Dr. Wylie has been three times Moderator of the New York Presbytery, and in 1900 he was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of New York. He is at present the chairman of the General Assembly's Committee on Systematic Beneficence, and has been appointed the representative of the committee to present its report at the meeting in Los Angeles, Cal., in May. Dr. Wylie is the author of a paper on "The American Revised Version of the Bible in Pulpit and Pew," which has been read and favorably received at the meetings of the Ministers' Association in New York, Philadelphia, Easton, Pa., ahd elsewhere, and which was published in full in the last number of THE CALEDONIAN.

The church is served by an able and faithful body of elders, Augustus W. Sexton, clerk; William Thomson, treasurer; Prof. Daniel S. Martin, Ph.D., Messrs. Alexander M. Turner, Archibald B. McPhail, J. Thomson Paterson, Marcellus L. Bowdon, Thomas Cochrane, Robert McWilliams and David M. Quay.

Thomas Cochrane is well known in Scottish circles in this city. He has long been a member of the St. Andrew's Society. He is also well known as a temperance worker, and he never loses an opportunity to make his influence felt in behalf of this cause which is near to his heart.

William Thomson, besides being a member of the session, is the able superintendent of the Sabbath-school. His faithfulness to this branch of the church work has raised the Sabbath-school to a high degree of efficiency. Mr. Thomson has been for about twenty years connected with Thomas Nelson & Sons, publishers, of New York and Edinburgh. He has been located at their New York

THE AMERICAN REVISED VERSION IN THE PEW.

Editor of THE CALEDONIAN:

I have been very much interested in that able, well-written and instructive paper in the March CALEDONIAN on the American Revised Version of the Bible, and more especially to its adaptability to "The Pew." That is a very happily conceived phrase which I do not recollect ever having seen before. The personnel of the pew, as every church-goer knows, is mainly women, therefore we must recognize at once the advisability of having nothing in the Bible or any other book but "that's fit to print," to quote a phrase from the heading of the New York Times. Perhaps the pew in this country is a little more squeamish than it is in other countries where the Bible is much read, hence the desirability of having an "American" revision. Perhaps there may be also a patriotic desire to

establish a standard for the English language that is recognized as "fit" and proper by the American pew. To ministers and scholars the Bible is always the same. They know the warp and woof of the sacred volume and can make due allowance for all seeming inaccuracies and discrepancies, but with the pew it is different, it has no use for archaisms or obsolete words; what, as a whole, it requires is good newspaper English, such as we see in the daily press; to the majority of the pew the English of Jane Austin, Mrs. Barbauld, The Ladies' Journal, The Home Companion and The Sunday-school Library would be all-sufficient. To suit the modern pew a curtain would have to be drawn over English literature from Shakespeare down to Macaulay; Hamlet, Hudibras and Paradise Lost are full of archaisms and worse; the Spectator and the Rambler are unreadable; Swift and

Sterne, to use a home phrase, are "no good," and Fielding, Smollet and Burns are out of the question. Take the beautiful incident of the Good Samaritan, as related in the New Testament-"Covenant"; if a newspaper reporter was required to put it into good newspaper English such as he would use in describing a fire or a railroad accident, it would be simply laughable. The man from Jericho "who fell among thieves" would have to be described as a tramp; the old word vagrant has now become obsolete; how he "put him on his own beast" would be Englished I cannot imagine; a repórter has to be specific and would have to state what kind of a beast he put him on; a “beast” isn't a very pretty word, anyway. People in those days generally rode on asses, and to say "put him on his own ass" would sound rather grotesque; he afterwards took him to "an inn" and

paid his expenses. In fact, the whole story is untranslatable into English such as people in pews are accustomed to read.

The word "thieves," such as the man fell among, is now nearly obsolete, it being used principally to describe those who steal things of small value; other words have been invented to describe thieves of greater capacity. The word "inn" has also become obsolete, and in the Methodist pew it means a "rumhole," a "gin-mill" or more politely, a liquor-saloon; perhaps the fastidious pew-holder would be better satisfied if the good samaritan had said that he took the wounded tramp to a hotel in his own wagon and paid his hotel bill. Take another quotation: "How would I have gathered thee, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings" is all very well, except for the fact that there are no hens in this country, they are all chickens; after a chicken arrives at mature hen-hood she still remains a chicken,

and when she is hung up in the market as matured for pot-pie she is sold as a chicken. The male bird that crowed when Peter denied his Master is known to the American pews from Maine to Mariposa as a rooster; it has another name, but it remains in innocuous desuetude. The chicken aforesaid roosts just as much as her male companion, but she is never specifically spoken of as a rooster-that distinction belongs only to him. "Meats for the belly and the belly for meats" is a passage that is nearly incomprehensible because nobody in this country has a belly-the word by common consent has been outlawed-if a person has a colic or a pain in his lower bowels, he says he has a stomach-ache; there might be a difference of opinion with some fastidious people about the locality of the stomach, but the average that. The American Revision translates pew-holder doesn't mind a little thing like the word "bowels" for "hearts;" some over-fastidious person might question whether those two words were synonymous terms and say that the American synonym "stomach" was much preferable. The word "umpire" has been given in lieu of some old word; when seeing it our minds will naturally revert to the base-ball field or where something strenuous is going on.

There is no doubt but the American Revision is a noble and painstaking work, and perhaps superior to any other, but on reading the paper of Dr. Wylie one can hardly fail to read between the lines a patriotic impulse to make it appear the best not only on account of its great merit, but because it is American. A great American naval officer in the late war with Great Britain, as it was called in my younger days, gave as a toast at a social gathering: "My country, may she always be right; but right or wrong, my country!" That was very patriotic, no doubt, for he was a gallant officer and a good fighter, but it did not prevent such a pure and zealous patriot as Horace Greeley from scoring him with all the wealth of language he could command. P. L. BUCHANAN.

striking mechanics. Rather than yield to their unjust demands he suffered financial loss again and again.

His son, who joined him in business a few years ago, has been recently admitted into partnership, so that the business is now conducted under the firm name of Thomas Cochrane & Son.

The social side of Mr. Cochrane's nature is exemplified by his association with such fraternal organizations as the St. Andrew's Society, the Scotia Lodge and St. Andrew's Temperance Division, of which he was at one time the worthy Patriarch.

Mr Cochrane is a staunch Presbyterian and an elder in the old historic Scotch Church of which the Rev. Dr. Wylie is the respected pastor. Mr. Cochrane is a well-known figure in church courts, being successively elected to Presbytery, Synod and General Assembly.

While he is intensely devoted to the land of his birth he is a loyal and patriotic American citizen. A. W.

JOURNALISTIC SKETCHES.

BY TED TICKLETALE.

IV.

LECTURING TO "RAISE THE WIND."

Making a pedestrian tour used to be a common way of spending a summer vacation in the north of Scotland. Two or more young men would start out together on a trip occupying a week or more. As a rule, strict economy had to be exercised to keep within the limited. amount available for food and lodgings. Even with the most careful handling, the funds sometimes ran short before the tour was ended.

Two young newspaper men set out to

spend a holiday in this manner. Having met some cronies on the way, it became necessary to consider ways and means quite some time before the end of the journey.

While debating how they could best raise the wind, old Boreas raised something for them, which, upon being picked up at the roadside, was found to be a printed copy of a temperance lecture by the famous John B. Gough.

It was about 5 o'clock P. M., and they were a mile from the town at which they were to put up for the night.

"We're in luck," said Jim. "You've a good memory, Bob, and you can easily be ready to deliver a lecture from this to-morrow night. We can hire the Town Hall and take a collection at the door. That will pay all expenses and leave us a decent margin to get home with."

"A good suggestion," replied Bob, "except that you can speak better than I. You must deliver the lecture and I'll look after the collection."

This was agreed to, and at their lodgings Jim sat far into the night memorizing the substance of the lecture and disguising it in such a deft manner that the author himself could hardly have detected the plagiarism.

All the ar

Next day was a busy one. rangements for the lecture had to be made in a hurry. The Town Hall was hired at the low rate of 10s., including gas, and there were bright prospects of a handsome profit from the venture. Apparently all that was needed to make it an unqualified success was to have it thoroughly announced to the residents. Such announcements were made by a Town Crier with the euphonious name of "Cockie," a worthy who hardly ever drew a sober breath. He was handed a