guided by the feeling that their Version would secure for the words they used a lasting place in the language; and they express a fear lest they should be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a great number of good English words,' which, without this liberty on their part, would not have a place in the pages of the English Bible. Still it cannot be doubted that they carried this liberty too far, and that the studied avoidance of uniformity in the rendering of the same words, even when occurring in the same context, is one of the blemishes in their work.

A third leading rule was of a negative character, but was rendered necessary by the experience derived from former Versions. The words of the rule are as follows:-'No marginal notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words which cannot without some circumlocution so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text.' Here again the Translators used some liberty in their application of the rule. Out of more than 760 marginal notes originally appended to the Authorised Version of the New Testament, only a seventh part consists of explanations or literal renderings; the great majority of the notes being devoted to the useful and indeed necessary purpose of placing before the reader alternative renderings which it was judged that the passage or the words would fairly admit. The notes referring to variations in the Greek Text amount to about thirty-five.

Of the remaining rules it may be sufficient to notice one, which was for the most part consistently followed:-'The names of the prophets and the holy writers, with the other names of the text, to be retained, as nigh as may be, accordingly as they were vulgarly used.' The Translators had also the liberty, in 'any place of special obscurity,' to consult those who might be qualified to give an opinion.

Passing from these fundamental rules, which should be borne in mind by any one who would rightly understand the nature and character of the Authorised Version, we must call attention to the manner in which the actual work of the translation was carried on. The New Testament was assigned to two separate Companies, the one consisting of eight members, sitting at Oxford, the other consisting of seven members, sitting at Westminster. There is no reason to believe that these Companies ever sat together. They communicated to each other, and likewise to the four Companies to which the Old Testament and the Apocrypha had been committed, the results of their labours; and perhaps afterwards reconsidered them: but the fact that the New Testament was divided between two separate bodies of men involved a grave inconvenience, and was beyond all doubt the cause of many inconsistencies. These probably would have been much more serious, had it not been provided that there should be a final supervision of the whole Bible, by selected members from Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster, the three centres at which the work had been carried on. These supervisors are said by one authority to have been six in number, and by another twelve. When it is remembered that this supervision was com

pleted in nine months, we may wonder that the incongruities which remain are not more numerous.

The Companies appear to have been occupied in the actual business of revision about two years and three quarters.

Such, so far as can be gathered from the rules and modes of procedure, is the character of the time-honoured Version which we have 'been called upon to revise. We have had to study this great Version carefully and minutely, line by line; and the longer we have been engaged upon it the more we have learned to admire its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, its general accuracy, and, we must not fail to add, the music of its cadences, and the felicities of its rhythm. To render a work that had reached this high standard of excellence still more excellent, to increase its fidelity without destroying its charm, was the task committed to us. Of that task, and of the conditions under which we have attempted its fulfilment, it will now be necessary for us to speak.

II. The present Revision had its origin in action taken by the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury in February 1870, and it has been conducted throughout on the plan laid down in Resolutions of both Houses of the Province, and, more particularly, in accordance with Principles and Rules drawn up by a special Committee of Convocation in the following May. Two Companies, the one for the revision of the Authorised Version of the Old Testament, and the other for the revision of the same Version of the New Testament, were formed in the manner specified in the Resolutions, and the work was commenced on the twenty-second day of June 1870. Shortly afterwards, steps were taken, under a resolution passed by both Houses of Convocation, for inviting the co-operation of American scholars; and eventually two Committees were formed in America, for the purpose of acting with the two English Companies, on the basis of the Principles and Rules drawn up by the Committee of Convocation.

The fundamental Resolutions adopted by the Convocation of Canterbury on the third and fifth days of May 1870 were as follows:

'1. That it is desirable that a revision of the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures be undertaken.

2. That the revision be so conducted as to comprise both marginal renderings and such emendations as it may be found necessary to insert in the text of the Authorised Version.

'3. That in the above resolutions we do not contemplate any new translation of the Bible, or any alteration of the language, except where in the judgement of the most competent scholars such change is necessary.

'4. That in such necessary changes, the style of the language employed in the existing Version be closely followed.

'5. That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall