l government. A situation more favorable to their interest or more
repugnant to our own they could not have chosen for us, nor we
embraced."

* * * * *

"Every man in New England is a theologian," says Webster in the passage
quoted at the head of this chapter, and Webster himself was no exception
to his statement. He published in "The Panoplist," and afterward in
pamphlet form, "The Peculiar Doctrines of the Gospel Explained and
Defended," an apology for Calvinism, which drew out an answer by "An
Old-fashioned Churchman." With more direct reference to his special
pursuits, he published "Mistakes and Corrections in the Common Version
of the Scriptures, in the Hebrew Lexicon of Gesenius, and in
Richardson's Dictionary."

The most considerable venture which Webster made in this field was in
his edition of the Bible. He was a Revision Committee of one, and went
to work with his customary self-confidence not to retranslate the Bible,
but to correct and improve its English, "with amendments of the
language," the title-page declares. His reasons for undertaking the work
and his principles of revision are given in the preface to his edition,
which was published at New Haven in 1833:--

... "In the present [King James] version, the language is, in general,
correct and perspicuous; the genuine popular English of Saxon origin;
peculiarly adapted to the subjects; and in many passages uniting
sublimity with beautiful simplicity. In my view, the general style of
the version ought not to be altered. But in the lapse of two or three
centuries changes have taken place, which in particular passages impair
the beauty, in others obscure the sense, of the original languages. Some
words have fallen into disuse; and the signification of others, in
current popular use, is not the same now as it was when they were
introduced into the version. The effect of these changes is that some
words are not understood by common readers, who have no access to
commentaries, and who will always compose a great proportion of readers;
while other words, being now used in a sense different from that which
they had when the translation was made, present a wrong signification or
false ideas. Whenever words are understood in a sense different from
that which they had when introduced, and different from that of the
original languages, they do not present to the reader the Word of God.
This circumstance is very important, even in t