SAWYER'S VERSION.
"If you please, we will make here three tabernacles."
"When therefore they had breakfasted, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to him, Yes, Lord, you know that I am a friend to you."
"God, be propitious to me a sinner."
"Give us to-day our essential bread."
"On this account I cannot come."
"And of him with whom men have deposited much, they will ask more."
"I tithe all I acquire."
"For what man of you wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the expense?"
"And upon this rock will I build my assembly."
"If your brother sins, reprove him; and if he changes his mind, forgive him."
"And coming to the house, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying, Congratulate me; for I have found my sheep that was lost."
"And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said to the lake, Hush! Be still!"
"When we were borne along in the Adriatic, at about midnight the sailors suspected that some land was approaching them."
"Enter in through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and spacious the way which leads to destruction, and many are they that enter in by it; for narrow is the gate, and compressed the way which leads to life, and few are those who find it."
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they perform no hard labor, neither do they spin."
These must suffice. We cannot extend our quotations, nor is there occasion to do so. We think we have seen enough of Mr. Sawyer's use of words and phrases, enough of his improvements on the common version of the Bible, to convince any candid mind that his is neither a literal nor a correct translation; that so far from having improved the version, by adding clearness, force, or precision, he has injured it in each of these respects; and that the world would be immensely the loser by accepting him as a substitute for the forty-seven translators who composed the famous Council of King James in 1611. We are informed that Mr. Sawyer has completed his improved version of the Old Testament, and will soon publish it. We almost shudder in anticipation of the sounds which he has probably evoked from the harp of Judah's minstrel king, of the colors which he has put on the canvas where are painted the glowing visions of Isaiah, and of the rude matter-of-fact method in which he has doubtless used the modern telescope to penetrate and scatter the glorious and solemn mysteries of the cloud-land of prophecy out of which spake the God of Daniel. But we forbear, and must wait till we have the remainder of this magnum opus before we venture to hazard an opinion of its merits.
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