nderstand
the allusions in English literature without a knowledge of the Bible.
What would "Ruth among the alien corn" mean to a reader who had never
known the beauty of the story of Ruth? And the lilies of the field,
permeating all poetical literature, would have lost all their perfume if
one knew nothing about the Song of Solomon.

Putting aside the question as to whether young readers should be let
loose in the Old Testament or not, or whether modern ideas of purity are
justified in including ignorance as the supremest virtue, he who does
not make himself familiar with Biblical ideas and phraseology finds
himself in after-life with an incomplete medium of expression. It used
to be said of the typical English gentleman that all he needed to know
was to ride after the hounds and to construe Horace. This is not so
absurd, after all, as it appears to be to most moderns. To construe
Horace, of course, meant that he should have at least a speaking
acquaintance with one of the masterpieces of Roman literature, and this
knowledge gave him a grip on the universal speech of all cultivated
people. However useless his allusions to Chlo[:e] and to Maecenas were in
the business of practical life, he was at least able to understand what
they meant, and even a slight acquaintance with the Latins stamped him
as speaking the speech of a gentleman.

Similarly, a man who knows the Scriptures is fitted with allusions that
clarify and illuminate the ordinary speech. He may not have any
technical knowledge, or his technical knowledge may be so great as to
debar him from meeting other men in conversation on equal grounds; but
his reading of the Bible gives his speech or writing a background, a
colour, a metaphorical strength, which illuminate even the commonplace.
Strike the Bible from the sphere of any man's experience and he is in a
measure left out of much of that conversation which helps to make life
endurable.

Pagan mythology is rather out of fashion. Even the poets often now
assume that Clytie is a name that requires an explanation and that
Daphne and her flight through the laurel do not bring up immediate
memories of Syrinx and the reeds. The Dictionary of Lampri[`e]re is covered
with dust; and one may quote an episode from Ovid without an answering
glance of comprehension from the hearer. This does not imply ignorance;
it is only that, in the modern system, the old mythology is not taken
very seriously.

Since Latin and Greek