Edward Slater

“ Thus demonstrative it is that Religion is no weak, idle, evanescent figment of man’s imagination, but a real, substantial, controlling power, shaping his thoughts, it may be unconsciously, and blending itself with the solid structure of society and nations. Greece and Rome, it has been well said, have attracted here and there a visitor, but only the Holy Land has provoked a crusade. Nor is the evidence of its power to be fetched wholly from the records of the past ”

“ In this light Scripture, where, as in Protestant countries, it is freely diffused, must be regarded as a most precious boon to a nation—as a guarantee, in fact, that the people shall be in some sort educated, and invested with the attributes of rational and responsible beings. Nor is the benefit of Scripture, as a help to education, confined to the poor: in early youth it smooths the entrance on the path of knowledge, not less effectually to the rich than to the indigent. ”

“ But while these find Scripture so plain as to be able to dispense with the Critic’s art, and all other aid, to throw further light on their contents, there are those, on the other hand, who love a Mysterious Bible, and to whom the whole science of Biblical interpretation is positively distasteful, as savouring of the wisdom of man rather than of the grace of the Spirit. They find their devotion fed, as they think, by the Mystical element, and revel in difficulties that to others are simply discomfiting. ”

“ Some advantages seem to flow very naturally and directly from the measure; and one that we may very confidently anticipate is, a keener perception and appreciation of Scripture in its fundamental qualities of truthfulness, power, and majesty, as the volume is spread out before us with increased effulgence, and life-likeness to the original. The whole orb of truth will shine out with a brightness of which it is now in part shorn through defect in the instrument by means of which it is viewed. ”

“ But besides the inconvenience of the change so pathetically pleaded, there is the time-honoured Phraseology of the Bible—that phraseology that has earned the suffrages of a whole people, young and old, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, and been associated with our Literary glories—to warn us off the holy ground. ”

“ Such was Goethe, a man sprung from the people, not the offspring of an effete noblesse, and at a time of life when the very thought of self-destruction is most alien to all the instincts of nature,—‘a canker in youth,’—and with no taint of constitutional melancholy in his system. ”

“ We may add, it is unmistakably at variance with the consciousness of almost every individual in Christendom, to whom it is no secret that religious questions—unless the interest has been neutralized by long neglect, or quashed by desperate violence—exert a strange and engrossing power over his soul. In whatever way we look at it, it is a power, and in this view may even be perverted to evil. ”

“ Closely connected with education, or such an education as we have now been considering, is public morality, and with it the strength and prosperity of a Nation. The condition of England in her various phases—civil, military, political, and religious—has naturally arrested the attention of intelligent foreigners, as presenting a marked superiority in these respects, or in some of them, to their own country. ”

“ On the contrary, it is admirably adapted by its own peculiar power over men’s souls to create—not a learned, but an intelligent people; and if intelligent, then free, independent, powerful,—a match for tyranny in every shape, and at every turn. ”

“ Popular Education, to the extent to which it is identified with the Bible, would be subserved by an improved translation. In many parts of the kingdom the Bible, as is well known, is the only organ of education available—the only apparatus by which any ray of intellectual light finds entrance into men’s minds. This may be accounted for from the fact that, in addition to knowledge, Scripture brings with it the soul’s health ”

“ There is a pregnant power in the words, as symbols of the burning thoughts of the men engaged, not pale reflexes of things, that has secured the all but universal use of the present version, with all its imperfections, despite the labours of Lowth, and Horsley, and Campbell, and Henderson, and Good, and others—all eminent names—more or less to displace it. ”

“ There is none that occurs to us so sure as a system of instruction that recognizes as its basis a sanctity in the relations of state with state, and lodges deep in the consciences of the several people those great principles of justice, truth, and benevolence, in which God has indissolubly bound up all human happiness, whether of nations or of individuals. ”

“ Among the characteristics of an Age replete with new and unlooked-for events, perhaps not the least singular and impressive is the desire, now extensively evinced, for an improved translation of Holy Scripture. ”

“ And thus we shall evoke, not an isolated power waging dubious war against fearful odds, but a CONFEDERATE force, equal, we will hope, to the crisis;—a crisis such as, no one is so obtuse as not to see, demands something vastly in advance of the elements at present available for neutralizing the fearful evils now festering at our core, or looming in the no distant horizon. ”

“ A more direct and forcible evidence is required for men in no ecclesiastical position to forestall opinion, and with little time or ability to enter into abstruse and recondite arguments. The ordinary books of evidences, however effective concurrently with the evidence furnished by Scripture itself (and in this way they are—many of them—doubtless exceedingly useful) , are not alone, and, in the absence of such corroboration, calculated to produce the evidence that is desired to rebut the counter arguments to which human nature in its infirmity is assailed. ”

“ They vouch for their own authority. How potent a power this is may be judged of from the fact that they are accredited by those to whom they not only show no favour, but the most decided and uncompromising hostility! ”

“ With all the deductions to be allowed in disparagement of our claim to a high p. 34place in the scale of morals absolutely, we have yet, as compared with other countries,—a conscience, a sense namely of right and wrong, pervading the bulk of the people, and leavening the land with a wholesome morality,—we are not habituated to treat suicide as a virtue, [34] —our functionaries, as a body, are not venal,—we are not dangerous to the State when we meet in numbers beyond two or three,—and we are not incapable of self-government. ”

“ We might have multiplied instances of mistranslation to an unlimited p. 27extent, and many other improvements conducing to a clearer exposition of the sense of Scripture might have been suggested: but we stop here. Enough has been said to substantiate our argument, and we desist from the present line of thought to indulge the flattering belief that we have at length gained our object; that, in fact, we have a Bible such as we have invoked—with a purer text,—a correcter version,—and other appliances better adapted to fit it for the high ends for which it was given, than the present. ”

“ We may further be entitled to expect some abatement of our present unchristian differences, which are fostered to some extent, as we think, by the difficulties inherent in the Book rather as a translation than as an original. To some extent it gives a less certain sound, as it is obliged to avail itself of human organs. By repairing the instrument, we may find a great impediment to our common understanding and accord removed, while the union thus formed will be all the more valuable as it will be real, not simulated—uniform, not patched up for the occasion to defeat a common enemy. ”

“ Unhappily there is so much to unlearn on the subject of the relative duties of nations to one another before this good work can be proceeded in. The sacred records have not been supposed to furnish any lessons on this branch of human duty, and none have been sought for. But—
“In them is plainest taught and easiest learn’d
What makes a Nation happy, and keeps it so.” ”

“ Perhaps the use of Scripture as the prime material of our early education has generated a better morality among us, and precluded the admission of certain forms of evil, little consonant to national greatness or national welfare, from which we see other countries, differently schooled, are not exempt. ”

“ The beautiful emendations of the Sacred text that are now scattered over a wide waste of territory, and all but lost, would be garnered up, and made available for common use. The occasional criticisms of Archbishop Whately, for instance, and the p. 31specific emendations of the late Professor Scholefield, would become alike the property of the esoterics and the exoterics: they would be treasured up and embalmed in our own Bibles. In a word, we should succeed to a large inheritance of the labours of others. ”

“ This extreme devotion to the Massoretic text on the part of our translators, to the overthrow of common sense, and disregard of the thousand arguments that plead for a change over the one thus pertinaciously followed, is most detrimental to the credit of the Sacred Volumes; for two statements diametrically opposed cannot, of course, be both correct; the weaker, therefore, should naturally be made to give place to the stronger. ”

“ Referring to the previous part of his work, he says, “I have often had occasion to refer to the richness and precision of the local vocabulary of the Hebrew language. In the authorized version this is unfortunately lost; not so much by the incorrect rendering of any particular word, as by the promiscuous use of the same English word for different Hebrew words, or of different English words for the same Hebrew word.” And again: “The geographical passages of the Bible seem to shine with new light as these words acquire their proper force. ”

“ The policy of Pericles may be considered in relation to the causes that aggrandize a people. His notion seems to have been that to awaken great deeds in a nation you must supply it with great and noble thoughts. Hence his magnificent public buildings, his lavish cultivation of the arts, and even the attention he paid to the amusements of the people, to make them subservient to refinement and purity of taste. But æsthetics alone do not make a great people.—See Thuc. ”

“ Nevertheless, the evidence generally of their divine authority would be yet more conclusive, as the result of a version more true to the sacred text. The Divine voice would be still more audible. The arguments p. 29that have hitherto commanded our assent would acquire fresh force, while obstacles and imperfections would dwindle into insignificance, or altogether disappear. The force of our plea could scarcely present itself more strongly. The Scriptures themselves constitute the great battle-field of the argument affecting a Divine Revelation. ”

“ Charity thinketh no evil, is not easily provoked. If this happy purpose p. 32could be secured by imparting a clearer light to the firmament of Christian truth, as the result of the measure we advocate, it would not be easy to overrate the boon in the removal of the scandal that belongs to the present divided state of Christendom, and in the service it would render to the church in carrying out her many offices of healing and comfort to the world. ”

“ But these objections are manifestly unworthy a belief that professedly rests as its basis on the Word of God; rather is it a belief in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, not which the Holy Ghost teacheth. And with regard to the individuals that may be selected for the task, surely all anxiety on that ground is superfluous. The general sense of Scripture is not now to be determined: that has been done long ago ”

“ How keenly, for example, are we led to notice the early tendency to personify and treat as living creatures the great objects of nature, when we find that the ‘springs’ are the ‘eyes,’ the bright, glistening, life-giving eyes of the thirsty East ”

“ Nor are the ruling powers themselves less benefited in thus being able to lay deep the foundation of their authority in the fixedness of principle, just appreciation of good as distinct from its counterfeit, and sober and well-advised aims of the people so trained and nurtured. ”

“ This whole Appendix is deeply interesting to the Hebrew student. He must feel at the same time how much the mere English student of Scripture suffers in the absence of the same knowledge.
[31] “They who have access to the Scriptures in the original are . . . endowed with ten talents, compared with which the power of reading them in our authorized version is but one. The right improvement of the one talent will ensure to its possessor the end of his faith, even the salvation of his soul ”

“ It requires the re-assuring voice of God himself to give the requisite confidence and satisfaction. Hence we have sufficiently indicated the field to which our labours may be most successfully directed while endeavouring to establish and diffuse, in their most telling and cogent form, the evidences of the Christian faith. ”