• H3 
 
• W3 
 
LECTURE 
 
 ON THE 
 
 INDEBTEDNESS OF MODERN LITERATURE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF MOBILE, IN THE LECTURE-ROOM OF 
 THE GOVERNMENT-STREET CHURCH, MOBILE, 
 
 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1843. 
 
 „.,<j 
 
 
 by y^ 
 
 REV. WM. T. HAMILTON, D, D. 
 
 MOBILE : 
 
 h\ tt. BROOKS, 56 WATER-STREET 
 1844, 
 
\ 
 
 
 £ 
 
LECTURE. 
 
 Wherever man is, there is character, intellectual and moral 
 both; and the doings of the man develope that character. In 
 the actions of his life, in the tenor of his confidential discourse, and 
 in his epistolary correspondence, the individual traces an impress 
 of himself. 
 
 But communities, as well as individuals, may be said to have 
 and to exhibit a character of their own. The acts of the govern- 
 ment, the enactments of the legislature, the proceedings of public 
 bodies, the prevailing customs, and the tolerated vices, all furnish 
 indication of public character : while in the current literature the 
 manifestation of that character is more decisive still. National 
 character is often as distinctly marked in national literature, as the 
 character of the individual is marked in letters to his intimate 
 friends. In German literature, in French, in English, in Italian 5 
 and in Spanish, there is a distinct character, intellectual and moral, 
 appertaining to each one, and peculiar to itself. La Henriade 
 never could have been written by an Englishman, nor Othello by a 
 Frenchman, nor Goethe's Faust, nor the Orlando Furioso of Ari- 
 osto, by either of them. 
 
 In like manner, each great age of the world, and almost each 
 successive generation of men, has exhibited its own peculiar lite- 
 rary character. The writings of king David or of Isaiah, the pro- 
 ductions of Homer or of Herodotus, could not possibly be confounded 
 with the literature of the Augustan age, nor could the productions 
 of Chryscstom or of Augustine be mistaken for writings of the age 
 
of Leo X., any more than writings such as those of Luther, of Me- 
 lancthon, or of Erasmus, could be palmed on literary men as the 
 product of the nineteenth century. Constitutional temperament, 
 education, the company he keeps, the sentiments he hears, the books 
 he reads, the scenes he witnesses, and the objects he pursues, all 
 combine to influence the opiniors, and modify the character of the 
 individual. In like manner, the constitution of society, the pre- 
 vailing forms of government, political changes, and antecedent 
 revolutions, all combine to modify national character, and to deter- 
 mine the character of the age itself, and consequently to affect the 
 character of its literature also. 
 
 Among the causes thus operating on the human mind, the views 
 entertained of religion cannot be the least influential ; and, conse- 
 quently, the extensive dissemination of writings, such as those of 
 which the Bible is made up, ?nust have told, and told powerfully, 
 upon the sentiments and the writings, at least, if not also upon the 
 conduct of men. To some few among ancient writers, such as 
 Plato and Seneca, the Scriptures were probably not wholly un- 
 known. But it is in modern times only, that these sacred writings 
 have been made extensively known : it is, therefore, in modern 
 literature, chiefly, that we can look for the influence of revealed 
 truth ; and hence, I have proposed to treat of The Indebtedness of 
 Modern Literature to the Bible. 
 
 First, then, Wherever present, the Bible has fostered the spirit 
 of sound learning. From times of the remotest antiquity, it would 
 appear that learning and religion have been closely connected 
 together. Not to enlarge on the fact that even among the ancient 
 heathen, their priesthood were usually their learned men, (just as 
 though religion, even in its basest counterfeits, professing, as it 
 does, to deal with the interests of the inner spirit of man, must 
 necessarily cultivate the intellect, as a part of her own peculiar 
 province,) it is obvious that the chief agents employed of heaven to 
 receive and to promulgate revealed truth, were the friends and cul- 
 tivators of learning. Moses, the Jewish lawgiver, " ivas learned in 
 all the wisdom of the Egyptians" and was, unquestionably, the 
 most distinguished man of his age. The author of the book of Job 
 was evidently a man of highly cultivated mind. The royal Solo- 
 mon, and among the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel, were 
 all accomplished scholars : while, even so early as the time of Sam- 
 uel, seminaries of learning, called "schools of the prophets" were 
 maintained, from among the students in which were selected those 
 on whom God sent the spirit of prophecy. 
 
 The first teachers of the Christian faith were trained for years 
 near the person, and under the instructions of their divine Master, 
 so as to be thoroughly versed in ethics and theology ; and then 
 
they were supernaturally endowed, at once, with a knowledge of 
 the languages necessary for the successful prosecution of their mis- 
 sion — a knowledge which, otherwise, the tedious labour of >ears 
 could alone have secured to them. Paul, from whose pen we have 
 more than from that of any other of the New Testament writers, 
 was a man, not only of unusual mental vigour, but also of varied 
 reading, and of extensive, if not profound erudition. But, besides 
 this learning found in some of the sacred writers, the very nature of 
 the Bible is such as to call for attention to learning, at least in those 
 who study in order to expound it. A divine revelation must be 
 communicated in some particular language, or languages, which, 
 to men of other nations, must be foreign and unintelligible without 
 study. The original tongues of the Old and the New Testament 
 have now, for many ages, been dead languages. A knowledge of 
 these languages can, therefore, be acquired only by careful study. 
 In addition to all this, the Bible is, in some parts, of antiquity so 
 remote, it embodies allusions to times, and places, and persons, so very 
 ancient, and so entirely removed out of the range of ordinary re- 
 search, that, in order to understand it fully, not only must various 
 languages be studied, but a wide range of investigation must be t 
 made in history, chronology, geography, and sundry other branches i 
 of knowledge. Accordingly it has been found, in every age, that 
 where the Bible was, there learning flourished. Among the most 
 assiduous cultivators of learning, in their day, were the advocates of & 
 revealed truth in the first four centuries of the Christian era. Dur- j> 
 ing the long night of intellectual darkness, in what are called the 
 middle ages, learning was confined, almost exclusively, to the cells J* 
 of the monasteries. But in those cells the Bible was, and was ii 
 studied, while on the great mass of men, from whom the Bible was ' 
 withheld, the deep darkness of utter ignorance rested. So long 
 as the church taught the traditions of men, keeping the Bible hid 
 from public view, learning languished, and was found only among 
 the clergy : but when the Reformation insisted on the exclusive 
 authority of revelation in matters of faith and practice, and pro- 
 claimed the Bible as the book for the people, learning revived, the 
 study of ancient languages was entered upon with ardour, other 
 branches of learning received increased attention, numerous versions 
 of the Bible in modern tongues were made, and published for the 
 use of the people. Commentaries and expository works of various 
 kinds were produced and published, and the art of criticism was 
 once more called into operation, and greatly improved. So true it 
 is, as the learned Blackstone remarks, when advocating the neces- 
 sity for a liberal education at the university, as a preparation for the 
 study of law, " The sciences are of a social disposition, and flourish 
 best in the neighbourhood of each other ; nor is there any branch of 
 
learning but may be helped and improved, by assistance drawn 
 from other arts." Blackstone's Commentaries, Book I. §1. Vol. I. 
 p. 19. And we may add, there is no one branch of learning which 
 can be thoroughly mastered, without attention to many other de- 
 partments of knowledge : yea, a love for one learned pursuit will 
 inevitably impel to the study of kindred and illustrative branches of 
 knowledge. Thus it was actually found that, wherever the Bible 
 was, there learning took up her abode, and multiplied her votaries, 
 and achieved her triumphs. But learning is the foundation of lite- 
 rature. In fostering learning, then, the Bible has rendered essen- 
 tial service to the cause of literature. It has called it into existence, 
 and mainly determined its character. 
 
 For, secondly, Some of the prof oundest works of modern lite- 
 rature have been called forth by the Bible. Wherever the Bible is 
 known, and duly prized, it awakens a spirit of learned research : 
 ancient languages, the classics of Greece and Rome, as well as of 
 Judea, become objects of diligent study ; and learned lexicons, and 
 laboriously compiled grammars, and critical editions of the ancient 
 classics, (those of Greece, especially,) are put forth, as a means of 
 elucidating the sacred text, or of fitting the student of revealed 
 truth, rightly to investigate, properly to appreciate, and correctly 
 to • expound it. For the same purpose, also, the vast stores of 
 ancient history must be unlocked, to furnish the world with such 
 works as Prideaux's Connection of Sacred and Profane History, 
 the Annals of Archbishop Usher, and the works of Lightfoote, of 
 Home, of Lardner, and Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible. An im- 
 mense amount of learning has been employed in framing commen- 
 taries on the Bible, and expositions of its several books. Pole's 
 Synopsis of Critical Expositions, Blayney's Jeremiah, Lowth's 
 Isaiah, Newton on the Prophecies, Ainsworth on the Pentateuch, 
 Michaelis on the Old and on the New Testament, Campbell's 
 Notes on the Gospels, Rosenmtiller's Scholia, and the Commenta- 
 ries of Kuinoel, are all works of great learning, and they discover 
 vast research. 
 
 Besides this, in reply to the objection of infidels, many able 
 works have been written in defence of the Bible, from Watson's 
 Apology, Leland's View of Deistical Writers, and Paley's Evi- 
 dences, down to the Evidences as presented by Bishop M'llvaine 
 of this country, and by Bishop Wilson of Calcutta. For vigorous 
 thought, sound reasoning, lucid arrangement, and beautiful simpli- 
 city of style, many of the productions of this class stand unrivalled 
 in our language. The works of Paley, especially,. are models of 
 composition, and of felicitous reasoning. 
 
 In other departments, the Bible has called forth the works of 
 Bochart,of Reland,and Lowth on Hebrew Poetry, all distinguished 
 
7 
 
 for profound erudition ; while, in our own language, (to say 
 nothing of Milton, of Young, and of Pollock,) such writers as 
 Jeremy Taylor, Home, Hooker, Barrow, Sherlock, Bishop Butler, 
 and a host of others (constituting the very flower of our English 
 literature) were induced to write solely from reverence for the 
 Bible. In English literature, the Bible has proved the most liberal 
 of all patrons. 
 
 But, thirdly, The science of Jurisprudence is also largely in- 
 debted to the Bible. This every sound lawyer will readily allow. 
 In the books of Moses, written in the very remotest age of the 
 world, and when mankind were everywhere little better than 
 barbarians, we have presented in brief a body of laws which, to 
 this day, is admitted by those most competent to judge, to be the 
 very best code ever given to mankind ; the model on which all 
 subsequent legislators have proceeded in framing their statutes. 
 
 " As God, (says Blackstone,) when he created matter, and en- 
 dued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for 
 the direction of that motion, so, when he created man, and endued 
 him with free will, to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid 
 down certain immutable laws of nature, whereby that free will is, 
 in some degree, regulated and restrained, and gave him also the 
 faculty of reason, to discover the purport of those laws. These are 
 the eternal and immutable laws of good and evil, to which God 
 himself always conforms, and which, as applicable to man, reason 
 can discover; and which are so admirably ordered of God, as 
 always to promote the substantial and permanent happiness of 
 men ; such, e. g. as that we should live honourably, hurt nobody, 
 and render to every one his due. Indeed, to these three precepts 
 Justinian has reduced the whole doctrine of law. This is the Law 
 of Nature. But further, in compassion to the frailty, the imper- 
 fection, and the blindness of human reason, God hath been pleased, 
 at sundry times and in divers manners, to discover and enforce his 
 law T s by an immediate and direct revelation. The doctrines thus 
 delivered we call the revealed or divine Law, and they are to be 
 found only in the holy Scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, 
 are found, upon comparison, to be really a part of the original law 
 of nature, as they tend, in all their consequences, to man's felicity : 
 but, though agreeable to right reason, reason, unaided and alone, 
 could not make them known. Upon these two foundations, the 
 law of nature, and the law of revelation, depend all human law 7 s: 
 that is to say, no human laws should contradict these."* 
 
 * I think myself happy in being able to introduce the following noble 
 testimony to the value of the Bible, in legal science and civil government 
 from the pen of that able jurist and distinguished man, Chief Justice 
 
8 
 
 Thus full and explicit is the great Commentator on Law, in re- 
 gard to the supreme authority of the Bible in legal science : and in 
 the writings of the ablest jurists everywhere are found, expressed 
 or implied, similar concessions to the fundamental importance of 
 the Bible in the science of jurisprudence. So close, indeed, is the 
 connection between biblical and legal knowledge, that " during 
 
 Hornblower of New Jersey, found in his Charge to the Grand Jury of 
 Essex County, N. J., Jan. 7, 1843. " We have in the Bible a wiser and a 
 holier rule of action than the wisdom of man ever conceived, and in fewer 
 words than all the learning of the schools ever compressed the wisest of 
 their maxims : ' Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
 even so to them !' This is emphatically the golden rule. It is universal 
 in its application, and eternal in its principles. It lies at the foundation 
 of our jurisprudence, legal and equitable, civil and criminal ; and if acted 
 on, this would do more to purify society, and elevate man to his true dig- 
 nity as a rational and immortal being, than all the learning of the schools, 
 and the vain philosophy of the world. 
 
 " It is a short and simple lesson that all may learn, from the lisping 
 child of civilization to the grey-headed and untutored savage of the wil- 
 derness — a lesson which, if all would inculcate and practise, would 
 smooth down the asperities of life, mitigate the sorrows incident to hu- 
 manity, sweeten the springs of domestic enjoyment, strengthen and beau- 
 tify the bonds of the social compact, dispense with the officers of justice, 
 demolish our prisons, and pull down the last scaffold that should ever be 
 erected for the execution of the convict. 
 
 "But instead of this, we are constantly told of the dignity and perfecti- 
 bility of human nature, the noble qualities of the mind, and the elevating 
 influence of education in the illimitable fields of art and science upon the 
 happiness of man ; and each lecturer, in his turn, has just discovered some 
 new principle in nature, or above nature, which is to rectify all the ills of 
 life, &c. 
 
 "When these giants in human intellect can tell me whence Moses de- 
 rived his science in legislation, without admitting the supernatural and 
 divine authority of the Ten Commandments, I shall begin to listen with 
 more reverence to the teachers of human perfectibility. In that short and 
 comprehensive code, we find given to us a perfect rule of action, covering 
 the whole ground of man's existence : a rule, not only prescribing our 
 duty to God and man, in our external behaviour, but reaching to the 
 secret thoughts and feelings of our hearts in every possible condition of 
 life, and in all our relations to our Maker and our fellow-beings. The 
 wisdom of ages, the learning and philosophy oi" the schools, have never 
 discovered a single defect in that code. Not a virtue which is not there 
 inculcated. Not a vice, in its most doubtful and shadowy form, which is 
 not there prohibited. Whence, then, I ask, did the great Jewish law- 
 giver derive his spirit of legislation ? If that code was written by the fin- 
 ger of the Almighty, let us bow to it with holy reverence, and seek no bet- 
 ter rule of life, nor any wiser principles of action. But if they emanated 
 only from the capacious mind, and were dictated by the wisdom of Moses 
 — then Moses was a wiser, a more learned man, than any of our new 
 teachers ; and I had rather be under his jurisdiction and keep his com- 
 mandments, than learn new rules of civil polity and social intercourse 
 from the most learned and wise of the present day." 
 
the middle ages, (as Selden remarks,) the clergy, as they then en- 
 grossed every other branch of learning, so they were particularly 
 remarkable for their proficiency in the study of the law : it was 
 then taught by them in the monasteries, in the universities, and in 
 the families of the principal nobility." " Nullus clericus, nisi cau- 
 sidicus," (every priest is a lawyer,) is the character given of them 
 soon after the conquest. The judges, therefore, were usually cre- 
 ated out of the sacred order ; as was the case also among the Nor- 
 mans: and all the inferior officers in courts of law were supplied 
 by the lower clergy, which has caused their successors to be de- 
 nominated clerks (clerici) to this day. 
 
 But again, fourthly, The Bible has greatly contributed to pro- 
 mote the general diffusion of intelligence among the mass of the 
 people. Various considerations combine to assure us that such is 
 the fact. The testimony of all competent and impartial observers 
 declares, that among the mass of the people in those countries yet 
 destitute of a knowledge of revelation, gross ignorance prevails. 
 The little learning they do possess is confined to a very small class, 
 the privileged few : the body of the population are, in point of 
 intellect, but little elevated above the brutes around them. Yea, 
 even in nations nominally Christian, the difference in the amount of 
 intelligence among the common people, where the Bible is open to 
 all, and among those where it is not in their hands, is almost 
 incredibly great. Go among the poorer population of Catholic 
 Ireland, of Italy, of Spain, or even of France, and you will find the 
 grossest ignorance almost universally prevalent. They are taught 
 to delegate the care of their future interests to their priests, and 
 with the delegation, they seem to abandon almost the power of 
 thought. Tn such communities you will find many minds naturally 
 shrewd, vigorous, and active, but shrunk and paralyzed, for want 
 of having their powers called into proper action. Relying on 
 mere outward rites, truth, in all her majesty, her beauty, and her 
 far-reaching influences, seems hid from their view, and lost even to 
 
 their wishes Now, with such a people, compare the same 
 
 class of population as found in Scotland, or in New England, 
 w T here the Bible is, emphatically, " the people's book ;" where it is 
 found in every house, in the rich man's library, and on the cot- 
 tager's table, where it is read in every school-house, and where its 
 sacred precepts are reverently listened to around the cheerful hearth 
 of the day-labourer, and you will find a great difference in the 
 amount of popular intelligence. This the Scottish poet, Burns, 
 well understood ; and accordingly he describes his cottage labourer 
 .dosing the pleasant family intercourse on Saturday night i 
 
10 
 
 " The cheerful supper done, wi' serious face, 
 They round the ingle form a circle wide ; 
 The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, 
 The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride : 
 His bonnet reverently is laid aside, 
 His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare : 
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
 He wales a portion with judicious care ; 
 And, " Let us worship God," he says, with solemn air. 
 
 The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 
 How Abram was the friend of God on high. 
 Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 
 With Amalek's ungracious progeny : 
 Or how the royal bard did groaning lie 
 Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire : 
 Or, Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry, 
 Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire, 
 Or other holy seers, that tun'd the sacred lyre. 
 
 Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme — 
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed : 
 How He who bore in heaven the second name, 
 Had not on earth whereon to lay his head : 
 How his first followers and servants sped — 
 The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : 
 How he, who lone in Patmos banished, 
 Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, 
 And heard great Babylon's doom pronounc'd by. Heaven's commando. 
 
 Then kneeling down, to Heaven's eternal King 
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays. 
 
 ***** 
 
 From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
 That makes her loved at home, revered abroad." 
 
 Yes, — in such a country it is that you find a thinking, reasoning com- 
 munity, given to reflection, and comparatively free from supersti- 
 tion. Nor is the cause of this difference unintelligible or obscure. 
 By the amazing truths which it presents, the Bible is directly cal- 
 culated to awaken thought, intense thought ; and it furnishes abun- 
 dant materials to feed and to maintain thought. Destitute of reve- 
 lation, man's thoughts are confined to this world, its pleasures, its 
 cares, and its interests : and what can the mere notion of a local 
 deity, like the heathen idols, or of a patron saint to look to for 
 protection, do to elevate the thoughts and stimulate the intellect ? 
 How meagre and uninfiuential were the notions of superior be- 
 ings, entertained by the most polished of ancient pagan philoso- 
 phers. But, open the page of inspiration before man's eye, and 
 what a host of glorious truths and ennobling ideas is at once pre- 
 sented to his mind ! The nature and attributes of the Eternal Spirit,, 
 his boundless power^ his spotless holiness, his inflexible Justice, 
 
11 
 
 man's responsibility, and, above all, the stupendous discoveries of 
 divine mercy in the plan of redemption, are truths blazing on every 
 page of theBible,-- -truths admirably adapted to arrest attention, to 
 awaken thought, profound, intense, long continued thought, and 
 by their influence, to touch the springs of human feeling, expand 
 the very dimensions of the mind itself, and new model the entire 
 character. These and similar truths (presented only in the Bible) 
 cannot be uninfluential on the mind that perceives and contemplates 
 them. Just so far as the Bible is known and studied in a commu- 
 nity, are these truths known ; and so far must their influence be felt. 
 But if an ennobling influence be thus diffused over the public mind, 
 the effects of that influence cannot fail to show itself on the litera- 
 ture, which is at once the offspring and the guage of popular intellect. 
 But, fifthly, The Bible has elevated the tone of morals in hu- 
 man society, and has awakened a gentler spirit in mail's bosom. 
 That the standard of morals is greatly elevated by the Bible, no 
 well-informed person can doubt. A comparison of heathen tribes, 
 ancient or modern, with a Christian community in this respect, pre- 
 sents ample confirmation of this position. The picture of heathen 
 morals drawn by the Apostle Paul in the first chapter of Romans, 
 and in sundry other passages in his epistles, is found reflected in 
 the pages of the most polished writers of classical antiquity, Greek 
 and Roman both; and the testimony of missionaries long resi- 
 dent among the heathen of our own day, and that of observant 
 and impartial travellers, assures us that it is a faithful likeness to 
 the present hour. The pages of ancient learning and elegance 
 are often defaced by unutterable abominations, which appear to 
 have been placed there with hardly a consciousness of impropri- 
 ety on the part of the accomplished writers. There m.ay, indeed, 
 be similar abominations perpetrated in the bosom of Society now, 
 and possibly the amount of actual wickedness is not very greatly 
 diminished in our day, for the human heart is always the same. 
 But, if so, the evil is perpetrated secretly, and cautiously, not chal- 
 lenging notice in open day. It is, even by the perpetrators, felt 
 to be an evil, a thing to be ashamed of, not protruded before others 
 and openly gloried in. Works, which, in the polished age of Augus- 
 tus, were everywhere well received, would not now be tolerated : 
 no man would dare to publish them in any country in Christendom. 
 Even in the corrupt capitals of Europe, however reckless the dissi- 
 pation of actual life, literature must present at least the external aspect 
 of decency. The unprincipled and the abandoned may now be as 
 desperately wicked as were the most dissolute among the heathen 
 of old, but there is now, through the influence of the Bible, an in- 
 comparably larger proportion of human society, than heathenism 
 ever knew, that love and practice purity of life ; and the influence 
 
12 
 
 of these serves to restrain the open exhibition of licentiousness, 
 in every part of the community, and in every grade of society. 
 
 Moreover, the peaceful spirit of revelation has spread its influ- 
 ence far and wide, through every part of human society. Men 
 no longer deem all foreign nations barbarians, lying almost beyond 
 the pale of humanity. No longer is warfare conducted in the spirit 
 of sanguinary ferocity that prevailed among ancient pagans, and 
 still prevails among heathen tribes. Formerly captives taken in 
 war were put io death in cold blood, without any sense of injustice, 
 any feeling of shame. The mildest doom impending over the 
 captive, was to pass his life in hopeless slavery under his con- 
 queror, or those to whom that conqueror might sell him. " Even 
 so late as the 16th century, (says Chancellor Kent,) in many in- 
 stances, shipwrecked strangers were made prisoners, and sold as 
 slaves, without exciting any complaint, or offending any public 
 sense of shame. Numerous cases occurred of acts of the grossest 
 perfidy and cruelty towards mere strangers, as well as towards en- 
 emies. Prisoners were put to death for their gallantry and brave 
 defence in war. There was no reliance to be placed upon the 
 word and honour of men in power." Kent's Com. Vol. I. p. 9. But a 
 decided reformation of manners and improvement of feeling has- 
 been effected in modern times ; " and," says Chancellor Kent again,. 
 (Vol. L p. 10.) " the influence of Christianity (i. e. the Bible) has 
 been very efficient towards the introduction of a better and more 
 enlightened sense of right and justice among the several govern- 
 ments of Europe. It taught the duty of benevolence to strangers, 
 of humanity to the vanquished, of the obligation of good faith, — 
 of the sin of murder, revenge, and rapacity. The history of Eu- 
 rope, during the earlier periods of modern history, abounds with 
 interesting and strong cases, to show the authority of revelation 
 over turbulent princes and fierce warriors, and the effect of that 
 authority in meliorating manners, checking violence, and introduc- 
 ing a system of morals which inculcated peace, moderation, and 
 justice." Just so far as the doctrines of the Bible are received 
 which teach that men are all of one race, members of one family, 
 children of the same Heavenly Father, may the spirit of humanity 
 be expected to prevail; and when, moreover, the soul's immortality 
 is fully admitted, it throws a sacredness over the estimate of hu- 
 man life, and presents war and bloodshed and violence in a most 
 repulsive light. Accordingly, a more humane and liberal spirit- 
 characterizes the intercourse of nations one with another : a resort 
 to war (except in cases of absolute necessity) is everywhere con- 
 demned by public opinion, and modern literature shows the influ- 
 ence of this change; it is more liberal, it breathes less of a sangui- 
 nary spirit and exhibits far more refinement, gentleness, and delU 
 
13 
 
 cacy of feeling. More especially is this change apparent in the dif- 
 ferent manner in which woman is everywhere treated in Christian 
 society, and the different light in which she is depicted and spoken 
 of in literary works. On this point much might be said, but this 
 brief allusion must here suffice. As woman sways a gentle but 
 all-commanding influence at the domestic hearth, and in the com- 
 munity around her ; as her spirit is preeminently the presiding genius 
 of home, with all its calm joys; so, in the literature of modern times, 
 the altered position of woman seems to show itself, in a pure and 
 hallowed influence shed over the whole range of literary produc- 
 tion. Her gentle spirit is there, as in the home of the mind. But it is 
 he Bible that has elevated woman, cultivated her mind, polished 
 her manners, and chastened her spirit; and through her it has sent 
 this gentle influence on human intercourse and on modern literature. 
 But again, sixthly, The Bible has furnished to modern litera- 
 ture topics of peculiar grandeur, and thoughts of rare beauty, utterly 
 unknown where revelation is not. How poor and unsatisfactory 
 were the conceptions of the most distinguished writers of classical an- 
 tiquity concerning the nature and the destiny of man, and especially 
 concerning a superior power. How human in their passions, and 
 degraded in character, are all of the numerous gods and demi-gods 
 with which Homer peoples his Olympus ! How even the wisest of 
 the ancient philosophers encumber their description of a supreme 
 deity by the notion of the stern decrees of irresistible fate, to which 
 the highest of their deities is subject ! Among many things that 
 are beautiful, and some that are truly sublime, this poverty of 
 thought respecting the Great First Cause exerts a belittling influ- 
 ence that is continually felt. In the writings of the wisest of the 
 ancients, man is often represented as equal in dignity of character 
 to their gods, if not positively superior. 
 
 But now, what a commanding influence over the whole range 
 of human thought and conception, flows from the sublime idea pre- 
 sented in revelation, of One God, the cause of all things, himself 
 uncaused, eternal, unchangeable, supremely independent, perfect in 
 his nature, and infinite in all his attributes ! The presentation of 
 that one glorious conception to the mind, is like the rising of the 
 sun to the bodily vision ; the darkness and uncertainty previously 
 resting on every object are dissipated, and a world bursts forth to 
 view, in all its beauty of forms, its symmetry of proportions, and its 
 multiplicity of mutual relations, each object appearing in its true 
 nature, its proper position, its due connections ! Who can estimate 
 the far-reaching influence on human thought of this one discovery 
 of a spiritual Being, the Creator of all, who said, " Let there be light !" 
 and there was light ; who "spake, and it was done ; who command- 
 ed, and it stood fast?" What a subject for reflection — an Almighty 
 
14 
 
 God, omnipresent and omniscient! How can it do other than influence 
 and new model the whole current of human thought, and the very 
 modes of expressing thought ? Now, this grand idea is derived from 
 the Bible, and no one yet has estimated . the amount of sublime 
 thought and ennobling sentiment it has shed over our modern lite- 
 rature, even those portions of it that have proceeded from men who 
 scoff at that very Bible to which they are indebted for nearly every 
 thought that gives force and beauty to their productions : as, e. g., 
 that conception of Byron's, presenting, in the presence of Manfred, 
 the Spirit of Evil to the gaze of the startled Abbot, who exclaims, 
 with pious horror, 
 
 " Ah ! he unveils his aspect : on his brow 
 The thunder scars are graven: from his eye 
 Glares forth the immortality of hell !" 
 
 The doom of Cain was obviously in the writer's mind. And what 
 but a reflected image of grand ideas presented in the Bible, is that 
 beautiful passage near the close of Childe Harold, the address to the 
 ocean ! 
 
 "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll ! 
 Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee, in vain : 
 Man marks the earth with ruin, his control 
 Stops with the shore : upon the watery plain 
 The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
 A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
 When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
 He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
 Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown- 
 Time writes no wrinkles, on thine azure brow; 
 Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now, 
 Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form. 
 Glasses itself in tempests: in all time 
 Calm or convuls'd, in breeze or gale or storm, 
 Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
 Dark heaving : boundless, endless, and sublime, 
 The image of eternity — the throne 
 Of the invisible ; — even from out thy slime 
 The monsters of the deep are made; each zone 
 Obeys thee; — thou goest forth dread, fathomless, alone" 
 
 Compared with such images, the finest figures of ancient classic 
 eloquence are tame and common-place. But every one of these 
 splendid images is furnished in the Bible ! Thus, the creation of 
 the monsters of the deep out of the slime of ocean, is an idea 
 suggested by that passage in Genesis 2 : 20, 21. And God created 
 great whales (sea-monsters) and every living creature that moveth, 
 which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind. The 
 impotence of man on the ocean, is suggested by contrast from the 
 
15 
 
 scriptural declaration of God's exclusive power to say to the 
 boisterous element, " hitherto shalt thou come, and no further, and 
 here shall thy proud waves be stayed." Job 38 : 11. "While the 
 idea of the ocean's being God's throne, and the Almighty's form 
 glassing itself in tempests upon ocean, as in a mirror, is only a 
 beautiful presentation of the thought so often found in Holy Writ, 
 that God, as king, sitteth upon the floods ; he maketh darkness his 
 pavilion round about him ; thick clouds and tempests are under his 
 feet ; — yea, he rideth upon the wings of the wind ! — That fine 
 passage in Manfred, in which the sage defies the fiend, and declares 
 himself the architect of his own destiny : 
 
 -" Back to thy hell. 
 
 Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel ; 
 
 Thou never shalt possess me, that I know. 
 
 What I have done, is done. I have within 
 
 A torture which could nothing gain from thine : 
 
 The mind which is immortal, makes itself 
 
 Requital for its good or evil thoughts, 
 
 Is its own origin of ill, and end. 
 
 And its own place and time ; its innate sense, 
 
 When stripp'd of this mortality, derives 
 
 No colour from the fleeting things without; 
 
 But is absorb'd in sufferance or in joy, 
 
 Born from the knowledge of its own desert. 
 
 Thou didst not tempt me. and thou couldst not tempt me ; 
 
 I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey, 
 
 But was my own destroyer, and will be 
 
 My own hereafter. — Back, ye baffled fiends ! 
 
 The hand of death is on me, — but not yours." 
 
 This very spirited passage is but a poetic amplification of the Bible 
 doctrine, " Whatsover a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
 
 The several passages in different writers in which remorse is so 
 vividly described, — such as that of Pollock, Book III., p. 83 : 
 
 " There is a fire, that on the verge of God's commandments 
 Burns, and on the vitals feeds of all who pass — 
 Who pass — there meet remorse VI 
 
 and that splendid passage in Byron's Giaour : 
 
 " The mind that broods o'er guilty woes, 
 
 Is like the scorpion, girt by fire, 
 In circle narrowing as it glows ; 
 The flames around their captive close, 
 Till, only search'd by thousand throes, 
 
 And maddening in her ire, 
 One sad and sole relief she knows, 
 The sting she nourish'd for her foes, 
 
 Whose venom never yet was vain, 
 
 Gives but one pang, and cures all pain, 
 
 And darts into her desperate brain. 
 
16 
 
 So do the dark in soul expire, 
 
 Or live, ]ike scorpion girt by fire : 
 
 So writhes the mind remorse hath riven,-*—- 
 
 Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven 5 
 
 Darkness above, despair beneath. 
 
 Around it flame, within it death !" 
 
 are plainly based upon the Bible representations of the restlessness 
 of the wicked, to whom there is no peace ; and especially upon that 
 terrific image of unending remorse hereafter, where their worm dieth 
 not, and the fire is not quenched. So that graphic couplet from 
 Shakspeare's Henry VL : 
 
 " Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind ; 
 The thief doth fear each bush an officer." 
 
 and again — 
 
 " What stronger breast-piate than a heart untainted. 
 Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just ; 
 And he, but naked, — tho* lock'd up in steel, 
 Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." 
 
 (Henry VI. Part II.) 
 
 exhibit, only more amplified, the thought of Solomon, " The wicked 
 flee when no man pursueth ; — but the righteous are bold as a lion V' 
 Prov. 28 : 1. — The same thought, doubtless, gave birth to those 
 striking lines in Scott's Marmion : 
 
 " Thus oft it haps, that when within 
 They shrink at sense of secret sin, 
 
 A feather daunts the brave : 
 A fool's wild speech confounds the wise, 
 And proudest princes veil their eyes 
 
 Before their meanest slave." 
 
 There is a curious and very beautiful idea presented in Campbell's 
 Gertrude of Wyoming, viz., that the very dagger which slays the 
 cruel foe, is sharpened by contact with the heart it smites : 
 
 " Old Outalissi woke his battle song — 
 
 ****** 
 
 To whet a dagger on their stony hearts, 
 
 And smile avenged, ere yet his eagle spirit parts." 
 
 A similar thought is involved in the bitter taunt that Gratianc 
 throws out against Shylock, as he is whetting his knife on the sole 
 of his shoe, in the trial of Antonio, on his bond, before the Duke, 
 in the Merchant of Venice : 
 
 11 Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew, 
 Thou mak'st thy knife keen !" 
 
 Now, in both these passages, the thought is but a reflected image 
 of the figure so often employed in the Bible, of " a heart of stone " to 
 denote extreme obduracy in evil. 
 
17 
 
 It is from the Bible alone that we derive any certain knowledge 
 of a future state ; the idea of a heaven of purity and joy for the 
 righteous, of a hell of sorrow for the wicked. How puerile were 
 the conceptions of the ancient philosophers as to the condition of 
 the good in Elysium, (a land of discontented shadows, pining ever 
 after earth and its pleasures,) and of the fantastic griefs of the bad 
 in Tartarus, — when compared with the recorded decision of the 
 Bible, " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," in heaven, 
 or in hell forever ! How many pleasing associations, also, are 
 connected with our knowledge of angelic beings, spirits yet nobler 
 than men ! But the existence of angels is made known to us only 
 in the Bible ! 
 
 Withdraw the Bible, then, from among men, destroy the 
 knowledge of all that is taught in the Bible, and what words 
 can express the change which would at once take place in our 
 literature % The origin of man, the fall, the deluge, the early history 
 of our race, the primal settlement of nations, — the history of the 
 patriarchs, the origin and early history of that singular race, the 
 Jews, are all, all, effectually swept out of memory : with them, the 
 splendid creations of Milton's genius sink into annihilation ; Buny an's 
 Pilgrim and his Holy War are lost to us ; the manly reasoning of 
 Paley, the profound argument of Butler, the eloquence of Barrow 
 and Sherlock, of Tillotson and Taylor, of Howe and Flavel, of 
 Robert Hall, of Dwight and Chalmers, are all lost to us. The 
 learned labours of Prideaux and Leland, and Stillingfleet and 
 Watson, of Leslie and West, of Michaelis, of Bengel and Kennicott, 
 of Beza, of Calvin, of Luther, and of a host innumerable, are all 
 buried in eternal oblivion; — while the sweetest strains of Klopstock, 
 of Tasso, of Dante, of our own Thomson and Pope, of Cowper 
 and Montgomery, of Campbell and of Scott, die away in eternal 
 silence. The reasonings of Locke, of Stewart, of Reide, and even 
 of Brown, must be entirely new-modelled ; and scarcely will the 
 department of natural science remain unscathed, so wide-spread, so 
 almost universal would be the sweep of destruction among the noblest 
 works of our literature, that must follow in the train of the Bible's 
 extinction. 
 
 Moreover, from the mere remnant of literature that would escape 
 utter oblivion, the richest ornaments, the most striking thoughts, the 
 most impressive figures would be erased : — for the choicest of all 
 these are borrowed from the Bible. When you meet with a pecu- 
 liarly grand thought, or forcible figure, in the w 7 orks of such writers 
 as Dryden,Pope, Byron — aye, Shakspeare himself, the master deeply 
 learned in the human heart — you will find, almost certainly, that it 
 is drawn from the Bible ; it is the echo of some thought there found. 
 Thus that beautiful closing line in the funeral song, on the burial of 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 Sir John Moore, " We left him alone ivith his glory!" is obviously 
 but a reflex image of the sublime picture furnished by Isaiah, when 
 describing Sheol, the place where the dead are congregated : " All 
 the kings of the earth, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in 
 his own house!" Isa. 14 : 18. 
 
 In like manner, Byron's Giaour has a fine passage, in which, 
 after Hassan has been slain by a sudden onslaught of his foe, the 
 Giaour, the mother of Hassan is represented as awaiting his return, 
 and wondering at his delay ; thus — 
 
 " The browsing camel bells are tinkling, 
 His mother look'd from her lattice high, 
 
 She saw the dews of eve besprinkling 
 The pasture green beneath her eye, 
 
 She saw the planets faintly twinkling : 
 'Tis twilight, — sure his train is nigh. 
 
 She could not rest in his garden bower, 
 
 But gaz'd thro' the grate of hi* steepest tower : 
 Why comes he not ? his steeds are fleet, 
 Nor shrink they from the summer heat ; 
 
 Why sends not the bridegroom his promis'd gift?" 
 
 This spirited description is but a modern application of a yet finer 
 passage in the triumphant song of Deborah, the Jewish prophetess 
 and judge (Judges 5 : 28-30) : " The mother of Sisera looked 
 out at a window, and cried through the lattice, i Why is his chariot 
 so long in coming 1 Why tarry the wheels of his chariots V Her 
 wise ladies answered her, yea, she returned answer to herself, Have 
 they not sped ? Have they not divided the prey ? to every man a 
 damsel or two : to Sisera a prey of divers colours, of divers colours 
 of needlework, of divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet 
 for the necks of them that take the spoils V 9 
 
 That touching passage in Childe Harold, in which the untimely 
 death of the Princess Charlotte of England, and of her new-born 
 son, is lamented, is but a sweet echo of one of the most beautiful 
 passages found in the Hebrew prophets : 
 
 " Hark ! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, 
 
 A long low distant murmur of dread sound, 
 Such as arises when a nation bleeds 
 
 With some deep and immedicable wound ; 
 Through storm and darkness yawns the pending ground, 
 
 The gulf is thick with phantoms ; — but the chief 
 Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd 
 
 And pale — but lovely, * * * * 
 
 Scion of chiefs and monarchs ! where art thou? 
 
 Fond hope of many nations — art thou dead ? 
 Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low 
 
 Some less majestic, less beloved head V 
 
 This is truly beautiful, but its whole beauty is borrowed ; — 'tis 
 
19 
 
 only a skilful application of that passage in Isaiah which represents 
 the shades of the monarchs of earth gathered in Acheron, and 
 awaiting the coming of the shade of the mighty king of Babylon : 
 " The abyss from Vjeneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy 
 coming : it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of 
 the earth : it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the 
 nations. All they shall speak, and shall say unto thee, Art thou 
 also become weak as we ? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, 
 and the noise of thy viols : the worm is spread under thee, and the 
 worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, Lucifer, 
 son of the morning ! how art thou cut down to the ground, which 
 didst weaken the nations ! " Isaiah 14 : 9-12. 
 
 So also that affecting picture which the noble poet presents to 
 the widowed husband of the lamented princess : 
 
 "Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made, 
 Thy bridal fruit is ashes : in the dust 
 The fair-hair'd daughter of the isles is laid ; — 
 The love of millions, * * * * 
 
 (Childe Harold, Canto IV., clxx.) 
 
 is but a judicious application of the figures which are furnished in 
 the Hebrew prophet's delineation of the afflicted daughter of Judah, 
 Lam. 2 : 10 : " The elders of the daughter of Judah sit upon the 
 ground, and keep silence : they have cast up dust upon their heads, 
 they have girded themselves with sackcloth : the virgins of Jeru- 
 salem hang down their heads to the ground." And also Jeremiah 
 6 : 26 : " Oh, daughter of Judah, gird thee with sackcloth, and 
 wallow thyself in ashes : make thee mourning as for an only son, 
 most bitter lamentation." 
 
 Nor is it a far-fetched, nor an improbable idea, that would 
 attribute the poetic beauty which invests the introduction, by Shak- 
 speare, of the ghost of Banquo, and of that of Hamlet's father, to 
 the ideas awakened in the poet's mind by the Old Testament record 
 of the raising up of the spirit of the prophet Samuel, by the witch 
 of Endor ; and also the whole of the great dramatic bard's super- 
 natural machinery of the witches in Macbeth, the fairies in the 
 Midsummer Night's Dream, and the obedient spirits of Prospero 
 in the Tempest, to the obscure intimations given in the sacred record, 
 of men's having attempted, in times of old, to have dealings with 
 familiar spirits. I here hazard no conjecture as to the true inter- 
 pretation of such passages in holy writ. I am alluding merely to 
 the influence which the popular understanding of them has had on 
 prevalent superstitions, and on our literature, into which these super- 
 stitions have been wrought with so much skill, and so fine an effect. 
 Nor can we doubt that the idea of Mephistopheles in his Faust, 
 and of his dance and song of the witches, was so suggested to 
 
20 
 
 Goethe ; — and of his Manfred to Byron. In this last mentioned 
 poem, also, the appearance of the shadowy outline of the fiend 
 before Manfred, slowly only, and with horror, discerned by the pious 
 Abbot, thus — 
 
 " Man/. Look there !— what dost thou see ? 
 Ab. Nothing ! 
 Manf. Look there, I say, 
 
 And stedfastly : — now tell me what thou seest ! 
 Ab. That which should shake me, — but I fear it not. 
 I see a dark and awful figure rise, 
 Like an infernal god, from out the earth ; 
 His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form 
 Rob'd as with angry clouds," 
 
 strongly brings to mind that sublime passage in the book of Job 
 (Job 4: 14-16) : " In thoughts from visions of the night, when deep 
 sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me and trembling, which made 
 all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face ; the 
 hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, — but I could not discern 
 the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes; — there was 
 silence, and I heard a voice." The dream of Clarence, in Shak- 
 speare's Richard III., is cast in the same mould. These are but 
 specimens, hastily selected, in illustration of my position, that many 
 of the finest sentiments, and the most beautiful images that adorn 
 our modem literature, are only the echoes of thoughts expressed in 
 the Bible. 
 
 And nowhere is this rich echo of Bible thoughts more distinctly 
 perceptible than in that inimitable address of Portia, when personat- 
 ing the learned Dr. Balthazar, to the relentless Shylock, in order to 
 move him to abate the rigor of.his demand against Antonio, in the 
 Merchant of Venice : 
 
 " The quality of mercy is not strain'd; 
 
 It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven 
 
 Upon the earth beneath. It is twice bless'd : 
 
 It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : 
 
 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest : it becomes 
 
 The throned monarch better than his crown. 
 
 His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
 
 The attribute of awe and majesty, 
 
 Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. 
 
 But mercy is above this sceptred sway ; 
 
 It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
 
 It is an attribute of God himself; 
 
 And earthly power doth then show likest God's 
 
 When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew ! 
 
 Though justice be thy plea, consider this, 
 
 That in the course of justice, none of us 
 
 Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy ; 
 
 And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
 
 The deeds of mercy." 
 
21 
 
 So clearly does this fine passage re-echo Bible thoughts through- 
 out, that it is difficult, as we hear it, not to feel as though listening 
 to sentences selected directly from the Bible itself. And truly the 
 language used in the Bible comes very near it : e. g., " Mercy 
 rejoiceth against judgment," Jas. 2 : 13. " The discretion of a man 
 deferreth his anger, and it is his glory to pass by a transgression," 
 Prov. 19 : 11. " Mercy and truth preserve a king; and his throne 
 is upholden by mercy," Prov. 20 : 28. " Forgive us our trespasses, 
 as we forgive them that trespass against us." " Verily I say unto 
 you, if ye forgive not every man his brother their trespasses, neither 
 will your heavenly Father forgive you." 
 
 Again, — that much admired passage in the Tempest i 
 
 " The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
 And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded, 
 Leave not a rack behind : We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made of, a 
 Is rounded with a sleep," 
 
 is nothing more than a fine amplification of two short passages from 
 the Bible : " The fashion of this world passeth away." And again, 
 " What is your life 1 It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little 
 time, and then vanisheth away !" From the same source, doubtless, 
 sprung that fine passage in Prior's Solomon : 
 
 " A flower that does with opening dawn arise. 
 And, flourishing the day, at evening dies ; 
 A winged eastern blast, just skimming o'er 
 The ocean's brow, and sinking on the shore ; 
 A fire, whose flames thro' crackling stubble fly; 
 A meteor, shooting from the summer sky ; 
 A bowl, adown the bending mountain roli'd; 
 A bubble breaking, — and a fable told: 
 A noontide shadow, and a midnight dream ; 
 Are emblems, which, with semblance apt, proclaim 
 Our earthly course." 
 
 So also that of Fawkes : 
 
 " If life a thousand years, or e'er so few, 
 'Tis repetition all, and nothing new : 
 A fair, where thousands meet, but none can stay ; 
 An inn, where travellers meet, and post away." 
 
 And how majestically does Shakspeare make the fallen Woolsey 
 echo the sentiment of the Hebrew prophet, " All flesh is grass, and 
 the glory thereof as the flower of grass," &c. 
 
 "Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness ! 
 This is the state of man : To-day he puts forth 
 The tender leaves of hope : to-morrow, blossoms, 
 
22 
 
 And bears his blushing honors thick upon him: 
 The third day comes a frost, — a killing frost ; 
 And, when he thinks, (good easy man,) full surely 
 His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root. 
 And then he falls as I do." 
 
 Just so says the prophet, " The wind passeth over it, and it is gone." 
 The Bible is replete with passages of the highest sublimity — 
 passages, many of which breathe, also, a most touching eloquence. 
 Such are, the song of Deborah and Barak, in Judges : the reception 
 given by the shades of Hades to the spirit of Babylon's king, as 
 presented in Isa. chap. 14, already referred to. Such, also, is the 
 triumphant song of the Israelites, on viewing the destruction of 
 Egypt's martial hosts in the Red Sea (Exodus, chap. 15). Such is 
 the prayer of Jonah (Jonah, chap. 2); and where shall we find, in 
 any writings, a passage fuller of grand imagery than the prayer of 
 the prophet Habakkuk, chap. 3 : 3-16 1 Where are sublimity and 
 beauty more richly combined than in the l(J4th Psalm % " Lord 
 my God, thou art very great," &c. &c. Where can you find a more 
 touching description of goodness worthy of the Deity, than in Psalm 
 103 ? " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth 
 them that fear him," &c. &c. How beautiful and how appropriate, 
 too, is the picture drawn by Moses (Deut. 32 : 9, 14) of the care 
 of Jehovah for his own covenant people! "The Lord's portion is 
 his people ; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a 
 desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, 
 he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle 
 stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her 
 wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings ; so the Lord alone 
 did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. He made 
 him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the in- 
 crease of the fields ; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, 
 and oil out of the flinty rock." But I forbear ; the Bible is full of 
 such imagery, grand, striking, and affecting. Do you look for 
 pathos? What more pathetic than David's lament over Jonathan 
 and Saul, slain in battle (2 Sam. 1 : 17-27) ? What more affect- 
 ing than the royal father's heart-piercing lamentation over his fair- 
 haired, but rebellious son ? "0 my son, Absalom ! my son, my son 
 Absalom ! Would God I had died for thee, Absalom, my son, my 
 son!" 
 
 Would you ponder deeply the treasured results of wisdom, the 
 dearbought fruits of experience 1 You have, in the book of Proverbs, 
 an exhaustless storehouse of wisdom, for the guidance of your con- 
 duct in all the diversified circumstances of human life. The one 
 short book of Proverbs contains more sound practical wisdom, than 
 
23 
 
 can be gathered from all the boasted teachings ol all the renowned 
 philosophers of antiquity and of modern times combined. 
 
 Now the Bible, thus teeming with wisdom, and blazing with 
 beauty of thought and splendor of imagery, has, for ages, been in 
 the hands of men ; and these thrilling passages have been before 
 their eyes and present to their minds; and they have mingled in the 
 thoughts and assisted to mould the conceptions and to determine the 
 phraseology of our most masterly writers. 
 
 Let the Bible and its influences, direct and indirect, be blotted out 
 of existence, and you at once extinguish the sun that illumines our 
 literary heavens, and you impair the strength and mar the beauty of 
 our whole literature. 
 
 That book which, whenever possessed, has fostered the spirit of 
 learning in all its varied departments ; which has given birth to some 
 of the profoundest works in existence, written solely for its illustra- 
 tion ; which has laid a broad foundation for the science of jurispru- 
 dence; has promoted (far as it has been known) general intelligence 
 among the mass of the people ; which has decidedly elevated the 
 tone of morals, has imbued mankind with a gentler spirit, and has 
 mitigated the horrors of war ; that book which (besides doing all 
 this) has furnished to our most admired writers, topics of unrivalled 
 grandeur, and images of peculiar beauty, so that its annihilation 
 would deface the largest and the fairest portion of our literature ; 
 that book may well awaken our admiration, ensure our respect, 
 and commend itself to our closest attention, as the sun of true know- 
 ledge, the light and glory of our literature, a prize invaluable to 
 human society, a boon of priceless worth to every young man. 
 
 And that book is the Bible, Heaven's best gift to man. It is 
 the repository of noble thoughts, the originator of splendid imagery, 
 the oracle of soundest wisdom. It is a counsellor to the young, — 
 a solace to the aged. It is the grand text book to the true student ! 
 It sparkles with brilliance, it blazes with beauty, and it breathes the 
 spirit of liberty. It is emphatically and pre-eminently, the book 
 
 FOR THE PEOPLE ! 
 
 Most wondrous book ! bright candle, of the Lord ! 
 
 Star of eternity ! the only star 
 
 By which the bark of man could navigate 
 
 The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 
 
 Securely;— only star which rose on Time, 
 
 And, on its dark and troubled billows, still, 
 
 As generation drifting swiftly by, 
 
 Succeeded generation, — threw a ray 
 
 Of heaven's own light, — and to the hills of God, 
 
 The everlasting hills, — pointed the sinner's eye. 
 
 This book, — this glorious book, on every line 
 
 Mark'd with the seal of high divinity ; 
 
 On every leaf bedew'd with drops of love 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 II 
 
 013 761 410 8 
 
 24 
 
 Divine,— and with ine eternal heraldry 
 And signature of G6d Almighty stampt 
 From first to last,— 'his ray of sacred light, 
 This lamp, from off* the everlasting throne, 
 Mercy took down, aud, in the night of time 
 Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow; 
 And evermore beseeching men with tears 
 And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live!" 
 
 Pollock, B. I. 
 
• H3 
 
UBBA RY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 761410 8 # 
 
 Holiinger 
 
 pH 8.5 
 
 Mill Run F03-2193