Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-18
LATE BOOK NEWS
BY w. HERBERT BLAKE

iii w.
The higher critics have been ana
lying the Bible as deposit of truth.
In the meantime the modern world
of literature is discovering it as song
and vision and passionate eloquence.
Both parties will doubtless profit by
the contact.
Just how little the average reader
knows of the melody and glory of
words which come to him freighted
with childhood memories, he VIII DIS
cover by a perusal of little volume
entitled "The Pleasure of Reading the
Bible" by Temple Scott, which is out
in time for the holiday rush of book
buying. The viewpoint Of the author
is frankly literary. He does not think
it necessary to reveal any other per-
sonal feeling toward his subject than
that of keen admiration for its spir-
itual beauty and an honest desire to
share his joy with others. And he
keeps to his subject. His vision of
the Scriptures is of a vast and pow
erful collection of human aspiration,
the casual and burning words of men
who walked with God and told about
the journey with the simplicity of
Wide-eyed children. Avoiding the the
illogical aspects of his subject. he con
fines himself largely to the Old Tes-
lament and finds in it 'the power that
lies in all noble expressions, and gives
meaning and value to all literature.
Poets have made more heroes i'm the
flesh than they have pictured in their
language" he declares. and concludes,
"Otherwise literature has no place in
life"
Learning literature by rote is not to
this authors liking. He would have
the beauties of the, Psalms and the
revelatory passion of Isaiah appre-
hended is a quiet joy, not an exacted
task. For the child to see beauty, ii
must come on beauty, so to speak," Is
his judgment. Beauty must startle
it into an awareness of something
strange in its experience. Then will
the childs curious soul be drawn to
the revelation, and it will nevermore
forget the meeting" To illustrate his
point, he quotes, in arbitrarily ar
ranged stanza form, several passages
from the Psalms, the Song of Solomon,
job and other books The choices
show a fine discrimination and are In
a measure illustrative of the authors
contention, at least from the purely
literary viewpoint.
THE Bible must be treated fairly"
he remarks rather quantity. "If the
singing of songs is the natural de-
mand, then sing songs. When we have
learned to be less familiar and more
courteous to the Bible, we shall not
only value 1t with livelier discrimina-
tion, but the book itself will yield to
us, more and more benignantly, the
fine enjoyment of its beauty"
Recalling the pathetic divorce, in
modern times, between philosophy and
literature. one reads with heightened
interest that "the writer's of the Bible
possessed a gift which few modern wri-
ters possess; they had the power to
express the philosophy of life as liter
ature." And the practical man, who
SCOTS with some reason at poets as
creatures of mist and moonshine.
should be reassured to read that "lit-
erature is less than life; it is not our
MASTER but our servant" 4.
A scientific reader will quarrel with
one careless quotation from the book
of Job (page 3O) wherein the author
takes several sentences bodily from the
text and then adds several other SEN
tences in modern phrasing which, 10
his mind, complete the meaning, but
which certainly mar the attractive
ness of his paragraph. THE courtesy
to the Bible which he advocates should
forbid him to garble texts as even an
opposing newspaper would not think of
garbling the speech of political can
didate.
But in general the book does pretty
InuCn Whit II SETS out 10 uO. II Siloulu
be revelation to many who have for
gotten that the English Bible is a work
of art, as we'll as the defiant survivor
of innumera BILE controversies and the
bulwark of the faith of MILLIONS.
"The Pleasure of Reading the Bible"
BY Temple Scott. New York: Mitchell
Kennerley.
DR.. r. F. Sturge displays a vein of
genuine lyric quality in his Natures
Teachings" a slim volume brought out
by the Murdoch press of San Fran
cisco. The writer has devoted his life
to missionary work In the Orient and
has woven the thoughts which he
sought to impress upon his foreign
pupils into this poetic form. For' ir-
stance:
SATAN'S YOKE
The yoke of Satan first is found
To be wreath of flowers sweet
Such as Hawaians hang around
The nec1s of those they love to greet;
But with his blossoms are entwined
The deadly nightshade, other banes.