Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-12-24
A STRANGE VERSION IF THE BIBLE.
Remarkable PAraphrases of an Edition Of
the Holy Book Issued Years Ago.

Remarkable PAraphrases Of an Edition Of
the Holy Book Issued Years Ago.
Various famous Bibles-the Taverner's,
the Bishops, the Vinegar, the Breeches,
and the sWicked Bible" so called because
Of its omission Of mot" from one Of the
commandments-are known to the hum
blest bibliophile. More curious than any
Of them, and now, should think, hardly
less rare than some, is an extraordinary
version of the New Testament, which is
considerably less than 200 years old. 1t
owed its existence TO the Rev. Edward
Harwood, d. D., an Eighteenth century
Bristol divine, whose happy thought it
was ITO clothe the genuine ideas and doc
trines of the apostles with that propriety
and perspicuity in which they themselves,
VI apprehend, would have exhibited them
had they now lived and written in our Ian
guage."
The good doctor seems to have been
pained that 'the bald and barbarous Ian
guage of the old vulgar version" had from
long usage acquired a venerable sacred
ness" but he was not without hope that
an "attempt to diffuse over the sacred
page the elegance of modern English"
might allure linen of cultivated and i'm
proved minds" to a book now, alas, too
generally neglected"
DR.. Harwood therefore proceeded to
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, a
disagreeable medium between the two ex-
tremes, will, in no long time, eject you
| from my heart with fastidious contempt."
''Disagreeable mediuml' "Fastidious con-
temptP
Considered RS aeuphuistic paraphrase Of
the strong English original by a 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-
tion of Nicodemus as this gentleman"
of St. Paul's Athenian convert Damaris
as "a lady of Distinction" and of the
/ daughter of Herodias as "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.. Harwood pre-
ferred to put it, "of splendid family" st.
Peter on the Mount of TRANSPORTATION ex-
claims, ooh, sir, what a delectable resi-
dence we might fix here" and St. Paul is
raised to the standard of Bristolian re-
spectability by having "portmanteau"
conferred upon him in place of the mere
cloak mentioned by himself as having been
left at Troas.
The apostolic statement, 1--WE shall not
all die but we shall all be changed" is OF
course too faultlessly simple to escape the
DOCTORS mauling, and after he has done
with it it appears thus, 1--WE shall not all
pay the common debt of nature, but we
shall, by soft transition, be changed from
mortality to Immortality" But even after
reading these prodigious translations we
are hardly prepared for a meddling witt
the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis
But DR.. Harwood's passion for elegance
stuck at nothing, and the "men of culti
waited and improved minds" must have
Harwoodian versions of the two great
hymns ofsEhristendom. Here are the open
ings of both
"My soul with reverence adores my Gre
ator, and all my faculties with transport
join in celebrating the goodness of God
my Saviour, who hath in so signal man
ner condescended to regard my poor ant
humble station. Transcendent goodness
every future age will now conjoin in cele
brating my happiness.
30 Godl thy promise to me is amply full
flledl l now quit the post of human lif
with satisfaction and joy, since thou has
indulged mine eyes with so divine spec
tacle as the great Messiah"
These extracts will serve as satisfying
examples of the way in which the I ev
Testament may be made elegant through
out, and DR.. Harwood's work is such that
to use his own phraseology, it leaves th'
most exacting velleity without ground fo
quiritation. Still he is so largely forgotten
that the ground is practically free to tn
modern stylist. st.-Anti-Jacobin.