adopted by any one among you. I have contented
myself with having shown that it is feasible; and I have definitely
stated my opinion that, if it were to be adopted, it is in a high degree
probable that a fresh interest in the Holy Scriptures would be awakened,
and the love of God's Holy Word again found to be a living reality.

Perhaps the present time may be of greater moment in regard of the study
of Holy Scripture, and especially of the language of the Greek Testament,
than we may now be able distinctly to foresee. I mentioned in my last
Address the large amount of research, during the last fifteen years, in
reference to the Greek of the New Testament and the position which the
sacred volume, considered simply historically and as a collection of
writings in the Greek language of the first century after Christ, really
does hold in the general history of a language which, in its latest form,
is widely spoken to this very day. I mentioned also what seemed to be
the most reasonable opinion, viz. that the Greek of the New Testament was
the spoken Greek of the time, neither literary Greek nor the Greek of the
lower class, but Greek such as men would use at that time when they had
to place in the definiteness of writing the language which passed from
their lips in their converse with their fellow-men. Now, that advantage
will be taken of this, and that it will be used to show that the
spiritual deductions that we draw from the written words cannot be fully
relied on, because old distinctions have been obscured or obliterated, is
what I fear, in days such as these, will often be used against the
faithful reading, marking, and learning of the Written Word. But we
shall hear them, I hope, with the two true conclusive answers ever
present in the soul, the answer of plain human reasoning, and the deeper
answer which revelation brings seriously home to us. In regard of the
first answer, does not plain common sense justify us in maintaining that
the writers meant what they _wrote_, and that when they used certain
Greek words in the mighty message they were delivering to their
fellow-men and to all who should hereafter receive it, they did mean that
those words were to be understood in the plain and simple meaning that
every plain reader would assign to them. They were not speaking; they
were writing; and they were writing what they knew was to be for all
time. Thus to take an example from the passages above referred to of
w