Mrs. Browning's "Sleep" is written on the theme of Psalm

127, 2. Here is one stanza:

"His dews drop mutely on the hill,

His cloud above it saileth still,

Though on its slope men sow and reap.

More softly than the dew is shed,

Or cloud is floated overhead,

'He giveth his beloved sleep.'"

In "A Drama of Exile" she has dramatized the story of the Fall. Professor Cook says that Jean Ingelow "often draws rich and strange harmonies from her Biblical borrowings, and it would be hard to say whether, in these adaptations, she gives or receives more."

The novels of Sir Walter Scott give abundant evidence of his acquaintance with the Bible. One of the most pathetic scenes in "The Heart of Midlothian" is where old Davy Deans bows his head in grief to see his daughter on trial for her life, and sobs, "O I-chabod! my glory is departed!"

In 19th
Century
Prose

Carlyle and Ruskin may be taken as representative of the prose writers of the nineteenth century. The spirit of both these great teachers has been called Hebraic, because they were not merely thinkers but teachers of beauty, of morals, and of obligations to society. "She [England] has not yet read often enough," says Ruskin in the chapter entitled "Peace" in "Modern Painters," "that old story of the Samaritan's mercy. He whom he saved was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho to the accursed city (so the old church used to understand it). He should not have left Jerusalem; it was his own fault that he went out into the desert, and fell among the thieves, and was left for dead. Every one of these English children, in their day, took the decent bypath as he did, and fell among friends — took

to making bread out of stones at their bidding, and then died, torn and famished; careful England, in her pure, priestly dress, passing by on the other side." "Nature's laws, I must repeat, are eternal," says Carlyle in his "Past and Present"; "her still small voice speaking from the inmost heart of us, shall not, under terrible penalty, be disregarded. No one man can depart from the truth without damage to himself; no one million men; no twenty-seven millions of men. Show me a nation fallen everywhere into this course, so that each expects it, permits it to others and himself, I will show you a nation traveling with one assent on the broad way." Here is another quotation from the same: "The one thing which you were not to do, which you were wise not to attempt doing; which it were better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and be cast into the sea than concern yourself with doing!" Both these men were devoted to the Bible and were fond of clothing their own ideas in its words and images. Carlyle said that he considered the Psalms the truest emblem ever given of man's moral progress and warfare on earth. As a Scotch child intended for the ministry, he must have known his Bible exceptionally well. As soon as he could read, Ruskin read daily at his mother's knee two or three chapters from the Bible, much of which he was required to memorize. Few men have influenced their times as greatly as they; and the effect of the Bible on their style and their thoughts is almost immeasurable.

Such is the power of the Bible among our greatest writers. None, it is safe to say, has failed to feel its influence and some have found in it both subject and style. This influence, as illustrated in the foregoing quotations, is shown in a number of ways. (1) It has preserved the simple and forceful diction of the plain English people. Its popularity has made it the standard of style for centuries, the common medium of both

the scholars and the uncultured. Through its presence we have steered successfully between over-refinement and vulgarity; and have preserved the purity of our speech against such affectations as the "Euphues" of Lyly, the ponderous Latin diction of Johnson, or the lawless style of Carlyle. (2) It has enriched our every-day speech with a large number of its phrases. Such expressions as "the pride of life," "valley of decision," "better than riches," "trodden the wine-press alone," "the powers that be," "mantle of Elijah," "the widow's mite," "a thorn in the flesh," and hundreds of others are the common coin of our daily speech. They lie on the surface of our vocabulary and leap to our tongues without effort. (3) Our writers are so familiar with Biblical events, truths, and characters that quotations or paraphrases of scripture and explicit references to Biblical facts are exceedingly common. (4) Many works among the noblest in literature, besides others genuinely great, are Biblical in theme and spirit. The poems of Milton, Peele, and Browning, and the prose works of Bunyan have already been mentioned. Among others going back to the Bible for subject matter, Longfellow's "Christus," Stephen Phillips' "Herod," and Wallace's "Ben Hur" are well-known books of the last generation.

Greater than all these influences, of course, is the power of the Bible to reinvigorate the souls of men. Everywhere men are seekers after righteousness, without which there can be no truly happy life; and the Bible embodies and brings to them the noblest aspirations and the highest of human yearnings. Because it has this personal message of purity, of ideal love to man's innermost life, because it nourishes and inspires his heartfelt longings, it gives tone to his thoughts and motive to his deeds. Thus for centuries it has shaped his mind and colored his imagination till every form of his life and art has incorporated some of its beauty and power. The ideals of

our civic and social as well as our moral life are Biblical. During the Christian era the Bible has inspired more masterpieces of oratory, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture than any other influence. Not one ramification of our complex life and thought has failed to respond to its appeal; and just so long as literature expresses these intimate things of life, high aspirations, pure motives, noble ideals, deep yearnings of soul, will the Bible wield its invigorating power in our life and literature. Apart from its significance in art and civilization, its glorious wealth of story and song and truth, its marvelous power for good and for culture, so great has been the power of the Bible in English thought and style that a familiarity with it is not only worth while but absolutely necessary to enable one to read English literature intelligently.