Something, maybe, non-controversial :)

NaasPreacher (C4K) · Oct 4, 2009

I read this in ‘How We Got Our Bible’ by J. Patterson Smyth. He wrote it, I believe, in the early 20th century as a defence of the Revised Version in England.

I found his words, as he quoted a ‘Father Faber’ fascinating. I think any English speaking Christian my age or older can certainly identify with the thoughts expressed by ‘Fr’ Faber. I have inserted my comments in brackets.

Who will say that the uncommon beauty and marvellous English is not one of the strongholds of heresy [in his, a Catholic priest, eyes] in this country? It lives on the ear like a music that can never be forgotten, like the sounds of church bells, which the convert scarcely knows how he can forego. Its felicities seem often to be almost things rather than words. It is part of the nation [dare I insert English speaking world?], and the anchor of national seriousness. Nay it is worshipped in positive idolatry [I have been accused of ‘bibliolatry’ since I have been here in Ireland], in extenuation of whose fanaticism pleads availingly with the scholar. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. It is the representative of man’s best moments; all that there has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good speaks to him forever out of the English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt never dimmed and controversy never solid, and in the length and breadth of the land there is not one Protestant with one spark of religiousness about him whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible.
Click to expand...

Jim1999 · Oct 4, 2009

In the early sixties, the Roman Catholic Church switched from the Latin Mass to English here in Canada. The Catholic people demanded sermons in English rather than the Bishop's homily that was read at each Mass.

Cheers,

Jim

Something, maybe, non-controversial :)

NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

Jim1999 <img src =/Jim1999.jpg>

Useful Searches

Something, maybe, non-controversial :)

NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

Jim1999 <img src =/Jim1999.jpg>