19. Made in Good Time

This translation was completed at a fortunate time. The English language had passed through many and great changes, and had at last reached the very height of its purity and strength. The Bible has ever since been the grand English classic. It is still the noblest monument of the power of the English speech. It is the pattern and standard of excellence therein. It is the most full and refreshing of all the "wells of English undefiled." It has given a fixed character to our language. It is as intelligible now as when it was first imprinted; and will be as easily understood by readers of coming centuries as by those of the past and the present. It is singularly free from what used to be called "ink-horn terms;" that is, such words as are more used in writing than in speaking, and are not well understood except by scholars. "In the church, among the congregation," says Luther, "we ought to speak as we use at home, in the house,—the plain mother-tongue, which every one understandeth and is acquainted withal."

That King James's scholars wisely clave to the language of the cottage and the market-place, appears by what Thomas Fuller wrote of Nottinghamshire in 1662; "The language of the common people is generally the best of any shire in England.