made comparatively easy, by felicitous alterations in full accordance with the best authorities. While, like others, I was startled at first by the great number of minor alterations and transpositions, and still more by the multitude of omissions, I found that in most cases the Revisers were justified by the concurrent testimony of MSS., versions, and Fathers, and that, in many of the attacks made upon them, there was either gross exaggeration, or a curious ignorance of the idioms of the Greek and Hebrew languages.

But, in preparing a brief and hurried review of the Revised Version for the Church of England Quarterly (July, 1881), I became convinced that, however great its excellency, and however tolerant of emendations I might have become from my intercourse with German scholars, the work, invaluable to the student or the clergyman, fell short of its perhaps too presumptuous aim-that of superseding the Authorized Version as a book to be read in churches. Every perusal brought to light inaccuracies or inconsistencies, often trivial, yet scarcely to be expected, after so many years of consideration, from men of such world-wide fame and undoubted ability; and the innumerable marginal notes, sometimes incorrect, but more often unnecessary, told of the absence of the

one master mind, which should have moulded discordant counsels into an harmonious whole, which could bear comparison with the sublimity and beauty of our still unrivalled Bible. If the editors had aimed less high, and been content, in the first instance, to commend their labours, as suggestive for some distant period, to the criticism and investigation of Anglican scholars of all countries, as I shall presently explain— first, for the correction of the present text; secondly, for an accurate, if less elegant, version; thirdly, for the Avatar of some divine like Tyndale ;-three, at least, might be found in our day in England, who might be able to make "the crooked straight and the rough places plain ;"-the Committee would not have been assailed so vehemently, I might say in many strictures so unwarrantably (as in the Quarterly Review and Sir Edmund Beckett's pamphlet), had they not been supposed to be setting up a standard for the Church. The charges in both, fairly weighed, are in any other light but bruta fulmina, certainly with much sound and fury in them, but very easy to be refuted, except where the margins are impugned. I am quite aware that, in criticizing great men, the door is opened to pitiless rejoinders; but surely, in such an investigation as this, the feeblest helper should find regard. Undue

favour may be shown to two MSS., the earliest born and the latest discovered; but why condemn these as most corrupt without a proof, or, on the other hand, make them paramount? As the earliest extant MSS., they possess a high but not exclusive value, being by two centuries nearer to the archetypes; but intrinsic probability, even according to Westcott and Hort, claims some consideration, and our Alexandrine MS. of the sixth century may be followed sometimes against them. I trust, therefore, to find excuse if I discover a few grave faults in the new Revision: too implicit dependence on Aleph,, and B, the Sinaitic MS. of Tischendorf and the better known Vatican; the constant intrusion into the margin of spurious readings, said to be attested by many ancient authorities, but often worthless; needless transposition of words, as "Is it I, Lord?" for "Lord, is it I," and such like; inconsistencies as to tenses, articles, prepositions; and a too great fondness for the insertion in italics of superfluous words. If I may mention other objections in detail, I should name the use of "Holy Ghost" for "Spirit," even where, in the same chapter, the absence of the qualifying epithet requires "Spirit" to be used; the absence of any distinction between γνῶσις and ἐπίγνωσις, so important a word

in St. Paul's theology; the confusion of alúv and кóσμoç, even when occurring in the same chapter; between νάος and ἱερόν occasionally ; ποιῶ, ἐργάζομαι and ἐνεργοῦμαι, ἀλλήλους and αυτους; the retention of archaisms, as "bewrayeth," "whiles;" "shall" for "will;" with much inconsistency as to "who," "whom,” and "which." If "Hades" was admissible, so surely was "Gehenna," and the Greek names of heathen deities; the word "devil" might have been reserved for Satan, and "demons" or "evil spirits" assigned to his angels, and the denarius have found a nearer representative than a penny. But these and other faults that may be found are but trivial blemishes, and if so large a company have left so many, it is probable that many more will be found in the work of a single mind. The German revisers of Luther's Bible proposed to devote ten years to the searching of the Scriptures, one or two more to the reception of criticisms or comments from the public, and then to hand over the stores thus gathered to the sifting and supervision of the most able scholar they could find. It is this which we desiderate in the new Revision. Few, if any, outside the Committee have been asked to co-operate. A claim has been advanced for its admission to the Churches before it has passed the

scrutiny of other competent judges, and though the Committee itself contains the names of three or four well qualified for the final work of re-revision, and one bishop at least might have been named outside it, we look in vain for what we find in Luther or in Tyndale the harmonious impress of one prevailing mind. For want of this, we are too often reminded of the familiar analogies, the new patch upon the old garment, or the new wine put into the old bottles. Trivial alterations, often inconsistent, if they have added a little to the accuracy of the old, have marred the symmetry of the new. We miss the glorious cadences of poetry in prose, which our forefathers had preserved from the genius of Tyndale, and our gains in knowledge and understanding scarcely compensate the unlearned reader for the loss of the familiar and well-remembered words. It has seemed to me that it would have been better if the Revisers had avowed from the first that for a new translation a new text was necessary, published both page by page together, and left the new Revision for a time to the criticisms of all who chose; then deputed one (or three at most, if this were thought to be desirable) to dignify or soften the austerity of the "new learning" with the grace and beauty of the old-men of