THE MOFFAT BIBLE.

Shannon News, 24 March 1925, Page 1

THE MOFFAT BIBLE.

"THE ABOMINATION OF "DESOLATION." '

Reviewing the Moffat Bible a writer in the Dunedra "Star" says: The Moffat Bible. Gems from, the mine:—David's lament over Saul "How are the mighty laxlen, and the weapons of war perished!" is Moffatised inter doggerel: Alas for heroes fallen low, For weapons that felled the foe! "Why "do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?" which is very well as it is,, becomes "why axe the pagans seething, and the nations vainly plotting?" The statement that "Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain," Dr Moffat —with an eye to readers of divorce reports, the Saturday Reveiw suggests—improves into "The man had intercourse with his wife Eve; she conceived and bore Gain." Solomon had "three hundred mistresses," —which he most certainly had not,, remarks the same reviewer, spite of Dr. Moffat. Solomon had concubines, and a concubine, unlike a mistress, was a secondary wife with rights. This distinction may have been understood at the English Court when George 11., standing by the bedside of his dying wife, was adjured by her to marry again-or the other way, I forget which. Anyhow, "Non, non," he sobbed; "j'aurai des mistresses." He didn't say, "j'aurai des concubines."

But let us get back to the indiscretions of Dr Moffat. Maidens, with him are "girls" damsels are "wenches," ,and it is a love-lorn "wench" in Solomon's Song who exclaims "Sustain me with raisins, revive me with apples, for I swoon with love!" You are all fair, my dear," she goes on, — "you are spotless." Mishandling the sentence, "enquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord to-day." Dr Moffat drops to bottomless bathos. "But first of all find out what the Eternal lias to say." But all other examples are beggared by a concluding one which I take from the book of Ecclesiastes, —a text that sounds familiar in our ears:—

Cast thy bread upon the waters; tor thou shalt find it after many days. \ Give a portion to seven and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. To Dr Moffat this -~> an opportunity for "making the King in Jerusalem talk like a provincial linen-draper." Trust of your goods far and wide upon the sea till you get good returns after a while. Take shares in several ventures; you never know what will go wrong in this world. The Saturday Reveiw heads the articlo from which I have been quoting, j.he Abomination of Desolation,".To that I say ditto.