The century which has come in has no doubt great things for us. If it has not, it will disappoint the hopes of its many glorifiers. We have been making in the last already so much progress that one can hardly set any limit to the progress we may be supposed capable of making at the present time. The drudgery of the work has been well nigh done for us. There remains only to enter into the fulness of all that this implies.

Scripture itself is to share in the progress made and to have stamped upon it the impress of the Twentieth Century. The higher criticism has al-ready been employed upon this work, as we know, and for many professing Christians it has largely re-modeled the Bible. It has taught us, at least, that we must not think of any inspiration of the words of Scripture. Religious truths may be given us all right, but that is in a general sense merely. We must not base anything upon certain words. It is a natural consequence that we should have a New Testament now proffered us, in which the husk of old time verbiage shall be laid aside, and we shall have the necessary sense only, given in all its simplicity as suited for us today.

That is the aim, as is evident, of the translators of the "Twentieth Century New Testament." They have, in fact, done this. They have given us Scripture in a free translation,-not that they will allow it to be a paraphrase simply. It is a translation, but still a translation of the freest character possible, in which their own words are largely substituted for the words of Scripture, and not only this, but the Scripture statements are supplemented by all necessary words to make them plain to the ordinary capacity of men. It looks very promising; for in fact, what could one desire more than that the knowledge of Scripture should be made as accessible as possible to the masses, that all difficulties should be removed out of the way of those who, as we know, find at present so many? Will there not be, in this way, an advance all along the line for those who at present have been making doubtful progress, or are perhaps shut up to get what they can from their guides, less and less faith as they may be finding in the guides themselves?

It is not necessary to go deeply into any review of the work in question. A few characteristics of it may be not without help to some; and the first point, of course, is just as to the translation. Is it fairly, honestly, rightly that? We ought to have no. objection surely to any fresh translation, many as these may be already. No one can claim to be so perfect as to have no need of being supplemented by another, and there is in the very fact of different translations a help afforded to us to get out of the mere familiarity with words which may, by that very familiarity, have been dulling to us the very truth that is in them.

Exercise also is gained in this way. If competent men differ with regard to the meaning of Scripture, it is a great blessing for any Christian who knows that he has the Spirit of God to guide him and who can count upon God for it, to be able to compare these together and realize, either which is the suited meaning, or to gather perhaps, a greater blessing by putting them all together.

It is evident, however, that the translators before us have not a supposition that there can be properly, any question about that which they have given us. There is one remarkable peculiarity about the book, and that is that wherever you look in it, from the first page to the last, there is no alternative rendering suggested for a moment. The Greek means what they say it does, and it means nothing else. Translators hitherto have never been able to reach this wonderful accuracy, but have often been content to indicate their own doubt about what they are giving. The Twentieth Century, it seems, is to do away with all such doubt. It is to give us something so simple that no one can be in doubt as to it, and so thoroughly the meaning of the original (for it is a translation, so we are told) that all former differences shall be reconciled and come to an end in what they have accomplished for us.

Nevertheless, when we take up the book, it is rather startling to find that some words that we have thought fundamental to Christianity have almost dropped out altogether.

We sing sometimes:

'Grace is a charming sound
Harmonious to the ear,"

but it is evident that to the translators there is no harmony in the thought of grace at all. The word is really dropped out of their translation. "Grace to you from God" means simply, "God bless you." In the large part of the passages it is translated "mercy," although there is another word distinctly in Scripture for mercy, and which is given as such by themselves. Sometimes it is absolutely left out:there is no word for it. The grace given to the apostle becomes simply a charge entrusted to him. Where he tells us that he "received grace and apostleship" (Rom. 1:5), we find that he means simply that "we received our apostolic office." There is no need to quote passages any further. It is certain that grace as we have learned it has dropped out from the new Bible.

When we come to justification, we find it is our "being made to stand right with God." Sometimes,
indeed, but rarely, it is our '' being accepted as righteous.""Those who received His calling He also accepted as righteous."But the general sense is given as we have already said; and while righteousness may be supposed to be implied in it, it is certainly not expressed.

Sanctification, too, seems to have disappeared. It is translated variously. "Christ our sanctification " means "Christ our holiness." "But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified " is to be , read rather as:"You washed yourselves clean, you became separate from the world, you were pardoned." This is all the sample that is perhaps needed. If the apostle speaks of our coming '' short of the glory of God," we find that he means:"We have come short of God's glorious ideal," and again instead of having "hope of the glory of God," this means "hope of attaining God's glorious ideal."

Almost everything seems in a similar way to be debased and degraded. Look at a passage that one could hardly think could by any maltreatment be stripped of its blessedness for us, and see what is made of it:"We all with unveiled face see as if reflected in a mirror the splendor of the Lord and are being transformed into His likeness from one degree of splendor to another as it comes from the. Lord even the Spirit."

Sometimes a doctrine that has been in question is very definitely announced. Thus, in Colossians we are told:"In baptism you were buried with Christ and in baptism you were also raised to life with Him." In the second case there is no word for baptism at all in the original, although the common translation gives "wherein," but many have believed,-and the passage itself gives abundant reason for it,-that this should be "in whom," the Greek word being in itself indecisive. Our translators make no doubt about it. They insert the absent word, in order that we shall definitely know that it is in baptism that we were raised to life with Him.

These quotations are given simply as specimens of a work which in itself has perhaps too little significance to be noticed at all, and for the mass of Christians one would sincerely hope is outside of any possibility of harm for them. Nevertheless, who knows, in days which have produced "Christian science," with many another system in which one would think people were learning to repeat the old formula of the schoolmen and to believe because it was impossible? The translators tell us that they have met with great encouragement already. Their work is published by a publisher of evangelical literature, and therefore comes commended to us by his imprint; and, alas, in a world where weeds and thorns spring up naturally, and flowers and fruits have to be cultivated, it is a mercy sometimes to destroy seeds that in themselves are worthless.

There is one point that we ought to note, which this translation presses upon us; and that is that the longing which most, perhaps, naturally have for an entirely simple Bible is one which Scripture itself would set aside altogether. All Scripture is profitable, but '' that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works." It is not so intended as that every one should be capable of penetrating its depths apart from the guidance of the Spirit of God, nor is it intended that we should realize in Scripture a book that any of us are capable of possessing ourselves of at short notice, by a mere making plain of so much Greek. God means us to be exercised over it. His word tries us. The wilful and the unbelieving will go astray still, and no help can be given them, and help it certainly is not, to any who deserve help, to have Scripture flattened down for them to the level of the mind of a few men who, are supposed to have compassed the meaning in such sort as to make it all perfectly plain to the meanest capacity, and leave no difficulty anywhere for any one.
F. W. G.