version, and purge it, as far as may be, of its manifold errors and shortcomings. Nor until now was the accomplishment of this task possible. Only within the past few years have the necessary favourable conditions come into existence, to wit, the enormous advantage of the full light of modern scholarly criticism, the checks of a complete recension of the various codices of the text, and, for the Old Testament, the mechanical aids of the Masorah, or Masoritic tabulation of the text.

We may expect the completion of the revision about 1881-2, that memorable date which is written on every numerical prophecy we read as the end of this Dispensation. The revision itself, and the fact of its being in progress at this supreme crisis, are a proof that the end is at hand, that no longer will the "words be closed up and sealed," no longer will the God of Israel speak to this people" with stammering lips."

Moreover, it is to be specially noted that many of the most important cases of imperfect or inaccurate rendering in the "authorized version " relate precisely to this matter of the identification of the Lost Israel. Let us briefly consider some of the most crucial of these cases. (As I must necessarily recur to the actual words of the Hebrew and Greek texts, those who cannot be expected to be familiar with those languages will be patient if they remember that we have to justify this matter to the "ignorant learned" as well as to the unlearned).

If the dense obscurity in which the official interpreters have left the prophets has not entirely sickened you of reading them, you must have been continually struck by the remarkable reiteration, especially throughout Isaiah, of glowing exhortations and declarations addressed to The Isles, and Islands.

"In that day" (that is, at the end of the Dispensation) "the Lord shall set His face again the second time to recover the remnant of His people from the Islands of the sea." (Isaiah xi. 11.)

"Keep silence before Me, O Islands." (Isaiah xli. 1.)

"The Isles saw, and feared. The ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came." (Isaiah xli. 5.)

"The Isles shall wait for His law." (Isaiah xlii. 4.)

"Sing unto the Lord, the Isles, and the inhabitants thereof." (Isaiah xlii. 10.)

"Declare His praise in the Islands." (Isaiah xlii. 12.)

"Listen, O Isles, unto me, and hearken, ye people, from far." (Isaiah xlix. 1.)

"The Isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust." (Isaiah li. 5.)

Again, there is the constant iteration of the WEST, either by itself, or coupled with the NORTH. Observe this attentively.

"It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the Tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel." (Isaiah xlix. 6, 12.) "Behold, these shall come from far; and, lo, these from the North and from the West, and these from the land of Sinim.”

"They shall walk after the Lord. He shall roar like a lion. When He shall roar, then the children" (that is, Israel) "shall tremble from the West." "And I will place them in their houses, saith the Lord." (Hosea xi. 10, 11.)

Nothing can be more distinct than these declarations that Lost Israel is to be recovered from Islands in the North-West.

But, in the controversy anent this matter, we have been told that the word for Islands means also "coasts." First of all, if that were true, it would not materially affect the argument. But, secondly, and briefly, it is not true. The Hebrew word ' does not mean "coast." The word for "coast" is altogether different. The word is the only one for Island; and it is rendered in the LXX. throughout by vŋoos, Island.

Again, there is in our version the frequent phrase "isles of the sea.” Manifestly, if a place be an island to contain a large multitude, it must be in the sea. It cannot be elsewhere. The pleonasm "isles of the sea" is not conformable with the habit of the Hebrew language; and a phrase meaningless in itself most unlikely to be used by so finished and classic a writer as the prophet Isaiah. The Hebrew D' the sea, means also the West. The Hebrews reckoned the cardinal points from the East, which they therefore called by the word meaning before (coram, D'P). The Mediterranean, or Great Sea, being then behind them, they called the West by the same word as the sea. Now, as there is the general consensus of the text of the prophets, to indicate specially the North and West as the locality in which Israel should be in the "Wilderness," and whence they were to be restored to their heritage, it is evident that this phrase of "stammering lips "-"isles of the sea"should be rendered isles of the West.'

Grammatically, there is no reason why D " should not be so rendered, when is rendered "West wind" (Exod. x. 19); and

is rendered "Western border" (Numb. xxxiv. 6).

Now let us take an instance to see the effect of this, and the great flood of light it throws on the meaning of the Scripture. In Isaiah xxiv. 14, 15, we read in our version,-"They shall sing for the majesty of the Lord, they shall cry aloud from the sea. "Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires, the name of the Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea." The passage as it stands is incomprehensible. What can be the meaning of giving glory in the fires? The word urim might be so rendered if the context required it; but the only reason which appears for the rendering in this case is, that the translators having rendered yám by imagined that "fires" must be a likely apposition for the waters. Now the one word Urim is sometimes used for the whole expression Urim and Thummim. Hence the passage becomes,

sea

They shall cry aloud from the West. Wherefore glorify ye the Lord by Urim and Thummim, the name of the God of Israel in the isles of the West."

In one of the passages cited, we read," These shall come from far, these from the North and from the West, and these from the land of Sinim. The versionists being apparently unable to explain Sinim have happily let it alone. The phrase means "the land of bushes," or, as we should say, The Bush. Now, observe how the Divine Providence guides the hand of His servants in every detail of this business. Jerome made his Latin Vulgate version twelve hundred years before the discovery of Australia, and knew nothing of that land of the South which we call The Bush. But he translates the phrase (DD YN) by Terra Australis, the Australian, or Southern land.

There is another remarkable rendering in the Vulgate which deserves. attention. In the prophet Obadiah, the 20th verse is given in our version thus:

"The capitivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath; and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the South."

The rendering of the LXX. is altogether different,-Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, "and the captivity of Jerusalem up to Ephratha, and they shall possess the cities of Nagéb, or the South."

Our

The word which is rendered in our version "in Sepharad," and in the LXX. Ephratha, is in the Hebrew T, Besepharad. translators have taken the initial of this word to be the dialectic particle, or preposition "in." But Jerome has boldly taken the word as it stands, and simply translated the Hebrew Besepharad by the Latin Bosporus. Whether the prophecy refer to the Kimmerian Bosphorus, the Straits of Kertch at the Sea of Azov, or to the Bosphorus over which the navy of Britain is now keeping close watch and ward, we will not now stay to inquire.

We are often told that, in the expositions of this matter of "Israel in Britain," we confine ourselves to the citation of passages from the Old Testament. Undoubtedly, we must in the first instance have recourse to the Old Testament, because in that are contained the prophetic writings which set forth the elaborated panorama of the whole fortunes of Israel from the beginning of history to the end of Time. But as the New Testament and the Old are one and indivisible, as the New is the systematic continuation and completion of the Old, so the deliverances on this matter are no less explicit and confirmatory in the New Testament than in the Old. But more than this, however clearly and firmly we may apprehend the fundamental verities of the Faith of Christ, and roalize through Him our individual participation in the gift of Everlasting Life, it is not possible to comprehend the wider purpose and scope of the message of peace for the Church and the World, until we have found the solution of this "mystery" of Israel.

Peter, you remember, writing of Paul's epistles, says that in them are some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do the other Scriptures." To many, no doubt to most, Paul is a writer of paradoxes. Necessarily, in the nature of the case, he is; because he was divinely appointed to expound the esoteric mysteries of the Faith, which only they can understand who have passed, like Paul, through the discipline of suffering.

Now, when we expound the "mystery" of Israel recovered, some of the "unlearned and unstable" answer by wresting the Scripture given through Paul, where it is written, "There is no difference between Jew and Greek" (Rom. x. 12); and, again, "There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all, and in all." (Col. iii. 11.) Of course, there is no difference. Nobody supposes, or says, that there is any difference in the gift of Everlasting Life through Christ for the individual of whatever tribe or nation. But what has this to do with the appointment of the Ancient People for the fulfilment of the Divine purposes in secular his

tory, and as the means for bringing the Gentiles to acknowledge the Name of the Lord of Hosts ? Paul does not mean that the secular distinctions of nationality are abolished, any more than that sex in the concrete is abolished when, speaking of individual faith, he goes on to say, "there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ." (Gal. iii. 28.)

It so happens that it is precisely Paul who sets forth the momentous import and consequences of the loss and recovery of Israel. You will do well to study his epistle to the Romans by this light. He is not writing of a fantastic, metaphorical, so-called "spiritual" Israel. He is dis coursing to the Gentiles of his "kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption, the covenants, the promises."

"I speak to you Gentiles (inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles), if by any means I may provoke to emulation them of my flesh. For if the casting-away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the recovery of them be, but life from the dead?" (Rom. xi. 18-15.)

Now mark what follows; how he applies to this matter the momentous word "mystery," which elsewhere he applies to the incarnation of the Messias, and to the resurrection.

"For I would not that you should be ignorant of this Mystery, that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in;" that is, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled."

We see, then, how grave is this matter. It is a "mystery," of which we are not to be ignorant. For as the casting away of Israel was the reconciling of the world to God, so the recovery of Israel is to be "life from the dead" for the world. Take heed, then, that ye be of them to whom it is "given to know the mysteries of the kingdom."

On

Read the New Testament by this light. Read, for example, the parable of the Prodigal Son. He is the House of Israel, returned from their wanderings in Assyrian, Roman, Norse Pagandom. The elder brother is the House of Judah, who has held fast by the God of his fathers. the other hand, read the parable of the Rich Man, the House of Judah, rich in the coming of Messias to them "first," but who believed not the prophets, though He rose from the dead; and Lazarus, the House of Israel, outcast, full of the sores of hapless idolatry, but who, having then taken the name of Christ, are recovered into Abraham's bosom, and the heritage of the promises.

Let us now look at two instances in which this matter is further obscured by the " stammering lips" of our authorized version. The two epistles of Peter are headed "Epistle general," or catholic, epistola catholica. On the very face of the Scripture, that description is not true. All the epistles are, of course, œcumenic, in the sense of being intended for the eventual edification of the church catholic. But the question here is as to the particular persons to whom the epistle was addressed in the first instance. These are, for example, the epistles to the Romans, to the Galatians, to Timothy, and so on, to whom they are specifically addressed, although their ultimate purpose was general or œcumenic. Now, the first epistle of Peter in our version begins,-"Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia,

Cappadocia, Asia" (that is Asia Minor), "and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God." But in the Greek original we find a very different statement. Instead of "scattered," the participle of a verb, we find the genitive case of a noun, and the plain, straitforward rendering of the whole is, "Peter to the elect wanderers, or pilgrims, of the Dispersion, of Pontus, Galatia,” &c. Πέτρος ἀπόστολος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐκλεκτοῖς παρεπιδήμοις διασποράς Πόντου, κ. τ. λ.

Jerome in the Vulgate so renders it literally, word for word, electis advenis Dispersionis Ponti, &c. The epistles of Peter, then, are not properly entitled "epistles general," but are epistles to Israel of the Dispersion, as the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews is primarily addressed to Israel; though not to Judah. (Heb. iv. 2-6.)

The same criticism applies to the epistle of James, manifestly miscalled "general," inasmuch as it opens with the superscription," James, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad." But in this case also our version has misrepresented the original, which reads, " James, to the twelve tribes which are in The Dispersion.” Ιάκωβος θεοῦ καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ δοῦλος ταῖς δώδεκα φυλαῖς ταῖς ἐν τῆ διασπορὰ χαίρειν.

But how is this-" James, to the twelve tribes in The Dispersion ?" A very striking explanation is afforded by a critical analysis which appeared in the Academy, 23rd March, showing that in this epistle occur a number of phrases peculiar to the Apocalypse of John; from which is inferred that the writer of the epistle had read the Apocalypse. But, as we know that this book was written late in the first century, it follows that the epistle of James was written some time after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, when the Jews also, the two tribes, were in dispersion.

To return to Peter. The provinces in which, by his epistle, we learn that the Dispersion, the Ten Tribes, were situated at the beginning of the Christian æra, Pontus and Cappadocia, are about the head waters of the Euphrates; on the border of the territory in Asia which was lately the scene of conflict between the Russ and the Turk. This is precisely the locality indicated by Josephus, who says (Antiq. xi. 5, 2), “The Ten Tribes are above" (Whiston translates "beyond," which cannot be) Euphrates, that is, about the head waters of Euphrates, "until now, an immense multitude, not to be estimated in numbers." Again, in his record of the speech of Titus the Roman general (Wars, vi. 6, 2) to the Jews, they are accused of having sent for help to Israel of the Dispersion,"You sent embassies to them of your nation that are above Euphrates, to assist you in your revolt."

In the face of this decisive evidence, what becomes of the preposterous story, that the mass of the Ten Tribes returned with the Jews under Zerubbabel and Ezra? What becomes of it, in face of the records of Ezra himself, and Nehemiah, from which we learn that the whole number who returned was only about 50,000? Besides, Ezra throughout specifies Judah, or the Jews, and Benjamin, who at that time were with Judah and Levi.

Now the territory spoken of in the Scripture by Peter, and in the history by Josephus, as the abode at that time of the Ten Tribes (not yet lost"), is precisely the territory to which Sharon Turner, on quite inde

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