of the Protestant over the Catholic Bible may be shown in the
twenty-third Psalm, and elsewhere. The first says: "The Lord is my
shepherd; I shall not want;" the second: "The Lord ruleth me; and I
shall want nothing." The first says: "He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters; he restoreth my soul;"
the second: "He hath set me in a place of pasture; he hath brought me up
on the water of refreshment; he hath converted my soul" (thus completely
losing the original metaphor of the shepherd). The first says: "Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil;" the second: "For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evils." In Job v. 7, the first says: "Yet man
is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward;" the second: "Man is
born to labor, and the bird to fly." In Job xiv. 1, the first says: "Man
that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble;" the
second: "Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with
many miseries." These examples will suffice to show the differences
which pervade the two translations.
"INTENSE STUDY OF THE BIBLE
will keep any one from being vulgar in point of style," says Coleridge.
"There are no songs," says Milton, "comparable to the songs of Zion, no
orations equal to those of the prophets, and no politics like those
which the scriptures teach." "The pure and noble, the graceful and
dignified simplicity of language," says Pope, "is nowhere in such
perfection as in the Scriptures. The whole book of Job, with regard both
to sublimity of thought and morality, exceeds, beyond all comparison,
the most noble parts of Homer." "I use the Scriptures," says Boyle, "not
as an arsenal to be resorted to only for arms and weapons, but as