but it will not be found till after many days."-" Fraser's Magazine," June 1881. The following likewise is in the same strain, and the more popular the source from which it is taken, the more reliable is its dictum, as speaking from the point of view of the common sense of the practical section of mankind: "Any attempts to precipitate its [the Revised Version's] public adoption would too probably defeat themselves. It must make its own way; not, we trust, by parliamentary enactment or royal proclamation, nor by the act of Convocation from which it was sprung, nor even by its quasi-authoritative adoption by our great societies. Let the first appeal be to the individual readers, whose silent acceptance of the book will commend it to the world far more than any endeavours to enforce it from without. To apply the words of Professor Westcott, it will thus gain by its own internal character a vital authority which could never be secured by any edict of sovereign rulers.' Nor can we leave out of sight the possibility at least that the present may not be a final revision. It may have even yet to be retouched; and to decide respecting this we must await the growth of public opinion and the course of years."—" Sunday at Home," June 1881. If such would be the rate of progress of the translation of a canon, what would be the probable rapidity of a canon itself? If the canon were to be contemporary with the founders and under the authority of their pen, this were another matter; it would then, no doubt, be in proportion to the celerity of the spread of the religion itself, which, in the case of the Christian religion, would by all accounts have been sufficiently rapid. But our present hypothesis is that the books were set up by persons not the founders, and after the latter had passed away. Under those circumstances, therefore, they should not have been integral parts of the original movement, and under the same circumstances their prospects of progress by all analogy were bound to be very slow; and if there were already, as many would have us to believe, original documents left by the founders, which they superseded, this slowness (even supposing final success, which under those circumstances would be to the last degree improbable) would be indefinitely multiplied, as it would be not only their own natural weight would retard them, but competition, and that not from contemporary gospels, but on the part of those which were already in the possession of the situation. To reason against common sense or facts when we have not facts to correct us, is the common infirmity of us all, and wise men are apt to make mistakes which fools can correct and smile at when they know the facts. But to reason against facts in the face of tried experiments is a real sin against common sense. I have observed a small pamphlet in the late Polytechnic Institution, under a glass case, by a person naming himself "Investigator," and published 1830, the said pamphlet proving by clear demonstration that a railway from London to Birmingham would cost seven millions and a half, and be a great burden to the country. This was before the experiment was tried; and considering the then unproved state of the question, the writer might have been a very sensible person. So, likewise, if we had no experience of the rate of progress of revisions and translations, to accept theories of the rapid rate of progress of new canons, and of their displacing old ones with the same rapidity ecumenically, might be more excusable; but in the face of patent facts to talk of a mushroom process for a thing which experience shows requires about a century for development, is using imagination or fancy instead of experience as our guide. And as the fact of the diffusion implies such a past history, so an examination of the thing diffused gives the same return. There are certain qualities of the soil, or fossil remains, which, in default of any positive testimony, which cannot exist, no geologist would hesitate to assign either to an earlier or later period. As regards the former, he would say these marks could not have belonged to a later; as regards the latter, not to an earlier period. And so, likewise, it is as regards qualities of human composition. There are certain changes which it undergoes which are only the result of time.* This was much more the case, no doubt, when composition was transmitted by writing; but traces of the same are visible in connection, at least, with devotional literature (and that is what we are now dealing with), even though in print. It takes some time for a popular piece to be corrupted, still more for it to accumulate many corruptions. To take an instance with which most people would be, on the whole, familiar, a new and an old hymn: the former, though it be very popular, will be some time before it undergoes variations; but the latter, if it have been a very popular one (otherwise it is as good as new, for no one will trouble themselves to meddle with it)—but if it have been a very popular one, it will have run the risk of undergoing a number of variations due either to the caprices or the well-intentioned desires of people to improve upon or to correct their acknowledged favourite. For example, take a new hymn, and one generally popular-"O Paradise." How few different readings! But take an old favourite, and what an accumulation! But there is nothing like a particular instance. I know not a more favourite hymn, taken all in all, with all sections of English-speaking Christendom, than Toplady's celebrated hymn entitled by him "A Prayer-Living and Dying," and commencing "Rock of Ages." Here it is as I extract it from the works of the author himself—vol. vi. p. 422. I. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Cleanse me from its guilt and power. II. Not the labour of my hands, * See Dr. Sanday, "Gospels in Second Century," pp. 328–43. III. Nothing in my hand I bring; IV. While I draw this fleeting breath, When I soar to worlds unknown, Let me hide myself in Thee. Now mark some of the variations it has undergone in transmission through different compilations. "Cleanse me from its guilt and power." "Mitre Hymn Book" reads, "Save from wrath, and make me pure.” "Simply to Thy cross I cling." Morell and Walsham How reads, "Only to Thy cross," &c. "All for sin could not atone." Rev. R. Shutte, 1850, reads, "All for sin would not," &c. "Could my zeal no respite know." Morell and Walsham How reads, "Could my zeal no langour know." "When I soar to worlds unknown, See Thee on Thy judgment throne." Morell and Walsham How reads "When I rise to worlds unknown, And behold Thee on Thy throne." "Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Cleanse me from its guilt and power.' "Bonchurch Hymn Book," Rev. J. G. Gregory, reads- From Thy riven side which flowed, Cleansing from its guilt and power." "When I soar to worlds unknown." "Hymns Ancient and Modern " reads "When I soar through tracts unknown." "Hymnal Companion" also reads— "When I soar through tracts unknown." "When my eye-strings break in death." All modern copies read, "When mine eyelids close in death.” There are doubtless several other variations in other hymnbooks which have not come under my notice. But these I should say, in the view of most worshippers in Christian churches would be enough to stamp the above hymn as an old one and having a long history behind it, even if they never heard of Toplady, the author, or knew the date of its publication, and, indeed, only heard it for the first time (if such a thing could be supposed) with the accompanying information of variations as above given. It is true that it would take a shorter time to make such changes by carelessness or otherwise in manuscript transmission than in transmission by print; but it is likewise true that people would be much slower in taking the smallest liberties, and much more careful not to make even clerical errors, in connection with what they considered an inspired than with what they considered an uninspired literature, however much reverenced. A text considered sacred, therefore, which has the same feature of variations, carries on its face the evidence of antiquity. But such clearly was the case of the gospel texts in the time of the aforesaid Fathers. For instance, Irenæus, the oldest of them, speaks of such a reading being found in "the best manuscripts" just in the language of any modern commentator (εν πασι τοις σπουδαιοις |