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" When thou vowest a vow untoGod, defer not to pay it ; for hehath no pleasure ih fools: pay thatwhich thou hast vowed. Better isit that thon shouldest not vow, thanthat thou shouldest vow and notpay."—Eccl. v, 4-5.»-•-•THE REVISED BIBLE.BT BEV. E. GILBEET.The Bible revision, now nearlycompleted, and soon to be pubUshed,is a matter of deep interest toevery earnest Christian. If Godhas given a revelation to man, it isour interest and imperative duty topresent it correctly to the Englishspeaking world. It is now five hundredyears since Wyckliffe madethe first translation of the Bible intoEnglish. Since then, severaltranslations and revisions have beenmade. Our present Bible appearedtwo hundred and seventy-nine yearsago. So great are the changes in theEnglish language, that if no translation,or revision, had been madesince Wyckliffe's, the Bible wouldbe as difficult to read as so muchGreek or Latin. Even since ourpresent revision was made, our languagehas undergone ' so manychanges that many syntactical errorsabound ; and many words havebecome either wholly obsolete, orchanged in meaning. Dr. Websterhas truly said, that when, in thelapse of time, grammatical changesand alterations in the sense of wordsaffect the meaning of the Bible, itreaUy, so far, ceases to be the Wordof God.As in the forest, Uving trees producenew branches, and some Umbsdie and drop off ; so, a living langnageis perpetuaUy receiving newwords, or changing or modifying definitions.As the original Hebrew,Chaldee, and Greek, are dead languages,the Bible in these languagescan not be changed ; bnt the EnglishBible must be changed whenTHE BEVISBD BIBLE. 23custom changes the English; or,otherwise, it ceases to be a tme moralphotograph of God's Word.I am fully persuaded that the earnestChristians of the Free MethodistChurch, and aU others, havenothing to fear in regard to the newrevision. When our revision wasmade. Biblical criticism was in itsinfancy. Since then many old Greek,and some Hebrew manuscripts, havebeen found and coUated. Mann-"scripts, versions, and various readingsbave been compared, so that thefoundation is nearly'perfect for acorrect revision.When our version was made, twohundred and seventy-nine years ago,'the Protestant world was mainly Cal-•vinistic. The forty-seven translatorswere all Calvinists, and very naturally,as Dr.Clark says, " they leanedtocTmuoh" toward their creed, in ourversion. The translators all belongedto one church—the Church ofEngland, and at that time the statechurch was' thoroughly Calvinistic.It is true that the Chureh of Englandstill prints the seventeenth article;but Arminianism has made apretty cleaa sweep in that church.The following, from the pen of Dr.Schaff,—President of the AmericanBible Revision Committee—waspublished about two years since:I. ,Origtn and Organization.—The Anglo-American Bible Revisionmovement now in progress is thefirst international and inter-denominationaleffort in the history of theBible. It took its origin, very properly,in the convocation of Canterbury(the cradle of Anglo-SaxonChristendom), May 6,1870, by theappointment oi a committee oteminent biblical scholars and dignitariesof the Chnrch of England,with power to revise the authorizedEnglish version of 16II for pubUcuse, and to associate with themrepresentativebibUcal scholars ofother Christian denominations usingthat version. The English committeeis divided into two companies,