“Were the Bible,” pleads Dr. Knox, {4} “corrected and modernized, it would probably become more showy, and perhaps quite exact, but it would lose that air of sanctity which enables it to make an impression which no accuracy could produce. We have received the Bible,” he goes on to say, “in the very words in which it now stands, from our fathers; we have learnt many passages from it by heart in our infancy; . . . so that its phrase is become familiar to our ears, and we cease to be startled at apparent difficulties.” And again: “We should hardly recognize the Bible were it to be read in our churches in any other words than those which our fathers heard before us.” Possibly the people _would_ require some time to familiarize themselves to the change, more especially in the public services of the church; but the objection, formidable as the good Doctor thought it, is not sufficient to overrule the plea. Precisely the same objection, if entertained, would have deprived us of the benefit of the present authorized version. People long accustomed to the previous version must have been pained and startled on the introduction of the new. Such a consequence, however, obvious as it must have been, was not admitted to be a good argument against a change at that epoch. True, there are more readers now than there were then, and so far the inconvenience of change would be aggravated; but, unless we could persuade ourselves that we should _never_ have a different version to the present, we cannot refuse to entertain the proposition before us in deference to such a consideration. The notion that we shall _always_ acquiesce in the present version, with the proofs around us of the possibility of improving it, coupled with the desire so extensively evinced for improvement, can scarcely be seriously entertained. The truth is, the people are not accountable for the reasoning ascribed to them—possibly with some justice at the time the Doctor wrote—in the above extract. We have given it at length, because we have nowhere seen the argument, as generally used, better expressed; but, whatever there is in it, we hold it a great disparagement to the religious feeling of the people at the present time, to suppose them capable of putting Superstition for Piety, as conveyed in the terms of that passage; or to imagine that anything less than a just and faithful version of Holy Scripture would or could content them.