Then came his visit to the great abbey of Westminster, and the
impression which, to his last earthly day, he bore as one of his most
sacred treasures. There in the famous Jerusalem Chamber he had sat,
his eyes suffused with tears and his throat choked with emotion. In
that room the first Lancastrian king long years before had closed his
unhappy life. There the great Westminster Confession had been framed.
There William of Orange had held his weighty discussion of the
Prayer-Book revision, which was hoped to bring Churchmen and
Dissenters again into harmony. And there, greatest of all, had
gathered, day after day, and year after year, the patient, devoted
group of men who gave to the world its Revised Edition of the Holy
Bible, only a few brief years ago. As the rapt Josè closed his eyes
and listened to the whispered conversation of the scholarly men about
him, he seemed to see the consecrated Revisers, seated again at the
long table, deep in the holy search of the Scriptures for the profound
secrets of life which they hold. He saw with what sedulous care they
pursued their sacred work, without trace of prejudice or religious
bias, and with only the selfless purpose always before them to render
to mankind a priceless benefit in a more perfect rendition of the Word
of God. Why could not men come together now in that same generous
spirit of love? But no, Rome would never yield her assumptions. But
when the lad rose and followed his guides from the room, it was with a
new-born conviction, and a revival of his erstwhile firm purpose to
translate for himself, at the earliest opportunity, the Greek
Testament, if, perchance, he might find thereby what his yearning soul
so deeply craved, the truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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