These are the two objects of the present work-to place generally before the reader the work that has to be done, and also to offer to those who may be actually engaged in it, some few hints as to the mode of carrying out the work. It is proper to state that the work has been composed in the midst of many other pressing duties and occupations; and that hours, snatched from daily work, or secured before the day's duties could commence, are all that have been at the disposal of the writer for the compilation of these notes and considerations. It is hoped that no serious inaccuracies will be found on the pages that follow, but it is frankly owned that the work has been written promptly, for the need seemed real, and that it has been written concurrently with some of the events to which it alludes. It was commenced a short time after the first meeting of Convocation this year, and it was concluded shortly after its second meeting. The time has thus been limited; but if the book was to do any good, or to exercise any useful influence, its publication could not have been longer delayed. It does not seem necessary to make remarks on any part, except on the samples of revision that have been, somewhat courageously, submitted to the judgment of the reader. Great care has been bestowed upon them, but, it is felt very honestly, that they themselves will probably disclose departures from principles that may have been urged a few pages before. It must be so. The individual reviser is always liable to subjective influences that give a tinge to his judgment when the special passage is under his consideration; and the present reviser cannot dare to hope that he himself, even in these few chapters, has proved to be free from them. So the passages are given honestly as samples, and nothing more; not as the writer's ideal of a true revision, but as the best exemplification he could give of his own rules. The critical scholar is thus asked kindly to pass his judgment on these passages, as being what is here specified, and as claiming to be nothing more. This small volume is now offered to those who are interested in the subject of Revision, and also, with all humility, is placed before the Church at large, as a small effort in a great cause that will soon largely occupy the thoughts, and, it is hoped, will receive the prayers of all earnest and devout readers of the Holy Bible. May the blessing of God rest on the great and holy cause; and, if it be not presumptuous to add the words, may it also be vouchsafed to this contribution to the general subject, humbly offered by one whose heart, at any rate, is thoroughly in the cause and in the work. London, May 23, 1870. C. J. GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL, |