The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-07-31

appearance even in Christian families.
from the old Mace in daily reading and
regular memoriZing. we Know, OF
course. that the scheme OF Sunday
school lessons contemplates covering
the whole Bible-or those parts OF it tit
to be taught children-in seven years.
We know As Well of the scheme for
daily readings meant to go with the
| Sunday recita tons. But we know also
that, as a rule. these projected readings
and this comprehensive plan OF study
are not carried out at all, with the re-
suit Of giving children most chaotic
and fragmentary idea of the Bible.
We say nothing here of the failure TO
teach the body of well-ascertained
truth about the Bible, its history and
manner of composition. That is a
scandalous thing. morally, but 1t has
little to do with the literary apprecia-
ton of the Bible What We do say,
however, is that the broken. haphaZard
! cOme-and-go methods of Bible teach
ing in Sunday schools are as success
I
/ ly ingenuity for that very purpose, in
destroying all rational appreciation of
| the Bible as literature, and in making
it happy go-lucky collection Of
golden texts and strange and dis
connected promises and threatenings
and moralities, without form and void.
! Probably nine-tenthS of the college
students referred 10 above had gone
through at least two seven-year cycles
! in Sunday school lessons. What profit
did they get, except to give their ignOr-
ance the special charm of confusion
and grotesquesness? Jacob served
| seven years for wife, and at least
| got wife, if not the one he wanted;
but most of our seven-year Sunday
school scholars emerge from the period
with little or nothing to show for their
time.
The question arises, how much bet
ter will the purely literary method of
Bible study succeed-succeed, we
mean, in storing the mind with the
felicities and piquancies and majesty
of Biblical phraSeology, and in fasci
mating the attention with the details
of Biblical narrative and allegOry and
pastoral and drama? We confess to
gravely doubling if it will succeed any
better. The charm and power of the
Bible, as literature, seem to eyade the
mature and preoccupied mind that APP
proaches it late, and purely on the
literary side. The accumulated as
sOciations Of childhood, the familiarity
with SOnorous phrases before they are
understood, the play of young magma
ton and even of superstition about the
sacred page-all these things, Joined
with daily REPETITION and use Of the rich
English Of King James version and 4
vivid acquaintance with Oriental trope
and metaphor, parable and vision,
seem necessary to the strongest and
most enduring grasp Of the Bible mere
~ as literature. One cannot imagine
Ruskin, for example, with his later
ideas about the Bible, getting from it
in maturity what he got at his mothers
knee. There is a ertain diSillusion-
ment, which is literary loss even if
it as critical gain, that comes from
studying the Bible in too dry light Of
reason. The rugged old Hebraisms
lose something of their craggy gran
deur when we really come to see what
they mean. If we have learned to
love them, even ignorantly, in our
youth, we resent their being made too
Ineligible and unimaginative to our
manhood. Thus Matthew Arnold was
incensed at the revised version, indie
feasible as was his anger on critical
grounds, largely because it made havoc
with some of the sOnorOus but puzzle !
headed phrases of King James and
the Prayer Book version that had the |
undying charm of youthful assOcia !
ton about them. 1t is no doubt fact /
that the surest literary appreciation /
and mastery of the Bible are to be seen |
in men in whom that book was part /
of the heaventhatlay about them in |
son to believe that later and colder
studies give what ii almost seems to /
he necessary to draw in with mothers
milk.
II the Bible, as literature and in lit
erature, is destined, as it would seem,
to lose more and more of its power
over mems minds, the loss is most cal
amitOus. Merely as treaSure-house
of style, of racy expression, Of apt IL
lustration, of piercing metaphor, of
poetry that exhausts language and
leaves it quivering, there is but one
book, as the dying Scott said. The
advice Of famous professor Of rhet-
Oric still holds good. Young gentle
men," he used to say TO his classes,
IF you want TO be eloquent, all you
need to know is your Bible and Shake
speare. In them are the winged words
IF English" And as for the great
literature, whether of England, Italy.
Spain. or France. il can be said Of the
Bible that, in il, its line has gone out
Rto all the earth and its words TO the
md of the world. It is needless TO
quote the tributes or the examples OF
he great masters OF style. Whatever
nay be the cause and whatever may
,e the remedy at all, the neglect OF the
Bible as great piece OF literature is
IN of the most dishearienins marks Of
,ur tine
At all events the authorities have