Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1912-03-12


Pascal said there is a vast difference
between a book which one makes and
throws among a people, and book which
of itself makes a people"
The sixty-six pamphlets, which we call
the Bible, is a book which of itself
makes peoples; and the kind of nations
which have been made by it witness to
the fact that in 1t there is a life-giving
property above the power of all other
books. Wendell Phillips said, 1.-THE an
swer to the Shastas is India; the answer
to .Confucianism is China; the answer to
the Koran is Turkey the answer to the
Bible is the Christian civilization of
Protestant Europe and America"
The translation of the Bible into the
language of a nation not before acquaint
ed with il makes and marks an era in
national history Martin Luther's version
of the Scriptures changed the whole cur
rent of German life The translations of
Wycliffe and Tyndale in England revo-
lutionized the British nation, and Tho
King James version has coloured all
English literature The great French
essayist, NJ. Taine, said, Hence have
sprung much of the English language,
and half of English manners; to this day
the country is Biblical; it was these big
books ii e. the folios of Tyndale) which
land" That the French essayist does not
overstate the case is manifest in the ac-
count of the bible Revival which John
Richard Green, the historian, gives in his
History of the English People"
Green says, mo greater moral change
ever passed over a nation than passed
over England during the years which
parted the middle of the reign of Eliza
beth from the meeting of the Long Par
lament. England became the people of
a book, and that book was the Bible. 1t
was as yet the one English book which
was familiar to every Englishman; 1t
was read at churches and read at home,
and everywhere it's words. as they fell
on ears which custom had not deadened,
kindled a startling enthusiasm. When
Bishop Bonner set up the first six BIZ
bles in st. PauFs many well-disposed
people used much to resort to the hear
ing thereof, especially when they could
get any that had an audible voice to
read to them h One John Por-
ter used sometimes to be occupied in that
goodly exercise, to the edifying of him
self as we'll as others. This Porter was a
fresh young man and of a big stature;
and great multitudes would resort thith-
err to hear him, because he could read
well and had an audible voice. But the
'goodly exercise of readers, such as Por-
ter, was soon superseded by the con-
tinued recitation of both Old Testament
and New in the public services of the
Church; while the small Genevan Bibles
carried the Scripture into every home.
The popularity of the Bible was owing
to other causes besides that of religion.
The whole prose literature of England,
save the forgotten tracts of Wycliffe,
has grown up since the translation OF
the Scriptures by Tyndale and Coverdale.
So far as the nation at large was con-
cerned, no history no romance, hardly
any poetry, save the little known verse
of Chaucer existed i'm the English tongue
when the Bible was ordered 20 be set up
in churches. Sunday after Sunday, day
after day, the crowds that gathered round
Bonner's Bibles in the nave of St.
PauPs, or the family group that hung
on the words of the Genevan Bible i'm the
devotional exercises at home, were leav-
ened with a new literature. =.
But far greater than its effect on liter
allure or social phrase was the effect of
the Bible on the character of the people
peare's day. pressed for an answer not
only from noble and scholar. but from
farmer and shopkeeper in the age that
followed him..
What other book could have worked
so profound and benignl revolution
in national life? England has never
again been the same as before the
"Bible revival; the nation ever since
has steadily advanced in. all the things
which make for a high and ennoblins
civilization. Relatively the nation was
then one of the weaker powers, but
ever since. by steady steps of progress,
it has gone forward to the first place
among the peoples of our planet. Whyr
Thomas Carlyle answers the question
for us. He says, "The period of the
Reformation waS a Judgment Day for
Europe, when all the nations were pre-
scented with an open Bible, and all the
emancipation of heart and intellect
which an open Bible involves. Eng
land North Germany. and other pow