National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-05-30
THE NEW VERSION.
OPINIONS OF OUR CITY PASTORS.
The Revision Discussed in the Pulpit Yesterday
The President Of the Bible Society
Says 1t Is the Work ola
Close Corporation.

| Inc clergymen OF the Guy HdE0 HSiu
| time to read and consider the changes made IN
| the New Testament by the revision committee,
and the New Version" was made the subject OF
discourse by several city pastors yesterday. The
New Revision" was the subject of an interesting
discourse by
REV. FREDERICK POWER,
| the pastor of the Vermont Avenue Christian
| Church. The President and his mother were
present for the first time since Mrs. Garelds i'll
| ness. The preacher selected as the basis
of his discourse the words found in Genesis,
first chapter and third verse, "Let there be
| light and there was light Living
| tongues, the speaker said, are always sub
ject to mutations. The language of Wickchf, OF
Tyndall, Cranmer, and of James l. is not the Ian
guage of this country and generation. The version
| of Wickclif must be translated into the current
language of 1881 in order to be understood. The
great translation of the Bible has always origin
ated in communities of mighty civilization and
mental advancement. These things were never
| done in a corner. For go years
| THE AUTHORIZED VERSION
has held its own, until men have come to regard
that particular version as having the authority not
only of King James and the English Parliament,
but of God Himself Hundreds of translations
have been made since that day. Nearly every
theological student and preacher makes his own
translation. The English language has changed
W onderfully in go years. The necessity for new
version is self-evident 1t is amusing to hear men
talk of the revision trifiing with the Word of
| God. The same argument would have prevented
| the translation in 1611, and would preclude the
right to give the Word of God in the language of
the people, and compel them to read the Bible in
| Hebrew or Greek, or remain in ignorance. 1t is
equally absurd to say that the substitute of love
for charity spirit for ghost. know for w.t. hinder
for let anticipate for prevent, conduct for CONVEX
| sation, are interferences with
| THE PURITY
of the sacred text. To say that correct transla-
ton of the Word of God and the multiplication of
copies of it in the hands of the people is aid to
infdelity is a SANDER upon the Word of God. How
well the work has been done each one may judge
| for himself AS for me, believe this work is the
noblest monument of united and reyerential
| scholarship and philanthropy. The speaker noted
certain improvements: First-The striking out of
! certain passages. Second-Passages where new
light is thrown on the meaning. Third
| The supply of the Greek article or its
| disuse when warranted, the improvement in the
| use of propositions and particles. The speaker
thought that the most significant epochs of his
| tory have been marked with new version of the
Bible. This new version comes in an age of in
tense mental activity. 1t appeals to curiosity,
criticism, and fashion. In one week there has
been more Bible reading than in any month of the
eighteen centuries past. Who shall say but that
there will be wisdom il the land where there
foolishness before, faith where there was infdel-
ity, holiness where there sin, because Of this
impetus to Bible reading.
DR.. DoMER's DISCOURSE.
Rev. Dr. Domer, at st. PauPs English Lutheran
Church. yesterday morning selected as his text the
third verse of the sixteenth chapter of TheSSa-
lonians, Let the word of God dwell in you richly
and with wisdom" He said that the most bene-
fetal result of the recent revision of the New Tes
more clearly expressed Any attempt to analyze
and compare the revision would entail enormous
labor, but this would not prevent careful study
of it by Christians, it provided substance for
deep thought, as well as the material fora true
faith and belief. Whatever opinions might be
entertained as to the necessity for the revision
there no question but that it would present
the Bible in a finer form than ever. That repre-
sentative men of various denominations on both
sides of the Atlantic should for ten years devote
themselves to a careful study of it was a demon
stration, he held. of the power of the Bible upon
the minds of the world. In164
vOLTAIRE, OF FRANCE,
a sharp and discriminating atheist predicted that
in twenty five years the Bible would be banished
from the world and be an obsolete work. Despite
| this prediction, however the Bible to-day stood
before the world the most popular work ever pub
lished. In 1922, when Luther translated the Bible
into the German, the first edition numbered three
thousand copies, but in 1881 it was five hundred
thousand copies, thus setting at naught all
prophecies of atheists and unbelievers that the
Bible was to become an obsolete work. He thought
it was
A DECIDED IMPROVEMENT
over the King James version. 1t was, moreover, a
monument of denominational cooperation such
as the world never before. Here were re-
visers brought together from different countries
and protesting different faiths, rallying around
the word of God, and actuated solely by a desire
for his ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. All could rejoice and
eXult in the revised New Testament for it had
| created harmony and an interest which plainly
showed that the cause of Christianity was adj
vancing and not going backward.
At the five o'clock services at the Lutheran
Memorial Church yesterday afternoon the pastor,
REV. JOHN BUTLER,
took up the subject of the revised edition ofthe New
Testament. After reading from the fifth and sixth
chapersin the revised edition, he took the text
forhis familiar remarks Nehemiah viii: and Rev
Citations iii %. THAT this revision has been ap-
prccated," said the speaker, is evidenced from the
fact that in less than ten days from the time it
put upon the market, three hundred thousand
copies of the New Testament have been
sold in the city of New York alone, and
there is not a leading newspaper in all our land
that has not printed long and carefully prepared
articles regarding it, while some of the more prom
inent journals of the day have printed the entire
new version in their columns. That the revision
will be thoroughly read and discussed under these
conditions is evident at glance. 3 While
We all may at first feel like cliHging to the old
Bible, let not lose sight of the fact that this is
simply revision of the old translation,
the Bible of King James, which is itself
a revision of an older version of the sacred word.
= But why was the work undertaken?
Why not let cur old Bible stand? For number
I
of the original documents with which TO compare
our Bible than had the rcyisers of King James.
More manuscripts going back to the fourth and
fifth centuries of the Christian era, and coming
down even to the tenth century. Again,
we have a better understanding of the Greek
language of Palestine, and the energy
of our age is daily exhuming much Of
the buried past that throws new light
into hitherto dark places" The speaker then read
from the old and the new versions, and pointed
out many of the moro important omissions and
changes in the text, and at the same time called
attention TO the important reasons which bad
actua.ed the changes. After rendering n just
tribute to the piety learning and dsinterestedncSs
of the revising commission, he said: 1--WE do not
W. ut 20 know much what Paul said, what Jere
miah said, or what any one else said. We want to
dig down into the foundations and find out what
God says. and when we have secured that We are
ready to live by it and TO die byit."
REV. DR.. PITZER,
the president of the Washington City Bible So
cety, delivered q lecture last evening before his
congregation at the Central Presbyterian Church
upon tn new revision. He said that version Of
the Scriptures was not unusual event, as there
were already about fifty in existence. But, what
ever translation is taken, truth doctrine
of Christianity has been touched or o ne fact of
Bible history, or duty taught by God is lost.
This new version is neither INSTRUMENTATION