The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-08-27
THE BIBLE LITERATURE,
The Sacred Book Is an Unequaled
Source of Literary In
spiration. ..
No Book 80 Composite in Char
acter Yet so Harmonious
In Plan.
Every Phasis OF Literature, Every Norm OF
Wisdom, Is In This Most Wonder
full Book.

As a particular book. the Bible is an IN
equaled source of literary inspiration. As
a book of religious truth, it is supreme; but
religious truth, without any impairment
of its value or obscurity of it's meaning,
may be studied from the literary stand
point; in fact, in the light of literary criti-
cism, or tested by the usual canons of the
scholar, it will appear more sacred, more
beautiful, more divine. Never forgetting
that it is our manual of religion. it is also
the vehicle of the most wonderful literature
in human annals, and precedes in import
ance all others. There is NO book SO com
posite in character and yet 80 harmonious
in plan. so multiplex in styles and yet so
educational in rhetoric and logic, SO varied
in contents and yet 30 progressive in its
philosophy and religion, as the
Bible. Taken as a whole. it is
massive, comprehensive, a revela-
ton Of the Infinite. Studied in
its parts. it stimulates while it
administers nourishment to the whole
frame. Its histories are more compact than
those of Herodotus. Gibbon or Macaulay;
its science is more accurate than that of
Linn@us or Huxley or Audubon; it's poetry.
whose key is a mystery. quiets Homer,
Shakespeare and Tennyson; its prophecies
are unique climaxes of wisdom. both in
drapery and substance; its biographies excel
those of Plutarch, Irving, Carlyle and Bcs-
we'll; its chronicles of war are superior to
those of Julius Caesar, Wellington,
Napoleon and Ulysses Grant; it's epistles
eclipse those of Pliny, Nine. Sevigne and
Francis Bacon; it's laws, in their ethical
and spiritual import, are quite beyond JUS
%tinian, Blackstone and the English parlia-
ment; It's doctrines, as the sum of infinite
teaching, tower above those of the San
hedrim, the Patrinrchate of ~Constantinople
and the Council of Trent.
Every phasis of literature, every norm of
wisdom, is in the Bible. 1t ministers to all
tastes and arouses the slumbering intellects
OF all who can comprehend the difference
between reality and fiction. and who incline
to virtue rather than vice. Ruskin con-
fesses his indebtedness to the Bible, Homer
and Sir Walter Scott for his mental dis
clpline; Charles Reade rronounces the
characters in scripture a literary marvel.
Matthew Arnold daily read the New esta-
mont in Greek for its style; Milton could
not have written Paradise Lost without
Genesis; Romans witchery of style is trace
able to the Now Testament. Job has taught
the poets the art of construction. und Da-
vid has sung an u~ndying melody into the
ears OF the race. The book OF Ruth ia the
model idyl, and the books of Esther and
Daniel abound in Incompatible dramatic
elements; lsainh has plurned the states
man for oratorical flights; Jeremiah has
opened the fountains of p1thos and
sentlment in pathetic souls; Ezekiel has
furnished n disable style of judicial denun-
ciation for tho criminal lawyer; Paul has
taught the thinker to reason and the essay
ist to write; John has inst theo!oginns
and teachers that great truths nre not Oh.
scure and complex truths are most simple:
and Moses and Christ have inspired judges