THE REVISION OF THE PSALMS.
MOST of the objections which one hears raised to the revision of the Psalms would disappear if the extent of the revision and the use which is to be made of it were properly understood. The revision applies only to the Prayer Book Psalter ; in other words, to Coverdale's translation. And it is a very slight revision, which is not in any sense a new translation. It is part and parcel of the revision of the Prayer Book as a whole.
If the Dean of Westminster and his Committee had been asked to re-translate the Psalms they would have done something very different, but as it was they confined themselves to suggesting the suppression of sentiments which are quite out of keeping with Christian or even modern ways of thought and to changing the language in the case of gross mistranslations or of obscurity and unintelligibility. The use of the revision is to be per- missive just as that of the revised Prayer Book will be permissive. And as the Parochial Church Councils can always have their say in the conduct of the church services there should be no possibility of having the revised Prayer Book or the revised Psalter sprung upon unwilling congregations. If a Parochial Church Council does what the majority of the congregation do not like its whole personnel can be changed at the next elections.
No protest would be louder than ours if there were any question of substituting for the Prayer Book Psalter a new translation, or even if it were proposed drastically to overhaul it. With all its admitted imperfections it is a music which has taken possession of our hearts and brains ; it is magnificently adapted for choral uses, as the language almost sings itself. But we have to remem- ber that an enormous percentage of those who follow the Psalms in church have no historical sense whatever, and they not only take with grave literalness curses and blood- - thirsty threats which were part of the intense national spirit of the Jews, but are bewildered by unmeaning phrases or, still worse, phrases which convey a meaning the exact opposite of what the writer intended. It is to -remove such blemishes as this that a very gentle and cautious revision of the Psalms is both required and justified.
There is no such excuse or justification, in our opinion, for those who would substitute, for public reading in church, the Revised Version of the New Testament for the version of 1611. Every scholar admits that the Revised Version is a far more .accurate translation ; but when it is regarded not from the point of view of the scholar but from that of the ordinary person who is looking for spiritual and moral guidance, the advantages of the revision are not apparent, whereas the faults of sound and rhythm are patent and frequent. The revisers, without attaining any more spiritual impressiveness, have often destroyed the grandeur, abolished the nobly haunting phrase, and killed the unforgettable cadence. We need not speak so hardly of the Revised Version of the Old Tes- tament, for the harm done there in corresponding matters is considerably less. We hope that the Revised Version of the New Testament will never be generally read in church. To do that would be to detach ourselves from one of the principal roots of our speech.
But it will be seen that the revision of the Prayer Book Psalter is in quite another category. Nearly forty Psalms, as the Dean of Westminster has pointed out, are wholly unaffected, and there are more than thirty Psalms in which only a single verse is altered. Where words have been changed the Committee have tried not only to choose words that were in regular use in Elizabethan and Stuart England but also to test the suitability of any new phrase for the requirements of public reading and singing. One can imagine, and we for our part appreciate, the restraint which Bishop Ryle's Committee laid upon them- selves. They knew that for the sake of sentiment and tradition they were leaving hundreds of mistakes which the scholar as such would like to correct. Happily their sense of the wonderful hold which Coverdale's beautiful translation has over Englishmen prevailed. It was said of that other great translator of the Bible, Tyndale, that when he was burned as a heretic and his ashes were scattered to the winds the river bore them to the sea, and the sea to the ocean, so that they were conveyed to the whole world. Although Coverdale was not burned the same thing may be said of his influence and perhaps even more so, for it seems that the language of the Prayer Book Psalter has fixed itself even more than that of the Authorised Version in the memory of English-speaking men.
Consider some of the changes which have been sug- gested and which have been described by some objectors as "pitiful tinkering." Several curses have been re- moved. Take as an example the splendid Psalm which begins, "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept." The concluding phrases are a Hymn of Hate against the enemies of the Hebrews—" Blessed shall he be that taketh thy children and throweth them against the stones," &c. By anyone with a sufficient historical sense the whole is of course seen as a Hebrew poem expressing the national determination of the Jews to quell their enemies and to rise again through slaughter and the blood of opponents. It is terrible, but the poem is a perfectly balanced piece of art. It begins as a threnody and ends with a vision of restoration. Lord Hugh Cecil has expressed his horror at the idea of such a work of art being tampered with. But some regard ought certainly to be had for those who as they read or sing it cannot make the necessary mental reservation that the ancient Jews were still a savage people striving onwards towards the light, with the secret of religious truth embodied in them but not as yet able to express itself in true civiliza- tion and humanity. Most churchgoers take written words at their face value. If they apply the curses- at all they very likely apply them to their neighbours. Any- how, they are probably shocked and alienated. It is much better to remove such phrases as "Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. Let his children be vagabonds and beg their bread : let them seek it also out of desolate places."
Where words have been changed the sense has in almost every case been cleared without introducing any word that offends. "Why hop ye so, ye high hills," for example, has been changed to "Why mock ye so ye high hills." "Beranseof the noise of the water pipes," which a country congregation has often found rather grotesque, becomes Because of the noise of thy water floods:' The word " hell " is generally changed to " death " or "pit." We do not feel quite convinced of the wisdom of changing " quick" to "alive," as the word " quick " is pretty well understood—certainly by everybody who knows the Apostles' Creed.
. A few years ago it was made a practice in the Temple Church, we believe, to explain the historical setting of the Lessons: The practice has spread. The fact that a brief historical introduction to the Lessons was found acceptable by so well-educated a congregation as frequents the Temple Church proves that an average congregation can- not be expected to look after itself intellectually. It must be helped. It is for that reason that we commend the revision of the Prayer Book Psalter.
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