883. The Westminster Company finished the first book of Maccabees
in November, 1881, and the books of Tobit and Judith in October, 1882.
The Cambridge Company completed its revision of the second book of
Maccabees in December, 1889, and of the Book of Wisdom, which underwent
three revisions, in November, 1891. The revision of the remaining books,
undertaken by the Old Testament Company, does not seem to have been
completed till even two or three years later. This interval of ten or
twelve years involved in some of the books, especially in reference to
Ecclesiasticus, the clear necessity for further revision. This compelled
me, with the help of my valued friend Dr. Moulton, to go over the work of
my former Company on my own responsibility, my coadjutors in the work
having been either called away by death or too seriously ill to help me.

It was thus with some sense of relief that, on the request of those
connected with the publication of the volume, I presented the Revised
Version of the Apocrypha to the two Houses of Convocation on February 12,
1896.

The rise and progress of the desire for a revision of the Authorised
Version of Holy Scripture has now been set forth as fully as the limits
of these Addresses permit. What now remains to be specified is what may
be called the internal history of this Revision, or, in other words, the
nature and procedure of the work, with such concluding comments as the
circumstances of the present may appear to suggest.

ADDRESS III.
HEBREW AND GREEK TEXT.

We now pass from what may be called the outward history of the Revision
to the inward nature and character of the work of the Revisers, and may
naturally divide that work into two portions--their labours as regards
the original text, and their labours in regard of rendering and
translation.

I. First, then, as regards the original text of the Old Testament.

Here the work of the Old Testament Company was very slight as compared
with that of the New Testament Company. The latter Company had, almost
in every other verse, to settle upon a text--often involving much that
was doubtful and debatable--before they proceeded to the further work of
translating. The Old Testament Company, on the contrary, had ready to
hand a _textus receptus_ which really deserved the title, and on which,
in their preface, they write as follows: "The received, or, as it is
commonly called, the Massoretic text of the Old Testament Scriptures