The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-14 00:00:00

REVISION OF THE BIBLE.

The Daily News observes that to congratulate Convocation
on the prospect of its becomirg really useful, is a satis-
faction as profound as it is novel. We think we shall not
be premature in offering these congratulations after the
speech which Dr. Wilberforce delivered in the Bounty-
office last Thursday, and in which he persuaded his epis-
copal brethren to bestir themselves to obtain a " revision
of the Authorised Version of the Old and New Testa-
ment." The debate on the Bishop's motion was, if we
may say so without disrespect, unusually straightforward ;
we mean that their lordships for once laid aside
the periphrastic style, too common in epis-
copal utterances, and consented to speak of facts
in something like the language of daily life. We do not
know why they should have spoken otherwise. The
authorised version of the Bible greatly needs revision.
The time for a perfect text or a perfect translation may
not have come, may never come ; but that is no reason
why we should not have the best that is attainable of
each. Let us be content to move in the spirit of the old
church-builders who, while doing much for their
own time, were not unwilling to leave some-
thing for posterity to continue and complete.
This work must be taken up as a necessity. The
private versions of scholars, which have prepared
the way for revision, will begin to do harm if that
revision is too long postponed, for they will undermine the
reputation of the popular Bible. The Bishop of St.
David's need not fear that the Nonconformist bodies would
throw any obstacle in the way of revision undertaken in a
truly national spirit ; the studies of such a scholar must
have made him aware of the fact, not unrecognised by one
of his most eminentbrethren in last Thursday's debate, that
the Nonconformists of England have contributed a full share
to the progress of Biblical learning in this country. We are
glad of this improved state of feeling, and will only add, in
the words of a living bishop, "Let there be not false fears
about a loving and filial revision of our present Authorised
Version."
THE BISHOP OF EXETER,.
The Post remarks it must be a source of great satisfaction
to all friends of the Church to find that at last there is
peace between the Bishop of Exeter and his opponents.
It was painful to see an able and eminent man, who had
been selected by his Sovereign for an important bishopric,
received by his Episcopal brethren, an
by a large
of his own clergy, with disapprobation and distru umber
the painfulness was not relieved by the feeling that the
distrust and the disapprobation were unwarrantable.
The best friends of Dr. Temple could not but confess
that he had laid himself open to the opposition
which he had encountered. His silence has been misunder-
stood. It has been taken for consent, and hence the oppo-
sition which has gathered round him on his elevation to a
high post in the Church. In reviewing all the circum-
stances it is impossible not to see that the Bishop has
brought a great deal of this resistance on himself. He
might have done what he has only just now done months
ago, and there would have been an end of strife.
This is what Bishop Wordsworth besought him
to do, after his confirmation, when he might have
done it without the loss of a particle of his dignity
or honour. But now that it is done all parties will con-
cur in forgetting the whole business and in wishing the
Bishop of Exeter a prosperous occupation of his honour-
able and laborious office. Some of our contemporaries
have been hard upon the Bishop for giving way, and have
not hesitated to have recourse to that last resource of
feeble journalism—the imputation of bad motives.
But the public will give him fairer play, and readily
believe that when he saw —from demonstrations
en all sides—that his essay and its company with the other
essays were doing harm, and must infallibly weaken
his own administration of his diocese, he—without
retracting anything that he had said, or compromising his
own belief—withdrew the stumbling-block out of the way.