The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1868-12-30
Rationalistic Criticism.
AN ILLUSTRATION OF WHAT IT Is WORTH.

Some time since Prof. Morley, of Eng
land, published an article in the London
Times announcing the fact that he had
discovered short poem by John Milton.
He sent the poem with the communica.
ton. 1t had been found on blank leaf
of an early copy of Millions works in
the British Museum, and was signed ap-
parently, J. NJ,
The discovery at once brought the crit
les down upon the poem. One able critic
was sure it was Millions. He only could
have woven "the subtle melody" of its
lines. Another, Lord Winchelsea, con-
sidered the poem mere rubbish, and that
if Milton wrote it at all, it must have
been Gin his dotage.''
So the fight goes on, and opinions are
divided. Authorities, critics, experts
fight on both sides. The case probably
will never be decided.
1t is suggestive as illustrating the
value of a great deal of knowing and con-
ceited learning, so-called, which has i'm
posed on many unsuspecting people.
There are learned gentlemen in Ger
many, philologists, critics, Biblical schol
ars, etc., who claim to be able to tell the
world, by internal evidence, and compar-
ison of style, every chapter and verse,
which ST. Paaf or ST. Peter wrote
They have decided what is the "Pauline
style, what the "Petrine method, what
the "Johannian arrangement. Such is
their jargon-and they will reject this
verse because it is clearly not Petrine, .
and this chapter because it is evidently
not pauline" and this whole epistle
because lit is not the method of John,
and some wise Englishman or American
will take these German doctors at their
word, and will inform us that cit is de-
cided that this chapter was not written
by Peter or "that the ablest critics
have proved that this epistle is not by
John"
And this sort of stuff has imposed on
great many well-meaning and harmless
converts, when put forth in learned
jargon by great many very shallow
socialists.
Now it is worth considering that Greek
and Hebrew are not the native tongues
of any regularly born German. He
speaks, naturally, cultural "Hoch-
Deutsch." He learns Greek and He
brew painfully out of grammars and die
tionaries. He has the birch applied lin
the process, and digs away patiently I'M
der that stimulus to attain the requisite
modicum of each tongue, to enable him
to talk and write about "Petrine, and
"Pauline, "Jehovistic," "Elohistic,"
etc.
And this man, YEARLY picking up the
dried bits of a dead tongue, out of gram
mar and vocabulary, utterly ignorant of
its living sound, utterly unable to pro-
nounce word of it as the men who spoke
it did, will take it on him to tell us that
production, attributed to St. Paul, from
the earliest day to his own, for some
fancied popularity in construction or
phrase is not his, and cannot be his be-
cause CRITICISM has decided the ques.
ton"
And now, here, as if to make "inex-
tinguishable lighter over the whole
learned nonsense, comes a poem, in Eng
lish-the plain English we all speak
English child can read-written GER
tainly, in London itself, by some con-
temporary with Milton, and Englishmen,
fellow countrymen of Milton, fellow
townsmen of his, familiar with every line
he ever wrote, critics, experts, poets,
even themselves, like Lord Winchelsea,
they cannot tell US whether this short
poem, in the language they learned in
their cradles, is John Milton's or not
1t gives us good notion of the value
of the German "Petrine" and "Pauline"
dialect and its high authority. But what
does it suggest as to the value of the
poor echo of that talk that one hears in
the United States.
UT HAVE notbinr IN do with tho davil