the home of the poor, as well as in the halls of the rich, it has been woven into our literature, and absorbed by our speech. As that great American statesman, Edward Everett, once said: "If it were possible to annihilate the Bible, and with it all its influences, we should destroy with it the whole spiritual system of the moral world, all refinement of manners, constitutional government, security of property, our schools, hospitals and benevolent associations, the press, the fine arts, the equality of the sexes, and the blessings of the fireside." For our own sakes let us hope, then, that the day of its annihilation may be far distant.

The occasion of the tercentennary celebration of the publication of the King James Version at the Albert Hall, London, March 29, 1911, led William H. Taft, who was President of the United States at the time, to express the following sentiments concerning the English Bible to the delegates convened: "This Book of books has not only reigned supreme in England for three centuries, but has bound together as nothing else could two great Anglo-Saxon nations, one in blood, in speech, and in common religious life. Our laws, our literature and our social life owe whatever excellence they possess largely to the influence of this, our chief classic, acknowledged as such equally on both sides of the sea."

To the reader who cares to study the Bible in its relation to modern life it is a pleasure to recommend a work bearing on this subject from the pen of Joseph S. Auerbach. In this work nothing is omitted because of difference of interpretation. As the writer reads without comment, so the student is left to connect the text according to his faith or teaching.

The influence of the Authorized Version of the Bible

upon the English language can be measured only in part by its influence on the English-speaking peoples. As a literary work it has preserved to us a language peculiarly its own. Of Anglo-Saxon words it contains 97 per cent.more than any other English book. Biblical English may be archaic in form, but this archaic character was not derived from Elizabethan or Jacobean sources. Hallam has pointed out that it is "not the English of Daniel, or Raleigh, or Bacon," but it may be traced back to the language of Wycliffe, and although this "abounds with obsolete phraseology and with single words long since abandoned or retained only in provincial use" it has given all men so much satisfaction that no other revision which has succeeded it has been received with sufficient favor as to displace the veneration in which the King James Version is held.

In his "Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures," Dr. Thomas Hartwell Horne gives the following statistics concerning the contents of the Bible, the computation of which occupied more than three years of his time.

Books, 14; chapters, 183; verses, 6,031; words, 125,185; letters, 1,063,876.

Another computation made by the Prince of Granada,

heir to the Spanish throne, during a period of imprisonment yields the following facts:

A writer to the "Manchester Union" (Manchester, England) computed the number of words as 810,697. A calculation of the different words used in the Old Testament, based on the number of Hebrew words translated into English, yields a total of 8,674, or about one-half the number of English words usually credited to Shakespeare.

(B) THE MODERN PERIOD: THE INFLUENCE OF THE PRESS

In point of time the Modern Period ranges from 1611 to the present day. It embraces a vast army of writers of every kind of literature which has appeared during the past three hundred years. Of these writers John Milton was unquestionably the peer. His own contemporary, John Dryden, to whom Buckhurst, who later became Lord Dorset, showed a copy of "Paradise Lost," exclaimed, "This man cuts us all out and the ancients too. A tradition is preserved that Sir John Denham, who had been permitted to read a sheet of this poem as it came off the press, declared it to be "the noblest poem ever written." Macaulay in his "History of England" described Milton as "a mighty poet who, tried at once by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy, and blindness, meditated, undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged all around him, a song so sublime and so holy that it would not have misbecome the lips of those ethereal Virtues whom he saw, with that inner eye which no calamity

could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold.”’

John Milton was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, London, on December 9, 1608. A portrait of Milton, made when he was ten years old, shows him to have been a beautiful lad, and this likeness is borne out by a tradition which claims that his beautiful and delicate pink and white skin, together with his wealth of silken auburn hair, earned for him the sobriquet of "The Lady of the College" at Christ College, Cambridge. He received his early education at the hands of a private tutor named Thomas Young, who later became a famous Presbyterian divine. When about twelve years old Milton attended St. Paul's School. From the outset he showed a passion for study, often reading late into the night, thereby, as he himself thought, causing the injury to his eyes which ultimately caused his blindness. Besides acquiring a thorough knowledge of English, Milton learned Latin and Greek, French and Italian, and was able to read Hebrew. When but fifteen years old he wrote two paraphrases of the Psalms.

On attaining his sixteenth year Milton entered Cambridge University as a minor pensioner. Owing to a quarrel between his tutor, William Chappell and himself, he is said. to have withdrawn from the University for a time, and on his return to have been placed under the tutorship of Nathaniel Tovey. Milton wrote the Latin verses for the college commencement of 1628, and a magnificent "Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity" in 1629. This is one of the most noble specimens of lyric poetry ever produced. It was followed by a sonnet to Shakespeare in 1630. Although educated for the church, Milton refused to take the necessary oaths, and therefore was "church-outed by the

prelates." From July, 1632 to April, 1638, Milton lived with his father at Horton (Bucks), about eighteen miles from London. While here, reading the Greek and Latin poets, he produced "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," "Arcades," "Comus," and "Lycidas." Of these poems the first two are the most popular, and show the poet's intense love of nature.

In April, 1638, Milton, with his father's consent, went abroad. He arrived in Paris, but notwithstanding the fact that there he met Hugo Grotius, the famous Dutch statesman, found that city uncongenial; he disliked "the manners and genius" of the place and so proceeded to Nice. From there he traveled by sea to Genoa and Leghorn, and thence through Pisa to Florence, where he remained some time, and visited Galileo who was detained there as a prisoner by the Holy Office for having expressed his views about the stars. From Florence Milton went to Rome, where he was well received, and thence to Naples, where he met the Marquis of Villa, the friend of Tasso. Returning to Florence he remained there for two months, then visited Venice, Bologna, and Ferrara in turn. Leaving Italy via Verona he crossed the Simplon Pass and proceeded to Geneva, which he reached in July, 1639, whence he set out for home through Paris and reached England at the end of the month.

Milton's visit to Florence was memorable, for he was received most cordially by all the learned men there. Among these were Jacopo Gaddi, Carlo Diodati, Benedetto Bonmattei, Antonio Malatesti, and Agostino Coltellini. Milton's chief companion when in Rome was Lucas Holste, who at that time held the office of librarian to the Vatican. It was while in that city that Milton attended a concert held in