Metcalf preached there once in two weeks. It was proposed that Mr. Homer should preach on the alternate Sabbath, when otherwise the pulpit would be vacant. Mr. Homer made a good impression. upon all, and the prospect of union and harmony seemed excellent. But Mr. Metcalf did not like the good impression which Mr. Homer had produced, and said that if he preached there a second Sabbath he should leave. This threat lost him the confidence of those who had paid him nine-tenths of his salary. Mr. Homer tried to pacify and conciliate him; but he saw that his influence was gone, and he left the place, though he admitted that he could not blame Mr. Homer, his manner toward him had been so kind. One man said he believed these Congregational ministers wanted to make Protestants of them, and get control of them, showing that he did not know what a Protestant is. Mr. Homer, in giving an account of this in a letter to Dr. James Freeman, the minister of King's Chapel, said, “I have my temper sometimes tried, but I have been so kept that I have not lost it a moment."

On account of the prejudice against written sermons, Mr. Homer preached unwritten ones. He preached at private houses, visited the people in their homes, and labored in every way to overcome prejudice. His labors were greatly enjoyed. Those who at first hated him, because that by means of him they had lost their minister, afterward admitted

that he had treated them so kindly that they could not hate him any longer. The report of the Society which sent him there says that he visited the sick and afflicted, instructed the young and ignorant, urging upon all the necessity of religion, and by his kind, candid, and affectionate deportment to all of every denomination, inspiring them with some portion of his own spirit of conciliation. He did great good. A good number were brought under serious impressions, and some became hopefully pious. After he left, Rev. William Greenough, of the West Parish, went there, and engaged in similar labor for one month.

Dr. Homer devoted many of the later years of his life to an enthusiastic study of the different English translations of the Bible, from that of Wycliffe to that of 1611. He intended to write a history of them. The late Prof. B. B. Edwards, of Andover, said he was better qualified to do it than any other person in the country. A conclusion which he reached was that King James's Bible was in no part a new translation taken directly from the originals. He had the most ample facilities for ascertaining the truth of this statement. His shelves were filled with rare and choice books bearing upon the subject, many of them obtained from England with great painstaking and expense, and he performed the almost incredible labor of finding out by personal examination the source from which the translation of every

verse in the Bible was taken; and he showed, what he had previously asserted, but what had been denied by biblical scholars, both English and American, that not a single verse in King James's version was newly translated, but that the whole of it was taken from other versions and was a compilation. He showed that thirty-two parts out of thirty-three were taken from former English versions, chiefly from the Bishops' Bible, and that the remaining thirty-third part was drawn from foreign versions and comments. Having announced this result of his investigations, he quoted the words of the translators themselves, that they " had never thought from the beginning of the need of making a new translation." 1

In the "Biblical Repository" for October, 1835, at the close of an article on "Early English Versions of the Bible," may be found a letter from Dr. Homer on that subject. In February, 1838, he wrote an article for the Supplement to Dr. Jenks's Comprehensive Commentary, which may be found near the middle of the volume, on page 55 of the "Guide to the Study of the Bible," in which he spoke of the need of revising the authorized version in view of its errors in grammar, syntax, and translation, and its obsolete words.

The following statements have been either made directly by Dr. Homer, or have been suggested by the perusal of his writings.

Beginning with Matthew's Bible of 1537, from which all later revisions have been formed, he says, "This Bible was executed by the very best scholars in Hebrew, Greek, German, and English." The translation was partly that of Tyndale, who is the real author of our English Bible, and partly that of Coverdale, a friend of Tyndale, but the whole was revised and corrected by John Rogers, the first martyr of Queen Mary's reign. This Bible soon superseded that of Coverdale, but being burdened with notes, to which opposition was made, Coverdale was invited, in 1538, to undertake a new edition on the basis of Matthew. This he did, and in 1539 appeared "The Great Bible," commonly called Cranmer's, because he furthered the work and wrote a preface to it. "It was published," says Dr. Homer, " under the dread of the frown and rejection of Henry

It has been generally admitted that, in the time of the Unitarian defection, Dr. Homer was considerably influenced by his many friends, both ministers and others, who embraced the erroneous views.

Mr. Bushnell, who came here more than a year before Dr. Homer's death, says that he was liberal in his theology, influenced, no doubt, by his intimacy with Dr. Pierce, of Brookline, and Dr. Freeman, of King's Chapel, whose wife was a sister of Mrs. Homer. Dr. Gilbert, of West Newton, used to speak of Dr. Homer in the same way. But Dr. Homer was also intimate with Dr. Codman, with Rev. Mr. Greenough, of the West Parish, and with Rev. Mr. Grafton, of the Baptist church in this

VIII and his clergy. Cranmer was dissatisfied with it, and when young Edward came to the throne, sent for three German scholars to aid him in effecting a new translation. The early death of two of them frustrated his intent."

The Geneva New Testament, probably by Whittingham, who had married Calvin's sister, was published in 1557, with an introduction by Calvin. The completed Geneva Bible, always a favorite one with the Puritans, appeared in 1560, with marginal notes so full that they might be called a commentary. The book was a moderate quarto in size, suitable for popular use, and it immediately became the Bible of the people, and continued to be so for seventy-five years. They said there was no discerning the Word of God aright except through the "Genevan spectacles." This is no doubt the Bible which our Pilgrim and Puritan fathers brought with them to this country. "Elizabeth and her primate disliked and rejected it," says Dr. Homer, on account of the notes, in which was expressed so much abhorrence of tyranny." One of these notes, on Rev. ix. 3, where locusts are described as coming out of the smoke of the bottomless pit, says, "Locusts are false teachers, heretics, and worldly subtle prelates, with monks, friars, cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, doctors, bachelors, and masters, which forsake Christ to maintain false doctrine."

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"The proprietors of this Bible," says Dr. Homer, "were refused the privi

place, and the result was that he adhered to the ancient faith. Dr. Codman said that he was decidedly evangelical and orthodox, though liberal and catholic in his feelings towards other denominations, and he acknowledged gratefully the sympathy which he had received from him in the trials through which he had passed in the Unitarian controversy.

A smile is sometimes awakened at the mention of Dr. Homer's name, because of the many queer and strange things that have been told of him. He was a very absent-minded man, and his wife was constantly expecting some odd event to occur from his eccentric ways. Professor Park says that he

lege of publishing it in England unless they would omit the notes, but so great was the demand for it, that a fresh edition was published every year for thirty years without permission, nor was a single one of the objectionable notes omitted."

This statement of Dr. Homer is far within bounds, for Westcott says that between 1560 and 1611 more than a hundred editions of the Geneva Bible were published. Dr. Homer justly refers to the influence of the notes of this remarkable Bible upon the English Revolution of 1688, and remotely upon our own Revolution of 1776.

The Bishops' Bible was published in 1568, and was called Elizabeth's Opposition Bible, because its principal object was to displace the Geneva Bible. It was but a slight variation from the Great Bible and the Geneva Bible. Dr. Homer ascertained that "about two-thirds of the new and best text of the Geneva Bible had been used in the Bishops' Bible without acknowledgment or apology. The very notes, too, of the proscribed Geneva Bible, so far as they were merely critical and not revolutionary, were found spread over the whole of the new Court Bible. Only eight editions of this Bible are known to have been published, and these were required chiefly for the reading-desks of the churches."

These two Bibles, the Geneva and the Bishops', continued in use during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign.