VERSIONS
The common text in everyone's hands is the Authorized Version. Because of this, we should make it the mainstay of our reading and our preaching. There is not a doctrine of any consequence which needs another version to establish it, and it only excites suspicion of our intentions if we must constantly appeal in public to translations our listeners may not possess. There is nothing to equal the splendour of its English. That said, there are material advantages from using other texts in study. The Revised Version, notwithstanding many flaws, is on the whole more consistent in its rendering of the original words, and one of the comparative texts4 which offers us the Revisers' alterations while keeping before us the familiar words of the A.V., is invaluable in our study and preparative work. It is useful in the investigation of some passages which the A.V. leaves difficult; 5 sometimes it wantonly creates difficulties of its own.6 But, still with a mind to a sense of proportion, though answering difficulties is one part of our task, not to be trifled with, it is only a small part: preaching Truth is our burden.

Other versions can be divided into (a) those to be read for a general new approach, and (b) those valuable for research. In the former we can place translations in modern English, such as Moffatt's of the whole Bible, Weymouth's and the " Twentieth Century " of the New Testament, and Moulton's interesting arrangement of R.V. and R.V. Margin in his Modern Reader's Bible. To read the Bible or Testament in one of these versions is stimulating and refreshing, often starting ideas which can be developed and pursued, and then transferred to the terms of the familiar version for further use. In the latter are Young's Literal Translation, valuable for its exact rendering of the tenses of the Hebrew verbs but certainly not a text for reading aloud or public quotation; Rotherham's Emphasized Version; the literal translation of the New Testament interlinear in such translations as The Englishman's Greek Testament; and certain translations of a sectarian character for special purposes like the American Jewish Version of 1917 and the Roman Catholic Douay Version. The Septuagint Old Testament can be placed here, too, for its usefulness in connection with the quotations made by Jesus and the Apostles from their Scriptures.

These remarks are terse and incomplete. The attention given to this part of the subject is judged to be approximately proportional to its usefulness to the preacher. To overdo this side of our reading can transfer us to a world of our own where our hearers may not enter. We can be led to assume in them an acquaintance which they have not, and an interest they do not share. We can be led into pedantry and eccentricity. We can stultify our gospel by presenting it in cap and gown, and if the academic dress be homespun-make ourselves look foolish before those who really know.