Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1913 — Forgotten Part of the Bible. [ARTICLE]

Forgotten Part of the Bible.

There is one merit which it is gem erally admitted that the Apocryphal books possess. For sacred books they are unusually interesting. I know that by some they have been condemned as sanguinary, fantastic, worldly, and too similar to profane literature, Itnrey be that it is these very qualities that have made them so attractive to dramatists, musicians and artists such as Raphael and Allston. Not improbably it was these very traits that led so many painters to employ their skill in portraying Susanna at the Bath, Judith slaying Holofernes, Jeremiah prophesying in the presence of Baruch; and that incited Handel to select the career of Judea’s greatest warrior, Judas Maccabeus, as the theme of one of his most glorious oratories. There are no parts of the Apocrypha more pointedly secular than are certain parts of the canonical Old Testament, such as the books of Esther, Canticles, and the older portions of Ecclesiastics. — Rev. James T. Bixby, in Harper’s Magazine.