Plea for a New English Version of the Scriptures. By
a Licentiate of the Church of Scotland. (Macmillan and Co.)--A well and temperately written treatise, which satisfactorily establishes that a revision of the authorized version would be a good thing, but in no way shows how it is to be done, so as to procure for the revision the same general accept- ance that the authorized version enjoys Waiving, however, the practical difficulties of the subject, we think the necessity is a little exaggerated by the author. By far the larger proportion of the errors he points out are unimportant, or important only to theologians, who of course resort to the Greek text as the foundation for their arguments, and we entirely dissent from the notion of modernizing the style of the English Bible. A writer who objects to such words as ensample, eschew, ravin, seethe, spake, aware, vagabond, as being inelegant and obsolete, may know Scotch very well, but not English. It seems to us, however, that the first step towards a revision must be the issue of an authorized version of the Greek Testament. Are such passages as Matthew vi. 13, Acts viii. 37, 1 John v. 7., to be retained? Or the narrative of the woman taken in adultery, or the concluding verses of St. Mark? This, to which the Universities are surely competent, would rouse but little opposition, and it would be very hard to contend for an authorized English version differing in important particulars from tha authorized Greek text.
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