Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-11-22
aflistellaueuns &eadiug.
From the Bible Society Record.

From the Bible Society Record.
THE DEBT OF LIVING LITERATURES TO
THE BIBLE.
BY PROF. AUSTIN PHELPS, d. D., IN "MEN
AND BOOKS"
The debt of literature to the Bible is like
that of vegetation to light. No other vol
ume has contributed so much to the great
organic forms of thought. No other is fus-
ing itself so widely into the standards of IL
braries. Homer and Plato and Aristotle
were long since absorbed in it tasintellectual
powers This volume has never yet num-
bered among its religious believers fourth
part of the human race, yet it has swayed a
greater amount of mind than any other vol
llme the world has known. 1t has the sim
suar faculty of attracting to itself the think
ers of the world, either as friends or as foes,
always, everywhere. The works of COM
ment upon it of themselves form Literature
of which any nation might be proud. 1t is
more voluminous than all that remains to
us of the Greek and Roman literatureS COM
bined. An English antiquarian, who has
had the curiosity to number the existing
commentaries upon the Scriptures, or upon
portions of them, found them to exceed six
| u.
mind to be found like this?
of it's results, has set the Christian world to
thinking, and has kept it thinking for near
ly two thousand years. The unpublished
literature of the Christian pulpit surpasses
in volume all the literatures of all nations.
eff the sermons preached in our land dur
ing a single year were all printed" says q
living scholar, "they would fill a hundred
and twenty millions Of octave pages.' The
Bible is read to-day by larger number OF
educated minds than any other book. The
late revision of the New Testament in our
own language is not yet one year old; yet
it's circulation amounts to two millions and
a half of copies This sale unprecedented
in the history of any other volume, indicates
an immense reserre Of interest in the book,
which, till now, has had no such means Of
expressing itself. The mind Of the Eng
lish-speaking races must have been satura-
ted with Biblical thought, and to great
extent with Biblical faith, for long time,
to account for such a phenomenon. Multi
tudes are poring over the book, and are
feeling its elevating influence, who never
think of it otherwise than as an authority
for their religious faith.
Our own language owes, in part, the very
structure it has received to our English Bible.
No Englishman or American knows well his
mother tongue till he has learned it in the
vocabulary and idioms of King James's
translation. The language first chrystalized
around this translation as the German Ian
guage did, in less degree, around Luther's
Bible In English form the Bible stands at
the head of the streams of English con-
quests and of English and American colOni-
Zation and commerce. 1t must control, to a
great extent, the institutions which are to
spring up on the banks of those streams the
world over.
It is interesting to observe how the infiu-
ence Of the Bible trickleS down into the
crevises in all other literature, and shows it.
self, at length, in golden veins, and precious
gems of thought, which are the admiration
of all observers. The late Professor B. B..
Edwards, in illustration Of this fact, notices
the following details, viz: Gan essay has
been written to prove hoWmuch Shakespeare
is indebted to the Scriptures. The Red
Cross Knight in the 'Faerie Queene, of
Spencer, is the Christian, of the last chapter
of the Epistle to the Ephesians. The Mes
siah' of Pope is only a paraphrase of some
passages in Isaiah. The highest strains of
chapter of the same prophet. The 'Thana-
topsis' Of Bryant is indebted to passage
from the Book of Job. Lord Byron's cele-
brated poem on Darkness was founded on
a passage in jeremiah"
Wordsworth's criticism of Milton, that,
"however imbued the surface might be with
classical literature, he was Hebrew in
SOUL" is true of very much that is most in
spring and most durable in our modern pO-
etry. Wordsworth s"Ode on Immortaity''
could never have been written but for the
creative effect upon the poets imagination
of such Scriptures as the fifteenth chapter of
tho Eirst Epictln IN thn Corinthians and the
eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.
Pantheism has a cool way of appropriating
a great deal Of Christian poetry. Thus it
claims Wordsworth. But the most autObi-
graphic passages in "The Excursion" des-
criptive of the communion of his soul with
nature, could never have been conceived but
by a mind which was permeated by the in
SpiratiOn Of the One Hundred and Forty
eighth Psalm.
"In such access of mind, in such high hour
OF visitation from the living God,
is the language in which he himself de-
ScribeS that communion.
Shakspeare's conception of woman is an
other Illustration to the same effect De-
Quincy claims it as an absolute original
by no other genius than Shakespeare. But
in the last analysis Shakspeare's ideal is on
ly the Christian ideal, which slltfuses with
refinement our modern life We owe it ul-
timately, not to poetry, nor to the drama,
but to the Biblical fact of the atonement.
Nothing else has made the conception pos
sible of DesdemOna or an Opheia growing
out of a sex degraded in all other than Chris
tian literatureS.
The hymnoogy of all modern languages
has been absolutely created by the Hebrew
psalmody The ancient classics have not,
so far as / know, contributed stanza to it.
Not line of it lives, through two genera
tions, in which the genius of the Psalm OF
David does not over power and appropriate
all other resources of culture. The old Eng
lish and Scottish ballads never eXerted on
the national mind 1.-THE of the influence OF
the Hebrew psalm. The commonwealth OF
England owed its existence, in part, to the
psalm singing Of Cromwell's armies. On
the continent of Europe, also, the whole
bulk of the despotism Of the middle ages
went down before the rude limitations of the
Hebrew psalmody by Clement NLarOt and
Hans Sachs. The battle-sOng of Gustavus
Adolphus was originally published with
this title, "a Heart-cheering Song of Com
fort on the Watchword Of the Evangelical
Army in the Battle of Leipsic, Sept. 7th,
1851. God with Us"
The Bible has also formed the best stand
ards of deliberative eloquence in modern
times. The Earl Of Chatham was sensible
Of his own Indebtedness to it. Patrick Hen
ry and James Otis were often likened IN
their lifetime to the Hebrew prophets.
Lord Brougham and Daniel Webster both
acknowledged their obligations to the same
models. Webster was for years the Biblical
concordance Of the United States Senate.
-