placed. It is the text which I always use myself in my general
reading of the New Testament, and I deliberately regard it as one of the
two best texts of the New Testament at present extant; the other being
the cheap and convenient edition of Professor Nestle, bearing the title
"Novum Testamentum Graece, cum apparatu critico ex editionibus et libris
manu scriptis collecto. Stuttgart, 1898." This edition is issued by the
Wurtemberg Bible Society, and will, as I hear, not improbably be adopted
by our own Bible Society as their Greek Testament of the future.

The reason why I prefer these two texts for the general reading of the
sacred volume is this, that they both have much in common with the text
of Westcott and Hort, but are free from those peculiarities and, I fear I
must add, perversities, which do here and there mark the text of that
justly celebrated edition. To Doctors Westcott and Hort all faithful
students of the New Testament owe a debt of lasting gratitude which it is
impossible to overestimate. Still, in the introductory volume by Dr.
Hort, assumptions have been made, and principles laid down, which in
several places have plainly affected the text, and led to the maintenance
of readings which, to many minds, it will seem really impossible to
accept. An instance has been given above on page 58, and this is by no
means a solitary instance.

Having now shown fairly, I hope, and clearly the thoroughly independent
character of the text which I have called the Revisers' text, I will pass
onward, and show the careful manner in which it was constructed, and the
circumstances under which we have it in the continuous form in which it
has been published by the Press of the University of Oxford.

To do this, it will be necessary to refer to the rule under which we were
directed to carry out this portion of our responsible work. We had two
things to do--to revise the Authorised Version, and also to revise under
certain specified limitations the Greek text from which the Authorised
Version was made; or, in other words, the fifth edition of Beza's Greek
Testament, published in the year 1698. The rule under which this second
portion of our work was to be performed was as follows: "That the text to
be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating;
and [let this be noted] that when the text so adopted differs from that
from which the Authorised Version was made, the alteration be indicated
in the