would naturally choose to offer rates inversely proportionate to the probable time of delivery of cargo, and thus spare deterioration, interest on money, decreased insurance, etc. The questions may be asked, Who in San Francisco would be willing to pay the same rates per ton to Liverpool via Cape Horn that they would be willing to pay via the canal; or who would be willing to insure the vessel for a Cape Horn voyage to Liverpool at the same rates as though she proceeded through the canal? The same questions apply to the whole West coast, to Japan and Shanghai, and have in fact a general application within the terms of the inquiry.

The supposition that because only four sail-vessels passed through the Suez Canal last year, and can not with advantage use it, they will in like manner avoid the Nicaragua Canal, will have no weight in the mind of persons informed on ocean routes. The winds favor both outward and homeward bound vessels around the Cape of Good Hope in latitude thirty-five degrees. By reason of calms at one season and heavy gales in narrow seas at another, encountered in passing through the Suez Canal, we need not be surprised that more than one half of the tonnage that would find the distance shorter through the canal prefers a voyage around the Cape of Good Hope.

Passing around Cape Horn in latitude fifty-six degrees is quite a different affair, especially if bound west. On the other hand, the voyage to the entrance of the Nicaragua Canal is not embarrassed by an approach through long, narrow, and dangerous seas, subject in the alternating seasons, to dangers and delays. Instead, there stretch out from Nicaragua, broad oceans through which the navigator, by making slight détours, can find favorable winds to every quarter of the globe.

Vessels will neither shun nor patronize the canal as a matter of sentiment. If we suppose two fleets leaving Liverpool bound to San Francisco for a return cargo of grain, the one via Cape Horn, the other through the Nicaragua Canal, we may be quite sure the chances would favor the return of the greater number of the vessels to Liverpool that had made the canal transit, by the time the major part of the vessels proceeding via Cape Horn had reached San Francisco. That is to say, the mean of a great number of passages would establish the fact that those proceeding via the canal would make the round voyage within the mean time that those proceeding via Cape Horn would reach San Francisco.

There are two prime factors dominating the canal question: the

cost of the canal, and the amount of tonnage that would seek it as an advantage or economy. Producers and shippers all over the world are directly interested in these questions. The advantage of a canal to the world's commerce must be measured in gross by the economy it effects. If it effects a safe investment and liberal return in interest, all other profit in the general economy will be diffused as a common benefit. It will, in many respects, be to us a national advantage for which the nation pays nothing.

During the early part of the present year a gentleman of wellknown character and ability formed an association for the purpose of promoting the construction of a canal through Nicaragua. He and his associates were so favorably known to the Government of Nicaragua that a concession for the construction of the canal was at once granted them on the most liberal terms, and is subject to forfeiture only through failure to construct the canal. The existing treaty between our Government and that of Nicaragua assures the fullest protection to the material interests involved; nothing more is wanting but an act of incorporation to give a legal existence to the association, after which a company of execution can be formed. When the names of the members of the association are made known to the public, they will be a sufficient guarantee, in the United States at least. There is no question that an act of incorporation may be obtained from any State in the Union which would give a legal existence to the company, and as well, whatever might be required from the General Government to guard the material interests concerned, interests wholly of our citizens or only so in part; but for various reasons the act of incorporation, it is believed, should be granted by Congress. In speaking on this subject, one of our most eminent jurists said: "Under the Constitution it was the duty of Congress to promote and regulate commerce between the States; that, were a ship-canal possible within our own territories, no one would have the hardihood to deny to Congress the right to grant an act of incorporation to a company to construct it. The mere fact that a canal to promote such commerce between the States was exterior to our territories in no wise lessened nor impaired the right or the obligation of Congress to promote such commerce, however much it might complicate the difficulty of fulfilling an obvious duty."

In granting an act of incorporation giving legal effect to an existing concession obtained by a provisional association to construct a canal, our Congress can modify and control, what the Gov

ernment of Nicaragua can not, under an existing treaty between the Governments, namely: Agreeing upon a modified rate of interest on capital invested, by extending rather a moral than a real support, through the guarantee, for a term of years after the completion of the canal, of a low rate of interest, say three per cent. on its actual cost, which in amount would be far below the tolls to the canal, supposing a double transit of vessels requisite to convey the grain and other products of this year from the Northwest coast to Europe, without considering the revenue which would be derived from the transit of vessels on the great commercial routes which the canal would naturally serve. The concession of the association is for one hundred and ninety-eight years. It is an important point whether our coasting trade should be taxed beyond a liberal return on a secure investment. So far as our foreign commerce is concerned, we would suffer from an unreasonable interest on a canal investment in common with other nations, which could thus be provided against, as, whatever the tolls may be, they must be without discrimination as to nationality. Whatever moral support can be given the canal company would seem politic and just, to enable it successfully and speedily to accomplish its purpose. The canal, when completed, will do much to build up our coasting trade in large vessels, and especially of screw-steamers capable of making long voyages. In that trade, at least, they would not have foreign competition, and when freights were high they would be on hand to take cargoes. Thus, perhaps, we may establish ourselves once more on the ocean as carriers, which assuredly will not be done through any special legislation, whether in the interest of "free ships" or free material to build them, inasmuch as, after a discussion of many years, ideas are as diverse, as irreconcilable, and as firmly supported antagonistically as when the discussion began.

DANIEL AMMEN.

THE COMING REVISION OF THE BIBLE.

If the coming revised English Bible shall be accepted by the public, it will be the ninth English version thus accepted. This fact alone should preserve weak minds from terror lest the alteration of our received version prove an impious handling of the ark of God. Tyndale's version (incomplete) was in circulation by 1531, the year he published his "Jonah." This version, as revised and completed by John Rogers, and known as the Matthew's Bible, appeared six years later. Meanwhile Coverdale's inferior translation had been issued. To these three succeeded the Great Bible (Cranmer's) in 1539, the Geneva Bible in 1557, the Bishops' Bible in 1568, the Roman Catholic translation from the Vulgate at Rheims and Douay in 1582-1609, and our present authorized version of 1611. Taverner's translation, as not a generally accepted work, we can only put in the list of many private translations made by scholars. Most of these latter translations have been confined to the New Testament, and excellent work has been done by such men as Alford, Noyes, and Darby-in these tentatives toward a new accepted version.

There is an element in any new version now which puts the matter in a somewhat different light from that in which it stood when King James's version was issued. Then there had been seven versions sent forth on the community within a century, but now the received version has had undisputed sway for two and a half centuries. Certainly this gives an anchor of antiquity to our present version, which none of those that King James's version supplanted could claim. We can not, therefore, wonder that a book, which, apart from its religious character, has become an English classic in its present form, should be so reverenced as to call forth defenders against any change whatever in its style or words. There

is a dignity even in its quaintness which commands respect. The fascination of antiquity rests on every page, and we instinctively draw back from altering anything, as from touching our brush to a work of Raphael.

But, after all, this instinct is not altogether a worthy one. It needs to be modified by sound reason. Were the English Bible chiefly a work of art, or a monument of the English olden time, the aesthetic feeling should rightly dominate and a jealous conservatism should watch against modern innovations, by the hand of whatever scholar they might be wrought. We do not deny the literary skill of King James's translators. Their work is artistic in the highest sense. They were men of broad and cultivated minds, and they gave the English people a model of literary beauty and sublimity in their translation (or revision), which compares most favorably with the versions of all other tongues. We may add that in this artistic character of their work they themselves borrowed the phrases and words of Tyndale, which had already become antiquated, and so gave the majesty of hoariness to the other virtues of their style. In looking at their work, therefore, we are beholding a phase of the English language really older than their own time.

But we must bear in mind that beauty and antiquity of style are not the paramount considerations in the question of Bible translation. The truth-the truth is what we desire. All other objects sink into insignificance in comparison with this. We seek a perfect translation of the Hebrew and Greek. The idea is of first importance, and the clothing of the idea is secondary. A perfect translation is indeed impossible. A grand sentence must lose something in passing into another language. If it keep its main thought, it must lose its grandeur, and, if it keep its grandeur, it must work some change in the thought. We must, therefore, give up the idea of reaching a perfect translation, although we make it our goal. Which, then, shall we throw out of our car as we advance-the sense or the style? Undoubtedly the latter. The only fatal embarrassment in this is at those crises where the very style enters into the sense, and you can not tear them apart without destroying both. In such cases we must bow to the necessity and give a bad translation, leaving it to the scholar to explain the difficulty and the real meaning in whatever circumlocutory way he may.

Generally speaking, then, we must sacrifice style to sense, and, in doing this at the present time, we may subject ourselves to the charge of iconoclasm. If a rich, round sentence that we have loved