Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1900-05-07
= Bible Reading and Literary Style.

g. Bible Reading ana Literary Sy'e'
There is more than one reason Tor
regret that the Bible is a less familiar
book to the youth of today than II
was to those of the good old times.
That it is less familiar, goes without
saving We all know it to be a fact,
and the change is lamented not only
nv Christian leaders and scholars,
but by all who love pure English Inter-
Azure and regret the decay OF our
modern prose style. No student or
lover of the harmonies of the English
tonpue can fail to have noticed that in
recent years the language has fallen
in evil ways. Many go so far as to
claim that while the book trade has
axnanded and flourished, literature has
been dying. One thing, at least, is
sure. There are no men writing now
as Carlyle, Ruskin, Newman and
Matthew Arnold wrote. 1t was from
the Book of Books that these men
learned the resonance and elevation,
the fire and sweetness of their mother
tongue. OF recent popular writers,
Robert Louis Stevenson has the best
loved words for the wonderful things
to be done with them, and he won
popularity in spite of his style rather
than because of it.
Every educator and every person
sincerely desiring to be educated in the
possibilities of our native tongue
should scan the article on The Father
of English Prose Style in the May
Atlantic, by J. II. Gardiner. The
essay is a loving and lucid analysis
of the influence of Tyndale's version of
the Bible upon all succeeding versions,
and a demonstration that the strength,
nobility, simplicity and earnestness
which are the wonderful Characters
tics of King James version were in
herent in Tyndale's style and found in
his works. Incidentally these great
literary qualities We're the outcome of
MS HnpdSSlOHeu ltINOT III tie tdSh VI
making the love of God a working
force in the world, a task which he
conceived would be best fulfilled by
giving the common people the Bible in
language understood by them, and
task for which he finally suffered mar
tyrdom.
In all study Of English literature"
says the author, ''if there be any one
axiom which may be accepted without
question it is that the ultimate stand
ard of English prose style is set by
the King James version of the Bible.
Fer examples of limpid and convincing
narrative we go to Genesis. to the
story of Ruth, to the quiet earnestness
of the Gospels for the mingled argu-
ment and explanation and eXhortation
other side of literature, We so to the
prophets and even more to the
/ Epistles of the New Testament; and
| for the glow and vehemence of feeling
which burns away the limits between
poetry and prose and makes prose
style at it's highest pitch able to stand
beside the stirring vibrations of verse,
we go to the Psalms or the Book Of
| Job, or the prophecies of Isaiah, or to
the triumphant declaration of immor
tality in the First Epistle to the Cor
| inthians."
In this connection another recent
magazine article is of no little inter
est 1t is one in the Independent by
| President Thwing of Western Reserve
University, a Maine man, and deals
with the significant ignorance of the
| Bible by college students as revealed
by a series of examinations which, half
| a century ago, would have been very
| easy task for the ordinary boy of 10
years, but which to the present gener
| alton of young men was difficult and
impossible. The statistics presented by
President Thwng would be ludicrous
if they were not tragic in betraying
| an ignorance of so fundamental a
| nature AS we'll have a student of as
tronomy ignorant of the law of gravi-
tation, or a student of mathematics
ignorant of the use of fractions. as an
lalleged student of the English Ian
guage and literature who is ignorant of
the style and contents of the English
Bible.
| If NOV ha }hat tp1lin1llp ic really