ostolic
labors, and the last great effort of apocalyptic genius, in the Revelation
of St. John, the Divine.

3. _This literature of the Jewish nation and of the Christian Church is
intrinsically noble._

The Bible has lost much of its fresh charm for us, with whom its finest
sayings are household words.

We parsed Virgil and Homer in our boyhood until the aroma of poetry
exhaled from their hackneyed pages, and we can scarce think of them now
save as grammatical exercises. The Bible has thus palled upon our
imagination, through the uninspiring familiarity of early task-work. But
were it possible to read it in our manhood for the first time, how the
blood would beat and the nerves thrill over some of its pages. We should
then understand the sensations of a French _salon_ upon a certain
occasion. Our shrewd philosopher-minister Franklin, had previously heard
the _literati_ wont to gather there ridiculing the Bible, and had guessed
that they knew little of it. Upon this evening he observed that he would
much like to have the judgment of the assembly on a certain Eastern tale
he had lately come across, unknown probably to most of those there
present, though long ago translated into their own tongue. Whereupon,
drawing from his pocket a copy of the Bible, he had a Parisienne, let into
the secret, read in her sweet tones the book of Ruth. The company was
thrown into raptures over the charming tale, which lasted until they found
its name.

How fresh, with the crisp air of morning, are these tales of primitive
tradition! How _naif_ these simple stories of Hebrew heroes! What so fine
in religious poetry as some of the strains from the Jewish Hymnal? What a
noble drama is Job, the Hebrew Faust! How wise the proverbial sayings!
What pure passion and lofty imagination stir through the pages of the
greater prophets! Where are to be found letters like those of Paul? What
biographies have the artless simplicity of the Synoptic Gospels, or the
mystic spirituality of the Gospel according to St. John!

No critic of our age has finer literary feeling or more dispassionate
judgment than Matthew Arnold; and he has edited the second section of
Isaiah as a text book for the culture of the imagination in English
schools. In the introduction to this Primer he observes: "What a course of
eloquence and poetry is the Bible in our schools."

Goethe shared Arnold's love of the Bible, and was so constant a reader of
it that his friends re