But more remarkable even than the extent to which this material drawn from the Scriptures has been used by English writers, is the striking effect which it produces when it is well used. With what pathos does Sir Walter Scott, in _The Heart of Midlothian_, make old Davie Deans bow his head when he sees his daughter Effie on trial for her life, and mutter to himself, “Ichabod! my glory is departed!” How magnificently does Ruskin enrich his _Sesame and Lilies_ with that passage from Isaiah in which the fallen kings of Hades start from their thrones to greet the newly fallen with the cry, “Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?” How grandly do the images and thoughts of the last chapters of Deuteronomy roll through Kipling’s _Recessional_, with its Scriptural refrain, “Lest we forget!” There are some works of literature in English since the sixteenth century which are altogether Biblical in subject and colouring. Chief among these in prose is _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ of John Bunyan, and in verse, the _Paradise Lost_, _Paradise Regained_, and _Samson Agonistes_ of John Milton. These are already classics. Some day a place near them will be given to Browning’s _Saul_ and _A Death in the Desert_; but for that we must wait until their form has stood the test of time. In general it may be observed—and the remark holds good of the works just mentioned—that a Scriptural story or poem is most likely to succeed when it takes its theme, directly or by suggestion, from the Bible, and carries it into a region of imagination, a border-realm, where the author is free to work without paraphrase or comparison with the sacred writers. It is for this reason that both _Samson Agonistes_ and _Paradise Lost_ are superior to _Paradise Regained_. VII The largest and most important influence of the Bible in literature lies beyond all these visible effects upon language and style and imagery and form. It comes from the strange power of the book to nourish and inspire, to mould and guide, the inner life of man. “_It finds me_,” said Coleridge; and the word of the philosopher is one that the plain man can understand and repeat. The hunger for happiness which lies in every human heart can never be satisfied without righteousness; and the reason why the Bible reaches down so deep into the breast of man is because it brings news of a kingdom which _is_ righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It brings this news not in the form of a dogma, a definition, a scientific statement, but in the form of literature, a living picture of experience, a perfect ideal embodied in a Character and a Life. And because it does this, it has inspiration for those who write in the service of truth and humanity.