[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—While agreeing fully with
your article on the pro- gramme of the" Pan-Anglican" Conference, I think you have omitted to notice that the Bishops might take one practical step of the highest importance in relation to Old Testament criti- cism. They might recommend or authorise, or recommend the proper authorities to authorise the (at least) optional use in churches of the Revised Version of the Old Testa... went. If the revision of the New Testament had been as free from pedantry we might now be using both; but even as it is, why should not a select list of really important changes in the New Testament be drawn up and introduced into general use P and where should we be more likely to find scholars and theologians, who would also display some literary common- sense, than in a small committee of the Anglican Bishops P The Revising Committees and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have done their share in this great work, and it is a pity that their labours should be left to be explotties1., by enter- prising publishers in " Bibles.fgroth.r.„4"'aieteenth century,"
and so fortu
, „„„ar, nude; Teueu-t.licy-1,-aght to be formally recognised.
No one now professes a belief in the verbal inspiration of the authorised version of the Scriptures, but some such postulate still underlies much teaching and discussion ; and probably no better correction to popular superstitions and fears on the subject of the higher criticism could be found than the in- creased familiarity (which would follow from so striking an innovation) with the best results of the lower criticism, which must always be the foundation of the higher, for the massea as much as for the scholar.—I am, Sir, ike.,
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