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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 ? . v.. vt VIKVII U JIJ Llivuoaiiu V.UI1" 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? 1? ?J - ?? ' 1 ? 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.