New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1885-03-18
Shakespeare and the Bible.
The Nineteenth Century.

I The Nineteenth Century.
Many of the best known and most fire.
quently quoted passages are parallel
isms or paraphrases Of Scripture NOR
i atty or of,some part of that large body
5of moral :axioms and worldly wisdom
and justice which belongs alike to the
Bible andsto other systems of religion
and philosophy. Instances are so nu-
merous, and we'll known that they will
occur to every one. It is generally and
carelessly assumed that these didactic
passages convey the nature and extent
of.sShakspeare's relations and obliga-
lions to the Bible. But this is far from
being the fact. His didactic use OF
Scripture history and morality, though
tits the noblest and most valuable, is BY
no means the only result, nor is it the
personal and distinguished mark OF
sShakspeare's close acquaintance with
the Bible. Many other people have
freely employed Scripture for serious
and sdidactic ends, from Milton
down to Montgomery. What dis
;tinguishes Shakespeare is the perfectly
free and playful and everyday use he
makes of scripture by putting it into
the mouths of, all sorts and conditions
of people on all sorts of occasions.
Surely these keen huntsmen of "lewd
anappernicious. enormitv" in innocent
places those play-goers who strain at
the.gnat ola solitary Scriptural allusion
In "a .lnodern play, can have no notion
what herds Of .camels they swallow ev-
erv1time they witness a play of Shak-
speare's in its integrity. How utterly
suhserNient Shakespeare deems the treat
ment Of religion upon the stage to the
preservation of dramatic truth and re-
aity may be seen in Richard III, {"
whene religion and morality become the
fimsiest child's baubles in the merciless
intellectual grasp of the tyrant. Iago,
besides being an authority on the efica-
cy of baptismal grace, is 'full of most
blessed condition" in his reference to
Holy Writ,uand his constant display of
wise and moral maxims. Poor Bowdler
can not understand it,. and smells irrev-
erence- Richard III. 80 far allows his
sense ofIhuman injury TO get the better
OF his sense Of religious propriety that
he institutes e comparison in ), the
matter Of tfeachery between himself and
Christ, and earlier in, tile play he scries
out upon Ragot, HUSKY :and Green as
sthree Judasss, +each one thrice worse
chan Judasp Poor sBowdlsr can do Meth
ing but hold up his handsln horror and
will certainly .e1ciset The passage, and. Bis.
hop Wadsworth shall smilirgly pat his
approval. No possible testimony to the
efficacy of baptian1al: grace to he squeez-
edaout of such a lire! Away With
it.! Shylock has several alIpsions to
OLD Testament personages asd facts,
whose use is not very apparent to the
linn. bewildered, tender-conseienced.
rrow-visioned B9wdler. White what
ean family responsibility and pietr make
# sueh z speech as YES, to smell pork
o eat Of the ha1itatian which your
prophet, the Nazerite, coniured the
levi mto2" q speech In which the
heights Of dramatic propriety and relig-
GUS impropriety are simultane oussy
cached at one bound. Bo1vdlerism car
My sorrowfully shake its poor Devil,
Tered head at the dramatist's readiness
Q sacrifice every rag of Difference to its
.et prejudices, and, at all costs, to give
be full and exact truth Of Shylocks
asnner Of speech.
The Rev. Joseph Cook says II Nor.
,onism rs let alone it will control every
tate west OF the Mississippi river, ex.