Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1888-07-26
President Zoos Lecture.

gent l4uus, of the kentucky Uni
versity, at Lexington, entertained
his audience Tuesday evening at
the Christian Church by an address
on "Hebrew Poetry" He handled
the subject by manuscript and in
a plain, common sense, practical
way. The subject was pretty
| large one, covering in n great de-
gree, the entire books "i the Old
+ Testament. We confess to some
disappointment as to the results of
the speech. In many.things that he
said, we found hearty concur
renee, while in some others, we
could not readily give our consent.
1t has been II favorite theory of
some over-zealous admirers of the
Old Scriptures that they were all
the work of inspiration, that
everything contained in the book
was the direct and immediate work
and word of God. To this pro-
position, think no man can assent,
who knows anything of the work =
ings of the human mind. When
we remember that the Oriental
people, for Il period as far back as
history goes, were possessed of all
the learning that has come down
with the ages, not only III matters
appertaining to God and the race
of man, but to the developments
in all the arts and sciences, we are
compelled to accord to them all the
higher attributes of the human
intellect. This being true, all the
marvellous works of the Hebrew
poets are accounted for, not on
the theory of inspiration, by
which is meant the direct gift of
God as a miraculous work. That
is to say, by taking man Of very
ordinary intellect and culture and
by divine impulse cause him to
rise above his fellows and thus
produce such a work as the book
of Job. But on the contrary, the
process was natural. Homer,
among the Greeks, the father of
epic poetry, was certainly not
inspired as Paul or Peter, James,
John or Jude, but he was the
possessor by some means of a
wonderful intellect, out of which
by a anatural course came that grand
est of all epic poems. To us poor
weak mortals who have brains
enough to make living, but could
not write a single line of Homer, it
seems amonstrous proposition that
any man should write such work
as the Iliad. While this is true
it is equally true that we could as
easily initiate Homer as we could
reproduce Shakespeare, Milton,
Pope or Byron. But no man pre-
tends, in his sober senses, that any
one of these was inspired. While
the President was pursuing his
theme, it occurred to us that he
was wanting in proper distinc-
ton, which certainly exists-that
is, that the history of the race of
man proves that God has given
such high order of intellect to
some men that from our stand
point they assume proportions
bordering on inspiration. Macau-
ley says that from the beginning of
time the Almighty has not given
such an intellect to any man as lie
gave Lord Bacon; get We hardly y
think Bacon was inspired in the
common acceptation of that term.
If we understood the lecturer
Tuesday night he made all the great
poets inspired men. He said that
men Of small ealiber ought not to
write Mt poetry, and he gave some
happy hints to the imbeciles who
try to write Sunday School songs
for the children as we'll as ditties fol
for church worship; and his re
marks had a good effect, for we
noticed that the shadow OF FalstafI
who led the songs, said, after what
j he had heard, he must come TO his
work with something that has
meat on its bones.
He sang grand song of the
olden type. Now, we cannot think
that the President made out his
course Tuesday night, if it was his
purpose to show that the Hebrew
poets were directly inspired by the
spirit of God to write poetry. In
his own classification he quoted
the words of Victor Hugo approx,
ingly, when he grades them as fol
lows : Homer, Isaiah, Shakespeare
The latter has been dead for three
hundred years and if he had taker
out a patent for all the wit, sense
sarcasm, force of diction, pei
spicuity, elegance, beauty of ex,
preston, sublimity and patho:
that he wrote, and England had
extended the patent to the present
time, the English language would
have been as poor and worthless
as Jobs turkey, if he ever hat
one. Now, we reason that /
Shakespeare could do all this by
what the world calls genius, what
reason was there that Moses, David
Solomon, Isaiah and whoever he
was that wrote that beautiful story
about Job and a land called u,
that nobody ever saw or discovered