some of the points raised, encourage\nthe hope that they may be more widely useful.\n\nIt is a pleasure to assign to Dr. Franklin W. Hooper, director of the\nInstitute, whatever credit the work may merit. Certainly it would not have\nbeen undertaken without his kindly urgency.\n\nCleland Boyd McAfee.\n\nBrooklyn, New York, May, 1912.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GREATEST ENGLISH CLASSIC\n\n\n\n\nTHE GREATEST ENGLISH CLASSIC\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I\n\nPREPARING THE WAY--THE ENGLISH BIBLE BEFORE KING JAMES\n\n\nThere are three great Book-religions--Judaism, Christianity, and\nMohammedanism. Other religions have their sacred writings, but they do not\nhold them in the same regard as do these three. Buddhism and Confucianism\ncount their books rather records of their faith than rules for it, history\nrather than authoritative sources of belief. The three great\nBook-religions yield a measure of authority to their sacred books which\nwould be utterly foreign to the thought of other faiths.\n\nYet among the three named are two very distinct attitudes. To the\nMohammedan the language as well as the matter of the Koran is sacred. He\nwill not permit its translation. Its original Arabic is the only\nauthoritative tongue in which it can speak. It has been translated into\nother tongues, but always by adherents of other faiths, never by its own\nbelievers. The Hebrew and the Christian, on the other hand, but notably\nthe Christian, have persistently sought to make their Bible speak all\nlanguages at all times.\n\nIt is a curious fact that a Book written in one tongue should have come to\nits largest power in other languages than its own. The Bible means more\nto-day in German and French and English than it does in Hebrew and\nChaldaic and Greek--more even than it ever meant in those languages. There\nis nothing just like that in literary history. It is as though Shakespeare\nshould after a while become negligible for most readers in English, and be\na master of thought in Chinese and Hindustani, or in some language yet\nunborn.\n\nWe owe this persistent effort to make the Bible speak the language of the\ntimes to a conviction that the particular language used is not the great\nthing, that there is something in it which gives it power and value in any\ntongue. No book was ever translated so often. Men who have known it in its\nearliest tongues have realized that their fellows would not learn these\nearliest tongues, and they have set out to make it speak the tongue their\nfellows did know. Some have protested that there is impiety in making it\nspeak the current tongue, and have insisted that men should learn the\nearliest speech, or at least accept their knowledge of the Book from those\nwho did know it. But they have never stopped the movement. They have only\ndelayed it.\n\nThe first movement to make the Scripture speak the current tongue appeared\nnearly three centuries before Christ. Most of the Old Testament then\nexisted in Hebrew. But the Jews had scattered widely. Many had gathered in\nEgypt where Alexander the Great had founded the city that bears his name.\nAt one time a third of the population of the city was Jewish. Many of the\npeople were passionately loyal to their old religion and its Sacred Book.\nBut the current tongue there and through most of the civilized world was\nGreek, and not Hebrew. As always, there were some who felt that the Book\nand its original language were inseparable. Others revealed the\ndisposition of which we spoke a moment ago, and set out to make the Book\nspeak the current tongue. For one hundred and fifty years the work went\non, and what we call the Septuagint was completed. There is a pretty\nlittle story which tells how the version got its name, which means the\nSeventy--that King Ptolemy Philadelphus, interested in collecting all\nsacred books, gathered seventy Hebrew scholars, sent them to the island of\nPharos, shut them up in seventy rooms for seventy days, each making a\ntranslation from the Hebrew into the Greek. When they came out, behold,\ntheir translations were all exactly alike! Several difficulties appear in\nthat story, one of which is that seventy men should have made the same\nmistakes without depending on each other. In addition, it is not\nhistorically supported, and the fact seems to be that the Septuagint was a\nlong and slow growth, issuing from the impulse to make the Sacred Book\nspeak the familiar tongue. And, though it was a Greek translation, it\nvirtually displaced the original, as the English Bible has virtually\ndisplaced the Hebrew and Greek to-day. The Septuagint was the Old\nTestament which Paul used. Of one hundred and sixty-eight direct\nquotations from the Old Testament in the New nearly all are from the Greek\nversion--from the translation, and not from the original.\n\nWe owe still more to translation. While there is accumulating evidence\nthat there was spoken in Palestine at that time a colloquial Greek, with\nwhich most people would be familiar, it is yet probable that our Lord\nspoke neither Greek nor Hebrew currently, but Aramaic. He knew the Hebrew\nScriptures, of course, as any well-trained lad did; but most of His words\nhave come down to us in translation. His name, for example, to His Hebrew\nmother, was not Jesus, but Joshua; and Jesus is the translation of the\nHebrew Joshua into Greek. We have His words as they were translated by His\ndisciples into the Greek, in which the New Testament was originally\nwritten.\n\nBy the time the writing of the New Testament was completed, say one\nhundred years after Christ, while Greek was still current speech, the\nRoman Empire was so dominant that the common people were talking Latin\nalmost as much as Greek, and gradually, because political power was behind\nit, the Latin gained on the Greek, and became virtually the speech of the\ncommon people. The movement to make the Bible talk the language of the\ntime appeared again. It is impossible to say now when the first\ntranslations into Latin were made. Certainly there were some within two\ncenturies after Christ, and by 250 A.D. a whole Bible in Latin was in\ncirculation in the Roman Empire. The translation of the New Testament was\nfrom the Greek, of course, but so was that of the Old Testament, and the\nLatin versions of the Old Testament were, therefore, translations of a\ntranslation.\n\nThere were so many of these versions, and they were so unequal in value,\nthat there was natural demand for a Latin translation that should be\nauthoritative. So came into being what we call the Vulgate, whose very\nname indicates the desire to get the Bible into the vulgar or common\ntongue. Jerome began by revising the earlier Latin translations, but ended\nby going back of all translations to the original Greek, and back of the\nSeptuagint to the original Hebrew wherever he could do so. Fourteen years\nhe labored, settling himself in Bethlehem, in Palestine, to do his work\nthe better. Barely four hundred years (404 A.D.) after the birth of Christ\nhis Latin version appeared. It met a storm of protest for its effort to go\nback of the Septuagint, so dominant had the translation become. Jerome\nfought for it, and his version won the day, and became the authoritative\nLatin translation of the Bible.\n\nFor seven or eight centuries it held its sway as the current version\nnearest to the tongue of the people. Latin had become the accepted tongue\nof the church. There was little general culture, there was little general\nacquaintance with the Bible except among the educated. During all that\ntime there was no real room for a further translation. One of the\nwriters[1] says: \"Medieval England was quite unripe for a Bible in the\nmother tongue; while the illiterate majority were in no condition to feel\nthe want of such a book, the educated minority would be averse to so great\nand revolutionary a change.\" When a man cannot read any writing it really\ndoes not matter to him whether books are in current speech or not, and the\nmajority of the people for those seven or eight centuries could read\nnothing at all. Those who could read anything were apt to be able to read\nthe Latin.\n\nThese centuries added to the conviction of many that the Bible ought not\nto become too common, that it should not be read by everybody, that it\nrequired a certain amount of learning to make it safe reading. They came\nto feel that it is as important to have an authoritative interpretation of\nthe Bible as to have the Bible itself. When the movement began to make it\nspeak the new English tongue, it provoked the most violent opposition.\nLatin had been good enough for a millennium; why cheapen the Bible by a\ntranslation? There had grown up a feeling that Jerome himself had been\ninspired. He had been canonized, and half the references to him in that\ntime speak of him as the inspired translator. Criticism of his version was\ncounted as impious and profane as criticisms of the original text could\npossibly have been. It is one of the ironies of history that the version\nfor which Jerome had to fight, and which was counted a piece of impiety\nitself, actually became the ground on which men stood when they fought\nagainst another version, counting anything else but this very version an\nimpious intrusion!\n\nHow early the movement for an English Bible began, it is impossible now to\nsay. Certainly just before 700 A.D., that first singer of the English\ntongue, C\u00e6dmon, had learned to paraphrase the Bible. We may recall the\nVenerable Bede's charming story of him, and how he came by his power of\ninterpretation. Bede himself was a child when C\u00e6dmon died, and the romance\nof the story makes it one of the finest in our literature. C\u00e6dmon was a\npeasant, a farm laborer in Northumbria working on the lands of the great\nAbbey at Whitby. Already he had passed middle life, and no spark of genius\nhad flashed in him. He loved to go to the festive gatherings and hear the\nothers sing their improvised poems; but, when the harp came around to him\nin due course, he would leave the room, for he could not sing. One night\nwhen he had slipped away from the group in shame and had made his rounds\nof the horses and cattle under his care, he fell asleep in the stable\nbuilding, and heard a voice in his sleep bidding him sing. When he\ndeclared he could not, the voice still bade him sing. \"What shall I sing?\"\nhe asked. \"Sing the first beginning of created things.\" And the words came\nto him; and, still dreaming, he sang his first hymn to the Creator. In the\nmorning he told his story, and the Lady Abbess found that he had the\ndivine gift. The monks had but to translate to him bits of the Bible out\nof the Latin, which he did not understand, into his familiar Anglo-Saxon\ntongue, and he would cast it into the rugged Saxon measures which could be\nsung by the common people. So far as we can tell, it was so that the Bible\nstory became current in Anglo-Saxon speech. Bede himself certainly put the\nGospel of John into Anglo-Saxon. At the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, there\nis a manuscript of nearly twenty thousand lines, the metrical version of\nthe Gospel and the Acts, done near 1250 by an Augustinian monk named Orm,\nand so called the Ormulum. There were other metrical versions of various\nparts of the Bible. Midway between Bede and Orm came Langland's poem, \"The\nVision of Piers Plowman,\" which paraphrased so much of the Scripture.\n\nYet the fact is that until the last quarter of the fourteenth century\nthere was no prose version of the Bible in the English language. Indeed,\nthere was only coming to be an English language. It was gradually\nemerging, taking definite shape and form, so that it could be\ndistinguished from the earlier Norman French, Saxon, and Anglo-Saxon, in\nwhich so much of it is rooted.\n\nAs soon as the language grew definite enough, it was inevitable that two\nthings should come to pass. First, that some men would attempt to make a\ncolloquial version of the Bible; and, secondly, that others would oppose\nit. One can count with all confidence on these two groups of men, marching\nthrough history like the animals into the ark, two and two. Some men\npropose, others oppose. They are built on those lines.\n\nWe are more concerned with the men who made the versions; but we must\nthink a moment of the others. One of his contemporaries, Knighton, may\nspeak for all in his saying of Wiclif, that he had, to be sure, translated\nthe Gospel into the Anglic tongue, but that it had thereby been made\nvulgar by him, and more open to the reading of laymen and women than it\nusually is to the knowledge of lettered and intelligent clergy, and \"thus\nthe pearl is cast abroad and trodden under the feet of swine\"; and, that\nwe may not be in doubt who are the swine, he adds: \"The jewel of the\nChurch is turned into the common sport of the people.\"\n\nBut two strong impulses drive thoughtful men to any effort that will\nsecure wide knowledge of the Bible. One is their love of the Bible and\ntheir belief in it; but the other, dominant then and now, is a sense of\nthe need of their own time. It cannot be too strongly urged that the two\ngreat pioneers of English Bible translation, Wiclif and Tindale, more than\na century apart, were chiefly moved to their work by social conditions. No\none could read the literature of the times of which we are speaking\nwithout smiling at our assumption that we are the first who have cared for\nsocial needs. We talk about the past as the age of the individual, and the\npresent as the social age. Our fathers, we say, cared only to be saved\nthemselves, and had no concern for the evils of society. They believed in\nrescuing one here and another there, while we have come to see the wisdom\nof correcting the conditions that ruin men, and so saving men in the mass.\nThere must be some basis of truth for that, since we say it so\nconfidently; but it can be much over-accented. There were many of our\nfathers, and of our grandfathers, who were mightily concerned with the\nmass of people, and looked as carefully as we do for a corrective of\nsocial evils. Wiclif, in the late fourteenth century, and Tindale, in the\nearly sixteenth, were two such men. The first English translations of the\nBible were fruits of the social impulse.\n\nWiclif was impressed with the chasm that was growing between the church\nand the people, and felt that a wider and fuller knowledge of the Bible\nwould be helpful for the closing of the chasm. It is a familiar remark of\nMiss Jane Addams that the cure for the evils of democracy is more\ndemocracy. Wiclif believed that the cure for the evils of religion is more\nreligion, more intelligent religion. He found a considerable feeling that\nthe best things in religion ought to be kept from most people, since they\ncould not be trusted to understand them. His own feeling was that the best\nthings in religion are exactly the things most people ought to know most\nabout; that people had better handle the Bible carelessly, mistakenly,\nthan be shut out from it by any means whatever. We owe the first English\ntranslation to a faith that the Bible is a book of emancipation for the\nmind and for the political life.\n\nJohn Wiclif himself was a scholar of Oxford, master of that famous Balliol\nCollege which has had such a list of distinguished masters. He was an\nadviser of Edward III. Twenty years after his death a younger contemporary\n(W. Thorpe) said that \"he was considered by many to be the most holy of\nall the men of his age. He was of emaciated frame, spare, and well nigh\ndestitute of strength. He was absolutely blameless in his conduct.\" And\neven that same Knighton who accused him of casting the Church's pearl\nbefore swine says that in philosophy \"he came to be reckoned inferior to\nnone of his time.\"\n\nBut it was not at Oxford that he came to know common life so well and to\nsense the need for a new social influence. He came nearer to it when he\nwas rector of the parish at Lutterworth. As scholar and rector he set\ngoing the two great movements which leave his name in history. One was his\nsecuring, training, and sending out a band of itinerant preachers or \"poor\npriests\" to gather the people in fields and byways and to preach the\nsimple truths of the Christian religion. They were unpaid, and lived by\nthe kindness of the common people. They came to be called Lollards,\nthough the origin of the name is obscure. Their followers received the\nsame name. A few years after Wiclif's death an enemy bitterly observed\nthat if you met any two men one was sure to be a Lollard. It was the\n\"first time in English history that an appeal had been made to the people\ninstead of the scholars.\" Religion was to be made rather a matter of\npractical life than of dogma or of ritual. The \"poor priests\" in their\ncheap brown robes became a mighty religious force, and evoked opposition\nfrom the Church powers. A generation after Wiclif's death they had become\na mighty political force in the controversy between the King and the Pope.\nAs late as 1521 five hundred Lollards were arrested in London by the\nbishop.[2] Wiclif's purpose, however, was to reach and help the common\npeople with the simpler, and therefore the most fundamental, truths of\nreligion.\n\nThe other movement which marks Wiclif's name concerns us more; but it was\nconnected with the first. He set out to give the common people the full\ntext of the Bible for their common use, and to encourage them not only in\nreading it, if already they could read, but in learning to read that they\nmight read it. Tennyson compares the village of Lutterworth to that of\nBethlehem, on the ground that if Christ, the Word of God, was born at\nBethlehem, the Word of Life was born again at Lutterworth.[3] The\ntranslation was from the Vulgate, and Wiclif probably did little of the\nactual work himself, yet it is all his work. And in 1382, more than five\ncenturies ago, there appeared the first complete English version of the\nBible. Wiclif made it the people's Book, and the English people were the\nfirst of the modern nations to whom the Bible as a whole was given in\ntheir own familiar tongue. Once it got into their hands they have never\nlet it be taken entirely away.\n\nOf course, all this was before the days of printing, and copies were made\nby hand only. Yet there were very many of them. One hundred and fifty\nmanuscripts, in whole or in part, are extant still, a score of them of the\noriginal version, the others of the revision at once undertaken by John\nPurvey, Wiclif's disciple. The copies belonging to Edward VI. and Queen\nElizabeth are both still in existence, and both show much use. Twenty\nyears after it was completed copies were counted very valuable, though\nthey were very numerous. It was not uncommon for a single complete\nmanuscript copy of the Wiclif version to be sold for one hundred and fifty\nor two hundred dollars, and Foxe, whose _Book of Martyrs_ we used to read\nas children, tells that a load of hay was given for the use of a New\nTestament one hour a day.\n\nIt would be difficult to exaggerate the influence of this gift to the\nEnglish people. It constitutes the standard of Middle English. Chaucer and\nWiclif stood side by side. It is true that Chaucer himself accepted\nWiclif's teaching, and some of the wise men think that the \"parson\" of\nwhom he speaks so finely as one who taught the lore of Christ and His\napostles twelve, but first followed it himself, was Wiclif. But the\nversion had far more than literary influence; it had tremendous power in\nkeeping alive in England that spirit of free inquiry which is the only\nsafeguard of free institutions. Here was the entire source of the\nChristian faith available for the judgment of common men, and they became\nat once judges of religious and political dogma. Dr. Ladd thinks it was\nnot the reading of the Bible which produced the Reformation; it was the\nReformation itself which procured the reading of the Bible.[4] But Dr.\nRashdall and Professor Pollard and others are right when they insist that\nthe English Reformation received less from Luther than from the secret\nreading of the Scripture over the whole country. What we call the English\nspirit of free inquiry was fostered and developed by Wiclif and his\nLollards with the English Scripture in their hands. Out of it has grown as\nout of no other one root the freedom of the English and American people.\n\nThis work of Wiclif deserves the time we have given it because it asserted\na principle for the English people. There was much yet to be done before\nentire freedom was gained. At Oxford, in the Convocation of 1408, it was\nsolemnly voted: \"We decree and ordain that no man hereafter by his own\nauthority translate any text of the Scripture into English, or any other\ntongue, by way of a book, pamphlet, or other treatise; but that no man\nread any such book, pamphlet, or treatise now lately composed in the time\nof John Wiclif ... until the said translation be approved by the orderly\nof the place.\" But it was too late. It is always too late to overtake a\nliberating idea once it gets free. Tolstoi tells of Batenkoff, the Russian\nnihilist, that after he was seized and confined in his cell he was heard\nto laugh loudly; and, when they asked him the cause of his mirth, he said\nthat he could not fail to be amused at the absurdity of the situation.\n\"They have caught me,\" he said, \"and shut me up here; but my ideas are out\nyonder in the streets and in the fields, absolutely free. They cannot\novertake them.\" It was already too late, twenty years after Wiclif's\nversion was available, to stop the English people in their search for\nreligious truth.\n\nIn the century just after the Wiclif translation, two great events\noccurred which bore heavily on the spread of the Bible. One was the\nrevival of learning, which made popular again the study of the classics\nand the classical languages. Critical and exact Greek scholarship became\nagain a possibility. Remember that Wiclif did not know Greek nor Hebrew,\ndid not need to know them to be the foremost scholar of Oxford in the\nfourteenth century. Even as late as 1502 there was no professor of Greek\nat the proud University of Erfurt when Luther was a student there. It was\nafter he became a doctor of divinity and a university professor that he\nlearned Greek in order to be a better Bible student, and his young friend\nPhilip Melancthon was the first to teach Greek in the University.[5] But\nunder the influence of Erasmus and his kind, with their new insistence on\nclassical learning, there came necessarily a new appraisal of the Vulgate\nas a translation of the original Bible. For a thousand years there had\nbeen no new study of the original Bible languages in Europe. The Latin of\nthe Vulgate had become as sacred as the Book itself. But the revival of\nlearning threw scholarship back on the sources of the text. Erasmus and\nothers published versions of the Greek Testament which were disturbing to\nthe Vulgate as a final version.\n\nThe other great event of that same century was the invention of printing\nwith movable type. It was in 1455 that Gutenberg printed his first book,\nan edition of the Vulgate, now called the Mazarin Bible. The bearing of\nthe invention on the spread of common knowledge is beyond description. It\nis rather late to be praising the art of printing, and we need spend\nlittle time doing so; but one can see instantly how it affected the use of\nthe Bible. It made it worth while to learn to read--there would be\nsomething to read. It made it worth while to write--there would be some\none to read what was written.\n\nOne hundred years exactly after the death of Wiclif, William Tindale was\nborn. He was eight years old when Columbus discovered America. He had\nalready taken a degree at Oxford, and was a student in Cambridge when\nLuther posted his theses at Wittenburg. Erasmus either was a teacher at\nCambridge when Tindale was a student there, or had just left. Sir Thomas\nMore and Erasmus were close friends, and More's _Utopia_ and Erasmus's\nGreek New Testament appeared the same year, probably while Tindale was a\nstudent at Cambridge.\n\nBut he came at a troubled time. The new learning had no power to deepen or\nstrengthen the moral life of the people. It could not make religion a\nvital thing. Morality and religion were far separated. The priests and\ncurates were densely ignorant. We need not ask Tindale what was the\ncondition. Ask Bellarmine, a cardinal of the Church: \"Some years before\nthe rise of the Lutheran heresy there was almost an entire abandonment of\nequity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred\nliterature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was\nalmost extinct.\" Or ask Erasmus, who never broke with the Church: \"What\nman of real piety does not perceive with sighs that this is far the most\ncorrupt of all ages? When did iniquity abound with more licentiousness?\nWhen was charity so cold?\" And, as a century before, Wiclif had felt the\nsocial need for a popular version of the Bible, so William Tindale felt it\nnow. He saw the need as great among the clergy of the time as among the\nlaity. In one of his writings he says: \"If you will not let the layman\nhave the word of God in his mother tongue, yet let the priests have it,\nwhich for the great part of them do understand no Latin at all, but sing\nand patter all day with the lips only that which the heart understandeth\nnot.\"[6] So bad was the case that it was not corrected within a whole\ngeneration. Forty years after Tindale's version was published, the Bishop\nof Gloucester, Hooper by name, made an examination of the clergy of his\ndiocese. There were 311 of them. He found 168, more than half, unable to\nrepeat the Ten Commandments; 31 who did not even know where they could be\nfound; 40 who could not repeat the Lord's Prayer; and nearly as many who\ndid not know where it originated; yet they were all in regular standing as\nclergy in the diocese of Gloucester. The need was keen enough.\n\nAbout 1523 Tindale began to cast the Scriptures into the current English.\nHe set out to London fully expecting to find support and encouragement\nthere, but he found neither. He found, as he once said, that there was no\nroom in the palace of the Bishop of London to translate the New Testament;\nindeed, that there was no place to do it in all England. A wealthy London\nmerchant subsidized him with the munificent gift of ten pounds, with which\nhe went across the Channel to Hamburg; and there and elsewhere on the\nContinent, where he could be hid, he brought his translation to\ncompletion. Printing facilities were greater on the Continent than in\nEngland; but there was such opposition to his work that very few copies of\nthe several editions of which we know can still be found. Tindale was\ncompelled to flee at one time with a few printed sheets and complete his\nwork on another press. Several times copies of his books were solemnly\nburned, and his own life was frequently in danger.\n\nThere is one amusing story which tells how money came to free Tindale from\nheavy debt and prepare the way for more Bibles. The Bishop of London,\nTunstall, was set on destroying copies of the English New Testament. He\ntherefore made a bargain with a merchant of Antwerp, Packington, to\nsecure them for him. Packington was a friend of Tindale, and went to him\nforthwith, saying: \"William, I know thou art a poor man, and I have gotten\nthee a merchant for thy books.\" \"Who?\" asked Tindale. \"The Bishop of\nLondon.\" \"Ah, but he will burn them.\" \"So he will, but you will have the\nmoney.\" And it all came out as it was planned; the Bishop of London had\nthe books, Packington had the thanks, Tindale had the money, the debt was\npaid, and the new edition was soon ready. The old document, from which I\nam quoting, adds that the Bishop thought he had God by the toe when,\nindeed, he found afterward that he had the devil by the fist.[7]\n\nThe final revision of the Tindale translations was published in 1534, and\nthat becomes the notable year of his life. In two years he was put to\ndeath by strangling, and his body was burned. When we remember that this\nwas done with the joint power of Church and State, we realize some of the\nodds against which he worked.\n\nSpite of his odds, however, Tindale is the real father of our King James\nversion. About eighty per cent. of his Old Testament and ninety per cent.\nof his New Testament have been transferred to our version. In the\nBeatitudes, for example, five are word for word in the two versions, while\nthe other three are only slightly changed.[8] Dr. Davidson has calculated\nthat nine-tenths of the words in the shorter New Testament epistles are\nTindale's, and in the longer epistles like the Hebrews five-sixths are\nhis. Froude's estimate is fair: \"Of the translation itself, though since\nthat time it has been many times revised and altered, we may say that it\nis substantially the Bible with which we are familiar. The peculiar genius\nwhich breathes through it, the mingled tenderness and majesty, the Saxon\nsimplicity, the preternatural grandeur, unequaled, unapproached, in the\nattempted improvements of modern scholars, all are here, and bear the\nimpress of the mind of one man, William Tindale.\"[9]\n\nWe said a moment ago that Wiclif's translation was the standard of Middle\nEnglish. It is time to add that Tindale's version \"fixed our standard\nEnglish once for all, and brought it finally into every English home.\" The\nrevisers of 1881 declared that while the authorized version was the work\nof many hands, the foundation of it was laid by Tindale, and that the\nversions that followed it were substantially reproductions of Tindale's,\nor revisions of versions which were themselves almost entirely based on\nit.\n\nThere was every reason why it should be a worthy version. For one thing,\nit was the first translation into English from the original Hebrew and\nGreek. Wiclif's had been from the Latin. For Tindale there were available\ntwo new and critical Greek Testaments, that of Erasmus and the so-called\nComplutensian, though he used that of Erasmus chiefly. There was also\navailable a carefully prepared Hebrew Old Testament. For another thing, it\nwas the first version which could be printed, and so be subject to easy\nand immediate correction and revision. Then also, Tindale himself was a\ngreat scholar in the languages. He was \"so skilled in the seven languages,\nHebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French, that,\nwhichever he spoke, you would suppose it was his native tongue.\"[10] Nor\nwas his spirit in the work controversial. I say his \"spirit in the work\"\nwith care. They were controversial times, and Tindale took his share in\nthe verbal warfare. When, for example, there was objection to making any\nEnglish version because \"the language was so rude that the Bible could not\nbe intelligently translated into it,\" Tindale replied: \"It is not so rude\nas they are false liars. For the Greek tongue agreeth more with the\nEnglish than with the Latin, a thousand parts better may it be translated\ninto the English than into the Latin.\"[11] And when a high church\ndignitary protested to Tindale against making the Bible so common, he\nreplied: \"If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that\ndriveth a plow shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost.\" And\nwhile that was not saying much for the plowboy, it was saying a good deal\nto the dignitary. In language, Tindale was controversial enough, but in\nhis spirit, in making his version, there was no element of controversy.\nFor such reasons as these we might expect the version to be valuable.\n\nAll this while, and especially between the time when Tindale first\npublished his New Testament and the time they burned him for doing so, an\ninteresting change was going on in England. The King was Henry VIII., who\nwas by no means a willing Protestant. As Luther's work appeared, it was\nthis same Henry who wrote the pamphlet against him during the Diet of\nWorms, and on the ground of this pamphlet, with its loyal support of the\nChurch against Luther, he received from the Roman pontiff the title\n\"Defender of the Faith,\" which the kings of England still wear. And yet\nunder this king this strange succession of dates can be given. Notice them\nclosely. In 1526 Tindale's New Testament was burned at St. Paul's by the\nBishop of London; ten years later, 1536, Tindale himself was burned with\nthe knowledge and connivance of the English government; and yet, one year\nlater, 1537, two versions of the Bible in English, three-quarters of which\nwere the work of Tindale, were licensed for public use by the King of\nEngland, and were required to be made available for the people! Eleven\nyears after the New Testament was burned, one year after Tindale was\nburned, that crown was set on his work! What brought this about?\n\nThree facts help to explain it. First, the recent years of Bible\ntranslation were having their weight. The fugitive copies of the Bible\nwere doing their work. Spite of the sharp opposition fifty thousand copies\nof Tindale's various editions had actually been published and circulated.\nMen were reading them; they were approving them. The more they read, the\nless reason they saw for hiding the Book from the people. Why should it\nnot be made common and free? There was strong Lutheran opinion in the\nuniversities. It was already a custom for English teachers to go to\nGermany for minute scholarship. They came back with German Bibles in\nLuther's version and with Greek Testaments, and the young scholars who\nwere being raised up felt the influence, consciously or unconsciously, of\nthe free use of the Bible which ruled in many German universities.\n\nThe second fact that helps to explain the sudden change of attitude toward\nthe Bible is this: the people of England were never willingly ruled from\nwithout, religiously or politically. There has recently been a\nconsiderable controversy over the history of the Established Church of\nEngland, whether it has always been an independent church or was at one\ntime officially a part of the Roman Church. That is a matter for\necclesiastical history to determine. The foundation fact, however, is as\nI worded it a moment ago: the people of England were never willingly\nruled from without, religiously or politically. They were sometimes ruled\nfrom without; but they were either indifferent to it at the time or\nrebellious against it. Those who did think claimed the right to think for\nthemselves. The Scotch of the north were peculiarly so, but the English of\nthe south claimed the same right. There has always been an immense\ncontrast between the two sides of the British Channel. The French people\nduring all those years were deeply loyal to a foreign religious\ngovernment. The English people were never so, not in the days of the\nfullest Roman supremacy. They always demanded at least a form of home\ngovernment. That made England a congenial home for the Protestant spirit,\nwhich claimed the right to independent study of the sources of religion\nand independent judgment regarding them. It was only a continuance of the\nspirit of Wiclif and the Lollards. The spirit in a nation lives long,\nespecially when it is passed down by tradition. Those were not the days of\nnewspapers. They were instead the days of great meetings, more important\nstill of small family gatherings, where the memory of the older men was\ncalled into use, and where boys and girls drank in eagerly the traditions\nof their own country as expressed in the great events of their history.\nNewspapers never can fully take the place of those gatherings, for they do\nnot bring men together to feel the thrill of the story that is told. It\nmust be remembered that the entire population of England at that time was\nonly about three millions. And that old spirit of independence was\nstrongly at work in the middle-class villages and among the merchants, and\nthey were a ruling and dominant class. That was second, that in those ten\nyears there asserted itself the age-long unwillingness of the English\npeople to be ruled from without.\n\nThe third fact which must be taken into account to explain this remarkable\nchange of front of the public English life is Henry VIII. himself. There\nis much about him that no country would willingly claim. He was the most\nhabitual bridegroom in English history; he had an almost confirmed habit\nof beheading his wives or otherwise ridding himself of them. Yet many\ntraits made him a typical outstanding Englishman. He had the\ncharacteristic spirit of independence, the resentment of foreign control,\nsatisfaction with his own land, the feeling that of course it is the best\nland. There are no people in the world so well satisfied with their own\ncountry as the people of England or the British Isles. They are critical\nof many things in their own government until they begin to compare it with\nother countries; they must make their changes on their own lines. The\npamphlet of Henry VIII., which won him the title of Defender of the Faith,\npraised the pope; and, though Sir Thomas More urged him to change his\nexpressions lest he should live to regret them, he would not change them.\nBut that was while the pope was serving his wishes and what he felt was\nEngland's good.\n\nThere arose presently the question, or the several questions, about his\nmarriage. It sheds no glory on Henry VIII. that they arose as they did;\nbut his treatment of them must not be mistaken. He was concerned to have\nhis marriage to Anne Boleyn confirmed, and there are some who think he was\nhonest in believing it ought to be confirmed, though we need not believe\nthat. What happened was that for the first time Henry VIII. found that as\nsovereign of England he must take commands from a foreign power, a power\nexercising temporal sovereignty exactly as he did, but adding to it a\nclaim to spiritual power, a claim to determine his conduct for him and to\nabsolve his people from loyalty to him if he was not obedient. It arose\nover the question of his divorce, but it might have arisen over anything\nelse. It was limitation on his sovereignty in England. And he let it be\nseen that all questions that pertain to England were to be settled in\nEngland, and not in another land. He would rather have a matter settled\nwrong in England than settled right elsewhere. That is how he claimed to\nbe head of the English Church. The people back of him had always held to\nthe belief that they were governed from within, though they were linked to\nreligion from without. He executed their theory. That assertion of English\nsovereignty came during the eventful years of which we are speaking.\n\nHere, then, are our great facts. First, thoughtful opinion wanted the\nBible made available, and at a convention of bishops and university men\nthe King was requested to secure the issuance of a proper translation.\nSecondly, the people wanted it, the more because it would gratify their\nEnglish instinct of independent judgment in matters of religion. Thirdly,\nthe King granted it without yielding his personal religious position, in\nassertion of his human sovereignty within his own realm.\n\nSo England awoke one morning in 1537 to discover that it had a translation\nof the Bible, two of them actually, open to its use, the very thing that\nhad been forbidden yesterday! And that, one year after Tindale had been\nburned in loyal France for issuing an English translation! Two versions\nwere now authorized and made available. What were they? That of Miles\nCoverdale, which had been issued secretly two years before, and that known\nas the \"Matthew\" Bible, though the name has no significance, issued within\na year. Details are not to our purpose. Neither was an independent work,\nbut was made largely from the Latin and the German, and much influenced by\nTindale. Coverdale was a Yorkshire man like Wiclif, feminine in his mental\ncast as Tindale was masculine. Coverdale made his translation because he\nloved books; Tindale because he felt driven to it. But now the way was\nclear, and other editions appeared. It is natural to name one or two of\nthe more notable ones.\n\nThere appeared what is known as the Great Bible in 1539. It was only\nanother version made by Coverdale on the basis of the Matthew version, but\ncorrected by more accurate knowledge. There is an interesting romance of\nits publication. The presses of England were not adequate for the great\nwork planned; it was to be a marvel of typography. So the consent of King\nFrancis was gained to have it printed in France, and Coverdale was sent\nas a special ambassador to oversee it. He was in dread of the Inquisition,\nwhich was in vogue at the time, and sent off his printed sheets to England\nas rapidly as possible. Suddenly one day the order of confiscation came\nfrom the Inquisitor-General. Only Coverdale's official position as\nrepresenting the King saved his own life. As for the printed sheets on\nwhich so much depended, they seemed doomed. But in the nick of time a\ndealer appeared at the printing-house and purchased four great vats full\nof waste paper which he shipped to England--when it was found that the\nwaste paper was those printed sheets. The presses and the printers were\nall loyal to England, and the edition was finally completed. The Great\nBible was issued to meet a decree that each church should make available\nin some convenient place the largest possible copy of the whole Bible,\nwhere all the parishioners could have access to it and read it at their\nwill. The version gets its name solely from the size of the volume. That\ndecree dates 1538, twelve years after Tindale's books were burned, and two\nyears after he was burned! The installation of these great books caused\ntremendous excitement--crowds gathered everywhere. Bishop Bonner caused\nsix copies of the great volume to be located wisely throughout St.\nPaul's. He found it difficult to make people leave them during the\nsermons. He was so often interrupted by voices reading to a group, and by\nthe discussions that ensued, that he threatened to have them taken out\nduring the service if people would not be quiet. The Great Bible appeared\nin seven editions in two years, and continued in recognized power for\nthirty years. Much of the present English prayer-book is taken from it.\n\nBut this liberty was so sudden that the people naturally abused it. Henry\nbecame vexed because the sacred words \"were disputed, rimed, sung, and\njangled in every ale-house.\" There had grown up a series of wild ballads\nand ribald songs in contempt of \"the old faith,\" while it was not really\nthe old faith which was in dispute, but only foreign control of English\nfaith. They had mistaken Henry's meaning. So Henry began to put\nrestrictions on the use of the Bible. There were to be no notes or\nannotations in any versions, and those that existed were to be blacked\nout. Only the upper classes were to be allowed to possess a Bible.\nFinally, the year before his death, all versions were prohibited except\nthe Great Bible, whose cost and size precluded secret use. The decree led\nto another great burning of Bibles in 1546--Tindale, Coverdale,\nMatthew--all but the Great Bible. The leading religious reformers took\nflight and fled to European Protestant towns like Frankfort and\nStrassburg. But the Bible remained. Henry VIII. died. The Bible lived on.\n\nUnder Edward VI., the boy king, coming to the throne at nine and dying at\nfifteen, the regency with Cranmer at its head earned its bad name. But\nwhile its members were shamelessly despoiling churches and enriching\nthemselves they did one great service for the Bible. They cast off all\nrestrictions on its translation and publication. The order for a Great\nBible in every church was renewed, and there was to be added to it a copy\nof Erasmus's paraphrase of the four gospels. Nearly fifty editions of the\nBible, in whole or in part, appeared in those six years.\n\nAnd that was fortunate, for then came Mary--and the deluge. Of course, she\nagain gave in the nominal allegiance of England to the Roman control. But\nshe utterly missed the spirit of the people. They were weary with the\nexcesses of rabid Protestantism; but they were by no means ready to admit\nthe principle of foreign control in religious matters. They might have\nbeen willing, many of them, that the use of the Bible should be\nrestricted, if it were done by their own sovereign. They were not willing\nthat another sovereign should restrict them. So the secret use of the\nBible increased. Martyr fires were kindled, but by the light of them the\npeople read their Bibles more eagerly. And this very persecution led to\none of the best of the early versions of the Bible, indirectly even to the\nKing James version.\n\nThe flower of English Protestant scholarship was driven into exile, and\nfound its way to Frankfort and Geneva again. There the spirit of\nscholarship was untrammeled; there they found material for scholarly study\nof the Bible, and there they made and published a new version of the Bible\nin English, by all means the best that had been made. In later years,\nunder Elizabeth, it drove the Great Bible off the field by sheer power of\nexcellence. During her reign sixty editions of it appeared. This was the\nversion called the Genevan Bible. It made several changes that are\nfamiliar to us. For one thing, in the Genevan edition of 1560 first\nappeared our familiar division into verses. The chapter division was made\nthree centuries earlier; but the verses belong to the Genevan version, and\nare divided to make the Book suitable for responsive use and for readier\nreference. It was taken in large part from the work of Robert Stephens,\nwho had divided the Greek Testament into verses, ten years earlier, during\na journey which he was compelled to make between Paris and Lyons. The\nGenevan version also abandoned the old black letter, and used the Roman\ntype with which we are familiar. It had full notes on hard passages, which\nnotes, as we shall see, helped to produce the King James version. The work\nitself was completed after the accession of Elizabeth, when most of the\nreligious leaders had returned to England from their exile under Mary.\n\nElizabeth herself was not an ardent Protestant, not ardent at all\nreligiously, but an ardent Englishwoman. She understood her people, and\nwhile she prided herself on being the \"Guardian of the Middle Way,\" she\ndid not make the mistake of submitting her sovereignty to foreign\nsupervision. Probably Elizabeth always counted herself personally a\nCatholic, but not politically subject to the Roman pontiff. She had no\nwish to offend other Catholic powers; but she was determined to develop a\nstrong national spirit and to allow religious differences to exist if they\nwould be peaceful. The dramatic scene which was enacted at the time of\nher coronation procession was typical of her spirit. As the procession\npassed down Cheapside, a venerable old man, representing Time, with a\nlittle child beside him representing Truth--Time always old, Truth always\nyoung--presented the Queen with a copy of the Scriptures, which she\naccepted, promising to read them diligently.\n\nPresently it was found that two versions of the Bible were taking the\nfield, the old Great Bible and the new Genevan Bible. On all accounts the\nGenevan was the better and was driving out its rival. Yet there could be\nno hope of gaining the approval of Elizabeth for the Genevan Bible. For\none thing, John Knox had been a party to its preparation; so had Calvin.\nElizabeth detested them both, especially Knox. For another thing, its\nnotes were not favorable to royal sovereignty, but smacked so much of\npopular government as to be offensive. For another thing, though it had\nbeen made mostly by her own people, it had been made in a foreign land,\nand was under suspicion on that account. The result was that Elizabeth's\narchbishop, Parker, set out to have an authorized version made, selected a\nrevision committee, with instructions to follow wherever possible the\nGreat Bible, to avoid bitter notes, and to make such a version that it\nmight be freely, easily, and naturally read. The result is known as the\nBishops' Bible. It was issued in Elizabeth's tenth year (1568), but there\nis no record that she ever noticed it, though Parker sent her a copy from\nhis sick-bed. The Bishops' Bible shows the influence of the Genevan Bible\nin many ways, though it gives no credit for that. It is not of equal\nmerit; it was expensive, too cumbersome, and often unscholarly. Only its\nofficial standing gave it life, and after forty years, in nineteen\neditions, it was no longer published.\n\nNaming one other English version will complete the series of facts\nnecessary for the consideration of the forming of the King James version.\nIt will be remembered that all the English versions of the Bible thus far\nmentioned were the work of men either already out of favor with the Roman\npontiff, or speedily put out of favor on that account. Thirty years after\nhis death, Wiclif's bones were taken up and burned; Tindale was burned.\nCoverdale's version and the Great Bible were the product of the period\nwhen Henry VIII. was under the ban. The Genevan Bible was the work of\nrefugees, and the Bishops' Bible was prepared when Elizabeth had been\nexcommunicated. That fact seemed to many loyal Roman churchmen to put the\nChurch in a false light. It must be made clear that its opposition was not\nto the Bible, not even to popular use and possession of the Bible, but\nonly to unauthorized, even incorrect, versions. So there came about the\nDouai version, instigated by Gregory Martin, and prepared in some sense as\nan answer to the Genevan version and its strongly anti-papal notes. It was\nthe work of English scholars connected with the University of Douai. The\nNew Testament was issued at Rheims in 1582, and the whole Bible in 1609,\njust before our King James version. It is made, not from the Hebrew and\nthe Greek, though it refers to both, but from the Vulgate. The result is\nthat the Old Testament of the Douai version is a translation into English\nfrom the Latin, which in large part is a translation into Latin from the\nGreek Septuagint, which in turn is a translation into Greek from the\nHebrew. Yet scholars are scholars, and it shows marked influence of the\nGenevan version, and, indeed, of other English versions. Its notes were\nstrongly anti-Protestant, and in its preface it explains its existence by\nsaying that Protestants have been guilty of \"casting the holy to dogs and\npearls to hogs.\"\n\nThe version is not in the direct line of the ascent of the familiar\nversion, and needs no elaborate description. Its purpose was\ncontroversial; it did not go to available sources; its English was not\ncolloquial, but ecclesiastical. For example, in the Lord's Prayer we read:\n\"Give us this day our supersubstantial bread,\" instead of \"our daily\nbread.\" In Hebrews xiii:17, the version reads, \"Obey your prelates and be\nsubject unto them.\" In Luke iii:3, John came \"preaching the baptism of\npenance.\" In Psalm xxiii:5, where we read, \"My cup runneth over,\" the\nDouai version reads, \"My chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly it is.\"\nThere is a careful retention of ecclesiastical terms, and an explanation\nof the passages on which Protestants had come to differ rather sharply\nfrom their Roman brethren, as in the matter of the taking of the cup by\nthe people, and elsewhere.\n\nYet it is only fair to remember that this much answer was made to the\nversions which were preparing the way for the greatest version of them\nall, and when the time came for the making of that version, and the helps\nwere gathered together, the Douai was frankly placed among them. It is a\npeculiar irony of fate that while the purpose of Gregory Martin was to\ncheck the translation of the Bible by the Protestants, the only effect of\nhis work was to advance and improve that translation.\n\nAt last, as we shall see in our next study, the way was cleared for a free\nand open setting of the Bible into English. The way had been beset with\nstruggle, marked with blood, lighted by martyr fires. Wiclif and Purvey,\nTindale and Coverdale, the refugees at Geneva and the Bishops at London,\nall had trod that way. Kings had fought them or had favored them; it was\nall one; they had gone on. Loyal zest for their Book and loving zeal for\nthe common people had held them to the path. Now it had become a highway\nopen to all men. And right worthy were the feet which were soon treading\nit.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Hoare, _Evolution of the English Bible_, p. 39.\n\n[2] Muir, _Our Grand Old Bible_, p. 24.\n\n[3] \"Not least art thou, thou little Bethlehem\n    In Judah, for in thee the Lord was born;\n    Nor thou in Britain, little Lutterworth,\n    Least, for in thee the word was born again.\"\n          --_Sir John Oldcastle._\n\n[4] _What Is the Bible?_, p. 45.\n\n[5] McGiffert, _Martin Luther_.\n\n[6] _Obedience of a Christian Man._\n\n[7] Pollard, _Records of the English Bible_, p. 151.\n\n[8] The fourth reads in his version, \"Blessed are they which hunger and\nthirst for righteousness\"; the seventh, \"Blessed are the maintainers of\npeace\"; the eighth, \"Blessed are they which suffer persecution for\nrighteousness' sake.\"\n\n[9] _History of England_, end of chap. xii.\n\n[10] Herman Buschius.\n\n[11] This will mean the more to us when we realize that the literary men\nof the day despised the English tongue. Sir Thomas More wrote his _Utopia_\nin Latin, because otherwise educated men would not deign to read it. Years\nlater Roger Ascham apologized for writing one of his works in English.\nPutting the Bible into current English impressed these literary men very\nmuch as we would be impressed by putting the Bible into current slang.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II\n\nTHE MAKING OF THE KING JAMES VERSION; ITS CHARACTERISTICS\n\n\nEarly in January, 1604, men were making their way along the poor English\nhighways, by coach and carrier, to the Hampton Court Palace of the new\nEnglish king. They were coming from the cathedral towns, from the\nuniversities, from the larger cities. Many were Church dignitaries, many\nwere scholars, some were Puritans, all were loyal Englishmen, and they\nwere gathering in response to a call for a conference with the king, James\nI. They were divided in sentiment, these men, and those who hoped most\nfrom the conference were doomed to complete disappointment. Not one among\nthem, not the King, had the slightest purpose that the conference should\ndo what proved to be its only real service. Some of the men, grave and\nearnest, were coming to present their petitions to the King, others were\ncoming to oppose their petitions; the King meant to deny them and to\nharry the petitioners. And everything came out as it had been planned. Yet\nthe largest service of the conference, the only real service, was in no\none's mind, for it was at Hampton Court, on the last day of the conference\nbetween James and the churchmen, January 18, 1604, that the first formal\nstep was taken toward the making of the so-called Authorized Version of\nthe English Bible. If there are such things as accidents, this great\nenterprise began in an accident. But the outcome of the accident, the\nvolume that resulted, is \"allowed by all competent authorities to be the\nfirst [that is, the chief] English classic,\" if our Professor Cook, of\nYale, may speak; \"is universally accepted as a literary masterpiece, as\nthe noblest and most beautiful Book in the world, which has exercised an\nincalculable influence upon religion, upon manners, upon literature, and\nupon character,\" if the Balliol College scholar Hoare can be trusted; and\nhas \"made the English language,\" if Professor March is right. The purpose\nof this study is to show how that accident occurred, and what immediately\ncame from it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWith the death of Elizabeth the Tudor line of sovereigns died out. The\ncollateral Stuart line, descending directly from Henry VII., naturally\nsucceeded to the throne, and James VI. of Scotland made his royal progress\nto the English capital and became James I. of England. In him appears the\nfirst of that Stuart line during whose reign great changes were to occur.\nEvery one in the line held strongly to the dogma of the divine right of\nkings, yet under that line the English people transferred sovereignty from\nthe king to Parliament.[12] Fortunately for history, and for the progress\nof popular government, the Stuart line had no forceful figures in it.\nMacaulay thinks it would have been fatal to English liberty if they had\nbeen able kings. It was easier to take so dangerous a weapon as the divine\nright of kings from weak hands than from strong ones. So it was that\nthough James came out of Scotland to assert his divine and arbitrary right\nas sovereign, by the time Queen Anne died, closing the Stuart line and\ngiving way to the Hanoverian, the real sovereignty had passed into the\nhands of Parliament.\n\nBut the royal traveler, coming from Edinburgh to London, is interesting on\nhis own account--interesting at this distance. He is thirty-seven years\nold, and ought to be in the beginning of his prime. He is a little over\nmiddle height; loves a good horse, though he is an ungainly rider, and has\nfallen off his horse three or four times during his royal progress; is a\nheavy drinker of the liquors of the period, with horribly coarse, even\ngross manners. Macaulay is very severe with him. He says that \"his\ncowardice, his childishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person and\nmanners, his provincial accent, made him an object of derision. Even in\nhis virtues and accomplishments there was something eminently\nunkingly.\"[13] It seemed too bad that \"royalty should be exhibited to the\nworld stammering, slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, trembling at the\ndrawn sword, and talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a\npedagogue.\" That is truly not an attractive picture. But there is\nsomething on the other side. John Richard Green puts both sides: \"His big\nhead, his slobbering tongue, his quilted clothes, his rickety legs stood\nout in as grotesque a contrast with all that men recalled of Henry and\nElizabeth as his gabble and rhodomontade, his want of personal dignity,\nhis buffoonery, his coarseness of speech, his pedantry, his contemptible\ncowardice. Under this ridiculous exterior, however, lay a man of much\nnatural ability, a ripe scholar with a considerable fund of shrewdness, of\nmother wit and ready repartee.\"[14]\n\nSome good traits he must have had. He did win some men to him. As some one\nhas said, \"You could love him; you could despise him; you could not hate\nhim.\" He could say some witty and striking things. For example, when he\nwas urging the formal union of Scotland and England, and it was opposed,\nhe said: \"But I am the husband, and the whole island is my wife. I hope no\none will be so unreasonable as to suppose that I, that am a Christian king\nunder the Gospel, should be a polygamist and husband to two wives.\"[15]\nAfter the conference of which we have been speaking, he wrote to a friend\nin Scotland: \"I have had a revel with the Puritans and have peppered them\nsoundly.\" As indeed he had. Then, in some sense at least, \"James was a\nborn theologian.\" He had studied the Bible in some form from childhood;\none of the first things we hear of his doing is the writing of a\nparaphrase on the book of the Revelation. In his talk he made easy and\nfree use of Scripture quotations. To be sure, his knowledge, on which he\nprided himself unconscionably, was shallow and pedantic. Henry IV. of\nFrance, one of his contemporaries, said that he was \"the wisest fool in\nChristendom.\"\n\nNow, it was this man who was making his royal progress from Edinburgh to\nLondon in March, 1603, nearly a year before the gathering of men which we\nwere observing at the opening of this study. Many things happened on the\njourney besides his falling off his horse several times; but one of the\nmost significant was the halting of the progress to receive what was\ncalled the Miliary Petition, whose name implies that it was signed by a\nthousand men--actually somewhat less than that number--mostly ministers of\nthe Church. The Petition made no mention of any Bible version, yet it was\nthe beginning of the events which led to it. Back of it was the Puritan\ninfluence. It asked for reforms in the English Church, for the correction\nof abuses which had grown under Elizabeth's increasing favor of ritual and\nceremony. It asked for a better-trained ministry, for better discipline in\nthe Church, for the omission of so many detailed requirements of rites and\nceremonies, and for that perennially desired reform, shorter church\nservices!\n\nVery naturally the new King replied that he would take it up later, and\npromised to call a conference to consider it. And this he did. The\nconference met at Hampton Court in January, 1604, and it was for this that\nthe men were coming from many parts of England. The gathering was held on\nthe 14th, 16th, and 18th of the month. Its sole purpose was to consider\nthat Miliary Petition; but the King called to it not only those who had\nsigned the Petition, but those who had opposed it. He had no notion of\ngranting any favor to it, and from the first he gave the Puritans rough\ntreatment. He told them he would have none of their non-conformity, he\nwould \"make them conform or harry them out of the land.\" Some one\nsuggested that since this was a Church matter there be called a Synod, or\nsome general gathering fitted to discuss and determine such things, rather\nthan leave it to a few Church dignitaries. For the purposes of the\npetitioners it was a most unfortunate expression. James had just come from\nScotland, where the Presbyterians were with their Synod, and where\nCalvinism was in full swing. He was much in favor of some elements of\nCalvinism; but he could not see how all the elements held together.\nPredestination, for example, which offends so many people to-day, was a\nprecious doctrine to King James, and he insisted that his subjects ought\nto see how clearly God had predestined him to rule over them! But he\ncould not tolerate the necessary logical inference of Calvinism that all\nmen must be equal before God, and so men can make and unmake kings as they\nneed to do so, the matter of king or subject being purely an incidental\none. He remembered the time when Andrew Melville, one of the Scotch\nministers, had plucked him by his royal sleeve and called him \"God's silly\nvassal\" right to his face. So, when some one said \"Synod\" it brought the\nKing up standing. He burst out: \"If that is what you mean, if you want\nwhat the Scotch mean by their Synod and their Presbytery, then I tell you\nat once that I will have none of it. Presbytery agrees with monarchy very\nmuch as God agrees with the devil. If you have no bishop, you will soon\nhave no king.\" He was perfectly right, with reference to the kind of king\nhe meant. These things were to be settled, he meant, by authority, and not\nby conference. That is the point to which Gardiner refers when he says\nthat \"in two minutes James sealed his own fate and that of England\nforever.\"[16]\n\nAfter that there was only a losing fight for the petitioners. They had\ntouched a sore spot in James's history. But it was when they touched that\nsore spot again that they started the movement for a new version of the\nBible. It was on the second day of the conference, January 16th, that Dr.\nReynolds, president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who represented the\nmoderate Puritan position, and, like many moderate men, was rather\nsuspected by both extreme wings, instanced as one of the hardships of the\nPuritans that they were compelled to use the prayer-book of the time, and\nthat it contained many mistranslations of Scripture, some of which he\nquoted. Now, it so happens that the errors to which he referred occur in\nthe Bishops' and the Great Bible, which were the two authorized versions\nof the time, but are all corrected in the Genevan version. We do not know\nwhat point he was trying to make, whether he was urging that the Genevan\nversion should supplant these others, or whether he was calling for a new\ntranslation. Indeed, we are not sure that he even mentioned the Genevan\nversion. But James spoke up to say that he had never yet seen a Bible well\ntranslated into English; but the worst of all he thought the Genevan to\nbe. He spoke as though he had just had a copy given him by an English\nlady, and had already noted what he called its errors. That was at the\nvery least a royal evasion, for if there was any Book he did know it was\nthe Genevan version. He had been fairly raised on it; he had lived in the\ncountry where it was commonly used. It had been preached at him many and\nmany a time. Indeed, he had used it as the text for that paraphrase of the\nRevelation of which we spoke a moment ago. And he knew its notes--well he\nknew them--knew that they were from republican Geneva, and that kingly\npretensions had short shrift with them. James told the conference that\nthese notes were \"very partial, untrue, seditious, savoring too much of\ntraitorous and dangerous conceits,\" supporting his opinion by two\ninstances which seemed disrespectful to royalty. One of these instances\nwas the note on Exodus i:17, where the Egyptian midwives are said to have\ndisobeyed the king in the matter of destroying the children. The note\nsays: \"Their disobedience to the king was lawful, though their dissembling\nwas not.\" James quoted that, and said: \"It is false; to disobey the king\nis not lawful, and traitorous conceits should not go forth among the\npeople.\"\n\nSome of the High Church party objected that there were translations enough\nalready; but it struck James's fancy to set them all aside by another\nversion, which he at once said he would order. It was to be made by the\nmost learned of both universities, then to be revised by the bishops and\nother Church dignitaries, then presented to the Privy Council, and finally\nto be passed upon by himself. There is the echo of some sharp Scotch\nexperiences in his declaration that there were to be no marginal notes in\nthat new version.\n\nWhen they looked back on the conference, the Puritans felt that they had\nlost everything, and the High Church people that they had gained\neverything. One of the bishops, in a very servile way, and on his knee,\ngave thanks to God for having given the country such a king, whose like\nhad never been seen since Christ was on earth. Certainly hard times were\nahead for the Puritans. The King harried them according to his word.\nWithin sixteen years some of them landed at Plymouth Rock, and things\nbegan to happen on this side. That settlement at Plymouth was the outcome\nof the threat the King had made at the Hampton Court conference.\n\nBut looking back one can see that the conference was worth while for the\nbeginning of the movement for the new version. The King was true to his\nword in this line also, and before the year was out had appointed the\nfifty-four best Bible scholars of the realm to make the new version. They\nwere to sit in six companies of nine each, two at Oxford, two at\nCambridge, and two at Westminster. The names of only forty-seven of them\nhave come down to us, and it is not known whether the other seven were\never appointed, or in what way their names have been lost. It must be said\nfor the King that the only principle of selection was scholarship, and\nwhen those six groups of men met they were men of the very first rank,\nwith no peers outside their own numbers--with one exception, and that\nexception is of some passing interest. Hugh Broughton was probably the\nforemost Hebrew scholar of England, perhaps of the world, at the time, and\napparently he was not appointed on the committee. Chiefly, it seems to\nhave been because he was a man of ungovernable temper and utterly unfitted\nto work with others. Failure to appoint him, however, bit and rankled, and\nthe only keen and sharp criticism that was passed on the version in its\nown day was by Hugh Broughton. He sent word to the King, after it was\ncompleted, that as for himself he would rather be rent to pieces by wild\nhorses than have had any part in the urging of such a wretched version of\nthe Bible on the poor people. That was so manifestly pique, however, that\nit is only to be regretted that the translation did not have the benefit\nof his great Hebrew knowledge. John Selden, at his prime in that day,\nvoiced the feeling of most scholars of the times, that the new translation\nwas the best in the world and best gave the sense of the original.\n\nWe do not know much of the personnel of the company. Their names would\nmean very little to us at this distance. All were clergymen except one.\nThere were bishops, college principals, university fellows, and rectors.\nDr. Reynolds, who suggested it in the first place, was a member, though he\ndid not live to see the work finished. This Dr. Reynolds, by the way, was\nparty to a most curious episode. He had been an ardent Roman Catholic, and\nhe had a brother who was an equally ardent Protestant. They argued with\neach other so earnestly that each convinced the other; the Roman Catholic\nbecame a Protestant, and the Protestant became a Roman Catholic! Dr.\nLancelot Andrewes, chairman of one of the two companies that met at\nWestminster, was probably the most learned man in England. They said of\nhim that if he had been present at the tower of Babel he could have\ninterpreted for all the tongues present. The only trouble was that the\nworld lacked learning enough to know how learned he was. His company had\nthe first part of the Old Testament, and the simple dignity of the style\nthey used shows how scholarship and simplicity go easily together. Most\npeople would consider that the least satisfactory part of the work is the\nsecond section, running from I Chronicles to Ecclesiastes. A convert from\nanother faith, who learned to read the Bible in English, once expressed to\na friend of my own his feeling that except for the Psalms and parts of\nJob, there seemed to be here a distinct letting-down of the dignity of the\ntranslation. There is good excuse for this, if it is so, for two leading\nmembers of the company who had that section in charge, both eminent\nCambridge scholars, died very early in the work, and their places were not\nfilled. The third company, sitting at Oxford, were peculiarly strong, and\nhad for their portion the hardest part of the Old Testament--all the\nprophetical writings. But they did their part with finest skill. The\nfourth company, sitting at Cambridge, had the Apocrypha, the books which\nlie between the Old and the New Testaments for the most part, or else are\nsupplemental to certain Old Testament books. Their work was rather hastily\nand certainly poorly done, and has been dropped out of most editions. The\nfifth company, sitting at Oxford, with great Greek scholars on it, took\nthe Gospels, the Acts, and the Revelation. This company had in it the one\nlayman, Sir Henry Savile, then the greatest Greek scholar in England. It\nis the same Sir Henry Savile who heard, on his death-bed in 1621, that\nJames had with his own hands torn from the Journal of Parliament the pages\nwhich bore the protest in favor of free speech in Parliament. Hearing it,\nthe faithful scholar prayed to die, saying: \"I am ready to depart, the\nrather that having lived in good times I foresee worse.\" The sixth company\nmet at Westminster and translated the New Testament epistles.\n\nIt was the original plan that when one company had finished its part, the\nresult should go to each of the other companies, coming back with their\nsuggestions to the original workers to be recast by them. The whole was\nthen to be reviewed by a smaller committee of scholars to give it\nuniformity and to see it through the press. The records are not extant\nthat tell whether this was done in full detail, though we may presume that\neach section of the Scripture had the benefit of the scholarship of the\nentire company.\n\nWe know a good deal of the method of their work. We shall understand it\nbetter by recalling what material they had at hand. They were enabled to\nuse the result of all the work that had been done before them. They were\ninstructed to follow the Bishops' Bible wherever they could do so fairly;\nbut they were given power to use the versions already named from Wiclif\ndown, as well as those fragmentary versions which were numerous, and of\nwhich no mention has been made. They ransacked all English forms for\nfelicitous words and happy phrases. It is one of the interesting incidents\nthat this same Hugh Broughton, who was left off the committee and took it\nso hard, yet without his will contributed some important matter to the\ntranslation, because he had on his own authority made translations of\ncertain parts of the Scripture. Several of our capital phrases in the King\nJames version are from him. There was no effort to break out new paths.\nPreference was always given to a familiar phrase rather than to a new one,\nunless accuracy required it. First, then, they had the benefit of all the\nwork that had been done before in the same line, and gladly used it.\n\nIn addition, they had all other versions made in the tongues of the time.\nChiefly there was Luther's German Bible, already become for the German\ntongue what their version was destined to be for the English tongue. There\nwere parts of the Bible available in Spanish, French, and Dutch. They were\nkept at hand constantly for any light they might cast on difficult\npassages.\n\nFor the Old Testament there were very few Hebrew texts. There had been\nlittle critical work yet done on them, and for the most part there were\nonly different editions running back over the centuries. We have little\nmore than that now, and there is almost no new material on the Old\nTestament since the days of the King James translators. There was, of\ncourse, the Septuagint, the Greek translation from the Hebrew made before\nChrist, with the guidance it could give in doubtful places on the probable\noriginal. And finally there was the Vulgate, made into Latin out of the\nGreek and Hebrew. This was all the Old Testament material they had, or\nthat any one could have in view of the antiquated original sources.\n\nThe New Testament material was more abundant, though not nearly so\nabundant as to-day. There were few manuscripts of the early days to which\nthey could refer; but there were the two great critical versions of the\nNew Testament in Greek, that by Erasmus and the Complutensian, which had\nmade use of the best manuscripts known. Then, finally again, there was the\nVulgate.\n\nWe must stop a moment to see what was the value of the Vulgate in this\nwork. It is impossible to reckon the number of the early New Testament\nmanuscripts that have been lost. In the earlier day the Scriptures were\ntransmitted from church to church, and from age to age, by manuscripts.\nMany of them were made as direct copies of other manuscripts; but many\nwere made by scribes to whom the manuscripts were read as they wrote, so\nthat there are many, though ordinarily comparatively slight, variations\namong the manuscripts which we now know. More manuscripts are coming to\nlight constantly, manuscripts once well known and then lost. Many of them,\nperhaps many earlier than we now have, must have been familiar to Jerome\nfour hundred years after Christ. When, therefore, there is a plain\ndifference between the Vulgate and our early Greek manuscripts, the\nVulgate may be wrong because it is only a translation; but it may be right\nbecause it is a translation of earlier manuscripts than some of ours. It\nis steadily losing its value at that point, for Greek manuscripts are all\nthe time coming to light which run farther back. But we must not minimize\nthe value of the Vulgate for our King James translation.\n\nWith all this material the scholars of the early seventeenth century set\nto work. Each man in the group made the translation that seemed best to\nhim, and together they analyzed the results and finally agreed on the\nbest. They hunted the other versions to see if it had been better done\nelsewhere. The shade of Tindale was over it all. The Genevan version was\nmost influential. The Douai had its share, and the Bishops' was the\ngeneral standard, altered only when accuracy required it. On all hard\npassages they called to their aid the appropriate departments of both\nuniversities. All scholars everywhere were asked to send in any\ncontributions, to correct or criticize as they would. Public announcement\nof the work was made, and all possible help was besought and gladly\naccepted.\n\nVery faithfully these greatest scholars of their time wrought. No one\nworked for money, and no one worked for pay, but each for the joy of the\nworking. Three years they spent on the original work, three years on\ncareful revision and on the marginal references by which Scripture was\nmade to throw light on Scripture. Then in six months a committee reviewed\nit all, put it through the press, and at last, in 1611, with the imprint\nof Robert Barker, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, the King\nJames version appeared. The name Authorized Version is not a happy one,\nfor so far as the records go it was never authorized either by the King or\nthe bishop; and, even if it were, the authority does not extend beyond the\nEnglish Church, which is a very small fraction of those who use it. On the\ntitle-page of the original version, as on so many since, is the familiar\nline, \"Appointed to be Read in Churches,\" but who made the appointment\nhistory does not say.\n\nThe version did not at once supersede the Genevan and the Bishops'; but it\nwas so incomparably better than either that gradually they disappeared,\nand by sheer excellence it took the field, and it holds the field to-day\nin spite of the numerous supposedly improved versions that have appeared\nunder private auspices. It holds the field, also, in spite of the\nexcellent revised version of 1881 made by authority, and the more\nexcellent version issued in 1901 by the American Revision Committee,\nto-day undoubtedly the best version in existence, considered simply as a\nreproduction of the sense of the original. And for reasons that may later\nappear, the King James version bids fair to hold the field for many years\nto come.\n\nWhen we turn from the history of its making to the work itself, there is\nmuch to say. We may well narrow our thought for the remainder of the study\nto its traits as a _version_ of the Bible.\n\nI. Name this first, that it is an honest version. That is, it has no\nargumentative purpose. It is not, as the scholars say, apologetic. It is\nsimply an out-and-out version of the Scripture, as honestly as they could\nreproduce it. There were Puritans on the committee; there were extreme\nHigh Churchmen; there were men of all grades between. But there is nowhere\nany evidence that any one was set on making the Bible prove his point.\nThere were strong anti-papal believers among them; but they made free use\nof the Douai version, and, of course, of the Vulgate. They knew the\nfeeling that Hugh Broughton had toward them; but they made generous use of\nall that was good in his work. They were working under a royal warrant,\nand their dedication to King James, with its absurd and fulsome flattery,\nshows what they were capable of when they thought of the King. But there\nis no twist of a text to make it serve the purposes of royalty. They might\nbe servile when they thought of King James; but there was not a touch of\nservility in them when they thought of the Scripture itself. They were\nunder instruction not to abandon the use of ecclesiastical terms. For\ninstance, they were not to put \"congregation\" in place of \"church,\" as\nsome Puritans wanted to do. Some thought that was meant to insure a High\nChurch version; but the translators did not understand it so for a moment.\nThey understood it only to safeguard them against making a partisan\nversion on either side, and to help them to make a version which the\npeople could read understandingly at once. It was not to be a Puritan Book\nnor a High Church Book. It was to be an honest version of the Bible, no\nmatter whose side it sustained.\n\nNow, if any one thinks that is easy, or only a matter of course, he\nplainly shows that he has never been a theologian or a scholar in a\ncontested field. Ask any lawyer whether it is easy to handle his\nauthorities with entire impartiality, whether it is a matter of course\nthat he will let them say just what they meant to say when his case is\ninvolved. Of course, he will seek to do it as an honest lawyer, but\nequally, of course, he will have to keep close watch on himself or he will\nfail in doing it. Ask any historian whether it is easy to handle the\noriginal documents in a field in which he has firm and announced\nopinions, and to let those documents speak exactly what they mean to say,\nwhether they support him or not. The greater historians will always do it,\nbut they will sometimes do it with a bit of a wrench.\n\nEven a scholar is human, and these men sitting in their six companies\nwould all have to meet this Book afterward, would have their opinions\ntried by it. There must have been times when some of them would be\ninclined to salt the mine a little, to see that it would yield what they\nwould want it to yield later. So far as these men were able to do it, they\nmade it say in English just what it said in Hebrew and Greek. They showed\nno inclination to use it as a weapon in their personal warfare.\n\nOne line of that honest effort is worth observing more closely. When\npoints were open to fair discussion, and scholarship had not settled them,\nthey were careful not to let their version take sides when it could be\navoided. On some mooted words they did not try translation, but\ntransliteration instead. That is, they brought the Greek or Hebrew word\nover into English, letter by letter. Suppose scholars differed as to the\nexact meaning in English of a word in the Greek. Some said it has this\nmeaning, and some that it has that. Now, if the version committed itself\nto one of those meanings, it became an argument at once against the other\nand helped to settle a question on which scholarship was not yet agreed.\nThey could avoid making a partisan Book by the simple device of bringing\nthe word which was disputed over into the new translation. That left the\ndiscussion just where it was before, but it saved the work from being\npartisan. The method of transliteration did not always work to advantage,\nas we shall see, but it was intended throughout to save the Book from\ntaking sides on any question where honest men might differ as to the\nmeaning of words.\n\nThey did that with all proper names, and that was notable in the Old\nTestament, because most Old Testament proper names can be translated. They\nall mean something in themselves. Adam is the Hebrew word for man; Abraham\nmeans Father of a Great Multitude; David is the Hebrew word for Beloved;\nMalachi means My Messenger. Yet as proper names they do not mean any of\nthose things. It is impossible to translate a proper name into another\ntongue without absurdity. It must be transliterated. Yet there is constant\nfascination for translators in the work of translating these proper names,\ntrying to make them seem more vivid. It is quite likely, though it is\ndisputed, that proper names do all go back to simple meanings. But by the\ntime they become proper names they no longer have those meanings. The only\nproper treatment of them is by transliteration.\n\nThe King James translators follow that same practice of transliteration\nrather than translation with another word which is full of controversial\npossibility. I mean the word \"baptism.\" There was dispute then as now\nabout the method of that ordinance in early Christian history. There were\nmany who held that the classical meaning which involved immersion had been\ntaken over bodily into the Christian faith, and that all baptism was by\nimmersion. There were others who held that while that might be the\nclassical meaning of the word, yet in early Christian custom baptism was\nnot by immersion, but might be by sprinkling or pouring, and who insisted\nthat no pressure on the mode was wise or necessary. That dispute continues\nto this day. Early versions of the Bible already figured in the\ndiscussion, and for a while there was question whether this King James\nversion should take sides in that controversy, about which men equally\nloyal to truth and early Christian history could honestly differ. The\ntranslators avoided taking sides by bringing the Greek word which was\nunder discussion over into English, letter by letter. Our word \"baptism\"\nis not an English word nor a Saxon word; it is a purely Greek word. The\ncontroversy has been brought over into the English language; but the King\nJames version avoided becoming a controversial book. A number of years ago\nthe convictions of some were so strong that another version of the Bible\nwas made, in which the word baptism was carefully replaced by what was\nbelieved to be the English translation, \"immersion,\" but the version never\nhad wide influence.\n\nIn this connection it is well to notice the effort of the King James\ntranslators at a fair statement of the divine name. It will be remembered\nthat it appears in the Old Testament ordinarily as \"LORD,\" printed in\nsmall capitals. A very interesting bit of verbal history lies back of that\nword. The word which represents the divine name in Hebrew consists of four\nconsonants, J or Y, H, V, and H. There are no vowels; indeed, there were\nno vowels in the early Hebrew at all. Those that we now have were added\nnot far from the time of Christ. No one knows the original pronunciation\nof that sacred name consisting of four letters. At a very early day it had\nbecome too sacred to pronounce, so that when men came to it in reading or\nin speech, they simply used another word which is, translated into\nEnglish, Lord, a word of high dignity. When the time came that vowels were\nto be added to the consonants, the vowels of this other word Lord were\nplaced under the consonants of the sacred name, so that in the word\nJehovah, where the J H V H occur, there are the consonants of one word\nwhose vowels are unknown and the vowels of another word whose consonants\nare not used.\n\nIllustrate it by imagining that in American literature the name Lincoln\ngathered to itself such sacredness that it was never pronounced and only\nits consonants were ever printed. Suppose that whenever readers came to it\nthey simply said Washington, thinking Lincoln all the while. Then think of\nthe displacement of the vowels of Lincoln by the vowels of Washington. You\nhave a word that looks like Lancilon or Lanicoln; but a reader would never\npronounce so strange a word. He would always say Washington, yet he would\nalways think the other meaning. And while he would retain the meaning in\nsome degree, he would soon forget the original word, retaining only his\nawe of it. Which is just what happened with the divine name. The Hebrews\nknew it was not Lord, yet they always said Lord when they came to the\nfour letters that stood for the sacred word. The word Jehovah, made up of\nthe consonants of an unknown word and the vowels of a familiar word, is in\nitself meaningless. Scholarship is not yet sure what was the original\nmeaning of the sacred name with its four consonants.\n\nThese translators had to face that problem. It was a peculiar problem at\nthat time. How should they put into English the august name of God when\nthey did not know what the true vowels were? There was dispute among\nscholars. They did not take sides as our later American Revision has done,\nsome of us think quite unwisely. They chose to retain the Hebrew usage,\nand print the divine name in unmistakable type so that its personal\nmeaning could not be mistaken.\n\nOn the other hand, disputes since their day have shown how they translated\nwhen transliteration would have been wiser. Illustrate with one instance.\nThere is a Hebrew word, Sheol, with a Greek word, Hades, which corresponds\nto it. Usage had adopted the Anglo-Saxon word Hell as the equivalent of\nboth of these words, so they translated Sheol and Hades with the English\nword Hell. The only question that had been raised was by that Hugh\nBroughton of whom we were speaking a moment ago, and it had not seemed a\nserious one. Certainly the three terms have much in common, and there are\nplaces where both the original words seemed to be virtually equivalent to\nthe Anglo-Saxon Hell, but they are not the same. The Revised Version of\nour own time returned to the original, and instead of translating those\nwords whose meaning can be debated, it transliterated them and brought the\nHebrew word Sheol and the Greek word Hades over into English. That, of\ncourse, gave a chance for paragraphers to say that the Revised Version had\nread Hell out of the Scriptures. All that happened was that cognizance was\ntaken of a dispute which would have guided the King James translators if\nit had existed in their time, and we should not have become familiar with\nthe Anglo-Saxon word Hell as the translation of those disputed Hebrew and\nGreek words.\n\nWe need not seek more instances. These are enough to illustrate the saying\nthat here is an honest version, the fruit of the best scholarship of the\ntimes, without prejudice.\n\nII. A second trait of the work as a version is its remarkable accuracy. It\nis surprising that with all the new light coming from early documents,\nwith all the new discoveries that have been made, the latest revision\nneeded to make so few changes, and those for the most part minor ones.\nThere are, to be sure, some important changes, as we shall see later; the\nwonder is that there are not many more. The King James version had, to be\nsure, the benefit of all the earlier controversy. The whole ground had\nbeen really fought over in the centuries before, and most of the questions\nhad been discussed. They frankly made use of all the earlier controversy.\nThey say in their preface: \"Truly, good Christian reader, we never thought\nfrom the beginning that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet\nto make a bad one a good one, but to make a good one better. That hath\nbeen our endeavor, that our work.\" Also, they had the advantage of\ndeliberation. This was the first version that had been made which had such\nsanction that they could take their time, and in which they had no reason\nto fear that the results would endanger them. They say in their preface\nthat they had not run over their work with that \"posting haste\" that had\nmarked the Septuagint, if the saying was true that they did it all in\nseventy-two days; nor were they \"barred and hindered from going over it\nagain,\" as Jerome himself said he had been, since as soon as he wrote any\npart \"it was snatched away from him and published\"; nor were they\n\"working in a new field,\" as Origen was when he wrote his first\ncommentary on the Bible. Both these things--their taking advantage of\nearlier controversies which had cleared many differences, and their\ndeliberation--were supplemented by a third which gave great accuracy to\nthe version. That was their adoption of the principle of all early\ntranslators, perhaps worded best by Purvey, who completed the Wiclif\nversion: \"The best translation is to translate after the sentence, and not\nonly after the words, so that the sentence be as open in English as in\nLatin.\" That makes for accuracy. It is quite impossible to put any\nlanguage over, word for word, into another without great inaccuracy. But\nwhen the translators sought to take the sentence of the Hebrew or the\nGreek and put it into an exactly equivalent English sentence, they had\nlarger play for their language and they had a fairer field for accuracy.\nThese were the three great facts which made the remarkable accuracy\npossible, and it may be interesting to note three corresponding results\nwhich show the effort they made to be absolutely accurate and fair in\ntheir translation.\n\nThe first of those results is visible in the italicized words which they\nused. In the King James version words in italics are a frank\nacknowledgment that the Greek or the Hebrew cannot be put into English\nliterally. These are English words which are put in because it seems\nimpossible to express the meaning originally intended without certain\nadditions which the reader must take into account in his understanding of\nthe version. We need not think far to see how necessary that was. The\narrangement of words in Greek, for example, is different from that in\nEnglish. The Greek of the first verse of the Gospel of John reads that\n\"God was the Word,\" but the English makes its sentences in a reversed\nform, and it really means, \"the Word was God.\" So the Greek uses particles\nwhere the English does not. Often it would say \"the God\" where we would\nsay simply \"God.\" Those particles are ordinarily wisely omitted. So the\nGreek does not use verbs at some points where it is quite essential that\nthe English shall use them. But it is only fair that in reading a version\nof the Scripture we should know what words have been put in by translators\nin their effort to make the version clear to us; and the italicized words\nof the King James version are a frank effort to be accurate and yet fair.\n\nThe second result which shows their effort at accuracy is in the marginal\nreadings. Most of these are optional readings, and are preceded by the\nword \"or,\" which indicates that one may read what is in the text, or\nsubstitute for it what is in the margin with equal fairness to the\noriginal. But sometimes, instead of that familiar \"or,\" occur letters\nwhich indicate that the Hebrew or the Greek literally means something else\nthan what is given in the English text, and what it literally means is\ngiven in the margin. The translators thereby say to the reader that if he\ncan take that literal meaning and put it into the text so that it is\nintelligible to him, here is his chance. As for them, they think that the\nwhole context or meaning of the sentence rather involves the use of the\nphrase which they put into the text. But the marginal references are of\ngreat interest to most of us as showing how these men were frank to say\nthat there were some things they could not settle. They were rather blamed\nfor it, chiefly by those who had committed themselves to the Douai\nversion, which has no marginal readings, on the ground that the\ntranslation ought to be as authoritative as the original. The King James\ntranslators repudiate that theory and frankly say that the reason they put\nthese words in the margin was because they were not sure what was the best\nreading. In the margin of the epistle to the Romans there are eighty-four\nsuch marginal readings, and the proportion will hold throughout most of\nthe version. They were only trying to be accurate and to give every one a\nchance to make up his own mind where there was fair reason to question\ntheir results.\n\nThe third thing which shows their effort at accuracy is their explicit\navoidance of uniformity in translating the same word. They tried to put\nthe meaning into English terms. So, as they say, the one word might become\neither \"journeying\" or \"traveling\"; one word might be \"thinking\" or\n\"supposing,\" \"joy\" or \"gladness,\" \"eternal\" or \"everlasting.\" One of the\nreasons they give for this is quaint enough to quote. They said they did\nnot think it right to honor some words by giving them a place forever in\nthe Bible, while they virtually said to other equally good words: Get ye\nhence and be banished forever. They quote a \"certaine great philosopher\"\nwho said that those logs were happy which became images and were\nworshiped, while other logs as good as they were laid behind the fire to\nbe burned. So they sought to use as many English words, familiar in speech\nand commonly understood, as they might, lest they should impoverish the\nlanguage, and so lose out of use good words. There is no doubt that in\nthis effort both to save the language, and to represent accurately the\nmeaning of the original, they sometimes overdid that avoidance of\nuniformity. There were times when it would have been well if the words had\nbeen more consistently translated. For example, in the epistle of James\nii:2, 3, you have goodly \"apparel,\" vile \"raiment,\" and gay \"clothing,\"\nall translating one Greek word. Our revised versions have sought to\ncorrect such inconsistencies. But it was all done in the interest of an\naccuracy that should yet not be a slavish uniformity.\n\nThis will be enough to illustrate what was meant in speaking of the effort\nof the translators to achieve accuracy in their version.\n\nIII. The third marked trait of the work as a version of the Scripture is\nits striking blending of dignity and popularity in its language. At any\nperiod of a living language, there are three levels of speech. There is an\nupper level used by the clearest thinkers and most careful writers, always\ncorrect according to the laws of the language, generally somewhat remote\nfrom common life--the habitual speech of the more intellectual. There is\nalso the lower level used by the least intellectual, frequently incorrect\naccording to the laws of the language, rough, containing what we now call\n\"slang,\" the talk of a knot of men on the street corner waiting for a new\nbulletin of a ball game, cheap in words, impoverished in synonyms, using\none word to express any number of ideas, as slang always does. Those two\nlevels are really farther apart than we are apt to realize. A book or an\narticle on the upper level will be uninteresting and unintelligible to the\npeople on the lower level. And a book in the language of the lower level\nis offensive and disgusting to those of the upper level. That is not\nbecause the ideas are so remote, but because the characteristic\nexpressions are almost unfamiliar to the people of the different levels.\nThe more thoughtful people read the abler journals of the day; they read\nthe editorials or the more extended articles; they read also the great\nliterature. If they take up the sporting page of a newspaper to read the\naccount of a ball game written in the style of the lower level of thought,\nwhere words are misused in disregard of the laws of the language, and\nwhere one word is made to do duty for a great many ideas, they do it\nsolely for amusement. They could never think of finding their mental\nstimulus in that sort of thing. On the other hand, there are people who\nfind in that kind of reading their real interest. If they should take up a\nthoughtful editorial or a book of essays, they would not know what the\nwords mean in the connection in which they are used. They speak a good\ndeal about the vividness of this lower-level language, about its\npopularity; they speak with a sneer about the stiffness and dignity of\nthat upper level.\n\nThese are, however, only the two extremes, for there is always a middle\nlevel where move words common to both, where are avoided the words\npeculiar to each. It is the language that most people speak. It is the\nlanguage of the street, and also of the study, of the parlor, and of the\nshop. But it has little that is peculiar to either of those other levels,\nor to any one place where a man may live his life and do his talking. If\nwe illustrate from other literature, we can say that Macaulay's essays\nmove on the upper level, and that much of the so-called popular literature\nof our day moves on the lower level, while Dickens moves on the middle\nlevel, which means that men whose habitual language is that of the upper\nand the lower levels can both enter into the spirit of his writing.\n\nNow, originally the Bible moved on that middle level. It was a colloquial\nbook. The languages in which it first appeared were not in the classic\nforms. They are the languages of the streets where they were written. The\nHebrew is almost our only example of the tongue at its period, but it is\nnot a literary language in any case. The Greek of the New Testament is not\nthe Eolic, the language of the lyrics of Sappho; nor the Doric, the\nlanguage of war-songs or the chorus in the drama; nor the Ionic, the\ndialect of epic poetry; but the Attic Greek, and a corrupted form of that,\na form corrupted by use in the streets and in the markets.\n\nThat was the original language of the Bible, a colloquial language. But\nthat fact does not determine the translation. Whether it shall be put into\nthe English language on the upper level or on the lower level is not so\nreadily determined. Efforts have been made to put it into the language of\neach level. We have a so-called elegant translation, and we have the Bible\ncast into the speech of the common day. The King James version is on the\nmiddle level. It is a striking blending of the dignity of the upper level\nand the popularity of the lower level.\n\nThere is tremendous significance in the fact that these men were making a\nversion which should be for all people, making it out in the open day with\nthe king and all the people behind them. It was the first independent\nversion which had been made under such favorable circumstances. Most of\nthe versions had been made in private by men who were imperiling\nthemselves in their work. They did not expect the Book to pass into common\nuse; they knew that the men who received the result of their work would\nhave to be those who were earnest enough to go into secret places for\ntheir reading. But here was a changed condition. These men were making a\nversion by royal authority, a version awaited with eager interest by the\npeople in general. The result is that it is a people's Book. Its phrases\nare those of common life, those that had lived up to that time. It is not\nin the peculiar language of the times. If you want to know the language of\ntheir own times, read these translators' servile, unhistorical dedication\nto the king, or their far nobler preface to the reader. That is the\nlanguage peculiar to their own day. But the language of the Bible itself\nis that form which had lived its way into common use. One hundred years\nafter Wiclif it yet speaks his language in large part, for that part had\nreally lived. In the _Bibliotheca Pastorum_ Ruskin makes comment on Sir\nPhilip Sidney and his metrical version of the Psalms in these words: \"Sir\nPhilip Sidney will use any cow-boy or tinker words if they only help him\nto say precisely in English what David said in Hebrew; impressed the\nwhile himself so vividly of the majesty of the thought itself that no\ntinker's language can lower it or vulgarize it in his mind.\" The King\nJames translators were most eager to say what the original said, and to\nsay it so that the common man could well understand it, and yet so that it\nshould not be vulgarized or cheapened by adoption of cheap words.\n\nIn his History Hallam passes some rather sharp strictures on the English\nof the King James version, remarking that it abounds in uncouth phrases\nand in words whose meaning is not familiar, and that whatever is to be\nsaid it is, at any rate, not in the English of the time of King James. And\nthat latter saying is true, though it must be remembered that Hallam wrote\nin the period when no English was recognized by literary people except\nthat of the upper level, when they did not know that these so-called\nuncouth phrases were to return to common use. To-day it would be absurd to\nsay that the Bible is full of uncouth phrases. Professor Cook has said\nthat \"the movement of English diction, which in the seventeenth and\neighteenth centuries was on the whole away from the Bible, now returns\nwith ever-accelerating speed toward it.\" If the phrases went out, they\ncame back. But it is true that the English of the King James version is\nnot that of the time of James I., only because it is the English of the\nhistory of the language. It has not immortalized for us the tongue of its\ntimes, because it has taken that tongue from its beginning and determined\nits form. It carefully avoided words that were counted coarse. On the\nother hand, it did not commit itself to words which were simply\nrefinements of verbal construction. That, I say, is a general fact.\n\nIt can be illustrated in one or two ways. For instance, a word which has\nbecome common to us is the neuter possessive pronoun \"its.\" That word does\nnot occur in the edition of 1611, and appears first in an edition in the\nprinting of 1660. In place of it, in the edition of 1611, the more\ndignified personal pronoun \"his\" or \"her\" is always used, and it continues\nfor the most part in our familiar version. In this verse you notice it:\n\"Look not upon the wine when it is red; when it giveth _his_ color aright\nin the cup.\" In the Levitical law especially, where reference is made to\nsacrifices, to the articles of the furniture of the tabernacle, or other\nneuter objects, the masculine pronoun is almost invariably used. In the\noriginal it was invariably used. You see the other form in the familiar\nverse about charity, that it \"doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh\nnot _her_ own, is not easily provoked.\" Now, there is evidence that the\nneuter possessive pronoun was just coming into use. Shakespeare uses it\nten times in his works, but ten times only, and a number of writers do not\nuse it at all. It was, to be sure, a word beginning to be heard on the\nstreet, and for the most part on the lower level. The King James\ntranslators never used it. The dignified word was that masculine or\nfeminine pronoun, and they always use it in place of the neuter.\n\nOn the other hand, there was a word which was coming into use on the upper\nlevel which has become common property to us now. It is the word\n\"anxiety.\" It is not certain just when it came into use. I believe\nShakespeare does not use it; and it occurs very little in the literature\nof the times. Probably it was known to these translators. When they came,\nhowever, to translating a word which now we translate by \"anxious\" or\n\"anxiety\" they did not use that word. It was not familiar. They used\ninstead the word which represented the idea for the people of the middle\nlevel; they used the word \"thought.\" So they said, \"Take no thought for\nthe morrow,\" where we would say, \"Be not anxious for the morrow.\" There is\na contemporary document which illustrates how that word \"thought\" was\ncommonly used, in which we read: \"In five hundred years only two queens\ndied in child birth, Queen Catherine Parr having died rather of thought.\"\nThat was written about the time of the King James version, and \"thought\"\nevidently means worry or anxiety. Neither of those words, the neuter\npossessive pronoun or the new word \"anxious,\" got into the King James\nversion. One was coming into proper use from the lower level, and one was\ncoming into proper use from the upper level. They had not yet so arrived\nthat they could be used.\n\nOne result of this care to preserve dignity and also popularity appears in\nthe fact that so few words of the English version have become obsolete.\nWords disappear upward out of the upper level or downward out of the lower\nlevel, but it takes a long time for a word to get out of a language once\nit is in confirmed use on the middle level. Of course, the version itself\nhas tended to keep words familiar; but no book, no matter how widely used,\ncan prevent some words from passing off the stage or from changing their\nmeaning so noticeably that they are virtually different words. Yet even in\nthose words which do not become common there is very little tendency to\nobsolescence in the King James version. More words of Shakespeare have\nbecome obsolete or have changed their meanings than in the King James\nversion.\n\nThere is one interesting illustration to which attention has been called\nby Dr. Davidson, which is interesting. In the ninth chapter of the Judges,\nwhere we are told about Abimelech, the fifty-third verse reads that a\nwoman cast a stone down from the wall and \"all to break his skull.\" That\nis confessedly rather obscure. Our ordinary understanding of it would be\nthat she did that for no other purpose than just to break the skull of\nAbimelech. As a matter of fact, that expression is a printer's bungling\nway of giving a word which has become obsolete in the original form. When\nthe King James translators wrote that, they used the word \"alto,\" which is\nevidently the beginning of \"altogether,\" or wholly or utterly, and what\nthey meant was that she threw the stone and utterly broke his skull. But\nthat abbreviated form of the word passed out of use, and when later\nprinters--not much later--came to it they did not know what it meant and\ndivided it as it stands in our present text. It is one of the few words\nthat have become obsolete. But so few are there of them, that it was made\na rule of the Revised Version not to admit to the new version, where it\ncould be avoided, any word not already found in the Authorized Version,\nand also not to omit from the Revised Version, except under pressure of\nnecessity, any word which occurred there. It is largely this blending of\ndignity and popularity that has made the King James version so influential\nin English literature. It talks the language not of the upper level nor of\nthe lower level, but of that middle level where all meet sometimes and\nwhere most men are all the while.\n\nThese are great traits to mark a book, any book, but especially a\ntranslation--that it is honest, that it is accurate, and that its language\nblends dignity and popularity so that it lowers the speech of none. They\nare all conspicuous traits of our familiar version of the Bible, and in\nthem in part lies its power with the generations of these three centuries\nthat have followed its appearance.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[12] Trevelyan, _England Under the Stuarts_.\n\n[13] _History of England_, chap. i.\n\n[14] _Short History of the English People_, chap. viii, sec. ii.\n\n[15] Trevelyan, _England Under the Stuarts_, p. 107.\n\n[16] _History of England, 1603-42._\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III\n\nTHE KING JAMES VERSION AS ENGLISH LITERATURE\n\n\nLet it be plainly said at the very first that when we speak of the\nliterary phases of the Bible we are not discussing the book in its\nhistoric meaning. It was never meant as literature in our usual sense of\nthe word. Nothing could have been further from the thought of the men who\nwrote it, whoever they were and whenever they wrote, than that they were\nmaking a world literature. They had the characteristics of men who do make\ngreat literature--they had clear vision and a great passion for truth;\nthey loved their fellows mightily, and they were far more concerned to be\nunderstood than to speak. These are traits that go to make great writers.\nBut it was never in their minds that they were making a world literature.\nThe Bible is a book of religious significance from first to last. If it\nutterly broke down by the tests of literature, it might be as great a\nbook as it needs to be. It is a subordinate fact that by the tests of\nliterature it proves also to be great. Prof. Gardiner, of Harvard, whose\nbook called _The Bible as English Literature_ makes other such works\nalmost unnecessary, frankly bases his judgment on the result of critical\nstudy of the Bible, but he serves fair warning that he takes inspiration\nfor granted, and thinks it \"obvious that no literary criticism of the\nBible could hope for success which was not reverent in tone. A critic who\nshould approach it superciliously or arrogantly would miss all that has\ngiven the Book its power as literature and its lasting and universal\nappeal.\"[17] Farther over in his book he goes on to say that when we\nsearch for the causes of the feelings which made the marvelous style of\nthe Bible a necessity, explanation can make but a short step, for \"we are\nin a realm where the only ultimate explanation is the fact of inspiration;\nand that is only another way of saying that we are in the presence of\nforces above and beyond our present human understanding.\"[18]\n\nHowever, we may fairly make distinction between the Bible as an original\nwork and the Bible as a work of English literature. For the Bible as an\noriginal work is not so much a book as a series of books, the work of\nmany men working separately over a period of at least fifteen hundred\nyears, and these men unconscious for the most part of any purpose of\nagreement. This series of books is made one book in the original by the\nunity of its general purpose and the agreement of its parts. The Bible in\nEnglish is, however, not a series of books, but properly one book, the\nwork of six small groups of men working in conscious unity through a short\nperiod of years. And while there is variation in style, while there are\ninequalities in result, yet it stands as a single piece of English\nliterature. It has a literary style of its own, even though it feels\npowerfully the Hebrew influence throughout. And while it would not be a\ncondemnation of the Bible if it were not great literature in English or\nelsewhere, it is still part of its power that by literary standards alone\nit measures large.\n\nIt is so that men of letters have rated it since it came into existence.\n\"It holds a place of pre-eminence in the republic of letters.\" When John\nRichard Green comes to deal with it, he says: \"As a mere literary monument\nthe English version of the Bible remains the noblest language of the\nEnglish tongue, while its perpetual use made of it from the instant of its\nappearance the standard of our language.\"[19] And in Macaulay's essay on\nDryden, while he is deploring the deterioration of English style, he yet\nsays that in the period when the English language was imperiled there\nappeared \"the English Bible, a book which if everything else in our\nlanguage should perish would alone suffice to show the extent of its\nbeauty and power.\"\n\nThe mere fact that the English Bible contains a religion does not affect\nits standing as literature. Homer and Virgil are Greek and Roman classics,\nyet each of them contains a definite religion. You can build up the\nreligious faith of the Greeks and Romans out of their great literature. So\nyou can build up the religious faith of the Hebrews and the early\nChristians from the Old and New Testaments. \"For fifteen centuries a\nHebrew Book, the Bible, contained almost the whole literature and learning\nof a whole nation,\" while it was also the book of their religion.\n\nAs literature, however, apart from its religious connection, it is subject\nto any of the criteria of literature. In so far it is the fair subject of\ncriticism. It must stand or fall when it enters the realm of literature by\nthe standards of other books. Indeed, many questions regarding its dates,\nthe authorship of unassigned portions, the meaning of its disputed\npassages may be answered most fairly by literary tests. That is always\nliable to abuse; but literary tests are always liable to that. There have\nbeen enough blunders made in the knowledge of us all to require us to go\ncarefully in such a matter. The Waverley Novels were published\nanonymously, and, while some suspected Scott at once, others were entirely\nclear that on the ground of literary style his authorship was entirely\nimpossible! Let a magazine publish an anonymous serial, and readers\neverywhere are quick to recognize the writer from his literary style and\nhis general ideas, but each group \"recognizes\" a different writer.\nArguments based chiefly on style overlook the large personal equation in\nall writing. The same writer has more than one natural style. It is not\nuntil he becomes in a certain sense affected--grows proud of his\npeculiarities--that he settles down to one form. And it is quite\nimpossible to assign a book to any narrow historical period on the ground\nof its style alone. But though large emphasis could be laid upon the\nliterary merits of the Bible to the obscuring of its other more important\nmerits, it is yet true that from the literary point of view the Bible\nstands as an English classic, indeed, as the outstanding English classic.\nTo acknowledge ignorance of it is to confess one's self ignorant of our\ngreatest literary possession.\n\nA moment ago it was said that as a piece of literature the Bible must\naccept the standards of other literary books. For all present purposes we\ncan define great literature as worthy written expression of great ideas.\nIf we may take the word \"written\" for granted, the rough definition\nbecomes this: that great literature is the worthy expression of great\nideas. Works which claim to be great in literature may fail of greatness\nin either half of that test. Petty, local, unimportant ideas may be well\nclothed, or great ideas may be unworthily expressed; in either case the\nliterature is poor. It is not until great ideas are wedded to worthy\nexpression that literature becomes great. Failure at one end or the other\nwill explain the failure of most of the work that seeks to be accounted\nliterature. The literary value of a book cannot be determined by its style\nalone. It is possible to say nothing gracefully, even with dignity,\nsymmetry, rhythm; but it is not possible to make literature without ideas.\nAbiding literature demands large ideas worthily expressed. Now, of course,\n\"large\" and \"small\" are not words that are usually applied to the\nmeasurement of ideas; but we can make them seem appropriate here. Let us\nmean that an idea is large or small according to its breadth of interest\nto the race and its length of interest to the race. If there is an idea\nwhich is of value to all the members of the human race to-day, and which\ndoes not lose its value as the generations come and go, that is the\nlargest possible idea within human thought. Transient literature may do\nwithout those large ideas. A gifted young reporter may describe a dog\nfight or a presidential nominating convention in such terms as lift his\narticle out of carelessness and hasty newspaper writing into the realm of\nreal literature; but it cannot become abiding literature. It has not a\nlarge enough idea to keep it alive. And to any one who loves worthy\nexpression there is a sense of degradation in the use of fine literary\npowers for the description of purely transient local events. It is always\nregrettable when men with literary skill are available for the description\nof a ball game, or are exploited as worthy writers about a prize-fight. If\na man has power to express ideas well, he ought to use that power for the\nexpression of great ideas.\n\nMany of us have seen a dozen books hailed as classic novels sure to live,\neach of them the great American novel at last, the author to be compared\nwith Dickens and Thackeray and George Eliot. And the books have gone the\nway of all the earth. With some, the trouble is a weak, involved, or\notherwise poor style. With most the trouble is lack of real ideas. Charles\nDickens, to be sure, does deal with boarding-schools in England, with\nconditions which in their local form do not recur and are not familiar to\nus; but he deals with them as involving a great principle of the relation\nof society to youth, and so _David Copperfield_ or _Oliver Twist_ becomes\na book for the life of all of us, and for all time. And even here it is\nevident that not all of Dickens's work will live, but only that which is\nleast narrowly local and is most broadly human.\n\nThere is a further striking illustration in a familiar event in American\nhistory. Most young people are required to study Webster's speech in reply\nto Robert Hayne in the United States Senate, using it as a model in\nliterary construction. The speech of Hayne is lost to our interest, yet\nthe fact is that Hayne himself was gifted in expression, that by the\nstandards of simple style his speech compares favorably with that of\nWebster. Yet reading Webster's reply takes one not to the local condition\nwhich was concerning Hayne, but to a great principle of liberty and\nunion. He shows that principle emerging in history; the local touches are\nlost to thought as he goes on, and a truth is expressed in terms of\nhistory which will be valid until history is ended. It is not simply\nWebster's style; it is that with his great idea which made his reply\nmemorable.\n\nThat neither ideas nor style alone can keep literature alive is shown by\nliterary history after Shakespeare. Just after him you have the\n\"mellifluous poets\" of the next period on the one hand, with style enough,\nbut with such attenuated ideas that their work has died. Who knows Drayton\nor Brown or Wither? On the other hand, there came the metaphysicians with\nideas in abundance, but not style, and their works have died.\n\nHere, then, is the English Bible becoming the chief English classic by the\nwedding of great ideas to worthy expression. From one point of view this\nearly seventeenth century was an opportune time for making such a classic.\nTheology was a popular subject. Men's minds had found a new freedom, and\nthey used it to discuss great themes. They even began to sing. The reign\nof Elizabeth had prepared the way. The English scholar Hoare traces this\nnew liberty to the sailing away of the Armada and the releasing of\nEngland from the perpetual dread of Spanish invasion. He says that the\nbirds felt the free air, and sang as they had never sung before and as\nthey have not often sung since. But this was not restricted to the birds\nof English _song_. It was a period of remarkable awakening in the whole\nintellectual life of England, and that intellectual life was directing\nitself among the common people to religion. Another English writer, Eaton,\nsays a profounder word in tracing the awakening to the reformation, saying\nthat it \"could not fail, from the very nature of it, to tinge the\nliterature of the Elizabethan era. It gave a logical and disputatious\ncharacter to the age and produced men mighty in the Scriptures.\"[20] A\nFrench visitor went home disgusted because people talked of nothing but\ntheology in England. Grotius thought all the people of England were\ntheologians. James's chief pride was his theological learning. It did not\nprove difficult to find half a hundred men in small England instantly\nrecognized as experts in Scripture study. The people were ready to welcome\na book of great ideas. Let us pass by those ideas a moment, remembering\nthat they are not enough in themselves to give the work literary value,\nand turn our minds to the style of the English Bible.\n\nFrom this point of view the times were not perfectly opportune for a piece\nof pure English literature, though it was the time which produced\nShakespeare. A definite movement was on to refine the language by foreign\ndecorations. Not even Shakespeare avoids it always. No writer of the time\navoids it wholly. The dedication of the King James version shows that\nthese scholars themselves did not avoid it. In that dedication, and their\npreface, they give us fine writing, striving for effect, ornamental\nphrases characteristic of the time. Men were feeling that this English\nlanguage was rough and barbarous, insufficient, needing enlargement by the\naddition of other words constructed in a foreign form. The essays of Lord\nBacon are virtually contemporaneous with this translation. Macaulay says a\nrather hard word in calling his style \"odious and deformed,\"[21] but when\none turns from Bacon to the English Bible there is a sharp contrast in\nmere style, and it favors the Bible. The contrast is as great as that\nwhich Carlyle first felt between the ideas of Shakespeare and those of the\nBible when he said that \"this world is a catholic kind of place; the\nPuritan gospel and Shakespeare's plays: such a pair of facts I have rarely\nseen save out of one chimerical generation.\"[22] And that gives point to\nthe word already quoted from Hallam that the English of the King James\nversion is not the English of James I.\n\nFour things helped to determine the simplicity and pure\nEnglish--unornamented English--of the King James version, made it, that\nis, the English classic. Two of these things have been dealt with already\nin other connections. First, that it was a Book for the people, for the\npeople of the middle level of language; a work by scholars, but not\nchiefly for scholars, intended rather for the common use of common people.\nSecondly, that the translators were constantly beholden to the work of the\npast in this same line. Where Wiclif's words were still in use they used\nthem. That tended to fix the language by the use which had already become\nnatural.\n\nThe other two determining influences must be spoken of now. The third lies\nin the fact that the English language was still plastic. It had not fallen\ninto such hard forms that its words were narrow or restricted. The truth\nis that from the point of view of pure literature the Bible is better in\nEnglish than it is in Greek or Hebrew. That is, the English of the King\nJames version as English is better than the Greek of the New Testament as\nGreek. As for the Hebrew there was little development for many\ngenerations; Renan thinks there was none at all. The difference comes from\nthe point of time in the growth of the tongue when the Book was written.\nThe Greek was written when the language was old, when it had\ndifferentiated its terms, when it had become corrupted by outside\ninfluence. The English version was written when the language was new and\nfresh, when a word could be taken and set in its meaning without being\nwarped from some earlier usage. The study of the Greek Testament is always\nbeing complicated by the effort to bring into its words the classical\nmeaning, when so far as the writers of the New Testament were concerned\nthey had no interest in the classical meaning, but only in the current\nmeaning of those words. In the English language there was as yet no\nclassical meaning; it was exactly that meaning that these writers were\ngiving the words when they brought them into their version.[23] There is\nlarge advantage in the fact that the age was not a scientific one, that\nthe language had not become complicated. So it becomes interesting to\nobserve with Professor March that ninety-three per cent. of these words,\ncounting also repetitions, are native English words. The language was new,\nwas still plastic. It had not been stiffened by use. It received its set\nmore definitely from the English Bible than from any other one work--more\nthan from Shakespeare, whose influence was second.\n\nThe fourth fact which helped to determine its English style is the loyalty\nof the translators to the original, notably the Hebrew. It is a common\nremark of the students of the original tongues that the Hebrew and Greek\nlanguages are peculiarly translatable. That is notable in the Hebrew. It\nis not a language of abstract terms. The tendency of language is always to\nbecome vague, since we are lazy in the use of it. We use one word in\nvarious ways, and a pet one for many ideas. Language is always more\nconcrete in its earlier forms. In this period of the concrete English\nlanguage, then, the translation was made from the Hebrew, which was also a\nconcrete, figurative language itself. The structure of the Hebrew sentence\nis very simple. There are no extended paragraphs in it. It is somewhat\ndifferent in the New Testament, where these paragraphs are found,\ncertainly in the Pauline Greek; but even there the extended sentences are\nbroken into clauses which can be taken as wholes. The English version\nshows constantly the marks of the Hebrew influence in the simplicity of\nits phrasing. Renan says that the Hebrew \"knows how to make propositions,\nbut not how to link them into paragraphs.\" So the earlier Bible stories\nare like a child's way of talking. They let one sentence follow another,\nand their unity is found in the overflowing use of the word \"and\"--one\nfact hung to another to make a story, but not to make an argument. In the\nfirst ten chapters of I Samuel, for example, there are two hundred and\nthirty-eight verses; one hundred and sixty of them begin with _and_. There\nare only twenty-six of the whole which have no connective word that\nthrusts them back upon the preceding verse.\n\nIn the Hebrew language, also, most of the emotions are connected either in\nthe word used or in the words accompanying it with the physical condition\nthat expresses it. Over and over we are told that \"he opened his mouth and\nsaid,\" or, \"he was angry and his countenance fell.\" Anger is expressed in\nwords which tell of hard breathing, of heat, of boiling tumult, of\ntrembling. We would not trouble to say that. The opening of the mouth to\nspeak or the falling of the countenance in anger, we would take for\ngranted. The Hebrew does not. Even in the description of God you remember\nthe terms are those of common life; He is a shepherd when shepherds are\nwriting; He is a husbandman threshing out the nations, treading the\nwine-press until He is reddened with the wine--and so on. That is the\nnatural method of the Hebrew language--concrete, vivid, never abstract,\nsimple in its phrasing. The King James translators are exceedingly loyal\nto that original.\n\nProfessor Cook, of Yale, suggests that four traits make the Bible easy to\ntranslate into any language: universality of interest, so that there are\napt to be words in any language to express what it means, since it\nexpresses nothing but what men all talk about; then, the concreteness and\npicturesqueness of its language, avoiding abstract phrases which might be\ndifficult to reproduce in another tongue; then, the simplicity of its\nstructure, so that it can be taken in small bits, and long complicated\nsentences are not needed; and, finally, its rhythm, so that part easily\nfollows part and the words catch a kind of swing which is not difficult to\nimitate. That is a very true analysis. The Bible is the most easily\ntranslated book there is, and has become the classic for more languages\nthan any other one book. It is brought about in part in our English\nversion by the faithfulness of the translators to the original.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPassing from these general considerations, let us look directly at the\nEnglish Bible itself and its literary qualities. The first thing that\nattracts attention is its use of words, and since words lie at the root of\nall literature it is worth while to stop for them for a moment. Two things\nare to be said about the words: first, that they are few; and, secondly,\nthat they are short. The vocabulary of the English Bible is not an\nextensive one. Shakespeare uses from fifteen to twenty thousand words. In\nMilton's verse he uses about thirteen thousand. In the Old Testament, in\nthe Hebrew and Chaldaic tongue, there are fifty-six hundred and forty-two\nwords. In the New Testament, in the Greek, there are forty-eight hundred.\nBut in the whole of the King James version there are only about six\nthousand different words. The vocabulary is plainly a narrow one for a\nbook of its size. While, as was said before, the translators avoided using\nthe same word always for translation of the same original, they yet\nmanaged to recur to the same words often enough so that this comparatively\nsmall list of six thousand words, about one-third Shakespeare's\nvocabulary, sufficed for the stating of the truth.\n\nThen, secondly, the words are short, and in general short words are the\nstrong ones. The average word in the whole Bible, including the long\nproper names, is barely over four letters, and if all the proper names are\nexcluded the average word is just a little under four letters. Of course,\nanother way of saying that is that the words are generally Anglo-Saxon,\nand, while in the original spelling they were much longer, yet in their\nsound they were as brief as they are in our present spelling. There is no\nmerit in Anglo-Saxon words except in the fact that they are concrete,\ndefinite, non-abstract words. They are words that mean the same to\neverybody; they are part of common experience. We shall see the power of\nsuch words by comparing a simple statement in Saxon words from the English\nBible with a comment of a learned theologian of our own time on them. The\nphrase is a simple one in the Communion service: \"This is my body which is\ngiven for you.\" That is all Saxon. When our theologian comes to comment on\nit he says we are to understand that \"the validity of the service does not\nlie in the quality of external signs and sacramental representation, but\nin its essential property and substantial reality.\" Now there are nine\nwords abstract in their meaning, Latin in their form. It is in that kind\nof words that the Bible could have been translated, and in our own day\nmight even be translated. Addison speaks of that: \"If any one would judge\nof the beauties of poetry that are to be met with in the divine writings,\nand examine how kindly the Hebrew manners of speech mix and incorporate\nwith the English language, after having perused the Book of Psalms, let\nhim read a literal translation of Horace or Pindar. He will find in these\ntwo last such an absurdity and confusion of style with such a comparative\npoverty of imagination, as will make him very sensible of what I have been\nhere advancing.\"[24]\n\nThe fact that the words are short can be quickly illustrated by taking\nsome familiar sections. In the Ten Commandments there are three hundred\nand nineteen words in all; two hundred and fifty-nine of them are words of\none syllable, and only sixty are of two syllables and over. There are\nfifty words of two syllables, six of three syllables, of which four are\nsuch composite words that they really amount to two words of one and two\nsyllables each, with four words of four syllables, and none over that.\n\nMake a comparison just here. There is a paragraph in Professor March's\nlectures on the English language where he is urging that its strongest\nwords are purely English, not derived from Greek or Latin. He uses the\nKing James version as illustration. If, now, we take three hundred and\nnineteen words at the beginning of that paragraph to compare with the\nthree hundred and nineteen in the Ten Commandments, the result will be\ninteresting. Where the Ten Commandments have two hundred and fifty-nine\nwords of one syllable, Professor March has only one hundred and\nninety-four; over against the fifty two-syllable words in the Ten\nCommandments, Professor March has sixty-five; over against their six words\nof three syllables, he has thirty-five; over against their four words of\nfour syllables, he uses eighteen; and while the Ten Commandments have no\nword longer than four syllables, Professor March needs five words of five\nsyllables and two words of six syllables to express his ideas.[25]\n\nThe same thing appears in the familiar 23d Psalm, where there are one\nhundred and nineteen words in all, of which ninety-five are words of one\nsyllable, and only three of three syllables, with none longer. In the\nSermon on the Mount eighty-two per cent. of the words in our English\nversion are words of one syllable.\n\nThe only point urged now is that this kind of thing makes for strength in\nliterature. Short words are strong words. They have a snap and a grip to\nthem that long words have not. Very few men would grow angry over having a\nstatement called a \"prevarication\" or \"a disingenuous entanglement of\nideas,\" but there is something about the word \"lie\" that snaps in a man's\nface. \"Unjustifiable hypothecation\" may be the same as stealing, but it\nwould never excite one to be called \"an unjustifiable hypothecator\" as it\ndoes to be called a thief. At the very foundation of the strength of the\nliterature of the English Bible there lies this tendency to short,\nclear-cut words.\n\nRising now from this basal element in the literature of the version, we\ncome to the place where its style and its ideas blend in what we may call\nits earnestness. That is itself a literary characteristic. There is not a\nline of trifling in the book. No man would ever learn trifling from it. It\ntakes itself with tremendous seriousness. Here are earnest men at work;\nto them life is joyous, but it is no joke. That is why the element of\nhumor in it is such a small one. It is there, to be sure. Many of its\nsimiles are intended to be humorous. A few of its incidents are humorous;\nbut it has little of that element in it, as indeed little of our\nliterature has that element markedly in it. We have a few exceptions. But\nwhat George Eliot says in _Adam Bede_ is true, that wit is of a temporary\nnature, and does not deal with the deep and more lasting elements in life.\nThe Bible is not a sad book. There are children at play in it; there are\nfeasts and buoyant gatherings fully recounted. But it never trifles nor\njests.\n\nSo it has given us a language of great dignity. Let Addison speak again:\n\"How cold and dead does a prayer appear that is composed in the most\nelegant and polite forms of speech, which are natural to our tongue, when\nit is not heightened by that solemnity of phrase which may be drawn from\nthe sacred writings. It has been said by some of the ancients that if the\ngods were to talk with men, they would certainly speak in Plato's style;\nbut I think we may say, with justice, that when mortals converse with\ntheir Creator they cannot do it in so proper a style as in that of the\nHoly Scriptures.\"\n\nAs that earnestness of the literature of the original precluded any great\namount of humor in the wide range of its literary forms, so in the King\nJames version it precluded any trifling expressions, any plays on words,\neven the duplication of such plays as can be found in the Hebrew or the\nGreek. You seldom find any turn of a word in the King James version,\nthough you do occasionally find it in the Hebrew. One such punning\nexpression occurs in the story of Samson (Judges xv:16), where our version\nreads: \"With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of\nan ass have I slain a thousand men.\" In the Hebrew the words translated\n\"ass\" and \"heaps\" are variants of the same word. It comes near the Hebrew\nto say: \"With the jawbone of an ass, masses upon masses,\" and so on. These\ntranslators would not risk reproducing such puns for fear of lowering the\ndignity of their results. There is a deadly seriousness about their work\nand so they never lose strength as they go on.\n\nThat earnestness grows out of a second fact which may be\nemphasized--namely, the greatness of the themes of Bible literature. Here\nis history, but it is not cast into fiction form. History always becomes\nmore interesting for a first reading when it is in the form of fiction;\nbut it always loses greatness in that form. Test it by turning from a\nhistory of the American revolutionary or civil war to an historical novel\nthat deals with the same period; or from a history of Scotland to the\nWaverley novels. In some degree the earnestness of the time is lost; the\nsame facts are there; but they do not loom so large, nor do they seem so\ngreat. So there is power in the fact that the historical elements of the\nversion are in stately form and are never sacrificed to the fictional\nform.\n\nThese great themes save the work from being local. It issues from life,\nbut from life considered in the large. The themes of great literature are\ngreat enough to make their immediate surroundings forgotten. The English\nBible deals with the great facts and the great problems. It is from the\npoint of view of those great facts that it handles even commonplace\nthings, and you forget the commonplaceness of the things in the greatness\nof the dealing. Take its attitude toward God. One needs the sense of that\ngreat theme to read it fairly. It quietly overlooks secondary causes, goes\nback of them to God. Partly that was because the original writers were\nignorant of some of those secondary causes; partly that they knew them,\nbut wanted to go farther back. Take the most outstanding instance, that of\nthe Book of Jonah. All its facts, without exception, can be told without\nmention of God, if one cared to do it. But there could not be anything\nlike so great a story if it is told that way. One of his biographers says\nof Lincoln that there is nothing in his whole career which calls for\nexplanation in other than a purely natural and human way. That is true, if\none does not care to go any farther back than that. But the greatest story\ncannot be made out of Lincoln's life on those terms. There is not material\nenough; the life must be delocalized. It can be told without that larger\nview, so that it will be of interest to America and American children, but\nnot so that it will be of value to generations of men in all countries and\nunder all circumstances if it is told on those terms. Part of the\ngreatness of Scripture, from a literary point of view, is that it has such\na tremendous range of theme, and is saved from a mere narration of local\nevents by seeing those events in the light of larger considerations.\n\nLet that stand for one of the great facts. Now take one of the great\nproblems. The thing that makes Job so great a classic is the fact that,\nwhile it is dealing with a character, he is standing for the problem of\nundeserved suffering. A man who has that before him, if he has at all the\ngift of imagination, is sure to write in a far larger way than when he is\ndealing with a man with boils as though he were finally important. One\ncould deal with Job as a character, and do a small piece of work. But when\nyou deal with Job as a type, a much larger opportunity offers.\n\nIt is these great ideas, as to either facts or problems, that give the\nseriousness, the earnestness to the literature of the Bible. Men who\nexpress great ideas in literary form are not dilettante about them. One of\nthe English writers just now prominent as an essayist is often counted\nwhimsical, trifling. One of his near friends keenly resents that opinion,\ninsists instead that he is dead in earnest, serious to the last degree,\npurposeful in all his work. What makes that so difficult to believe is\nthat there is always a tone of chaffing in his essays. He seems always to\nbe making fun of himself or of other people; and if he is dead in earnest\nhe has the wrong style to make great literature or literature that will\nlive long.\n\nIt is that earnestness and greatness of theme which puts the tang into the\nEnglish of the Bible. Coleridge says that \"after reading Isaiah or the\nEpistle to the Hebrews, Homer and Virgil are disgustingly tame, Milton\nhimself barely tolerable.\" It need not be put quite so strongly as that;\nbut there is large warrant of fact in that expression.\n\nGo a little farther in thought of the literary characteristics of the\nBible. Notice the variety of the forms involved. Recall Professor\nMoulton's four cardinal points in literature, all of it taking one of\nthese forms: either description, when a scene is given in the words of the\nauthor, as when Milton and Homer describe scenes without pretending to\ngive the words of the actors throughout; or, secondly, presentation, when\na scene is given in the words of those who took part in it, and the author\ndoes not appear, as, of course, in the plays of Shakespeare, when he never\nappears, but where all his sentiments are put in the words of others. As\nbetween those two, the Bible is predominantly a book of description, the\nauthors for the most part doing the speaking, though there is, of course,\nan element of presentation. Professor Moulton goes on with the two other\nphases of literary form: prose, moving in the region limited by facts, as\nhistory and philosophy deal only with what actually has existence; and\npoetry, which by its Greek origin means creative literature. He reminds us\nthat, however literature starts, these are the points toward which it\nmoves, the paths it takes. All four of them appear in the literature of\nthe English Bible. You have more of prose and less of poetry; but the\npoetry is there, not in the sense of rhyme, but in the sense of real\ncreative literature.\n\nA more natural way of considering the literature has been followed by\nProfessor Gardiner. He finds four elements in the literature of the Bible:\nits narrative, its poetry, its philosophizing, and its prophecy. It is not\nnecessary for our purpose to go into details about that. We shall have all\nwe need when we realize that, small as the volume of the book is, it yet\ndoes cover all these types of literature. Its difference from other books\nis that it deals with all of its subjects so compactly.\n\nIt will accent this fact of its variety if we note the musical element in\nthe literature of the Bible. It comes in part from the form which marks\nthe original Hebrew poetry. It has become familiar to say that it is not\nof the rhyming kind. Rather it is marked by the balancing of phrases or of\nideas, so that it runs in couplets or in triplets throughout. In the\nPsalms there is always a balance of clauses. They are sometimes\nadversative; sometimes they are simply cumulative. Take several instances\nfrom the 119th Psalm, each a complete stanza of Hebrew poetry; (verse 15)\n\"I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways\"; or\nthis (verse 23), \"Princes also did sit and speak against me: but thy\nservant did meditate in thy statutes\"; or this (verse 45), \"And I will\nwalk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts\"; (verse 51), \"The proud have had\nme greatly in derision: yet have I not inclined from thy law.\" Each\npresents a parallel or a contrast of ideas. That is the characteristic\nmark of Hebrew poetry. It results in a kind of rhythm of the English which\nmakes it very easy to set to music. Some of it can be sung, though for\nsome of it only the thunder is the right accompaniment. But it is not\nsimply in the balance of phrases that the musical element appears.\nSometimes it is in a natural but rhythmic consecution of ideas. The 35th\nchapter of Isaiah, for example, is not poetic in the Hebrew, yet it is\nremarkably musical in the English. Read it aloud from our familiar\nversion:\n\n     \"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and\n     the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom\n     abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of\n     Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and\n     Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of\n     our God. Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble\n     knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear\n     not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a\n     recompense; He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind\n     shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then\n     shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing:\n     for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the\n     desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty\n     land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each\n     lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. And a highway shall be\n     there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the\n     unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the\n     wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall\n     be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not\n     be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: and the ransomed\n     of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and\n     everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and\n     gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.\"\n\nThat can be set to music as it stands. You catch the same form in the\nfamiliar 13th chapter of I Corinthians, the chapter on Charity. It could\nbe almost sung throughout. This musical element is in sharp contrast with\nmuch else in the Scripture, where necessity does not permit that literary\nform. For example, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is argumentative\nthroughout, there is no part except its quotations which has ever been\nset to music for uses in Christian worship. It is rugged and protracted in\nits form, and has no musical element about it. The contrast within the\nScripture of the musical and the unmusical is a very marked one.\n\nAdd to the thought of the earnestness and variety of the Scripture a word\nabout the simplicity of its literary expression. There is nothing\nmeretricious in its style. There is no effort to say a thing finely. The\ntranslators have avoided all temptation to grow dramatic in reproducing\nthe original. Contrast the actual English Bible with the narratives or\nother literary works that have been built up out of it. Read all that the\nBible tells about the loss of Paradise, and then read Milton's \"Paradise\nLost.\" Nearly all of the conceptions of Milton's greatest poem are built\nup from brief Scripture references. But Milton becomes subtle in his\nanalysis of motives; he enlarges greatly on events. Scripture never does\nthat. It gives us very few analyses of motive from first to last. That is\nnot the method nor the purpose of Scripture. It tells the story in terms\nthat move on the middle level of speech and the middle level of\nunderstanding, while Milton labors with it, complicates it, entangling it\nwith countless details which are to the Scripture unimportant. It goes\nstraight to the simple and fundamental elements in the account. Take a\nmore modern illustration. Probably the finest poem of its length in the\nEnglish language is Browning's \"Saul.\" It is built out of one incident and\na single expression in the Bible story of Saul and David. The incident is\nDavid's being called from his sheep to play his harp and to sing before\nSaul in the fits of gloom which overcome him; the expression is the single\nsaying that David loved Saul. Taking that incident and that expression,\nBrowning writes a beautiful poem with many decorative details, with keen\nanalysis of motive, with long accounts of the way David felt when he\nrendered his service, and how his heart leaped or sang. Imagine finding\nBrowning's familiar phrases in Scripture: \"The lilies we twine round the\nharp-chords, lest they snap neath the stress of the noontide--those\nsunbeams like swords\"; \"Oh, the wild joy of living!\" \"Spring's arrowy\nsummons,\" going \"straight to the aim.\" That is very well for Browning, but\nit is not the Scripture way; it is too complicated. All that the Bible\nsays can be said anywhere; Browning's \"Saul\" could not possibly be\nreproduced in other languages. It would need a glossary or a commentary to\nmake it intelligible. It is beautiful English, and great because it has\ntaken a great idea and clothed it in worthy expression. But the simplicity\nof the Bible narrative appears in sharp contrast with it. In my childhood\nmy father used to tell of a man who preached on the creation, and with\ngreat detail and much elaboration and decoration told the story of\ncreation as it is suggested in the first chapter of Genesis. When it was\nover he asked an old listener what he thought of his effort, and the only\ncomment was, \"You can't beat Moses!\" Well, it would be difficult to\nsurpass these Bible writers in simplicity, in going straight to the point,\nand making that plain and leaving it. Where the Bible takes a hundred\nwords to tell the whole story Browning takes several hundred lines to tell\nit.\n\nThe simplicity of the Bible is largely because there is so little abstract\nreasoning in it. Having few or no abstract ideas, it does not need\nabstract words. Rather, it groups its whole movement around characters.\nThree eminent literary men were once asked to select the best reviews of a\nnovel which had just appeared. One of the three statements which they\nrated highest said of the book that it \"achieves the true purpose of a\nnovel, which is to make comprehensible the philosophy of life of a whole\ncommunity or race of men by showing us how that philosophy accords with\nthe impulses and yearnings of typical individuals.\" Few phrases could be\nmore foreign to Bible phrases than those. But there is valuable suggestion\nin it for more than the literature of the novel. That is exactly what the\nScripture does. Its reasoning is kept concrete by the fact that it is\ndealing with characters more than movements, and so it can speak in\nconcrete words. That always makes for simplicity.\n\nThere are two elements common to the history of literature about which a\nspecial word is deserved. I mean the dramatic and the oratorical elements.\nThe difference between the dramatic and the oratorical is chiefly that in\ndramatic writing there is a scene in which many take part, and in the\noratorical writing one man presents the whole scene, however dramatic the\nsurroundings. There is not a great deal of either in the Scripture. There\nis no formal drama, nothing that could be acted as it stands. It is true,\nto be sure, that Job can be cast into dramatic form by a sufficient\nmanipulation, but it is quite unlikely, in spite of some scholars, that it\nwas ever meant to be a formal drama for action. It does move in cycles in\nthe appearance of its characters, and it does close in a way to take one\nback to the beginning. It has many marks of the drama, and yet it seems\nvery unlikely that it was ever prepared with that definitely in mind. On\nthe other hand, a most likely explanation of the Song of Solomon is that\nit is a short drama which appears in our Bible without any character\nnames, as though you should take \"Hamlet\" and print it continuously,\nindicating in no way the change of speakers nor any movement. The effort\nhas been measurably successful to discover and insert the names of the\nprobable speakers. That seems to be the one exception to the general\nstatement that there is no formal drama in the Scripture. But there are\nsome very striking dramatic episodes, and they are made dramatic for us\nvery largely by the way they are told. One of the earlier is in I Kings\nxviii:21-39.\n\n     \"And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye\n     between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal,\n     then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. Then said\n     Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the\n     Lord; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them\n     therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for\n     themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no\n     fire under; and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood,\n     and put no fire under: and call ye on the name of your gods, and I\n     will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by\n     fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is\n     well spoken. And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you\n     one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many;\n     and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under. And they\n     took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and\n     called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal,\n     hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they\n     leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon,\n     that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud; for he is a god;\n     either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or\n     peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened. And they cried\n     aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and\n     lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass,\n     when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the\n     offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice,\n     nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah said unto all\n     the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto\n     him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.\n     And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the\n     tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came,\n     saying, Israel shall be thy name. And with the stones he built an\n     altar in the name of the Lord; and he made a trench about the\n     altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed. And he put\n     the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on\n     the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on\n     the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. And he said, Do it the second\n     time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third\n     time. And they did it the third time. And the water ran round about\n     the altar; and he filled the trench also with water. And it came to\n     pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that\n     Elijah the prophet came near, and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac,\n     and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in\n     Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these\n     things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may\n     know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their\n     heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the\n     burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and\n     licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people\n     saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, he is\n     the God; the Lord, he is the God.\"\n\nThat is not simply a dramatic event; that is a striking telling of it. It\nis more than a narrative. In narrative literature the scene is accepted as\nalready constructed. In dramatic literature such appeal is made to the\nimagination that the reader reconstructs the scene for himself. We are not\ntold in this how Elijah felt, or how he acted, nor how the people as a\nwhole looked, nor the setting of the scene; but if one reads it with care\nit makes its own setting. The scene constructs itself.\n\nThe dramatic style does not prevail at most important points of the\nScripture, because it is a fictitious style for the presenting of truth.\nIt inevitably suggests superficiality. Things actually do not happen in\nlife as they do in drama.\n\nOne of our latest biographers says that a scientific historian is always\nsuspicious of dramatic events.[26] They may be true, but they are more\nliable to be afterthoughts, like the bright answers we could have made to\nour opponents if we had only thought of them at the time. You never lose\nthe sense of unreality in the very construction of a drama. Life cannot be\ncrowded into two or three hours, and justice does not come out as the\ndrama makes it do. So that at most important points of the Scripture\ndramatic writing does not appear. The account of the carrying away into\ncaptivity of the children of Israel is at no point dramatic, though you\ncan see instantly what a great opportunity there was for it. It is simply\nnarrative. It is noticeable that none of the accounts of the crucifixion\nis at all dramatic. They are all simply narrative. The imagination does\nnot immediately conjure up the scene. There may be two reasons for that.\nOne is that there are involved several hours in which there is no action\nrecorded. The other is that by the time the accounts were written the\nactual events were submerged in importance by their unworded meaning. The\naccount of the conversion of Paul, on the other hand, brief as it is, has\nat least minor dramatic elements in it. On the whole, the Old Testament is\nfar more dramatic than the New.\n\nThere is even less of the oratorical element in the Scripture. There is,\nto be sure, a considerable amount of quotation, and men do speak at some\nlength, but seldom oratorically. The prophetical writings are generally\ntoo fragmentary to suggest oratory, and the quotations in the New\nTestament, especially from the preaching of our Lord, are evidently for\nthe most part excerpts from longer addresses than are given. There are few\nof the statements of Paul, as in the 26th chapter of Acts, which could be\ndelivered oratorically; but here again the Old Testament is more marked\nthan the New. The earliest specimen of oratory is also one of the finest\nspecimens. It is in the 44th chapter of Genesis, and is the account of\nJudah's reply to his unrecognized brother Joseph:\n\n     \"Then Judah came near unto him, and said, O my lord, let thy\n     servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not\n     thine anger burn against thy servant: for thou art even as Pharoah.\n     My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father, or a brother?\n     And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, and a child\n     of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone\n     is left of his mother, and his father loveth him. And thou saidst\n     unto thy servants, Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes\n     upon him. And we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his\n     father: for if he should leave his father, his father would die.\n     And thou saidst unto thy servant, Except your youngest brother come\n     down with you, ye shall see my face no more. And it came to pass\n     when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words\n     of my lord. And our father said, Go again and buy us a little food.\n     And we said, We cannot go down; if our youngest brother be with us,\n     then we will go down: for we may not see the man's face, except our\n     youngest brother be with us. And thy servant my father said unto\n     us, Ye know that my wife bare me two sons: and the one went out\n     from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces; and I saw him not\n     since: and if ye take this also from me, and mischief befall him,\n     ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Now\n     therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not\n     with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life; it\n     shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that\n     he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of\n     thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant\n     became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him\n     not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father for ever.\n     Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the\n     lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren.\n     For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me?\n     lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father.\"\n\nThat is pure oratory, and it is greatly helped by the English expression\nof it. Here our King James version is finer than either of the other later\nversions, as indeed it is in almost all these sections where the\nphraseology is important for the ear.\n\nWe need not go farther. Part of these outstanding characteristics come to\nour version from the original, and might appear in any version of the\nBible. Yet nowhere do even these original characteristics come to such\nprominence as in the King James translation; and it adds to them those\nthat are peculiar to itself.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[17] Preface, p. vii.\n\n[18] Page 124.\n\n[19] _Short History of the English People_, Book vii, chap. i.\n\n[20] T. R. Eaton, _Shakespeare and the Bible_, p. 2.\n\n[21] _Essay on John Dryden._\n\n[22] _Historical Sketches, Hampton Court Conference._\n\n[23] Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_, p. 54.\n\n[24] _The Spectator_, No. 405.\n\n[25] This table will show the comparison at a glance:\n\n    Syllables        1    2    3    4   5   6\nThe Commandments   259   50    6    4   0   0   319\nProfessor March    194   65   35   18   5   2   319\n\n[26] McGiffert, _Life of Martin Luther_.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF THE KING JAMES VERSION ON ENGLISH LITERATURE\n\n\nThe Bible is a book-making book. It is literature which provokes\nliterature.\n\nIt would be a pleasure to survey the whole field of literature in the\nbroadest sense and to note the creative power of the King James version;\nbut that is manifestly impossible here. Certain limitations must be\nfrankly made. Leave on one side, therefore, the immense body of purely\nreligious literature, sermons, expositions, commentaries, which, of\ncourse, are the direct product of the Bible. No book ever caused so much\ndiscussion about itself and its teaching. That is because it deals with\nthe fundamental human interest, religion. It still remains true that the\nlargest single department of substantial books from our English presses is\nin the realm of religion, and after the purely recreative literature they\nare probably most widely read. Yet, they are not what we mean at this\ntime by the literary result of the English Bible.\n\nLeave on one side also the very large body of political and historical\nwriting. Much of it shows Bible influence. In the nature of the case, any\nhistorian of the past three hundred years must often refer to and quote\nfrom the English Bible, and must note its influence. An entire study could\nbe devoted to the influence of the English Bible on Green or Bancroft or\nFreeman or Prescott--its influence on their matter and their manner.\nAnother could be given to its influence on political writing and speaking.\nNo great orator of the day would fail us of material, and the great\npolitical papers and orations of the past would only widen the field. Yet\nwhile some of this political and historical writing is recognized as\nliterature, most of it can be left out of our thought just now.\n\nIt may aid in the limiting of the field to accept what Dean Stanley said\nin another connection: \"By literature, I mean those great works that rise\nabove professional or commonplace uses and take possession of the mind of\na whole nation or a whole age.\"[27] This is one of the matters which we\nall understand until we begin to define it; we know what we mean until\nsome one asks us.\n\nThe literature of which we are thinking in this narrower sense is in the\nsphere of art rather than in the sphere of distinct achievement. De\nQuincey's division is familiar: the literature of knowledge, and the\nliterature of power. The function of the first is to teach; the function\nof the second is to move. Professor Dowden points out that between the two\nlies a third field, the literature of criticism. It seeks both to teach\nand to move. Our concern is chiefly with De Quincey's second field--the\nliterature of power. In the first field, the literature of knowledge, must\nlie all history, with Hume and Gibbon; all science, with Darwin and Fiske;\nall philosophy, with Spencer and William James; all political writing,\nwith Voltaire and Webster. Near that same field must lie many of those\nessays in criticism of which Professor Dowden speaks. This which we omit,\nthis literature of knowledge, is powerful literature, though its main\npurpose is not to move, but to teach. We are only reducing our field so\nthat we can survey it. For our uses just now we shall find pure literature\ntaking the three standard forms: the poem, the essay, and the story. It is\nthe influence of the English Bible on this large field of literature\nwhich we are to observe.\n\nJust for safety's sake, accept another narrowing of the field. The effect\nof the Bible and its religious teaching on the writer himself is a\nseparate study, and is for the most part left out of consideration. It\nsounds correct when Milton says: \"He who would not be frustrate of his\npower to write well ought himself to be a true poem.\" But there is Milton\nhimself to deal with; irreproachable in morals, there are yet the unhappy\nyears of his young wife to trouble us, and there were his daughters, who\nwere not at peace with him, and whom after their service in his blindness\nhe yet stigmatizes in his will as \"undutiful children.\" Then, if you think\nof Shelley or Byron, you are troubled by their lives; or even Carlyle, the\nvery master of the Victorian era--one would not like to scan his life\naccording to the laws of true poetry. Then there is Coleridge, falling a\nprey to opium until, as years came, conscience and will seemed to go. Only\na very ardent Scot will feel that he can defend Robert Burns at all\npoints, and we would be strange Americans if we felt that Edgar Allan Poe\nwas a model of propriety. That is a large and interesting field, but the\nBible seems even to gain power as a book-making book when it lays hold on\nthe book-making proclivities of men who are not prepared to yield to its\npersonal power. They may get away from it as religion; they do not get\naway from it as literature.\n\nThe first and most notable fact regarding the influence of the Bible on\nEnglish literature is the remarkable extent of that influence. It is\nliterally everywhere. If every Bible in any considerable city were\ndestroyed, the Book could be restored in all its essential parts from the\nquotations on the shelves of the city public library. There are works,\ncovering almost all the great literary writers, devoted especially to\nshowing how much the Bible has influenced them.\n\nThe literary effect of the King James version at first was less than its\nsocial effect; but in that very fact lies a striking literary influence.\nFor a long time it formed virtually the whole literature which was readily\naccessible to ordinary Englishmen. We get our phrases from a thousand\nbooks. The common talk of an intelligent man shows the effect of many\nauthors upon his thinking. Our fathers got their phrases from one great\nbook. Their writing and their speaking show the effect of that book.\n\nIt is a study by itself, and yet it is true that world literature is, as\nProfessor Moulton puts it, the autobiography of civilization. \"A national\nliterature is a reflection of the national history.\" Books as books\nreflect their authors. As literature they reflect the public opinion which\ngives them indorsement. When, therefore, public opinion keeps alive a\ncertain group of books, there is testimony not simply to those books, but\nto the public opinion which has preserved them. The history of popular\nestimates of literature is itself most interesting. On the other hand,\nsome writers have been amusingly overestimated. No doubt Edward\nFitzgerald, who gave us the \"Rubaiyat of Omar Khayy\u00e1m\" did some other\ndesirable work; but Professor Moulton quotes this paragraph from a popular\nlife of Fitzgerald, published in Dublin: \"Not Greece of old in her\npalmiest days--the Greece of Homer and Demosthenes, of Eschylus,\nEuripides, and Sophocles, of Pericles, Leonidas, and Alcibiades, of\nSocrates, Plato, and Aristotle, of Solon and Lycurgus, of Apelles and\nPraxiteles--not even this Greece, prolific as she was in sages and heroes,\ncan boast such a lengthy bead-roll as Ireland can of names immortal in\nhistory!\" But \"this was for Irish consumption.\" And popular opinion and\neven critical opinion has sometimes gone far astray in its destructive\ntendency. There were authoritative critics who declared that Wordsworth,\nShelley, and Coleridge wrote \"unintelligible nonsense.\" George Meredith's\nstyle, especially in his poetry, was counted so bad that it was not worth\nreading. We are all near enough the Browning epoch to recall how the\nobscurity of his style impressed some and oppressed others. Alfred Austin,\nin 1869, said that \"Mr. Tennyson has no sound pretensions to be called a\ngreat poet.\" Contemporary public opinion is seldom a final gauge of\nstrength for a piece of literature. It takes the test of time. How many\nbooks we have seen come on the stage and then pass off again! Yet the\nbooks that have stayed on the stage have been kept there by public opinion\nexpressing itself in the long run. The social influence of the King James\nversion, creating a public taste for certain types of literature, tended\nto produce them at once.\n\nEnglish literature in these three hundred years has found in the Bible\nthree influential elements: style, language, and material.\n\nFirst, the style of the King James version has influenced English\nliterature markedly. Professor Gardiner opens one of his essays with the\ndictum that \"in all study of English literature, if there be any one axiom\nwhich may be accepted without question, it is that the ultimate standard\nof English prose style is set by the King James version of the Bible.\"[28]\nYou almost measure the strength of writing by its agreement with the\npredominant traits of this version. Carlyle's weakest works are those\nthat lose the honest simplicity of its style in a forced turgidity and\naffected roughness. His _Heroes and Hero Worship_ or his _French\nRevolution_ shows his distinctive style, and yet shows the influence of\nthis simpler style, while his _Frederick the Great_ is almost impossible\nbecause he has given full play to his broken and disconnected sentences.\nOn the other hand, Macaulay fails us most in his striving for effect,\nmaking nice balance of sentences, straining his \"either-or,\" or his\n\"while-one-was-doing-this-the-other-was-doing-that.\" Then his sentences\ngrow involved, and his paragraphs lengthen, and he swings away from the\nstyle of the King James version. \"One can say that if any writing departs\nvery far from the characteristics of the English Bible it is not good\nEnglish writing.\"\n\nThe second element which English literature finds in the Bible is its\n_language_. The words of the Bible are the familiar ones of the English\ntongue, and have been kept familiar by the use of the Bible. The result is\nthat \"the path of literature lies parallel to that of religion. They are\nold and dear companions, brethren indeed of one blood; not always\nagreeing, to be sure; squabbling rather in true brotherly fashion now and\nthen; occasionally falling out very seriously and bitterly; but still\ninterdependent and necessary to each other.\"[29] Years ago a writer\nremarked that every student of English literature, or of English speech,\nfinds three works or subjects referred to, or quoted from, more frequently\nthan others. These are the Bible, tales of Greek and Roman mythology, and\n_\u00c6sop's Fables_. Of these three, certainly the Bible furnishes the largest\nnumber of references. There is reason for that. A writer wants an\naudience. Very few men can claim to be independent of the public for which\nthey write. There is nothing the public will be more apt to understand and\nappreciate quickly than a passing reference to the English Bible. So it\ncomes about that when Dickens is describing the injustice of the\nMurdstones to little David Copperfield, he can put the whole matter before\nus in a parenthesis: \"Though there was One once who set a child in the\nmidst of the disciples.\" Dickens knew that his readers would at once catch\nthe meaning of that reference, and would feel the contrast between the\nscene he was describing and that simple scene. Take any of the great books\nof literature and black out the phrases which manifestly come directly\nfrom the English Bible, and you would mark them beyond recovery.\n\nBut English literature has found more of its material in the Bible than\nanything else. It has looked there for its characters, its illustrations,\nits subject-matter. We shall see, as we consider individual writers, how\nmany of their titles and complete works are suggested by the Bible. It is\ninteresting to see how one idea of the Scripture will appear and reappear\namong many writers. Take one illustration. The Faust story is an effort to\nmake concrete one verse of Scripture: \"What shall it profit a man if he\nshall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?\" Professor Moulton\nreminds us that the Faust legend appeared first in the Middle Ages. In\nearly English, Marlowe has it, Calderon put it into Spanish, the most\nfamiliar form of it is Goethe's, while Philip Bailey has called his\naccount of it _Festus_. In each of those forms the same idea occurs. A man\nsells his soul to the devil for the gaining of what is to him the world.\nThat is one of a good many ideas which the Bible has given to literature.\nThe prodigal son has been another prolific source of literary writing.\nThe guiding star is another. Others will readily come to mind.\n\nWith that simple background let our minds move down the course of literary\nhistory. Style, language, material--we will easily think how much of each\nthe Bible has given to all our great writers if their names are only\nmentioned. There are four groups of these writers.\n\n1. The Jacobean, who wrote when and just after our version was made.\n\n2. The Georgian, who graced the reigns of the kings whose name the period\nbears.\n\n3. The Victorian.\n\n4. The American.\n\nThere is an attractive fifth group comprising our present-day workers in\nthe realm of pure literature, but we must omit them and give our attention\nto names that are starred.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is familiar that in the time of Elizabeth, \"England became a nest of\nsinging birds.\" In the fifty years after the first English theater was\nerected, the middle of Elizabeth's reign, fifty dramatic poets appeared,\nmany of the first order. Some were distinctly irreligious, as were many of\nthe people whose lives they touched. Such men as Ford, Marlowe, Massinger,\nWebster, Beaumont, and Fletcher stand like a chorus around Shakespeare\nand Ben Jonson as leaders. As Taine puts it: \"They sing the same piece\ntogether, and at times the chorus is equal to the solo; but only at\ntimes.\"[30] Cultured people to-day know the names of most of these\nwriters, but not much else, and it does not heavily serve our argument to\nsay that they felt the Puritan influence; but they all did feel it either\ndirectly or by reaction.\n\nEdmund Spenser and his friend, Sir Philip Sidney, had closed their work\nbefore the King James version appeared, yet the _Faerie Queene_ in its\nreligious theory is Puritan to the core, and Sidney is best remembered by\nhis paraphrases of Scripture. The influence of both was even greater in\nthe Jacobean than in their own period.\n\nIt is hardly fair even to note the Elizabethan Shakespeare as under the\ninfluence of the King James version. The Bible influenced him markedly,\nbut it was the Genevan version prepared during the exile of the scholars\nunder Bloody Mary, or the Bishops' Bible prepared under Elizabeth. Those\nversions were familiar as household facts to him. \"No writer has\nassimilated the thoughts and reproduced the words of Holy Scripture more\ncopiously than Shakespeare.\" Dr. Furnivall says that \"he is saturated\nwith the Bible story,\" and a century ago Capel Lofft said quaintly that\nShakespeare \"had deeply imbibed the Scriptures.\" But the King James\nversion appeared only five years before his death, and it is in some sense\nfairer to say that Shakespeare and the King James version are formed by\nthe same influence as to their English style. The Bishop of St. Andrews\neven devotes the first part of his book on Shakespeare and the Bible to a\nstudy of parallels between the two in peculiar forms of speech, and thinks\nit \"probable that our translators of 1611 owed as much to Shakespeare as,\nor rather far more than, he owed to them.\"[31] It is generally agreed that\nonly two of his works were written after our version appeared. Several\nother writers have devoted separate volumes to noting the frequent use by\nShakespeare of Biblical phrases and allusions and characters taken from\nearly versions. It is a very tempting field, and we pass it by only\nbecause it is hardly in the range of the study we are now making.\n\nWhen, however, we come to John Milton (1608-1674), we remember he was only\nthree years old when our version was issued; that when at fifteen, an\nundergraduate in Cambridge, he made his first paraphrases, casting two of\nthe Psalms into meter, the version he used was this familiar one. A\nbiographer says he began the day always with the reading of Scripture and\nkept his memory deeply charged with its phrases. In later life the morning\nchapter was generally from the Hebrew, and was followed by an hour of\nsilence for meditation, an exercise whose influence no man's style could\nescape. As a writer he moved steadily toward the Scripture and the\nreligious teaching which it brought his age. His earlier writing is a\ngroup of poems largely secular, which yet show in phrases and expressions\nmuch of the influence of his boyhood study of the Bible, as well as the\nfamiliar use of mythology. The memorial poem \"Lycidas,\" for example,\ncontains the much-quoted reference to Peter and his two keys--\n\n    \"Last came and last did go\n    The pilot of the Galilean lake;\n    Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,\n    (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).\"\n\nBut after these poems came the period of his prose, the work which he\nsupposed was the abiding work of his life. George William Curtis told a\nfriend that our civil war changed his own literary style: \"That roused me\nto see that I had no right to spend my life in literary leisure. I felt\nthat I must throw myself into the struggle for freedom and the Union. I\nbegan to lecture and to write. The style took care of itself. But I fancy\nit is more solid than it was thirty years ago.\" That is what happened to\nMilton when the protectorate came.[32] It made his style more solid. He\ndid not mean to live as a poet. He felt that his best energies were being\nput into his essays in defense of liberty, on the freedom of the press and\non the justice of the beheading of Charles, in which service he sacrificed\nhis sight. All of it is shot through with Scripture quotations and\narguments, and some of it, at least, is in the very spirit of Scripture.\nThe plea for larger freedom of divorce issued plainly from his own bitter\nexperience; but his main argument roots in a few Bible texts taken out of\ntheir connection and urged with no shadow of question of their authority.\nIndeed, when he comes to his more religious essays, his heavy argument is\nthat there should be no religion permitted in England which is not drawn\ndirectly from the Bible; which, therefore, he urges must be common\nproperty for all the people. There is a curious bit of evidence that the\nmen of his own time did not realize his power as a poet. In Pierre\nBayle's critical survey of the literature of the time, he calls Milton\n\"the famous apologist for the execution of Charles I.,\" who \"meddled in\npoetry and several of whose poems saw the light during his life or after\nhis death!\" For all that, Milton was only working on toward his real\npower, and his power was to be shown in his service to religion. His three\ngreat poems, in the order of their value, are, of course, \"Paradise Lost,\"\n\"Samson Agonistes,\" and \"Paradise Regained.\" Whoever knows anything of\nMilton knows these three and knows they are Scriptural from first to last\nin phrase, in allusion, and, in part at least, in idea. There is not time\nfor extended illustration. One instance may stand for all, which shall\nillustrate how Milton's mind was like a garden where the seeds of\nScripture came to flower and fruit. He will take one phrase from the Bible\nand let it grow to a page in \"Paradise Lost.\" Here is an illustration\nwhich comes readily to hand. In the Genesis it is said that \"the spirit of\nGod moved on the face of the waters.\" The verb suggests the idea of\nbrooding. There is only one other possible reference (Psalm xxiv:2) which\nis included in this statement which Milton makes out of that brief word in\nthe Genesis:\n\n                  \"On the watery calm\n    His broadening wings the Spirit of God outspread,\n    And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth\n    Throughout the fluid mass, but downward purged\n    The black tartareous cold infernal dregs,\n    Adverse to life; then formed, then con-globed,\n    Like things to like; the rest to several place\n    Disparted, and between spun out the air--\n    And earth self-balanced on her center swung.\"\n\nAny one familiar with Milton will recognize that as a typical instance of\nthe way in which a seed idea from the Scripture comes to flower and fruit\nin him. The result is that more people have their ideas about heaven and\nhell from Milton than from the Bible, though they do not know it.\n\nIt seems hardly fair to use John Bunyan (1628-1688) as an illustration of\nthe influence of the English Bible on literature, because his chief work\nis composed so largely in the language of Scripture. _Pilgrim's Progress_\nis the most widely read book in the English language after the Bible. Its\nphrases, its names, its matter are either directly or indirectly taken\nfrom the Bible. It has given us a long list of phrases which are part of\nour literary and religious capital. Thackeray took the motto of one of his\nbest-known books from the Bible; but the title, _Vanity Fair_, comes from\n_Pilgrim's Progress_. When a discouraged man says he is \"in the slough of\ndespond,\" he quotes Bunyan; and when a popular evangelist tells the people\nthat the burden of sin will roll away if they look at the cross,\n\"according to the Bible,\" he ought to say according to Bunyan. But all\nthis was only the outcome of the familiarity of Bunyan with the Scripture.\nIt was almost all he did know in a literary way. Macaulay says that \"he\nknew no language but the English as it was spoken by the common people; he\nhad studied no great model of composition, with the exception of our noble\ntranslation of the Bible. But of that his knowledge was such that he might\nhave been called a living concordance.\"[33]\n\nAfter these three--Shakespeare, Milton, and Bunyan--there appeared another\nthree, very much their inferiors and having much less influence on\nliterary history. I mean Dryden, Addison, and Pope. It is not necessary to\ncredit the Scripture with much of Dryden's spirit, nor with much of his\nstyle, and certainly not with his attitude toward his fellows; but it is a\nconstant surprise in reading Dryden to discover how familiar he was with\nthe King James version. Walter Scott insists that Dryden was at heart\nserious, that \"his indelicacy was like the forced impudence of a bashful\nman.\" That is generous judgment. But there is this to be said: as he grows\nmore serious he falls more into Bible words. If he writes a political\npamphlet he calls it \"Absalom and Ahithophel.\" In it he holds the men of\nthe day up to scorn under Bible names. They are Zimri and Shimei, and the\nlike. When he is falling into bitterest satire, his writing abounds in\nthese Biblical allusions which could be made only by one who was very\nfamiliar with the Book. Quotations cannot be abundant, of course, but\nthere is a great deal of this sort of thing:\n\n    \"Sinking, he left his drugget robe behind,\n    Borne upward by a subterranean wind,\n    The mantle fell to the young prophet's part,\n    With double portion of his father's art.\"\n\nIn his Epistles there is much of the same sort. When he writes to Congreve\nhe speaks of the fathers, and says:\n\n    \"Their's was the giant race before the flood.\"\n\nFarther on he says:\n\n    \"Our builders were with want of genius curst,\n    The second temple was not like the first.\"\n\nNow Dryden may have been, as Macaulay said, an \"illustrious renegade,\" but\nall his writing shows the influence of the language and the ideas of the\nKing James version. Whenever we sing the \"Veni Creator\" we sing John\nDryden.\n\nSo we sing Addison in the paraphrase of Scripture, which Haydn's music has\nmade familiar:\n\n    \"The spacious firmament on high,\n    With all the blue ethereal sky.\"\n\nWhile Dryden yielded to his times, Addison did not, and the _Spectator_\nbecame not only a literary but a moral power. In the effort to make it so\nhe was thrown back on the largest moral influence of the day, the Bible,\nand throughout the _Spectator_ and through all of Addison's writing you\nfind on all proper occasions the Bible pressed to the front. Here again\nTaine puts it strikingly: \"It is no small thing to make morality\nfashionable; Addison did it, and it remains fashionable.\"\n\nIf we speak of singing, we may remember that we sing the hymn of even poor\nlittle dwarfed invalid Alexander Pope. He was born the year Bunyan died,\nborn at cross-purposes with the world. He could write a bitter satire,\nlike the \"Dunciad\"; he could give the world The Iliad and The Odyssey in\nsuch English that we know them far better than in the Greek of Homer; but\nin those rare moments when he was at his better self he would write his\ngreater poem, \"The Messiah,\" in which the movement of Scripture is\noutlined as it could be only by one who knew the English Bible. And when\nwe sing--\n\n    \"Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise\"--\n\nit is worth while to realize that the voice that first sung it was that of\nthe irritable little poet who found some of his scant comfort in the grand\nwords and phrases and ideas of our English Bible.\n\nWith these six--Shakespeare, Milton, Bunyan, Dryden, Addison, and\nPope--the course of the Jacobean literature is sufficiently measured.\nThere are many lesser names, but these are the ones which made it an epoch\nin literature, and these are at their best under the power of the Bible.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the Georgian group we need to call only five great names which have had\ncreative influence in literature. Ordinary culture in literature will\ninclude some acquaintance with each of them. In the order of their death\nthey are Shelley (1822), Byron (1824), Coleridge (1831), Walter Scott\n(1832), and Wordsworth (1850). The last long outlived the others; but he\nbelongs with them, because he was born earlier than any other in the group\nand did his chief work in their time and before the later group appeared.\nExcept Wordsworth, all these were gone before Queen Victoria came to the\nthrone in 1837. Three other names could be called: Keats, Robert Burns,\nand Charles Lamb. All would illustrate what we are studying. Keats least\nof all and Burns most. They are omitted here not because they did not feel\nthe influence of the English Bible, not because they do not constantly\nshow its influence, but because they are not so creative as the others;\nthey have not so influenced the current of literature. At any rate, the\nfive named will represent worthily and with sufficient completeness the\nGeorgian period of English literature.\n\nNothing could reveal more clearly than this list how we are distinguishing\nthe Bible as literature from the Bible as an authoritative book in morals.\nOne would much dislike to credit the Bible with any part of the personal\nlife of Shelley or Byron. They were friends; they were geniuses; but they\nwere both badly afflicted with common moral leprosy. It is playing with\nmorals to excuse either of them because he was a genius. Nothing in the\ngenius of either demanded or was served by the course of cheap immorality\nwhich both practised. It was not because Shelley was a genius that he\nmarried Harriet Westbrook, then ran away with Mary Godwin, then tried to\nget the two to become friends and neighbors until his own wife committed\nsuicide; it was not his genius that made him yield to the influence of\nEmilia Viviani and write her the poem \"Epipsychidion,\" telling her and the\nworld that he \"was never attached to that great sect who believed that\neach one should select out of the crowd a mistress or a friend\" and let\nthe rest go. That was not genius, that was just common passion; and our\ndivorce courts are full of Shelleys of that type. So Byron's personal\nimmorality is not to be explained nor excused on the ground of his genius.\nIt was not genius that led him so astray in England that his wife had to\ndivorce him, and that public opinion drove him out of the land. It was not\nhis genius that sent him to visit Shelley and his mistress at Lake Geneva\nand seduce their guest, so that she bore him a daughter, though she was\nnever his wife. It was not genius that made him pick up still another\ncompanion out of several in Italy and live with her in immoral relation.\nIn the name of common decency let no one stand up for Shelley and Byron in\ntheir personal characters! There are not two moral laws, one for geniuses\nand one for common people. Byron, at any rate, was never deceived about\nhimself, never blamed his genius nor his conscience for his wrong. These\nare striking lines in \"Childe Harold,\" in which he disclaims all right to\nsympathy, because,\n\n    \"The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree\n    I planted,--they have torn me and I bleed.\n    I should have known what fruit would spring from such a tree.\"\n\nShelley's wife would not say that for him. \"In all Shelley did,\" she says,\n\"he at the time of doing it believed himself justified to his own\nconscience.\" Well, so much the worse for Shelley! Geniuses are not the\nonly men who can find good reason for doing what they want to do. One of\nShelley's critics suggests that the trouble was his introduction into\npersonal conduct of the imagination which he ought to have saved for his\nwriting. Perhaps we might explain Byron's misconduct by reminding\nourselves of his club-foot, and applying one code of morals to men with\nclub-feet and another to men with normal feet.\n\nIf we speak of the influence of the Bible on these men, it must be on\ntheir literary work; and when we find it there, it becomes peculiar mark\nof its power. They had little sense of it as moral law. Their consciences\napproved it and condemned themselves, or else their delicate literary\ntaste sensed it as a book of power.\n\nThis is notably true of Shelley. When he was still a student in Oxford he\ncommitted himself to the opinion of another writer, that \"the mind cannot\nbelieve in the existence of God.\" He tries to work that out fully in his\nnotes on \"Queen Mab.\" When he was hardly yet of age he himself wrote that\n\"The genius of human happiness must tear every leaf from the accursed Book\nof God, ere man can read the inscription on its heart.\" He once said that\nhis highest desire was that there should be a monument to himself\nsomewhere in the Alps which should be only a great stone with its face\nsmoothed and this short inscription cut in it, \"Percy Bysshe Shelley,\nAtheist.\"\n\nIt would seem that whatever Shelley drew of strength or inspiration from\nthe Bible would be by way of reaction; but it is not so. However he may\nhave hated the \"accursed Book of God,\" his wife tells in her note on \"The\nRevolt of Islam\" that Shelley \"debated whether he should devote himself\nto poetry or metaphysics,\" and, resolving on the former, he \"educated\nhimself for it, engaging himself in the study of the poets of Greece,\nEngland, and Italy. To these, may be added,\" she goes on, \"a constant\nperusal of portions of the Old Testament, the Book of Psalms, Job, Isaiah,\nand others, the sublime poetry of which filled him with delight.\" Not only\ndid he catch the spirit of that poetry, but its phrases haunted his\nmemory. In his best prose work, which he called _A Defense of Poetry_,\nthere is an interesting revelation of the influence of his Bible reading\nupon him. Toward the end of the essay these two sentences occur: \"It is\ninconsistent with this division of our subject to cite living poets, but\nposterity has done ample justice to the great names now referred to. Their\nerrors have been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance; if\ntheir sins are as scarlet, they are now white as snow; they have been\nwashed in the blood of the mediator and redeemer, Time.\" There is no more\neloquent passage in the essay than the one of which this is part, and yet\nit is full of allusion to this Book from which all pages must be torn!\nEven in \"Queen Mab\" he makes Ahasuerus, the wandering Jew, recount the\nBible story in such broad outlines as could be given only by a man who\nwas familiar with it. When Shelley was in Italy and the word came to him\nof the massacre at Manchester, he wrote his \"Masque of Anarchy.\" There are\nfew more melodious lines of his writing than those which occur in this\nlong poem in the section regarding freedom. Four of those lines are often\nquoted. They are at the very heart of Shelley's best work. Addressing\nfreedom, he says:\n\n    \"Thou art love: the rich have kissed\n    Thy feet, and, like him following Christ,\n    Gave their substance to the free,\n    And through the rough world follow thee.\"\n\nPage after page of Shelley reveals these half-conscious references to the\nBible. There were two sources from which he received his passionate\ndemocracy. One was the treatment he received at Eton, and later at Oxford;\nthe other is his frequent reading of the English Bible, even though he was\nin the spirit of rebellion against much of its teaching. In Browning's\nessay on Shelley, he reaches the amazing conclusion that \"had Shelley\nlived, he would finally have ranged himself with the Christians,\" and\nseeks to justify it by showing that he was moving straight toward the\npositions of Paul and of David. Some of us may not see such rapid\napproach, but that Shelley felt the drawing of God in the universe is\nplain enough.\n\nThe influence of the Bible is still more marked on Byron. He spent his\nchildhood years at Aberdeen. There his nurse trained him in the Bible;\nand, though he did not live by it, he never lost his love for it, nor his\nknowledge of it. He tells of his own experience in this way: \"I am a great\nreader of those books [the Bible], and had read them through and through\nbefore I was eight years old; that is to say, the Old Testament, for the\nNew struck me as a task, but the other as a pleasure.\"[34] One of the\nearliest bits of his work is a paraphrase of one of the Psalms. His\nphysical infirmity put him at odds with the world, while his striking\nbeauty drew to him a crowd of admirers who helped to poison every spring\nof his genius. Even so, he held his love for the Bible. While Shelley\noften spoke of it in contempt, while he prided himself on his divergence\nfrom the path of its teaching, Byron never did. He wandered far, but he\nalways knew it; and, though he could hardly find terms to express his\ncontempt for the Church, there is no line of Byron's writing which is a\nslur at the Bible. On the other hand, much of his work reveals a passion\nfor the beauty of it as well as its truth. His most melodious writing is\nin that group of Hebrew melodies which were written to be sung. They\ndemand far more than a passing knowledge of the Bible both for their\nwriting and their understanding. There is a long list of them, but no one\nwithout a knowledge of the Bible would have known what he meant by his\npoem, \"The Harp the Monarch Minstrel Swept.\" \"Jephtha's Daughter\" presumes\nupon a knowledge of the Old Testament story which would not come to one in\na passing study of the Bible. \"The Song of Saul Before his Last Battle\"\nand the poem headed \"Saul\" could not have been written, nor can they be\nread intelligently by any one who does not know his Bible. Among Byron's\ndramas, two of which he thought most, were, \"Heaven and Earth\" and \"Cain.\"\nWhen he was accused of perverting the Scripture in \"Cain,\" he replied that\nhe had only taken the Scripture at its face value. Both of the dramas are\nnot only built directly out of Scriptural events, but imply a far wider\nknowledge of Scripture than their mere titles suggest.\n\nThere are striking references in many other poems, even in his almost vile\npoem, \"Don Juan.\" The most notable instance is in the fifteenth canto,\nwhere he is speaking of persecuted sages and these lines occur:\n\n    \"Was it not so, great Locke? and greater Bacon?\n    Great Socrates? And Thou Diviner still,\n    Whose lot it is by men to be mistaken,\n    And Thy pure creed made sanction of all ill?\n    Redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken,\n    How was Thy toil rewarded?\"\n\nIn a note on this passage Byron says: \"As it is necessary in these times\nto avoid ambiguity, I say that I mean by 'Diviner still' _Christ_. If ever\nGod was man--or man God--He was both. I never arraigned His creed, but the\nuse or abuse of it. Mr. Canning one day quoted Christianity to sanction\nslavery, and Mr. Wilberforce had little to say in reply. And was Christ\ncrucified that black men might be scourged? If so, He had better been born\na mulatto, to give both colors an equal chance of freedom, or at least\nsalvation.\" Byron could live far from the influence of the Bible in his\npersonal life; but he never escaped its influence in his literary work.\n\nOf Coleridge less needs to be said, because we think of him so much in\nterms of his more meditative musings, which are often religious. He\nhimself tells of long and careful rereadings of the English Bible until he\ncould say: In the Bible \"there is more that finds me than I have\nexperienced in all other books together; the words of the Bible find me at\ngreater depths of my being.\" Of course, that would influence his writing,\nand it did. Even in the \"Rime of the Ancient Mariner\" much of the\nphraseology is Scriptural. When the albatross drew near,\n\n    \"As if it had been a Christian soul,\n    We hailed it in God's name.\"\n\nWhen the mariner slept he gave praise to Mary, Queen of Heaven. He sought\nthe shriving of the hermit-priest. He ends the story because he hears \"the\nlittle vesper bell\" which bids him to prayer. When you read his \"Hymn\nBefore Sunrise in the Vale of Chamounix\" you find yourself reading the\nNineteenth Psalm. He calls on the motionless torrents and the silent\ncataracts and the great Mont Blanc itself to praise God. Coleridge never\nhad seen Chamounix, nor Mont Blanc, nor a glacier, but he knew his Bible.\nSo he has his Christmas Carol along with all the rest. His poem of the\nMoors after the Civil War under Philip II. is Scriptural in its\nphraseology, and so is much else that he wrote. Frankly and willingly he\nyielded to its influence. In his \"Table Talk\" he often refers to the value\nof the Bible in the forming of literary style. Once he said: \"Intense\nstudy of the Bible will keep any writer from being vulgar in point of\nstyle.\"[35]\n\nThe very mention of Coleridge makes one think of Wordsworth. They had a\nDamon and Pythias friendship. The Wordsworths were poor; they had only\nseventy pounds a year, and they were not ashamed. Coleridge called them\nthe happiest family he ever saw. Wordsworth was not narrowly a Christian\npoet, he was not always seeking to put Christian dogma into poetry, but\nthroughout he was expressing the Christian spirit which he had learned\nfrom the Bible. His poetry was one long protest against banishing God from\nthe universe. It was literally true of him that \"the meanest flower that\ngrows can give thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears.\" If this\nwere the time to be critical, one would think that too much was sometimes\nmade of very minute occurrences; but this tendency to get back of the\nevent and see how God is moving is learned best from Scripture, where\nWordsworth himself learned it. If you read his \"Intimations of\nImmortality,\" or the \"Ode to Duty,\" or \"Tintern Abbey,\" or even the rather\nlabored \"Excursion,\" you find yourself under the Scriptural influence.\n\nThere remains in this Georgian group the great prose master, Walter Scott.\nMr. Gladstone said he thought Scott the greatest of his countrymen. John\nMorley suggested John Knox instead. Mr. Gladstone replied: \"No, the line\nmust be drawn firmly between the writer and the man of action--no\ncomparison there.\"[36] He went on to say that Burns is very fine and true,\nno doubt, \"but to imagine a whole group of characters, to marshal them, to\nset them to work, and to sustain the action, I must count that the test of\nhighest and most diversified quality.\" All who are fond of Scott will\nrealize how constantly the scenes which he is describing group themselves\naround religious observances, how often men are held in check from deeds\nof violence by religious conception. Many of these scenes crystallize\naround a Scriptural event. Scott's boyhood was spent in scenes that\nreminded him of the power the Scripture had. He was drilled from his\nchildhood in the knowledge of its words and phrases, and while his writing\nas a whole shows more of the Old Testament influence than of the New, even\nin his style he is strongly under Bible influence.\n\nThe preface to _Guy Mannering_ tells us it is built around an old story of\na father putting a lad to test under guidance of an ancient astrologer,\nshutting him up in a barren room to be tempted by the Evil One, leaving\nhim only one safeguard, a Bible, lying on the table in the middle of the\nroom. In his introduction to _The Heart of Midlothian_, Scott makes one of\nthe two men thrown into the water by the overturned coach remind the other\nthat they \"cannot complain, like Cowley, that Gideon's fleece remains dry\nwhile all around is moist; this is the reverse of the miracle.\" A little\nlater a speaker describes novels as the Delilahs that seduce wise and good\nmen from more serious reading. In the dramatic scene when Jeanie Deans\nfaces the wretched George Staunton, who has so shamed the household, she\nexclaims: \"O sir, did the Scripture never come into your mind, 'Vengeance\nis mine, and I will repay it?'\" \"Scripture!\" he sneers, \"why I had not\nopened a Bible for five years.\" \"Wae's me, sir,\" said Jeanie--\"and a\nminister's son, too!\" Anthony Foster, in _Kenilworth_, looks down on poor\nAmy's body in the vault into which she has fallen, in response to what she\nthought was Leicester's whistle, and exclaims to Varney: \"Oh, if there be\njudgment in heaven, thou hast deserved it, and will meet it! Thou hast\ndestroyed her by means of her best affections--it is the seething of the\nkid in the mother's milk!\" And when, next morning, Varney was found dead\nof the secret poison and with a sneering sarcasm on his ghastly face,\nScott dismisses him with the phrase: \"The wicked man, saith the\nScripture, hath no bonds in his death.\"\n\nHis characters use freely the familiar Bible events and phrases. In the\n_Fortunes of Nigel_, a story of the very period when our King James\nversion was produced, Hildebrod declares that if he had his way Captain\nPeppercull should hang as high as Haman ever did. In _Kenilworth_, when\nLeicester gives Varney his signet-ring, he says, significantly: \"What thou\ndost, do quickly.\" Of course, Isaac, the Jew in _Ivanhoe_, exclaims\nfrequently in Old Testament terms. He wishes the wheels of the chariots of\nhis enemies may be taken off, like those of the host of Pharoah, that they\nmay drive heavily. He expects the Palmer's lance to be as powerful as the\nrod of Moses, and so on.\n\nScott was writing of the period when men stayed themselves with Scripture,\nand his men are all sure of God and Satan and angels and judgment and all\neternal things. His son-in-law vouches for the old story that when Sir\nWalter was on his death-bed he asked Lockhart to read him something from\nthe Book, and when Lockhart asked, \"What book?\" Scott replied: \"Why do you\nask? There is but one book, the Bible.\"\n\nAll this is scant justice to the Georgian group; but it may give a hint\nof what the Bible meant even at that period, the period when its grip on\nmen was most lax in all the later English history.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is in the Victorian age (1840-1900) that the field is most bewildering.\nIt is true, as Frederick Harrison says, that \"this Victorian age has no\nShakespeare or Milton, no Bacon or Hume, no Fielding or Scott--no supreme\nmaster in poetry, philosophy, or romance whose work is incorporated with\nthe thought of the world, who is destined to form an epoch, to endure for\ncenturies.\"[37] The genius of the period is more scientific than literary,\nyet we would be helpless if we had not already eliminated from our\ndiscussion everything but the works and writers of pure literature. The\noutput of books has been so tremendous that it would be impossible to\nanalyze the influences which have made them. There are in this Victorian\nperiod at least twelve great English writers who must be known, whose work\naffects the current of English literature. Many other names would need\nmention in any full history or any minute study; but it is not harsh\njudgment to say that the main current of literature would be the same\nwithout them.\n\nA few of these lesser names will come to mind, and in the calling of them\none realizes the influence, even on them, of the English Bible. Anthony\nTrollope wrote sixty volumes, the titles of most of which are now\npopularly unknown. He told George Eliot that it was not brains that\nexplained his writing so much, but rather wax which he put in the seat of\nhis chair, which held him down to his daily stint of work. He could boast,\nand it was worth the boasting, that he had never written a line which a\npure woman could not read without a blush. His whole Framley Parsonage\nseries abounds in Bible references and allusions. So Charlotte Bront\u00eb is\nin English literature, and _Jane Eyre_ does prove what she was meant to\nprove, that a commonplace person can be made the heroine of a novel; but\non all Charlotte Bront\u00eb's work is the mark of the rectory in which she\ngrew up. So Thomas Grey has left his \"Elegy\" and his \"Hymn to Adversity,\"\nand some other writing which most of us have forgotten or never knew. Then\nthere are Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen. We may even remember that\nMacaulay thought Jane Austen could be compared with Shakespeare, as, of\ncourse, she can be, since any one can be; but neither of these good women\nhas strongly affected the literary current. Many others could be named,\nbut English literature would be substantially the same without them; and,\nthough all might show Biblical influence, they would not illustrate what\nwe are trying to discover. So we come, without apology to the unnamed, to\nthe twelve, without whom English literature would be different. This is\nthe list in the order of the alphabet: Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning\n(Mrs. Browning being grouped as one with him), Carlyle, Dickens, George\nEliot, Charles Kingsley, Macaulay, Ruskin, Robert Louis Stevenson,\nSwinburne, Tennyson, and Thackeray.\n\nIt is dangerous to make such a list; but it can be defended. Literary\nhistory would not be the same without any one of them, unless possibly\nSwinburne, whose claim to place is rather by his work as critic than as\ncreator. Nor is any name omitted whose introduction would change literary\nhistory.\n\nBenjamin Jowett thought Arnold too flippant on religious things to be a\nreal prophet. At any rate, this much is true, that the books in which\nArnold dealt with the fundamentals of religion are his profoundest work.\nIn his poetry the best piece of the whole is his \"Rugby Chapel.\" His\n_Religion and Dogma_ he himself calls an \"essay toward a better\napprehension of the Bible.\" All through he urges it as the one Book which\nneeds recovery. \"All that the churches can say about the importance of the\nBible and its religion we concur in.\" The book throughout is an effort to\njustify his own faith in terms of the Bible. The effort is sometimes\namusing, because it takes such a logical and verbal agility to go from one\nto the other; but he is always at it. He is afraid in his soul that\nEngland will swing away from the Bible. He fears it may come about through\nneglect of the Bible on one hand, or through wrong teaching about it on\nthe other. Not in his ideas alone, but markedly in his style, Arnold has\nfelt the Biblical influence. He came at a time when there was strong\ntemptation to fall into cumbrous German ways of speech. Against that\nArnold set a simple phraseology, and he held out the English Bible\nconstantly as a model by which the men of England ought to learn to write.\nHe never gained the simplicity of the old Hebrew sentence, and sometimes\nhis secondary clauses follow one another so rapidly that a reader is\nconfused; but his words as a whole are simple and direct.\n\nThere is no need of much word on the spell of the Bible over Robert\nBrowning and Mrs. Browning. It is not often that two singing-birds mate;\nbut these two sang in a key pitched for them by the Scripture as much as\nby any one influence. Many of their greatest poems have definite Biblical\nthemes. In them and in others Biblical allusions are utterly bewildering\nto men who do not know the Bible well. For five years (1841-1846)\nBrowning's poems appeared under the title _Bells and Pomegranates_. Scores\nof people wondered then, and wonder still, what \"Pippa Passes\" and \"A Blot\nin the Scutcheon\" and the others have to do with such a title. They have\nnever thought, as Browning did, of the border of the beautiful robe of the\nhigh priest described in the Book of Exodus. The finest poem of its length\nin the English language is Browning's \"Saul\"; but it is only the story of\nDavid driving the evil spirit from Saul, sweeping on to the very coming of\nChrist. \"The Death in the Desert\" is the death of John, the beloved\ndisciple. \"Karshish, the Arab Physician\" tells in his own way of the\nraising of Lazarus. The text of \"Caliban upon Setebos\" is, \"Thou\nthoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.\" The text of\n\"Cleon\" is, \"As certain of your own poets have said.\" In \"Fifine at the\nFair\" the Cur\u00e9 expounds the experience of Jacob and his stone-pillow with\nbetter insight than some better-known expositors show. In \"Pippa Passes,\"\nwhen Bluphocks, the English vagabond, is introduced, Browning seems to\njustify his appearance by the single foot-note: \"He maketh His sun to rise\non the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the\nunjust\"; and Mr. Bluphocks shows himself amusingly familiar with Bible\nfacts and phrases. Mr. Sludge, \"the Medium,\" thinks the Bible says the\nstars are \"set for signs when we should shear sheep, sow corn, prune\ntrees,\" and describes the skeptic in the magic circle of spiritual\n\"investigators\" as the \"guest without the wedding-garb, the doubting\nThomas.\" Some one has taken the trouble to count five hundred Biblical\nphrases or allusions in \"The Ring and the Book.\" Mrs. Browning's \"Drama of\nExile\" is the woman's side of the fall of Adam and Eve. Ruskin thought her\n\"Aurora Leigh\" the greatest poem the century had produced at that time. It\nabounds in Scriptural allusions. Browning came by all this naturally.\nRaised in the Church by a father who \"delighted to surround him with\nbooks, notably old and rare Bibles,\" and a mother Carlyle called \"a true\ntype of a Scottish gentlewoman,\" with all the skill in the Bible that that\nimplies, he never lost his sense of the majesty of the movement of\nScripture ideas and phrases.\n\nWe need spend little time in discussing the influence of the English Bible\non Thomas Carlyle. He does not often use the Scripture for his main\ntheme; but he is constantly making Biblical allusions. On a railway\njourney when I was rereading Carlyle's _Historical Sketches_, I found a\ndirect Biblical reference for every five pages, and almost numberless\nallusions beside.\n\nThe \"Everlasting Yea,\" of which he says much, he gets, as you at once\nrecognize, from the Scripture. His \"Heroes and Hero Worship\" is based on\nan idea of heroism which he learned from the Bible. He is an Old Testament\nprophet of present times; and, while he degenerated into a scold before he\nwas through with it, he yet spoke with the thunderous voice of a true\nprophet, and much of the time in the language of the prophets. Some one\nsaid once that the only real reverence Carlyle ever had was for the person\nof Christ. Certainly there is no note of sneer, but of the profoundest\nregard for the teaching, the ideas and the history of the Scripture.\n\nThe name of Charles Dickens suggests a different atmosphere. He is a New\nTestament prophet. Where Carlyle has caught the spirit of rugged power in\nthe Old Testament, Dickens has caught the sense of kindly love in the New\nTestament. Dickens's love for the child, the fact that he could draw\nchildren as he could draw no one else and make them lovable, suggests the\nvalue to him of those frequent references which he makes to Christ setting\na child in the midst of the disciples. It is notable, too, how often\nDickens uses the great Scripture phrases for his most dramatic climaxes.\nThere are not in literature many finer uses of Scripture than the scene in\n_Bleak House_, where the poor waif Joe is dying, and while his friend\nteaches him the Lord's Prayer he sees the light coming. A Christmas season\nwithout Dickens's _Christmas Carol_ would be incomplete; but there again\nis the Scripture idea pressed forward.\n\nGeorge Eliot surely, if any writer, was under the spell of the Scripture.\nOne of her critics calls her the historian of conscience. All of her\nheroes and heroines know the lash of the law. She knows very little about\nthe New Testament, one would judge; but the one thing about which she has\nno doubt is certainly the reign of moral law. If a man will not yield to\nits power, it will break him. There is no such thing as breaking the moral\nlaw; there is nothing but being broken by it. Her characters are always\nquoting the Bible. They preach a great deal. She tells that she herself\nwrote Dinah Morris's sermon on the green with tears in her eyes. She meant\nit all. While her own religious faith was clouded, her finest characters\nare never clouded in their religious faith, and she grounds their faith\nquite invariably on their early training in the Scripture. It is an\ninteresting fact that George Eliot has no principal story which has not in\nit a church, and a priest or a preacher, with all that they involve.\n\nCharles Kingsley is grouped hardly fairly in this list, because he was\nhimself a preacher, and naturally all his work would feel the power of the\nBook, which he chiefly studied. Professor Masson says that \"there is not\none of his novels which has not the power of Christianity for its theme.\"\nNo voice was raised more effectively for the beginning of the new social\nera in England than his. _Alton Locke_ and _Yeast_ are epoch-making books\nin the life of the common people of England. Even _Hypatia_, which is\nsupposed to have been written to represent entirely pagan surroundings, is\nfull of Bible phrases and ideas.\n\nLord Macaulay had been held up for many a day as one of the masters of\nstyle. Such great writing is not to be traced to any one influence. It\ncould not have been easy to write as Macaulay wrote. Thackeray may have\nexaggerated in saying that Macaulay read twenty books to write a sentence,\nand traveled a hundred miles to make a description; but all his writing\nshows the power of taking infinite pains. It becomes the more important,\ntherefore, that Macaulay held the Bible in such estimate as he did. \"In\ncalling upon Lady Holland one day, Lord Macaulay was led to bring the\nattention of his fair hostess to the fact that the use of the word\n'talent' to mean gifts or powers of the mind, as when we speak of men of\ntalent, came from the use of the word in Christ's parable of the talents.\nIn a letter to his sister Hannah he describes the incident, and says that\nLady Holland was evidently ignorant of the parable. 'I did not tell her,'\nhe adds, 'though I might have done so, that a person who professes to be a\ncritic in the delicacies of the English language ought to have the Bible\nat his fingers' ends.'\" That Macaulay practised his own preaching you\nwould quickly find by referring to his essays. Take three sentences from\nthe Essay on Milton: \"The principles of liberty were the scoff of every\ngrowing courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. In\nevery high place worship was paid to Charles and James, Belial and Moloch,\nand England propitiated these obscene and cruel idols with the blood of\nher best and brightest children. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to\ndisgrace, until the race, accursed of God and man, was a second time\ndriven forth to wander on the face of the earth and to be a by-word and a\nshaking of the head to the nations.\" In three sentences here are six\nallusions to Scripture. In that same essay, in the paragraphs on the\nPuritans, the allusions are a multitude. They are not even quoted. They\nare taken for granted. In his Essay on Machiavelli, though the subject\ndoes not suggest it, he falls into Scriptural phrases over and over.\nListen to this, \"A time was at hand when all the seven vials of the\nApocalypse were to be poured forth and shaken out over those pleasant\ncountries\"; or this, \"All the curses pronounced of old against Tyre seemed\nto have fallen on Venice. Her merchants already stood afar off lamenting\nfor their great city\"; or this, \"In the energetic language of the prophet,\nMachiavelli was mad for the sight of his eyes which he saw.\"\n\nAnd if Macaulay is baffling in the abundance of material, surely John\nRuskin is worse. Carlyle's English style ran into excess of roughness;\nMacaulay's ran into excess of balance and delicacy. John Ruskin's\ncontinued to be the smoothest, easiest style in our English literature. He\nalso was a Hebraic spirit, but of the gentler type. Mr. Chapman calls him\nthe Elisha to Carlyle's Elijah, a capital comparison.[38] Ruskin is one\nof the few writers who have told us what formed their style. In the first\nchapter of _Pr\u00e6terita_ he pays tribute to his mother. He himself chose to\nread Walter Scott and Pope's Homer; but he says: \"My mother forced me by\nsteady daily toil to learn long chapters of the Bible by heart, as well as\nto read it, every syllable aloud, hard names and all, from Genesis to the\nApocalypse about once a year; and to that discipline--patient, accurate,\nand resolute--I owe not only a knowledge of the Book which I find\noccasionally serviceable, but much of my general power of taking pains and\nthe best part of my taste in literature.\" He thinks reading Scott might\nhave led to other novels of a poorer sort. Reading Pope might have led to\nJohnson's or Gibbon's English; but \"it was impossible to write entirely\nsuperficial and formal English\" while he knew \"by heart the thirty-second\nof Deuteronomy, the fifteenth of 1 Corinthians, the One hundred and\nnineteenth Psalm, or the Sermon on the Mount.\" In the second chapter of\n_Pr\u00e6terita_ he is even more explicit. \"I have next with deeper gratitude\nto chronicle what I owed to my mother for the resolute persistent lessons\nwhich so exercised me in the Scripture, as to make every word of them\nfamiliar in my ear as habitual music, yet in that familiarity reverenced\nas transcending all thought and ordering all conduct.\" He tells how his\nmother drilled him. As soon as he could read she began a course of Bible\nwork with him. They read alternate verses from the Genesis to the\nRevelation, names and all. Daily he had to commit verses of the Scripture.\nHe hated the One hundred and nineteenth Psalm most; but he lived to\ncherish it most. In his old Bible he found the list of twenty-six chapters\ntaught by his mother.\n\nNot only was Ruskin well trained in the Bible, but he was a great teacher\nof it. In his preface to the _Crown of Wild Olives_ he answers his critics\nby saying he has used the Book for some forty years. \"My endeavor has been\nuniformly to make men read it more deeply than they do; trust it, not in\ntheir own favorite verses only, but in the sum of it all; treat it not as\na fetish or a talisman which they are to be saved by daily repetition of,\nbut as a Captain's order, to be held and obeyed at their peril.\" In the\nintroduction to the _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ he urges that we are in\nno danger of too much use of the Bible. \"We use it most reverently when\nmost habitually.\" Many of Ruskin's most striking titles come straight out\nof the Scripture. _Crown of Wild Olives_, _Seven Lamps_, _Unto this\nLast_--all these are suggested by the Bible.\n\nIt is almost superfluous to speak of Robert Louis Stevenson. John Kelman\nhas written a whole book on the religion of Stevenson, and it is available\nfor all readers. He was raised by Cummy, his nurse, whose library was\nchiefly the Bible, the shorter catechism, and the _Life of Robert Murray\nMcCheyne_. He said that the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah was his special\nchapter, because it so repudiated cant and demanded a self-denying\nbeneficence. He loved Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_; but \"the Bible most\nstood him in hand.\" Every great story or essay shows its influence. He was\nnot critical with it; he did not understand it; he did not interpret it\nfairly; but he felt it. His _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ is only his way of\nputting into modern speech Paul's old distinction between the two men who\nabide in each of us. They told him he ought not to work in Samoa, and he\nreplied that he could not otherwise be true to the great Book by which he\nand all men who meant to do great work must live. Over the shoulder of our\nbeloved Robert Louis Stevenson you can see the great characters of\nScripture pressing him forward to his best work.\n\nNot so much can be said of Swinburne. There was a strong infusion of acid\nin his nature, which no influence entirely destroyed. He is apt to live as\na literary critic and essayist, though he supposed himself chiefly a poet.\nHis own thought of poetry can be seen in his protest in behalf of\nMeredith. When he had been accused of writing on a subject on which he had\nno conviction to express (\"Modern Love\"), Swinburne denied that poets\nought to preach anyway. \"There are pulpits enough for all preachers of\nprose, and the business of verse writing is hardly to express\nconvictions.\" Yet it is impossible to forget Milton and his purpose to\n\"assert Eternal Providence, and justify the ways of God to men.\"\nNaturally, most poets do preach and preach well. Wordsworth declared he\nwanted to be considered a teacher or nothing. Mrs. Browning thought that\npoets were the only truth-tellers left to God. But Swinburne could not\nhelp a little preaching at any rate. His \"Masque on Queen Bersaba\" is an\nold miracle play of David and Nathan. His \"Christmas Antiphones\" are\nhardly Christian, though they are abundant in their allusions to\nScripture. The first is a prayer for peace and rest in the coming of the\nnew day of the birth of Christ. The second is a protest that neither God\nnor man has befriended man as he should, and the third is an assurance\nthat men will do for man even if God will not. Now, that is not Christian,\nbut the Bible phrases are all through it. So when he writes his poem\nbemoaning Poland, he needs must head it \"Rizpah.\" At the same time it must\nbe said that Swinburne shows less of the influence of the Bible in his\nstyle and in his spirit than any other of our great English writers.\n\nWe come back again into the atmosphere of strong Bible influence when we\nname Alfred Tennyson. When Byron died, and the word came to his father's\nrectory at Somersby, young Alfred Tennyson felt that the sun had fallen\nfrom the heavens. He went out alone in the fields and carved in the\nsandstone, as though it were a monument: \"Byron is dead.\" That was in the\nearly stage of his poetical life. At first Carlyle could not abide\nTennyson. He counted him only an echo of the past, with no sense for the\nfuture; but when he read Tennyson's \"The Revenge,\" he exclaimed, \"Eh, he's\ngot the grip o' it\"; and when Richard Monckton Milnes excused himself for\nnot getting Tennyson a pension by saying his constituents had no use for\npoetry anyway, Carlyle said, \"Richard Milnes, in the day of judgment when\nyou are asked why you did not get that pension, you may lay the blame on\nyour constituents, but it will be you who will be damned!\" Dr. Henry van\nDyke studied Tennyson to best effect at just this point. In his chapter on\n\"The Bible in Tennyson\" are many such sayings as these: \"It is safe to say\nthat there is no other book which has had so great an influence upon the\nliterature of the world as the Bible. We hear the echoes of its speech\neverywhere, and the music of its familiar phrases haunts all the field and\ngrove of our fine literature. At least one cause of his popularity is that\nthere is so much Bible in Tennyson. We cannot help seeing that the poet\nowes a large debt to the Christian Scriptures, not only for their\nformative influence on his mind and for the purely literary material in\nthe way of illustrations and allusions which they have given him, but also\nfor the creation of a moral atmosphere, a medium of thought and feeling in\nwhich he can speak freely and with an assurance of sympathy to a very wide\ncircle of readers.\"\n\nI need not stop to indicate the great poems in which Tennyson has so often\nused Scripture. The mind runs quickly to the little maid in \"Guinevere,\"\nwhose song, \"Late, Late, so Late,\" is only a paraphrase of the parable of\nthe foolish virgins. \"In Memoriam\" came into the skeptical era of\nEngland, with its new challenge to faith, and stopped the drift of young\nmen toward materialism. Recall the fine use he makes, in the heart of it,\nof the resurrection of Lazarus, and other Biblical scenes. Dr. van Dyke's\n\"four hundred direct references to the Bible\" do not exhaust the poems. No\none can get Tennyson's style without the English Bible, and no one can\nread Tennyson intelligently without a fairly accurate knowledge of the\nBible.\n\nIn this Victorian group the last name is Thackeray's. He is another whose\nmother trained him in the English Bible. The title of _Vanity Fair_ is\nfrom _Pilgrim's Progress_, but the motto is from the Scripture; and he\nwrote his mother regarding the book: \"What I want is to make a set of\npeople living without God in the world (only that is a cant phrase.)\" It\nis certain his mother did not count it a cant phrase, for he learned it\nfrom the Scripture. The subtitle of his _Adventures of Philip_ says he is\nto show who robbed him, who helped him, and who passed him by. Thackeray\ngot those expressions from the Bible. Somewhere very early in any of his\nworks he reveals the influence of his childhood and manhood knowledge of\nthe English Bible.\n\nAll this about the Victorian group is meant to be very familiar to any who\nare fresh from the reading of literature. They are great names, and they\nhave differences as wide as the poles; but they have this in common, that\nthey have drunk lightly or deeply from the same fountain; they have drawn\nfrom it ideas, allusions, literary style. Each of them has weakened as he\nhas gotten farther from it, and loyalty to it has strengthened any one of\nthem.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTurn now to the American group of writers. If we except theological\nwriters with Jonathan Edwards, Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, and\ntheir like, and political writers with Jefferson, Webster, and their like,\nthe list need not be a long one. Only one writer in our narrower sense of\nliterature must be named in the earlier day--Benjamin Franklin. In the\nperiod before the Civil War must be named Edgar Allan Poe (died 1849) and\nWashington Irving (died 1859). The Civil War group is the large one, and\nits names are those of the later group as well. Let them be alphabetical,\nfor convenience: William Cullen Bryant, poet and critic; George William\nCurtis, essayist and editor; Emerson, our noblest name in the sphere of\npure essay literature; Hawthorne, the novelist of conscience, as Socrates\nwas its philosopher; Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose \"two chief hatreds were\northodoxy in religion and heterodoxy in medicine\"; James Russell Lowell,\nessayist and poet, apt to live by his essays rather than by his poetry;\nLongfellow, whose \"Psalm of Life\" and \"Hiawatha\" have lived through as\nmuch parody and ridicule as any two bits of literature extant, and have\nlived because they are predestined to live; Thoreau, whose _Walden_ may\nshow, as Lowell said, how much can be done on little capital, but which\nhas the real literary tang to it; and Whittier, whose poetry is sung the\nworld around.\n\nThat makes only twelve names from Franklin to Whittier. Others could be\nincluded; but they are not so great as these. No one of these could be\ntaken out of our literature without affecting it and, in some degree at\nleast, changing the current of it. This is not to forget Bret Harte nor\nSamuel L. Clemens. But each is dependent for his survival on a taste for a\ncertain kind of humor, not delicate like Irving's and Holmes's, but strong\nand sudden and a bit sharp. If we should forget the \"Luck of Roaring\nCamp,\" \"Truthful James,\" and the \"Heathen Chinee,\" we would also forget\nBret Harte. We are not apt to forget _Tom Sawyer_, nor perhaps _The\nInnocents Abroad_, but we are forgetting much else of Mark Twain. Whitman\nis not named. His claims are familiar, but in spite of his admirers he\nseems so charged with a sensuous egotism that he is not apt to be a\nformative influence in literary history. It is still interesting, however,\nto remember how frequently he reveals his reading of Scripture.\n\nFortunately, all these writers are so near, and their work is so familiar,\nthat details regarding them are not needed. Two or three general words can\nbe said. In the first place, observe the high moral tone of all these\nfirst-grade writers, and, indeed, of the others who may be spoken of as in\nsecond rank. There is not a meretricious or humiliating book in the whole\ncollection. There is not one book which has lived in American literature\nwhich has the tone of Fielding's _Tom Jones_. Whether it is that the\nPuritan strain continues in us or not, it is true that the American\nliterary public has not taken happily to stories that would bring a blush\nin public reading. Professor Richardson, of Dartmouth, gives some clue to\nthe reason of that. He says that \"since 1870 or 1880 in America there has\nbeen a marked increase of strength of theistic and spiritual belief and\nargument among scientific men, students of philosophy, religious\n'radicals,' and others.\" He adds that while much contemporary American\nliterature and thought is outside the accepted orthodox lines, yet \"it is\nnot hostile to Christianity; to the principles of its Founder it is for\nthe most part sincerely attached. On the other hand, materialism has\nscarcely any hold upon it.\" Then follows a very notable sentence which is\nsustained by the facts: \"Not an American book of the first class has ever\nbeen written by an atheist or denier of immortality.\" That sentence need\nnot offend an admirer of Walt Whitman, for he \"accepts both theism and the\ndoctrine of the future life.\" American thought has remained loyal to the\ngreat Trinity, God, Freedom, and Immortality. So it comes about that while\nthere are a number of these writers who could be put under the ban of the\nstrongly orthodox in religion, every one of them shows the effect of early\ntraining in religion and in the Scripture.[39]\n\nAnother thing to be said is that America has a unique history among great\nnations in that it has never been affected by any great religious\ninfluence except that which has issued from the Scriptures. No religion\nhas ever been influential in America except Christianity. For many years\nthere have been sporadic and spasmodic efforts to extend the influence of\nBuddhism or other Indian cults. They have never been successful, because\nthe American spirit is practical, and not meditative. We are not an\nintrospective people. We do not look within ourselves for our religion.\nWhatever moral and religious influence our literature shows gets back\nfirst or last to our Scriptures. The point of view of nature that is taken\nby our writers like Bryant and Thoreau is that of the Nineteenth Psalm.\nMoreover, we have been strongly under the English influence. Irving\ninsisted that we ought to be, that we were a young nation, that we ought\nfrankly to follow the leadership of more experienced writers. Longfellow\nthought we had gone too far that way, and that our poets, at least, ought\nto be more independent, ought to write in the spirit of America and not of\ntraditional poetry. Whether we ought to have yielded to it or not, it is\ntrue that English influence has told very strongly upon us, and the\nwriters who have influenced our writers most have been those whom we have\nnamed as being themselves under the Bible influence.\n\nWe need not go into detail about these writers, though they are most\nattractive. Bryant did for us what Wordsworth did for England. He made\nnature seem vocal. \"Thanatopsis\" is not a Christian poem in the narrow\nsense of the word, and yet it could hardly have been written except under\nChristian influence. His own genial, beautiful character was itself a\ntribute to Christian civilization, and his life, as critic and essayist,\nhas left an impression which we shall not soon lose. Professor Richardson\nthinks that the three problematical characters in American literature are\nEmerson, Hawthorne, and Poe. The shrewdest estimate of Poe that has ever\nbeen given us is in Lowell's _Fable for Critics_:\n\n    \"There comes Poe with his raven like Barnaby Rudge,\n    Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge,\n    Who has written some things quite the best of their kind,\n    But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind.\"\n\nThat says it exactly. Poe knew many horrible situations, but he did not\nknow the way out; and of all our American writers laying claim to place in\nthe first class Poe shows least influence of the Bible, and apparently\nneeds it most.\n\nIrving was the first American writer who stood high enough to be seen\nacross the water. Thackeray's most beautiful essay is on Irving and\nMacaulay, who died just one month apart. In it he describes Irving as the\nbest intermediary between the nations, telling us Americans that the\nEnglish are still human, and assuring the English that Americans are\nalready human. Irving was trained early and thoroughly in the Bible. All\nhis life he was an old-fashioned Episcopalian with no concern for new\nreligious ideas and with no rough edges anywhere. Charles Dudley Warner,\nspeaking of Irving's moral quality, says: \"I cannot bring myself to\nexclude it from a literary estimate, even in the face of the current\ngospel of art for art's sake.\"[40] Like Scott, he \"recognized the abiding\nvalue in literature of integrity, sincerity, purity, charity, faith. These\nare beneficences, and Irving's literature, walk around it and measure it\nby whatever critical instruments you will, is a beneficent literature.\"\n\nThen there is Emerson, a son of the manse and once a minister himself. He\nwas, therefore, perfectly familiar with the English Bible. He did not\naccept it in all its religious teaching. Indeed, we have never had a more\nmarked individualist in our American public life than Emerson. At every\npoint he was simply himself. There is very little quotation in his\nwriting, very little visible influence of any one else. He was not a\nfollower of Carlyle, though he was his friend. If there is any precedent\nfor the construction of his sentences, and even of his essays, it is to be\nfound in the Hebrew prophets. As some one puts it, \"he uttered sayings.\"\nIn many of his essays there is no particular reason why the paragraphs\nshould run one, two, three, and not three, two, one, or two, one, three,\nor in any other order. But Mr. Emerson was just himself. It is yet true\nthat \"his value for the world at large lies in the fact that after all he\nis incurably religious.\" It is true that he could not see any importance\nin forms, or in ordinary declarations of faith. \"He would fight no battle\nfor prelacy, nor for the Westminster confession, nor for the Trinity, but\nas against atheism, pessimism, and materialism, he was an ally of\nChristianity.\" The influence of the Bible on Emerson is more marked in his\nspirit than in anything else. Once in a while, as in that familiar address\nat Concord (1873), you run across Scripture phrases: \"Shall not they who\nreceive the largest streams spread abroad the healing waters?\" That figure\nappears in literature only in the Bible, and there are others like it in\nhis writings.\n\nAs for Longfellow, he is shot through with Scripture. No man who did not\nknow Scripture in more than a passing way could have written such a\nsentence as this: \"There are times when the grasshopper is a burden, and\nthirsty with the heat of labor the spirit longs for the waters of Shiloah,\nthat go softly.\" There are two strikingly beautiful expressions from\nScripture. Take another familiar saying in the same essay when he says the\nprospect for poetry is brightening, since but a short time ago not a poet\n\"moved the wing or opened the mouth or peeped.\" He did not run across that\nin general current writing. He got that directly from the Bible. In his\npoems is an amazing amount of reference to the Bible. One would expect\nmuch in the \"Courtship of Miles Standish,\" for that is a story of the\nPuritans, and they spoke, naturally, in terms of the Bible; yet, of\ncourse, they could not do it in Longfellow's poem, if Longfellow did not\nknow the language of the Bible very well. One might not expect to find it\nso much in \"Evangeline,\" but it is there from beginning to end. In\n\"Acadia,\" the cock crowed\n\n                          \"With the self-same\n    Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter.\"\n\nAnd,\n\n              \"Wild with the winds of September,\n    Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with the angel.\"\n\nEvangeline saw the moon pass\n\n    \"Forth from the folds of the cloud, and one star followed her\n        footsteps,\n    As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael\n    Wandered with Hagar.\"\n\nThere is a great deal of that sort of thing in his writing. He has done\nfor many what he did for Lowell one day. Discouraged in settling the form\nof a new edition of his own poems, Lowell took up a volume of Longfellow\njust to see the type, and presently found that he had been reading two\nhours. He wrote Longfellow he could understand his popularity, saying:\n\"You sang me out of all my worries.\" That is a great thing to do, and\nLongfellow learned from the Scripture how to do that in the \"Psalm of\nLife\" and all his other poems.\n\nWe need only a word about Lowell himself. He was the son of a minister,\nand so knew the Bible from his infancy. He belonged to the Brahman caste\nhimself, but a good deal of the ruggedness of the Old Testament got into\nhis writing. It is in \"The Vision of Sir Launfal.\" It is in his plea for\ninternational copyright where the familiar lines occur:\n\n    \"In vain we call old notions fudge,\n    And bend our conscience to our dealing,\n    The Ten Commandments will not budge,\n    And stealing will continue stealing.\"\n\nThere is hint of it in his quizzical lines about himself in the _Fable for\nCritics_. He says that he is in danger of rattling away\n\n    \"Until he is as old as Methusalem,\n    At the head of the march to the last New Jerusalem.\"\n\nWhittier needs no words of ours. His hymns are part of our religious\nequipment. \"Snow-bound\" and all the rest of the beautiful, quiet,\nQuaker-like writing of this beloved poet are among our national assets. We\njoin in his sorrow as he writes the doom of Webster and his fame, and we\ndo not wonder that he chose for it the Scriptural title \"Ichabod.\"\n\nWhatever is to be said about an individual here or there, it is true that\ngreat American literature shows the influence of the Bible. Like\neverything else in America, it has been founded on a religious purpose.\nWriters in all lines have been trained in the Bible. If they feel any\nreligious influence at all, it is the Bible influence.\n\nThis has been a long journey from Shakespeare to Whittier, and it leaves\nuntouched the great field of present-day writers. Let the unstarred names\nwait their time. Among them are many who can say in their way what Hall\nCaine has said of himself: \"I think I know my Bible as few literary men\nknow it. There is no book in the world like it, and the finest novels ever\nwritten fall far short in interest of any one of the stories it tells.\nWhatever strong situations I have in my books are not of my creation, but\nare taken from the Bible. _The Deemster_ is a story of the Prodigal Son.\n_The Bondman_ is the story of Esau and Jacob. _The Scapegoat_ is the story\nof Eli and his sons, but with Samuel as a little girl; and _The Manxman_\nis the story of David and Uriah.\" Take up any of the novels of the day,\neven the poorer ones, but notably the better ones, and see how uniformly\nthey show the Scriptural influence in material, in idea, and in spirit.\nWhat the literature of the future will be no one can say. This much is as\nsure as any fact in literary history, that the English Bible is part of\nthe very fiber of great literature from the day it first appeared in our\ntongue to this hour.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[27] _Thoughts that Breathe._\n\n[28] _Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1900, p. 684.\n\n[29] Chapman, _English Literature in Account with Religion_.\n\n[30] _History of English Literature_, chap. iii.\n\n[31] Wordsworth, _Shakespeare's Knowledge and Use of the Bible_, p. 9.\n\n[32] Strong, _The Theology of the Poets_.\n\n[33] _History of England_, vol. III., p. 220.\n\n[34] Taine, _English Literature_, II., 279.\n\n[35] June 14, 1830.\n\n[36] Morley, _Life of Gladstone_, vol. iii, p. 424.\n\n[37] _Early Victorian Literature_, p. 9.\n\n[38] _English Literature in Account with Religion._\n\n[39] This is fully worked out in Professor Richardson's _American\nLiterature_, with ample illustration and argument.\n\n[40] _American Men of Letters Series, Washington Irving_, p. 302.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V\n\nTHE KING JAMES VERSION--ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH AND AMERICAN HISTORY\n\n\nThe King James version of the Bible is only a book. What can a book do in\nhistory? Well, whatever the reason, books have played a large part in the\nmovements of men, specially of modern men.\n\nThey have markedly influenced the opinion of men about the past. It is\ncommonly said that Hume's _History of England_, defective as it is, has\nyet \"by its method revolutionized the writing of history,\" and that is\ntrue. Nearer our own time, Carlyle's _Life of Cromwell_ reversed the\njudgment of history on Cromwell, gave all readers of history a new\nconception of him and his times and of the movement of which he was the\nlife. After the Restoration none were so poor as to do Cromwell reverence\nuntil Carlyle's _book_ gave him anew to the world.\n\nThere are instances squarely in our own time by which their mighty\ninfluence may be tested. They are of books of almost ephemeral value save\nfor the student of history. As literature they will be quickly forgotten;\nbut as _forces_ they must be reckoned with. There is _Uncle Tom's Cabin_.\nIt would be absurd to say that it brought the American Civil War, or freed\nthe negroes, or saved the Union. It did none of those great things. Yet it\nis not at all absurd to name it among the potent powers in all three. It\nis not to our purpose whether it is true or not as a statement of the\nwhole fact. Doubtless it was not true of the general and common\ncircumstances of Southern slavery; but everything in it was possible, and\neven frequent enough so that it could not be questioned. It pretended no\nmore. But its influence was simply tremendous. In book form it became\navailable in 1852, and within three years, 1855, it was common property of\nEnglish-speaking people. No other book ever produced so extraordinary an\neffect so quickly in the public mind.[41] It held up slavery to judgment.\nIt crystallized the thoughts of common people. The work of those strenuous\nyears in the '60's could not have been done without the result of that\nbook. It made history. Come nearer our own day. We could not be long in\nLondon without feeling the concern of the better people for conditions in\nthe East End. A new social impulse has seized them. To be sure, it lacks\nmuch yet of success; but more has been done than most people realize. The\nnew movement, the awakening of that social sense, traces back to the book\nof Gen. William Booth, _In Darkest England_ (1890). It has helped to\nchange the life of a large part of London.\n\nOn this side, the new concern for city conditions dates from the book of a\nnewspaper reporter, Jacob A. Riis, _How the Other Half Lives_. It thrust\nthe Other Half into such prominence that it has never been possible to\nforget it. Marked advance in all American cities, in legislation and life,\ngoes straight back to it. Name one other book still in the field of social\nservice, even so unpleasant, so terrible, so obnoxious a book as Upton\nSinclair's _The Jungle_. It started and sustained movements which have\nunsettled business and political life ever since it appeared. It made some\nconditions vivid, unescapable.\n\nDo not misunderstand the argument. No man can tell what will be said in\nthe histories a century from now about these lesser books. We can never go\nbeyond guesses as to the whole cause of any chain of events.[42] As time\npasses, incidental elements in the causes gradually sink out of sight and\na few great forces take the whole horizon. Whatever the histories a\ncentury from now say about the relative place of such books as we have\nnamed, it is certain that they have influenced the movements mightily. The\nliterary histories will say nothing at all about them. They are not great\nliterature, but they were born of a passion of the times and voiced and\naroused it anew.\n\nWhen, therefore, it is urged that the English Bible has influenced\nhistory, it is not making an undue claim for it. When it is further urged\nthat of all books in English literature it has been most influential, it\nhas most made history, it has most determined great movements, the\nargument only claims for it the highest place among books.\n\nAnd it would not be surprising if it should have such influence. It is the\none great piece of English literature which is universal property. Since\nthe day it was published it has been kept available for everybody. No\nother book has ever had its chance. English-speaking people have always\nbeen essentially religious. They have always had a profound regard for the\nterms, the institutions, the purposes of religion. Partly that has been\nmaintained by the Bible; but the Bible in its turn has been maintained by\nit. So it has come about that English-speaking people, though they have\nmany books, are essentially people of one Book. Wherever they are, the\nBible is. Queen Victoria has it near by when the messenger from the Orient\nappears, and lays her hand upon it to say that this is the foundation of\nthe prosperity of England. But the poor housewife in the cottage, with\nonly a crust for food, stays her soul with it. The Puritan creeps into\nhiding with the Book, while his brother sails away to the new land with\nthe Book. The settler may have his Shakespeare; he will surely have his\nBible. As the long wagon-train creeps across the plain to seek the Western\nshore, there may be no other book in all the train; but the Bible will be\nthere. Find any settlement of men who speak the English tongue, wherever\nthey make their home, and the Bible is among them. When did any book have\nsuch a chance to influence men? It is the one undisturbed heritage of all\nwho speak the English tongue. It binds the daughter and the mother country\ntogether, and gathers into the same bond the scattered remnants of the\nEnglish-speaking race the world around. Its language is the one speech\nthey all understand. Strange it would be if it had not a profound\ninfluence upon history!\n\nAnother fact that has helped to give the Bible its great influence is the\npower of the preaching it has inspired. The periods of greatest preaching\nhave always been the periods of freest access to the Bible. No one can\noverlook the immense power of the sermons of history. There have been\npoor, inept, banal expositors, doubtless; but even they turned men's minds\nto the Bible. Reading the Bible makes men thinkers, and so makes preachers\ninevitably. Witness the Scotch. James was raised in Scotland and believed\nin the power of preaching. At one time he wanted to settle endowments for\nthe maintenance of preaching under government control. But Archbishop\nWhitgift convinced him that much preaching was \"an innovation and\ndangerous,\" since it is quite impossible to control a man's mouth once it\nis given a public chance. Under Charles I. the sermon was mighty in the\nservice of the Puritans until it was suppressed or restricted. Then men\nbecame lecturers and expounded the Bible or taught religious truth in\npublic or private. Rich men engaged private chaplains since public\nmeetings could not be held. Somehow they taught the Bible still.\nArchbishop Laud forbade both. Yet the leaven worked the more for its\nrestriction. At least one good cook I know says that if you want your\ndough to rise and the yeast to work, you must cover it. Laud did not want\nit to rise, but he made the mistake of covering it.\n\nThere has never been a book which has provoked such incessant preaching\nand discussion as has the Bible. The believers in the Koran teach it as it\nis, word for word. Believers in the Bible have never stopped with that.\nThey have always tried to come together and hear it expounded. Such\ngatherings and such constant pressure of the Book on groups of hearers\nwould inevitably give the Bible great influence. When it is remembered\nthat in America alone there are each week approximately four hundred\nthousand gatherings of people which have for their avowed purpose\ninstruction or inspiration in religion, and that the instruction and\ninspiration are professedly and openly drawn from the Bible, that more\nthan three hundred thousand sermons are preached every week from it and\npassages of it read in all the gatherings, it appears that the Bible had\nand still has such a chance to influence life as no other book has had.\nPresident Schurman traces a large part of our own stronger American life\nto the educative power of our Sundays. But central in the education of\nthose days is now, and has been from the first of our national history,\nthe English Bible.\n\nThe influence of the Bible comes also from the fact that it makes its\nchief appeal to the deeper elements in life. \"Human history in its real\ncharacter is not an account of kings and of wars; it is the unfolding of\nthe moral, the political, the artistic, the social, and the spiritual\nprogress of the human family. The time will yet come when the names of\ndynasties and of battles shall not form the titles of its chapters. The\ntruths revealed in the Bible have been the touchstone which has tried\nmen's spirits.\"[43]\n\nThose words go to the heart of the fact. The influence of the English\nBible on English-speaking history for the last three hundred years is only\nthe influence of its fundamental truths. It has moved with tremendous\nimpact on the wills of men. It has made the great human ideals clear and\ndefinite; it has made them beautiful and attractive; but that has not been\nenough. It has reached also the springs of action. It has given men a\nsense of need and also a sense of strength, a sense of outrage and a sense\nof power to correct the wrong. There it has differed from most books.\nFrederick Robertson said that he read only books with iron in them, and,\nas he read, their atoms of iron entered the blood, and it ran more red for\nthem.\n\nThere is iron in this Book, and it has entered the blood of the human\nrace. Where it has entered most freely, the red has deepened; and nowhere\nhas it deepened more than in our English-speaking races. The iron of our\nblood is from this King James version.\n\nBismarck explained the victories of the Germans over the French by the\nfact that from childhood the Germans had been trained in the sense of\nduty, as the French had not been trained, and as soldiers had learned to\nfeel that nothing could escape the Eye which ever watched their course.\nThey learned that, Bismarck said, from the religion which they had been\ntaught. There is no mistaking the power of religion in rousing and\nsharpening the sense of duty. Webster spoke for the English-speaking\nraces, and found his phrases in the Bible, when he said that this sense\n\"pursues us ever. It is omnipresent like the Deity. If we take to\nourselves the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the\nsea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us for our happiness or\nour misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in\nthe light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape from their\npower or fly from their presence.\" It is religion which makes that sense\nof duty keen; and, whatever religion has done among English-speaking\nraces, the English Bible has done, for it has been the text-book and the\nfinal authority of those races in the moving things of their faith.\n\nIt would be easiest in making the argument to single out here and there\nthe striking events in which the Bible has figured and let them stand for\nthe whole. There are many such events, and they are attractive.\n\nWe can imagine ourselves standing on the shore at Dover in 1660, fifty\nyears after the version was issued, waiting with the crowd to see the\nbanished King return. The civil war is over, the protectorate under\nCromwell is past. Charles II., thick-lipped, sensuous, \"seeming to belong\nrather to southern Europe than to Puritan England,\" is about to land from\nFrance, whence the people, wearied with Puritan excesses, have called him\nback. There is a great crowd, but they do not cheer wildly. There is\nsomething serious on hand. They mean to welcome the King; but it is on\ncondition. Their first act is when the Mayor of Dover places in his hands\na copy of the English Bible, which the King declares he loves above all\nthings in the world. It proves only a sorry jest; but the English people\nthink it is meant for truth, and they go to their homes rejoicing. They\nrejoiced too soon, for this is that utterly faithless king for whom his\nwitty courtier proposed an epitaph:\n\n    \"Here lies our sovereign lord, the king,\n      Whose word no man relies on;\n    Who never said a foolish thing,\n      And never did a wise one.\"[44]\n\nAs at other times, the King was only talking with no meaning; but the\npeople did not know him yet. They had made their Bible the great test of\ntheir liberties: will a king stand by that or will he not? If he will not,\nlet him remember Charles the First! And from that day no English king, no\nAmerican leader, has ever successfully restricted English-speaking people\nfrom free access to their great Book. It has become a banner of their\nliberties. The child was wiser than he knew when he was asked what lesson\nwe may learn from Charles I., and replied that we may learn that a man\nshould not lose his head in times of excitement. Charles lost his head\nlong before he laid it on the block.\n\nBesides the scene at Dover, we may watch that great emigration of the\nScotch-Irish from Ulster, beginning in 1689, seventy years after the\nPuritan exodus and eighty years after the version was issued, which\npeopled the backwoods of America with a choice, strong population. They\nwere only following the right to worship freely, the right to their Bible\nwithout chains on its lids or on the lips of its preachers. They were\nmaking no protest against Romanism nor against Anglicanism in themselves.\nThey only claimed the right to worship as they would. Under William and\nMary, after James II. had fled to France, toleration became the law in\nEngland; but when Ireland was reconquered by William's generals, the act\nof toleration was not extended to it. Baptists, Presbyterians, all except\nthe small Anglican Church, were put under the ban and forbidden to\nworship. But the Bible had made submission impossible, and there came\nabout that great exodus to the new land which has so blessed it.\n\nThere are other signal events which might be observed. But all the while\nthere would be danger of magnifying the importance of events which seem to\nprove the point. The view needs to be a more general one instead. The\nperiod is not long--three hundred years at the most--though it has a\nbackground of all English history. We have already seen how from the first\nthere have been determined efforts to make the Bible common to the people;\nyet, of course, the influence of our version can appear only in these\nthree hundred years since it was issued. That short period has not only\nbeen interesting almost to the point of excitement in English life, but it\ncovers virtually all American life. Take, therefore, the broader view of\nthe influence of the English Bible on history, apart from these striking\nevents.\n\nIt is to be assumed at once that much of its influence is indirect.\nIndeed, its chief influence must be through men who prove to be leaders\nand through that public sentiment without which leaders are powerless. If\nleaders live by it and stand or fall by its teaching, then their work is\nits work. If they find a public sentiment issuing from it which gives them\npower, a sentiment which crystallizes around them when they appear,\nbecause it is of kindred spirit with themselves, then the power of that\nsentiment is the power of the Bible. The influence of _Pilgrim's Progress_\nor _The Saint's Rest_ is the influence of Bunyan and Baxter; but back of\nthem is the Bible. In language, in idea, in spirit, they were only making\nthe Bible a common Book to their readers. Their value for life and history\nis the Bible's value for life and history.\n\nThe power of great souls is frequently and easily underestimated.\nScientific study has tended to that by magnifying visible conditions and\nby trying to calculate the force of laws which are in plain sight.\nBuckle's theory of civilization has influenced our times greatly. It\nexplains national character as the outcome of natural conditions, and lays\nsuch stress on circumstances as left it possible for Buckle to declare\nthat history and biography are in different spheres. It is still true,\nhowever, that most history turns on biography. Great souls have been the\nchief factors in great movements. Whether the movement could have occurred\nwithout them will never be possible to decide, if it should be disputed.\nIn a chemical laboratory the essential factors of any phenomenon can be\ndetermined by the process of elimination. All the elements which preceded\nit except one can be introduced; if the result is the same as in its\npresence, manifestly it is not essential. So the experiment can go on\nuntil the result becomes different, when it is evident that the last\nomitted element is an essential one. But no such process is possible in\ngreat historical movements. The only course open to us is to consider\ncarefully the elements which do appear.\n\nTake three great movements which are easiest to follow in these three\ncenturies. Whether the spiritual independence of England would have been\nsecured without the Quakers may be debated; but this fact can hardly be\ndebated: certainly it was not so secured; whether or not the Quakers could\nhave been without George Fox, certainly they did not occur without him.\nTake the second: whether or not some other movement could have done what\nPuritanism did is hardly a question for history; Puritanism actually did\nthe work for England and America which gave both their strongest\nqualities. There is no testing the period to see whether Puritanism could\nbe left out. There it stands as a powerful factor, and no analysis of the\nhistory can possibly omit it. Or the third: it is not a question for a\nhistorian whether English history could have been the same without\nMethodism and whether Methodism could have been at all without the\nWesleys; certainly nothing took its place, nor did any one else stand at\nthe head of the movement.\n\nHere are these three great movements, not to seek others. All of them have\nhad tremendous influence in the religious and political history of both\nthe nations where they have moved most freely. Each of them is a direct\nand undisputed result of the influence of the Bible. Much has already been\nsaid of the Puritans in England, and there will be occasion to see what\nwas their influence in America. But think for a moment of the Quakers.\nJames Freeman Clark calls them the English mystics; certainly they were\nmore than that.[45] George Fox had little learning but the Bible; that he\nknew well. He first came to himself out in the fields alone with the\nBible. He was not stirred to the origin of the movement nor to his\ngreatest activity by experiences he had in public places. He came to those\npublic places profoundly affected by his familiarity with the English\nBible. He came at a time when his protest was needed, a protest against\nformalism, against mere outward conformity. A thousand years before,\nMohammedanism had really saved the Christian faith by its protest, violent\nand merciless, against its errors, challenging it to purity in faith and\nlife. Now Fox and the Quakers saved church life by protest against church\nlife. The Bible was still the law, but not the Bible which you read for\nme, but that which you read for you and I for me, each of us guided by an\ninner light. The Quaker movement was a distinct protest against church\nformalism in the interests of freedom of the Bible.\n\nThat Quaker influence was far stronger in America than it ever proved to\nbe in England. George Fox himself visited the colonies and extended its\ninfluence. Three great effects are easily traceable. The very presence of\nthe Quakers in the New England colonies, notably in Massachusetts, and the\npersecutions which they endured, did more to purify the Puritans than any\nother one influence. One is only loyal to the Puritan character and\nteaching in declaring that in the manner of the Puritans toward the\nQuakers they were wrong; they were wrong because they were untrue to their\nown belief, untrue to their own Bibles, and when the more thoughtful among\nthem found that they were taking the attitude toward the Quakers which\nthey had resented toward themselves, remembering that the Quakers were\ndrawing their teaching from the same Bible as themselves, they were\nnaturally checked. And, while the Quakers in New England suffered greatly,\ntheir suffering proved the purification of the Puritans. It accented and\nso it removed the narrowness of Puritan practice. Further, the Quaker\nmovement gave to American history William Penn and the whole constitution\nof Pennsylvania. It was there that a state first lived by the principle\nwhich William Penn pronounced: \"Any government is free where the people\nare a party to the laws enacted.\" So it came about that Independence Hall\nis on Quaker soil. The Declaration of Independence appeared there, and not\non Puritan soil. It may be there was more freedom of thought in\nPennsylvania. It may be explained on purely geographical ground,\nPhiladelphia being the most convenient center for the colonies. But it\nremains significant that not on Cavalier soil in Virginia, not on Dutch\nsoil in New York, not on Puritan soil in Boston, but on Quaker soil in\nPhiladelphia the movement for national independence crystallized around a\ngeneral principle that \"any government is free where the people are a\nparty to the laws enacted,\" but that no government is free whose people\nhave not a voice. That is not minimizing the power of Puritanism, nor\nforgetting Fanueil Hall and the Tea Party. It only accents what should be\nfamiliar: that Puritanism drew into itself more of the fighting element of\nScripture, while the Quaker movement drew into itself more of the uniting,\npacifying element of Scripture. The third effect of the Quaker movement is\nJohn Greenleaf Whittier, with his gentle but never weak demand that\nnational freedom should not mean independence of other people alone, but\nthe independence of all people within the nation. So that while the Quaker\nspirit helped the colonies to break loose from foreign control and become\na nation, it helped the nation in turn to break loose from internal\nshackles. The nation stood free within itself as well as free from others.\nYet the Quaker movement--and this is the argument--is itself the result of\nthe English Bible, and the Quaker influence is the influence of the\nEnglish Bible on history.\n\nThere is not need for extended word about the great Wesleyan movement in\nthe midst of this period, which has so profoundly affected both English\nand American history. It has not worked out into such visible political\nforms. But any movement that makes for larger spiritual life makes for the\nstrengthening of the entire life of the nation. The mere figures of the\nearly Wesleyan movement are almost appalling. Here was a man, John Wesley,\nan Oxford scholar, who spent nearly fifty years traveling up and down and\nback and forth through England on horseback, covering more than two\nhundred and fifty thousand miles, preaching everywhere more than forty\nthousand times, writing, translating, editing two hundred works. When\ndeath ended his busy life there were in his newly formed brotherhood one\nhundred and thirty-five thousand members, with five hundred and fifty\nitinerants who were following his example with incessant preaching and\nBible exposition. It was the old Wiclif-Lollard movement over again. And\nhere was the other Wesley, Charles, teaching England to sing again,\nteaching the old truths of the Bible in rhyme to many who could not read,\nso that they became familiar, writing on horseback, in stage-coaches,\neverywhere, writing with one passion, to help England back to the Bible\nand its truth. Such activity could not leave the nation unmoved; all its\nreligious life felt it, and its political life from serf to king was\ndeeply affected by it. It is a common saying that the Wesleyan movement\nsaved English liberty from European entanglement. Yet the Wesleyan\nmovement issued from the Bible and led England back to the Bible.\n\nBut apart from these wide movements and the great souls who led them,\nthere is time for thought of one typical character on each side of the sea\nwho did not so much make a movement as he proved the point around which a\ngreat fluid idea crystallized into strength. Across the sea the character\nshall be that man whom Carlyle gave back to us out of obloquy and\nmisunderstanding, Oliver Cromwell. Choosing him, we pass other names which\ncrowd into memory, names of men who have served the need of England\nwell--Wilberforce, John Howard, Shaftesbury, Gladstone--who drew their\nstrength from this Book. Yet we choose Cromwell now for argument. On this\nside it must be that best known, most beloved, most typical of all\nAmericans, Abraham Lincoln.\n\nAn English historian has said that the most influential, the most\nunescapable years in English history are those of the Protectorate. That\nis a strong saying. They were brief years. There were many factors in\nthem. Oliver Cromwell was only one, but he was chief of all. He was not\nchief in the councils which resulted in the beheading of Charles I. on\nthat 30th of January, 1649, though he took part in them. Increasingly in\nthe movements which led to that event and which followed it he was growing\ninto prominence. After Marston Moor, Prince Rupert named him Ironsides,\nand his regiment of picked men, picked for their spirit, went always into\nbattle singing psalms, \"and were never beaten.\" As he rode out to the\nfield at Naseby (1645) he knew he faced the flower of the loyalist army,\nwhile with him were only untrained men; yet he smiled, as he said\nafterward, in the \"assurance that God would, by things that are not, bring\nto naught things that are.\" Then he adds, \"God did it.\" Never did he raise\nhis flag but in the interests of the liberty of the people, and back of\nevery movement of his army there was his confidence in the Bible, which\nwas his mainstay. They offered him the throne; he would not have it. He\ndissolved the Parliament which had dragged on until the patience of the\npeople was exhausted. He called another to serve their need. The evening\nbefore it met he spent in meditation on the One hundred and third Psalm.\nThe evening before the second Parliament of his Protectorate he brooded on\nthe Eighty-fifth Psalm, and opened the Parliament next day with an\nexposition of it. The man was saturated with Scripture. Yes, the times\nwere rude. It was an Old Testament age, and in right Old Testament spirit\ndid Cromwell work. And it seemed that his work failed. There was no one to\nsucceed him, and soon after his death came the Restoration and the return\nof Charles II., of which we have already spoken, in which occurred that\nhint of the real sentiment of the English people which a wise man had\nbetter have taken. Yet, recall what actually happened. Misunderstanding\nthe spirit of the English people, which Cromwell had helped to form, but\nwhich in turn had made Cromwell possible, the servile courtiers of the\nfalse king unearthed the Protector's body, three years buried, hanged it\non a gallows in Tyburn for a day, beheaded it, and threw the trunk into a\npit. His head they mockingly set on a pinnacle of the Parliament Hall,\nwhence for some weeks it looked over the city which he had served. Then,\nduring a great storm, it came clattering down, only a poor dried skull,\nand disappeared no one knows where. But when you stand opposite the great\nParliament buildings in London to-day, the most beautiful buildings for\ntheir purpose in the world, the buildings where the liberties of the\nEnglish express themselves year after year, whose is the one statue that\nfinds place within the inclosure, near the spot where that poor skull came\nrattling down? Not Charles II.--you shall look in vain for him. Not George\nMonk, who brought back the King--you shall not find him there. The one\nstatue which England has cared to plant beside its Parliament buildings is\nthat of Oliver Cromwell, its Lord Protector. There he stands, warning\nkings in the interests of liberty. John Morley makes no ideal of him. He\nthinks he rather closed the medieval period than opened the modern period;\nbut he will not have Cromwell compared to Frederick the Great, who spoke\nwith a sneer of mankind. Cromwell \"belonged to the rarer and nobler type\nof governing men, who see the golden side, who count faith, piety, hope\namong the counsels of practical wisdom, and who for political power must\never seek a moral base.\" That is a rare and noble type of men, whether\nthey govern or not. But no man of that type governs without red blood in\nhis veins; and the iron that made this man's blood run red came from the\nEnglish Bible.\n\nIt is a far cry from Oliver Cromwell to Abraham Lincoln--far in years, far\nin deeds, far in methods, but not far in spirit. Great men are kindred,\ngenerations over. We pass from the Old Testament into the New when we pass\nfrom Cromwell to Lincoln; but we still feel the spirit of liberty. From\nthe days of the Puritans, the Quakers and the Dutch, history had been\npreparing for this time. Benjamin Franklin had done his great work for\nhuman liberty; he had summed up his hope for the nation in his memorable\naddress in 1787, when he stood eighty-one years old, before the convention\nassembled to frame a constitution for the new government. He reminded them\nthat at the beginning of the contest with the British they had had daily\nprayers in that room in Philadelphia for the Divine protection, and said:\n\"I have lived for a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing\nproof I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if\na sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable\nthat an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the\nsacred writings, that 'Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain\nthat build it.' I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His\nconcurring aid we shall proceed in this political building no better than\nthe builders of Babel. I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth,\nprayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our\ndeliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to\nbusiness, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to\nofficiate in that service.\"\n\nGeorge Washington sounded a familiar note in his farewell address: \"Of all\nthe dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion\nand morality are indispensable supports. A volume could not trace all\ntheir connection with private and public felicity. Let us with caution\nindulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.\nWhatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of\npeculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that\nnational morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.\"\nThomas Jefferson, of whom it is sometimes said that he was indifferent to\nreligion, had yet done his great work under inspiration, which he himself\nacknowledges in his inaugural address, when he speaks of the nation as\n\"enlightened by a benign religion, professed indeed, and practised in\nvarious forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance,\ngratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling\nProvidence, which by all its dispensation proves that it results in the\nhappiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter.\" Greater than\nJefferson had appeared John Marshall, greatest of our Chief Justices, like\nin spirit to that John Marshall Harlan, whose death marked the year which\nhas just closed, of whom his colleagues said that he went to his rest each\nnight with one hand on the Bible and the other on the Constitution of the\nUnited States, a description which could almost be transferred to his\ngreat predecessor in that court. Moreover, when Lincoln came, Joseph\nStory, the greatest teacher of law which our country had produced, had\nonly just died from his place on the Supreme Bench. In his Phi Beta Kappa\naddress at Harvard (1826), in a brilliant and masterful analysis of \"The\nCharacteristics of the Age,\" he had paid tribute after tribute to the\npower of religion and the Bible. He had declared his belief that the\nreligion of the Bible had \"established itself in the hearts of men by all\nwhich genius could bring to illumine or eloquence to grace its sublime\ntruths.\" Of the same period with Lincoln was also Webster, who was called\nthe \"concordance of the House.\" Many of his stately periods and great\nideas came from the Bible. Indeed, there is no oratory of our history,\nwhich has survived the waste of the years, which does not feel and show\nthe power of the Scriptures. The English Bible has given our finest\neloquence its ideas, its ideals, its illustrations, its phrases.\n\nThe line is unbroken. And it leads to this tall figure, crowned with a\nnoble head, his face the saddest in American history, who knew Gethsemane\nin all its paths. The heart of the American people has always been touched\nby his early years of abject poverty. But there were compensations. He had\nfew books, and they entered his blood and fiber. In his earliest formative\nyears there were six books which he read and re-read. Nicolay and Hay name\nthe Bible first in the list, with _Pilgrim's Progress_ as the fourth. Mr.\nMorse calls it a small library, but nourishing, and says that Lincoln\nabsorbed into his own nature all the strong juice of the books.[46] How\nmuch he drew from the pages of the Holy Book let any reader of his\nspeeches say. Quotation, reference, illustration crowd each other. The\nphrases are familiar. The man is full of the Book. And what the man does\nis part of the work of the Book.\n\nOne of his biographers says that there is nothing in the life or work of\nLincoln which cannot be explained without reference to any supernatural\ninfluence or power. That depends on what is meant by supernatural. There\nwere no miracles, no astounding visions nor experiences. But there ran\ninto Lincoln's life from his young manhood onward this steady and strong\ncurrent of ideas and ideals from the Bible. In his second inaugural\naddress he worded the thought that was the deepest horror of the Civil\nWar--that on both sides of the strife men were reading the same Bible,\npraying to the same God, and invoking His aid against each other! In that\nvery brief inaugural Mr. Lincoln quotes in full three Bible verses, and\nmakes reference to two others, and the whole address lasted barely four\nminutes. There could be no mistaking the solemn importance of the fact to\nwhich he referred in the inaugural, the presence on the other side of men\nwho held their Bibles high in regard. \"Stonewall\" Jackson was devout\nbeyond most men. The two books always at his hand were his Bible and the\n_Manual of the Rules of War_. Robert E. Lee was a cultured, Christian\ngentleman, as were many others with him, while throughout the South were\nmultitudes who loved and reverenced the Bible as fully as could any in the\nNorth. As we look back over half a century, this comes out plainly: that\nso far as the American civil war was a strife about union pure and simple,\nhaving one nation or two here in our part of the continent, it was matter\nof judgment, not of religion. There grew around that question certain\nothers of national honor and obligation, which were not so clear then as\nnow. But men on opposite sides of the question might read the same Bible\nwithout finding authoritative word about it. In so far, however, as the\nwar had at its heart the matter of human slavery, it was possible for men\nto differ only when one side read the letter of the Bible while the other\nread its manifest spirit. Written in times when slavery was counted matter\nof course, its letter dealt with slavery as a fact. It could be read as\nthough it approved slavery. But long before this day men had found its\ntrue spirit. England had abolished slavery (1808) under the insistence\nthat it was foreign to all right understanding of God's Word. Lincoln knew\nits letter well; he cared for its spirit more, and he found his strength\nnot in the familiar saying that God was on his side, but in the more\nforceful one that he believed himself to be on God's side. So he became a\npoint around which the great fluid idea crystallized into strength--a\npoint made and sustained by the influence of the Bible, which he knew only\nin the King James version.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe have spoken of some wide movements and of men around whom they\ncrystallized, finding in them the influence of the Bible. It will be well\nto note two outstanding traits of the Bible which in English or any other\ntongue would inevitably tend to strong and favorable influence on the\nhistory of men. Those two traits are, first, its essential democracy, and,\nsecondly, its persistent moral appeal.\n\nHere must be recalled that century before the King James version, when by\nslow filtration the fundamental ideas of the Bible were entering English\nlife. Surely it is beyond words that the Bible made Puritanism, though it\nwas in strong swing when James came to the throne. Now John Richard Green\nis well within the fact when he says that \"Puritanism may fairly claim to\nbe the first political system which recognized the grandeur of the people\nas a whole.\"[47] It was the magnifying of the people as a whole over\nagainst some people as having peculiar rights which marked Puritanism, and\nwhich is democracy. Shakespeare knew nothing of it, and had no influence\non the movement for larger democracy. After we have said our strong word\nof Shakespeare's powerful influence upon literature it yet must be said\nthat it is difficult to lay finger on one single historical movement\nexcept the literary one which Shakespeare even remotely influenced. The\nBible, meanwhile, was absolutely creating this movement. Under its\ninfluence \"the meanest peasant felt himself ennobled as the child of God,\nthe proudest noble recognized a spiritual equality with the meanest\nsaint.\" That was the inevitable result of a fresh reading of the Bible in\nevery home. It assured each man that he is a son of God, equal in that\nsonship with all other men. It assured him no man has right to lord it\nover others, as though his relation to God were peculiar. The Bible\nconstantly impresses men that this relation to God is the essential one.\nEverything else is incidental. Granted now a people freshly under the\ninfluence of that teaching, you have a large explanation of the movement\nwhich followed the issuance of this version.\n\nJames opened his first parliament (1604) with a speech claiming divine\nright, a doctrine which had really been raised to meet the claim of the\nright of the pope to depose kings. James argued that the state of monarchy\nis the supremest thing on earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants\non earth and set upon God's throne, but even by God Himself are called\ngods. (He never found that in the Genevan version or its notes!) As to\ndispute what God may do is blasphemy, so it is sedition in subjects to\ndispute what the king may do in the height of his power. \"I will not be\ncontent that my power be disputed on.\" The House of Commons sat by his\ngrace and not of any right.\n\nSet that idea of James over against the idea which the Bible was\nconstantly developing in the mind of the people, and you see why Trevelyan\nsays that the Bible brought in democracy, and why he thinks, as we have\nalready seen, that the greatest contribution England has made to\ngovernment is its treatment of the Stuarts, when it transferred\nsovereignty from the king to Parliament. Among the men who listened to\nthat kind of teaching were Eliot, Hampden, Pym, all Puritans under the\nspell of the Bible. But the strife grew larger than a merely Puritan one.\nThe people themselves were strongly feeling their rights. \"To the devout\nEnglishman, much as he might love his prayer-book and hate the\ndissenters, the core of religion was the life of family prayer and Bible\nstudy, which the Puritans had for a hundred years struggled not in vain to\nmake the custom of the land.\" It was this spirit which James met.\n\nWe have already thought sufficiently of the events which actually\nfollowed. The final rupture of Charles I. with parliamentary institutions\nwas due to the religious situation. There were many Bible-reading\nfamilies, learning their own rights, while kings and favorites were\nplotting war. Laud and the bishops forbade non-conforming gatherings, but\nthey could not prevent a man's gathering his household about him while he\nread the great stories of the Bible, in which no king ruled when he had\nceased to advance his kingdom, in which each man was shut up to God in the\nmost vital things of his life. The discussion of the time grew keen about\npredestination and free-will. One meant that only God had power; the other\nmeant that men, and if men, then specially kings, might control other men\nif only they could. Not fully, but vaguely, the crowd understood. Very\nfully, and not vaguely, the leaders understood. Predestination and\nParliament became a cry. That is, control lifted out of the hands of the\nfree-will of some monarch into the hands of a sovereign God to whom every\nman had the same access that any other man had. Laud decreed that all such\ndiscussion should cease. He revived an old decree that no book could be\nprinted without consent of an archbishop or the Bishop of London. So the\nbooks became secret and more virulent each year. The civil war (1642-46)\nbetween Charles and Parliament was a war of ideas. It is sometimes called\na war of religion, not quite fairly. It was due to the religious\nsituation, but actually it was for the liberties of the people against the\npower of the king. And that question rooted far down in another regarding\nthe rights of men to be free in their religious life. Charles struck his\ncoin at Oxford with the Latin inscription: \"The Protestant religion; the\nlaws of England; the liberties of Parliament.\" But he struck it too late.\nHe had been trifling with the freedom of the people, and they had learned\nfrom their fireside Bibles and from their pulpits that no man may command\nanother in his relation to God. It was long after that Burns described\n\"The Cottar's Saturday Night\"; but he was only describing a condition\nwhich was already in vogue, and which was having tremendous influence in\nEngland as well as in Scotland:\n\n    \"The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,\n      They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;\n    The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,\n      The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride:\n    His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,\n      His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare;\n    Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,\n      He wales a portion with judicious care,\n    And 'Let us worship God!' he says, with solemn air.\"\n\nUnder such guidance as this the people of England, Puritans and others,\nrelaxed the power of the Stuarts and became a democracy. For democracy is\nnot a form of government. It can exist under monarchy, provided the\nmonarchy is a convenience of the will of the people, as it is in England.\nIt can exist under institutions like our own, provided they also are held\nas a convenience of the people. This was no rebellion against some form of\nmonarchy. It was simply a claim of every man to have his rights before\nGod. Under the Parliament of eighteen years duration, the Independents,\nPresbyterians, and all other non-conforming bodies suffered as heavily as\nunder James and Charles, yet they did not flee the land. Their battle was\nreally won. They believed the time would come when they as part of \"the\npeople\" who now governed should assert themselves. If they were\npersecuted, it was under a government where yet they might hope for their\nrights. Fleeing from England in 1620 was heroism; fleeing in 1640 would\nhave been cowardly. It is impossible to calculate what was the revelation\nto the readers of the English Bible of their rights.\n\nLet Trevelyan tell the story: \"While other literary movements, however\nnoble in quality, affect only a few, the study of the Bible was becoming\nthe national education. Recommended by the king, translated by the\nBishops, yet in chief request with the Puritans, without the rivalry of\nbooks and newspapers, the Bible told to the unscholarly the story of\nanother age and race, not in bald generalization and doctrinal harangue,\nbut with such wealth of simple narrative and lyrical force that each man\nrecognized his own dim strivings after a new spirit, written clear in\nwords two thousand years old. A deep and splendid effect was wrought by\nthe monopoly of this Book as the sole reading of common households, in an\nage when men's minds were instinct with natural poetry and open to receive\nthe light of imagination. A new religion arose, of which the mythus was\nthe Bible stories and the pervading spirit the direct relations of man\nwith God, exemplified in the human life. And, while imagination was\nkindled, the intellect was freed by this private study of the Bible. For\nits private study involved its private interpretation. Each reader, even\nif a Churchman, became in some sort a church to himself. Hence the hundred\nsects and thousand doctrines that astonished foreigners and opened\nEngland's strange path to intellectual liberty. The Bible cultivated here,\nmore than in any other land, the growth of intellectual thought and\npractice.\"[48]\n\nAll that has seemed to refer only to England, but the same essential\ndemocracy of the Bible came to America and founded the new nation. It was\na handful of Puritans turned Pilgrims who set out in the Mayflower to give\ntheir Bible ideas free field. In a dozen years (1628-40), under Laud's\npersecution, twenty thousand Englishmen fled to join those Pilgrims. And\nhow much turned on that! Suppose it had not happened. Then the French of\nthe North and the cavaliers of Virginia, with the Spanish of the South,\nwould have had only the Dutch between them. And of the four, only the\nDutch had free access to the Bible. The new land would not have been\nEnglish. It is an English writer who says that North America is now\npreparing the future of the world, and English speech is the mold in which\nthe folk of all the world are being poured for their final shaping.[49]\nIt is the democracy of the Bible which is the fundamental democracy of\nAmerica, in which every man has it accented to him that he is so much a\nchild of God that his rights are inalienable. They cover life and liberty\nand the pursuit of happiness. And though we have held that principle of\ndemocracy inconsistently at times, and have paid a terrible price for our\ninconsistency in the past, and may pay it in the future again, it is still\ntrue that the fundamental democracy of our American life is only that\nessential democracy of the Bible, where every man is made the equal of his\nfellow by being lifted into the same relation with Almighty God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Bible makes its moral appeal on the same basis. If a man is a child of\nGod, then he is shut up to duties which cannot be avoided. Some one else\nmay tell a man his duty in a true monarchy. In a democracy each man stands\nalone at the most solemn point of his duty. There is no safe democracy\nwhere men refuse to stand alone there. In Jefferson's great speech,\nreplying to the forebodings of Patrick Henry, he insisted that if men were\nnot competent to govern themselves they were not competent to govern\nother people. The first duty of any man is to take his independent place\nbefore God. Democracy is the social privilege that grows out of the\nmeeting of these personal obligations.\n\nSeveral facts strengthen this persistent moral appeal. For one thing, the\nBook is absolutely fair to humanity. It leaves out no line or wrinkle; but\nit adds none. The men with whom it deals are typical men. The facts it\npresents are typical facts. There are books which flatter men, make them\nout all good, prattle on about the essential goodness of humanity, while\nmen who know themselves (and these are the only ones who do things) know\nthat the story is not true. On the other hand, there are books which are\ndepressing. Their pigments are all black. They move from the dignity of\nSchopenhauer's pessimism to the bedlam of Nietzsche's contempt for life\nand goodness. But here, also, the sane common sense of humanity comes to\nthe rescue. The picture is not true if it is all white or all black. The\nBible is absolutely fair to humanity. It moves within the circle of man's\nexperience; and, while it deals with men, it results in a treatment of\nman.\n\nThat is how it comes about that the Bible inspires men, and puts them at\ntheir best. No moral appeal can be successful if it fails to reach the\nbetter part of a man, and lays hold on him there. Just what it did for the\nEnglish people. \"No greater moral change ever passed over a nation than\npassed over England during the years that parted the middle of the reign\nof Elizabeth from the meeting of the Long Parliament. England became the\npeople of a Book, and that Book was the Bible.\"[50]\n\nAdd to that personal appeal and that absolute fairness to humanity the\nconstant challenge of the Bible to the nobler elements of humanity. It\nnever trifles. It is in deadly earnest. And it makes earnest men. Probably\nwe cannot illustrate that earnestness more clearly than by a study of one\nelement in Puritan history, which is confused in many minds. It is the\nmatter of the three great antagonisms of Puritanism in England and\nAmerica. They can never be understood by moral triflers. They may not be\napproved by all the morally serious, but they will be understood by them.\nWhat are those three marked antagonisms? The antagonism to the stage, to\npopular frivolity, and to the pleasure of Sabbath.\n\n1. The early English stage had the approval of virtually all the people.\nThere were few voices raised against the dramas of Shakespeare. But the\ncleavage between the Puritans and the stage grew greater as the years went\non. There were riotous excesses. The later comedy after Shakespeare was\nincredibly gross. The tragedies were shallow, they turned not on grave\nscenes of conscience, but on common and cheap intrigues of incest and\nmurder. In the mean time, \"the hatred of the Puritans for the stage was\nonly the honest hatred of God-fearing men against the foulest depravity\npresented in poetic and dramatic forms.\" The Bible was laying hold on the\nimagination of the people, making them serious, thoughtful, preparing them\nfor the struggle for liberty which was soon to come. The plays of the time\nseemed too trifling or else too foul. The Puritans and the English people\nof the day were willing to be amused, if the stage would amuse them. They\nwere willing to be taught, if the stage would teach them. But they were\nnot willing to be amused by vice and foulness, and they were not willing\nto be taught by lecherous actors who parroted beautiful sentiments of\nvirtue on the stage and lived filthy lives of incest and shame off the\nstage. Life had to be whole to the Puritan, as indeed it has to be to\nother thoughtful men. And the Bible taught him that. His concern was for\nthe higher elements of life; his appeal was to the worthier values in\nmen. The concern of the stage of his day was for the more volatile\nelements in men. The test of a successful play was whether the crowds, any\ncrowds, came to it. And as always happens when a man wants to catch the\ninterest of a crowd, the stage catered to its lowest interests. You can\nhardly read the story of the times without feeling that the Puritan made\nno mistake in his day. He could not have been the thoughtful man who would\nstand strong in the struggle for liberty on that side of the sea and the\nstruggle for life on this side of the sea without opposing trifling and\nvice.\n\n2. The antagonism of the early Puritan to popular frivolity needs to have\nthe times around it to be understood. No great movement carries everybody\nwith it, and while it is still struggling the majority will be on the\nopposing side. While the real leadership of England was passing into the\nstronger and more serious hands the artificial excesses of life grew\nstrong on the people. \"Fortunes were being sunk and estates mortgaged in\norder that men should wear jewels and dress in colored silks.\"[51] In the\npressure of grave national needs men persisted in frivolity. The two\nreigning vices were drunkenness and swearing. In their cups men were\nguilty of the grossest indecencies. Even their otherwise harmless sports\nwere endangered. The popular notion of the May-pole dances misses the real\npoint of the Puritan opposition to it in Old and New England. It was not\nan innocent, jovial out-door event. Once it may have been that. Very often\nit was only part of a day which brought immorality and vice in its train.\nIt was part of a rural paganism. Some of the customs involved such grave\nperils, with their seclusion of young people from early dawn in the\nforests, as to make it impossible to approve it. Over against all these\nthings the Puritans set themselves. Sometimes they carried this solemnity\nto an absurd length, justifying it by Scripture verses misapplied. Against\nthe affected elegancies of speech they set the plain yea, yea and nay, nay\nof Scripture. In their clothing, their homes, their churches, they, and in\neven more marked degree, the Quakers, registered their solemn protest\nagainst the frivolity of the times. If they went too far, it is certain\ntheir protest was needed. Macaulay's epigram is familiar, that the Puritan\n\"hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it\ngave pleasure to the spectators.\" In so far as that is true, it is to the\ncredit of the Puritan; for the bear can stand the pain of being baited\nfar better than human nature can stand the coarsening effects of baiting\nhim, and it is nobler to oppose such sport on human grounds than on animal\ngrounds. But, of course, the epigram is Macaulay's, and must be read with\nqualification. The fact is, and he says it often enough without epigrams,\nthat the times had become trifling except as this grave, thoughtful group\ninfluenced them.\n\n3. The attitude of the Puritans toward the Sabbath came from their serious\nthought of the Bible. Puritanism gave England the Sabbath again and\nplanted it in America as an institution. Of course, these men learned all\nthat they knew of it from the Bible. From that day, in spite of much\nchange in thought of it, English-speaking people have never been wilful\nabusers of the Sabbath. But the condition in that day was very different.\nMost of the games were on the day set apart as the Sabbath. There were\nbull-baiting, bear-baiting, and football on Sunday. Calvin himself, though\nnot in England, bowled on Sunday, and poor Knox attended festivities then,\nsaying grimly that what little is right on week-days is not wrong on\nSundays. After the service on Sunday morning the people thronged to the\nvillage green, where ale flowed freely and games were played until the\nevening dance was called. It was a work-day. Elizabeth issued a special\ninjunction that people work after service on Sundays and holidays if they\nwished to do so. Employers were sustained in their demand for Sunday work.\n\nThere are always people in every time who count that the ideal Sabbath.\nThe Puritans found it when they appeared. The English Reformation found it\nwhen it came. And the Bible found it when at last it came out of obscurity\nand laid hold on national conditions. Whatever is to be said of other\nraces, every period of English-speaking history assures us that our moral\npower increases or weakens with the rise or fall of Sabbath reverence. The\nPuritans saw that. They saw, as many other thoughtful people saw, that the\nsteady, repeated observance of the Sabbath gave certain national\ninfluences a chance to work; reminded the nation of certain great\nunderlying and undying principles; in short, brought God into human\nthought. The Sunday of pleasure or work could never accomplish that. Both\nas religionists and as patriots, as lovers of God and lovers of men, they\nopposed the pleasure-Sunday and held for the Sabbath.\n\nBut that comes around again to the saying that the persistent moral appeal\nof the Bible gives it inevitable influence on history. It centers thought\non moral issues. It challenges men to moral combats.\n\nSuch a force persistently working in men's minds is irresistible. It\ncannot be opposed; it can only fail by being neglected. And this is the\nforce which has been steadily at work everywhere in English-speaking\nhistory since the King James version came to be.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[41] Rhodes. _History of the United States_, vol. i, pp. 185-303.\n\n[42] MacPhail, _Essays on Puritanism_, p. 278.\n\n[43] H. B. Smith, _Faith and Philosophy_, p. 54.\n\n[44] White, in his _History of England_, says that Charles replied that\nthe explanation was easy: His discourses were his own, his actions were\nhis ministry's!\n\n[45] David Gregg, _The Quakers in America_.\n\n[46] _American Statesman Series, Abraham Lincoln_, i, 12, 13.\n\n[47] _Short History of the English People_, chap. vii, sec. vii.\n\n[48] _England under the Stuarts._\n\n[49] Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_, p. 174.\n\n[50] Green, _Short History of the English People_.\n\n[51] Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_, p. 66.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI\n\nTHE BIBLE IN THE LIFE OF TO-DAY\n\n\nThis lecture must differ at two points from those which have preceded it.\nIn the first place, the other lectures have dealt entirely with facts.\nThis must deal also with judgments. In the earlier lectures we have\navoided any consideration of what ought to have been and have centered our\ninterest on what actually did occur. We especially avoided any argument\nbased on a theory of the literary characteristics or literary influence of\nthe Bible, but sought first to find the facts and then to discover what\nexplained them. It might be very difficult to determine what is the actual\nplace of the Bible in the life of to-day. Perhaps it would be impossible\nto give a broad, fair judgment. It is quite certain that the people of\nJames's day did not realize the place it was taking. It is equally certain\nthat many of those whom it most influenced were entirely unconscious of\nthe fact. It is only when we look back upon the scene that we discover\nthe influence that was moving them. But, while it is difficult to say what\nthe place of the Bible actually is in our own times, the place it ought to\nhave is easier to point out. That will involve a study of the conditions\nof our times, which suggest the need for its influence. While we must\nconsider the facts, therefore, we will be compelled to pass some judgments\nalso, and therein this lecture must differ from the others.\n\nThe second fact of difference is that while the earlier lectures have\ndealt with the King James version, this must deal rather with the Bible.\nFor the King James version is not the Bible. There are many versions;\nthere is but one Bible. Whatever the translators put into the various\ntongues, the Bible itself remains the same. There are values in the new\nversions; but they are simply the old value of the Bible itself. It is a\nfamiliar maxim that the newest version is the oldest Bible. We are not\nmaking the Bible up to date when we make a new version; we are only\ngetting back to its date. A revision in our day is the effort to take out\nof the original writings what men of King James's day may have put in, and\ngive them so much the better chance. There is no revised Bible; there is\nonly a revised version. Readers sometimes feel disturbed at what they\nconsider the changes made in the Bible. The fact is, the revision which\ndeserves the name is lessening the changes in the Bible; it is giving us\nthe Bible as it actually was and taking from us elements which were not\npart of it. One can sympathize with the eloquent Dr. Storrs, who declared,\nin an address in 1879, that he was against any new version because of the\nhistory of the King James version, describing it as a great oak with roots\nrunning deep and branches spreading wide. He declared we were not ready to\ngive it up for any modern tulip-tree. There is something in that, though\nsuch figures are not always good argument. Yet the value to any book of a\nworthy translation is beyond calculation. The outstanding literary\nillustration of that fact is familiar. The _Rubaiyat of Omar Khayy\u00e1m_ lay\nin Persian literature and in different English translations long before\nFitzgerald made it a household classic for literary people. The translator\nmade the book for us in a more marked way than the original writer did. In\nsomewhat the same way the King James version gave to the English-speaking\npeople the Bible; and no other version has taken its place.\n\nYet that was not a mistaken move nearly forty years ago, when the revision\nof the King James version was proposed and undertaken. Thirty years ago\n(1881) it was completed in what we ordinarily call the Revised Version,\nand ten years ago (1901) the American form of that Revised Version\nappeared. Few things could more definitely prove the accepted place of the\nKing James version than the fact that we seem to hear less to-day of the\nRevised Version than we used to hear, and that, while the American Revised\nVersion is incomparably the best in existence in its reproduction of the\noriginal, even it makes way slowly. In less than forty years the King\nJames version crowded all its competitors off the field. The presence of\nthe Revised Version of 1881 has not appreciably affected the sales or the\ndemand for the King James version. In the minds of most people the English\nand the American revisions stand as admirable commentaries on the King\nJames version. If one wishes to know wherein the King James version failed\nof representing the original, he will learn it better from those versions\nthan from any number of commentaries; but the number of those to whom one\nor other of the versions has supplanted the King James version is not so\nlarge as might have been expected.\n\nThere were several reasons for a new English version of the Bible. It was,\nof course, no indignity to the King James version. Those translators\nfrankly said that they had no hope to make a final version of the\nScriptures. It would be very strange if in three hundred years language\nshould not have grown by reason of the necessities of the race that used\nit, so that at some points a book might be outgrown. In another lecture it\nhas been intimated that the English Bible, by reason of its constant use,\nhas tended to fix and confirm the English language. But no one book, nor\nany set of books, could confine a living tongue. Some of the reasons for a\nnew version which give value to these two revisions may be mentioned.\n\n1. Though the King James version was made just after the literary\nrenaissance, the classical learning of to-day is far in advance of that\nday. The King James version is occasionally defective in its use of tenses\nand verbs in the Greek and also in the Hebrew. We have Greek and Hebrew\nscholars who are able more exactly to reproduce in English the meaning of\nthe original. It would be strange if that were not so.\n\n2. Then there have been new and important discoveries of Biblical\nliterature which date earlier in Christian history than any our fathers\nknew three hundred years ago. In some instances those earlier discoveries\nhave shown that a phrase here or there has been wrongly introduced into\nthe text. There has been no marked instance where a phrase was added by\nthe revisers; that is, a phrase dropped out of the original and now\nreplaced. One illustration of the omission of a phrase will be enough. In\nthe fifth chapter of I John the seventh verse reads: \"For there are three\nthat bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and\nthese three are one.\" In the revised versions it is omitted, because it\nseems quite certain that it was not in the original writing. It does not\nat all alter the meaning of Scripture. While it appears in most of the\nbest manuscripts which were available for the King James translators,\nearlier manuscripts found since that time have shown that it was formerly\nwritten at the side as a gloss, and was by some transcriber set over in\nthe text itself. The process of making the early manuscripts shows how\neasily that could have occurred. Let us suppose that two or three\nmanuscripts were being made at once by different copyists. One was set to\nread the original; as he read, the others wrote. It would be easy to\nsuppose that he might read this marginal reference as a suitable\ncommentary on the text, and that one or more of the writers could have\nwritten it in the text. It could easily happen also that a copyist, even\nseeing where it stood, might suppose it had been omitted by the earlier\ncopyist, and that he had completed his work by putting it on the margin.\nSo the next copyist would put it into his own text. Once in a manuscript,\nit would readily become part of the accepted form. Discoveries that bring\nthat sort of thing to light are of value in giving us an accurate version\nof the original Bible.\n\n3. Then there are in our King James version a few archaic and obsolete\nphrases. We have already spoken of them. Most of them have been avoided in\nthe revised versions. The neuter possessive pronoun, for example, has been\nput in. Animal names have been clarified, obsolete expressions have been\nreplaced by more familiar ones, and so on.\n\n4. Then there were certain inaccuracies in the King James version. The\nfact is familiar that they transliterated certain words which they could\nnot well translate. In the revised versions that has been carried farther\nstill. The words which they translated \"hell\" have been put back into\ntheir Hebrew and Greek equivalents, and appear as Sheol and Hades. Another\ninstance is that of an Old Testament word, Asherah, which was translated\nalways \"grove,\" and was used to describe the object of worship of the\nearly enemies of Israel. The translation does not quite represent the\nfact, and the revisers have therefore replaced the old Hebrew word\nAsherah. The transliterations of the King James version have not been\nchanged into translations. Instead, the number of transliterations has\nbeen increased in the interest of accuracy. At one point one might incline\nto be adversely critical of the American revisers. They have\ntransliterated the Hebrew word Jehovah; so they have taken sides in a\ncontroversy where scholars have room to differ. The version would have\ngained in strength if it had retained the dignified and noble word \"Lord,\"\nwhich comes as near representing the idea of the Hebrew word for God as\nany word we could find. It must be added that the English of neither of\nour new versions has the rhythm and movement of the old version. That is\npartly because we are so accustomed to the old expressions and new ones\nstrike the ear unpleasantly. In any case, the versions differ plainly in\ntheir English. It seems most unlikely that either of these versions shall\never have the literary influence of the King James, though any man who\nwill prophesy about that affects a wisdom which he has not.\n\nThese, then, are the two differences between this lecture and the\npreceding ones, that in this lecture we shall deal with judgments as well\nas facts, and that we shall deal with the Bible of to-day rather than the\nKing James version.\n\nPassing to the heart of the subject, the question appears at once whether\nthe Bible has or can have to-day the influence or the place which it seems\nto have had in the past. Two things force that question: Has not the\ncritical study of the Bible itself robbed it of its place of authority,\nand have not the changes of our times destroyed its possibilities of\ninfluence? That is, on the one hand, has not the Bible been changed? On\nthe other hand, has it not come into such new conditions that it cannot do\nits old work?\n\nIt is a natural but a most mistaken idea that the critical study of the\nBible is a new thing. From long before the childhood of any of us there\nhas been sharp controversy about the Bible. It is a controversy-provoking\nBook. It cannot accept blind faith. It always has made men think, and it\nmakes them think in the line of their own times. The days when no\nquestions were raised about the Bible were the days when men had no access\nto it.\n\nThere are some who take all the Bible for granted. They know that there is\nindifference to it among friends and in their social circle; but how real\nthe dispute about the Bible is no one realizes until he comes where new\nideas, say ideas of socialism, are in the air. There, with the breaking of\nother chains, is a mighty effort to break this bond also. In such circles\nthe Bible is little read. It is discussed, and time-worn objections are\nbandied about, always growing as they pass. In these circles also every\nsupposedly adverse result of critical study is welcomed and remembered. If\nit is said that there are unexplained contradictions in the Bible, that\nfact is remembered. But if it is said further that those contradictions\nbid fair to yield to further critical study, or to a wiser understanding\nof the situations in which they are involved, that fact is overlooked. The\ntendency in these circles is to keep alive rather the adverse phases of\ncritical study than its favorable phases. Some of those who speak most\nfiercely about the study of the Bible, by what is known as higher\ncriticism, are least intelligent as to what higher criticism actually\nmeans. Believers regret it, and unbelievers rejoice in it. As a matter of\nfact, in developing any strong feeling about higher criticism one only\nfalls a prey to words; he mistakes the meaning of both the words involved.\n\nCriticism does not mean finding fault with the Bible.[52] It is almost an\nargument for total depravity that we have made the word gain an adverse\nmeaning, so that if the average man were told that he had been\n\"criticized\" by another he would suppose that something had been said\nagainst him. Of course, intelligent people know that that is not\nnecessarily involved. When Kant wrote _The Critique of Pure Reason_ he was\nnot finding fault with pure reason. He was only making careful analytical\nstudy of it. Now, critical study of the Bible is only careful study of it.\nIt finds vastly more new beauties than unseen defects. In the same way the\nadjective \"higher\" comes in for misunderstanding. It does not mean\nsuperior; it means more difficult. Lower criticism is the study of the\ntext itself. What word ought to be here, and exactly what does that word\nmean? What is the comparative value of this manuscript over against that\none? If this manuscript has a certain word and that other has a slightly\ndifferent one, which word ought to be used?\n\nTake one illustration from the Old Testament and one from the New to show\nwhat lower or textual criticism does. In the ninth chapter of Isaiah the\nthird verse reads: \"Thou hast multiplied the nation and _not_ increased\nthe joy.\" That word \"not\" is troublesome. It disagrees with the rest of\nthe passage. Now it happens that there are two Hebrew words pronounced\n\"lo,\" just alike in sound, but spelled differently. One means \"not,\" the\nother means \"to him\" or \"his.\" Put the second word in, and the sentence\nreads: \"Thou hast multiplied the nation and increased its joy.\" That fits\nthe context exactly. Lower criticism declares that it is therefore the\nprobable reading, and corrects the text in that way.\n\nThe other illustration is from the Epistle of James, where in the fourth\nchapter the second verse reads: \"Ye lust, and have not; ye kill, and\ndesire to have, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war, yet ye have not,\nbecause ye ask not.\" Now there is no commentator nor thoughtful reader who\nis not arrested by that word \"kill.\" It does not seem to belong there. It\nis far more violent than anything else in the whole text, and it is\ndifficult to understand in what sense the persons to whom James was\nwriting could be said to kill. Yet there is no Greek manuscript which does\nnot have that word. Well, it is in the field of lower criticism to observe\nthat there is a Greek word which sounds very much like this word \"kill,\"\nwhich means to envy; that would fit exactly into the whole text here. All\nthat lower criticism can do is to point out such a probability.\n\nWhen this form of criticism has done its part, and careful study has\nyielded a text which holds together and which represents the very best\nwhich scholarship can find for the original, there is still a field more\ndifficult than that, higher in the sense that it demands a larger and\nbroader view of the whole subject. Here one studies the meaning of the\nwhole, the ideas in it, seeks to find how the revelation of God has\nprogressed according to the capacities of men to receive it. Higher\ncriticism is the careful study of the historical and original meanings of\nScripture, the effort to determine dates and times and, so far as may be,\nthe author of each writing, analyzing its ideas, the general Greek or\nHebrew style, the relation of part to part. That is not a thing to be\nafraid of. It is a method of study used in every realm. It is true that\nsome of the men who have followed that method have made others afraid of\nit, because they were afraid of these men themselves. It is possible to\nclaim far too much for such study. But if the result of higher criticism\nshould be to show that the latter half of the prophecy of Isaiah is much\nlater than the earlier half, that is not a destruction of the Word of God.\nIt is not an irreverent result of study. If the result of higher criticism\nis to show that by reason of its content, and the lessons which it\nespecially urges, the Epistle to the Hebrews was not written by the\nApostle Paul, as it does not at any point claim to have been, why, that is\nnot irreverent, that is not destructive. There is a destructive form of\nhigher criticism; against that there is reason to set up bulwarks. But\nthere is a constructive form of it also. Scholarly opinion will tell any\none who asks that criticism has not affected the fundamental values of the\nBible. In the studies which have just now been made we have not instanced\nanything in the Bible that is subject to change. No matter what the result\nof critical study may be, the fundamental democracy of the Scripture\nremains. It continues to make its persistent moral appeal on any terms.\nBoth those great facts continue. Other great facts abide with them. And on\ntheir account it is to our interest to know as much as we can learn about\nit. The Bible has not been lessened in its value, has not been weakened in\nitself, by anything that has taken place in critical study. On the other\nhand, the net result of such studies as archaeology has been the\nconfirmation of much that was once disputed. Sir William Ramsay is the\nauthority for saying that the spade of the excavator is to-day digging the\ngrave of many enemies of the Bible.\n\nTake the second question, whether these times have not in them elements\nthat weaken the hold of the Bible. There again we must distinguish between\nfacts and judgments. There are certain things in these times which relax\nthe hold of any authoritative book. There is a general relaxing of the\nsense of authority. It does not come alone from the intellectual\nawakening, because so far as that awakening is concerned, it has affected\nquite as much men who continue loyal to the authority of the Bible as\nothers. No, this relaxing of the sense of authority is the result of the\nfirst feeling of democracy which does not know law. Democracy ought to\nmean that men are left independent of the control of other individuals\nbecause they realize and wish to obey the control of God or of the whole\nequally with their fellows. When, instead, one feels independent of\nothers, and adds to that no sense of a higher control which he must be\nfree to obey, the result is not democracy, but individualism. Democracy\ninvolves control; individualism does not. A vast number of people in\npassing from any sense of the right of another individual to control them\nhave also passed out of the sense of the right of God or of the whole to\ncontrol them. So that from a good many all sense of authority has passed.\nIt is characteristic of our age. And it is a stage in our progress toward\nreal democracy, toward true human liberty.\n\nObserve that relaxed sense of authority in the common attitude toward law.\nMost men feel it right to disregard a law of the community which they do\nnot like. It appears in trivial things. If the community requires that\nashes be kept in a metal receptacle, citizens approve it in general, but\nreserve to themselves the right to consider it a foolish law and to do\nsomething else if that is not entirely convenient. If the law says that\npaper must not be thrown on the sidewalk, it means little that it is the\nlaw. Those who are inclined to be clean and neat and do not like to see\npaper lying around will keep the law; those who are otherwise will be\nindifferent to it. That is at the root of the matter-of-course saying that\na law cannot be enforced unless public opinion sustains it. Under any\ndemocratic system laws virtually always have the majority opinion back of\nthem; but the minority reserve the right to disregard them if they choose,\nand the minority will be more aggressive. Rising from those relaxations of\nlaw into far more important ones, it appears that men in business life,\nfeeling themselves hampered by legislation, set themselves to find a way\nto evade it, justifying themselves in doing so. The mere fact that it is\nthe law does not weigh heavily. This is, however, only an inevitable stage\nin progress from the earliest periods of democracy to later and more\nsubstantial periods. It is a stage which will pass. There will come a\ndemocracy where the rule of the whole is frankly recognized, and where\neach man holds himself independent of his fellows only in the sense that\nhe will claim the right to hold such relation to God and his duty as he\nhimself may apprehend.\n\nIn these times, also, the development of temporal and material prosperity\nwith the intellectual mood which is involved in that affects the attitude\nof the age toward the Bible. Sometimes it is spoken of as a scientific age\nover against the earlier philosophical ages. Perhaps that will do for a\nrough statement of the facts. It is the age of experiment, of trying\nthings out, and there naturally works into men a feeling that the things\nthat will yield to the most material scientific experimentation are the\nthings about which they can be certain and which are of real value. That\nnaturally involves a good deal of appreciation of the present, and calls\nfor the improvement of the conditions of present life first of all. It\nlooks more important to see that a man is well fed, well housed, well\nclothed, and well educated than that he should have the interests of\neternity pressed on his attention. That is a comparatively late feeling.\nIt issues partly from the fact that this is a scientific age, when science\nhas had its attention turned to the needs of humanity.\n\nAnother result of our scientific age is the magnifying of the natural,\nwhile the Bible frankly asserts the supernatural. No effort to get the\nsupernatural out of the Bible, in order to make it entirely acceptable to\nthe man who scouts the supernatural, has thus far proved successful. Of\ncourse, the supernatural can be taken out of the Bible; but it will\ndestroy the Bible. Nor is there much gain in playing with words and\ninsisting that everything is supernatural or that everything is natural.\nThere is a difference between the two, and in an age which insists upon\nnature or natural laws or forces or events as all-sufficient it is almost\ninevitable that the Bible should lose its hold, at least temporarily.\n\nRegarding all this there are some things that need to be said. For one\nthing, this, too, is a passing condition. As a matter of fact, men are not\ncreatures of time. They actually have eternal connections, and the great\noutstanding facts which have always made eternity of importance continue.\nThe fact is that men continue to die, and that the men who are left\nbehind cannot avoid the sense of mystery and awe which is involved in\nthat fact. The fact also is that the human emotions cannot be explained on\nthe lower basis, and the only reason men think they can be is because they\nhave in the back of their minds the old explanations which they cast into\nthe lower forms, deceiving themselves into thinking they are new ideas\nwhen they are not.\n\nIt ought to be added that the Bible has greatly suffered in all its\nhistory at the hands of men who have believed in it and have fought in its\nbehalf. Many of the controversies which were hottest were needless and\ninjurious. All the folly has not been on one side. Some one referred the\nother day to a list of more than a hundred scientific theories which were\nproposed at the beginning of the last century and abandoned at the end of\nit. Scientific men are feeling their way, many of them reverently and\ndevoutly, some of them rather blatantly and with a readiness for\npublication, which hastens them into notoriety. But there has been enough\nfolly on both sides to make every one go cautiously. It has been remarked\nthat in Dr. Draper's book _The Conflict Between Science and Religion_ he\nmakes science appear as a strong-limbed angel of God whereas religion is\nalways a great ass. The title of the book itself is not fair. In no\nproper understanding of the words can there be any conflict between\nscience and religion. There can be a conflict, as Dr. Andrew D. White puts\nit, between science and theology. There can certainly be contest between\nscientists and religionists. Science and religion have no conflict.\n\nIt is interesting to observe how far back most of the supposed conflicts\nactually lie. There is no warfare now; and, while our fathers one or two\ngenerations ago felt that they must fly to the defense of religion against\nthe attacks of science, no man wastes his strength doing that to-day. That\nperiod has passed. The trouble is that some good people do not know it,\nand are just fond enough of a bit of a tussle to keep up the fighting in\nthe mountain-passes while out in the plain the main armies have laid down\ntheir arms and are busy tilling the soil.\n\nThe period of conflict is past, partly because we are learning to\ndistinguish between the Bible as it really is and certain long-established\nideas about the Bible which came from other sources and have become\nattached to it until it seemed to sustain them. The proper doctrine of\nevolution is entirely compatible with the Bible. The great Dr. Hodge\ndeclared that the consistent Darwinian must be an atheist. For that\nmatter, Shelley defended himself by saying that, of course, \"the\nconsistent Newtonian must necessarily be an atheist.\" But fifty years have\nmade great changes in the doctrine of evolution, and the old scare has\nbeen over for some time. Newton is honored in the church quite as much as\nin the university, and Darwin is not a name to frighten anybody.\nUnderstanding evolution better and knowing the Bible better, the two do\nnot jangle out of tune so badly but that harmony is promised.\n\nThe doctrine of the antiquity of the world is entirely compatible with the\nBible, though it is not compatible with the dates which Archbishop Ussher,\nin the time of King James, put at the head of the columns. That is so with\nother scientific theories. Any one who has read much of history has\nattended the obsequies of so many theories in the realm of science that he\nought to know that he is wasting his strength in trying to bring about a\nconstant reconciliation between scientific and religious theories. It is\nhis part to keep an open mind in assurance of the unity of truth, an\nassurance that there is no fact which can possibly come to light and no\ntrue theory of facts which can possibly be formed which does not serve the\ninterest of the truth, which the Bible also presents. The Bible does not\nconcern itself with all departments of knowledge. So far as mistakes have\nbeen made on the side of those who believe it, they have issued from\nforgetting that fact more than from any other one cause.\n\nOn the other hand, it has sometimes occurred that believers in the Bible\nhave been quite too eager to accommodate themselves to purely passing\nphases of objection to it. The matter mentioned a moment ago, the excision\nof the supernatural, is a case in point. The easy and glib way in which\nsome have sought to get around difficulties, by talking in large terms\nabout the progressiveness of the revelation, as though the progress were\nfrom error to truth, instead of from half light to full light, is another\nillustration. The nimble way in which we have turned what is given as\nhistory into fiction, and allowed imagination to roam through the Bible,\nis another illustration. One of our later writers tells the story of\nJonah, and says it sounds like fiction; why not call it fiction? Another\ntells the story of the exodus from Egypt, and says it sounds like fiction;\nwhy not call it fiction? Well, certainly the objection is not to the\npresence of fiction in the Bible. It is there, openly, confessedly,\nunashamed. Fiction can be used with great profit in teaching religious\ntruth. But fiction may not masquerade in the guise of history, if men are\nto be led by it or mastered by it. If the way to be rid of difficulties in\na narrative is to turn it into pious fiction, there are other instances\nwhere it might be used for relief in emergencies. The story of the\ncrucifixion of Christ can be told so that it sounds like fiction; why not\ncall it fiction? Certainly the story of the conversion of Paul can be made\nto sound like fiction; why not call it fiction? And there is hardly any\nbit of narrative that can be made to sound so like fiction as the landing\nof the Pilgrims; why not call that fiction? It is the easy way out; the\ndifficulties are all gone like Alice's cat, and there is left only the\nbroad smile of some moral lesson to be learned from the fiction. It is\nnot, however, the courageous nor the perfectly square way out. Violence\nhas to be done to the plain narrative; historical statement has to be made\nonly a mask. And the only reason for it is that there are difficulties not\nyet cleared. As for the characters involved, Charles Reade, the novelist,\ncalling himself \"a veteran writer of fiction,\" declares that the\nexplanation of these characters, Jonah being one of them, by invention is\nincredible and absurd: \"Such a man [as himself] knows the artifices and\nthe elements of art. Here the artifices are absent, and the elements\nsurpassed.\" It is not uncommon for one who has found this easy way out of\ndifficulties to declare with a wave of his hand, that everybody now knows\nthat this or that book in the Bible is fiction, when, as a matter of fact,\nthat is not at all an admitted opinion. The Bible will never gain its\nplace and retain its authority while those who believe in it are spineless\nand topple over at the first touch of some one's objection. It could not\nbe a great Book; it could not serve the purposes of a race if it presented\nno problems of understanding and of belief, and all short and easy methods\nof getting rid of those problems are certain to leave important elements\nof them out of sight.\n\nAll this means that the changes of these times rather present additional\nreason for a renewed hold on the Bible. It presents what the times\npeculiarly need. Instead of making the influence of the Bible impossible,\nthese changes make the need for the Bible the greater and give it greater\nopportunity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAdd three notable points at which these times feel and still need the\ninfluence of the Bible. First, they have and still need its literary\ninfluence. So far as its ideas and forces and words are interwoven in the\ngreat literature of the past, it is essential still to the understanding\nof that literature. It remains true that English literature, certainly of\nthe past and also of the present, cannot be understood without knowledge\nof the Bible. The Yale professor of literature, quoted so often, says: \"It\nwould be worth while to read the Bible carefully and repeatedly, if only\nas a key to modern culture, for to those who are unfamiliar with its\nteachings and its diction all that is best in English literature of the\npresent century is as a sealed book.\"\n\nFrom time to time there occur painful reminders of the fact that men\nsupposed to know literature do not understand it because they are not\nfamiliar with the Bible. Some years ago a college president tested a class\nof thirty-four men with a score of extracts from Tennyson, each of which\ncontained a Scriptural allusion, none of them obscure. The replies were\nsuggestive and quite appalling. Tennyson wrote, in the \"Supposed\nConfessions\":\n\n    \"My sin was a thorn among the thorns that girt Thy brow.\"\n\nOf these thirty-four young men nine of them did not understand that\nquotation. Tennyson wrote:\n\n    \"Like Hezekiah's, backward runs\n    The shadow of my days.\"\n\nThirty-two of the thirty-four did not know what that meant. The meaning of\nthe line,\n\n    \"For I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine,\"\n\nwas utterly obscure to twenty-two of the thirty-four. One of them said it\nwas a reference to \"good opportunities given but not improved.\" Another\nsaid it was equivalent to the counsel \"not to expect to find gold in a\nhay-stack.\" Even the line,\n\n                      \"A Jonah's gourd\n    Up in one night, and due to sudden sun,\"\n\nwas utterly baffling to twenty-eight of the thirty-four. One of them spoke\nof it as an \"allusion to the uncertainty of the length of life.\" Another\nthought it was a reference to \"the occasion of Jonah's being preserved by\nthe whale.\" Another counted it \"an allusion to the emesis of Jonah by the\nwhale.\" Another considered it a reference to \"the swallowing of Jonah by a\nwhale,\" and yet another considered that it referred to \"things grand, but\nnot worthy of worship because they are perishable.\" It is amazing to read\nthat in response to Tennyson's lines,\n\n    \"Follow Light and do the Right--for man can half control his doom--\n    Till you find the deathless Angel seated in the vacant tomb,\"\n\nonly sixteen were able to give an explanation of its meaning! The lines\nfrom the \"Holy Grail\" were equally baffling:\n\n    \"Perhaps like Him of Cana in Holy Writ,\n    Our Arthur kept his best until the last.\"\n\nTwenty-four of these thirty-four young men could not recall what that\nmeant. One said that the keeping of the best wine until the last meant\n\"waiting till the last moment to be baptized!\"\n\nAll that may be solely the fault of these young men. Professor Lounsbury\nonce said that his experience in the class-room had taught him the\ninfinite capacity of the human mind to withstand the introduction of\nknowledge. Very likely earnest effort had been made to teach these young\nmen the Bible; but it is manifest that they had successfully resisted the\nefforts. If Tennyson were the only poet who could not be understood\nwithout knowledge of the Bible, it might not matter so much, but no one\ncan read Browning nor Carlyle nor Macaulay nor Huxley with entire\nintelligence without knowledge of the greater facts and forces of\nScripture. The value of the allusions can be shown by comparing them with\nthose of mythology. No one can read most of Shelley with entire\nsatisfaction without a knowledge of Greek mythology. That is one reason\nwhy Shelley has so much passed out of popularity. We do not know Greek\nmythology, and we have very largely lost Shelley from our literary\npossession. The chief power of these other great writers will go from us\nwhen our knowledge of the Scripture goes.\n\nThe danger is not simply with reference to the great literature of the\npast. There is danger of losing appreciation of the more delicate touches\nof current literature, sometimes of a complete missing of the meaning. An\norator describing present political and social conditions used a fine\nphrase, that \"it is time the nation camped for a season at the foot of the\nmount.\" Only a knowledge of Bible history will bring as a flash before one\nthe nation in the desert at Sinai learning the meaning and power of law.\nYet an intelligent man, hearing that remark, said that he counted it a\nfine figure, that he thought there did come in the life of every nation a\ntime before it began its ascent to the heights when it ought to pause and\ncamp at the foot of the mountain to get its breath! After Lincoln's\nassassination Garfield stood on the steps in New York, and said: \"Clouds\nand darkness are around about him! God reigns and the government at\nWashington still lives!\" Years after, some one referring to that, said\nthat it was a beautiful sentence, that the reference to \"clouds and\ndarkness\" was a beautiful symbolism, but that Garfield had a great knack\nin the building-up of fine phrases! He lacked utterly the background of\nthe great Psalm which was in Garfield's mind, and which gives that phrase\ndouble meaning. If we go back to Tennyson again, some one has proposed the\ninquiry why he should have called one of his poems \"Rizpah,\" since there\nwas no one of that name mentioned in the whole poem! When, some years ago,\na book was published, _The Children of Gideon_, one of the reviewers could\nnot understand why that title was used, since no one of that name appeared\nin the entire volume. And when Mrs. Wharton's book, _The House of Mirth_,\ncame out some one spoke of the irony of the title; but it is the irony of\nthe Scriptures and the book calls for a Scriptural knowledge for its\nentire understanding.\n\nTake even an encyclopedia article. Who can understand these two sentences\nwithout instant knowledge of Scripture? \"Marlowe and Shakespeare, the\nyoung Davids of the day, tried the armor of Saul before they went out to\nbattle, then wisely laid it off.\" \"Arnold, like Aaron of old, stands\nbetween the dead and the living; but, unlike Aaron, he holds no smoking\ncensor of propitiation to stay the plague which he feels to be devouring\nhis generation.\"[53] That is in an encyclopedia to which young people are\noften referred. What will they make out of it without the Bible? In a\nwidely distributed school paper, in the question-and-answer department,\noccurs the inquiry: \"Who composed the inscription on the Liberty Bell?\"\nThe inscription is, \"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the\ninhabitants thereof.\"[54] It is to be hoped it was a very young person who\nneeded to ask who \"composed\" that expression!\n\nThis applies to all the great classics. There has come about a \"decay of\nliterary allusions,\" as one of our papers editorially says. In much of our\nwriting, either the transient or the permanent, men can no longer risk\neasy reference to classical literature. \"Readers of American biography\nmust often be struck with the important part which literary recollection\nplayed in the life of a cultured person a generation or two ago. These men\nhad read Homer, Xenophon and Virgil, Shakespeare, Byron and Wordsworth,\nLamb, De Quincey and Coleridge. They were not afraid of being called\npedants because they occasionally used a Latin phrase or referred to some\ngreat name of Greece or Rome.\" That is not so commonly true to-day.\nEspecially is there danger of losing easy acquaintance with the great\nBible references.\n\nThere are familiar reasons for it. For one thing, there has been a great\nincrease of literature. Once there was little to read, and that little\nbecame familiar. One would have been ashamed to pretend to culture and not\nto know such literature well. Now there is so much that one cannot know it\nall, and most men follow the line of least resistance. That line is not\nwhere great literature lies. Once the problem was how to get books enough\nfor a family library. Now the problem is how to get library enough for the\nbooks. Magazines, papers, volumes of all grades overflow. \"The Bible has\nbeen buried beneath a landslide of books.\" The result is that the greatest\nliterary landmark of the English tongue threatens to become unknown, or\nelse to be looked upon as of antiquarian rather than present worth. There\nour Puritan fathers had the advantage. As President Faunce puts it: \"For\nthem the Bible was the norm and goal of all study. They had achieved the\nconcentration of studies, and the Bible was the center. They learned to\nread that they might read the literature of Israel; their writing was\nheavy with noble Old Testament phrases; the names of Old Testament heroes\nthey gave to their children; its words of immortal hope they inscribed on\ntheir tombstones; its Mosaic commonwealth they sought to realize in\nEngland and America; its decalogue was the foundation of their laws, and\nits prophecies were a light shining in a dark place. Such a unification of\nknowledge produced a unified character, simple, stalwart, invincible.\" It\nis very different in our own day. As so-called literature increases it\nrobs great literature of its conspicuous outstanding character, and many\nmen who pride themselves on the amount they read would do far better to\nread a thousandth part as much and let that smaller part be good.\n\nAnother reason for this decay of the influence of literary knowledge of\nthe Bible is the shallowness of much of our thinking. If the Bible were\nneeded for nothing else in present literary life, it would be needed for\nthe deepening of literary currents. The vast flood of flotsam and jetsam\nwhich pours from the presses seldom floats on a deep current. It is\nsurface matter for the most part. It does not take itself seriously, and\nit is quite impossible to take it seriously. It does not deal with great\nthemes, or when it touches upon them it deals with them in a trifling way.\nTo men interested chiefly in literature of this kind the Bible cannot be\nof interest.\n\nThat is a passing condition, and out of it is certain to come here and\nthere a masterpiece of literature. When it does appear, it will be found\nto reveal the same influences that have made great literature in the past,\nissuing more largely from the Bible than from any other book. That is the\nmain point of a bit of counsel which Professor Bowen used to give his\nHarvard students. To form a good English style, he told them, a student\nought to keep near at hand a Bible, a volume of Shakespeare, and Bacon's\nessays. That group of books would enlarge the vocabulary, would supply a\nstore of words, phrases, and allusions, and save the necessity of\nransacking a meager and hide-bound diction in order to make one's meaning\nplain. Coleridge in his _Table-Talk_ adds that \"intense study of the Bible\nwill keep any writer from being _vulgar_ in point of style.\" So it may be\nurged that these times have and still need the literary influence of the\nBible.\n\nAdd that the times have and still need its moral steadying. Every age\nseems to its own thoughtful people to lack moral steadiness, and they\ntend to compare it with other ages which look steadier. That is a\nvirtually invariable opinion of such men. The comparison with other ages\nis generally fallacious, yet the fact is real for each age. Many things\ntend in this age to unsettle moral solidity. Some of them are peculiar to\nthis time, others are not. But one of the great influences which the Bible\nis perpetually tending to counteract is stated in best terms in an\nexperience of Henry M. Stanley. It was on that journey to Africa when he\nfound David Livingstone, under commission from one of the great\nnewspapers. Naturally he had made up his load as light as possible. Of\nbooks he had none save the Bible; but wrapped about his bottles of\nmedicine and other articles were many copies of newspapers. Stanley says\nthat \"strangest of all his experiences were the changes wrought in him by\nthe reading of the Bible and those newspapers in melancholy Africa.\" He\nwas frequently sick with African fever, and took up the Bible to while\naway his hours of recovery. During the hours of health he read the\nnewspapers. \"And thus, somehow or other, my views toward newspapers were\nentirely recast,\" while he held loyal to his profession as a newspaper\nman. This is the critical sentence in Stanley's telling of the story: \"As\nseen in my loneliness, there was this difference between the Bible and the\nnewspapers. The one reminded me that apart from God my life was but a\nbubble of air, and it made me remember my Creator; the other fostered\narrogance and worldliness.\"[55] There is no denying such an experience as\nthat. That is precisely the moral effect of the Bible as compared with the\nmoral effect of the newspaper accounts of current life. Democracy should\nalways be happy; but it must always be serious, morally steady. Anything\nthat tends to give men light views of wrong, to make evil things humorous,\nto set out the ridiculous side of gross sins is perilous to democracy. It\nnot only is injurious to personal morals; it is bound sooner or later to\ninjure public morals. There is nothing that so persistently counteracts\nthat tendency of current literature as does the Bible.\n\nFrom an ethical point of view, \"the ethical content of Paul is quite as\nimportant for us as the system of Schopenhauer or Nietzsche. The\norganization of the New England town meeting is no more weighty for the\nAmerican boy than the organization of the early Christian Church. John\nAdams and John Hancock and Abraham Lincoln are only the natural\nsuccessors of the great Hebrew champions of liberty and righteousness who\nfaced Pharoah and Ahab and put to flight armies of aliens.\" But aside from\nthe definite ethical teaching of the Bible there is need for that strong\nimpression of ethical values which it gives in the characters around which\nit has gathered. The conception of the Bible which makes it appear as a\nsteady progression should add to its authority, not take from it. The\ndevelopment is not from error to truth, but from light to more light. It\nis sometimes said that the standards of morality of some parts of\nScripture are not to be commended. But they are not the standards of\nmorality of Scripture, but of their times. They are not taught in\nScripture; they are only stated; and they are so stated that instantly a\nthoughtful man discovers that they are stated to be condemned. When did it\nbecome true that all that is told of a good man is to be approved? It is\nnot pretended that Abraham did right always. David was confessedly wrong.\nThey move much of the time in half-light, yet the sum total of the\nimpression of their writings is inevitably and invariably for a more\nsubstantial morality. These times need the moral steadying of the Bible to\nmake men, not creatures of the day and not creatures of their whims, but\ncreatures of all time and of fundamental laws.\n\nAdd the third fact, that our times have and still need the religious\ninfluence of the Bible. No democracy can dispense with religious culture.\nNo book makes for religion as does the Bible. That is its chief purpose.\nNo book can take its place; no influence can supplant it. Max Muller made\nlifelong study of the Buddhist and other Indian books. He gave them to the\nEnglish-speaking world. Yet he wrote to a friend of his impression of the\nimmense superiority of the Bible in such terms that his friend replied:\n\"Yes, you are right; how tremendously ahead of other sacred books is the\nBible! The difference strikes one as almost unfairly great.\"[56] Writing\nin an India paper, _The Kayestha Samachar_, in August, 1902, a Hindu\nwriter said: \"I am not a Christian; but half an hour's study of the Bible\nwill do more to remodel a man than a whole day spent in repeating the\nslokas of the Purinas or the mantras of the Rig-Veda.\" In the earlier\nchapters of the Koran Christians are frequently spoken of as \"people of\nthe Book.\" It is a suggestive phrase. If Christianity has any value for\nAmerican life, then the Bible has just that value. Christianity is made\nby the Bible; it has never been vital nor nationally influential for good\nwithout the Bible.\n\nSometimes, because of his strong words regarding the conflict between\nscience and theology, the venerable American diplomat and educator, Dr.\nAndrew D. White, is thought of as a foe to religion. No one who reads his\nbiography can have that impression half an hour. Near the close of it is a\nparagraph of singular insight and authority which fits just this\nconnection: \"It will, in my opinion, be a sad day for this or for any\npeople when there shall have come in them an atrophy of the religious\nnature; when they shall have suppressed the need of communication, no\nmatter how vague, with a supreme power in the universe; when the ties\nwhich bind men of similar modes of thought in the various religious\norganizations shall be dissolved; when men, instead of meeting their\nfellow-men in assemblages for public worship which give them a sense of\nbrotherhood, shall lounge at home or in clubs; when men and women, instead\nof bringing themselves at stated periods into an atmosphere of prayer,\npraise, and aspiration, to hear the discussion of higher spiritual themes,\nto be stirred by appeals to their nobler nature in behalf of faith, hope,\nand charity, and to be moved by a closer realization of the fatherhood of\nGod and the brotherhood of man, shall stay at home and give their thoughts\nto the Sunday papers, or to the conduct of their business, or to the\nlanguid search for some refuge from boredom.\"[57] Those are wise, strong\nwords, and they sustain to the full what has been urged, that these times\nstill need the religious influence of the Bible.\n\nThe influence of the Bible on the literary, moral, and religious life of\nthe times is already apparent. But that influence needs to be constantly\nstrengthened. There remains, therefore, to suggest some methods of giving\nthe Bible increasing power. It should be recognized first and last that\nonly thoughtful people will do it. No help will come from careless people.\nMoreover, only people who believe in the common folk will do it. Those who\nare aristocrats in the sense that they do not believe that common people\ncan be trusted will not concern themselves to increase the power of the\nBible. But for those who are thoughtful and essentially democratic the\nduty is a very plain one. There are four great agencies which may well\nmagnify the Bible and whose influence will bring the Bible into increasing\npower in national life.\n\nFirst among these, of course, must be the Church. The accent which it will\nplace on the Bible will naturally be on its religious value, though its\nmoral value will take a close second place. It is essential for the Church\nto hold itself true to its religious foundations. Only men who have some\nposition of leadership can realize the immense pressure that is on to-day\nto draw the Church into forms of activity and methods of service which are\nmuch to be commended, but which have to be constantly guarded lest they\ndeprive it of power and concern in the things which are peculiar to its\nown life and which it and it alone can contribute to the public good. The\nChurch needs to develop for itself far better methods of instruction in\nthe Bible, so that it may as far as possible drill those who come under\nits influence in the knowledge of the Bible for its distinctive religious\nvalue. This is neither the time nor the place for a full statement of that\nresponsibility. It is enough to see how the very logic of the life of the\nChurch requires that it return with renewed energy to its magnifying and\nteaching of the Bible.\n\nThe second agency which may be called upon is the press. The accent of the\npress will be on the moral value of the Bible, the service which its\nteaching renders to the national and personal life. There seems to be a\nhopeful returning tendency to allusions to the Scripture in newspaper and\nmagazine publications. It is rare to find among the higher-level\nnewspapers an editorial page, where the most thoughtful writing appears,\nin which on any day there do not appear Scripture allusions or references.\nWhen that is seriously done, when Scripture is used for some other purpose\nthan to point a jest, it helps to restore the Bible to its place in public\nthought. In recent years there has been a noticeable return of the greater\nmagazines to consideration of the moral phrases of the Scripture. That has\nbeen inevitably connected with the development of a social sense which\ncondemns men for their evil courses because of their damage to society.\nThe Old Testament prophets are living their lives again in these days, and\nthe more thoughtful men are being driven back to them for the great\nprinciples on which they may live safely.\n\nThe third agency which needs to magnify the Bible is the school. The\naccent which it will choose will naturally be the literary value of the\nBible, though it will not overlook its moral value as well. Incidental\nreferences heretofore have suggested the importance of religion in a\ndemocracy. But there are none of the great branches of the teaching of the\nschools, public or private, which do not involve the Bible. It is\nimpossible to teach history fairly and fully without a frank recognition\nof the influence of the Bible. Study the Reformation, the Puritan\nmovement, the Pilgrim journeys, the whole of early American history! We\ncan leave the Bible out only by trifling with the facts. Certainly\nliterature cannot be taught without it. And if it is the purpose of the\nschools to develop character and moral life, then there is high authority\nfor saying that the Bible ought to have place.\n\nForty years ago Mr. Huxley, in his essay on \"The School Boards: What They\nCan Do, and What They May Do,\" laid a broad foundation for thinking at\nthis point, and his words bear quoting at some length: \"I have always been\nstrongly in favor of secular education, in the sense of education without\ntheology; but I must confess I have been no less seriously perplexed to\nknow by what practical measures the religious feeling, which is the\nessential basis of conduct, was to be kept up, in the present utterly\nchaotic state of opinion on these matters, without the use of the Bible.\nThe pagan moralists lack life and color, and even the noble stoic, Marcus\nAurelius Antoninus, is too high and refined for an ordinary child. Take\nthe Bible as a whole; make the severest deductions which fair criticism\ncan dictate for shortcomings and positive errors; eliminate, as a sensible\nlay teacher would do if left to himself, all that is not desirable for\nchildren to occupy themselves with; and there still remains in this old\nliterature a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur. And then consider\nthe great historical fact that, for three centuries, this Book has been\nwoven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history;\nthat it has become the national epic of Britain, and is as familiar to\nnoble and simple, from John-o'-Groat's House to Land's End, as Dante and\nTasso once were to the Italians; that it is written in the noblest and\npurest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form;\nand, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village\nto be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other\ncivilizations, and of a great past, stretching back to the furthest limits\nof the oldest nations of the world. By the study of what other book could\nchildren be so much humanized and made to feel that each figure in that\nvast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space\nin the interval between two eternities; and earns the blessings or the\ncurses of all time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil,\neven as they also are earning their payment for their work? On the whole,\nthen, I am in favor of reading the Bible, with such grammatical,\ngeographical, and historical explanations by a lay teacher as may be\nneedful, with rigid exclusion of any further theological teaching than\nthat contained in the Bible itself.\" Mr. Huxley is an Englishman, though,\nas Professor Moulton says, \"We divide him between England and America.\"\nBut Professor Moulton himself is very urgent in this same matter. If the\nclassics of Greece and Rome are in the nature of ancestral literature, an\nequal position belongs to the literature of the Bible. \"If our intellect\nand imagination have been formed by Greece, have we not in similar fashion\ndrawn our moral and emotional training from Hebrew thought?\" It is one of\nthe curiosities of our civilization that we are content to go for our\nliberal education to literatures which morally are at opposite poles from\nourselves; literatures in which the most exalted tone is often an\napotheosis of the sensuous, which degrade divinity, not only to the human\nlevel, but to the lowest level of humanity. \"It is surely good that our\nyouth during the formative period should have displayed to them, in a\nliterary dress as brilliant as that of Greek literature, a people\ndominated by an utter passion for righteousness, a people whose ideas of\npurity, of infinite good, of universal order, of faith in the irresistible\ndownfall of moral evil, moved to a poetic passion as fervid and speech as\nmusical as when Sappho sang of love or Eschylus thundered his deep notes\nof destiny.\"[58]\n\nBut there is a leading American voice which will speak in that behalf, in\nPresident Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University. In his address\nas President of the National Educational Association, President Butler\nmakes strong plea for the reading of the Bible even in public schools.\n\"His reason had no connection with religion. It was based on altogether\ndifferent ground. He regarded an acquaintance with the Bible as absolutely\nindispensable to the proper understanding of English literature.\" It is\nunfortunate in the extreme, he thought, that so many young men are growing\nup without that knowledge of the Bible which every one must have if he\nmeans to be capable of the greatest literary pleasure and appreciation of\nthe literature of his own people. Not only the allusions, but the whole\ntone and bias of many English authors will become to one who is ignorant\nof the Bible most difficult and even impossible of comprehension.\n\nThe difficulties of calling public schools to this task appear at once. It\nwould be monstrous if they should be sectarian or proselytizing. But the\nBible is not a sectarian Book. It is the Book of greatest literature. It\nis the Book of mightiest morals. It is governing history. It is affecting\nliterature as nothing else has done. A thousand pities that any petty\nsquabbling or differences of opinion should prevent the young people in\nthe schools from realizing the grandeur and beauty of it!\n\nBut the final and most important agency which will magnify the influence\nof the Bible must necessarily be the home. It will gather up all its\ntraits, religious, moral, and literary. Here is the fundamental\nopportunity and the fundamental obligation. Robert Burns was right in\nfinding the secret of Scotia's power in such scenes as those of \"The\nCottar's Saturday Night.\" One can almost see Carlyle going back to his old\nhome at Ecclefechan and standing outside to hear his old mother making a\nprayer in his behalf. A newspaper editorial of recent date says this decay\nof literary allusion is traceable in part to the gradual abandonment of\nfamily prayers. Answering President Butler, it is urged that it is not so\nimportant that the Bible be in the public schools as that it get back\nagain into the homes. \"Thorough acquaintance with the Bible is desirable;\nit should be fostered. The person who will have to foster it, though,\"\nsays this writer, \"is not the teacher, but the parent. The parent is the\nperson whom Dr. Butler should try to convert.\" Well, while there may be\ndifferences about the school, there can be none about the place of the\nBible in the home. It needs to be bound up with the earliest impressions\nand intertwined with those impressions as they deepen and extend.\n\nSo, by the Church, which will accent its religious value; by the press,\nwhich will accent its moral power; by the school, which will spread its\nliterary influence; and by the home, which will realize all three and make\nit seem a vital concern from the beginning of life, the Bible will be put\nand held in the place of power to-day which it has had in the years that\nare gone, and will steadily gain greater power.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[52] Jefferson, _Things Fundamental_, p. 90.\n\n[53] _New International Encyclopedia_, art. on English Literature.\n\n[54] _Current Events_, January 12, 1912.\n\n[55] _Autobiography_, p. 252.\n\n[56] Speer, _Light of the World_, iv.\n\n[57] _Autobiography_, vol. ii, p. 570.\n\n[58] _Literary Study of the Bible_, passim.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\nOccasional missing punctuation marks have been inserted.\n\nThe variant forms non-conformity (p. 50) and non-conforming (pp. 227, 229)\nappear in this text.\n\nOn p. 71, \"Illustrate with one instance\" should perhaps read \"I'll\nillustrate with one instance\" but has been left unchanged.\n\nThe following amendments have been made to the text:\n\nOn p. 36 \"Crammer\" amended to \"Cranmer\".\n\nOn p. 109 \"eighty two\" amended to \"eighty-two\".\n\nOn p. 112 \"Waverly\" amended to \"Waverley\".\n\nOn p. 117 \"(verse 51,)\" amended to \"(verse 51),\".\n\nOn p. 133 \"Edgar Allen Poe\" amended to \"Edgar Allan Poe\".\n\nOn p. 141 \"exile of ths scholars\" amended to \"exile of the scholars\".\n\nOn p. 142 \"Capel Lloft\" amended to \"Capel Lofft\".\n\nOn p. 157 footnote, \"English Literature\" italicised as \"_English\nLiterature_\".\n\nOn p. 161 \"Tintern Abbay\" amended to \"Tintern Abbey\".\n\nOn p. 170 \"'Drama of Exile\" amended to \"Drama of Exile\".\n\nOn p. 174 \"every growing courtier\" amended to \"every grinning courtier\".\n\nOn p. 232 \"democracry\" amended to \"democracy\".\n\nOn p. 234 \"Just that it did\" amended to \"Just what it did\"; and \"pleasure\nSabbath\" amended to \"pleasure of Sabbath\".\n\nOn p. 243 \"Khayy\u00e0m\" amended to \"Khayy\u00e1m\"; and \"in more marked way\" amended\nto \"in a more marked way\".\n\nOn p. 254 \"is authority\" amended to \"is the authority\".\n\nOn p. 281 \"phases\" amended to \"phrases\".","title":"The Greatest English Classic: A Study of the King James Version of the Bible and Its Influence on Life and Literature","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":64392}