INTRODUCTION. T O enrich and ennoble the language of a race is to enrich and ennoble the sentiments of every man who has the command of that language. This process of enrichment and ennoblement has been going on in English for nearly thirteen hundred years, and one of the chief agencies by which it has been effected is the influence, direct and indirect, of the Bible. The first coherent words of English speech which have been transmitted to us are in a species of verse which suggests, though somewhat remotely, the rhythms and parallelisms of Hebrew poetry; they constitute a hymn of praise1 1 I subjoin this most ancient specimen of English: Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard, uerc uuldurfadur; sue he uundra gihuaes, He aerist scop aelda barnum heben til hrofe, haleg scepen. Tha middungeard, moncynnæs uard, eci dryctin, æfter tiadæ, firum foldu, frea allmectig. Which may be literally translated (case-signs in Italics): Now [we] shall glorify heaven-kingdom's Warden, Creator's might and his mood-thought [sc. counsel] Work [or, works] of the Glory-father; as he of wonders of each [sc. of each of wonders, of every wonder], Eternal Lord, [the] beginning established. He erst shaped of men for the children [sc. for the children of men] Then Midgard [sc. the earth], mankind's Warden, For men [the] earth, Lord almighty. ix which includes a paraphrastic rendering of the first verse of Genesis, and whose diction throughout is colored by Scriptural reminiscences. A single word will suffice to illustrate the statement last made. This word is contained in the first line of Cadmon's Hymn, and in its ancient spelling appears as hefaenricaes. What is the meaning of hefaenricaes? In modern English it would appear as heavenric's, the possessive of heavenric, a word which would be akin in formation to bishopric. The first element of the compound is easily distinguished; the second (identical with the German Reich) means kingdom. Hence the expression as a whole is (except for the final s, the sign of the genitive) the equivalent of the phrase so common in Matthew's Gospel, but found nowhere else in the Scriptures, the kingdom of heaven, or, more literally, of the heavens. With this New Testament phrase may be contrasted another which owes its origin to the Old Testament. Such an one occurs in the fifth line of the Hymn, as aelda barnum, signifying for the children of men. From no other conceivable source could this idiom have been derived except from the Scriptures of the Old Testament. It occurs several times in the Psalms, as well as sporadically in Genesis, Proverbs, and other books. That it should have originated among the English themselves is highly improbable, and there is no other language in which it is known to occur save as a translation or adaptation from the Hebrew. The conclusion already propounded is therefore the only one which it is possible to admit. From Cædmon's time to the present the influence of Bible diction upon English speech has been virtually uninterrupted. The Latin of Bede, like that of all the later Fathers of the Church, is saturated with its peculiarities. To them the Vulgate was not merely a treasury of fact and wisdom, but a norm of speech. The Christian poetry antecedent to the Conquest exhibits a curious blending of ancient Germanic with Hebraic idiom, to which must -be added a few Latin elements. The prose of Ælfred and Ælfric could not be otherwise than powerfully affected by the books which they were constantly obliged to quote or imitate. At intervals during the Old English period, translations were made from |