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The Bible Society. Toronto. March 1938.

I am glad to be here tonight and to pay my humble tribute to the work of the Bible Society. During its term of existence it has been doing work compared to which the labours of governments and parliaments are small and ineffectual. It has been engaged in the greatest of human duties, what Wordsworth called "the spreading of knowledge in the widest commonalty", and the knowledge which it has spread is the most vital of any knowledge, the knowledge of what is man's chief end.

Tonight we are met for a special purpose. This year we celebrate the fourth century of the English Bible, for it is four hundred years since a copy of a Bible was ordered to be set up in every church. Tyndal had produced that translation of his which is the basis of our authorised version. He was the pioneer, and he paid for his boldness with his life. Without the foundation he laid, the great edifice of 1611 would have been impossible. In commemorating Tyndal we commorate the birth of the English Bible.

It is often a little hard to realise the magnitude of familiar things. It is like living under a high mountain. We recognise that it is above us; we see its lower slopes, we feel the benefit of its shelter, but we cannot grasp its huge mass or catch sight of its cloud-capped summit. It is so with our English Bible. It requires an effort of thought, some detachment of mind to realise the marvel and the miracle of it.

Consider its story. Ever since the Bible became available to our people in their own language it has been the object of fierce contention. In the seventeenth century different schools,

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I am glad to be here to-night and to pay my humble tribute to the work of the Bible Society. During its term of existence it has been doing work; compared to which the labours of governments and parliaments are small and ineffectual. It has been engaged in the greatest of human duties, what Wordsworth called "the spreading of knowledge in the widest commonalty", and the knowledge which it has spread is the most vital of any knowledge, the knowledge of what is man's chief end.

To-night we are met for a special purpose. This year we celebrate the quatre-centenary of the English Bible, for it is four hundred years since Tyndal produced that translation which is the basis of our version. He was the pioneer, and he paid for his boldness with his life. Without the foundation he laid, the great edifice of 1611 would have been impossible. In commemorating Tyndal we commemorate the birth of the English Bible.

The Bible Society. Toronto. March 1938.

I am glad to be here tonight and to be allowed to pay my humble tribute to your Society. During the term of your existence you have been doing work, compared to which the labours of governments and parliaments are small and ineffectual. You have been engaged in the greatest of human duties, what Wordsworth called "the spreading of knowledge in the widest commonalty", and the knowledge which you have spread is the most vital of any knowledge, knowledge of what is man's chief end.

It is often a little hard to realise the magnitude of familiar things. It is like living under a high mountain. We recognise that it is above us; we see its lower slopes, we feel the benefit of its shelter, but we cannot grasp its huge mass or catch sight of its cloud-capped summit. It is so with our English Bible. It requires an effort of thought, some detachment of mind to realise the marvel and the miracle of it.

Consider its story. For us the Bible is two things. It is the way of salvation, the revelation of God and Christ. Ever since the Bible became available to our people in their own language it has been the object of fierce contention. In the seventeenth century different schools, both founded upon it, came into violent conflict, and the conflict passed beyond academies and churches to the battlefield. The Bible has been - and still is - subject to every kind of diverse interpretation. The manners, the outlook of our people have changed many times, but at each age has found in the Bible a guide and an illumination. How great a book is this! How rare its divinity!

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how profound its inspiration, which remains intact amid the changes of time, which has survived neglect and suppression, which has survived generations of controversy, which has survived even that more dangerous thing, idolatry.

It is a commonplace, ladies and gentlemen, to say that the truths of religion and philosophy must be translated into the language and idiom of each age and country. We in Britain are fortunate in having a translation of the Bible which is so exquisitely adapted to our national genius that no lapse of years, no change of circumstance, can put it out of date. I fancy a hundred copies of the Authorised version are sold by you for every one of the Revised Version. That is not a criticism of the merits of the new version so much as a tribute to the presented merits of the old. In seven years forty-seven English scholars accomplished a miracle. Before Tynadal the time when their great predecessor Tyndal translated the New Testament, the Bible, as Lord Asquith once said, was for our people only "a collection of oracles in a dead language". After 1611 it became the national Gospel, so much so when we want to say that a book has a universal appeal we say that it is a bible.

Those forty-seven translators in 1611 were not men of conspicuous eminence. Only one, Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, is a familiar name; among the others I recognise Sir Henry Savile, but that is only because he was connected with my old Oxford College. Those forty-seven lived and wrought at a great moment in the history of our literature and our language and our national life. They were contemporaries of Shakespeare and Raleigh and Bacan and they caught the magnificant and the ardour of the age. They were inspired

3· we can use no less a word - to put the truths of the Scriptures into a form so exquisitely in tune with the idiom of our life that it remains, and must ever remain, the authentic voice of our people.

Properly used the Bible expands to meet the requirements of each generation, and reveals new profundities and fresh applications, because it is not a dead book but a living thing, a living body of truth and beauty. Each age can find in it new treasures. You remember what John Robinson, the pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers said on the eve of the sailing of "The Mayflower!" He said, "The Lord has more truths yet to bring forth out of his Holy Word."

I have no patience with the idea that the Bible must be revised and bowdlerised to suit what is called the "spirit of' the age". Such journalistic adventures are an impertinence in the case of a thing so great. I agree with the words of Professor Saintsbury. "So long," he says, "as a single copy of the version of 1611 survives, so long will there be available the best words of the best time of English, in the best order, on the best subjects - so long will a fount be open from which a dozen generations of great English writers, in the most varying times and fashions, of the most diverse temperaments, have drawn inspiration and guidance; by which three centuries of readers and hearers have had kept before them the powers and the prowess of the English tongue."

But I gladly welcome a book which has recently appeared in England called "The Bible, designed to be read as literature". The Bible is a long book, and to get it in a handy form it must be printed closely. Moreover it is necessary to split up the chapters into verses for the purpose of reference. But in the new book to