I love working with the devotional poetry of George Herbert because the more I learn about the Bible, “this book of starres,” as Herbert calls it in his poem “H. Scriptures II” (line 14), the more connections I see with Herbert’s poetry.
So, this blog entry will be partly about an insight gained about a Herbert poem during a recent sermon and partly a cautionary tale that we need to check our sources before attributing quotes to famous people.
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| Trinity College Dublin Old Library |
A few days later I searched Google & then Google Books (which is often more reliable information, as you’re searching published books) & then the entire Ben Franklin corpus at Project Gutenberg (his memoirs, Autobiography, Poor Richard, letters). And the ONLY connection between Franklin and Psalm 15 comes in published works from long-time preacher Chuck Swindoll—and he doesn’t refer to a specific work from Franklin or cite a source.* Where Swindoll gets this from, I have no idea, but other pastors have been quoting Swindoll’s apparently erroneous statement about Ben Franklin for decades now. So the moral of this story is always make sure you know the exact source of a quote (the specific work or interview or whatever) before you say that someone famous said something. I find misattributed quotes in student writing (and on those user-supplied quotes sites, such as Brainy Quote or Good Reads) all the time.**
In fact, several web articles and even an entire book are devoted to quotes misattributed to or misquoted from C. S. Lewis. (They then correct those quotes or attribute them to the right person.)*** I highly recommend an older blog from Beth Allison Barr of Baylor University with advice to pastors for how to do good research before including that supposed historical fact or famous quote in a Sunday sermon.
But back to the “gentleman’s psalm”: a book about some architecture at Princeton University says vaguely that English public school tradition (Americans would call these elite private schools) refers to Psalm 15 as the “gentleman’s psalm.”**** Why? I presume Psalm 15 is traditionally called the “gentleman’s psalm” because of verses 2-5. These answer the question asked in verse 1 of who is worthy to dwell with God:
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved. (Psalm 15:3-5 KJV)
While verse 2 of Psalm 15 focuses on the person himself (walking uprightly, speaking the truth, etc.), verses 3-5 focus on one’s actions toward others: Don’t speak badly against your neighbor, honor followers of God, don’t go back on your promises, and don’t hurt others financially.
And this is the connection I find between Psalm 15 and Herbert’s “Unkindnesse,” a poem that focuses on how the speaker has treated his human friends much better than he has treated his ultimate Friend. The refrain to each of the five stanzas is a variation on this phrase: “I would not use a friend, as I use Thee” (line 5).
Herbert’s stanza 1 is a general statement about the speaker’s intention to treat his friends well. Herbert gets more specific after that, specifics that I think line up well with Psalm 15, leading me to think that Herbert may have had this psalm in mind while writing “Unkindnesse.”
Indeed, Herbert’s stanza 2 is about preserving a friend’s good name, just as is verse 3 of Psalm 15:
If any touch my friend, or his good name;
It is my honour and my love to free
His blasted fame
From the least spot or thought of blame. (lines 6-9)
Next, Herbert’s stanza 3 parallels verse 5 of Psalm 15 regarding lending to a friend without usury: “Would he have gold? I lend it instantly” (line 12). That the word “use” is repeated in this poem 10 times, and accompanied by other financial language, strongly suggests that the speaker is aware of the temptation to usury and keen to avoid it when lending money to his friend.
Likewise, Herbert’s stanza 4, albeit not quite as directly, puts into practice Psalm 15:4b and indeed the entire idea of verses 3-5 about looking out for a friend’s interest, even if that means hurting oneself financially or socially: “When that my friend pretendeth to a place, / I quit my interest, and leave it free” (lines 16-17). These lines are basically saying if both my friend and I are in line for the same job (or other position I really want), I take myself out of the running so my friend can have that position.
I wonder if Psalm 15 was called the “gentleman’s psalm” as far back as the early 17th century and if that might be why Herbert in “Unkindnesse” recalls this psalm when comparing how he treats his friends with how he treats the Lord. Thus far, I have not been able to trace the origin of this idea of Psalm 15 as the “gentleman’s psalm” back before the 19th century. If anyone can enlighten me on the history of this moniker for Psalm 15, please let me know!
There’s so much more to say about Herbert’s “Unkindnesse” (including the beautiful concluding stanza). I have written on “Unkindnesse” in two previous posts on my blog: here (this first entry includes the entire poem) and here.
But for now, I’d like to draw a simple connection between how we “use” our friends/neighbors and how we “use” famous people (especially long-dead ones). When the lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”, the answer as seen in the parable turned out to be anyone is my neighbor, even people I don’t know. So, let’s be kind to famous people we don’t know—even if they’re long dead or their reputation might not be harmed—by not misquoting them or misattributing quotes to them. Let’s make sure we are “speak[ing] the truth” (Psalm 15:2)!
Notes
* “Benjamin Franklin once called David’s Psalm 15 the ‘Gentleman’s Psalm.’ To him, it represented the standard of life after which a gentleman should pattern his walk” (47). No citation backing up these supposed statements from Franklin. Charles R. Swindoll, Living the Psalms: Encouragement for the Daily Grind (Worthy, 2012).
** Interestingly, other Christian sources attribute this idea of Psalm 15 as the “gentleman’s psalm” to a different U.S. Founding Father: Thomas Jefferson. For decades (and multiple editions), Halley’s Bible Handbook has perpetuated this—again, with no source cited: “Thomas Jefferson called this psalm ‘the picture of a true gentleman.’” A Google Books search shows that editions of Halley’s Bible Handbook from 1948 all the way up to 2012 maintain this same assertion and cite no source for it. Henry H. Halley, Halley’s Bible Handbook (Zondervan, 2012).
When I searched the entire corpus of Jefferson’s works at Project Gutenberg, I found that Jefferson, unlike Franklin, at least mentioned Psalm 15. In Jefferson’s letter “To Mr. Isaac Engelbrecht. Monticello, February 25, 1824,” Jefferson mentions “David's description of the good man, in his 15th Psalm.” Then he quotes Brady & Tate’s metrical paraphrase of Psalm 15. Jefferson also references Psalm 15 translations in a letter to John Adams. (These letters are included in Jefferson’s Writings volumes 7 and 6, respectively, on Project Gutenberg.) But nowhere does Jefferson use the word “gentleman” with Psalm 15 or discuss the psalm’s content further.
Pastors, please stop quoting other pastors (or even printed resources for pastors) without first checking sources!
*** See William O’Flaherty, The Misquotable C.S. Lewis: What He Didn’t Say, What He Actually Said, and Why It Matters (Wipf & Stock, 2018).
**** Richard Stillwell, The Chapel of Princeton University (Princeton UP, 2020), p. 28. Sources as diverse as a book on Jewish theology to a book on the church in Africa to 1920s Upper Room devotionals and a periodical from the University of Pennsylvania all refer in passing to Psalm 15 as the “gentleman’s psalm.”
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