FISHER AND THE BIBLE.

Gisborne Times, Volume LII, Issue 5464, 27 April 1920, Page 2

FISHER AND THE BIBLE.

GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT IN LETTERS. / • OUR STATELY ENGLISH. In one of His fascinating chapters in liis “Records” Admiral Fisher is most enthusiastic about the _ great translators of the Bible. “In the opinion of Great and Holy Mien. Cranmer’s Bible (as it is called) or The. Great Bible s—the 5 —the Bibfe of 1539 to 1568—holds tlio field for' beauty of its English .and its emotional rendering of the Holy Spirit! “Alas! we don’t know their names; we only know of them as “Diverse, excellent learned men!’ It is said they did not wish to go down to Fame! “It is the greatest achievement in letters! The Beauty of the translation of those unknown men excels (far excels) the real and the so-called originals! All nations and tongues of Christendom have come to admit reluctantly that no other version of the Book in the English or any other tongue offers so noble a setting for the Divine Message. Read the Prayer Book Psalms! They are from this noble. Version —English at its zenith! The English of the Great Bible is even more stately, sublime and pure than the English of Shakespeare and Elizabeth.” THE PITH AND MARROW. Lord Eishe.r waxes enthusiastic even over the summaries of the chapters; the writers would evidently have made, fine sub-editors! “I am reminded,” says Lord Fisher, “of what I call the ‘Pith and Marrow’ which the pious men put at the head of every chapter of the Bible and which, alas! has been expunged in the literary exactitudes of the Revised Version.

“Regard Chapter 26, for instance, of Proverbs—how it is all summed up by those ‘diverse, excellent, learned mem’ They wrote at the top of the chapters: ‘Observations about Pools,’ Matthew 22; the Saviour ‘Pos'eth the Pharisees,’ Isaiah 21; ‘The set time,' Isaiah 27 (so true and pithy of the Chapter!); ‘Chastisements differ front Judgments; and in Mark 15, ‘The Clamor of the Common People’—descriptive of wlmt’s in the chanter “All. these headings, in my opinion, as regards those ancient translators, are for them a ‘Crown of Glory and a Diadem of Beauty,’ and I have a feeling that, when they finished their wondrous studies, it was with them as Solomon said, ‘The desire accomplished is sweet to the Soul.’ I SAT BACK IN MY CHAIR.

Here is a final question which Kurd Fisher put to himself" and describes in his chapter on “Jonah’s Gourd’: ‘Came up in a night And perished in a night. Jonah 4. 10.’

“The above words came into my mind late last night when tired out with destroving masses of papeis and letters (mostly malignant abuse or the emanations of senile dotage). I sat back in my chair and soliloquised over what bad' happened to all these pestilent attackers of mine; and i saul to mvselt‘. in those immortal words in ,1 on ail, ‘Boost thou well to be angry r and for a few brief moments 1 really felt like Stephen praying for Ins enemies when they stoned him! “What has become of all these sumothrowers and backbiters, I asked myself:-' Like Jonah’s Gourd—‘A worm hath smote them all—and they lane withered into obscurity. But: yet its interesting, as this is a Look of Records to tear out one sheet or so aim reproduce here some replies to the nefarious nonsense one had to deal wnn at that time of democratising the 1 This book of Lord Fisher’s is obviously an amazing revelation ot personality.