lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father." That is pure oratory, and it is greatly helped by the English expression of it. Here our King James version is finer than either of the other later versions, as indeed it is in almost all these sections where the phraseology is important for the ear. We need not go farther. Part of these outstanding characteristics come to our version from the original, and might appear in any version of the Bible. Yet nowhere do even these original characteristics come to such prominence as in the King James translation; and it adds to them those that are peculiar to itself. FOOTNOTES: [17] Preface, p. vii. [18] Page 124. [19] _Short History of the English People_, Book vii, chap. i. [20] T. R. Eaton, _Shakespeare and the Bible_, p. 2. [21] _Essay on John Dryden._ [22] _Historical Sketches, Hampton Court Conference._ [23] Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_, p. 54. [24] _The Spectator_, No. 405. [25] This table will show the comparison at a glance: Syllables 1 2 3 4 5 6 The Commandments 259 50 6 4 0 0 319 Professor March 194 65 35 18 5 2 319 [26] McGiffert, _Life of Martin Luther_. LECTURE IV THE INFLUENCE OF THE KING JAMES VERSION ON ENGLISH LITERATURE The Bible is a book-making book. It is literature which provokes literature. It would be a pleasure to survey the whole field of literature in the broadest sense and to note the creative power of the King James version; but that is manifestly impossible here. Certain limitations must be frankly made. Leave on one side, therefore, the immense body of purely religious literature, sermons, expositions, commentaries, which, of course, are the direct product of the Bible. No book ever caused so much discussion about itself and its teaching. That is because it deals with the fundamental human interest, religion. It still remains true that the largest single department of substantial books from our English presses is in the realm of religion, and after the purely recreative literature they are probably most widely read. Yet, they are not what we mean at this time by the literary result of the English Bible.