The foremost principle to be alluded to is the one to which we adhered steadily and persistently during the whole ten years of our labour--the principle of faithfulness to the original language in which it pleased Almighty God that His saving truth should be revealed to the children of men. As the lamented Bishop of Durham says most truly and forcibly in his instructive "Lessons on the Revised Version of the New Testament {98a};" "Faithfulness, the most candid and the most scrupulous, was the central aim of the Revisers {98b}." Faithfulness, but to what? Certainly not to "the sense and spirit of the original {98b}," as our critics contended must have been meant by the rule,--but to the original in its plain grammatical meaning as elicited by accurate interpretation. This I can confidently state was the intended meaning of the word when it appeared in the draft rule that was submitted to the Committee of Convocation. So it was understood by them; and so, I may add, it was understood by the Company, because I can clearly remember a very full discussion on the true meaning of the word at one of the early meetings of the Company. Some alteration had been proposed in the rendering of the Greek to which objection was made that it did not come under the rule and principle of faithfulness. This led to a general, and, as it proved, a final discussion. Bishop Lightfoot, I remember, took an earnest part in it. He contended that our revision must be a true and thorough one; that such a meeting as ours could not be assembled for many years to come, and that if the rendering was plainly more accurate and more true to the original, it ought not to be put aside as incompatible with some supposed aspect of the rule of faithfulness. Proposals were often set aside without the vote being taken, on the ground that it was not "worth while" to make them, and in a trivial matter to disturb recollection of a familiar text; but the non-voting resulted from the proposal being withdrawn owing to the mind of the Company being plainly against it, and not from any direct appeal to the principle of faithfulness. If the proposal was pressed, the vote of the Company was always taken, and the matter authoritatively settled.