_Every aid of outward form should be used to make these books appear as
living "letters" to us._
The traditional form in which the Bible has been given to the people would
seem to have been devised with a design of robbing its writings of every
natural charm, as the best means of making men feel its supernatural
power. The fresh sense of "letters" disappears in this conventional form.
These many books of many ages have been bound up together, with the most
imperfect classification either as to period or character. A verse-making
machine has been driven through them all alike, chopping them up into
short, arbitrary, artificial sentences, formally numbered in the body of
the text. The larger divisions into chapters have been made in an equally
mechanical manner. By this twofold system an admirable provision has been
made for checking the flow of the writer's thought, and for effectually
preventing any easy grasp of the natural movement of the book. Poetry has
been printed as prose; thereby marring its rhythm, concealing its
structure, and blinding the reader to the dramatic character of immortal
works of genius. Through the whole mass of writings a system of
chapter-headings has been introduced that ingeniously insinuates into the
body of these sacred books, as seemingly an integral part thereof, a
scheme of interpretation which possesses now no pepsine power for
resolving their contents into spiritual nutriment, but rather positively
hinders our assimilation of many of these books.
Probably the greatest obstacle to the use of the Bible is the senseless
form in which custom persists in publishing it. I know few stronger
evidences of the intrinsic power of these books than their continued
influence, under conditions that would have remanded other books to the
topmost shelves of the most unused alcoves in our libraries.
We ought to have the different books, or groups of books, bound
separately; arranged paragraphically like other writings, with the present
verse divisions indicated, if need be, in the margin; and the poetic
structure properly indicated. These books should have brief, simple, lucid
notes; drawing from our best critics the needful information as to their
age, authorship, integrity, form, scope, obsolete words and idioms, local
customs historical allusions, etc.; with other readings throwing light
upon obscure passages. Each book should be thus provided with such a
popular critical apparatus as accompanies good editions of other classics,
and as Matthew Arnold has prepared for one book, in his primer entitled
"The Great Prophecy of Israel's Restoration;" which is the second section
of Isaiah, arranged as a "Bible-reading for schools."
This series of Bible-books should then be chronologically arranged, as far
as the conclusions of the higher criticism will allow; and should be bound
in uniform style and set in a Bible case, preserving thus the unity of the
whole. Such an edition of the Bible would stimulate a renewed resort to
it, in which men would re-discover a lost literature.
Until you can procure such an edition, provide yourselves with a paragraph
Bible, following the natural divisions of the writings and maintaining
their poetic form; and seek the information you may desire in some of the
manuals embodying the results of the higher criticism.