of a single mind, but of many wise and good men, laboring through a series of years. The earliest and most influential of all was the martyr Tyndale, whose New Testament was issued in 1525. This was followed by Coverdale's Bible (1535), Rogers's (1537), Cranmer's (1539), the Genevan (1560), the Bishops' (1568). At last, in 1611, the final outcome of these years of toil appeared in our present Bible as it came from the hand of King James's translators. During all this period the process of revision went steadily forward, almost constantly gaining in every element of vigor and appropriateness.

AUTHORS OF KING JAMES'S VERSION.-The character of the authors had much to do with the perfection of their work. They were men of learning, judgment and piety, animated only by the sincere desire to render God's most holy Word accessible to all their countrymen. They toiled not for fame or pelf or any party interest, but for God's glory and the souls of men. They were in full and hearty sympathy with the book upon which they wrought. It was the guide of their lives, the arbiter of their differences, the charter of their hope for eternity. They prized it with reverence, they loved it with passion; and because of their devotion to it not a few of them suffered spoiling of their goods, bonds, imprisonments, and exile, and some even death itself. The grave purpose, the intense convictions, of such men lifted them above all puerilities and affectations. It was not for them to seek out artificial refinement or strive to gild refined gold; nor, on the other hand, could they stoop to coarseness or slang. They forgot themselves in their work, and hence the marvellous union it displays, of simplicity and majesty,

homeliness and beauty. "They were far more studious of the matter than of the manner; and there is no surer preservative against writing ill or more potent charm for writing well." (Augustus Hare.) Seeking merely to furnish to their fellows the divine oracles in an intelligible form, they not only did that, but gave to all succeeding generations a masterpiece of English composition, one that shows our language at its best, unfolding its varied resources both of vocabulary and of idiom, and offering many striking specimens of its melodious rhythm.

CONSERVATIVE INFLUENCE OF KING JAMES'S VERSION. No small regard is due to our Bible for its influence in preserving our language from corruption. Time and again there has been an influx of alien elements introduced by a capricious fashion, or by some able but unwise leader. But amid all the vagaries of popular taste, and the changes occasioned by social revolutions, or the progress of knowledge and discovery, this book has stood like a massive breakwater, unyielding and invincible. Perpetually in the hands of the people, used in public and private worship, resorted to in all controversies, employed in schools and education, in short, a daily companion from the cradle to the grave, it has so shaped the tastes and judgments of men that, however for a time misled, they were always in the end recalled to the older and better model, and renewed their adhesion to the pure "well of English undefyled."

OTHER REVISIONS.-That the book deserves what has been claimed for it is shown by its history. When it first came from the press there were two other versions in general use. One of these, the Bishops' Bible, was

most prized at court and found in all the churches; the other, the Genevan, was cherished in the household and the closet of the middle classes. Now, no royal edict, no decree of convocation, commanded the use of King James's version, yet simply by its own merits it overpowered both these rivals, and, in the course of a single generation, became the accepted book of the entire nation. In after years repeated attempts were made to introduce a new translation; but they all failed, whether put forth by coxcombs, like the man who improved "Jesus wept" into "Jesus burst into a flood of tears," or by profound and elegant scholars, such as Bishop Lowth, or Dr. George Campbell, of Aberdeen. The reason of the failure was not the perfect correctness of the authorized Scripture: no one claims for it any such infallibility. The progress of Biblical knowledge in very many directions has shown the need of much correction. But the gain of the modern versions, in this respect, was so counterbalanced by the loss in style and tone of feeling that the Christian public would none of them; and these amended Bibles, or parts of Bibles, however loudly heralded, or under whatever high names issued, have passed out of recollection, or are consulted only by curious scholars.

PRESENT REVISION.-The same thing is shown by the principles which underlie the revision now going on in England and America. This is a very elaborate enterprise, undertaken under the highest auspices, and representing, as far as possible, all bodies of English-speaking Christians. In these respects it far exceeds anything of the kind ever attempted before. Yet its conductors announce at the threshold that they neither intend nor desire a new translation; that is not needed, and if

accomplished would prove an inevitable failure. All they aim at, therefore, is to make only such corrections as the progress of the language or of Biblical science may render necessary, and in all changes to preserve, as far as possible, the very form and spirit of the existing Bible. Each of them heartily concurs in the judgment pronounced on this point by a late distinguished pervert to Romanism, Dr. F. W. Faber, with whose eloquent and touching words this paper concludes:

FABER ON KING JAMES'S VERSION.-"Who will say that the uncommon beauty and marvellous English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the great strongholds of heresy in this country? It lives on the ear, like music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of church bells, which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather than words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. Nay, it is worshiped with a positive idolatry, in extenuation of whose grotesque fanaticism its intrinsic beauty pleads availingly with the man of letters and the scholar. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of a man are hid beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that there has been about him of soft and gentle, and pure and penitent and good, speaks to him forever out of his Protestant Bible. It is his sacred thing which doubt has never dimmed and controversy never soiled."

REASONS FOR A NEW REVISION OF THE

SCRIPTURES IN ENGLISH.

BY THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D.,

Ex-President of Yale College.

Valid reasons for a new revision of the Scriptures must be found, if they exist, either in a better acquaintance with the original texts than was possible for those who prepared our authorized English version, or in the advance of scholarship since the beginning of the eighteenth century, or in the changes of the English language within the two centuries and a half since King James's version appeared. Each of these considerations will form, as I understand, the subject of a separate article. It will not be expected, therefore, that the writer should say more on either of them than will be enough to present his case to his readers as a distinct whole, dependent for its justice and force on what others will say more fully and convincingly.

DEMAND FOR REVISIONS.-There is, however, one other consideration, drawn from fact and experience, which deserves to find a place here at the beginning of our remarks. If a translation of a book like the sacred Scriptures were a very easy task, to be undertaken once for all-if the scholarship of the first ages after the conversion of a nation to Christianity could solve all the problems of interpretation which they present what reason could there be for the repeated demands, in almost every country where Christianity has gained a foothold, for revised and corrected or for wholly new translations? Does not this demand show at once a real want, and a strong desire to reach a better translation than any previous age has produced?