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October 6, 1909. THE PRESBYTERI4
and used, as we have found in Shakespeare alone.'
" 'Bacon's acquaintance with Holy Writ,' says Professor
J. Scott Clark, in his 'Study of English Prose
Writers,' 'is almost equal to that of Shakespeare, and
the works of both unite with many modern masterpieces
in testifying to the value of the English Bible
as a literary model.' Professor Hiram Corson, or Cornell,
thinks that Chaucer made greater use of the Bible
than did PVPti 'nivnn omr t-^a /.?n
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secutive lines,' he says, 'taken at random from Shakespeare
and from Chaucer, and it will be found, 1 think,
that the ^oportion of allusions in those of the latter
will be greater than in those of the former.'
"Are the more-modern writers equally indebted to
the Bible? 'I have found,' says Dr. Henry Van Dyke,
in 'The Poetry of Tennyson,' 'in6re than four hundred
direct references to the Bible in the poems of Tenny?
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wii. ii mdjf uc tuiuiuciiiiy siaieu uiai .crowning
draws far more themes from the Bible than does Tennyson.
" 'Intense study of the Bible/ says Coleridge, 'will
keep any writer from being vulgar in point of style.
Ruskin tells us that in his childhood, as a part of his
home education, his mother required him to commit
to memory select chapters from the Bible. 'And truly,'
says this master of English prose, 'though I have
picked up the elements of a little further knowledge
* * * and owe not a little to the teaching of many
people, this maternal installation of my mind in that
property of chapters, I count very confidently the most
precious, and, on the whole, the one essential part of
my education.'
"When Kipling's 'Recessional' appeared in June,
1897, readers seemed surprised at the Hebraic note
that runs through it. They need not have been. Kipling's
'Seven Seas' (1896) is as Hebraic in mood and
diction as is any single play of Shakespeare or any
equal number of "pages from the 'Canterbury Tales.'
Indeed, a recent French critic, M. C. Viscomte Robert
d'Humiers, goes so far as to complain that Kipling is
yet entangled with Christianity, and that the evangelical
shroud wraps him even to the heart."
Passing on to a consideration of the Bible as a source
of inspiration to the public speaker. Dr. Smith says:
"The Greek and Latin rhetoricians urge upon the
speaker the desirability of putting himself in touch
with his hearers by utilizing some incident, illustration
or allusion that will establish a bond of sympathy between
the orator and his auditors. They urge him to
appeal to a fund of common memories and common associations,
for an allusion wins half its power from its
relation to the hearer's own life and experience. Did
it ever occur to you how perfectly the English Bible
meets this need? The same book lies open upon the
desk of the scholar and the pine table of the peasant.
Tf you touch upon one of its narratives,' says Dr. Van
Dyke, 'every one knows what you mean. If you allude
to one of its characters or scenes, your reader's
A 1 - * '**
<?v.uui; suppiica an instant picture to illuminate your
point.'
"A distinguished lawyer of the State of North Carolina
won a hopeless case, so he told me, by reading to
the jury with appropriate comment the story of Joseph.
"The telling use made of the Bible by Burke and
4 ' ? * 4
LN OF THE SOUTH. 9
+
Webster and Lincoln in their greatest speeches is too
well known to need more than a passing mention.
Senator Vance, of North Carolina, had so communed
with the Bible that his style, especially passages of
heightened emotion, as in his best perorations, became
almost as Biblical as that of Bunyan.
" 'The Bible,' says Mathew Arnold, in a letter to his
mother, 'is the only book well enough known to quote
as the Greeks quoted Homer, save that tho quotation
would go home to every reader, and it is quite astonishing
how a Bible sentence clinches and sums up an
argument.' "
ALWAYS TALKING MONEY.
The Southern Christian Advocate has in a recent
number a trenchment and telling editorial in reply to
the charge, so often heard in our day, that preachers
and other Church leaders talk too much about money.
The substance of the editor's rejoinder is that the unpleasant
duty of "talking money" is forced upon the
preacher by the niggardliness of the church members.
There is no preacher that would not rejoice to be forever
exempted from mentioning any financial question
in the pulpit. Why are so many of them not exempt?
Simply because people do not treat the Church as they
do other societies to which they belong. In those so
cieues tney pay their dues and assessments without
grumbling and without having the matter publicly
mentioned. But the modest sums needed for carrying
on the work of the Church can only be had by dint of
much begging and exhorting on the part of the preacher,
who, being charged with the duty of leadership, had
rather humiliate himself thus than see a sacred cause
suffer. Yet he understands perfectly that he is exposing
himself to the charge of avarice on the part of
outsiders, who fancy that he personally profits by all
that is contributed, and at the same time is exposing
the church to contempt as a society which can not or
will not meet its own expenses without beireunpr fmm
the public. It is our opinion that the time is ripe for
some reforms just at this point.?Christian Advocate.
A NEW AFFECTION.
Chalmers' great phrase, "the expulsive power of a
new affection," was, it is said, suggested to him by an
incident which happened during his ministry at Kilmany.
He was driving out on some pastoral errand,
and, as the oonv trotted hricHv <*- ?
niuiij; ,II1C unvcr
suddenly drew his whip and gave it a savage cut.
Chalmers remonstrated. "You see that white gatepost?"
said the driver; "he has a h^bit of shying at it,
and so, whenever he gets near it ,1 always give him
a cut of the whip, just that he may have something
else to think about." And this is the way to banish
evil thoughts: fill your mind with noble affections,
and you will have something else, something better,
to think about. And this is the philosophy of Sanctification.
It is. if T mav nut ;? -
_ ? - j ii okj, tt process OI
displacement and replacement. You see illustrations
of it on every side. A room is purified by opening
the window and letting the fresh air rush in and drive
the foul air out- A stagnant pool is purified by turning
a stream into it and letting the living waters pour
through it.?David Smith in The British Weekly.