Chapter II: Part 2

Still further: Popular Education, to the extent to which it is identified with the Bible, would be subserved by an improved translation. In many parts of the kingdom the Bible, as is well known, is the only organ of education available—the only apparatus by which any ray of intellectual light finds entrance into men’s minds. This may be accounted for from the fact that, in addition to knowledge, Scripture brings with it _the soul’s health_; otherwise, in the rude state in which it finds a large portion of the population, it would have small chance of fulfilling this incidental office of educating the masses. In this light Scripture, where, as in Protestant countries, it is freely diffused, must be regarded as a most precious boon to a nation—as a guarantee, in fact, that the people shall be in some sort educated, and invested with the attributes of rational and responsible beings. Nor is the benefit of Scripture, as a help to education, confined to the poor: in early youth it smooths the entrance on the path of knowledge, not less effectually to the rich than to the indigent. There is, moreover, to be considered the part that Scripture plays in the education of the land, in the actual occupancy it enjoys in almost every family as a HOUSEHOLD BOOK, available as the Urim and Thummim of the ancient economy, and actually doing that service which the “lares and lemures” of heathen households were vainly invoked to perform. It is in vain to exclaim against this state of things, from whatever motive, sceptical or superstitious: the fact is as we have stated it, and, with the absence of such means of education, the country, to a large extent, must necessarily be uneducated.

Thus obviously is the Bible the recognized organ of popular education in this country, and in this view it is most important that its efficiency should be complete. But this inference derives its chief force from considerations affecting the _character_ of the education it supplies. In this aspect of it there is nothing that should make us regret the actual occupancy it enjoys in this regard. On the contrary, it is admirably adapted by its own peculiar power over men’s souls to create—not a learned, but an intelligent people; and if intelligent, then free, independent, powerful,—a match for tyranny in every shape, and at every turn. Nor are the ruling powers themselves less benefited in thus being able to lay deep the foundation of their authority in the fixedness of principle, just appreciation of good as distinct from its counterfeit, and sober and well-advised aims of the people so trained and nurtured.

Closely connected with education, or such an education as we have now been considering, is _public morality_, and with it the strength and prosperity of a Nation. The condition of England in her various phases—civil, military, political, and religious—has naturally arrested the attention of intelligent foreigners, as presenting a marked superiority in these respects, or in some of them, to their own country. They have inquired the cause of this distinction with little success, and are as much at fault in being able to trace no symptoms of decay or flagging vitality in the system, cruelly tried as it not unfrequently is, prognosticating its ruin. Perhaps there is a solution of the enigma here. Perhaps the use of Scripture as the prime material of our early education has generated a better morality among us, and precluded the admission of certain forms of evil, little consonant to national greatness or national welfare, from which we see other countries, differently schooled, are not exempt. On this head, while avoiding undue pretension, we would not choose to say less than truth permits. With all the deductions to be allowed in disparagement of our claim to a high place in the scale of morals absolutely, we have yet, as compared with other countries,—a conscience, a sense namely of right and wrong, pervading the bulk of the people, and leavening the land with a wholesome morality,—we are not habituated to treat suicide as a virtue, {34}—our functionaries, as a body, are not venal,—we are not dangerous to the State when we meet in numbers beyond two or three,—and we are not incapable of self-government. M. de Montalembert, in his late work on the Future of England, while generously doing homage to the greatness of this country, the destinies of which he undertakes to decide, has not adverted to this high moral and religious training as supplying any explanation of the phenomenon: perhaps deeming his own country to be not less amply supplied with the means of religious culture. On this point we are at issue with him, if such is his opinion. In France, as in Catholic countries generally,—and it must be confessed in some Protestant countries too,—it is not so decidedly a religious or moral, as an ecclesiastical and conventual training, that is accorded; one, that is, which, while it overlays the memory with dogmas, and deals in technical and artificial requirements, leaves the conscience all but uninformed, and morality, as a pervading, practical, germinating principle, almost a non-entity. {35}

_Paullo majora canamus_. The time is come when countries, as such, need to be educated no less really than smaller bodies and isolated individuals. Countries are brought now almost into as close contact with one another as individual members of the same commonwealth; and the identical principle that inculcates the education of individuals—that, namely, of mutual self-defence and reciprocal advantage—applies to the aggregation of individuals in a nation. The times of ignorance picture to us man as a savage, a terror to his neighbours, and everywhere an object of rightful destruction. Education became a necessity, if he would be safe from violence, or reap advantage from the society of his fellow. The picture presented by the history of nations in relation to one another is substantially the same. There has been little improvement in this respect yet visible. Nor has the necessity for it seemed urgent, while the nations were separated by the natural obstacles of their position, and their means of mutual annoyance in a corresponding degree circumscribed. Science has now removed these obstacles, and the nations are brought into immediate contiguity and contact, while their means of mutual annoyance have been enormously and frightfully multiplied. Startling it is to think of the growing power of nations for evil, and inflicting evil upon one another, in the present temper and _morale_ of the nations. Surely we may say the time has come for providing a remedy appropriate to so fearful a crisis. There is none that occurs to us so sure as a system of instruction that recognizes as its basis a _sanctity_ in the relations of state with state, and lodges deep in the consciences of the several people those great principles of justice, truth, and benevolence, in which God has indissolubly bound up all human happiness, whether of nations or of individuals. Unhappily there is so much to unlearn on the subject of the relative duties of nations to one another before this good work can be proceeded in. The sacred records have not been supposed to furnish any lessons on this branch of human duty, and none have been sought for. But—

“In them is plainest taught and easiest learn’d
What makes a Nation happy, and keeps it so.”

PARADISE REGAINED.

Embued with the conviction that we have the means adequate to the high ends here proposed in these very records—well understood and properly carried out—we have ventured upon these high themes in disregard of the imputation to which we may be subjected, with some plausibility, of overstating our cause. We say with some plausibility, only as merging our feelings for the moment in the superficial view ordinarily taken of the _real character_ of the religious element—a view altogether ignored by the history of our race, and the peculiar phenomena of the times. We may add, it is unmistakably at variance with the consciousness of almost every individual in Christendom, to whom it is no secret that religious questions—unless the interest has been neutralized by long neglect, or quashed by desperate violence—exert a strange and engrossing power over his soul. In whatever way we look at it, it is a _power_, and in this view may even be perverted to evil.

“Suppose ye,” says Christ, “that I am come to send peace upon earth? I tell you, Nay, but rather division.” {37a} In deep sympathy with these words, and in corroboration of the prophetic spirit by which they are marked, are the following observations of Stanley, when summing up his reminiscences of the Lake of Galilee—the toiling all night and catching nothing—the great multitude of fishes, so that the net broke—the casting a hook for the first fish that came up—the net cast into the sea, and gathering of every kind: “all these,” says he, “are images which could occur nowhere else in Palestine but in this one spot, and which, from that one spot, have now passed into the religious language of the civilized world, _and in their remotest applications_, _or even misapplications_, _have converted the nations_, _and shaken the thrones of Europe_.” {37b}

Thus demonstrative it is that Religion is no weak, idle, evanescent figment of man’s imagination, but a real, substantial, controlling power, shaping his thoughts, it may be unconsciously, and blending itself with the solid structure of society and nations. Greece and Rome, it has been well said, have attracted here and there a visitor, but only the Holy Land has provoked a crusade. Nor is the evidence of its power to be fetched wholly from the records of the past; we think we see in it in our own days a germinating principle more potent than anything else now in operation to work great changes, and rival, at least, if it does not throw into the shade, all that history has yet unfolded. That this power may be based in knowledge, and directed to a righteous end, unlike the character oftentimes it bears on the page of the past, it may deserve some consideration as a means to this end, whether we may not yet read our lesson to greater advantage, and educe from the sacred page a fuller amount of good than in its present state it is calculated to afford. And we have the more confidence in urging our present suit, because we are persuaded that the boon we invoke will not long be unattended with other forms of active beneficence conducing to the same high ends. The church will almost simultaneously rouse herself to new exertion. A yet more effective order of Religious Teaching than we can yet boast of—from the pulpit and the press, will probably be elicited. And thus we shall evoke, not an isolated power waging dubious war against fearful odds, but a CONFEDERATE force, equal, we will hope, to the crisis;—a crisis such as, no one is so obtuse as not to see, demands something vastly in advance of the elements at present available for neutralizing the fearful evils now festering at our core, or looming in the no distant horizon.

Such is our argument. The sum is, that the Sacred Books are replete with good, and that a just appreciation of what is due to our own interests, no less than gratitude for the gift itself, demands from us the consecration of whatever further power Providence has, in these latter days, conferred upon us to that end, to render that good in its utmost extent salutary and efficacious.

And the time for action presses. Already various undertakings are on foot to supply the desired object: and there may be reason to fear, in the failure of help from higher quarters, that some Society—the Religious Tract Society, for example, as suggested by the “Edinburgh Review,” thus following up its recent excellent publication of the New Paragraph Bible—or some self-constituted body, as is this moment sitting in America for this very purpose—or individual scholars—may appropriate the ground we should rather reserve as the Special Sphere for the operations of the highest Authority in the realm.

It only remains that we give utterance to our most fervent hope that this great work may signalize the reign of our beloved Queen. It will not be the least sparkling of the diamonds that will lend lustre to her crown. All concurrent circumstances point to this as the fitting time, and to her Majesty as the appropriate individual to inaugurate the solemnity. Religious scruples have given way to a more enlightened and creditable feeling, and a higher standard of religious truth than that afforded by the present version is plainly a desideratum. The reflections cast upon the Protestant faith in the recent trials for Bible-burning in Ireland, authorized in measure by the concessions of Protestants themselves to the faultiness of the authorized version, wait to be removed. Let her Majesty, following in this respect the example of James I., appoint to this work a body of men the most qualified for the task the realm affords, and we cannot doubt the result will be a version of Holy Scripture incomparably better than the present; thus supplying a fresh cause of exultation in her Majesty’s rule, and a surpassing debt of gratitude to the hand that conferred the boon.

* * * * *

_Extract from a Speech of M. Guizot at a late Meeting of the Protestant
Biblical Society in Paris_. _See_ Times, _April_ 19, 1856.

“Whether we consider the history of nations, or the private life of
individuals, the moral efficacy and salutary power of the holy books
glowingly manifest themselves. Undoubtedly, even among nations where
it is assiduous and general, the reading of the holy books has not
the effect of stifling the bad passions of men; it does not obviate
all errors and faults. Man remains full of weakness and vice, even
when conscious of the presence of God. But the habitual reading of
the holy books preserves nations from the greatest perils; it
prevents them from forgetting God. It has this advantage—that God
remains for them, not an idea, a name, a system of philosophy, a
riddle, but the true and living God, under whose eye they constantly
live, amid the struggles and casualties of this world.”

* * * * *

* * * * *

Reed and Pardon, Printers, Paternoster Row, London.

FOOTNOTES.

{3} A solitary voice, in the strict sense of the word, was raised by the Rev. Canon Selwyn at the last meeting of Convocation (March, 1856). The motion was not suited to the _mollia tempora fandi_, perhaps. But, whatever the cause, there can be no doubt of the fitness of the hands into which the motion fell, or that the day is far from being distant when the question will force itself on the notice of Convocation, in all probability, in another shape.

{4} “Essays, Moral and Literary,” by Dr. Vicesimus Knox. No. XLIX.

{8a} See Psalm xxii. throughout. The difficulties attending the _entire_ application of the psalm to Christ are by no means insuperable. Scott unreservedly refers the whole to Christ. Adam Clarke dissents. Psalm lxix. is for the most part a manifest adumbration of the Messiah; and if the difficulties in the way of the entire application of the Psalm to Christ, presented in verse 5, where he is made _apparently_ to lament his foolishness and his guilt, could be surmounted, a great boon, it is conceived, would be granted to all who desire to understand what they read. The _representative_ scheme, besides being open to other objections, has no explicit authority in the Scriptures to recommend it, and the _double sense_ is now all but universally abandoned. Possibly, if the text will not yield in these cases, there are principles of interpretation involved that await future development.

{8b} Gen. xlix. 21. For, “Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words,” read, “Naphtali is a spreading Pine, that putteth forth goodly boughs.” Psa. xxix. 9. For, “The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests,” read, “The voice of the Lord rendeth the pines, and layeth bare the forests.” So Dr. Lee. To surrender the Bible, body and soul, into the hands of the Massorites, as is required by their pointing of these passages, is surely asking too much. Let the reader peruse the _whole_ of the 29th Psalm, and determine the fitness of the correction for himself, which he may very safely be allowed to do. The former passage, if consistently carried out on the principles of the translators, would run, “Naphtali is a hind let loose, _that_ giveth goodly words,” in which the incongruousness of the metaphor would, if possible, be still more manifest. See Stanley’s “Syria and Palestine,” p. 355.

{10a} See Preface to Herwitz’ “Etymology and Syntax of the Hebrew Language.”

{10b} See Kitto’s Bib. Cyc., art. Chronicles. The whole article is very reassuring, considering the able and accomplished pen from which it proceeds. The writer, Dr. Davidson, to whom the lovers of Biblical philology are under the greatest obligations, deliberately asserts the corruption of the passages in question, and advocates a reading in conformity with the corresponding statements in 2 Samuel and Kings.

{11a} Compare, among other instances in point that might be given, 1 Kings ix. 28 with 2 Chron. viii. 18.

{11b} If _no_ purification of the text should avail us in these cases, it would be advisable to accompany the change in the text with a note in the margin explanatory of the corruptness of the reading that has been superseded.

{13} The change of accent the word undergoes in the original when repeated in the second hemistich, gives marvellous emphasis to the exhortation—an emphasis altogether lost in the translation.

{14} The application of this principle may go some way towards neutralizing the doubts that have been raised as to the identity of the Isaiah of the later portion of the prophecy with the Isaiah of the earlier portion. See chap. lxiv. 10, 11. One thing at least is evident, namely, that the Apostle Paul, who was confessedly well read in Hebrew literature, in his quotations from the latter portion of the prophecy, seems to have had no notion of any other Isaiah than that to whom the whole prophecy is ordinarily ascribed. See Rom. x. 16. In fact, these doubts, now complacently acquiesced in as valid by the Rationalistic School abroad and at home, were equally unknown to all the world till about half a century ago. The general reader may content himself with Dr. Alexander’s candid and able investigation of the question in his recent Commentary on Isaiah.

{15} The uses of the particle ו in combination with the verb. Let the Hebrew student consult the masterly investigation and elucidation of this subject in the Hebrew Grammar recently published by Messrs. Mason and Bernard, Vol. II. chapters 51–55.

{17a} This rendering is faulty as not providing for the emphatic personal pronoun “he” in the original.

{17b} Niphal in the sense of the Hithpael conjugation. See Gen. xvi. 9.

{17c} The original will not admit of this rendering, though the sense is not objectionable.

{17d} There is great difficulty here. The word rendered _impious_, and inserted in brackets, signifies _rich_, mostly with an accessory notion of violence and wrong; but the parallel clause, “He made his grave with the wicked,” and the further expression, “He was numbered with the transgressors,” in the last verse, seem to justify the sense here given; and so it has been understood by some rabbins and other commentators, as Luther, Calvin, Gesenius. See Matt. xix. 23. We confess we are not satisfied. The common reading that represents Christ as rewarded with a grave among the rich, _because_, forsooth, he had done no violence, &c., is surely inadmissible.

{18a} So, ‘A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,’ v. 3.

{18b} _Intercedes_ in the present, because his intercession is a _continuous_ act. This distinction of tense as contradistinguished from the past tense in the use of the preceding verb _he bore_, expressing a transaction _once_ and _finally_ concluded, so conspicuous in the original, is entirely overlooked in the authorized version; so Calvin, Vitringa, Lowth, Henderson, Jones, Barnes, &c. This concurrence in the interpretation of the authorized version is especially to be wondered at in the more recent of the above-named critics. Messrs. Mason and Bernard give, less happily we think, _that he might make_, &c. Dr. Alexander, New Jersey, favours the view adopted in the amended version. See his admirable Commentary on Isaiah.

{19} A Hebraism lurks here. So, “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not ANY of his benefits;” and not “_all_ his benefits,” as our translation has it. So again, “And God gave Cain a mark, lest ANY finding him should kill him,” where the _same_ word is rightly rendered. Ps. ciii. 2; Gen. iv. 15.

{24a} Various divisions, both of the Old and New Testaments, were in use from the earliest period, but the present divisions into Chapters and Verses are ascribed, the former, with some hesitation, to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, about the middle of the thirteenth century; the latter to Robert Stephens, a Frenchmen, about the middle of the sixteenth century. See art. Scripture in Kitto’s Biblical Cyclopædia.

{24b} In an elaborate translation of the whole of this prophecy, in the Hebrew Grammar recently published by Messrs. Mason and Bernard, the authors conceive the opening passage, “_Who hath believed our report_,” &c., to express the awe and wonder of the kings mentioned in the previous chapter at the events they are supposed to witness, and accordingly they render it, “_Who hath believed our hearing_” &c., the tidings, that is, that have reached us, the kings aforesaid. But, with all due respect for the translation generally, we are unable to accept this view of the passage before us, conceiving it to be far-fetched, and opposed to the purpose for which, in so many words, it is quoted in the New Testament. See John xii. 37; Rom. x. 16.

{25a} In like manner Jacob, in the course of predicting the future fortunes of his sons, exclaims parenthetically, “I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.” Gen. xlix. 18.

{25b} This article has since been republished in a separate form, under the title of the “Present State of the English Bible,” by the Rev. William Harness, A.M. It will well repay repeated perusal by all those who are interested in this pre-eminently interesting question.

{28} Let the reader advert for a moment, in connexion with the argument for the evidences of Christianity, to the ASSUMPTIONS ordinarily and persistently made by Christ in relation to his person and mission, and then conceive of the _frightful arrogance_ involved in these assumptions, supposing them to be unfounded; coupling this thought at the same time with that perfect sobriety of mind and even tenor of a uniformly staid and well-balanced deportment by which he was pre-eminently characterized. _We_ do not find these assumptions in the slightest degree startling or incredible, because they comport in our minds with the WHOLE character of Christ as developed in the gospel. Where the evidence of Messiahship failed among his own countrymen, if there were any failure of _evidence_, we may advert for the solution, among other considerations, to their blind disregard to the perfect compatibility and harmony of these assumptions with the other features of Messiah as exhibited by Christ. Here are a few of the expressions alluded to, all taken from the earlier chapters of St. John’s Gospel:—

“For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.” “That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.” “The bread of God is he which came down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” “And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” “I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” “I and my Father are one.” “Jesus saith unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”—How Christ should have preferred SUCH claims without legitimate authority, and ample power to substantiate them, is a question to which we cannot divine an answer.

{30} Some striking illustrations of this position are to be found in the Appendix to Mr. Stanley’s recent volume on Sinai and Palestine. This Appendix consists of a vocabulary of topographical words in Hebrew and English. Great care has been taken in giving the precise English for the corresponding Hebrew term. Referring to the previous part of his work, he says, “I have often had occasion to refer to the richness and precision of the local vocabulary of the Hebrew language. In the authorized version this is unfortunately lost; not so much by the incorrect rendering of any particular word, as by the promiscuous use of the same English word for different Hebrew words, or of different English words for the same Hebrew word.” And again: “The geographical passages of the Bible seem to shine with new light as these words acquire their proper force. How keenly, for example, are we led to notice the early tendency to personify and treat as living creatures the great objects of nature, when we find that the ‘springs’ are the ‘eyes,’ the bright, glistening, life-giving eyes of the thirsty East; that the mountains have not merely summits and sides, but ‘heads,’ ‘shoulders,’ ‘ears,’ ‘ribs,’ ‘loins,’ &c.” This whole Appendix is deeply interesting to the Hebrew student. He must feel at the same time how much the mere English student of Scripture suffers in the absence of the same knowledge.

{31} “They who have access to the Scriptures in the original are . . . endowed with ten talents, compared with which the power of reading them in our authorized version is but one. The right improvement of the one talent will ensure to its possessor the end of his faith, even the salvation of his soul; but this does not render guiltless those who have greater talents if, from supineness and indolence, they neglect to use the enlarged means with which they are gifted for attaining to the knowledge of the truth.”—“Introduction to the Greek Testament, with Grammatical and Exegetical Notes, by William Webster, M.A., and William Francis Wilkinson, M.A.,” p. xvi. The above work has special claims upon that numerous class who, with little time for elaborate research, are glad to obtain the _results_ of a thorough critical investigation of the language and teaching of the New Testament.

{34} The following is from Lewes’s “Life of Goethe,” just published. The words in double inverted commas are those of Goethe himself: ‘“I had a large collection of weapons, and among them a very handsome dagger. This I placed by my bedside every night, and before extinguishing my candle I made various attempts to pierce the sharp point a couple of inches into my breast; but not being able to do it I laughed myself out of the notion,” &c. He played with suicidal thoughts, because he was restless, _and suicide was a fashionable speculation of the day_,’ &c. . . . In October, 1772 the report reaches him that his Wetzlau friend, Goué, has shot himself. “Write to me at once about Goué,” he says to Kestner, “_I honour such an act_, _and pity mankind_,” &c.—Vol. I. p. 197. There is more to this abominable purpose in the sequel. Such was Goethe, a man sprung from the people, not the offspring of an effete noblesse, and at a time of life when the very thought of self-destruction is most alien to all the instincts of nature,—‘a canker in youth,’—and with no taint of constitutional melancholy in his system. Goethe’s genius was a sea of glass, capable of reflecting the rays cast upon it from without with unusual brilliancy; but, unlike our Shakspeare, devoid of independent power of originating _new_ thought. Thus he _reflected_ all his days the prevailing fashion of his time, and thus he but _re-enacts_ the sentimentalism of the hour in his suicidal lucubrations.

{35} The policy of Pericles may be considered in relation to the causes that aggrandize a people. His notion seems to have been that to awaken great deeds in a nation you must supply it with great and noble thoughts. Hence his magnificent public buildings, his lavish cultivation of the arts, and even the attention he paid to the amusements of the people, to make them subservient to refinement and purity of taste. But æsthetics alone do not make a great people.—See Thuc. II., 38, 39.

{37a} Luke xii. 51.

{37b} Sinai and Palestine, p. 369.