letter from a Negro living in New York, congratulating him upon the idea, adding that he has received no higher compliment. I can well believe it.

I am reminded of a cartoon which appeared in Punch some years ago, at an instant of calm in a strenuous life, when Theodore Roosevelt issued his famous edict vigorously demanding simplified spelling. The President, as he then was, is shown with his shirt sleeves rolled up, swinging an enormous axe against the trunk of a splendid English oak, the English language, upon which he was vainly endeavoring to make an impression. Old Father Time, passing by with his scythe at rest upon his shoulder, pauses for a moment and remarks to himself, contemplatively, "Ah, well, boys will be boys."

Of greater moment, it seems to me, is the criticism sometimes made that the Bible is the worst-printed book in the world, in that the eye is not permitted to assist the mind in recognizing at a glance the difference between passages in prose and in what may well be called poetry. I speak, of course, of the usual editions.

It will be remembered that in the early texts there were neither "chapters" nor "verses"; these purely arbitrary divisions have been made for the sake of clarity, and no doubt more could advantageously be done. An example of what might be printed as poetry is that wonderful passage about the wise man who built his house upon a rock

And the rain descended,

And the floods came,

And the winds blew,

And beat upon that house,

And it fell not;

For it was founded upon a rock.

Or that glorious passage from the first epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, too long to quote, which is and should always be read as poetry, which forms a part of the beautiful burial-service of the Church of England, and which ends with

Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy sting?

O grave, where is thy victory?

What we most need is not new versions or new printings but a better understanding of the significance of the version we have. But I am forgetting that I am a book-collector and not a preacher.

I return for a moment to the "Great He" and the "Great She" Bibles: they are the parents of a large family and have taken very literally the text, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it." The Bible exceeds in circulation, if circulation may be judged from publication, the next ten most popular books put together. Complete Bibles have been published in one hundred and thirtyfive languages, and the New Testament in over one hundred additional. The British and Foreign Bible Society, organized in 1804, alone has printed hundreds of millions of Bibles. The American Bible So

ciety, founded in Philadelphia a few years later, has since its inception printed and distributed more than twenty-five million Bibles, and over a hundred million New Testaments. Counting the output of the great presses of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the presses in this country as well, it is reckoned that the annual output of complete Bibles and parts thereof is in the neighborhood of three million copies. On the other hand, in proportion to its circulation, it is very little read. This is to be regretted, because from every angle it is the Greatest Book in the World: so great that if a man can be found in a civilized country who has never heard of the Bible, it nevertheless influences his life, and influences it for good.

You will fancy that I have forgotten the words of Koheleth, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter," and you may, if it pleases you, think of me as one who has just discovered the beauties of the Bible. Very well; let me say to you as the young curate did to his astonished congregation: "If the King James Version was good enough for Saint Paul, it is good enough for me.'

II

THE GHOSTS OF GOUGH SQUARE

LONDON is a marvelous place. One can turn a sharp corner or pass under an arch, and in an instant find one's self in the country. Fine old trees are growing on well-kept lawns, the birds are twittering, the noise of the city is distant and forgotten; in an instant one has passed from the turmoil of the twentieth century into the calm of the eighteenth.

Another thing: London is a city of ghosts; the people one sees are not important, they are merely shadows; the actualities are the people one can see only with the help of a little imagination; it does not require much, the settings are so perfect. Climb Ludgate Hill, for example, and as you approach St. Paul's swing round to your left, make a turn or two and get lost, and you will stumble upon the Dean's Garden. It's a lovely spot. There, right in the heart of London, only a stone's throw from the great cathedral of which it is a part, is a quiet Old World garden, and facing it is a row of red-brick houses beautifully tempered with age. In the largest of these houses lives the dean of the cathedral in just such rural luxury as a prince of the Church should, who is the head of an immense and costly ecclesiastical establishment, the foundations of which go deep

down into history. But Dean Inge, the Gloomy Dean, as he is called, is not, as might be thought, a "rural dean"; I am quite sure, for I asked him the question one evening when I sat next to him at a dinner; but in answer to my rather flippant question he merely looked sadly down his nose, seemingly heavily packed with a cold, and replied, "No." I was tempted to inquire whether a rural dean is the same thing as a common or garden dean, but jesting with a great dignitary of the Church of England is apt to prove a serious business, and I lost the best opportunity I ever had of discovering what a rural dean is; I only know that they grow them in London; probably in out-of-the-way places. Speaking of Church dignitaries, I never make much progress with them I never did. There is a legend in my family that at the age of four I was sent into a parlor to be blessed of a bishop, for I had ecclesiastical bringingup. After the blessing I turned and, regarding the bishop doubtfully, remarked, "I never liked bishops," and then added, as an afterthought, "nor pliecemens." So early did I resent any form of authority; and this characteristic has lengthened and strengthened and thickened with years.

But Dean Inge is only one of the inhabitants of his house and garden: Dean Milman is just as real to me, although he died years ago. In life he wrote plays, and good ones too, rather to the scandal of the clergy; and finally, when he settled down, he devoted himself to the study of history rather than