Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1891-12-24
A STRANGE VERSION OF THE eIsLs.
,-,,.,,. p.raphrases of an Edition Of
t,,e Holy Book Issued Years Ago.

1 ~
vor,,r,r.b,e Parapbrases OF an Edfsioh oi
the Holy Book Issued Years Ago.
var;ons famous Bibles-the Taverners,
tbe Risbons'. the Vinegar. the breeches'
ana the .sWicked Bible. " so called because
~ irs omission Of not from one OF the
ornandments-ar known to the hum
hest bibliophile. More curious than any
If them. and now, should think, hardly
| less rare than some, is an extraordinary
rarsion of the New Testament, which Is
considerably less than 200 years OLD ~
o,,ed ifs existence to the Rev. Edward
IIaryood. d. d., an Eighteenth century
Bristol divine, whose happy tnougns IL
was 80 clothe the genuine ideas and doc
trines of the apostles with thai proprleby
and perspicuity in which they themselves
| apprehend, would have exhibited tnem
had they now lived and written IN our IAN
guage." -,
The good doctor seems to have been
pained that ''the bald and barDarous IAN
puage of the old vulgar version had from
long usage acquired venerable sacred
ness, but he was noieRithout nope that
an "attempt to diffLse over the sacred
page the elegance of modern English"
might allure linen of cultivated and i'm
proved minds" to book NOW, alas, too
generally neglected"
DIR. Harwood therefore proceeded 70
make the New Testament an eminently
genteel book Every word that had
dropped out of vogue in polite circles was
plucked away, the very plain spoken warn
ing to the Laodicean church assuming in
his version this form: Since, therefore,
you are now in state of lukewarmness,
disagreeable medium between the two ex-
tremes, will, in no long time, eject you
from my heart with fastidious contempt"
"Disagreeable mediumi" "Fastidlous con-
temptw
Considered rs aeuphuistic paraphrase OF
the strong English original ~ literary
exquisite. the sentence is delicious; but
when we remember who the speaker is,
we find we are laughing at something like
blasphemy. Laugh we may at the descrip-
ton OF Nicodemus as this gentleman"
of st. Panl's Athenian convert Damaris
as "a lady OF distinction" and of the
daughter of Herodias rs "a young lady
who danced with inimitable grace and
elegance" young lady, rise" are the
words addressed to the daughter of Jairus.
The father of the Prodigal is "a gentle
man. of good or, as Dr. Haywood pre-
ferred TO put IT, ''of splendid family" st.
Peter on the Mount of TRANSPORTATION ex-
claims, "Oh, sir, what a deectable resi-
dence we might fix here" and St Paul is
raised TO the standard of Bristolian re-
spectability by having a 'portmanteau"
conferred upon him in place of the mere
cloak mentioned by himself as having been
left at Troas
The apostolic statement, eve shall not
all die, but we shall all be changed, /" is of
course too faultlessly simple 10 escape the
DOCTORS mauling, and after he has done
with it It appears thus, I'VE shall not all
pay the common debt of nature, but we
shall, by "A soft transition, be changed from
mortality TO Immortality" But even after
reading these prodigious TRANSACTIONS we
are hardly prepared for a meddliHg with
the Magnificent and the Nunc Dimittis
But DIR. Harwood's passion for elegance
stuck at nothing, and the linen of cult
waited and improved minds" must have
Harwoodian versions Of the two great
hymns OF Christendom. Here are the open
ings OF both:
"My soul with reverence adores my Gre
ator. and all my faculties with transport
Joih III ccieDrdtluR lne kOOuueSs Oh Oou,
my Saviour, who hath in so signal a man
ner condescended to regard my poor and
humble station. Transcendent goodness.
every future aye will now conjoin in cele-
brating my happiness.
80 God thy promise to me is amply full
filed / now quit the post Of human life
with satisfaction and joy, since thou hast
INDUCED mine eyes with so divine spec
tacle as the great Messiah
These extracts will serve as satisfying
examples of the way in which the New
Testament may be made elegant through
out, and DIR. Harwood's work is such that,
TO use his own phraseology, it leaves the
most exacting velleity without ground for
quiritation. Still he is olargely forgotten
that the ground is practically free to the
modern stylist.