the ill -manners of our contemporaries, but to continue to discharge the

threefold obligation laid upon us.

To bear a positive testimony to the teaching of the Scriptures,

To contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints,

To rightly divide the Word of Truth.

Quite a number of scathing comments have been made on the introduction

of the word 'atonement' in Romans 5:11, for obviously we do not receive 'the

atonement', if by that term we refer to the Offering of Christ, for that

Offering was made to God, on our account.  Were the translators of the

Authorized Version fools? or should that term be used of those whose shallow

criticism we have touched upon?  That the translators of the Authorized

Version knew that the word employed in Romans 5:11 was the word

'reconciliation', a glance at verse 10 makes clear.  The introduction

therefore of the word 'atonement' was of purpose.  It was to link the

'effect', reconciliation, with the 'cause', the atonement of Christ, which

could be done three centuries ago, when the verb 'to at -one' meant 'to

reconcile, or to make at one again' after disruption.  That 'debunked

scribbler' of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first did not hesitate to use

the word 'atone' a number of times in his plays for reconciling, as, for

example in:

'Since we cannot atone you, we shall see

Justice design the victor's chivalry'

(Shakespeare, Richard II., i. 1).

Our present purpose however is not to do with either Atonement or

Reconciliation but with the word 'Gentile' and its meaning.  The word

'Gentile' is an English word, and until we can prove to the contrary, we

should give credit to common sense and reasonableness when we meet the word

in the Authorized Version.  The first occurrence of 'Gentile' in the

Authorized Version is liable to the same superficial criticism as has been

levelled against the introduction of the word 'atonement' in Romans 5:11.

Supposing however the Authorized Version introduced the word with full

intention in the tenth chapter of Genesis, in order to prepare the mind for

the distinction soon to be necessary by reason of the call of Abraham, namely

the difference between 'Jew and Gentile'.  No higher authority on the meaning

of English is extant today, than the Oxford English Dictionary, which says of

the word Gentile:

'Usually with capital G.  (1) Of or pertaining to any or all of the non

-Jewish nations.  (2) Heathen, pagan ( -1789).  Senses derived from

Classical Latin (1) Pertaining to or indicating a nation or tribe.  Now

rare 1513.  (2) Of or pertaining to a gens or to gentes 1846.  "Jesu so

gente" Middle English.  The words Italian, American ... are Gentiles

'To Gentilize' is not in common use, but that word completely

translates the Greek ethnikos in Galatians 2:14 'to live after the manner of

Gentiles' in contrast with the Greek word Ioudaikos 'to live as do the Jews';

the Jews, moreover being those who are 'Jews by nature'.  It is not our

mother tongue that stands to be corrected, the Jews also are evidently

needing a monitor, for in the Jewish prayer we have the words:

'O Lord our God, King of the Universe, I thank Thee I was not born a