The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-18
THE JUNE MAGAZINES.
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''FUTNAMPH.W
The June number of Putadn's Mdo0sino
has the following list Of articles:--r .o ....
'Down the Danube" Colonel John Hay;
birds of the North" President p. A. Chad
bourne 'The Tale Of Comet (concluded),
Edw. Spencer; 1.-THE Outlook of our English
Literature" Professor ]. Nj. Hoppin; "a
woman's Right" Mrs. M. G. Ames; 'Fulfl-
ment, Mary L. Ritter; ''Shall We Have q
More Readable BibleP" j. B. Bittinger; IA
Domestic Romance" ''On Time;" "Quaker
Quirks, Mrs. f. Barrow 'The Exhibition of
the Academy" Eugene Benson; ''Dinner VS..
Ruffles and Tucks," Louisa Palmer Smith;
proportional Representation, David Dud-
ley Field 'The Coming of the Dawn" "Edi-
torial Notes." Literature at Home,' r. H.
Stoddard Literature, Science, and Art
Abroad" Charlton T. Lewis. .rt.-
From the very pertinent paper by J. b.
Bittinger, which asks the question ''Shall we
have more readable Bible?" we make these
extracts
We do not ask this question irreverently,
but conscientiously; for there is no book that
is so frequently printed as the Bible, none
that is SO universally read, none that is so
highly priced, and none that is SO badly
printed. If we we're asked to select form
for book, to limit its influence and read
ableness, we should select the form in which
our English Bible is almost universally pub
lished.
What other book is put before the reader
in such guise Here we have poetry printed
as prose, and prose printed as poetry; long,
involved, and compacted logical sentences
cut up into epigrammatic forms; and simple,
childhke narrative, which, in the original,
flows as smooth and clear as a meadow
stream, damned, rendered turbid and inter
mittent by innumerable distractions of
verses. In all other books the paragraph
ends with the sense; in the Scriptures, what
ever the sense may be, every line or two
brings the reader to a halt. The sign of the
paragraph is indeed prefxed, but it serves no
practical purpose and is positive blemish.
Should we dare to treat any other book so ill ?
Don Quixote or Robinson Crusoe would never
have outlived such Chewing to pieces before the
Lord" Imagine Pope's 'tIliad" printed as we
print Isaiah! Dissect Samson Agonistes'
as Job is dissected How long would they
survive such mutilations? One-half of our
Scriptures is poetry-a poetry which brings
its structure with it-a structure so strong
and characteristic that it lives even in the
prosaic moulds into which it has been run
in our Bible. If read appreciatingly, the ear
may catch the tones of the Hebrew Muse;
il is marred beyond recognition. Before the
hap hazard, horseback versifcation of Ste
phers everything must give way-the current
of narrative, the glow of fancy, the chain of
reasoning, and even the mechanism of gram
mar. And then, as if to aggravate the evils
of these numerous and inapt divisions, ever
since the Genevan translation of 1867, each
verse is set by itself-a jet of inspiration
isolated like an apotnegm.
Any one who has been a member of a
family or visitor in family where the
Scriptures are read verse-about, cannot help
knowing what limping, hating process it is
how the sense was obscured, and all spitu-
ality dissipated, by the verse-mutilations.
The child invariably reads according to these
divisions, dropping its voice, and, with it,
the sense, at the end of each verse. Then,
the next reader begins, not with the tone and \
infection of continuity, but as if a new idea
we're introduced; and so on to the end of the
chapter. 1t is hardly necessary to say that,
in this kind of reading, ''the Word Of
the Lord" has not the "free course"
orwhich we are taughtto pray; nor can it
Hbe glorifiedp in such treatment Or, if one
has no such domestic experience as this, let
him go to our schools, in which the Bible is
textbook, and mark how it is read, and it
will be impossible to resist the conviction
that the arbitrary division into chapters and
verses is very serious mistake. The per-
sons who most need to be assisted in the
reading of the Word, and to whom 1t should
be made "sweeter than honey or the honey
comb" the young and the unlettered are
they whose books are thus marred and
maimed; while, for the Greek scholar, we
printou Testamentsa as weprint other books
dividing them by the sense and according to
the sense, and, in the printing. impart to
them the appearance of other books. --...
But few. examples of these verse-divisions
according to-what shall we say ?-not the
sense, but, perhaps, the joltings of Robert
Stephens horse on the road from Lyons to
Paris, will show how arbitrary and obstruc-.
tive they are. Take a passage from Pauls
frs. letter to the Corinthians, i, As
Al thank my God always on your behalf, for the
8 That in every thing ye are enriched by him. in
all utterance, and (ir) all knowledge;
Q. Even as the testimony Of Christ was confirmed
I. So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for
the coming OF our Lord Jesus Christ:
8. who shall also confirm you into the end chat ne
may be blameless in the day OF our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Now imagine this sentence, feryid in feel
ing, impetuous in movement, and logical in
structure, parcelled out among five readers in
the family or the school, and what must be-
come of it? Or suppose your reader is one
and the same person, but unskilled, is it
likely that he will get the same sense out of
those five aphorisms that he would get if
they were printed in the following familiar
form?
81 thank my God always on your behalf for the
grace OF God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
n@ s sner'aes efancs and are in enIHn'q ali kno% w
ledge; even as the testimony OF Christ was