he evolution of sacred literature in every
great world religion is, that when the books which compose it are once
selected and grouped they come to be regarded as a final creation from
which nothing can be taken away, and of which even error in form, if
sanctioned by tradition, may not be changed.

The working of this law has recently been seen on a large scale.

A few years since, a body of chosen scholars, universally acknowledged
to be the most fit for the work, undertook, at the call of
English-speaking Christendom, to revise the authorized English version
of the Bible.

Beautiful as was that old version, there was abundant reason for a
revision. The progress of biblical scholarship had revealed multitudes
of imperfections and not a few gross errors in the work of the early
translators, and these, if uncorrected, were sure to bring the sacred
volume into discredit.

Nothing could be more reverent than the spirit of the revisers, and the
nineteenth century has known few historical events of more significant
and touching beauty than the participation in the holy communion by all
these scholars--prelates, presbyters, ministers, and laymen of churches
most widely differing in belief and observance--kneeling side by side at
the little altar in Westminster Abbey.

Nor could any work have been more conservative and cautious than
theirs; as far as possible they preserved the old matter and form with
scrupulous care.

Yet their work was no sooner done than it was bitterly attacked and
widely condemned; to this day it is largely regarded with dislike.
In Great Britain, in America, in Australia, the old version, with its
glaring misconceptions, mistranslations, and interpolations, is still
read in preference to the new; the great body of English-speaking
Christians clearly preferring the accustomed form of words given by the
seventeenth-century translators, rather than a nearer approach to the
exact teaching of the Holy Ghost.

Still another law is, that when once a group of sacred books has
been evolved--even though the group really be a great library of most
dissimilar works, ranging in matter from the hundredth Psalm to the
Song of Songs, and in manner from the sublimity of Isaiah to the offhand
story-telling of Jonah--all come to be thought one inseparable mass
of interpenetrating parts; every statement in each fitting exactly and
miraculously into each statement in every other; and each and every one,
and all tog