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THE KEY. JOHN SHARP^ ON THE LAST 



attractiveness and of its translateableness. It was easy to translate 

 into any language that Christ lived and died for man, but not easy 

 to translate the abstract and ethical characteristics of God. The 

 book also was marvellously adapted to the needs of man. In 

 Dr. Wallace's recent book, The World of Life, .the secret of 

 success and the prolongation of type were shown to be dependent 

 upon adaptability. Adaptation was stamped upon the Bible. So 

 Sir Oliver Lodge in his recent book on Eeligion and Science pleaded 

 with scientific men to read the Scriptures with a childlike spirit, 

 for they were true to the heart and life of man. 



Bishop Thornton thought the paper very valuable, and the 

 argument for recognising a superhuman element in Scripture, 

 drawn from phenomena in the last century in connection with its 

 translation and circulation, exceedingly strong. It must not, 

 however, be pressed unfairly. True, nothing is known of Societies 

 for circulating the Koran : but whereas till the nineteenth century 

 enthusiasm for the Bible seems to have been somewhat dormant 

 among Christians, the self-sacrificing devotion of Moslems to their 

 sacred book (even though untranslated), and their zeal in requiring 

 its acceptance by subject peoples, had from the first been most 

 extraordinary ; and it would be interesting to know the lecturer's 

 explanation of it, as Divine Inspiration in this case could hardly 

 be inferred. 



And was it safe, in recording (very properly) the unifying 

 influence of the Bible on different Protestant bodies, to taunt 

 (in effect) Sunni and Shiah with the failure of their loyalty to the 

 Koran to bring them together 1 might they not ask whether the 

 Bible had unified Romanist and Protestant 1 



Again, is not the paper hard on the Jews 1 On the request, it is 

 said, of a Gentile Prince, who desired it for his public library, the 

 Jews cordially promoted the production of the LXX, improved 

 editions of which were issued later by Gentile proselytes such as 

 Aquila and Theodotion, and others. The proselytising zeal of the 

 Jew (albeit unsatisfactory in result) is noticed in the Gospels ; and 

 the number of Gentile proselytes is believed to have been very 

 large ; while, presumably, the means of recruiting them must have 

 been their introduction to the Law and the Prophets. That the 

 LXX was widely known to Gentile readers is asserted by Christian 

 fathers, seems confirmed by allusions in apostolic letters to Gentile 



