carried out.

Such were the textual labours of the Company. They were based on, and
were the results of, the critical knowledge that had been slowly acquired
during the 115 years that separated the early suggestions of Bentley from
the pioneer text of Lachmann in 1831; and, in another generation, had
become expanded and matured in the later texts of Tischendorf, and still
more so in the trustworthy and consistent text of our countryman
Tregelles. The labours of these three editors were well known to the
greater part of the Revisers and generally known to all; and it was on
these labours, and on the critical methods adopted by these great
editors, that our own text was principally formed. We of course owed
much to the long labours of our two eminent colleagues, Dr. Westcott and
Dr. Hort. Some of us know generally the principles on which they had
based their yet unpublished text, and were to some extent aware of the
manner in which they had grouped their critical authorities, and of the
genealogical method, which, under their expansion of it, has secured for
their text the widespread acceptance it has met with both at home and
abroad.

Of these things some of us had a competent knowledge, but the majority
had no special knowledge of the genealogical method. They did know the
facts on which it was based--the ascertained trustworthiness of the
ancient authorities as compared with the later uncial, and the cursive
manuscripts, the general characteristics of these ancient authorities,
the alliances that were to be traced between some of them, and the
countries with which they were particularly connected. This the majority
knew generally as a part of the largely increased knowledge which the
preceding forty or fifty years, and the labours of Lachmann, Tischendorf,
and (so far as he had then published) Tregelles, had placed at the
disposal of students of the Greek Testament. It was on this general
knowledge, and not on any portions of a partly printed text, that the
decisions of the Company were based; these decisions, however, by the
very nature of the case and the use of common authorities, were
constantly in accordance with the texts of Lachmann, Tischendorf, and
Tregelles, and so with the subsequently printed text of Westcott and
Hort.

Such a text, thus independently formed, and yet thus in harmony with the
results of the most tested critical researches of our times, has surely
great claims on our unreserved acc