The largest and most important influence of the Bible in literature lies
beyond all these visible effects upon language and style and imagery
and form. It comes from the strange power of the book to nourish and
inspire, to mould and guide, the inner life of man. “_It finds me_,”
said Coleridge; and the word of the philosopher is one that the plain man
can understand and repeat.
The hunger for happiness which lies in every human heart can never be
satisfied without righteousness; and the reason why the Bible reaches
down so deep into the breast of man is because it brings news of a
kingdom which _is_ righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It
brings this news not in the form of a dogma, a definition, a scientific
statement, but in the form of literature, a living picture of experience,
a perfect ideal embodied in a Character and a Life. And because it does
this, it has inspiration for those who write in the service of truth and
humanity.
The Bible has been the favourite book of those who were troubled and
downtrodden, and of those who bore the great burden of a great task. New
light has broken forth from it to lead the upward struggle of mankind
from age to age. Men have come back to it because they could not do
without it. Nor will its influence wane, its radiance be darkened, unless
literature ceases to express the noblest of human longings, the highest
of human hopes, and mankind forgets all that is now incarnate in the
central figure of the Bible,—the Divine Deliverer.