learn
not only faithfully to read the inspired Word, but inwardly to love it.

But what shall we regard as due preparation in the case of pastor and
people? This question, I can well believe, has already risen in the
hearts of many who are now hearing these words, and to the best answer to
it that I am able to give you I will gladly devote the remainder of this
present Address. Let us first consider how any one of you really and
truly desirous to prepare his congregation for the hearing of God's Word
in the form known as the Revised Version--how such a one should prepare
himself for the responsible duty. Prayer for himself and his
congregation in this great spiritual matter should ever be his first
preparation. After this his next care should be to provide himself with
such books as will be indispensable for faithful preparation. First and
foremost, let him provide himself with a copy of what is called the
Parallel Bible, the Authorised Version being on the left-hand side of the
page, and the Revised Version on the right. Next let it be his duty to
read closely and carefully the Preface to the Old Testament and the
Preface to the New Testament. Had this been done years ago, how much of
unfair criticism should we all have been spared? The next step will be
to obtain some competent guide-book to explain the meaning of the
different changes of rendering, the alterations due to readings having
been separately noted. The guide-book, whether in the case of the Old or
of the New Testament, should, in my judgement, be a volume written by a
Reviser, as he would have a knowledge, far beyond what could be obtained
by an outsider, of the reasons for many of the departures from the
Authorised Version.

In regard of the Old Testament I have said in my last Address that I do
not myself know of any guide-book, written by a Reviser, save the
interesting volume by Dr. Talbot Chambers, to which I have been indebted
for much that, being a member of another Company, I could not have
brought forward without his assistance. In regard of the New Testament,
however, it is otherwise. There is a useful volume by my old friend and
former colleague the late Prebendary Humphry; but the volume which I most
earnestly desire to name is the volume already mentioned, and entitled
"Some Lessons of the Revised Version of the New Testament," by the late
Bishop of Durham. This book is simply indispensable for any one desirous
of preparing himse