uld do with infinite ease; but he imposes upon them the
necessity of gaining both by hard labor. "In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread" is the stern law. God does not miraculously communicate
to the missionary who goes to Syria or India or China a knowledge of the
vernacular in his field of labor; but he must learn it by years of
patient study. And when he begins the work of translating, God does not
keep him in a supernatural way from all errors. He must find out and
correct his errors by the diligent use of the means at his disposal.
Just so it is the will of God that we should have a pure text of the New
Testament--pure in a critical sense--not without hard labor, but by
years of patient toil in the study and collation of the abundant
materials which his good providence has preserved for us.

3. _Various readings_ have arisen in the manuscripts of the New
Testament, as elsewhere, from the mistakes, and sometimes from the
unskilful corrections of the copyists and those subsequently employed to
compare and correct the copies. They are commonly divided into the three
classes of _substitutions_, _insertions_, and _omissions_.

_Substitutions_ from similarity of sound would naturally arise among the
vowels when, as was sometimes the case, the copyist wrote from
dictation, being guided by the ear instead of the eye. Most of these,
however, are mere matters of orthography. It is only when they affect
the sense that they come under the head of various readings. Synonymous
words, or those of kindred meaning, are frequently put for one another,
or the order of words is altered; sometimes a different word is made
through inadvertence by the change of a single letter or a couple of
letters; compound words are interchanged with simple; contracted words
are confounded with each other; plainer or more grammatical readings are
substituted for those that are difficult or less grammatical, etc.
Especially are parallel passages in one writer altered, so as to be
brought into conformity with the same in another.

_Insertions_ are the most frequent mode of variation. The copyist fills
out the text of his author from a parallel passage, inserts marginal
notations in the text, repeats clauses through inadvertence, etc.

Of amplification from parallel passages many undoubted examples
could be given. A single one must suffice. In Acts 9:5, the
words, _It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks_, have
been adde