The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-09-19

SHOWN W NC ldlSe, utterly SO by facts
in our w history. The Declaration
OF American Independence contains as
automatic this principle, I'VE hold these
truths ~self-evident, that all men are Gre
ated free and endowed with certain in
alienable rights, among which are life.
liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
Yet, for eighty-nine years after this hui
man slavery existed in the United
States. This declaration was read and
endorsed in every pant OF the country
on our great national festal day. Moth
ing more patent than the existence of
the law except its violation. We will
suppose some astute critic Of the des-
tructive sort 500 years nence discours-
ing to his class on American history
and evoking the rules of criticism to
prove that the Declaration OF Independ-
,,ence was o written until after the
great rebellion, and citing as his reason
the violation OF its entire spirit for long
years in this country. He might tri-
lumphantly produce the bred Scott de-
cision and the fugitive slave law. We
fancy we hear him say, Gentlemen, the
Declaration OF Independence, as we
lnow have it, is a composite document.
The rules of a rational and just criticism
demand such a view Of its production.
1t contains that within itself that pre-
cludes the idea that it was written at
the time it is alleged to have been writ
) ten. 1t is inconsistent in spirit with
the history of those times, and yet some
of it may be regarded as old as the
American revolution, for it arraigns the
tyranny of King George, and appeals to
! the judgment of the fair and impartial
among the nations OF the earth for the
justice of the cause of the colonists. The
: ,,parthowever, whichintroduces the docu-
5 ment was undoubtedly written after the
shareholders rebellion, which took place
in 1861-1865; it is impossible to believe
! that a people who held such views OF
+ the rights Of man could have main
: tanned a system of slavery in which their
J. fellow-beings were held and owned as
= mere chattels. No, gentlemen, we must
regard this introduction as a %"paranetic
. setting or "recodifcation of the old
law" We think this illustration shows
. the value Of presuppositions in the in
t depreciation of history. And its afgu-
$ ments are just as legitimate as anything
]. the higher criticism has produced or
can produce.
8 But this documentary hypothesis, if
we understand it, and we have tried to
] understand it, is something unique in
$ the world. 1t is not simply compilation
of a body of history from a variety OF
sources, as historians are accustomed to
make in their preparation of history.
c It is not the quotation of long sections
of history from older or contemporan.
eous authorities, but it is a patchwork
S in which different writer's on parallel
i themes have their productions sown to-
gether by a redactor, who takes liberty
l graph here and there, and to SO modify
r these original productions as to make
them teach what they did not teach at
: first. Yet the redactor or redactors,
whoever they we're, aimed at unity in
$ their productions. But in spite of this
they have left duplicate, in one instance,
] even triplicate accounts OF the same
t event, and these are discrepant, when
e they are disentangled from the scheme
: of the redactor. And this plan covers
Y the entire literature of a people for a
. thousand years. We venture that this,
i taken as a whole, has no parallel in any
4 literature on the face OF this globe. We
e wish to reiterate that we are not ques-
t tioning the possibility OF the composite
character of any book of the Bible, bat
it is composite literature OF the charac-
e ter assumed by the critics we question,
t and that is singular, irrational and inn
moral in the extreme.
A further glance at the material with
which the critics work, will show that it
= is almost entirely linguistic or philo-
+ logical. 1t is the Hebrew bible and its
!, literature that furnishes almost exclu-
sively their data. In other words a
language dead for over 1000 years,
t whose only literature are the books
criticised, furnishes all the data for the
exceedingly minute discrimination and
dissectionthey present. Thatwe have not
overdrawn the description will be mani
!, fest to anyone who has seen a few pages
; of the ~parti-colored bible of the critics.
/ There, words as small as connectives.
particles, and explosives have been dis
sected II of a verse and assigned to
reduction or Interpolation. We regard
this rainbow bible as a blessing, how
ever. 1t puts before the eye OF the or
binary reader the marvellous conceptions
of the critic, and he will go away say
ing, "Such knowledge is too wonder
IL r q - - ~