rs, and knew other people had. Their work was meant
to be read aloud, and it bears the test. That test is the supreme one,
and goes deeper than hearing. Flaubert, a great master of style, always
read his manuscript aloud; holding that phrases are right when they
correspond to all the necessities of respiration, while ill-written
phrases oppress the chest, disturb the beatings of the heart,
and contravene the conditions of life. Shakespeare bears this
test triumphantly. In his great passages, respiration is easy and
pronunciation simple; the language is a splendid and mellifluous stream.

I venture to say in conclusion: Consult the revised version of the Bible
for meaning, but read the old one for style. It is a treasury of musical
and vigorous Saxon, a well of strong English undefiled; although Hebrew
is a poor language, and the Greek of the New Testament is perhaps the
worst ever written. But do not think, as Macaulay pretended, that the
language of the Bible is sufficient for every purpose. It sustained the
genius of Bunyan, but the mightier genius of Shakespeare had to draw
from other sources to support its flight. Our English Bible contains six
thousand words; Shakespeare's vocabulary contains nine thousand more.

LIVING BY FAITH.

What is Faith? Faith, said Paul, "is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen." This is a faith that sensible
men avoid. The man of reason may have faith, but it will be a faith
according to knowledge, and not a faith that dispenses with knowledge.
He believes that the sun will rise to-morrow, that the ground will
remain firm under his feet, that the seasons will succeed each other in
due course, and that if he tills the ground he will reap the harvest.
But his belief in these things is based upon experience; his imagination
extends the past into the future, and his expectations are determined by
his knowledge. The future cannot indeed be demonstrated; it can only be
predicted, and prediction can never amount to an absolute certitude; yet
it may amount to a height of probability which is practically the same
thing. Religious faith, however, is something very different. It is not
belief based on evidence, but the evidence and the belief in one. The
result is that persons who are full of faith always regard a demand for
evidence as at once a heresy and an insult. Their faith seems to them,
in the language of Paul, the very _substance_ of their hopes; and the