Morning journal and courier., 1885-05-25

purely con niectural readings; but our reyisers have wisely abstained from conjectures, and only in a few instances, where it seemed un- avoidable, have they suggested alterations of the existing text The assertion, for in stance, of the Hebrew text in the thirteenth chapter of 1st Samuel that Saul was 8 year old when he began to reign, is an incredibil- ity which no possible theory of verbal inspi- ration can save; children, indeed, may begin to reign very early in modern families, but they did not in the ancient Hebrew family; :; and the revision rightly accepts the hint of an early version and gives us the more probable information that Saul was thirty years old when he began to reign.
 A change in one of the ten commandments would seem to be a venturesome revision; yet the rendering ''Thou shalt not kilI,' in it's unlimited extension, has been trouble some infelicity, as we have observed in the arguments often adduced against capital pun ishment, and the revisers have boldly cut off an English exaggeration of the command ment by rendering it ''Thou shalt do no mur- der"
 pass next to the relation of the revision to doctrinal points. More than eursory ex- animation may be required to enable us to judge of the full effect of the revision in this important particular. Something un- doubtedly has been gained for the more cor
 rect doctrinal understanding of the Old Tes- lament by the omission of the uninspired and often misleading headings of the chapters. It is something to clear away from the Bi- ble of the people that mass of tradition. The restoration in the New Testament of the
 word hades, with which in carly English usage the word hell was more nearly synony- nous than it is now and the substitution in the Old Testament of the more indefinite
 Hebrew word sheol, or in some instances the words the grave, or the pit, where our word hell is misleading, are gains which the revi- sers rightly judged worthy of special notice in their preface. It will be somewhat easier by means of the revised version to trace the doctrine of personal immortality and the flu ture life through the successive stages of it's biblical development from the Old Testa- ment into the New, and in it's several degrees and modes of presentation in the Apostolic epistles. The revision, be it noticed, does not on this subject nor any other alter the received theology, but it puts the materials of biblical doctrine in better form in the hands of the people.
 Let me venture few suggestions concern ing our duty towards the revised Bible, for it's coming brings to us new duties. It requires by it's presence, among tian scholarship of the present age This gift of the whole Bible in better form re- quires of us renewed interest in biblical studies. With fresh opportunity comes new obligation. Many may be led to purchase the revision whose family Bibles lie dusty and disused upon the shelves. The appear ance of the new version is an opportunity given by providence to Christians to call the attention of men to the claims of the Bible in all the concerns of their lives. We may find in the words of these old Hebrew prophets, sounding now more clearly in our ears, the social and political truths, as well as the in dividual admonitions, which we need for the redemption of modern life. x
 Finally, while for purposes of devotion we may still prefer the familiar words which we learned in our childhood, and the old Bible has it's use for worship, we should remem Der that our children may gain new associations with these more correct scriptural renderings, and we should welcome the revision at least to place of honor in our churches. We may not at once, or too hastily, be willing to sub stitute it for the other; possibly time may bring to pass some final revision before it supersedss the old; yet it is but decent re- spect to the trained and eminent men who have devoted years of toll to this labor of love, and it is also only teachableness and humbleness of mind on our part towards any new truth which may break from Gods word, for us to use the revision in our pri- vate studies of scri pture, and at once, before it's critical examination and the final judg- ment of the years, to allow it place of honor by the side of the old in our churches.
 Three of the company of the revisers are known and honored as teachers in our own city; and their names are sufficient to silence in this community all nasty and captlous criticism of work which has been guarded and enriched by the wisdom and scholarship of their ripe years. It is not unbecoming that in this place should express your grat- ification that one who has long been easily first among equals has been permitted to live to see the completion of great work to which he has given the wisdom and the sanction of his venerable age. In this city honored by the work of these lifelong stu dents of the Bible, may the hope expressed by the revisers of the Old Testament, and the prayer in which the revisers of the New Testament closed their labors, be fulfilled for us and for our children and our chill dren's children, that ''their endeavors may with the blessing of Almighty God tend to clearer knowledge of the Old Testament" and 'sthat the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesns Christ may be more clearly and more frasbIy obovun forth .l--