kinds. A certain number of misprints, chiefly in accents and breathings, which had escaped notice in the first or private issue, owe their rectification to notes kindly furnished by correspondents in England, Germany, and America. Any further corrections of overlooked errors of the press will be sincerely welcomed: with the utmost desire to secure accuracy, we have learned increasingly to distrust our own power of attaining it in the degree to which an edition of the New Testament should aspire.
425. It only remains to express an earnest hope that whatever labour we have been allowed to contribute towards the ascertainment of the truth of the letter may also be allowed, in ways which must for the most part be invisible to ourselves, to contribute towards strengthening, correcting, and extending human apprehension of the larger truth of the spirit. Others assuredly in due time will prosecute the task with better resources of knowledge and skill, and amend the faults and defects of our processes and results. To be faithful to such light as could be enjoyed in our own day was the utmost that we could desire, How far we have fallen short of this standard, we are well aware: yet we are bold to say that none of the shortcomings are due to lack of anxious and watchful sincerity. An implicit confidence in all truth, a keen sense of its variety, and a deliberate dread of shutting out truth as yet unknown are no security against some of the wandering lights that are apt to beguile a critic: but, in so far as they are obeyed, they at least quench every inclination to guide criticism into delivering such testimony as may be to the supposed advantage of truth already inherited or ac-
