sought to make their Bible speak all languages at
all times.

It is a curious fact that a Book written in one
tongue should have come to its largest power in
other languages than its own. The Bible means
more to-day in German and French and English
than it does in Hebrew and Chaldaic and Greek--
more even than it ever meant in those languages.
There is nothing just like that in literary history.
It is as though Shakespeare should after a while
become negligible for most readers in English,
and be a master of thought in Chinese and Hindustani,
or in some language yet unborn.

We owe this persistent effort to make the Bible
speak the language of the times to a conviction
that the particular language used is not the
great thing, that there is something in it which
gives it power and value in any tongue. No book
was ever translated so often. Men who have
known it in its earliest tongues have realized that
their fellows would not learn these earliest
tongues, and they have set out to make it speak
the tongue their fellows did know. Some have
protested that there is impiety in making it
speak the current tongue, and have insisted that
men should learn the earliest speech, or at least
accept their knowledge of the Book from those
who did know it. But they have never stopped