The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1882-11-08
REVISERS OF THE NEW TES-
LAMENT.
New York Tribune.

American Committee of Revisers o
the Bible was given by Mr. and Mrs
Elliott F. Shepard last evening in
their house at Fifth avenue anG
Fifty-second street. About 400 gen
) tlemen were present. Mr.. Shepard
was assisted in receiving his guests
by Mrs Shepard and Mrs. A. D.
Shepard, of Fanwood, n. J. Mr..
Shepard was one of the Executive
Committee who assisted the Ameri-
can revisers in their work. The
elegant rooms in their house were
filled during the evening, and the
occasion proved an enjoyable one.
Music was furnished by Bernstein's s
orchestra, and Pinard served the re-
freshments. Among those present
were Justice Samuel Blatchford, of
the United States Supreme Court !;
Judges Rapallo, Danforth, Learned,
Pratt and Hawes, William III. Van
derbilt, Russell Sage, ex-Judge
Choate, William Allen Butler, A A.
Law, w. NJ. Hatch, c. Vanderbilt,
III. Mex. Twombly, DIR. W. Seward
Webb, A. d. Shepard, J. Holmes,
Jr., Dwight III. Olmstead, George
Kellogg, Robert l.. Stuart, Judge
Barnard, Rev. DR.. Boswell d. Hitch
cock, Rev. DR.. r. S. Storrs, Gordon
W. Burnham, Edward F. Brown, J.
B. Cornell, John H. Sherwood, Rev.
DR.. J. Packard, of Virginia; Nor
man L. Wagner, Augustus Schoon-
maker, Theron r. Butler, George
Strong, Rev. DR.. J. P. Newman,
Francis A. Palmer, Salem H. Wales,
Morris K. Jesup, D. Willis James,
Thomas L. James, Willard Bullard,
John B. McClave, William T. Hatch,
Austin Abbott, Thomas Sloane, G.
Van Santvoord, Charles ]. Buch-
anan, William Irwin, Henry E. Rus
sell, John d. Prince, James TalcotU,
William Dowd and J. Alexander
Striker
DIR. Schaff delivered an address
in the course of the evening, of
which the following is part;
eighteen months have elapsed
since the publication of the Anglo
American Revision of the New
Testament. During that time it has
been on trial before the largest
tribunal of critics to which any book
has ever been submitted. Two
nations and all the English-speak-
ing denominations which use the
venerable edition of 1911 have been
and are still sitting in judgment on
it. The revision committee knew all
along that the revision did not come
up to their ideal. The revision has
met with the most opposite judg
ments. 1t is pronounced by some
to be the best translation ever made;
others condemn it unsparingly as a
failure, at least as to its practical aim
to supersede the old version for pub
lie use. But even it's enemies must
concede that it has served a good
purpose in stimulating Bible study,
and that it may be proftably used
as verifying commentary on the
authorized version. Five hundred
years ago the first complete version
of the Old and New Testaments into
the English tongue, a work CT
amazing devotion and industry for
those days, was given to the world.
It's chief author, John Wickliffe, of
Oxford, the morning star of the
Reformation, was denounced by the
Archbishop of Canterbury and High
Chancellor of England (ArundeD as
that pestilent wretch of damnable
memory, son of the old serpent !;
yea, the forerunner and disciple of
Antichrist, who, as the complement
of his wickedness, invented new
translation of the Scriptures into
his mother tongue"
The Council. of Constance 1413),
which burned Huss and Jerome,
of Prague, condemned both the
writings and the bones of Wickliffe
to the flames, and in 1923 his bones
were solemnly Engraved, burned to
ashes and cast into the brook Swift.
In the year 1926 William Tyndale
finished the first edition of his YER
sion of the New Testament from the
original Greek. The authorized
version, which came next, was vio
lently assailed from every quarter,
and charged with bad theology, bad
scholarship and bad English. King
] James version can never fully re-
cover its former position, and is
doomed to a. lingering death and
honorable burial. IF England and
the United States now march in the
front rank of civilized nations, they
owe it in a great measure, not in
deed to King James, but to the Bible
as translated by those forty-seven
dSvout and learned men who were
willing that their names should be
forgotten in their work. Viewed
i in the light of past experiences, the
version of 1881 has Jared very well.
I, Henry Frowde, the London agent
of the Clarendon Press, wrote to me
on September IA, 1881, that by
April, 1881, he had received orders
for 1 100000 Oxford copies, and that
on publication day it was impossible
to execute them in full. The New
York agent of the Clarendon Press
informed me that he sold 365, 900
copies of the Revised New Testa-
ment from May 20 to Dec. 81, 1881.
An American firm sold over 100, coo
of the Lippincott edition in the sum-
mer of 1881. Another sold $4,000.
The Chicago Times and the Chicago
Tribune printed the whole New
Testament in the Sunday issue of
May %, two days after its publica-
ton in New York. The four Cos
pels, tbs Acts of the Apostles and
the Epistle to the Romans, about
$4,000 words, were telegraphed
from New York, constituting the
largest dispatch ever sent over the
wires. | am informed that there are
| fifty American reprints in the