SUPREME VALUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 142, 18 June 1938, Page 16

SUPREME VALUE.

BIBLE'S INFLUENCE.

SPIRITUAL TEACHING.

EFFECT ON ENGLISH PEOPLE.

(By W.D.M.-S.

Henry VIII. was aa much a despot as any of the dictators with whom we are familiar to-day. Like tliem, he acted, among other tilings, on tlie assumption that he had the right to dictate to ihe people over whom lie ruled the form of faith and doctrine they should hold and should teach. On discovering that the Bible was being privately translated into English, privately printed and surreptitiously circulated throughout the country, he set up a commission to impure into the wisdom and need of having it printed and published under his authority. Their finding, however, being that religious opinion was not sufficiently settled to warrant the step, lie issued a proclamation on '"prohibitinge the having of holy scripture translated into the vulgar tonges." Some years later, in the latter part of 1 lie recalled the proclamation and enjoined that a copy of the Bible in English should be set up o|>enly in every parish church, so that those who did not ]H>s<ess a copy and lacked the means to purchase one should have access to it: and be able to read it. He also directed that, along with the three creeds—the Nicene, the Athanasian and the Apostles —it should henceforth be the standard of faith in England. This concession, as we may call it, is one of the landmarks of English history. The important point about it is that it made it lawful and possible for the people to read and to interpret the Bible for themselves. It is this that is to be commemorated by Protestant churches throughout the English-speaking world on Sunday. Action in Scotland. It may be of interest to mention here that the news of what Henry had done for the people in England crossed the borders and set the Scottish people thinking, and that, in 1543, when the Earl of Arran was Governor, a proposal was brought before the Scottish Parliament that the people of Scotland should be allowed to read the Bible in their native tongue, and received its assent. Knox, in his "History of the Reformation," tells us that "by act of Parliament it was maid free to all, man and woman, to reid the Scriptures in their awin toung, or in the Engliss toung." It was not long till the Bible was th© most popular book in both countries. Preachers turned to it for their themes and their inspiration, and preachers and people alike discovered that it was both a book and a library of books, and of almost every kind of songs of love and songs of victory, immortal hymns, prophetic warnings, dramatic poems, Gospel story, Church history, friendly letters and letters giving shrewd advice. They found more—they found in it a progressive revelation of God and nis redeeming love, a summary of their faith and duty, and a manual of practical wisdom. It met their spiritual needs, it comforted them in trouble and sickness, it was apprehended by them as giving the mind of God upon institutions and manners and politics. It was woven into their daily and hourly thoughts. It ruled their lives. This was especially true in the early 17th century, in the wave of feeling that reached its height in England during the Protectorate, when parents named tlicir children after the gocd people in it, and every expression of the national life had something of its tone. Here is what Green, in his "Short History of the English People," says j about its effect on the life of the nation: "England became the people of a book, and that book the Bible. . . . One dominant influence told on human action, and all the activities that had been called into life by the age that was passing away were seized, concentrated and steadied to a definite aim by the spirit of religion. The whole temper of the nation felt the change. A new conception of life and of man superseded the old. A new moral and religious impulse spread through every class." Knew Hia Bible. The influence of the Bible on the literature of those days is no less striking. It gave Shakespeare and Milton their speech, with its unrivalled depth and its background of eternity. It influenced Bunyan in particular. It gave him not only his philosophy, his theology and all that he knew of God and salvation, it also gave him his inimitable I style. Bunyan was not well acquainted with books, but he knew Foxe's Book of Martyrs and he knew his Bible, and knew it by heart. If it was the Anglo-Norman romance, Sir Bevis of Southampton, that gave | him the framework of his "Pilgrim's Progress," it was. the Bible that gave him his style. His style is the nearest approach to that of the Bible (our Authorised Version) that the world iias ever seen, and its style is perfect. And that is one reason why so many of our beet writers read the Bible and have so much to say about it. In one of his books, for example, Ruskin ha 3 this passage: "Think, as far as it is possible for any of us, what literature could have taken its place 6r fulfilled its function, though every library in the world had remained unravaged, and every teacher's truest words had been written down." And Sir Philip Gibbs, after referring to its influence on thinkers, speaks of the beauty of its language, the sublimity of its poetry and its grandeur of thought. "We of English speech," he says, "have a priceless heritage in the translation of the writings of our own tongue, for the Bible English is most pure, most practical, most grand, and, if a man would clothe his thoughts in noble words, if he would tone his ear to stately rhythm, let him read and learn the Psalms, ilie Book of Isaiah and the Canticles." The Best Protection. It is, however, in its spiritual and moral teaching and influence that the supreme value of the Bible lies. For this reason, especially, it would be good for all of us if we allowed it to be our constant companion. It would certainly enrich our life as no other book can enrich it, and it would prove the be*t protection of the family and the State, and of the international fraternities, too. That reminds me of one of the passages in a speech that Earl Baldwin gave 10 years ago in London: "So much of our time in this world," he said, "we seem to be carrying on our struggle in twilight or in fog; friends, and men who should be friends, hitting blindly ( in the melee, and wounding men who are or ought to be their brothers, and nothing but the light which comes from this book can lighten that twilight or J dispel thft-t fog." . J