It will be seen that in this short passage the changes made from the earlier form of the work are as many as ten in number. As this, however, may be deemed a somewhat exceptional passage, let us take an ordinary chapter in the Gospels, presenting no special difficulty, as for instance Matt. xvii. A collation of the two versions will show that in this chapter of twenty-seven verses the revision of 1560 departs from Whittingham’s earlier work in no fewer than forty places.[25] Thus persevering was the endeavour of these faithful men to do their very best, and with what success may to some extent be seen in the fact that of these forty changes twenty-six were confirmed in after years by the judgment of King James’ translators. “So earnestly,” says Strype[26] in his _Life of Archbishop Parker_, “did the people of the nation thirst in those days after the knowledge of the Scriptures, that that first impression was soon sold off.” So earnestly also did the translators seek to perfect their work, that about the beginning of March, 1565, they had finished a careful review and correction of their translation in preparing for a fresh issue. Popular as was the Genevan Bible amongst the mass of the English people, the decidedly puritanic cast of its annotations stood in the way of its universal acceptance, while its manifest superiority as a translation to the Great Bible made it almost an impossibility that the latter could be maintained in its place of pre-eminence as the Bible appointed by authority to be read in churches. Steps were accordingly taken by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, to prepare a Bible, by the aid of “diverse learned fellow-bishops,” that would accord with the ecclesiastical sympathies of the party to which he belonged.[27] He distributed portions to twelve of his episcopal brethren, and to other Church dignitaries;[28] one portion he took under his own charge. The completed work was presented to Elizabeth within a few weeks of the completion of the tenth year of her reign, October 5th, 1568.