In the Popularization of Bible Study

Abstract

To those interested in religious study and religious work President Harper was chiefly known by his activity in promoting the historical study of the Bible. For a period of twenty-five years he devoted himself with great enthusiasm and unceasing labor to popularizing the knowledge of the Bible which had been acquired by scholars during the nineteenth century. He wished all to have the intimate acquaintance with and love for the Bible which he had himself found in his professional study. That was a worthy ambition, and in a large measure he saw its realization. President Harper began this popular Bible work in the year 188I, at the age of twenty-five, two years after he became professor of Hebrew in the Baptist Theological Seminary at Morgan Park, Ill. Here he was teaching Hebrew to seminary classes, but he saw an opportunity and felt an impulse to arouse the ministers of Chicagoy and of the country at large, to a reneved study of Hebrew and the Old Testamerbt. He organized clubs of ministers for this purpose, he conducted summer schools at several centers, and he prepared correspondence courses for Hebrew instruction. His enthusiasm was contagious. A kind of Hebrew revival took place in the theological seminaries, among the professors as well as among the students; and the ministers of many churches, denominations, and states were stirred to vigorous linguistic and historical study of the Bible. Then the popular work grew in his hands. Public interest increased. There arose a demand for similar means of studying the New Testament in Greek, and later for the study of the English Bible. Correspondence courses were prepared in these subjects also, sllmmer schools were multiplied, a monthly journal to lead the movement was established. In ten years' time President Harper was the recognized leader in America of scholarly Bible study among the people. Nor