Infinitely more serious is that Error to the consideration of which we devoted our former Article. For THE NEW GREEK TEXT which, in defiance of their Instructions,' our Revisionists have constructed, proves to be utterly undeserving of confidence. Built up on a fallacy which since 1831 has been dominant in Germany, and which has lately found but too much favour among ourselves, it is in the main a reproduction of the recent labours of Doctors Westcott and Hort. But we have already recorded our conviction, that the results at which those eminent scholars have arrived are wholly inadmissible. It follows that, in our account, the revised English Version has been all along a foredoomed thing. If the revised Greek' be indeed a tissue of fabricated readings, the translation of these into English must needs prove lost labour. It is superfluous to enquire into the merits of the English rendering of words which Evangelists and Apostles demonstrably never wrote.

Even this, however, is not nearly all. As Translators, the majority of the Revisionists have shown themselves singularly deficient, alike in their critical acquaintance with the language out of which they had to translate, and in their familiarity with the idiomatic requirements of their own tongue. They had a noble Version before them, which they have contrived to mar in every part. Its dignified simplicity and essential faithfulness, its manly grace and its delightful rhythm, they have shown themselves alike incapable of imitating and unwilling to retain. Their uncouth phraseology and their jerky sentences: their pedantic obscurity and their stiff, constrained manner: their fidgetty affectation of accuracy, and their habitual achievement of English which fails to exhibit the spirit of the original Greek, -are sorry substitutes for the living freshness, and elastic freedom, and habitual fidelity of the grand old Version which we

'It has been objected by certain of the Revisionists that it is not fair to say that they were appointed to do one thing, and have done another.' We are glad of this opportunity to explain. That some corrections of the Text were necessary, we are well aware and had those necessary changes been made, we should only have had words of commendation and thanks to offer. But it is found that by Dr. Hort's suasive advocacy two-thirds of the Revisionists have made a vast number of perfectly needless changes :—(1) Changes which are incapable of being represented in a Translation: as ἐμοῦ for μου,πάντες for ἁπάντες, ὅτε for ὁπότε. Again, since γέννησις, at least as much as γένεσις, means birth, why γένεσις in Matth. i. 18? Why, also, inform us that instead of èv тý àμñeλŵvi AUTOÙ TEQUTEUμένην, they read πεφυτευμένην ἐν τῷ ἀμπελῶνι αὐτοῦ? and instead of καρπὸν ζητῶν, -СпTWν KаρжÓν? Now this they have done throughout,—at least 316 times in S. Luke alone. But (what is far worse), (2) They suggest in the margin changes which yet they do not adopt. These numerous changes are, by their own confession, not necessary: and yet they are of a most serious character. In fact, it is of these we chiefly complain. But, indeed (3), How many of their other alterations of the Text will the Revisionists undertake to defend publicly on the plea of Necessity'?

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inherited

inherited from our Fathers, and which has sustained the spiritual life of the Church of England and of all Englishspeaking Christians for 350 years. Linked with all our holiest, happiest memories, and bound up with all our purest aspirations; part and parcel of whatever there is of good about us: fraught with men's hopes of a blessed Eternity and many a bright vision of the never ending life ;-the Authorized Version, wherever it was possible, should have been let alone. But on the contrary. Every familiar cadence has been dislocated: the congenial flow of almost every verse of Scripture has been hopelessly marred so many of those little connecting words, which give life and continuity to a narrative have been vexatiously displaced, that a perpetual sense of annoyance is created. The countless minute alterations which have been needlessly introduced into every familiar page prove at last as tormenting as a swarm of flies to the weary traveller on a summer's day. speak plainly, the book becomes unreadable.

Το

We lay the Revisers' volume down convinced that the case of their work is simply hopeless. Non ego paucis offendar maculis. Had the blemishes been capable of being reckoned up, it might have been worth while to try to remedy some of them. But when, instead of being disfigured by a few weeds scattered here and there, the whole field proves to be sown over in every direction with thorns and briars; above all when, deep beneath the surface, roots of bitterness to be counted by thousands, are found to have been silently planted in, which are sure to produce poisonous fruit after many days :-under such circumstances one only course can be prescribed. Let the entire area be ploughed up,-ploughed deep; and let the ground be left for a decent space of time without cultivation. It is idle-worse than idle-to dream of revising this Revision.

We are greatly concerned: greatly surprised: most of all disappointed. We had expected a vastly different result. It is partly (not quite) accounted for, by the rare attendance in the Jerusalem Chamber of some of the names on which we had chiefly relied. Bp. Moberly (of Salisbury) was present on only 121 occasions: Bp. Wordsworth (of S. Andrew's) on only 109: Abp. Trench (of Dublin) on only 63: Bp. Wilberforce on only Of these, the Bp. of S. Andrew's has already fully purged himself of complicity in the errors of the Revision. Abp. Trench, in his Charge, adverts to 'the not unfrequent sacrifice of grace and ease to the rigorous requirements of a literal accuracy; and regards them as pushed to a faulty excess' (p. 22). Were three or four other famous Scholars (Scholars and Divines of the best type) who were often present, disposed at this late hour to come for

one.

ward,

ward, they too would doubtless tell us that they heartily regretted what was done, but were powerless to prevent it.

All alike may at least enjoy the real satisfaction of knowing that, besides having stimulated, to an extraordinary extent, public attention to the contents of the Book of Life, they have been instrumental in awakening a living interest in one important but neglected department of Sacred Science, which will not easily be put to sleep again. It may reasonably prove a solace to them to reflect that they have besides, although perhaps in ways they did not anticipate, rendered excellent service to mankind. This work of theirs will discharge the office of a warning beacon to as many as shall hereafter embark on the same perilous enterprise with themselves. It will convince men of the danger of pursuing the same ill-omened course: trusting to the same unskilful guidance: venturing too near the same wreck-strewn shore.

Its effect will be to open men's eyes, as nothing else could possibly have done, to the dangers which beset the Revision of Scripture. It will teach faithful hearts to cling the closer to the priceless treasure which was bequeathed to them by the piety and wisdom of their fathers. It will dispel for ever the dream of those who have secretly imagined that a more exact Version, undertaken with the boasted helps of this nineteenth century of ours, would bring to light something which has been hitherto unfairly kept concealed or else misrepresented. Not the least service which the Revisionists have rendered has been the proof their work affords, how very seldom our Authorized Version is materially wrong: how faithful and trustworthy, on the contrary, it is throughout. Let it be also candidly admitted that, even where (in our judgment) the Revisionists have erred, they have never had the misfortune seriously to obscure a single, feature of Divine truth; nor have they inadvertently in any quarter (as we hope) inflicted a wound which will leave an abiding scar behind it. It is but fair to add that their work bears marks of an amount of conscientious labour which those only can fully appreciate who have made the same province of study to some extent their own.

ART.

ART. II.-1. The Congressional Globe and Record. Washington, 1865-70.

2. Macpherson's History of Reconstruction.

Washington, 1870.

3. The American Almanack for 1881. New York.

BEF

EFORE the War of Independence, the people who had journeyed from many distant lands to seek a home on the American Continent had no political history to record. The States which they had founded were entirely independent of each other, and, when they were all brought under the authority of the British Crown, it was to that alone they acknowledged allegiance. Their own charters confirmed them in all the rights and privileges which they specially valued. The only party names known among them were those which came from England. The din of political strife reached their ears merely as a far-off echo, and they had little time or opportunity to meet for the discussion of events which had taken place months before. Some called themselves Whigs and others Tories; but they were far removed from the scene of action, their farms were scattered and wide apart, and they took but little note of the course of political life in England, unless their own interests seemed to be imperilled. Tardy and imperfect scraps of news were talked over at the little village-store, where the minister himself-the greatest man in the community-would sometimes condescend to give his neighbours the benefit of his opinion. To gain a subsistence from the harsh and unkindly soil, and make some small provision for the future, was not so easy a matter as it became for many of their descendants. Sufferings and hardships, now almost unknown, contributed in no slight degree to mould the national character. It was the heroic and picturesque age of the American people, when all the nobler qualities of the race were developed, when the foundations of a great nation were being laid, and a wilderness was fashioned and prepared to receive millions of people. A few attractive glimpses of these early days are afforded in the pages of Whittier, Longfellow, and Hawthorne; but even these New England writers have not done full justice to the brave and self-denying people who first made it possible for a free race to inhabit North America. Sickness and privation were the grim visitors who haunted their firesides by day and night, and for many a weary year existence continued to be one long struggle against nature and man. Those who escaped from the poisoned arrows of the Indians were too liable to fall under the destructive assaults of fever. We know that out of the hundred

and

and one emigrants who landed from the Mayflower,' fiftyfive died the first year, and, ten years after the settlement was founded, the colony only numbered three hundred souls. The people were obliged to bury their dead in secret, lest the Indians should find out how many they had lost, and thus discover how helpless they were to resist any further attacks. Every man was armed to the teeth, even when he went to the house of prayer. These were the beginnings of the American nation in New England, and from New England most of the ruling ideas of the people have sprung. It was there that resistance to the Stamp Act and to the Tea Tax was organized, although Patrick Henry had prepared the way in Virginia. It was there that the first steps were taken to make the colonies independent of England. In that group of States, small and even insignificant as it is in area, compared with many other parts of the Union, the principles have ripened, which now control the government of the nation. Yet it is a singular fact that, although New England opinions have so often triumphed, thrice only since the beginning of the government has a man of New England birth been called to fill the office of Chief Magistrate. Virginia was the mother of Presidents'—Virginia, for generations the proudest and fairest of all the States, but cast down in our own day to the dust, and doomed to drain to the last dregs the bitter cup of humiliation and sorrow.

6

When Independence was secured, it became for the first time necessary to define a national policy, and it was at that period that a well-marked division of parties began to be visible. The various States, jealous as they were of their rights and of each other, were forced to confess that a stronger league was needed for their protection and welfare than that of the Confederation, which had, indeed, enabled them to carry the revolutionary war to success, but was not in any way adapted to the new circumstances that had arisen. There was a Congress, it is true, in which all the States were represented, but it was not in a position to fulfil any of the functions of a Legislative body. Washington described it as a shadow without the substance,' A central authority, armed with adequate powers, was obviously needed; and it was during the process of bringing this into some definite shape, and defining its prerogatives, that the two great parties were called into existence, which, under various forms, have ever since divided the country. The delegates from the thirteen States, who assembled at Philadelphia in 1787, succeeded in agreeing upon the provisions of a Constitution for the new Union, but the instrument itself had to be ratified by each State, and in several cases it met with great opposition. For some Vol. 153.-No. 305.

6

F

few