Emotional Power

Much of The Bible is the highest, truest literature. It is universal in its application, it has stood the test of time and has proved its power to inspire and refine mankind, no matter what the rank or condition. Take for example the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians :

1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

II. When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things.

12. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Barring for the present all thoughts of divine inspiration, let us look at this as though it had been written by some man of to-day. Charity means love, love in its broad sense, love universal.

Was the man who wrote the chapter sincere? Was he in earnest? Were his emotions profoundly stirred by contemplation of this human trait? Did he really believe that though he spake with the tongues of men and of angels and had not love in his soul his words were like the sounding of brazen instruments and the tinkling of cymbals? Could a man insincere, a man whose soul was not instinct with admiration for charity, describe it so thrillingly as this:

"Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

The man who could so write must be of refined and delicate sensibilities, deeply moved by moral perfection and himself anxious to achieve it. In no other way could he write so as to move us as these lines do. It is this emotional intensity that gives vitality to so much of the Bible. In some of the psalms, the Twenty-third for instance, the singer is moved out of his own being and sings as one inspired.

Shakespeare also felt with similar intensity when he wrote, and those powerful phrases to which attention was called before, sprang into being when

his own soul was stirred by his ethical emotions. In Lycidas, the student will remember, Milton wrote calmly of the death of King, seeming to feel but little sense of personal loss. His lines were beautiful but they seemed cold and to us a trifle unfeeling. But when he thought of the church in which King might have been a noble leader and remembered the hideous laxity of

"such as for their bellies' sake

Creep and intrude and climb into the fold"

and "shove away the worthy bidden guest," his fiery indignation was aroused and that passage burns with an intensity that casts into deep shade the rest of his elegy. Again, in In Memoriam, Tennyson is moved by personal grief. His heart mourns the loss of his dearest friend and sadness seems to overpower him, but frequently the very intensity of his sorrow rouses deeper emotions, and we see that the man is keenly alive with admiration for moral excellence and is swayed by a deep feeling that takes hold upon the most profound problems of human existence. We have no doubt of his sincerity, we know that he was intensely in earnest as he strove with these great abstract questions.

Shelley had no real intimate acquaintance with Keats, but Keats embodied for him the poetic principle, and the criticism that Shelley believed had hastened the end of the frail genius was the

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