Somewhere in some place of remembrance, we are here told, merciful men are not forgotten, and their names live for ever more.

Very often in the Bible the beautiful things of the world are associated with the prophets and saints as in such a passage as this:

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He shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." 1

The eighteenth chapter of the First Book of Kings contains perhaps the most dramatic recital in all the Bible.

It combines concentrated strength with perfect simplicity, and therefore displays the finest qualities of narrative art. It opens with a note of sadness as Elijah, having gathered all the people together, exclaims :

"I, even I, only remain of the prophets of the Lord; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men."

Then, as the story makes progress, the fierce indignation of Elijah begins to move him :

And they called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us ! But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud; for he is a god: either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. they cried aloud, and cut themselves, after their manner, with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them."

And

At last when the evening began to fall and "there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded," we are told that Elijah repaired the

1 Is. xxxii. 2.

altar of the Lord that was broken down." He prayed to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, and "the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench."

"And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, The Lord, He is the God! the Lord, He is the God!

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And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.'

And the last two verses of the chapter are these:

"And it came to pass in the meanwhile, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel.

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And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel."

This last picture of Elijah, possessed by such an exaltation of spirit that he ran through the rain and storm in the dusk before the chariot of the king to the entrance of Jezreel is immense and convincing.

He has vindicated God before all the people, and the surging rapture of his soul forces his body into fierce physical response!

I suppose the supremest flight of inspired eloquence in the Bible is to be found in St Paul's impassioned outburst on the resurrection of the dead, in the fifteenth chapter of the first of Corinthians.

It matters not that he was scientifically in error in saying that seed sown in the ground will not quicken "except it die." We now know that if the condition of the seed which we call life is extinguished, no life will come up from it when it is sown. But St Paul may well intend by his parable to convey to

us that the husk of the seed which returns to the earth and perishes represents the body of man, and that bis soul is represented by the life force, an immaterial quality that survives.

But in any case this objection avails nothing to impair the magnificent imagery of this immortal passage:

'There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

"So is also the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.

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Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

"The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."

As none of us know what life is, none of us can tell what death is, and, anyway, this great passage is

the outpouring of an enraptured spirit, whose impassioned vision has pierced for him the dark curtain and assured him of a glorious resurrection.

It has been, of course, impossible in the compass of a single chapter to do more than quote a passage and phrase here and there, and endeavour to induce those who read this book to go to the Bible themselves. The whole of the Book of Job should be read from beginning to end by anyone who loves splendid English prose. And the same may be said of Ecclesiastes.

But I must now leave this greatest of books. Regarded as the corner-stone of religion, those who have gone and still go to the Bible itself for comfort for themselves, and not for condemnation of others, have had, and will have, their certain reward.

Regarded as the foundation of English literature, and the first noble example of the great speech of our race, its glory can never be dimmed.

The art of printing has now rendered the Bible imperishable.

Empires may rise and fall, civilisations may crumble to dust, war and pestilence may destroy teeming millions and desolate continents; but until man retrogresses to the condition of the ape-like progenitor from which it is the pride of Science to trace his ascent, the English Bible, we may be sure, will survive.

CHAPTER III

SIR THOMAS MORE

ONE of the first great scholars to write in English, as well as in Latin, was Sir Thomas More.

It is true that the work by which he is best remembered as an author is his Utopia, which was written in Latin. But his prose reflects in a remarkable degree the strange composure with which the most awful and horrifying scenes of terror and death were contemplated in those days by persons of the utmost delicacy of mind and refinement of habit.

More was a man of playful and serene cast of mind, sweet in his home and gracious abroad. Yet he tortured those who came under his power without any qualms of pity.

In those days to be conspicuous was to be in danger of your life, and in the chronologies of the times there commonly stands, opposite the date of the death of the great, the laconic word "beheaded." And such indeed was the end of More himself, genially jesting with the Constable of the Tower as he ascended the scaffold.

His description of how Gloucester cleared the way for his ascent of the throne as Richard III. is the more terrible from its total lack of emotion, and I will now quote it. Gloucester had already arranged for the murder of Lord Rivers, "the most accomplished nobleman in England," to take place at Pomfret on the very same day as that, the events of which at the Tower are described here by More.