of prayer long enough to find out that prayer is, first, adoration and communion; that we come to it not so much to tell God what we wish Him to do as to find out from Him what He wishes of us. We will throw down our plans at His feet to take better ones of Him. When we have sent up our petition we will wait long enough to find out what His answer is. So many talk to God and do not wait for Him to talk back-the very thing for which they went to Him. When we are absent from our dear ones, we take up the telephone. They are hundreds of miles away. Many cities and towns are on the line. There is much that must be sidetracked that our message may go through. But we wait patiently and at last recognize the voice we know so well and are gladdened by its message of love. It would be a great mistake to leave the telephone too soon. O man, whoe'er thou art that talkest with God, keep thy tryst until He talks back! When prayer has opened your heart to appreciate them, read the great chapters out of the Book which will stir you up to save the lost the great invitation, the story of the lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost boy. Then read the love story of John; and then tarry long at the story of the crucifixion. See the depth of our need by the length of the chain reached down to draw us up. See how He who was rich for our sakes became poor, and do not miss any detail of that humiliation. But do not leave the Book there. Do not close it on a dead Christ. Let the light of the dawn which made Roman soldiers fall like dead men make your heart beat fast! Go out with your risen Lord to Bethany. Hear His high command, "Go!" and the consolation unspeakable: "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." If you want to see what has happened where His pierced feet have gone, read the victories of the apostles and the early Church; read the testimony of the early martyrs and the later story of the men of the Scotch covenant. Then read Arthur's "Tongue of Fire," and the lives of Finney and William Taylor and Moody. By that time there will be some fire in your bones, and all you will ask will be a chance to blaze. SOME LESSONS LEARNED AT CHAUTAUQUA THE Vocalist pauses often to hear the keynote. The painter looks away from his work and rests his eyes upon some standard colors. The musician and the artist thus test the correctness of their perceptions and maintain the standard of their work. With similar intent I attended a Chautauqua assembly to hear famous orators and teachers from New York, Boston, Chicago, and lesser places. I learned several lessons better than I had ever learned them before. 1. All kinds of ability were nearly equally appreciated. Certainly there were varieties enough: from grave to gay and humorous; plain and ornate; historical, philosophical, didactic, argumentative. Yet every kind of speech seemed to be well received, if only it was worth while-if only there was a message in it. From which I infer that I would better cultivate the talent I have than seek to acquire those I have not. I do not need to imitate any man, but should develop myself. 2. Different kinds of productions of the same speaker were of nearly equal value. Some of the speakers delivered finished, mem orized lectures, also manuscript lectures, and extemporaneous addresses before different audiences at different times and places. Some of the extemporaneous addresses were quite informal, the speaker going off sometimes on a tangent, again hesitating without embarrassment for the form of expression. These different addresses were not of equal value, but they were surprisingly near to it. When an orator finds adequate expression of the thought which has become part of himself, he can do no larger or better thing until he himself is larger or better. The development and preparation of the preacher is vastly more important than the development and preparation of the sermon. The gospel as it is lived in the minister's own mind and heart determines for the most part the force of his sermon. 3. Illustrations were very freely used and seemed to be almost, if not altogether, indispensable. The anecdote was less in evidence than formerly. One of the most popular lectures drew almost all the illustrations from history. About half of the incidents and an ecdotes used as illustrations were familiar, but I enjoyed meeting these old acquaint ances. I have partly resisted the demand for illustrations, but I give it up. We must illustrate. I shall get the material from current literature as well as all other literature I read (including sermons and history), and from life and nature and science. Get the illustration anywhere, but be sure it is apt. 4. Freedom from fault counts more than positive merit. The popular audience is much more capable of negative criticism than positive. A little fault looms larger in the vision of the average hearer than large merit. It requires no effort and but little ability to find and point out the faults of a speaker. I heard a widely known pastor of one of the largest New York City churches deliver a very able and interesting lecture. His voice was a trifle husky and he displayed a little egotism, not in good taste, to be sure, and yet, as I thought, quite pardonable. And for that excellent lecture I heard no commendation, but criticism on every hand. Egotism is an unpardonable sin in an orator. On the other hand, a man of ordinary ability, without noticeable fault of voice or attitude or manner, won encomiums on all sides. As speakers we can advance ourselves in no way more rapidly than by thoroughly drilling out our little mannerisms and idiosyncrasies and by overcoming minor faults of voice and ges ture. 5. The purpose of an oration is to influence and, it may be, to control the audience. The orator then must be masterful. There must never be a moment, from the opening sentence to the triumphant peroration, when the speaker appears to feel himself or his message unequal to or unworthy of the occasion. I heard a famous but erratic speaker, and was disappointed in him. It seemed to me that he was tired and could not think fast enough. He raised his hand to his brow, stroked his locks, and strode the platform; but he was at this stage of the proceedings of imperturbable countenance, and the audience seemed to think this was part of the program. I am sure if the audience had thought as I did, the speaker's power over his hearers would have been gone. The speaker must be absolutely fearless. He should so be the master of himself and his message that scarcely any conscious attention will be given to voice or gesture or the development of his subject matter. He can then give attention to his audience and exert his will force toward his hearers for mastery. I think this is the principal secret of magnetism. The speaker must have confidence in himself, but he must have such faith in his message that the self-confidence will be quite overshadowed. 6. The speaker must be natural. It is lack of naturalness that gives us the monotone, the stilt, and spread-eagleism. 7. Above all, the speaker must have a purpose in his message-a missionary purpose, if you please. He must want his audience to know and receive his message for their own sake and for the sake of the truth. Honor to the orator must not be a consideration. VARIETY IN PREACHING BY THE REV. C. H. WETHERBE, HOLLAND Patent, New York. I AM persuaded that one special reason for the short pastorates of some ministers lies in the fact that there is a wearisome narrowness in the subjects upon which they preach. Several such instances have come to my notice during the past year. It was said of the pastors that they preached wholesome gospel sermons, but there was a tiresome sameness in the subjects. It was remarked that after we had heard the man a few times, the hearer could safely anticipate what the substance of the succeeding sermons would be. It is readily seen that the steady attendants upon such preaching must necessarily soon become more than merely indifferent to it; they beg for a change, either of pastors or of a course of preaching. With such a vast range of subjects, all related to the foundation doctrines of Christianity as the Bible presents, there is no need of a preacher's being at all narrow in the choice and treatment of his themes. What is required is a strict avoidance of pet subjects, and a studious pursuit of truth in a variety of phases and forms, and also a care to present the truth in fresh ways. This can be done without resort to any sensational novelties. The essential thing is to study the Bible prayerfully and assiduously each day, and he who does so is often surprised at the rare and rich discoveries which he makes. STUDIES IN BIBLE THEMES THE KING JAMES AND DOUAY VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE THESE versions were given to the public about the same time. The latter was translated by Dr. Gregory Martin, with the help of Drs. William Allen, Richard Bristow, and William Reynolds. Dr. Allen, under whose leadership the task was assumed, was formerly principal of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, and Canon of York. On the accession of Elizabeth he resigned his positions and became a voluntary fugitive from England, locating finally at Douai. Allen's consuming desire at this period in his career was to reestablish Roman Catholicism in England. Dr. Knox, in his Introduction to the "Douai Diaries," refers to his noteworthy success in this effort, estimating that he "saved from extinction the Catholic religion in England," declaring, further, that it is due to him that "England did not, like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, fall away utterly from the Catholic Church." To provide instruction for those who could not conscientiously attend the universities of England, but mainly that missionary priests might be trained for work in his native country, Allen was instrumental in causing to be grafted on the University of Douai (founded in 1562 by Philip II. of Spain) a seminary for English students. The chief end of the institution was to prepare the students for refuting the heretics. Allen thus states this purpose in a letter to Vendeville, regius professor of canon law at Douai: "Moreover, we make it our first and foremost study, both in the seminary and in England, by means of our labors, to stir up so far as God permits, in the minds of Catholics, especially those who are preparing here for the Lord's work, a zealous and just indignation against the heretics.” * The routine of study, detailed in the same letter, consisted of exercises relating to the controversies of that time. That they might more readily and pertinently answer their religious opponents, who were familiar with the Bible in English, Allen saw the necessity of his brethren possessing a translation of the Scriptures. "Perhaps, indeed," he proceeds, in the letter already cited, "it would have been more desirable that the Scriptures had never been translated into barbarous tongues; nevertheless, at the present day, when, either from heresy or other causes, the curiosity of men, even of those who are not bad, is so great, and there is often also such need of reading the Scriptures in order to confute our opponents, it is better that there should be a faithful and Catholic translation than that men should use a corrupt version to their peril or destruction." The preface to the Rhemish Testament expresses the same sentiment: "We do not publish [this translation] upon the erroneous opinion of necessity that the Holy Scriptures should always be in our mother tongue, or that they ought, or were ordained by God, to be read indifferently by all, . . . but upon special consideration of the present time, state, and condition of our country, unto which divers things are either necessary or profitable and medicinable now, that otherwise in the peace of the Church were neither much requisite nor perchance wholly tolerable." The following information, found in the "Douai Diaries" (page 145) under the year 1578, corroborates the foregoing: "On October 16 or thereabout, Martin began a translation of the Bible into English, with the object of healthfully counteracting the corruptions whereby the heretics have so long lamentably deluded almost the whole of our countrymen. ... He completes daily the translation of two chapters, which to receive greater correction are read through by Allen, our president, and Bristow, our moderator." On page 186 there is this record: "In this month (March, 1582) the finishing touch was put to the English edition of the New Testament." It was published that same year at Rheims, to which place the college had removed on account of political disturbances. The Old Testament was corrected by Dr. Thomas Worthington, according to the Clementine edition of the Vulgate, and published at Douai, 1609-10, whence its name. The Roman Catholics are thus indebted to the activity of the Protestants in making and using English translations of the Bible for this the first and only English version made by their brethren that has gained any noteworthy currency in the church. About 1750 this version was revised by Dr. Richard Challoner, whose alterations were so considerable that he may be regarded as the author of a new translation. In orthography and phraseology he approximated the "Authorized Version," his recension in this respect being estimated by Cardinal Newman to be even nearer the Protestant than the Douay" ("Gigot's Introduction," page 351). It is this revision, essentially, that is used by English-speaking Roman Catholics at the present time. 66 The project of the "Authorized Version " was set on foot by King James, on motion of Dr. Reynolds, a Puritan, in the Hampton Court Conference, January, 1604. The translation was made by about forty-seven English scholars, divided into six companies. The main facts connected with the translation, being easily accessible, will not be rehearsed here. It was the ninth revision made by Protestants of the whole or considerable part of the English Bible, and is to be traced to Tyndale in its ancestry. "Our present English version was based upon the Bishops' Bible of 1568, and that upon Cranmer's of 1539, which was a new edition of Matthew's Bible of 1537, partly from Coverdale of 1535, but chiefly from Tyndale" (quoted by Ellicott in "Considerations of a Revision," etc., from Boswort and Waring's "Gothic and AngloSaxon Gospels "). The version came into general use during the first half century of its existence. It has received many corrections, especially about 1769 by Dr. Benjamin Blaney; yet these have been confined largely to errors of punctuation, typography, italics, marginal references, etc. These versions have been used by Roman Catholics and Protestants respectively for almost three centuries. Do the differences in doctrine, in forms of worship, in church polity, which prevail between the two churches, arise out of the dissimilarities of the two translations? In a very small degree are they responsible for the sharp distinctions between these bodies of Christians. It may be interesting, however, to note some of the more palpable distinctions between these two versions. I. Differences of Contents.-Perhaps the most obvious variation between these versions is in the names and number of the Old Testament books. The titles in the Douay version are taken from the Septuagint, being transferred with little change in their form. Our Zephaniah, Obadiah, and Haggai would scarcely be recognized in the Sophonias, Abdias, and Aggeus of the Anglo-Catholic version. We might search at length for 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles before discovering that they are respectively 1, 2, 3, and 4 Kings and 1 and 2 Paralipomenon. The discovery that other books than those contained in our Bibles are found in the Douay demands more serious thought than the variety of names. Instead of thirty-nine Old Testament books it contains forty-six. The seven additional are those known generally as Apocryphal books. They are Tobias and Judith, preceding Esther; Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, preceding Isaiah; Baruch, following Lamentations; 1 and 2 Machabees, closing the Old Testament volume. Besides the separate books there are added to Esther verses from chapter x. 4 to xvi. 24; to Daniel iii. 24 the "Song of the Three Children"; to the book of Daniel, constituting the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters, the "History of Susanna" and "Bel and the Dragon." Of the three general divisions of the Christian Church the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, and the Protestant-only the first admits these writings on an equality with the books of the Hebrew Bible. Those rejecting them claim that there is not sufficient evidence to show that they were a part of the Scriptures read and quoted as such by Christ and His apostles, and that they were not regarded by the early Christian Church generally as in the same class with the indisputable books of the Old Testament. Internal evidence, it is argued, contests their right to canonicity. The decree of the Council of Trent in 1546 decided the question of their unqualified adoption among the sacred writings, tho it was the desire of some members of that council to denominate them "deutero-canonical." A feature of the Douay version is the footnote. The Papal Church requires that Bibles in the vernacular must “receive ecclesiastical authorization and have notes explanatory of difficult passages." The notes are supposed to embody the "traditions" of the church, which are regarded as a part of the Word of God, and, therefore, worthy of equal veneration as the written Word ("Trent Catechism," page 19). When this Bible first appeared, its notes were numerous and trenchant, but not more so than some of the contemporary Protestant versions. In its later editions they have been reduced in number and subdued in tone. There are about 1,760 in the current edition -410 in the New Testament and 1,350 in the Old. At least one-fifth of these are explanations of names, or translations of transferred words in the text, etc. Less than a hundred, 68 of which are in the New Testament, are of a controversial character, pointing out that the creed and practise of the church accord with the written Word and are supported thereby. Many of them give useful information; some are mere platitudes that do not minister to our confidence in the inspired wisdom of their author, and appear to have been inserted to conform to the requirement of the church, as noted above. II. Textual Differences.-In addition to these more apparent differences, we will find, on closer examination, a multitude of small variations-clausular, phrasal, and verbal. These are due in part to the textual sources of the two versions. From the title page of the Douay we learn that it was translated from the Latin Vulgate, a version made by Jerome during the years from 882 to 404. The New Testament was a revision of the existing Latin version by the aid of Greek manuscripts; the Old Testament, except the Psalter and all but two of the Apocryphal books, was translated from the Hebrew. Like many other versions, Jerome's Bible was a composite work of unequal value. It contained the Gospels carefully corrected, the rest of the New Testament more cursorily amended, the Psalter revised from the Old Latin according to the Hebrew, the other Old Testament books with Judith and Tobit translated from the original, the rest of the Apocrypha in the unrevised Old Latin. Tho Jerome is the peer of translators, he lived at a time when textual accuracy of the Scriptures was not appreciated. Deference to the popular prejudice against alterations in the current Bibles caused Jerome to retain renderings that he himself did not approve. In his commentaries he sometimes condemns as faulty in text or rendering passages which are part of his Vulgate. (In the text of the Epistle to the Galatians as found in his commentary there are more than fifty readings that differ from the best Vulgate text.) Hence the Vulgate, as it came from the hand of Jerome, did not always represent his critical judgment. When after a long struggle it received recognition, its friends not infrequently attempted to harmonize it with the current version. By the admixture of the two texts, as well as by transmission, the Vulgate became greatly corrupted. Tho frequently revised during its thousand years of manuscript history, yet there exists no critical edition, made by men of skill, according to modern methods, in the light of modern discoveries. There are readings in the Vulgate that evidently did not have the sanction of Jerome. (Among these is the famous passage in 1 John v. 7, 8.) The Council of Trent, April 8, 1546, pronounced the Vulgate authentic, and in 1590 and 1592 official editions required by the Tridentine decree were published, since which time it has remained practically unchanged. Thus we see that the Douay is a version from a version, and can "hardly ever supply readings of greater value than those of the translation from which it is derived" (Gigot's "Introduction," page 348). The King James version was made directly from the original languages of the Scriptures. In the Old Testament the Masoretic text, which was then in much the same condition as at present, was used. It is generally conIcluded that in the New Testament the Greek text of Beza's third edition (1582) and Stephen's third (1550) was followed. These are so similar to the fourth edition of Erasmus (1527) that it furnishes virtually the textual basis of this version. This edition of Erasmus, like the three preceding, was based on a late manuscript and oftentimes dependent on the Vulgate. The Vulgate was then regarded as the last court of appeal for textual accuracy; hence it was difficult to make corrections that would be departures from it. However, the Greek texts used by the King James revisers were improvements over the Vulgate. It has been asserted by not a few Roman Catholic scholars that the Revision of 18811901 has vindicated the claim of the Douay version to superiority over the King James in point of textual accuracy. In many places, including some familiar texts, the Douay anticipated the corrections of the Revision, and one without close examination might be led to think sincerely that these constituted the majority of the differences between the two versions. In fact, however, the textual correspondence between the two Protestant ver |