74 TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



face of Christ himself) could practice such deception, and I was 

 told that it was only the ignorant who believed in the miracle, 

 and that the Priests merely "said nothing about it. " 



Now, I see no difference in principle between the studied 

 silence of these two cases, for in both of them people are. misled 

 by the silence. For example, a preacher on some Missionary 

 Sunday says "Let us read the word of God as contained in the 

 16th chapter of Mark"; and although he knows quite well (as 

 the notes of his revised version assert) that " the two oldest Greek 

 manuscripts, and some other authorities omit from verse 9 to the 

 end. Some other authors have a different ending to the gospel " — 

 although he knows that, yet he acts upon the professor's " moral, 

 say nothing about it." In my humble judgment that preacher 

 is guilty of deceit, and is as fairly chargeable with treason to the 

 truth as are the Greek Priests with their miraculous fire. 



And how can we excuse adherence to the old — the King 

 James English version of the Bible, when we have a much more 

 accurate one. If any Minister tells me that in his opinion the 

 old one is a more faithful rendering of the original, then I admit 

 his right to use it. But for all the others what can be said? Sup- 

 pose you received a letter in some language which you did not 

 understand (not a very important letter, one just ordering $5 

 worth of goods) and you were offered two translations of it — one 

 accurate and the other inaccurate, there can be no doubt that you 

 would smile very loftily at any one who told you to read the wrong 

 one, and who affirmed that these were the words sent by your 

 correspondent. And yet here is the Bible, read to you as God's 

 word from heaven; and you stand up to listen to it, so great is 

 your reverence for it; and the reader knows perfectly well that 

 in the little chapter he is reading there are a dozen or a score of 

 misrepresentations of what was written. Machiavelli said that 

 the maintenance and safety of the state was of importance, 

 but that the character of the means thereto was indifferent. 



It is some encouragement to speak in this fashion that there 

 is an ever-increasing number of the clergy who agree that not only 

 is this say-nothing-about-it policy dishonest, but that it is dis- 

 astrous — that so far from saving the churches it is destroying 

 them. Henry Drummond's warning ought to be sufficient. 

 George Adam Smith tells of the many applications made to Drum- 

 mond by persons, "one and all" of whom told him that "the 

 literal acceptance of the Bible * * * is what has driven 



