And then, how should the work be done? I do not mean, by what kind of process or machinery: the necessarily arduous details would be best judged of by those engaged in it: but I mean, guided by what maxims, in accordance with what rules? The task may fairly be compared to the mending and restoration of a goodly piece of ancient mosaic-work. And such a comparison may guide us to one leading rule which should dominate the whole process. Nothing should be touched of the fair fabric which can possibly remain: and all that is of necessity new should be in strictest harmony with the old. So that the ear, while of course missing from the altered sentence the expression so long familiar, should find it superseded, not by a startling modernism, but by words worthy to stand beside those which remain. Those who are acquainted with the history of our present version will recognise in this rule the repetition of one which its compilers had before them. On this matter, I conceive there need be no alarm whatever. Any body of English biblical scholars, with the responsibility upon them of purifying our version, would be at least as anxious to preserve its characteristic excellences as any could be, who were not so deeply aware what those excellences are. And let it be observed, that in this matter a version for public and general use would of necessity differ from such as may have been put forth for private benefit by individual scholars. In those, it may have been desired to give to the English bible-student some idea of the niceties and precise constructions of the original. In the amended version, there should be no such design, unless where our ordinary English will fully and freely admit of it: no merely grammatical changes of tense or inference, which might give awkwardness or stiffness to what was before plainly and conventionally expressed. From what has already been said, it will be clear that this revision of the Church’s stewardship cannot be brought about merely by the insertion of marginal notices or varieties. We all know how little chance the margin has of being observed or known: and it would be a still more fatal objection that, in the great majority of Bibles, the requisite of cheapness precludes any marginal printing at all. There might indeed with advantage be an addition of marginal notices in matters of secondary importance: but all necessary substantial revision must be made in the text itself, or it seems to me we are exceeding and not fulfilling our duty.