much as we study other books, we should not for a moment forget that the truly wonderful thing about this sacred literature is the divine spirit which animates it, the everlasting purpose which lies back of it all. But while this is true, we should not fall into the error of believing that it is sacrilegious to study it in a careful, critical way. It has for us "apples of gold in baskets of silver," and it is not sacrilegious to examine the baskets of silver.

2. A study of the Bible as literature will aid in understanding its message. Language does not give forth its message with unvarying exactness. It is never easy to know just how much meaning or how little a writer intends to convey by word or a phrase. One must have abundant knowledge of the way in which men have thought and spoken, a large experience in interpreting the thoughts and feelings of men from their words, to be at all sure that he is getting what an author intended he should get. In secular literature no one is bold enough to set himself up as an interpreter of masterpieces unless he brings to the interpretation a mind trained to understand and appreciate the force of words and literary forms, and a method of study and interpretation which has stood the test of years of application.

Of course there are things about this great Book that are so simple that even a child can understand and appreciate them; but there are things profound enough to puzzle the philosopher, and these the reader can not hope to understand unless he has prepared himself for the task of weighing and considering. The man of little experience in interpreting men's thoughts and feelings from their written words must fail to get at the heart of many a passage. He should be able to read between the lines, to discern where he ought to rest his full weight and press out the fullest meaning, and where he ought to press lightly. The man of no range in his reading, with no experience in interpretation, must be inclined inevitably to treat all parts alike, to make one word just as emphatic, just as literal as another.

The truths of the Bible are offered to us in the same words, phrases, and literary forms, that are used in all

other literature; it ought to require no argument to prove that if the student is to get all that is bound up in these words, phrases, and forms, he should make diligent use of all his secular knowledge, of all his culture, of all his best methods of getting at the meaning and force of language, and of all his trained powers of interpreting literature.

3. The literary study of the Bible will be profitable because it is a great storehouse of good English which has been more powerful in shaping our language, both spoken and written, than any other influence whatso

ever.

Dr. Cook of Yale says:

"From Cædmon's time to the present the influence of Bible diction upon English speech has been virtually uninterrupted. The Bible has been an active force in English literature for over 1200 years, and during the whole period it has been molding the diction of representative thinkers and literary artists."

Mr. Saintsbury in his history of English literature says:

"But great as are Bacon and Raleigh, they can not approach, as writers of prose, the company of scholarly divines who produced what is probably the greatest prose work in any language-the Authorized Version of the Bible in English.'

It has often been said that "The Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan stands unrivaled as a model of plain, vigorous clear, pleasing English. The reason for this excellence is evident. Bunyan was fairly saturated not only with the spirit but with the language of the English Bible. Coleridge declared that intense study of the Bible will keep any writer from being vulgar in point of style. And John Ruskin, who was doubtless the greatest master of pure, idiomatic, vigorous, and eloquent English prose that the last century produced, says that his mother required him in childhood to commit to memory and repeat to her over and over again, many passages of the Bible. We need not seek further for the secret of his admirable diction and perfect command of English phraseology.

4. "It is woven into the literature of the scholar and colors the talk of the street." A familiar acquaintance with the words, phrases, stories, and characters of the Bible is valuable because our everyday speech and our secular literature have been enriched by the use of and by allusions to them. There are in our secular literature multitudes of allusions to the Bible. Again and again does a writer take advantage of the associations which cluster about a Bible phrase or incident and by a simple touch bring up in the mind of the understanding reader all the circumstances and sentiments connected with the original. Indeed no one who lays claim to any degree of culture can be ignorant of these incidents, phrases, and characters. They have been assimilated into the common speech. The most illiterate man understands, after a fashion, the phrases: "the widow's mite,' "a Judas kiss," "the flesh-pots of Egypt," "a still small voice," "a Jehu," "a perfect babel," "a Nimrod," "bread upon the waters, ""a Daniel come to judgment,' "a Solomon,' "a Delilah," "a mother in Israel," "a land flowing with milk and honey," "the valley of decision," and "the salt of the earth." These have become the permanent possession of our every-day speech and convey a meaning not associated directly with their origin; but to those who are familiar with the origin and setting of these terms, they have a vigor and significance which others can not at all appreciate.

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All our poets have enriched their pages with thoughts and images from this wonderful literary storehouse. If one wishes to know how frequently Tennyson drew out of this inexhaustible mine treasures both new and old, let him examine the appendix to Dr. Henry Van Dyke's study of Tennyson; he will find listed there more than two hundred references. Among these are the phrases: as manna in my wilderness"; "Pharaoh's darkness "Ruth amid the fields of corn"; "stiff as Lot's wife"; "I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine"; "and marked me even as Cain"; "the church on Peter's rock"; "a whole Peter's sheet"; "one was the Tishbite whom the ravens fed"; "who can call him friend that dips in the same dish."

From Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes are selected the following allusions, a few from many that might be quoted: "We too who laugh at Israel's golden calf"; "a cloud by day, by night a pillared flame"; "He who prayed the prayer of all mankind"; "Why did the choir of angels sing for joy"? "I thought of Judas and his bribe"; "They who gathered manna every morn";

"Mountains are cleft before you

As the sea before the tribes of Israel's wandering sons."

"When Moab's daughter homeless and forlorn,

Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn."

The space of many chapters would be required to set forth Shakespeare's indebtedness to the Bible. The following are some of the most familiar allusions:

"Good name in man or woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their soul."

"Samson, master, was a man of good carriage, great carriage; for he carried the town gates on his back like a porter."

"You found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of thee."

"I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir. I have not much skill in grass."

"It is hard to come as for a camel

To thread the postern of a needle's eye."

By the use of these allusions the poet may not only give completeness to his thought, force to his truth, and vividness to his imagery, but he may enrich his verse with a beauty and significance beyond his own power. He may write, "A little lower than angels"—and at once we hear added to the music of his lines,

"What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him a little lower than angels,
And crowned him with glory and honor."

Or the poet writes the phrase, "Solomon-shaming flowers," and we at once hear the matchless lines:

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
They toil not, neither do they spin:

Yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory
Was not arrayed like one of these."

5. There are many people who do not look upon the Bible as a readable book; yet its pages are full of unusual charm. It is a book full of marvelous incidents and engaging history, with sunny pictures of old world scenery, and charming and pathetic anecdotes of patriarchal times. Any one who wishes literature having unity, variety, beauty, strength, and interest, can find it in this volume of sixty-six books. He will there find law, folk-lore, tradition, official records, historical narrative, epic poetry, dramatic poetry, lyric poetry, proverbial philosophy, patriotic addresses, religious addresses, parables, prayers, prophecies, biographies, theology, circular letters, private letters, riddles, fables, dream literature, love songs, patriotic songs, and songs of praise. These writings were produced by probably thirty-one writers through a period of fifteen hundred years. Some of them lived in palaces and some in prisons; some were princes and some were peasants; some were scholars and some were illiterate men; some were philosophers and some herdsmen, fishermen, and mechanics. So it is a book appealing to the learned and the ignorant, to the prince and the peasant, the sage and the child, to all races, all nations, all classes, and it approaches all these in the way they can best be reached.

The place of the origin of the Bible should give it variety. It originated in a land which is a sort of epitome of the world. The configuration of Palestine, its immense variety of scenery, its vast range of climate, its extraordinary range of animal and vegetable life, reproduce, in a way, the features of the whole world. So the book is cosmopolitan in its atmosphere and imagery. It is full of the imagery of the sea and has in it also the quiet serenity of the secluded valley and lonely shore. It is filled with pastoral imagery. It tells of a God who is a Shepherd, of a king who came from the sheepfold. It is warm with the breath and brilliant with the light of the eastern clime: It tells of gardens and