Such critics do not seem to be aware that Tennyson, DeQuincey, and other standard writers employ these words. But nothing can be fairer than our treatment of the æonian phraseology, which should secure universal approval. In E. V. and R. V. aion, aionios, are rendered “age,” “world,” “everlasting,” “forever," "eternal," etc. But nothing is now better settled than that "age" and "ages" are the exact renderings of the noun, and that "age-lasting," or pertaining to an age, is the meaning of the adjective, in almost all cases; and in all cases so far as a time-sense is involved, indefinite but limited duration is the meaning of the word. But there are instances of the use of the adjective in which it is claimed by some scholars that something more than mere duration is denoted; that is, quality as well as duration. The "æonian life" is something more than an age-long life, they say. We have no precisely equivalent English adjective for aionios, 'and inasmuch as the æonian terms are the pivotal words in the controversy between Universalists and Partialists, what can be at once more candid and exact than to transliterate rather than translate them? The translator of The New Covenant might have rendered the noun "age" every time, and the adjective "age-lasting," and justified his course by the lexicography, etymology, and usage of the word in classic and sacred literature. As a partisan theologian he should have done so. As a rigid critic he might have done so. Had he made his version solely in the interest of his church, he certainly would have done so. But there was another course open to him, that was not obnoxious to any charge of theological bias, and that no candid reader should object to, which was to Anglicise the noun by the word æon, singular, æons, plu. ral, and the adjective by æonian. These are recognized English words, and have the merit of being the very words of the original, and any reader can interpret them wherever they occur, as the connection requires.

The only objection offered is, that these words are not in common use. But there are many excellent and important words in the New Testament not in common use. Eon is in the English dictionary, and æon and æonian are found in standard English literature, and are becoming more and more common. The same objection could have been made to the use of the word "chasm" a few years ago. It is the best word to represent the Greek rendered "gulf" in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke xvi, chasma): but it had not been naturalized in English speech when the E. V was made. "Eon" and "æonian"

are fast becoming familiar, and are the best possible words to represent the original. They are the very words Jesus used, and are sanctioned by the best English usage.

Nothing is more essential to a correct understanding of the New Testament than a release from the bonds which have been welded about it by a crystallized phraseology. Words, especially those in religious terminology, by long and inaccurate usage, become saturated with false meanings, and go freighted with error, from æon to æon. Many a falsehood is thus sustained, and its lease of life renewed. The New Covenant is a contribution to the work of lifting the New Testament out of some of the crystallizations that have been induced by erroneous creeds. Several important errors owe their hold on the popular mind to the inaccurate Bible words that carry them. Remove those words, and the errors they represent, having no other foundation, will soon disappear. Dr. O. W. Holmes well observes ("Prof. Breakfast Table," p.8):

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"The religious currency of mankind in thought, in speech, in print, consists entirely of polarized words. Borrow one of these from another language and religion, and you will find it leaves all its magnetism behind it. The argument for and against new translations of the Bible really turns on this. Scepticism is afraid to trust its truths in depolarized words, and so cries out against a new translation. If every idea our book contains could be shelled out of its old symbol, and put into a new, clean, unmagnetic word, we should have some chance of reading it as philosophers or wisdom-lovers ought to read it.

* * When society has once fairly dissolved the New Testament, which it never has done yet, it will, perhaps, crystallize it over again in new forms of language."

Nearly every departure The New Covenant has made from words dear by association has been for the purpose of "depolarizing" language in the interest of exact meanings.

For the foregoing reasons the words rendered "devil" and "Satan" in E. V. and R. V., in The New Covenant are "adversary," "accuser," or "demon," according to the meaning of the original. The accurate rendering of these words relieves the Bible from a serious defect, and places in the text the words that the best critics have demonstrated should be there, but which E. V. and R. V. have overlooked.

So, too, the words rendered "hell" (Gehenna and Hades in E. V., and Gehenna in R. V.,) are preserved, as they should be, in The New Covenant, just as they were spoken or written. Nothing resembling what is popularly understood by the word

"hell" inheres in "Gehenna" or "Hades" any more than in Babylon or Rome. "The lake that burns with fire and brimstone" could be rendered "hell" as consistently as can Gehenna. It is not translating to render Gehenna "hell," it is a theologian's paraphrase. It is a valuable addition to the facilities for understanding the New Testament, to place in the hands of the unlearned a version that retains the precise words employed by Jesus and his disciples, in which nothing like "hell" is contained.

"Gospel" in E. V. and R. V. is rendered "good news" or "good tidings" in The New Covenant. The Greek word thus rendered is not, like "Gospel," a mere name, but it is descriptive of the character of the message, (euaggelion), good news, or message, or tidings. This is a valuable change. "Gospel" has become "polarized," and in the popular mind stands for any one's particular view. To a Baptist "the Gospel" is the doctrines of the Baptist church; to a Catholic or Methodist, it means his particular creed. But translate the word literally, and it is at once "depolarized." Its nature and character are clearly denoted, "good news." It lets a world of light into the mind of the ordinary reader who can only claim that his creed is taken from the New Testament so far as his message is one of good tidings.

Unaccountably E. V. and R. V. ignore a word of frequent occurrence in the New Testament that is often a key to the solution of a passage. That word is mello, "about." It is found in such passages as Matt. iii: 7, "the wrath about to come," instead of "the wrath to come;" Matt. xii: 32, "the mon (age) about to come," instead of "the world to come;" Acts xxiv: 25, “a judgment about to come," instead of "the judgment to come," etc. Campbell says: "There is just such a difference between estai and mellei esesthai in Greek, as there is between 'it will be,' and 'it is about to be,' in English." The New Covenant does what neither E. V. nor R. V. attempts, gives the full force of the word in the many texts in which it occurs. This feature alone would justify this publication, for the word often unlocks the meaning of a text, and interprets it. It is indeed essential to an accurate eschatology to give mello its full force.

The author has sought to avoid unwarrantable liberties taken with the text by E. V. and R. V.; for example, take the me genoito of Paul, (Rom. iii: 4, etc.,) inexcusably translated, "God forbid." Literally the meaning is, "Let it not be," but more idiomatic, and equally literal is our rendering, "by no means."

No such meaning as "God forbid" can be extorted from Paul's words. This represents a class of passages which scholars will admit are more accurately, literally and idiomatically given in The New Covenant than in E. V. or R. V.

Another valuable rendering is from psuche. Its meaning is “animal life,” and not “soul,” as rendered frequently in E. V. and R. V., and as that word is usually understood. And the adjective psuchikos, is not "natural" nor "sensual," as in E. V. and R. V., nor "egotistical," as Canon Farrar suggests, but "animal." For example, Matt. ii: 20, "Sought the young child's life;" x: 28, "Are not able to kill the life;" xi: 29, "Shall find rest to your lives;" 1 Cor. xv: 44, "It is sown an animal body," etc. A man can lay down his "life for his friends" (John xv: 13), but not his soul; Jesus laid down his life for the sheep (John x: 15), but not his soul, or the immortal part, as that word is usually understood. In the fifty-nine passages in the Gospels, and in the fifty-five passages in the remainder of the New Testament in which the noun occurs, rendered in E. V. and R. V., "soul," "souls," "mind,' "life," "lives," "heart," "heartily," the meaning is the animal existence, life; and in the passages in which the adjective occurs, "natural," "sensual,” in E. V. and R. V., the meaning is animal, and is so rendered in The New Covenant. This is an important improvement, one of the facts in exegesis that have been settled by scholars, but that R. V. ignores. "Life" is not always as euphonious and familiar as "soul," but the latter is inaccurate and misleading, and has been avoided.

The word "slave" in The New Covenant has been objected to; but this word is adopted because no other word would faithfully represent the original. The words "servant," "domestic," "hired servant," "minister," and "slave" are equivalents of Greek words, no one of which can fill the place of any of the others. There are several words rendered "servant," in the N. T., which differ in the kind of servants they denote. The words are, diakonos, doulos, oiketes, pais, huperetes, misthios, misthotos, therapon: "hired servants," "domestics," "public servants," "slaves," etc., are described by different Greek words. To render them all "servant" would be too general. Doulos means "slave;" douleuo "to slave," and carries the idea of utter surrender to another-a vast deal more than mere service. In the New Testament the word is used in a high and noble sense, as well as with the ordinary signification of mere servitude. Paul called himself "God's slave." By this he would carry the idea of his

entire surrender to God. "Servant" was too weak to convey his thought. The Elder Son in the parable says: "These many years I have slaved for you." He would indicate something more than ordinary service. To American and modern ears the word "slave" sounds harsh, but the sacred writers used it to denote the most devoted and thorough service, as well as common servitude. To distinguish such a service from ordinary service, "slave" is the only English word.

Several critics have quarreled with our use of the word "reign" (basileia), instead of "kingdom," and especially of the plural form (kingdom of the heavens) instead of the singular and sometimes "heavenly reign," for "kingdom of heaven." But "heavenly reign" is perfectly legitimate from "reign of the heavens," and wherever we say "the heavens," the Greek uses the plural and the article. And certainly the sway that "the heavens," heavenly things, exert in the soul and in the world is a reign rather than a kingdom. The word "reign,” far better than “kingdom," expresses the thought of Jesus and his apostles, and wherever the plural and the article are used in the original, "reign of the heavens" is better than "kingdom of heaven." Those who prefer the form in E. V. and R. V., are among those who are clinging to "polarized words."

We have been criticised for substituting "immerse," etc., for "baptize," etc.; but the latter is discarded, and the former adopted because bapto, baptizo, mean "to dip," or "immerse." The rendering is compelled by the facts in the case. It is, indeed, the only word that actually defines the original. The version by the American Bible Union so renders it, and Luther's translation does the same, Johannes der Tauffer, John the Immerser, or Dipper, who preached die Tauffe der Busse, the immersion of repentance. The Dutch render it by doop.

The original has been rigidly followed in all places where Christ is named, whether with or without the article, and the capital, Christ, is adopted invariably whether "Christ" or "the Christ," is the literal.

In Volume II. ouranos is rendered “sky” or “heaven,” according to the meaning as indicated by the connection, and the article is rendered when it is prefixed, and the singular or plural is given, according to the original. The word denotes heaven or sky.

We have not strictly followed the rigorous rule of the grammars in the use of the auxiliaries "shall" and "will." The rule is