The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-09-09
The Translation into English of the
Bible.

With the deepening sense Of human individ-
uality came a deepening conviction of the
boundless capacities of the human soul. Not
as theological dogma, but as human fact,
man knew himself to be an all but infinite
power, whether for good or ill. Sunday after
Sunday day after day, the crowds that gath
cred round the Bible in the nave of st. Paul's,
or the family group that hung OH its words in
the devotional exercises at home, were leav-
ened with new literature. Legend and an
nal, war-song and psalm, state-roll and biogra-
ply, the mighty voices of prophets, the para
bles of evangelists, stories of mission journeys,
of perils by the sea and among the heathen,
philosophic arguments, apocalyptic visions
were all flung broadcast over minds unoccu-
pied, for the most part, by any rival lea arning.
The disclosure of the stores of Greek literature
had wrought the revolution of the Renaissance.
The disclosure of the older mass of Hebrew lit
erature wrought the revolution of the Reform
alton. But the one revolution was far deeper
and wider in its effects than the other. No yer-
sion could Ii!t. i.,...-
to the autI lors of Greece and Rome. But the
language of the Hebrew, the idiom OF the Hell
lenistic Greek, lent themselves with a curious
felicity to the purposes of translation. AS a
mere literary monument, the English version
of the Bible remains the noblest example OF
made it, from the moment of its appearance,
the standard of our language.
When we recall the number of common
phrases which we owe to great authors, the bits
of Shakespeare, or Milton, or Dickens, or
Thackeray, which unconsciously Intervene
themselves into our ordinary talk, we shall bet
ter understand the strange mosaic of Biblical
words and phrases which colored English talk
two hundred years ago. The mass OF plctu-
rescue allusion and illustration which we bor-
fbn1ICo ora6 hoo Ire fof
forced to borrow from one. When Spenser
poured forth his warmeSt love-notes in the
"Epithalamium," he adopted the very words
of the Psalmist, as he bade the gates open for
the entrance of his bride. When Cromwell saw
the mists break over the hills of Dunbar, he
hailed the sun-burst with the cry of David:
"Let God arise, and let his enemies be scat
tered. Like as the smoke vanisheth, so shalt
thou drive them away!" The whole nation be-
came church. The problems of life and
death, whose questionings found no answer in
the higher minds of Shakespeare's day, pressed
for an answer, not only from noble and scholar,
but from farmer and shop-keeper, i'll the age
that followed him. The answer they found
was almost of necessity Calvinistic answer
Where the new conception OF life told even
more powerfully than on politics and society
was in its bearing on the personal temper and
conduct of men. There was sudden loss of
the passion, the caprice, the subtle and tender
play of feeling, the breadth of sympathy, the
quick pulse of delight which had marked the
age of Elizabeth but, on the other hand, life
gained in moral grandeur, in sense of the dig
nifty of manhood, in orderliness and in equable
force. The larger geniality of the age that had
passed away was replaced by an intense tender
ness within the narrower circle of home Home,
as we conceive it now, was the creation of the
Puritan. Wife and child rose from mere de-
pendence on the will of husband and father, as
husband and father saw in these saints like
himself, souls hallowed by the touch of Di-
~. He'd will n
like his own. The sense Of spiritual fellow
ship gave a new tenderness and refinement to
the common family affections.-Green's Histo-
ry of the English People