That by proper authority a Committee of Revision of the English Bible should be appointed, whose business should be, retaining the present authorised version as a standard to be departed from as little as possible to settle upon such indubitable corrections of meaning and improvements of expression as they agreed ought to be made, and have these printed in the margin of all Bibles published by authority.  That, as an essential part of the scheme, this Committee of Revision should be renewed periodically, but not too frequently—­he appeared to think that periods of fifty years might serve—­at which times it should be competent to the Committee to authorise the transference from the margin into the text of all such alterations as had stood the test of experience and criticism during the previous period, as well as to fix on new marginal readings.

He was of opinion that in the constitution of the Committee care should be taken to appoint not only divines of established reputation for sound theology, and especially for their knowledge in connection with the original languages of the sacred volume, but some one author at least noted for his mastery over the vernacular language.

It will be seen that this plan, while it provides for corrections of errors and substitution of understood for obsolete or mistaken expressions, leaves undisturbed the associations of aged Christians, and prepares the younger generation for receiving the marginal amendments into the text.  Wordsworth conceived that fixing the duration of the period of revision was of great consequence, both as obviating all agitation in the way of call for such a process, and as tending in the matter of critical discussions respecting the sanctioning, cancelling, and proposing of amendments to bring them to something of definitiveness in preparation for each era of revision.

The same process, under certain modifications, he thought applicable to the Book of Common Prayer.  In this he deprecated all tampering with doctrine, considering that alterations ought to be confined to changes rendering the services more clearly understood or more conveniently used.  It is fair to add, however, that I have heard him express a strong desire that the Athanasian Creed were rid of the so-called damnatory clauses; at the same time declaring that no one was ever more profoundly convinced than himself of the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity.

He was in favour of a collection of metrical hymns, more peculiarly Christian in character than the Psalter, being set forth by authority for use in the Church; and for the choice of such hymns he thought a Committee should be appointed in which the knowledge of divine, of poet, and of laymen trusted for common sense and experience in life should be severally and conjointly engaged.  As a practical suggestion of moment in the composition of such hymns he advised that composers should not in the four-line stanza do more than make the second and fourth lines rhyme; leaving the other two unrhymed, he said, would give an important addition of freedom both to the sense and the style.