[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—It is astonishing
to find the Spectator upholding inaccuracies of translation. A paper that prides itself upon the meticulous nicety of its diction ought to be the last to throw stones. Why deny people that precision of definition in the Bible you are so zealous for in books of science? Surely the Word of God Is at least as -valuable as that of our most eminent scientists? Laxity of expression is the child- of loose thinking, and there is too much of this about as it is. Middle- aged people, no doubt, cling to the Version of their childhood, and rightly so. But they have no business to keep on countenancing error in the education of the young. To me, who am thirty-one, the Revised Version is the more familiar, and although one cannot deny the beautiful cadences-and magic rhythm of the Authorized Version, Yet . truth- Must- not be sacrificed for beauty. True, the sitbstitUtiOn of words .111 many cases does not alter the sense, yet there are many whole phrases mistranslated. The Authorized Version can never be superseded as the masterpiece of English prose writing, but it has been, and will be yet again, superseded in the interests
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