With luxury and pride surrounded, (Their thirst of gold and power unbounded) O Liberty! can man resign thee, Once having felt thy generous flame? Refrain To arms! to arms! ye brave! March on Refrain march on! all hearts resolved On victory or death! 5 10 15 20 ROUGET De Lisle frustrate: bring to nothing. - knavish: rascally. — myriads : large numbers.imbruing: soaking. 5 HOW WE GOT OUR REVISED BIBLE J. PATERSON SMYTH J. PATERSON SMYTH, whose home is in Kingston, Ireland, is a clergyman and a writer on Biblical subjects. He has written How to Read the Bible, How God Inspired the Bible, and other books. On a bright summer day toward the close of June, 1870, a distinguished company was assembled in the Jerusalem Chamber in Westminster Abbey. In that room in days long gone by the first 10 of the Lancastrian kings breathed out his weary life. Beneath those windows sat the Assembly of Divines when the ill-fated Charles ruled in England; here the Westminster Confession was drawn up; and here, too, under the auspices of William 15 of Orange, was discussed the great Prayer-Book Revision of 1689, intended to join together churchmen and dissenters. But no memory of that ancient chamber will eclipse in the future that of the work for which 20 these men were assembled on that summer afternoon, for the Bible revision had at length been begun, and this was the appointed New Testament Company. At the center of the long table sat the chairman, Bishop Ellicott, and around him the flower of our English scholarship. Across the Atlantic a similarly constituted company was preparing to coöperate with these to criticise the work and 5 suggest emendations, so that on the whole nearly a hundred of the ripest scholars of England and America were connected with the new revision. And now let us watch the revisers at their work. Before each man lies a sheet with a column 10 of the authorized version printed in the middle, leaving a wide margin on each side for suggested alterations, the left hand for changes in the Greek text, and the right for those referring to the English rendering. These sheets are already covered 15 with notes, the result of each reviser's private study of the passage. After prayers and reading of the minutes, the chairman reads over for the company part of the passage on the printed sheet, and asks for any suggested emendations. 20 At the first verse a member, referring to the notes on his sheet, remarks that certain old manuscripts read "the birth of the Christ" instead of "the birth of Jesus Christ." Dr. Scrivener and Dr. Hort state the evidence on the subject, and 25 after a full discussion it is decided by the votes of the meeting that the received reading has most authority in its favor; but, in order to represent fairly the state of the case, it is allowed that the margin should contain the words, "Some ancient 5 authorities read of the Christ.'" 6 And now, the textual question being settled, the chairman asks for suggestions as to the rendering, and it is proposed that in the first verse the word "betrothed" should be substituted for "espoused," 10 the latter being rather an antiquated form. This also is decided by vote in the affirmative, and thus they proceed verse by verse till the close of the meeting, when the whole passage, as amended, is read over by the chairman. 15 But the reader must not think that this description represents the amount of care bestowed on the work. After this first revision of a certain portion had been completed, it was transmitted to America and reviewed by the American committee and re20 turned again to England. Then it underwent a second revision, taking into account the American suggestions, and was again sent back to America to be reviewed. After these four revisions it underwent a fifth in England, chiefly with a view of 25 removing any roughness of rendering. And there was yet a sixth, and in some cases even a seventh, revision, for the settling of points that we need not enter on more fully here. And so the work went on, month after month, and more than ten years had passed, and some of the most eminent of those who sat that summer day 5 in the Jerusalem Chamber were numbered among the dead, when, on the evening of November 11, 1880, the New Testament Company assembled in the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields for a special service of prayer and thanksgiving,-"of thanks- 10 giving for the happy completion of their labors, of prayer that all that had been wrong in their spirit. or action might mercifully be forgiven." Four years afterward the Old Testament Company finished their work, and on May 5, 1885, 15 the complete revised Bible was in the hands of the public. Adapted authorized version: the King James translation of the Bible. - emendations: corrections. - antiquated: old. |