1 Verily, I say unto you, consider the hearts of men, how they are drawn unto the shadows of things past. 2 For there are those among the brethren who say, "Unless the Word cometh with the tongues of angels—or rather, the tongues of the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and eleven—is it truly the Word?" 3 Behold, they hear the plain speech of the modern day, clear as a bell and bright as the noonday sun, yet they despise it, saying, "Where is the majesty? Where is the thee and the thou?"4 And I ask you: Doth truth require a cloak of antiquity to be true? 5 If a man speaketh wisdom in the language of the market-place, is it less wise than if he speaketh with the ending of -eth? 6 Peradventure, hath the Lord commanded that holiness dwelleth only in the grammar of the ancestors? 7 Or have ye made an idol of the style, mistaking the vessel for the water contained therein?8 Consider the scribe who writeth "He walks"; the people shrug and pass by. 9 Yet if the same scribe writeth "He walketh," lo, the people tremble and say, "Surely this cometh from on high." 10 Why are ye so easily beguiled by the cadence of the old paths? 11 Is it not a snare unto your minds, that ye trust the sound of authority more than the Spirit of truth?12 If the prophets spoke today, would they not speak so that the plowboy understandeth? 13 Why then do ye seek to bind the power of God to a single moment in time, as though the Lord grew silent when the ink dried upon the parchment of King James? 14 Selah.
