we believe that the burning of a wood, or even of a forest, which happens in our vast American possessions, sometimes from natural causes (lightning, or spontaneous combustion), sometimes from an Indian's carelessness, can seriously have injured botany. But for _him_, who conceives an inviolable sanctity to have settled upon each word and particle of the original record, there _should_ have been strictly required an inspiration (No. 5) to prevent the possibility of various readings arising. It is too late, however, to pray for _that_; the various readings _have_ arisen; here they are; and what's to be done now? The only resource for the bibliolatrist is--to invoke a new inspiration (No.4) for helping him out of his difficulty, by guiding his choice. We, anti-bibliolaters, are not so foolish as to believe that God having once sent a deep message of truth to man, would suffer it to lie at the mercy of a careless or a wicked copyist. Treasures so vast would not be left at the mercy of accidents so vile. Very little more than two hundred years ago, a London compositor, not wicked at all, but simply drunk, in printing Deuteronomy, left out the most critical of words; the seventh commandment he exhibited thus-'Thou _shalt_ commit adultery;' in which form the sheet was struck off. And though in those days no practical mischief could arise from this singular _erratum,_ which English Griesbachs will hardly enter upon the roll of various readings, yet, harmless as it was, it met with punishment. 'Scandalous!' said Laud, 'shocking! to tell men in the seventeenth century, as a biblical rule, that they positively must commit adultery!' The brother compositors of this drunken biblical reviser, being too honorable to betray the individual delinquent, the Star Chamber fined the whole 'chapel.' Now, the copyists of MSS. were as certain to be sometimes drunk as this compositor--famous by his act--utterly forgotten in his person--whose crime is remembered--the record of whose name has perished. We therefore hold, that it never was in the power, or placed within the discretion, of any copyist, whether writer or printer, to injure the sacred oracles. But the bibliolatrist cannot say _that_; because, if he does, then he is formally unsaying the very principle which is meant by bibliolatry. He therefore must require another supplementary inspiration, viz., No. 4, to direct him in his choice of the true reading amongst so many as continually offer themselves.[Footnote: [Footnote: I recollect no variation in the test of Scripture which makes any startling change, even to the amount of an eddy in its own circumjacent waters, except that famous passage about the three witnesses--'_There are three that bare record in heaven_,' &c. This has been denounced with perfect fury as an interpolation; and it is impossible to sum up the quart bottles of ink, black and blue, that have been shed in the dreadful skirmish. Person even, the all-accomplished Grecian, in his letters