are rarely united. The Bible of 1870, known as the Oxford Bible, and now
used in the Anglican state-church, evoked a great protest from the true
men of letters, the poets and critics who had found their inspirations in
the useful study of the old version. The new version was the work of
fourteen years; it was made by the united labour of the greatest scholars
in the English-speaking world; and it is far the most exact translation
that we have. Nevertheless the literary quality has been injured to such
an extent that no one will ever turn to the new revision for poetical
study. Even among the churches there was a decided condemnation of this
scholarly treatment of the old text; and many of the churches refused to
use the book. In this case, conservatism is doing the literary world a
service, keeping the old King James version in circulation, and insisting
especially upon its use in Sunday schools.

We may now take a few examples of the differences between the revised
version and the Bible of King James. Professor Saintsbury, in an essay
upon English prose, published some years ago, said that the most perfect
piece of English prose in the language was that comprised in the sixth and
seventh verses of the eighth chapter of the Song of Songs:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine
arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave;
the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement
flame.

Many waters can not quench love, neither can the floods drown it:
if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it
would utterly be condemned.

I should not like to say that the Professor is certainly right in calling
this the finest prose in the English language; but he is a very great
critic, whose opinion must be respected and considered, and the passage is
certainly very fine. But in the revised version, how tame the same text
has become in the hands of the scholarly translators!

The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord.

Now as a description of jealousy, not to speak of the literary execution
at all, which is the best? What, we may ask, has been gained by calling
jealousy "a flame of the Lord" or by substituting the word "flashes" for
"coals of fire"? All through the new version are things of this kind. For
example, in the same Song of Songs there is a beautiful description of
eyes, like "doves by the rivers of