.
EARLY HISTORY OF REVISION.

As there now seem to be sufficient grounds for thinking that ere long the
Revised Version of Holy Scripture will obtain a wider circulation and
more general use than has hitherto been accorded to it, it seems
desirable that the whole subject of the Revised Version, and its use in
the public services of the Church, should at last be brought formally
before the clergy and laity, not only of this province, but of the whole
English Church.

Twenty years have passed away since the appearance of the Revised Version
of the New Testament, and the presentation of it by the writer of these
pages to the Convocation of Canterbury on May 17, 1881. Just four more
years afterwards, viz. on April 30, 1885, the Revised Version of the Old
Testament was laid before the same venerable body by the then Bishop of
Winchester (Bp. Harold Browne), and, similarly to the Revised Version of
the New Testament, was published simultaneously in this country and
America. It was followed, after a somewhat long interval, by the Revised
Version of the Apocrypha, which was laid before Convocation by the writer
of these pages on February 12, 1896.

The revision of the Authorised Version has thus been in the hands of the
English-speaking reader sixteen years, in the case of the Canonical
Scriptures, and five years in the case of the Apocrypha--periods of time
that can hardly be considered insufficient for deciding generally,
whether, and to what extent, the Revised Version should be used in the
public services of the Church.

I have thus thought it well, especially after the unanimous resolution of
the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury, three years ago {6},
and the very recent resolution of the House of Laymen, to place before
you the question of the use of the Revised Version in the public services
of the Church, as the ultimate subject of this charge. I repeat, as the
ultimate subject, for no sound opinion on the public use of this version
can possibly be formed unless some general knowledge be acquired, not
only of the circumstances which paved the way for the revision of the
time-honoured version of 1611, but also of the manner in which the
revision was finally carried out. We cannot properly deal with a
question so momentous as that of introducing a revised version of God's
Holy Word into the services of the Church, without knowing, at least in
outline, the whole history of the version which we are prop