Now if we bear this idea of a cementing function firmly in mind, we shall have a criterion by which to judge what shall be omitted from and what shall be included in the Books of Literature in this modern Bible of ours. We shall begin, of course, by levying toll upon the Old and New Testaments. I do not think I need justify that step. I suppose that there will be no doubt of the inclusion of many of the Psalms—but I question if we should include them all—and of a number of splendid passages from the Prophets. Should we include the Song of Songs? I am inclined to think that the compilers of a new Bible would hesitate at that. Should we include the Book of Job? That I think would be a very difficult question indeed for our compilers. The Book of Job is a very wonderful and beautiful discussion of the profound problem of evil in the world. It is a tremendous exercise to read and understand, but is it universally necessary? I am disposed to think that the Book of Job, possibly with the illustrations of Blake, would not make a part of our Canon but would rank among our Great Books. It is a part of a very large literature of discussion, of which I shall have more to say in a moment. So too I question if we should make the story of Ruth or the story of Esther fundamental teaching for our world civilization. Daniel, again, I imagine relegated to the Apocrypha. But to this I will return later.
The story of the Gospels would, of course, have been incorporated in our Historical Book, but in addition as part of our first canon, each of the four gospels—with the possible omission of the genealogies—would have a place, for the sake of their matchless directness, simplicity and beauty. They give a picture, they convey an atmosphere of supreme value to us all, incommunicable in any other form or language. Again there is a great wealth of material in the Epistles. It is, for example, inconceivable that such a passage as that of St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians—"Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal"—the whole of that wonderful chapter—should ever pass out of the common heritage of mankind.
So much from the Ancient Bible for our modern Bible, all its inspiration and beauty and fire. And now what else?
Speaking in English to an English-speaking audience one name comes close upon the Bible, Shakespear. What are we going to do about Shakespear? If you were to waylay almost any Englishman or American and put this project of a modern Bible before him, and then begin your list of ingredients with the Bible and the whole of Shakespear, he would almost certainly say, "Yes, Yes."
But would he be right?
On reflection he might perhaps recede and say "Not the whole of Shakespear," but well, Hamlet, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer-Night's Dream. But even these! Are they "generally necessary to salvation"? We run our minds through the treasures of Shakespear as we might run our fingers through the contents of a box of very precious and beautiful jewels—before equipping a youth for battle.
No. These things are for ornament and joy. I doubt if we could have a single play—a single scene of Shakespear's in our Canon. He goes altogether into the Great Books, all of him; he joins the aristocracy of the Apocrypha. And, I believe, nearly all the great plays of the world would have to join him there. Euripides and Sophocles, Schiller and Ibsen. Perhaps some speeches and such-like passages might be quoted in the Canon, but that is all.
Our Canon, remember, is to be the essential cementing stuff of our community and nothing more. If once we admit merely beautiful and delightful things, then I see an overwhelming inrush of jewels and flowers. If we admit A Midsummer-Night's Dream, then I must insist that we also admit such lovely nonsense as
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where Alph the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea....
Our Canon I am afraid cannot take in such things, and with the plays we must banish also all the novels; the greater books of such writers as Cervantes, Defoe, Dickens, Fielding, Tolstoi, Hardy, Hamsun, that great succession of writers—they are all good for "example of life and instruction of manners," and to the Apocrypha they must go. And so it is that since I would banish Romeo and Juliet, I would also banish the Song of Songs, and since I must put away Vanity Fair and the Shabby Genteel Story, I would also put away Esther and Ruth. And I find myself most reluctant to exclude not any novels written in English, but one or two great sweeping books by non-English writers. It seems to me that Tolstoi's War and Peace and Hamsun's Growth of the Soil are books on an almost Biblical scale, that they deal with life so greatly as to come nearest to the idea of a universally inspiring and illuminating literature which underlies the idea of our Canon. If we put in any whole novels into the Canon I would plead for these. But I will not plead now even for these. I do not think any novels at all can go into our modern Bible, as whole works. The possibility of long passages going in, is of course, quite a different matter.