The Maker of the Universe, As man for man was made a curse; The claims of laws which He had made, Unto the uttermost He paid. His holy fingers made the bough Which grew the thorns that crowned His brow. The nails that pierced his hands were mined In secret places He designed; He made the forests whence there sprung The tree on which His body hung. He died upon a cross of wood, Yet made the hill on which it stood. The sky that darkened o’er His head By Him above the earth was spread; The sun that hid from Him its face By His decree was poised in space; The spear that spilled His precious blood Was tempered in the fires of God. The grave in which His form was laid Was hewn in rock His hands had made; The throne on which He now appears Was His from everlasting years; But a new glory crowns His brow, And every knee to Him shall bow. http://thinkingonscripture.com/2014/06/06/the-maker-of-the-universe-f-w-pitt/ It was really really bothering me during the ten minutes it took me to figure out how to turn the italics off so that I could type without them at the beginning of this post and here, that I couldn't easily turn the italics off, but this isn't Word- but I'm glad to be able to type without them now!
I was listening to today's Sunday Sermon at TTB.org and Dr. J. Vernon McGee read this poem at the end of the sermon. The text was available to read and to copy (right click on it to see the choices) at TTB.org also. But I have copied a version in italics, cited above, that uses punctuation more to my liking.
I would change the M in the first use of the word man in line two to a capital, and the H in the word his in line seven to a capital letter, or else not capitalize any of the pronouns. But capitalization is sticky, isn't it? Growing up in a world shaped by capitalism, Hallmark and Scofield, I wonder whether or not to capitalize Him and He less often than I wonder if I should type His or Whose when typing of God. Of course it barely enters my mind not to capitalize Lord. But what about King or Redeemer or Provider? It bugs me that I'm not consistent with capitalization in this blog. It bugs me that I'm not consistent with paragraphs and spacing, and italics and quotes and other things too- like dashes and ellipses and incomplete sentences...
In college, I was generally consistent with more of these typing choices (two spaces in between sentences, semi-colons, colons) when writing an article or a paper, but even then, I was not consistent from one to another. For the paper, I probably avoided them altogether. It was, after all, for The Tallahassee Democrat.
The poem, which is in italics for an unknown reason, is lovely. (I typed loverly, and I think it's probably that, too.) We could say; that is, us curmudgeonly old-fashioned ones could posit, that the Devil (capital D) has changed English to a newly minted spoken form so simple and so devoid of definitions and meaning that synonyms will do now, rather than definitions- that we can no longer read Shakespeare and the King James'; (oh dear, where do I put that ; ? or ":"?) the two pillars upon which the English I was taught in school, was constructed.
I can do without Shakespeare, and I don't think the Devil had much to do with that going out of style in its original form. You can see that it has been interpreted and updated, and few people think of a boy playing the girl parts when they watch a film or play of his today. Of course the Bible has been updated too, and boy does that bother people.
The problem is manifold. Many people hold Shakespeare up there with the Bible, and just might capitalize the H in sentences about him, like I almost did a minute ago. Many people seem to think that King James is the original and that English should be capitalized while some other languages might should not be. The shakepearians (see variant spellings in the snippet below) tend to be the other half of the English speakers than the King Jamesers, but they both have it wrong.
We have it wrong. No surprise, because we're people.
Check out this search online which showed a picture of the actress rather than Shakespeare's wife:
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