greater attention to the margin than it has
hitherto received, I am equally desirous that the margin should not be
elevated above its real position. That position is one of subordination
to the version actually adopted, whether when maintaining the older form
or changing it. It expresses the judgement of a legal, if not also of a
numerical, minority, and, in the case of difficult passages (as in Rom.
ix. 4), the judgement of groups which the Company, as a whole, deemed
worthy of being recorded. But, not only should the margin thus be
considered, but the readings and renderings preferred by the American
Committee, which will often be found suggestive and helpful. These, as
we know, are now incorporated in the American Standard Edition of the
Revised Bible; and the result, I fear, will be that the hitherto familiar
Appendix will disappear from the smaller English editions of the Revised
Version of the Old and New Testament. It is perhaps inevitable, but it
will be a real loss. All I can hope is that in some specified English
editions of the Old and New Testament each Appendix will regularly be
maintained, and that this token of the happy union of England and America
in the blessed work of revising their common version of God's holy Word
will thus be preserved to the end.

But we must now pass onward to considerations very closely affecting the
renderings of the Revised Version of the Greek Testament.

I have already said that very recently a new and unexpected charge has
been brought against the Revisers of the Authorised Version. And the
charge is no less than this, that the Revisers were ignorant in several
important particulars of the language from which the version was
originally made that they were appointed to revise.

Now in meeting a charge of this nature, in which we may certainly notice
that want of considerate intelligence which marks much of the criticism
that has been directed against our revision, it seems always best when
dealing with a competent scholar who does not give in detail examples on
which the criticism rests, to try and understand his point of view and
the general reasons for his unfavourable pronouncement. And in this case
I do not think it difficult to perceive that the imputation of ignorance
on the part of the Revisers has arisen from an exaggerated estimate of
the additions to our knowledge of New Testament Greek which have
accumulated during the twenty years that have passed away