The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1911-04-26
Rryee,s Address.

New York, April 26.-ln delivering
a special message from King George V
to the meeting in Carnegie Hall last
might to celebrate the three-hundredth
anniversary Of the English translation
of the Bible, Ambassador Bryce of
Great Britain spoke of the effect the
translation had had upon the English
speaking race. He said in part
"rhe great event which we are met
things, no sudden achievement Of
group OF gifted scholars but the ma
ture fruit of desires and purposes
which had long been ripening in the
minds of our ancestors.
Much had been done towards an
English Bible hefors Kipg James the
First commissioned his company Of
learned scholars for their task Using
the labors OF their many predecess ors.
the translators produced version
which was wonderfully exact for the
scholarship Of those days. so exact
that after three centuries the changes
which repeated collations Of the man
uscripts and repeated examination of
the precise meaning OF the Hebrew and
Greek texts have led modern critics TO
make are few and unimportant in pro-
portion to the whole.
How much of the excellence of our
ereat writer's from Milton. Jeremy
Taylor, and Baxter downwards is
traceable To their knowledge of the
diction of the Bible! We can feel il i'm
four great masters of our tongue who
adorned the last generation to all OF
whom the Scriptures were familiar
from childhood We recognize it in
the speeches of John Bright and Alb
raham Lincoln, in the sermons and es-
says Of Cardinal Newman, and I'm the
earlier writings of Thomas Carlyle be-
fore his style became Germanized.
The names OF Lincoln and Bright sug-
gest the immense and unique service
which this translation rendered 20
men Of our stock. It brought this
wonderful storehouse of historical mar
rative and moral reflection. this in
comparable record of the progress Of
the human spirit and of all the forms
i'm which its conception Of the rela-
tions of man to God were expressed
within the reach of those who like
| Bright received no very wide educa-
tion and those who like Lincoln re-
ceived no education at ALL
"These We're some of the things
which the Bible dd for the individual
soul. And it also formed the one COM
mon basis for the literature of the
lmedialval and modern world IL was
the common ground on which all
Christians met: whatever their differ
ences as to its meaning, the common
starting point for their poetry and
their ethics Chaucer and Tasso and
/ Goethe have their roots I'm il as well as
Dante and Milton. II has been a Wis
ible symbol of the underlying moral
unity Of the civilized nations, even at
times when some OF them have least
respected its authority.
"In the message from King George
which / have read 10 YOU this evening
the English version is truly called
"Our common heritage" II is such a
heritage as brothers may enjoy i'm
common. each having all and each re-
joicing that the other has no less than
himself
British and American character
have been largely formed by this
book. because Il was in the seven
tconth century the only book which all
the people know and all the people
Irevered. And il our ancestors In that
century and the next set an example to
other countries IN their love of freedom
! and their willingness 90 mako sacri-
fees for freedom, yet knowing how tc
use freedom with moderation and
I Justice, is this not largely due to tbs
stimulus they received from the knowl.
! edge OF the Scriptures in their owl
tongue and from the sense that free.
dom, like other gifts OF God, is to b'