The Age of Tidbits

1895

This is the age of tidbits. People are content to be fed by literary cat's meat men on "scraps" and to nourish the soul on journalistic essences. Such a state of things is the Nemesis of the printing press. It is so much simpler to glance at the newspaper review of books than to read the books for ourselves. As a rule, too, we merely read the startling or spicy extracts which the reviewer is compelled to tear from the context.

The result is that the ordinary person who passes some glib judgment on such a work as the "Thomas Carlyle" of Mr. Froude knows as much of its actual contents as the fashionable idiot in Dickens knew about Shakespeare's sublime tragedy of "Macbeth." To that gentleman "Macbeth" was the play in which there was "a dem'd uncomfortable woman who insists on getting up in the middle of the might and walking about the room with a lighted candle." — National Review.

Wants No Modernized Bible

1910

King James Version the Best of All, Says Writer in Success Magazine

We are just old-fashioned enough to take no stock in the modernized Bible which is shortly to appear, "couched in every-day language, with obsolete words and phrases eliminated." The King James Bible has done more to preserve the good old Saxon words and style, which are the best English literature has produced, than anything else.

Instead of a movement to get us further away from that vigorous, simple, classic style, and in the interest of establishing the finest literary ideals possible to a people destined to use the curious hybrid which the English language has become, it would be more sensible to frown upon all efforts to improve on the King James Bible. It is the greatest treasure house, inspiration and teacher of good English that we possess. — Success Magazine.

Clerical Idol of Young

1914

Presbyterian Minister Inaugurates "Lovers' Night" At His Church

Philadelphia, Jan. 5. — Being the product of an era in sympathy with his advanced religious ideas, the Rev. Zed Hetzel Copp, pastor of Cohocksink Presbyterian church, is fast becoming the clerical idol of the community and the special favorite of the younger generation. A distinct hit with the latter has just been made by Mr. Copp in inaugurating a "lovers' night" at his church.

The Rev. Mr. Copp recently decided there was more talk about love in churches than there was of the presence of the commodity itself. His plan is the throwing open of the church doors every Friday evening to the young men and women who are "keeping company" or desire to do so, and of providing for them suitable opportunity to make love under proper conditions.

Comment: I probably should add that the phrase "to make love" back then meant something entirely different than now. It could be simply being together, sitting together without parental supervision. Or holding hands, looking at the moon together, etc. Even in the '60s, when Elvis sang "It's time to make love," he also meant these more moderate romantic exertions, kissing on the beach probably in his case, going by his movies. Although the song "Do Not Disturb," from which that lyric comes from, does say, "Hang a sign on the door," which is getting more serious. So the pastor's plan back in 1914, while apparently on the daring side, wouldn't really have amounted to that much. Sitting in the same pew sort of like a married couple.