"
Again: "The Holy Scriptures are like a thin stream, beginning from the
very fountain-head of our race, and gradually, but continuously, finding
their way through an extended solitude into times otherwise known, and
into the general current of the fortunes of mankind. The Homeric poems
are like a broad lake, outstretched in the distance, which provides us
with a mirror of one particular age and people, alike full and
marvelous, but which is entirely disassociated by a period of many
generations from any other records, except such as are of the most
partial and fragmentary kind. In respect of the influence which they
have respectively exercised upon mankind, it might appear almost profane
to compare them. In this point of view the Scriptures stand so far apart
from every other production, on account of their great offices in
relation to the coming of the Redeemer and to the spiritual training of
mankind, that there can be nothing either like or second to them."
Mr. Gladstone thinks that "the poems of Homer possess extrinsic worth as
a faithful and vivid picture of early Grecian life and measures; they
have also an intrinsic value which has given their author the first
place in that marvelous trinity of genius--Homer, Dante, and
Shakespeare.
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