the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

XXII

THE LIBRARY OF THE GRACE OF GOD

LOOK

OOKING back now over the books of this library, thus bound together in a single volume, we perceive that they are characterized by a wide variety of literary forms. Here are histories and biographies and collections of letters; lyric and dramatic poems; speeches and sermons.

Taking these writings merely as pieces of literature, they are of extraordinary value by reason of the skill with which they are translated into English. Of all translations out of ancient languages into any kind of modern speech this is by far the best. Tyndale and Coverdale who did it worked under many disadvantages; Tyndale especially being hindered by adverse conditions of haste, and change of place, and constant peril of his life. It is remarkable that the scholars who revised the translation in the reign of King James I, and the scholars who revised it again in the reign of Queen Victoria, found so little need of change.

Tyndale and Coverdale lived, indeed, at a time when the English language was spoken with such purity, simplicity and dignity as no subsequent age has equaled. But it was to them that these qualities were in great measure due. They determined the language

in which Shakespeare and Milton wrote. This they were enabled to do because in their day printing was invented. Thus they not only made a book which multitudes of people desired to read, but the new press met that desire and put the book into the people's hands. The words and phrases of Tyndale and Coverdale became a national possession. They were read in the ears of the people every Sunday, and learned by heart, and taught to children. They rescued the English language out of provincial diversity, and made the English of the Bible the standard of universal

use.

In spite of all the changes and differences of four centuries, we still speak and write,-whenever we do these things well,—in the manner of the English Bible.

This achievement of Tyndale and Coverdale was made possible by the complete sincerity of their purpose. Their one sole intention was to get the Bible into the mind and heart of England. They had no literary ambition, no desire to put themselves forward for praise or profit. Herein they were in the spirit of the men whose writings they translated, who so subordinated themselves to their message that the names of many of them are unknown, or are only guessed at. They had no pride of authorship. They were therefore free from many temptations to artificiality and elaboration. It was easy for them to be simple, and to choose plain and enduring words.

This they did also because they had in mind the plain people. They hoped that as a result of their labors the words of the Bible would be recited by the farmer as he followed the plow, and sung by the

farmer's wife as she went about her household work. Scholars and educated persons would continue to read the Bible in Latin. The English Bible was not for them.. Tyndale and Coverdale, accordingly, chose words of Saxon derivation in preference to words of Latin derivation, and preserved the brevity and directness of the Hebrew and Greek originals. They made the prophets and apostles speak plain English.

When scholars distinguish, as for example in the Acts, between "translation" Greek and other Greek, they detect the fact of translation by certain qualities of awkwardness and stiffness in the sentences. There is a lack of spontaneity and freedom. No such inferiorities appear in the English Bible. This is "translation" English, but it is written with so much sympathy and understanding, and so much of the writer's heart is put into it, that it is not only as good as the original, but sometimes better. Indeed, there are parts of the English Bible, especially the Gospels, in which the homeliness and unconventionality of the original is somewhat obscured by the unfailing stateliness of the translation. Not only religion but literature is the loser by any neglect of the English Bible in the education of youth. Only to read these splendid sentences, to get the cadence and melody of them, to attend to their words and phrases, pure and undefiled and chosen with unfailing skill, is to enter into the privilege of a high discipline in the art of writing. Our chief men of letters have learned their art in this school, often by the process of committing passages of these books to memory. They have perceived, from the point of

view of literature, that the English Bible is the supreme English book.

The men who made it, like the men whose writings they translated, were intent on religion. They cared for nothing else. They were of the mind of St. Paul when he said, "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." They found these books "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." They believed that those who read them aright would thereby become "wise unto salvation." They accounted the Bible as one of the means of grace. Out of it the minister was to instruct the people; in it the people diligently reading would find the minister's instruction confirmed or corrected; by means of it both minister and people would grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of God.

The translators of these writings into English knew very well that they belong for the most part to the literature of protest and revolution. It was for that reason that they set about translating them, and for that reason that the authorities of church and state tried at first to stop them.

The great men of the Old Testament are the prophets, who in almost every instance spoke for the minority, opposed themselves to the established order, and were obnoxious to both civil and ecclesiastical authorities. They are represented by Amos, who reports God as saying of the state, "The high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel