THE ENGLISH BIBLE.

Shannon News, 8 December 1925, Page 1

THE ENGLISH BIBLE.

ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE. To improve the toire of literature is the desire of all the best scholars and authors of to-day, and it is with this object in view that many newspapers and periodicals are drawing special attention to the four hundred anniversary of the first New Te'stament in English, the work of William Tyndale. The first translation of the Bible into English was the work of John WycliffCj but this was really only a translation from a translation, and was moreover never printed until 1848. William Tyndale first translated the New Testament into English from the original'Greek and printed the English eddition in 1525, a date —which part altogether from its religious importance [ marks an epoch in the development of , English literature, the full significance of which is not realised even to-day. William Tyndale was born about 1848 in Gloucestershire, graduated from Oxford and then proceeded to Cambridge where he met a group of remarkable jnien,, among them Granmer, Latim'er, Stephen Gardiner and Bilney, all of whom later suffered martyrdom for their faith —a fate which also befell Tyndale himself in 1536 at Antwerp. Tyndale believed in guiding life and conduct by the Bible, and 'especially by the New Testament, and it was the desire that his countrymen should have this guide which led him to translate the New Testament into his own tongue. To quote his own words: have perceived by experience, ho says, ''how that it was impossible to establish flic lay people in any truth except the Scriptures were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother-tongue, that they might see the process, order and meaning of the text." l

It is a somewhat difficult task but one well worth the effect, to try to picture the literary and educational condition of the English , nation in the opening quarter of the sixteenth 'century. Prior •to the issue of the Bible in English 1 there existed almost no history, no romance, no pros'e writings and almost no poetry save the little-known ■' verse, of Chaucer. To quote from Froude's History of England: "The translation of the Bible into English was an act which laid the foundation stone on which the whole later history of England—civil as well as 'ecclesiastical —has been reared, and the most minute incidents became interesting connected with "an event of so mighty moment." Green, in his "Short History of the English People" and declares that "No greater mortal 'change ever passed over a nation than passed over England during the years which parted the middle of "the reign of Elizabeth from the meeting of Mie Long Parliament. England became the people of a book and that book was the Bible. It was as yet the on'e English book which was familiar to every Englishman. V

It is almost impossible to realise what the launching forth of this '' gem of English, literature" meant to a people to whom literature was something as yet' unknown. L'carning was the possession of the few, and among these' few, with the exception' of men like Dean Colet, dean of St. Paul's Cathedral and founder .of St. Paul's "School, and of Sir Thomas More, its influence was purely intellectual. To be suddenly possessed, therefore, of what is even 'to-day considered to be "the noblest •example of the English, tongue," with its wonderful conception of freedom, of liberty and of duty; a book whose language appealed to the hearts of men and whose teaching opened vistas never before dreamed of, meant something—apart altogether from religion—that it is difficult even to-day; fully to realise. No wonder that subsequent writers, both of the period immediately succeeding its appearance—men like Shakespeare, Milton and Bunyan, the classical writers of those days—as well as the greatest writers and thinkers in Subsequent years', fcave found in it their inspiration.

It may be an exaggeration to say that we owe English literature to Tyndale, but it is no exaggeration to say that very much of the beauty, eloquence, and lofty style of our best literature is due to tire influence of his New Testament. In the words of a modern literary critic: "Whatever view may be held of the authority of the Bible, it is agreed that its power on literature has been incalculable by reason of the depth of life which it sounds and the range of life which il compasses. There is power enough in it to revive a decaying age or give a new date and a fresh impulse o a race which has parted with its creative energy." Henry Ward Beecher declared that "The Bible stands alone in literature in its elevated conception of manhood in character and conduct," and Macaulay gives it as his opinion that "If everything.else in our language should perish the Bible aliyie would show the whole extent of its beauty a"nd its power." i Apart from the religious and Uteraryj value of Tyndale's translation there is' -Another benefit which it conferred upon the English race; namely, its effect! upon the character of the people, "the grip it gave to the grand significance of human life." It gave, for- example, a channel of expression for ordinary speech. To-day we borrow our ideas, our words and phrases from countless books; the Englishmen nf Tyndale's day had but one, hence tho language of the New Testament became to a very marked degree the language of daily life. New ideals of justice and

mercy, of truth and morality took root and slowly but surely there came into existence one of the greatest influences in life—the influence of public opinion. The whole moral effect "which this latter produces to-day, combined witli ter 'produces to?day, combined with sermons, lectures, essays, religious newspapers, was then produced by , tho Bible alone. It has been well said that "If men read trash, they think trash, and if they think trash, they become trash." The people of Tyndale's day did net read trash, they read the Bible. Therefore they thought great thoughts an*) became a great people, and it is not too much to say that the rise :nid progress of the English race mav be dar-ed from this time. As in England, so in America, the foundation of the nation was laid upon the Bible, and to-day "the British Commonwealth of nations and a great English-speaking Republic dominate the world," not by military power or cleverness, but by force of character, a character which has been biailt up and strengthened through the centuries, but which nevertheless owes its origin to the precepts which were first made known by Tyndale's New Testament in English 400 years figo. — N.Z.- Times.