Note 44 — ADDRESS II. Later History of Revision.

Since the above was written, information reaches me that an American Standard Revision of the Bible either just has been, or shortly will be, published, which though not simply an incorporation of the recorded American preferences, as long specified in our copies of the Revision, is a publication resting on authority, and likely to put a stop to what is unauthorised. As the reader may like to know a little about this American Standard Revision of the Bible, I will, at the risk of a long note, mention what I have ascertained up to the present time. The survivors of the Old Testament Company (Dr. Osgood and others) with the three surviving members of the New Testament Company (Dr. Dwight, Dr. Riddle, and Dr. Thayer—very powerful helpers) have co-operated in bringing out a new edition of the Revision as it has been hitherto current in America. It will contain about twice as many deviations from the English Revised Version as appear in the original Appendices; but, in regard of them, the survivors give this important assurance, that “the survivors have not felt at liberty to make new changes of moment which were not favourably passed upon (sic) by their associates, at one stage or another of the original preparation of the work.” They specify that the original Appendix was prepared in haste and did not, in a satisfactory manner, express the real views of the Committee. They claim to have drawn up a body of improved marginal references, to have wholly removed archaisms, to have supplied running headings, to have modified what they consider unwieldy paragraphs, to have lightened what they regard as clumsy punctuation, and by typographical arrangements, such as by leaving a line blank, to have indicated the main transitions of thought in the Epistles and Apocalypse. These and other characteristics will be found specified in the American Sunday School Times for August 11, 1901, in an article apparently derived from those interested. Till we see the book we must suspend our judgement.