UC-NRLF B 3 M Ti mi 1 .iv*^ 'nibX. T LIB R^ R Y I UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, ' Receii'ed /'^'Z^st-^ , iSg3 . Shelf No. Accessions No.-^^ ^■^ f ^:^Jk.^m^ INTRODUCTION. Xlll Particular Addresses should be prepared for different classes of the Community : for the general public, for the younger clergy, for the theological students, for Mothers' Meetings, Young Men's Associations, Sunday Schools, private places of Education of boys and girls. I have in the Appendix given a table of Heads of Subjects, which would enable anyone to work up his notes for an Address suited to his audience : it is a mistake to speak over the heads of an uninstructed audience, or below the standard-level of devout and trained minds. In the Appendix I have inserted a specimen-address for a Training College. For con- venience of reference, I have prepared an analytical abstract of Subjects to assist the preparation of Addresses. I have freely quoted extracts from speeches, and writings, of esteemed authorities, sometimes quoting the name, and occasion of delivery, and indicating by inverted commas the quotation, but very much oftener incorporating the carefully collected sentiments of others in my own text, and hoping, if it is worthy, that my text may meet the same fate from those, who come after me : golden thoughts, neatly turned expressions, and telling anecdotes, are common property, and I have XIV INTRODUCTION. used some so often, that I forget from what source I derived them : I have kept clear of statistics and figures, as I have no taste for them : the Annual Report will from year to year supply them fresh and fresh. Extreme accuracy on debatable points is not to be obtained, and profits not for the purposes of these Addresses, even if attained, as they are of a general, popularized, and unscientific, character : however, errors, prejudices, and exaggeration are avoided as much as possible, and as far as I have been able to detect them. May the Lord bless my endeavour ! Amidst the concourse, and even concussion, of senti- mental appeals to the hearts of the people on every possible quasi-religious, quasi-benevolent, and often very unwise subjects, the fear is, that the first claim of the unique, and in importance unparalleled object of the Bible-Society should be forgotten, or postponed to interests of a less vital nature : the Platform, Pulpit, and Press, must in this material epoch be powerfully and spiritually worked. Every good earnest man, or woman, is not gifted with the power of impressing with their words miscellaneous audiences : such persons are often better Christians, but none the less not such good speakers, as those, to whose lips by God's INTRODUCTION. XV Special Grace words come readily. It is of importance, that the Society should publish good selected Addresses by its chief Protagonists of past and present time, men who have uttered words, which are not forgotten by those who have heard them, such as Dr. Thompson, late Archbishop of York, Mr. Spurgeon, the Earl of Harrowby, Canon Edmunds, Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, and many others, whose names I omit for want of space, but which will occur to all, under whose eyes these pages fall : I would add the names of our living friends, Rev. J. Sharp, Rev. W. Major Paull, Rev. Dr. Wright, Rev. T. Aston Binns, Rev. D. Brodie, Rev. James Thomas, Mr. G. T. Edwards, and others, whom I have not heard, but whom 'others have heard : all according to the particular gift lent to them, and their peculiar idiosyncrasies of training, and thought, and experience, present the great subject with success to their audience, as their knowledge is up to date, all-round, and complete, and their hearers feel, that the heart of the speaker is in the matter : while on the other hand the flash-in-the-pan popular preacher, who tells his audience that he has got up the subject by reading some pages of the Annual Report outside the omnibus on his road to the Meeting, does mischief, mm XVI INTRODUCTION. and his remarks had better be stored up with the words unuttered. Nobody should be asked to speak on Bible-platforms, who is in doubt, as to the Book itself, and the necessity for the Salvation of dying Souls of the Diffusion of the Book, London, Nov. i6, 1892. ' nF THE ''<*'^ £4 OS' ^IFOB.' ADDRESS No. I. On the Continuity of Bible-Translation into the Vernacular of the time from the Return of the Hebrews from their Exile to the present moment. "Shall we, whose lamps are lighted With wisdom from on high, Shall we to man benighted The gift of God deny ? ''—Heber, We must bear in mind, that Languages have only a certain time of Hfe allotted to them, that they come into existence, develop, fade away, and die. On the other hand the Word of God is everlasting, and was given to man as a Rule of Life : if therefore it is not intelligible to man's understanding and heart, it is useless. The great King of Persia, Xerxes, the husband of Queen Esther, issued letters to one hundred and twenty Provinces to each in their own Language : He died B.C. 465, only 2363 years ago : we know the Languages spoken in those Provinces now, and we know as a fact, that they were not spoken I ( 2 ) in those Provinces then : so all but two have disappeared owing to two causes, the population dying out, or to their having changed their Vernacular : only two have survived, Hebrew, the sacred Language of Queen Esther ; and Greek, the Language of the Greek race, which had defeated the great King at Salamis : to these two Languages had been committed the Oracles of God. When a portion, and only a portion, of the Hebrew Exiles received permission from King Cyrus to return to Palestine, B.C. 536, they brought back the Sacred Vessels, and the Book of the Law, but Emanuel Deutsch, himself a Hebrew, remarks, that there was one thing wanting to Ezra, when he tried to found a lasting Commonwealth on the ruins of Zion, which neither authority, nor piety, nor School, nor Synagogue, could restore to its original power and glory, " The Hebrew Language : " so it became necessary to translate the Book, that the returning Hebrews might understand it : hence sprang into existence the Aramaic Targums, for they had become accustomed to that Vernacular in Babylon. There was nothing unusual in this : take the familiar instance of the Northmen, who left Scandinavia and settled in a Province of Northern France : in three generations, before their invasion of England, they had forgotten their Norse Language, and spoke French : a few generations after they adopted English. This notes the first change of Language, and the substitution Jk . m^*. i.i^ 4ii*-»J\.^r-r-^'^ ( 3 ) of a Vernacular, in order that the people might understand, and not depend on the oral interpretation of the Priesthood. How could they hear, if they were not spoken to ? How could they be spoken to, if the Word of God was not in the heart, in the intelligence, and in the mouth, of the speaker, and uttered in such a form, that the hearers could understand it ? With regard to this Aramaic translation it is noteworthy, that our Lord on the Cross quoted the first verse of the XXH Psalm not in Hebrew, but in Aramaic. A portion of the Hebrew race seceded from Ezra, and formed themselves into a separate community at Samaria : they had the Pentateuch, the only Book, which they accepted, in Samaritan, and it exists to this day : it is a Language cognate to, but quite distinct from, the Aramaic : Both Languages have disappeared under the pressure of Arabic, which is now the Vernacular of the whole of Palestine. In the meantime a large community of Hebrews had settled in the new city on the Mediterranean shore of Eg\'pt, which King Alexander of ]\Iacedon had founded, and named after himself About the year 250, and subsequently, the whole of the Canon of the Old Testament, which had by that date been completed (though some doubt this), was translated into Greek, a Language of the Greco-Latin Branch of the Indo-European Family, and is known as the Septuagint : To the early Christian Church of the three first Centuries this translation oc- cupied the position of the Inspired Text. It is notorious, that the New Testament, which came into existence in the ^xaai ( 4 ) last half of the first Century after Christ, was written in the same Language. But the Church of Antioch in Syria, though a Greek Church, did not feci justified in withholding the Scriptures from the indigenous population, and they freely gave them in the Second Century a translation of the whole Bible in the Syriac Language, a form of speech cognate to Hebrew and Aramaic : this is the venerable Peshi'to version, which has survived to our days. And the Church of Alexandria in Egypt, though a Greek Church, was moved by the Holy Spirit to give to the natives of Egypt, the Kopts, a translation of the Book in the Koptic Language in three Dialects in the Second and Third Centuries : this form of speech is totally different both from the Hebrew and Greek, belonging to a different Language Family, known as the Hamitic : these translations have survived to our time : this was the first African Language selected to be a vehicle of Salvation to men. Nor does the marvel end here : one Frumentius, a native of Syria, had been captured as a slave, and kept prisoner in Ethiopia, known now as Abyssinia : after many years he obtained his liberty, but his heart had been touched by the sight of the Heathen Ethiopians, and he returned thither in the Fourth Century, as a Missionary Bishop, and translated the Scriptures into the old Ethiopic Language, a Semitic form of speech, which has survived to our days. In the meantime the old Latin translation of the Greco-Latin Branch of the Indo-European Family, known as "Vetus Itala," had ( 5 ) a large circulation in the Latin speaking portion of the Roman Empire, notably North Africa : It was by no means a perfect version, and had been made from the Septuagint. But a peculiar Grace was giv^en to it : many holy men and women had so appropriated the doctrine contained, had so connected it with their idea of holy life here, and everlasting life hereafter, that, when called upon by ignorant and unsympathetic rulers to give up this Book to be burnt, they refused, and preferred to surrender their own lives. The thought of this makes the heart flutter even in this carnal and degenerate age. At the request of the Bishop of Rome, Damasus, Jerome went to Palestine, acquired the Hebrew Language, and translated the Old Testa- ment, and revised the version of the New. While he was engaged in this duty, the news reached him that Rome had been captured by the Goths, A.D. 410. His translation is the Vulgate. In the fourth century Bishop Ulfilas started a Mission among the Goths on the River Danube, and translated the Bible into the Language of the Goths, of the Teutonic Branch of the Indo- European Family, inventing an Alphabet for the purpose : An antient copy of this venerable book is preserved at Upsala, in Sweden, and I have seen it. In the fifth century, under the guidance of Miesrob, who had already made translations into the Armenian from the Syriac, young Armenians were sent to Alexandria to learn Greek, and brought back a Greek Version, from which a fresh translation was made into the Armenian Language of the Iranic Branch of the Indo-European Family. ( 6 ) In the sixth century the same measures were taken by the Georgian Church to secure translators, who knew Greek, and were able to make use of the Greek Versions : this was the first x\siatic Language, outside the Indo-European and Semitic Families, honoured by being the vehicle of the Word of God. The Georgian Language is of the Caucasian Group. Translations of the Bible were made into the x'\rabic Language, a Semitic form of speech, before the death of Mahomet, A.D. 632, whence, as he knew no other Language, he must have gleaned his imperfect and distorted knowledge of its contents, and ap- propriated the central Truth of One God. In 735 A.D. the Venerable Bede in the Convent of Jarrow, in the County of Durham, died in the act of giving a finishing touch to the translation in the Anglo-Saxon Language of the Teutonic Branch of the Indo-European Family. In the ninth century, as if in fulfilment of a law, which could not be broken, two learned Greeks from Constantinople, C}'ril and Methodius, acquired a knowledge of the Language, spoken by the Slavonic immigrants into South Russia, and translated the Bible into the Slavonic Language of the Slavonic Branch of the Indo-European Family, making use of a special Alphabet invented by themselves. In the ninth century came into existence the interlinear glosses in the old Irish Language, which were the work of the great School of Irish monks, who commenced the Evangelisation of modern Europe : this Language belongs to the Keltic Branch of the Indo-European Family. -i-.*'/*- ( 7 ) Thus at a period antecedent to the Norman Conquest of England there existed seventeen Versions spread over the vast Region from Arabia to Great Britain. They were the spon- taneous efforts of devout Christians. A dark period had since then settled over Europe, but it was a darkness, which preceded the dawn of the Reformation. The Roman Church refused to recognise the great linguistic fact, that the Latin Language had ceased to be the Vernacular of Western Europe. In the four- teenth century a translation was made into the Persian Lan- guage. In A.D. 13S0, Wycliffe completed the translation of the Bible into English. A translation into Bohemian and German had appeared about the same time, and at a still earlier date translations had come into existence in the Provencal and Flemish Languages. The invention of Printing, the revival of Learning, the intro- duction of the Study of the Hebrew and Greek Languages, made a mighty change, and the Church of Rome resisted in vain the determination of Protestant Churches to have access to the Scriptures in their own Vernacular. The Latin Vulgate was printed in A.D. 1462 : Erasmus put forth his Greek Testament at Basle in A.D. 15 16, and a French translation was printed in A.D. 1474, a Dutch in A.D. 1477, ^" Italian in A.D. 1471, a Spanish in the Catalan Dialect in 1478. Thus there were 27 Pre- Reformation Translations before the battle was won. From the date of the Reformation to the end of the eighteenth century, twenty-nine additional translations came into existence, which it is sufficient for my purpose merely to name. ^ C3 Europe. I. Welsh. 2. Gaelic. 3- Erse. 4- Manx. 5- Basque. 6. Nonvego-Danish 7- Swedish. 8. Portuguese. 9- Rouman. 10. Russ. 23. Ehst. 24. Nogai-Turki. ( 8 ) 1 1. Osmanli Turki. 12. Old Norse. 13. Lapp. . , , T7- Asia. 14. tinn. 15. Lithu. ^5- Sinhali. 16. Pole. 26. Malay. 17. 18. Wend (2 Dialects). ^7- Tamil. 19. Magyar. ^8. Formosa. 20. Romansch. America 21. Lett. 22. Karniola. 29. New England. Thus, when the conception of a Bible Society was first enter- tained in 1804, there existed only fifty-six versions. Several of these were absolutely extinct. Several of the Translations had become merely Ecclesiastical vehicles of Ritual, being totally unknown by the people. The old Erse was merely an interlinear Gloss in a Latin Missal. Many were imperfect as translations, and not made from the original Hebrew or Greek. Some had never been printed, nor were worthy of being printed, and of those, which had been printed, the supply was totally inadequate, and the style and material of the book left much to be desired. I leave all allusion to versions prepared by the Bible Societies to Address No. IL It will appear on the slightest examination of the list how imperfectly our good ancestors of the Reformation period under- stood the duty, which is now so obvious to us all. It seems never to have entered into the conception of the holy men of the Post-Reformation period, that it was a duty to supply the Mahometan and Heathen world with copies of the Word of God, ( 9 ) and in a systematic way to re-introduce it to the knowledge of the Church of Rome, the Greek Church, and the fallen Churches of Western Asia, South India, and North East Africa, and to the remnant of God's chosen people. They were content to feed themselves with the Bread of Life, but it was not revealed to them, or brought home from the pulpit to their consciences, that Jesus died for all, that Christ looked down from the Cross upon the poor Heathen also, and that the so-called dogs had a con- genital right to the crumbs from the Christian Table. Let all objectors to the Bible-Society work out these considerations in their thoughts, and thank God. While the Priest and the Levite, the observer of Ritual, and the advocate of the Apostolical Succession, passed on the other side, the good Samaritan made the subject his own, and the Lord has blessed his poor endeavours. In this wilderness of neglect of a sacred duty there were some sweet exceptions. John Eliot's name will live for ever : he went out A.D. 163 1 to the Algonquin Indians, and translated the Bible : he had no linguistic helps : his method was : " Prayers and Pains through Faith in Jesus Christ will do anything." This translation survives as the Language of a dead Nation, but we doubt not, that it is heard among the tongues of the thousands, who are singing the new song before the Throne of the Lamb. At the other end of the world some Dutchmen translated the Bible into Malay of the Malayan Family, A.D. 1723. In South India Ziegenbalg the Dane A.D. 17 14 printed a translation in Tamil of the Dravidian Family. In Ceylon the Dutch printed in 1783 ( 10 ) translations of portions in the Sinhali language of the Indie branch of the Indo-European Family. Another Dutchman, Gravius, whose name is worthy of grateful remembrance, printed a trans- lation of two Gospels in the language of Formosa of the China Language-Group in the Empire of China. Notices of other translations, for instance, Hindustani, and Nancouri in the Nicobar Islands, in Asia, and of Eskimo in America, have passed under my eye, but they had not reached that standard of positive fact, which I think it right to require to warrant a place in my Catalogue : perhaps some may think, that my actual admissions are too liberal. It is a notable fact, that the Anglo-Saxon race on either side of the Atlantic had not wakened to the grandeur of their immeasurable responsibilities up to the end of last century. I humbly submit, that it was part of the plan of the Almighty, that His Law, and His Gospel, should be made known to His poor creatures from generation to generation, from zone to zone, in one language after another, as long as eyes can flash with intelligence, and hearts beat with love both to their Creator, and fellow-creatures. I humbly submit, that in taking steps to supply to all Mankind an unceasing supply of this heavenly food we are discharging a duty analogous to that of the Priests, who in the old Tabernacle kept the flame unceasingly burning, and that, those who obstruct the circulation, and mock at the labour expended, occupy a position analogous to those, who obstructed the building of the Temple, and mocked at the builders. ( II ) And it is as well to consider the subject from another aspect: The antients did not understand the power, and the limitations, of Language. The Secrets of the Lower, as well as the Higher, Criticism were not revealed to them, and it scarcely occurred to them, that the circumstance of a book being transferred to another Language, and another environment of Scribes, literary customs, and scholastic rules, absolutely prevented any tampering with the text without the certainty of it being detected. Thus, had the Pharisees and Scribes at the time of our Lord attempted to falsify the Prophesies, which were fulfilling under their eyes, the existence of the Septuagint rendered it impossible : So later on, if it had entered into the minds of the Priesthood of mediaeval Rome to falsify the Vulgate, which came into existence at a period one thousand }-ears before the Reformation, it would have been impossible, as no less than twenty-seven different versions were in existence in different parts of the World, and no one then knew where and how they were to be found. Mark the circumstances of the Sacred Books of a false Religion, and of a corrupted form of a true Religion : they are invariably shrouded in a Language unknown, or dimly known, or at least one not acceptable to the vulgar. They were enveloped in darkness, placed away in arks of Shittim wood, folded up in silk and precious cloths, shrouded in the death-sheet of a dead language : if read aloud, the meaning was disguised in unin- telligible sing-song chants. The power of the Priests depends on their so remaining, and there is a foolish ignorant prejudice in its favour. The " opus operatum " principle dominates among the ( 12 ) Buddhists : The Siamese Monks do not endeavour to make their teaching interesting : They intone verses in Pali, a dead language, and add a commentary in Siamese more obscure than the dead text. What do the hearers care ? crouched on the ground they heap up merit by appearing to listen, and it never enters into their heads, that they would be in the least benefited by under- standing what was read. In Indian Temples, I have stood and listened to such recitations not with feelings of disgust and aversion, but of pity, love, and sympathy. As the old grey- bearded reciter uttered his nasal twangs, the audience bowed their head : they could understand nothing, absolutely nothing, no more than the worshipper at a Roman Catholic Service understands of the anthems, chants, and Scripture readings : but there was a religio loci, which I felt myself; the heart yearning towards the great Creator, a confession of sin, weakness, and dependence on a Power greater than oneself, and a taking refuge in the Everlasting Arms. The Word of God is not bound by the lapse of Time, the interval of Space, the hardship of circumstance, the lowness of culture, the evil designs of wicked men, the scofifing of the worldling, the intolerance of short-lived Puppets in power : As the Sun rises to lighten the face of Nature, so by unbroken continuity the Word of God appears to enlighten the Soul. It is like a great Tree, which overshadows the world, and the leaves of which are for the healing of the Nations. Admitting that such was the Divine plan, can we conceive any other method than the one, which I am attempting to describe ? The * . 4B'*- i.Att ( 13 ) stream might indeed have flowed from the beginning in a larger and swifter volume, but had the Education of Mankind advanced to an extent, which would enable them to drink of the stream ? the progress has been more like that of a glacier, whose advance was slow and certain, and from time to time tiny streams of melted ice flowed out, but in the nineteenth century by a sudden warming of the atmosphere, by the heat of the rays of the Sun on the inert mass, the chains of the Frost have been burst through, and there has been a magnificent out-pouring. Two other thoughts suggest themselves : the Greek and Latin languages were after Sanskrit the most perfect machines for perpetuating thoughts, that the World has known : they were all just at this epoch losing their power : the hand of death was upon both the Latin and Sanskrit, and a paralysis on the Greek : new Vernaculars were forming from the contact of the rude forms of speech of the immigrants from the East, and thus Language was slowly elevated to the dignity of expressing great thoughts : English had not yet — not in fact till the Reformation — become the conquering Angel prepared to carry the Gospel : free from all the shackles of grammatical inflection, genders, numbers, cases, moods, tenses, etc., it is destined to be the great Vernacular of the world, spoken by men, who are as free as their Language, and carrying a free Gospel. The Romish Priests of the middle ages were blind, blind even just before dawn ; they had a kind of contempt for the Vernaculars, and hesitated to commit God's oracles to them. They erred in ignorance rather than in malice. The second thought is this : in the early days of Christianity, ^^ ( 14 ) owing to the rarity and costliness of Manuscripts, and the difficulty of deciphering them (which all, who inspect them in the British Museum, will readily admit) and the poverty and ignorance of the majority of Christians, the public reading of the Scriptures was to many the only possible means of acquain- tance with them. I have already alluded to the analogous position of the Hindu and Mahometan to this day : until the time came for translators and written translations, there were oral Interpreters in the early Church : the same phenomenon appears in the post-Exile period as attending the reading of the Jewish Scriptures ; there were interpreters (Meturgemen), who translated orally and explained what was read in the Synagogue : it must have been to our notions but poor food for the hungry soul, but it was all that was possible then, and possible now in many lanes of a large city, and many a remote village : and men used to learn to read fluently without understanding the meaning of a single word : it is narrated, that the Missionary Boniface put up at an abbey in his tours, and the Abbess after supper brought her little grandson forward to read the Vulgate : he read it clearly, and the Missionary asked him if he understood it ; and he replied in the affirmative, and read it again. The Missionary then called him to his side, and interpreted the Latin into Saxon, and the boy was astonished to find, that there was a meaning in the words beyond the mere jingle of the Sound, with which he had been previously satisfied. Canon Edmonds remarks, that three things strike our attention : " (i) That the oldest documents of our sacred books are now^ more ^ -^1 TfMifflH I'liiiw m *- ■ i 'mm 4.-.-»'/»- ( 15 ) " highly prized than ever as fountains of authoritative truth ; not as " instruments of popular teaching, still less as apparatus for public " worship. (2) There is no trace of the existence of an ancient Church, " however remote in situation, however lowly in intellectual culture, " in which we do not find some trace of a vernacular Bible. The " highest truths in the world have ever entered in at the very lowest " doors, and the doors have always been open to receive them. (3) " While the distribution of the Bible in translations is so wide-spread, " its distribution is also spontaneous. There is no rule, or canon " of council, or decree, enjoining it upon the messenger of the Cross. " It is due to the great spiritual instinct of the Church, which has " never ceased to follow the motto Sempey tibiqne ab onuiibus. No " missionary work is permanent, or satisfactory, that does not provide " the converts with the Scriptures in the vernacular. No vernacular " version can ever be permanent or satisfactory, that is not in the " loyal hands of a living Church." All the translations were made spontaneously in obedience to an instinct, to the voice of the Spirit, not to the order of an earthly Sovereign. The Emperor Constantine did indeed order Eusebius to have a certain number of copies of the New Testament made for distribution in the original language, one of which has survived to this day in the Convent of Mount Sinai, and was brought by Tischendorf to St. Petersburg, where I have twice seen it. Counting by centuries, we have : — The Old Testament before Christ in 4 languages. The New Testament in the First century. The Syriac and Coptic in the Second and Third centuries. ( 16 ) The Latin Vetus Itala in do. The Ethiopia in the Fourth century. The Gothic in do. The Armenian in the Fifth century. The Georgian in the Sixth century. The Arabic in the Eighth century. The Anglo Saxon in do. The Slavonic in the Ninth century. The Irish interlinear glosses in do. The Persian in the Fourteenth century. The English (Wycliffe) in do. The German in Fifteenth century. The Italian in do. The Spanish in do. The Flemish in do. The Bohemian in do. The French in do. The Dutch in do. Some may think lightly of continuity of translation of one book for two thousand five hundred years. Is it so common a phenomenon of literature ? Is there any other parallel ? Have the Books of the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Buddhist, the Confucianist, faithful translations from century to century ? Certainly not. I do not wish to undervalue them : in weighing the intellectual wealth of past ages, and the capabilities of antient men of past ages, the world would be poor without them. We are glad, that it came into the hearts of good men to write such good things, but ( '7 ) is not this treasure like the gold, which has so man}' ages been buried under the reefs of South Africa and Australia, like the flowers which bloom in an uninhabited desert? Our gold has been minted, and re-minted, as it was handed on from generation to generation, from Nation to Nation. Independent of their respective value, the Ruler of the Universe has given them a different destiny. As regards the Koran, I see it stated this very year, that the Sultan of Turkey's authority in Arabia might be shaken, if he sanctioned a publication of a translation of the Koran into the Turkish language, even in Manuscript. With all Mahometans, who do not speak Arabic, religious instruction has the same effect, as if Christians were to learn the Pentateuch by heart in Hebrew. We have the great fact, and we cannot but see the signs of a great design in the fact, that, when Temple and Tower went to the ofround before the advance of the Greek and Roman, who were entirely unsympathetic with the Asiatic and African, all the literature of Assyria and Bab}'lon was buried in the ruins of their cities, and all the learning of Egypt was entombed in sand ; but another fate awaited the one great Book of the Hebrews : their city and their nationality, perished, but the Greek and Roman did not disdain to translate their Book, and its life does not rest on Stele, or Papyri, or baked bricks, in the Museums of Europe, but in versions in many hundred tongues, uttered by living voices, to the comfort of living hearts. Another contrast is worthy of record. In 1526 A.D. Cardinal Wolsey seized the English translation of the Gospel printed by ( IS ) Tyndall in Germany, and burnt it at the North Gate of old St. Paul's Cathedral. Ten years afterwards Tyndall was himself burnt, and while fastened to the stake he cried out, "Lord ! open the King of England's eyes." In iSco in an obscure Welsh valley little Mary Jones cried out, "Oh! that I had a Bible of my own!" and these wishes formed the keynote of the grand Chorus of Harmony, which )-ear by }'ear has spread in volume, until it is heard over the whole earth: that prayer of TxmdaU's was heard, that wish of the little Welsh girl was destined to be the cause of conveying light and knowledge to millions. Wycliffe put the case very neatly, when he wrote : " Since secular men should assuredly understand the Faith, it " should be taught to them in whatever Language is best known " to them." Our duty is clear, to keep up the sacred continuity, to hand on the lamp : in the Agamemnon of /Eschylus, line 312, there is a fine passage : — " ToioiS' cToi/jLoi \afi7raBT](j)6pcov vo/jloI, " aXA.09 ' Trap aWcov Sia8o;^at9 TrXi^pov/iepoL " and a Latin author conveys the same idea : " Quasi cursores vital lampada tradunt." Dear Horatius Flaccus in one of his beautiful odes predicts for his charming poetry an unlimited diffusion, and he mentions the Nations, whom he imagined hereafter reading them ; but this prediction is true as regards the Bible to an extent a hundredfold greater, and more enduring, and a thousand times more profitable. ADDRESS No. II. On "The World-wide Diffusion of the Scriptures in Hundreds of Languages." "The Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." — Isaiah xv. 9. "The Isles shall wait for His law."— Isaiah xlii. 4. In these days these words are fulfilled. What a faint conception the inspired Prophet must have had of the geographical expansion of the round world, and its fourteen hundred millions of inhabitants ! How little he knew of anj-thing beyond the limits of his own country, and his own generation ! Yet the prophesy has come true. There are no more Continents now to discover, and only a limited amount of unexplored interior regions in Asia, Africa, and America : we have left but little for the geographers of the next century to accomplish ; and the Distributors of the Bible have not failed in their duty, at least in the commencement of it, for it will take centuries to com- plete the good work, but_ we have the advantage now of no ( 20 ) great linguistic surprises being possible. On the subject of Language see Address No. III. In this Address I keep myself to Geography, the most material of all Sciences in its three developments, Physical, Political, and Anthropological. In Europe our work of creation is done : we have but to sustain, improve, and spread, the Eighty Translations, with which the 312^ Millions of the human race, all nominally Christians, have been supplied. It took fourteen hundred years from the day of Pentecost to convert Europe, but now with the exception of the Je^vs, and the kw Mahometans residing in or near Constantinople, all are nominally Christians, but they do not all love the Bible. The Atheist, Agnostic, Skeptic, and Worldling, pass it by, and despise it ; the Roman Catholic Priest forbids his flock to buy copies, and does his best to destroy all the copies, on which he can lay hands : the Members of the Greek and Protestant Churches are more noble, and gladly receive it. Of these eighty translations several are dead, and some are used only for liturgical purposes, e.g., Latin, Greek (the inspired N. T.), Slavonic, Anglo-Saxon, Gothic ; and twenty-five are in subordinate dialects of some particular great Language, or sister-dialects of a Language of second or third-rate importance.- Some are moribund, and on the road to extinction : Others are given to the world in strong conquering forms of speech, like the English, which give promise of lasting for ever, having in themselves the power of modif}'ing their forms, and adapting new word-stores. There is not room for much expansion of ( 21 work in Europe, but for careful rc\'ision and diligent circulation. Several distinct forms of written Character are used, but all are Alphabetic. I quote at this place the important remarks of the Earl of Harrowby, President of the British and Foreign Bible Societ}', made in Exeter Hall, j\Ia)', 1890 The real danger of modern times is lest nominal Christians should fall back into Paganism, worse because it is civilized, and amounts to Atheism or Theism. " Another important point, to which I wish to call }-our "attention is the tone in regard to religious matters in the three "great Latin countries of Europe, France, Italy, and Spain. A "most interesting report is made on this subject by our colporteurs, " who say, that the best test at the present time is the tone of "the working-classes of Europe, and they go into every quarter " of the country, and among classes of the people, whom no " minister ever reaches. According to their reports there is going " on still more rapidly than ever the alienation of the people " from the existing religious churches of those lands. This is " sad in one way, but it is hopeful in another. The feeling of "alienation from the priesthood in those countries is evidently " growing with tremendous strides, and is producing great changes " in the habits and opinions of the people. Concurrently with " these vast changes comes the report, that more and more they "are willing to buy the sacred books for themselves. If you "compare this state of things with that, which prevailed only ten " years ago, you will find that the bitterness against the ecclesiastical "spirit increases, but that the bitterness against religion generally ( 22 ) " is on the wane, as far as our colporteurs report. The spread "of education is enormous in France and Italy. For the first " time those countries are becoming highly educated from the " very lowest ranks, but absolutely without any religious teaching : "the reports state, that the teachers themselves are infidels. " But with all this there is this hopeful sign, that the people "are buying more and more the sacred Book. If they were " accepting copies as gifts, it would not be so much, but, though "this Society gives away a limited numbers of books, it goes on " the principle of selling rather than of giving, so that, when we " tell you of this test of feeling, it is a real test, because the " people sacrifice something in order to get the Sacred Volume. " j\I. ]Monod, with regard to France, says that, he adopts very much " the words of one of his best colporteurs : ' It seems to me " that superstition is not so general as it was, and that what people "call the Protestant faith is honoured by many Roman Catholics, " who ten years ago felt nothing but a bitter hatred against the " Gospel and the Scriptures, which we colporteurs circulate. Blessed " be the Lord for that ! Those times are gone, and the light of " the Gospel seems to spread. The Lord gives me new openings, "and I must hasten to meet them.' Yes, the Society, must "hasten to meet the openings, and I hope that you will do all you "can to help us to meet them. With regard to Italy, what "does our excellent agent say there.? Our Society aims at "making the Bible a household word from the Alps to Sicily, " and this is what we arc doing more and more successfully " every year. That is his report of the work there. Then as yWfii ( 23 ) " to Spain, the other Latin country, our agent says : ' The fact, "which presses on my attention is the quiet but sure advance of "the Scriptures all over the land.' All over Spain! What a " change ! One rises from the study of the simple, often rude, "narratives of the colporteurs, saying to oneself, 'Here is a quiet "silent movement, the Bible is passing rapidly into the hands of "the people.' Therefore my verdict must be, that there is all " to encourage us and nothing to discourage in our work in "Spain. Well, my lords and gentlemen, I would beg you "to follow up these points in the Report, which gives very "interesting details on the subject. Then there is another point, " to which I would call attention, the increased local circulation "of the Holy Scriptures in Europe. That is what the Society "always longed for, and said it meant to withdraw from the " countries of Europe as soon as the nations would do the work " themselves. We have been withdrawing from Switzerland ; there " Societies are springing into life, and the Bible is prospering "largely in the hands of the Swiss. Then there is the remark- "able fact in connection with Germany, that there never was "a greater circulation of the Scriptures in Germany than in "the present year. Germany was the centre of the anti- " christian criticism of the Bible, and the world was taught "from Germany to regard the Bible as an absolutely found-out " Book. But we find that the figures of the German Societies "have of late years gone up by leaps and bounds. German love "of the Scriptures was never greater, apparently, than it is now, "say those, who have watched the progress of Germany." ( 24 ) Asia presents a still more magnificent spectacle : a population of 800 Millions provided with 103 translations, with a capacity for greatly increasing the number. I enumerate the names of the political divisions so as to bring home to the mind the grandeur of the subject : Russia. Turkey. Arabia. Persia. India, Nearer and Further, and the Indian Archipelago. China and Korea. Japan. A very small proportion are even nominally Christians : there are Millions, who arc ^Mahometan, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, or belonging to some lower form of Paganism. Every degree of culture and civilization is included. There is great variety of Race, of Linguistic Family, and of Written Character, Alphabets, and Ideograms. The outturn already made represents the grandest accumulation of sanctified human knowledge, that the World ever saw in times past, or is likely to see in times to come. Among the versions enumerated is the original inspired Hebrew version, and the Hebrew language, though no longer falsely honoured as the mother of all languages, still maintains its position, as the one fountain, from which the knowledge of the Oracles of God have been derived. Some of the translations are of the highest possible type of excellence, and are understood by scores of ]Millions, men of high culture and intelligence, the heirs of an antient civilisation, compared to which the civilisation of ( 25 ) Europe is a young plant. As in Europe so in Asia, the Vernacular Bible takes its place as an esteemed Classic, and it will be no more possible to exclude it from the Library of an educated Asiatic than it is possible to exclude Plato, and the Greek Tragedians, from an European Library. In Literature it has left its indelible mark : its higher function of Education will be described in Address No. VL The Phenomena presented by Africa are different. The population is estimated, but on no certain data, at two hundred Millions. This is a mere guess : there are fifty-nine translations. The four Regions, North, West, South, and East, are differently situated. The North Region is affected by the contiguity of Asia and Europe : the chief translation in use is that of the Arabic, an importation from Asia, which is not included in the enumeration : the other languages are mostly unimportant, without influence or literature. In the West Region all that exists is the creation of this Century : whether the seed sown will take root is a question, to which no answer can be given : a wave of bar- barism might sweep all away : Christian Settlements at distances from the Coast far in the interior are still in their infancy : some of the Languages brought into subjection are trul}- magnificent : the Printing Press is at work : the circumstance, that every educated Native on the Coast speaks English as his first vernacular, and has his English Bible, is a phenomenon quite peculiar to this Region : other translations will no doubt be added, and the problems pre- sented by the populations of the basins of the Senegal, Niger, and Kongo, are the most interesting and peculiar, that the world ( 25 ) has ever seen. In the South Region an European Christian civilisation is unmistakably forming itself, and it may be antici- pated, that in the twentieth Century the Bible will have unlimited diffusion among an African, an European, and a mixed population. The East Region presents different Phenomena. The influence of Arabic, and the Mahometan Religion, and of contact with India, is felt : one lordly language, considerably Arabized, the Sw'ahi'li, has an extensive influence, but, as the interior has been penetrated up to the great Lakes, a great many cognate languages have been revealed, and translations made. The written Character used is nearly exclusively the Roman Alphabet. In America translations have been made for the use of eighty- six Millions in forty Languages, the European Languages of English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, which are so extensively used, are not included in this enumeration. Twenty-nine translations are provided for the interesting tribes of the Red Indians, who still survive in the Dominion of Canada, and the United States : their linguistic peculiarities will be dwelt upon in Address No. Ill : A special syllabic written Character has been devised for their use : Perhaps the words " Too Late " rise in our hearts, and come to our lips : it seems an impossibility, that such a peculiar race can co-exist intermixed with, and under the unsympathetic influences of, Anglo-Saxon Colonists. At any rate the Bible Society has done its duty, and from the first year of its existence. In Central America four translations represent the extent, to which Christian Europe and North America has been ready, or able, to minister to the spiritual wants of the Survivors of the Kingdom s**r. '•'/».■ ( 27 ) of Mexico : they too seem doomed. In South America provision has been made in three Languages for translation for the use of Native tribes on the Continent, and one for the poor, weak inhabitants of the Southermost Island of Tierra del Fucgo, in a peculiar written Character, not its own, for it had none. In the fairy Islands of Oceania, unknown to the Antient World, and dimly known to the last generation, but now standing out in clear daylight, we find thirty-nine translations for the use of four and half Millions of barbarous Natives, some on the lowest round of the ladder of human culture. The two great obstacles to the diffusion of the Bible are difficulty of access, and hostility of the Priests of the Church of Rome. ]\Iy intimate Survey of the whole world, and study of the great Story of Bible-work, leave me no doubt on this subject. In the four portions of this fairy world, which spreads even up to the gates of the Morning not far from South America, Polynesia, ^Melanesia, ]\Iikronesia, and Australia, access is easy for the translator and the supply of translations. The Middle Ages never threw the dark shadow of a corrupt Ecclesiastical System over these fortunate islands : even now, however, in one or two Islands, which have been appropriated by Romish Priests, a diligent watch is maintained to keep out the Bible, but it is in vain : they might as well attempt to prevent the Morning Sun rising in its glory. Our President, the Earl of Harrowby, remarked : " The past " fifty years have almost seen a repetition of the gift of tongues, " because we have produced translations of the Bible in something " like 140 tongues. Many of these were previously unwritten, and ( 28 ) " had not known a word of literature before. This is one of the " greatest marvels of the half-century. I don't think I am ex- " aggerating, when I say that that extraordinary linguistic feat " of the literary establishment of this multitude of Languages, by " means of the Bible, is almost miraculous." Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, be honour given, but to Thee, Who art the giver ! What shall we render unto the Lord for His mercies during the last ninety years? Exactness of totals is impossible, as year by year additions are made of fresh tribute, laid humbly on the Altar of the Lord, tribute of the first-fruits of Zeal, Linguistic Gifts, and Precious lives, gladly offered, singular devotion, whole-hearted consecration, reflect blessings on the countries, which made the Sacrifice. i.-\ccording to my Language lists compiled, and published in 1890, there were three hundred and thirty-one effective translations, and my pencil notes indicate an addition of twelve in 1891, and I find that 1892 will register an equal, if not a larger, addition, and year by year, when this generation has passed away, those who stand on the brink of the twentieth Century, and look forward to the years, that are yet to come, must lay to themselves the duty of making an annual offering, not unworthy of their opportunities and blessings, and the great character, which they have to maintain. Many translations require careful revision : in some many Books of the Divine Library are wanting, and it may possibly be judicious to limit the supply to a tribe in a low state of culture and intellectual capacity to the most important Books. New Editions in different sizes, written Character, and on different materials, will always be required. ADDRESS No. III. Ox THE Translator, the Translation, the Diversity of Languages, and the Rules laid down for Guidance. " I will gather all Nations and Languages, and they shall come to see My Glorj-. " — Isaiah Ixvi. iS. " Flow hear we every man in our own Language, wherein we were born." —Acts ii. 8. *' We do hear them speaking in our Languages the mighty works of God." — Acts ii. ii. The original texts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, were committed to paper or parchment by their inspired writers in the form of written Characters of their period, and by a succession of copies of copies have come down to our time : certain texts were accepted by the Bible-Societies as their standard with certain license allowed to the Translator, so as to make use of all available knowledge acquired by qualified Scholars : notice has been made in Address Xo. i of the early Translators : to men like Jerome in the fourth century, and to Erasmus in the fourteenth ( 30 ) century of the Christian era, we stretch out our hands across the abyss of centuries in grateful acknowledgment of the work which the Holy Spirit called them out of the ranks of their contemporaries to do : we cannot pass by without blessing such names as Wycliffe, Luther, Tyndale, Coverdale, and others, who risked their lives in the discharge of their duties, and a debt of gratitude is owing to many others, who before the close of the eighteenth century devoted their talents to the sacred work : with the rare exceptions mentioned in Address No. i these translations were made for the use of European Churches by Pastors or Scholars : but when the Missionary Spirit at the close of the last century was let loose in the world, like the imprisoned Genii from the Lamp, translations were undertaken by IMissionaries in every part of the world, and the Bible-Society became the handmaid to the Missionary Societies, doing this particular work for them, and placing them under heavy obligations. It was then that the venerable names of Carey, Judson, Morrison, and Martin appeared, and later on a whole troop of translators, who in the last seventy years have accomplished the marvellous work recorded in Address No. n. Where can we seek a better ideal of a translator than in the picture, which the Interpreter showed to Christian the Pilgrim (Pilgrim's Progress) ? " It had eyes lifted up to Heaven : the best of books in its " hand : the law of truth was written upon its lips, the world " was behind its back : it stood as if it pleaded with men, and a " crown of glory did hang over its head." I venture to quote the remarks of Sir Charles Aitchison ( 31 ) late Lieutenant-Governour of the Panjab : I am proud indeed of having been a disciple and follower of John Lord Lawrence, but perhaps it is a greater honour to have had men like Sir Charles Aitchison among my own subordinates : " These missionaries were men, of whom the world was not " worthy. They gave themselves and all their worldly goods " to the Master's cause, not simply a subscription, not simply a " tithe or a tenth, but literally all. Carey himself wrote, ' I " might have had very great possessions, but have given all " I had, except what I ate and drank and wore, to the cause " of missions, and Dr. Marshman has done the same, and Mr. " Ward likewise.' These men left to the Mission cause a better " legacy than any worldly possessions : they left the translation " of the Scriptures, the unsearchable riches of Christ, in forty " of the vernacular languages of India. Before Carey's time the " Bible was to the Indian people a sealed book. Carey went " out in 1/93, ^"<^> within eight years, the New Testament in " Bangali was published entire. Within eight years more, the " entire Bible in Bangali was published ; and by 1S34, when " Carey died, the whole Scriptures were published in six of the " Indian Languages ; the New Testament in twenty-three more " of the Indian Languages, and portions of Scripture in ten " languages in addition, in spite of the fact that these missionaries " had actually to cut their own punches, to cast their own " type, sometimes even to make their own paper ; and in face " of the fact that their entire printing press and the priceless " manuscripts of their dictionar)- were entircl)' destroyed b}- fire. ( 32 ) " Was I wrong in saying that this reads like a chapter in " romance ? " To my mind there is no department in which the results " of missionary labour during the last century are more manifest " than in the translation and circulation of the Scriptures. At " the beginning of the century, Bibles were scarce and dear. " Carey's first Bangali Bible cost about £4. A Bangali Bible " can now be had for a few pence. At the beginning of the " centur}', the Bible existed only in some thirty languages ; it " has now been translated, in whole or in part, into something " like three hundred and fifty, to which the Baptist ^Missionary " Society has contributed, I believe, some fifty-six. Now, if " there were no other result of missionary labours than that, " they have conferred an inestimable boon upon the whole human " race, and all the lives, that have been spent in the ^Mission " cause from the beginning till now, would even for that result " not have been thrown away. Apart altogether from the spiritual " aspects of the case, and looking mereh' to the secular side of " it, the philological value of a work like that is simply " incalculable." Let me add a word of commendation of this noble army, of whom Jerome was the first and greatest : they were not all Scholars, not all wise, not all successful : the work of some is forgotten : it was the rough translation of the first man, upon which his successors have built a more perfect superstructure : his work, like that of many a good builder of past and present time, lies underneath the soil : but the good bricks made by the first ( 33 ) man support the fabric : he hewed the primeval forest : he collected from the mouths of barbarians their words expressive of their thoughts, ranged them in vocabularies, grouped them in sentences, learnt to utter them with faltering voice, and was the first to consecrate them to the sacred use of rendering the Word of God intelligible to a family of His poor children, who had hitherto not known Him, but for whom Christ had died. Glory- to the man, who has translated the whole Bible ! And it is found, that the words of the Bible adapt themselves to any form of human speech, is capable of expression in vocables, which had not undergone the discipline of centuries of literature : some may think, that this was a matter of course : I was once sitting at Banaras in the company of some Brahman Pandits, who were attempting to render into Sanskrit some portion of Macaulay's writings, and they were obliged to abandon the attempt : I very much doubt, whether Mr. Gladstone's speeches could be rendered into the IMonosyllabism of China, or the Polysyllabism of the Red Indian, into Fiji, or Zulu, or even our own familiar Persian, and Urdu : so complicated are the constructions of the great writer and orator : but there is a simplicity in the structure of the Hebrew, which renders it convertible at will into any other form of speech, and it goes without saying, that a sentiment, which has been clothed in Greek, can without difficulty be transferred to any form of articulate sound, and it is a mistake to call any Language barbarian, though spoken by barbarians. I have heard a friend on his return from a six months trip to China tell the Committee in good faith, that the position of 3 4r^ ^ -^ -- ( 34 ) the people of China was unique, that it was Impossible to translate the Psalms into the Languages of China, that the text of the Scriptures was useless without notes and commentaries : but are the people of China different in their intellectual status from other nations, for instance the people of India, who require no such helps, and in whose multiform Languages the Books of the Bible flow like melted gold? Do not such remarks come from the obliquity of vision of the man, who knows China, and nothing but China ? Can we not recall the time, when a celebrated orientalist in 1778 expressed the opinion in good faith, that no translation could be made of the Bible in the Languages of China, because the nature of the Languages would not allow of any translation being made : It is difficult to bring back the mind to the standpoint, whence such an opinion could have been maintained. But others of that period told their friends, that some Languages had no grammatical construction : they could hardly have meant, that the sounds left the mouth at random without being compressed into words and sentences, and grammar consists of Sounds, Words, and Sentences : Some at this period fondly believed, that Savages conducted their affairs by the help of symbols, whistles, clicks, grunts, and gestures : We have got beyond that stage of half-knowledge now, and must admit, that all God's children use articulate speech, and none require any extraneous help, which is not asked for by their fellows. Here let me add a wonderful fact. Each family of Languages has a " soul " of its own : its genius at some remote and unknown period lept out of darkness, and became fixed for ever : The ( 35 ) native of China may use English words, but he uses them after his own method : his words must be placed in the precise order, in which the idea rises : there is no suffix to mark the accusative case, and if the order of " the man beat the dog " were departed from, as in Latin and Greek versification, it would be uncertain, who was the sufferer, the man or the dog. The idea that Languages passed through a series of evolution from mono- syllabism to agglutination, and thence on to inflection, is abandoned. A Language-family maintains its idiosyncracy to the end. It is opportune to say a word more on the subject of Lan- guages : there are at least two thousand mutually unintelligible spoken at this moment, and more lie behind not yet revealed : the Bible-Society gleans after the great travellers : each in his stride across continents, or in his course from island to island, lifts the curtain of the unknown a little higher, and reveals new wonders. In the great majority there is an entire want of culture, and there exists neither a literature, nor even a written Character, but the machine itself is perfect, logical, and delicately differentiated : There are Languages, spoken by barbarian tribes in India, with as rich a grammatical apparatus as the Greek, and in Africa as euphonious and methodical as the Osmanli-Turki. The Bible is in such environment, really the book, the first book, the first idea of a book, the only book, and the best book : per saUuvt these barbarians have passed from an ignorance of things human and divine, as thick as surrounds a Gorilla, into the glorious light of Revelation, and have learnt to utter with faltering lips sublime truths, which Prophets, and Philosophers, have felt for, and failed ( 3^ ) to find, which wise men may have dreamt of in their dreams by night, or reveries by day, and which faithful men saw afar off under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and were glad. It is a great honour, and an enduring one, conferred on a poor uncultivated Language in Canada, or the Xew Hebrides, or the interior of Africa, a Language only used for the vulgar duties of a very degraded form of life, where indecent words are very frequent, and cruel words very abundant, and decent loving words scarce, suddenly elevated, levelled up, dev^eloped by one, who skilfully handles the potential resources of this undeveloped form of speech, and lifts it up to the supreme honour of being the vehicle of God's message to Man ; the golden censer, in which humble pra}'ers morning and night pass from untutored lips, and contrite hearts, right up to the Throne of Grace : the thought is overwhelming in its grandeur : we do not think enough of such wonderful trans- formations. Languages differ from each more entirely than those, who have not studied the subject, can imagine. The old fashioned idea, that at some remote period they all came from one seed-plot, has disappeared, and another idea is gaining ground, that there are several distinct seed-plots, and that j\Ian was created without developed power of uttering articulate sounds, but being endowed with brain power, and so far superior to brute and mute animals, he developed the power of articulate utterances under different environments, and therefore on totally different principles : there is the trace of mind, and logical power, in all : how otherwise can we account for the Monosyllabism of the Chinese, the ( 37 ) Polysyllabism of the Red Indians, the agglutinating system of the Turki, the inflecting tendencies of the Arian ; the use of Suffixes by some Languages, of Prefixes by others, and Infixes by a third, such as the Semitic, where the root is stretched out Hke an elastic string, and servile letters infixed. Just as their origin is different, so is their life, and the end of their lives : some die early, are trodden, and absorbed by coming into contact with some great conquering Language, like the English, which in its march over continent and islands substitutes itself for the poor undeveloped form of speech of a tribe in a low state of culture : in some cases all the tribe, who speak a language, are killed down. Some beget families of Languages, as the Latin and Sanskrit ; some seem to be barren, and only give out dialectal varieties, like Greek and Arabic : some were made use of early in their career as vehicles of civilisation, and thus have prolonged their existence as dead literary Languages : Great Families of Languages exist, like the Arian, Semitic, Dravidian, Turki, Bantu, etc , which clearly each came from one separate seed-plot ; or great groups of Languages, which cannot be affiliated to each other, or at least have not been so in our present knowledge. And as to the dimly known, or totally unknown. Languages of unexplored Regions, we must leave them to the children now in their cradles, the " enfans terribles " of the Twentieth Century, who will stand on our coffins, think little of our labours, laugh at our failures, and talk of us as old fogies, who knew nothing at all : Empty spaces on our maps warn us of the existence of unrevealed Millions, still living their secluded savage lives, not yet poisoned by European ( 38 ) liquors, not yet plundered and put to death by European Geo- graphical Explorers on the Scientific war-path ; not yet shot down by Maxim guns by so-called political Protestants (as at Uganda in 1892); not yet driven like vermin from their land by British Colonists, and great Companies without any feelings of compassion : It seems, as if a great cry were going up to Heaven from every part of Africa for protection and vengeance, when even the fact, that the New Testament has been translated into a particular language, is gravely put forward as a reason for annexing a Province, and enslaving a population. We are as it were standing by the seashore, and listening to the noise of the inarticulate waves : mounted up on a high tower listening to the confused murmur of an unseen crowd below, that floats up to our hearing. There are secrets reserved for the twentieth century, which we shall never know : new Planets gliding into the orb of our vision : new translations of the Scripture will have to be made ; for the end is not yet. Time is on the side of the Bible-Society ; their work will last until the Earth and its Glory passes away. The tendency of the age is for great Ernpires, great Nationalities, and great Languages : this is all in the favour of the Bible- Diffusion, for though only 330 out of 2000 languages have been disposed of, yet all the conquering languages, and a great many of the second class, or permanent, languages, have been dealt with, and before the turn of many hundred arrives to be honoured by becoming the receptacle of the Word of God, it will be found, that their day of usefulness is past, that they have been scorched, and destroyed, under the blaze of some great Vernacular. It is ( 39 ) impossible to say, how or when this may come about : we have instances, shewing that the lapse of centuries has made no change in the framework of a Vernacular, though many changes have taken place of its word-store : and again, Eg\'pt presents the phenomena of the same race in the same locality having absolutely changed its antient language for another of a different family. All these things are far beyond the power of Sovereigns, or Parliaments, or Churches, or Bible-Societies, to counteract. How little should we have known of the existence and nature of many Languages but for the quiet labour of th2 Translators ! over the tomb of one venerable man is recorded the fact, that he translated the whole Bible into a Language, the very name of which was previously unknown : he had found all the tribe savage Pagans, and left them decent Christians. Then again the unsettled speech of many Nations has been settled by the translation of the Bible : no more notable instances can be given of this Phenomenon than that of the English and German, for it becomes the commencement of their literature, and no other book would do it so well. It is not necessary, that the whole of the Old and New Testaments should be translated into Languages only spoken by a few thousand : Selections of certain books are quite sufficient, at any rate, for one or two decades. Money and labour have been thrown away in past years by want of attention to this principle. Many Languages would never have been reduced to writing, would never have survived to later ages, such as the Maeso-Gothic of Ulfilas, the three dialects of the Koptic, the Algonquin of Eliot ; they would have been trodden down under ( 40 ) the triumphant chariot-wheels of some more powerful, or more fortunate Language, leaving no track on the sands of time, but for the Scriptures, which have kept some flickering form of speech alive for a season by lending it a spiritual light of its own, and which have given Immortality to other Languages: many mighty forms of speech, in which law was given to Kingdoms in antient days, have perished and are forgotten, because no holy Prophet condescended to make use of them : " Carent quia vate sacro." There are a great variety of written Characters, of three kinds : Ideogram, Syllabary, Alphabet : the translator should use a sound judgment in his selection of the written Character : the Roman Character is generally used for all Languages, which never had a Character of their own ; but in North America, the translators have fashioned new Syllabaries, and in South America used an entirely new Alphabet. I am not prepared to give a decided opinion on the expediency of such measures : unquestionably it adds to the difficulties of the future. Then again in many Languages there are Dialects, differing from each other in w^ord-store, pronunciation, and even in structure : if there is a standard-dialect, which takes precedence of the others, this is naturally adopted, but, if there are several of equal importance, another question of sound judgment arises as to which should be selected : these brief remarks give an idea of the extraordinary difficulties, which surround the process of rendering God's Word into the Vernacular of the world. It is scarcely necessary to say, that the money of the Society ( 41 ) is not spent in editions of old translations, or the composing of new in the dead Ecclesiastical Languages of Europe, Asia and Africa : where editions exist, copies can be obtained in the Depot by Scholars, or members of the corrupt Churches, who use them, but their preparation is not within the duty of the Bible Society for reasons, which will be fully described in Address No. IV. The existence of these antient translations, however, make us realize a Divine Presence through the Ages : all things are changing : boundaries of Empires, existence of Empires, prevalence of Languages : but one thing is not changed : the Word of God abideth for ever. In the Revelation we read (vii. 9) : — " Lo, " a great multitude, which no man can number, of all Nations " and kindreds, and people, and tongues." In those days not the faintest idea existed of the multiplicity of the forms of human speech : in fact I came on a Hebrew Grammar of last century, in which the author gravely states, that there were about sixty Languages in the world, and all derived from Hebrew : As the work grows under the hand of the translator, as the wonderful story is spelt out in new combination of letters, and words, and sentences, or hesitatingly pronounced in new sequences of strange, but euphonious, sounds, and as the Divine conception of Sin, Faith, Repentance, Pardon, and Holiness, impress themselves on the conscience, and intellect, of simple, docile, and sympathetic savages, how the heart of the translator must be gladdened, how his eye is brightened to think, that in the course of ages it has been reserved to him to be the first ( 42 ) ■ interpreter of Revelation to souls so long lying out of the way of the Gospel ! The first attempts at translation in Languages of races in a low state of culture are often weak : there are no linguistic helps, such as grammars and dictionaries, and the words have to be caught, as it were, alive from the mouths of the people, who cannot understand what the translator is after : Then again abstract ideas such as Love, Patience, etc , have not been developed : it is believed, that 2Co words are sufficient to supply the con- versation in ordinary life of an English villager, so perhaps less would be sufficient for that of a South Sea Islander : Many things actually do not exist, such as sheep, wine, bread, etc. : the Languages, and the ideas, of the speaker have to be developed : many stories are told : I give three : the trans- lator in the Eskimo Language was hard pushed how to render the " Lamb of God," for such things as sheep were unknown : Seals were the familiar objects in Labrador : So he rendered the passage, " the little Seal of God." In South Africa a chief being pushed hard by the translator to give a rendering for Love : " God is Love " : suggested the eatable, which he loved or liked most, which was " Decayed Fish." In New Britain a word for a binding oath not to do something was wanting : a chief struck out the idea of " I would rather speak to my wife's Mother than do such a thing." In countries not in the same or similar latitude to Palestine the translator is hard pressed. Not only the Fauna and Flora are different, but the clothing, the habitations, the customs, the environment of the m^y i.ike * ( 43 ) people, differ from that of the Bible : how is he to find satis- factory equivalents for names of animals, birds, insects, flowers, precious stones, weights, measures, garments, ordinary expressions, and outward evidence of daily life ? What does the Green- lander, the Melanesian, the Fuegian, know about fig-trees and Camels ? What moral will the precept convey to a tribe totally naked ? " He that taketh thy coat let him take thy cloak also." In some regions the sheep are entirely black : how will the phrase be rendered about " white as wool " ? Wliat is to be done in countries, where the idea of ice or snow does not exist ? These are but specimens of the great difficulties, which the external of human affairs present : when we deal with internal preconceptions and ideas, the difficulty is greater. After the first effort, and the test, that the translation is intelligible in the Sunday School, and the Chapel, a first tentative edition is struck off in the IMission-Press by the converts : this is an interesting illustration of the Grace of God on His poor creatures, A Missionary's wife writes how each sheet as struck off was read to the women and girls, and portions committed to memory. The Spirit of God did not fail to apply it to their simple hearts and consciences in His own time and way : the Bible became not only the basis of their religious convictions, but of the moral and social culture, which slowly grew up, and in due time brought forth fruit. It is very sweet to be allowed such peeps into the inner life of these humble tribes : it is, as if we were spying into the chambers of the Ant, or the hives of the Bee : it is the same Power, which regulates the movements of ( 44 ) all His poor creatures. After further corrections the translation is sent home, printed by the Bible-Society, and copies sent back : then in due course comes the time for careful revision by a second generation of Missionaries, who are not very merciful to the shortcomings of their predecessors, and representatives of other ^Missions of different denominations, who use the same Language : but finality has not been obtained in any Language, not even in English, French, or German. These first efforts of good men must not be despised : we think reverently of the translators of the Septuagint and the Vetus Itala : they had consigned to them a certain portion of the Divine Plan for the Redemption of ^^lankind, and they did it faithfully. In the Hexapla of Origen we come upon the obsolete translations into Greek of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, but Origen profited by them, and Jerome made use of them, and then their use, like the use of many a sweet flower, died out : Vulgar tongues have been elevated by a Master ]\Iind, and tuned to the expression of heavenly things, ennobled by becoming the vehicle of God's Message to His poor creatures : The difficulty of expressing religious ideas is not so great as might be imagined. Paganism has made mankind familiar with such ideas as the supreme Deity, Mediators, prayer, sacrifice, confession of sin, penance, the Spirit-world. Each of the dear good Translators, who unexpectedly, and without any preparation, finds himself chosen by God to make a translation in a new language, writes home in the innocence of his heart, that his language is the most difficult in the ( 45 ) world : being devoid of all scientific knowledge, he dwells on the absence of written Character (the presence of which is a stumbling-block in China), of the extraordinary pronunciation, word-store, and mode of describing the relation of idea to idea, which we in Europe call sound-lore, word-lore, and sentence-lore : perhaps he is all the better for being free from knowledge of Latin and Greek Grammar, and for leaning on the Holy Spirit to sanctify his intellect in his blessed work of translation. Certain rules have been laid down for the guidance of trans- lators : The Members of the Editorial Committee sit month by month to conduct this part of the business, and there is one Secretary set apart for this particular duty : a certain amount of experience, of a more organised character than that of an isolated Missionary, is thus attained : it is not pretended, that the Members of this Sub-Committee know the particular Language, but they know better than the Missionary the conditions of a good translation, as there are as many as fifty on the anvil at the same time, and the same, similar, or analogous, phenomena or difficulties, arise in all. In the fourteen or twenty Languages, with which ordinary Europeans are familiar, it is a wonderful pleasure to read the same chapter rendered in a distinct vehicle of symbol and sound : the meaning, or some shade of meaning, latent in the Hebrew or Greek, which has escaped a rendering in familiar Languages, is brought out in some barbarous Language : I give one instance : Rightly or wrongly the phrase " Let us make " man " (Genesis) is interpreted by some as indicating the con- ception of a Trinity : Now in Greek there is a Dual number. S^ ( 46 ) and in some Languages there is a Trial nun;iber, and the Missionaries took credit for using the trial number in expressing the idea of " Let Us Three make man." I only allude to this to illustrate the fact, that some Languages possess a power of expression, which for reasons, which are quite inexplicable, are wanting in others. In Lidia there are abundant expressions to represent the great conception of God : in China there is not one : in the attempt of Translators to find such a compound of monosyllables, as would answer their idea, two Schools have arisen, which are hopelessly divided from each other, and the Bible-Society has to please both. So about the word Baptism, and the human name of our Lord, Jesus, and the unpronounceable Tetragrammata, which indicates the Covenant-God, there is constant and irre- concilable dissension : Whatever may be the result of Divine Teaching, the work of translating is beset by all the weaknesses, perverseness, and wrongheadedness, of poor humanity. I some- times reflect with anxiety on the result a century hence of the divergent renderings launched upon the neo-Christian communities, and as notoriously men are servants, or rather slaves, of words, instead of words being the obedient servants of men, there will doubtless be a crop of so-called heresies, or variations of dogma, arising from the angular proclivities of some translator. In Address IV. I shall describe the object and the effect of all this labour : let me tarry for an instant on the human side : In a lone hut, or surrounded by swarthy Natives, a translator creates as it were a new literature and brincrs into evidence a 1 ( 47 ) new Language, illustrated by the translation of a book familiar to all. A feeling of astonishment rises in the minds of the European linguistic Scholar, when a little book comes by chance into his hands, such as the Gospel of Mark in the Language of Fiji, or Tierra del Fuego, or Karib, or Cree, or Eskimo, or some form of speech of Asia and Africa, of the existence of which no one had heard before : Often have I received letters from Scholars, residing in the different cities of Europe, begging for a copy of some particular translation, of which they had heard : I have a linguistic friend, or rather several friends according to the different branch of Language-study, in every capital, and I gladly satisfy their wishes from the boundless store of the Bible-Society : a thousand pounds could not have produced the specimen of a peculiar, perhaps unique, form of speech, a copy of which I forward at a charge of fourpence : many of them have expressed astonishment : " How do you in London get hold of such wonderful " specimens, not to be attained elsewhere ? " my answer has been : " Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall " be added unto you." — ]\latt. vi. ^t,- The realm of Science is enlarged, new material is given for investigation, the Sum of Human Knowledge is increased ; but the real result will be given in Address No. IV. Another sweet feature in the work of translation is, that a new opening is found for the sanctified labours of women : the Phebe, the S}-ntyche, the beloved Persis, the Tryphosa and Tryphena, of modern days, in translating, revising, and correcting proofs during the passing of the copy through the Press : I could :e. ( 48 ) give many instances, but I refrain, and it is obvious, that the number will be greatly increased as time goes on. Dorcas left behind her perishing vestments for the perishing bod}', and her friends wept over them : these fellow-workers in the Lord leave behind the more enduring clothing in words (some of which will never die) of the Eternal Word, the food of the Immortal Soul, and their friends, when they die, and those, who knew them only by report, will rejoice, when they reflect upon their consecrated labour and sanctified love. It is a comfort also to record, that Africans of pure blood have made independent translations in totally unknown Languages, and that in all cases in every part of the world native Christians take a large share in the work of translation : in fact without a native Colleague no European Translator could do his work satisfactorily. I have alwaj's wished, that there should be a list of honour of all translators published in our Reports, including Jerome, Frumentius, Ulfilas, Cyril, down to the present day : of one thing the Translator ma}' be sure : the name of the Preacher may die : his words were written on hearts, which passed away : the fortunate modern translator commits his words not to brass or stone, or bricks of clay to be baked in an Assyrian kiln, but to leaden types and printed paper, which have in themselves the poten- tiality of ubiquitous distribution, of multiplying beyond the power of Roman Emperor in early centuries, or Roman Priest in later, to destroy, and a repetition by mechanical arrangements, which Time can never destroy. The translator must recollect, that his errors, his perversely private interpretation, his theological and Ecclesi- ( 49 ) astical weaknesses, will thus come under the scorching light of generations, who knew him not, and who will not spare him : but, if he be guided by the Holy Spirit, even as a little child, and allows no prejudices or partiality to come betwixt his philological interpretation and the paper on his desk, his name will ever sound stirring : he will enjoy a blessed immortality with a company* amidst which the forms of Jerome, Bede, Wycliffe, Erasmus, Luther, and Carey, are conspicuous. As I write, the figures of dear Calvert, Moffat, Wenger, Yates, Eli Smith, Patterson, Droese, Steere, Krapf, Schon, and many others, whom I knew in the flesh, and who are now at rest, rise up before me ; great magicians who have opened out the prospect of a new wonderland to countless millions, and rendered things possible, which seemed beyond the power of Human Resource. 5^•.^^ ADDRESS No. IV. On "The object of Bible-Diffusion, and the effect upon " the Educated and Civilized non-Christian Races, " as well upon populations low in culture, and " Devoid of Education." " A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel." Luke ii. 32. " Thy testimonies also are my delight, and my counsellors." Psalms c.xix. 24. A Bible Society is a Missionary Society of the highest order, and with the most entire and exclusive devotion : it is the highest and greatest of Missionary Societies : it is the Queen's daughter, all glorious within, while the Missionary Societies are like the Virgins, which bear her company. Moreover the written Word is superior to the voice of the Preacher, for you can always trust the Book, but you cannot always trust the man : the latter is liable to errors : the former can never err ; while the Missionary Society is necessarily restricted to one denomination. ( 52 ) and therefore cannot be ubiquitous, the Bible-Society belongs to all the Churches, and is ubiquitous : thus we may judge how vastly grander is the position of a Society, which circulates God's Word to the whole world. The saving of Souls, the turning of the heart to God, the rescuing of the brand from the burning, the opening of the eyes of the spiritually blind : such are the sole objects set before us. By our works ye can know us, as all over the world the same story is told about us : the signs of the Ever-Present Lord are made manifest in the blessing, which attends us : we lean not on the arm of Flesh : we do not go about, like weaker folk, and petition unwilling Governments to annex African Provinces, to enable us to sow the seed of the Truth. If any tribe will not accept our Books, we have only to shake off the dust from our shoes, as a witness against them, and go elsewhere. Conversion, a new life, an understanding of the great and precious Promises : this is our great motive, which wins a blessing to those who send, those who convey, and those who receive : and there is a Power greater than Man behind us, a Power supplied by the Holy Spirit, who has blessed our work beyond the fondest conception. He, who spake by the Prophets ever since the world began, has in these last days enabled His poor creatures to glorify Him by publishing His Word in a fresh surrounding of perishing vocables, from Country to Country, and from Language to Language : There may be doubts as to the expediency of some acts of benevolence, or it may appear expedient at one Epoch of a Nation's existence, and not at another : there can be none ( 53 ) as to this : We do all we can to resist all attempts of evil men, and secular or religious despots, to limit the use of this great gift to Mankind : we do all we can to advance the expansion of the knowledge of the Word of God by Man- kind. We wish to bring this Book, so full of patience, hope, comfort and faith, to the homes and hearts of every Nation and Tribe, for it is an additional proof of the Unity of the Human Race, that all can understand it, and value it when understood : Churches may vary in their Shibbo- leths : in this Book there is neither variability, nor shadow of turning. What could the Missionary Societies do without the aid of the Bible-Society? In early days they did indeed undertake the printing of the Manuscripts sent home by their Missionaries, but it was a drain on their funds, and there was not in their home- establishments that amount of experience of the technical side of the work, the dealing with Printers and Paper-Manufacturers, which is gradually possessed by a Society, to whom such details are a daily duty : Moreover many Languages serve the purposes of different denominations of Christ's Church, and the Bible-Society is the servant of all, and brings them together in the joint per- formance of a sweet duty. We are like the Royal Arsenal of Woolwich, which turns out the great guns, to accompany the different Regiments of the Queen, guns which bring down great fortresses, and disperse mighty Armies, and whose sound spreads far and wide, reverberating through the secret cloisters of the heart of man, if he will but listen. We do not forget, that the Bible is ( 54 ) the only adequate expression of God's dealings with the human race in times past : His discipline of His chosen People is but a concrete expression of His mode of dealing with the whole human race. We do not forget, that in that Book, and here we may add in that Book alone, is the Law of Love, leading on to cessation of those tribal wars, which desolate non-Christian races, to the Law of Monogamy dating from the Return of Israel from Exile, and the consequent elevation of women, the awakening of the Heart- Voice, the rendering for Conscience adopted in some Languages ; purity of thoughts, modesty of demeanour, self-control, abstinence from violence and rapine, the germs of civil freedom, the knell of slavery, the respect for human life. The Bible is the corner-stone of the Mission-Chapel, the talism of the neo-Christian village : even before the institution of Mission- Schools in Asia, at least in each village, however humble, someone could be found, who could either read, or repeat what he had committed to memory from the lips of another at some gathering : thus some faint impression of the new Idea, that is floating in the atmosphere of men's minds, is conveyed. A vision rises before my eyes, as I write, not one of senti- mental fancy or poetic imagination, but the record of sights seen in distant countries many years ago. I see the gathering of a party in the streets of a crowded city, or in the groves of an Island of the Sea : Some one proud of his newly acquired power reads from the little book, which is all his own, some portion of the wondrous events recorded in a series of volumes, which spread over fifteen hundred years : it comes to the hearers as a new *'.#.*•- -V -..: — . ( 55 ) revelation, so absolutely unlike is it to what they may have heard before, of Krishna with his 40,000 Milkmaid-Mistresses ; of Rama slaying lofty giants ; of mountains lifted up on the tips of little fingers ; and hundreds of miles traversed in celestial chariots : in this Book he reads of men, who are of the same dimensions, and characters, and feelings, as those that listen : very erring men indeed without any exception ; but the moral is different : there is a something, which suggests new, holier, loftier ideas, and, when the reader's voice drops into silence, they still lean forward, as if he were still reading, for they are desirous to hear more : the electric power has entered their soul. The old, old Story is told to each man in his own tongue, how God made and rules all the world, not this country nor that country: how Jesus lived and died for all: how the Holy Spirit condescends to dwell with all, who do not grieve Him, or drive Him away : and then the Story, the one Story, which enchains all mankind, flows on with the rising and falling cadence of the voice of the speaker or reader, by the lone hill-side, in the crowded room, amidst well wishers, and evil wishers : it evokes feelings from the heart of the hearer never known before : it flows on amidst smiles and amidst tears : smiles at the manger, as the listeners bring up to their fancy the new-born child, and the humble wonder of the Virgin-Mother : tears at the foot of the Cross and at the grave, when they think, that someone has taken away the Lord, and joy with those, that have found Him. In the crowd are antient men of the form and build attributed to Abraham : young women such as the Virgin, or her ancestress ( 56 ) Ruth, or the daughter of Jephtha : Matrons like those well-known in Scripture, such as Rebecca, and Deborah, and Elizabeth, and youths in the dawn of their opening life. Yes ; the deep bell may sound from the Hindu Temple in the neighbouring grove, the voice of the Muezzin in the Minaret of the Mosque may reach their ears, calling to ceremonial, unintelligible, prayer; but in this Story there is a greater attraction, and, while hearts are human, and unaffected by the contagion of the world, it will continue so. B}'gone days rise up, as if they were yesterday : things that happened thousands of leagues away, seem very near at hand : human difficulties disappear in the presence of the new Idea of Salvation, and the sound of Glory is ringing in their ears. From Wilson's Missionary work among the Ojibwa in Canada, I quote the account of his reading about the feeding of the 4000 : the Red Indians listened intently, indicating their wonder by suppressed ejaculation at the fact, that 4000 could be fed with the few loaves and fishes, but what produced most effect was the account of our Lord being mocked and crucified, and His resurrection : their sympathy with the sufferings of their Saviour was most marked, and their astonishment was most evident, when they heard how the stone was rolled away, and Angels announced to the women the great fact of the Resurrection : It may please some to think, that these simple folk would have been astonished at anything true or untrue : let me give two illustrations of the power of the Book on other classes of God's creatures. In Spain a little Protestant child was taken to a public Hospital to die, and in her last moments she gave her ( 57 ) little Testament, which was all she possessed, to the Sister of Charity, a Roman Catholic, who had nursed her. Between the leaves of that little book the Spirit of the Lord was lying, and the keeper of the Bible-Depot in that town remarked with surprise, that during the next few days he sold several copies to females, who stole in after dark. That day Salvation had come within the walls of that Convent : no doubt on the day of confession of these poor women their secret was wrung out of them, and in the presence of the Lady Abbess, and Priest-confessor, there ascended to heaven the smoke of a Sacrifice of burning paper, the unaccepted offering of a modern Cain, who slew his brother: but certain precious promises had been too deeply impressed in the memory of these poor women ever to be effaced, and had been in Faith appropriated by these humble Saints, to whom some day a door by Grace will be found open, which will be shut against the Pharisee and the Priest, who did dishonour to the Word of God. At the other extreme of the intellectual and geographical world, we come upon an assembly of gold-diggers resting from their labours at mid-day : some of them had once known, but had abandoned, God. A new digger had arrived that day accom- panied by his motherless boy : in their rough sport some old hands had searched the boy's pockets, and found a little Testament, all that remained of his dead Mother. In mere wantonness one of them began to read aloud, but his fingers and hands were guided by a power greater than his own, for first he read how Jesus came walking on the Sea, and then the story of the good ( 58 ) Samaritan. The laughter and oaths had ceased, and all were listening, when the wind blew the leaves over, and the reader found himself reading the awful tale of the Crucifixion, a tale well remembered, though it seemed to have been long forgotten, old but still new : as he came to the last words of the penitent thief, and our Lord's reply, the book fell from his hands to the ground amidst awe-struck silence, only broken by sobs. God has His chosen ones in every assembly of His children : He has His corner in every humble heart : a hoarse voice came up from the rear : " Will no one pray? Can no fellow remember a prayer?" The fool may have said in his heart, that there was no God, but these men were not fools, and they knew better, that God was in their midst. The echo of far off Sunda}'-Schools, the warning throb of their own death-struggle, perhaps not far distant, stirred into life their dead hearts. As the lad stooped down to recover his lost Testament, he was caught up by strong arms, and ordered to pray. As his childish treble went up to the clear sky repeating the little prayer, which he had often said kneeling at the knees of his ^lother, hats were off, and heads were bowed, and a deep calm fell over the assembly, while the innocent child became the mouth-piece before God, and His holy angels, of these rough emigrants. Not as yet had he learnt to be ashamed of his innocence : not as yet had his lips been defiled with oaths and obscenities, and his little prayer rose up to heaven above the tall pines ; and who can say how many brands can be saved from the burning by the chance contact of one little Testament ? ( 59 ) A little volume is often circulated at ^Meetings, and is indeed struck off in hundreds, " the Gospel in many tongues " : it is not meant to be gaped at as a wonder or stored away as a treasure : let me say a word as a linguist, who knows something about each Language represented in these pages, and only values them as vehicles of God's Truth. The uninstructed eye looks on a rich parterre of flowers, and sees nothing but their beauty : the scientifically trained eye notes the different species, the tints of colour, and varied conformation of the petals and leaves : the eye instructed by the Holy Spirit lifts itself up to God, and blesses Him for the rich, manifold and enduring gifts of Nature, renewed year by year, to gratify the children of men by their sight and scent : then they die : A?, A?, rai fi a\dxai /*ei', e~av koto, ku—ov o\wvrai ! wrote the Greek Poet centuries before Christ came : So is it with this little volume : to the scientifically trained eye it tells of Language-families and ethnical races, of dialects and patois, of Languages springing into existence, and Languages dying out, and some few actually dead, no longer passing on the lips of men. To the eye, enlightened by the Spirit, it tells of the goodness of God, which never has changed, and which embraces not only His chosen people, not only the mighty and learned, but all and every race and tribe. Luther read out aloud his German version to mark how it sounded : Jerome spouted his Latin in his hut in Bethlehem : the Septuagint- Fathers called to each other, as they rounded off each precious ( 6o ) Greek phrase : Pharisees and Sadducees read their portion from the Synagogue Rolls, and interpreted them in the Targums : the Ethiopian Eunuch certainly read his Isaiah sitting in his chariot : we know the very passage, which our Lord read in the S}'nagogue at Nazareth. We throw our thoughts back over the intervening centuries, and mark Ezra reading in the Great Synagogue in restored Jerusalem : still further back we seem to hear the words dictated by Jeremiah to Baruch, and further back still the words of Isaiah read by King Hezekiah in the hour of his great trouble. We can only wonder when and where the Scribes collected the Records of Israel and Judah, and have no doubt, that the great drama of Job, and the imperishable Psalms, were read, and meant to be read : all that was written, even the Tables of Stone written with the finger of God, were meant to be read, and were read : Narratives, musings, hymns, prophecies, prayers, songs of triumph, words of self- humiliation and repentance, were meant to be read, were written, that they might be read : they were given for our learning until the end of time. No such music has ever echoed continuously, and in unbroken melody, through the corridors of Time, and come down to us so fresh, so full of glowing life, so true to Humanity, giving such unequalled ideas of Divinity. We must not forget the Humanity of the writer, or the Divinity of the subject : it is well in our minds to clothe with flesh and blood the men, who are reputed to have written the volumes of this Book, and making allowance, that they were primarily written for very different circumstances, inquire humbly ( 6i ) how far, in what way, they are suited to our circumstances, and assure ourselves, that we do well to distribute it to others, for whither shall we go for a rule of life, if we abandon this ? the same leaven, which the woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened ; the same good seed, which a man sowed in his field ' Some say, "Why distribute the Old Testament?" It is only lately that an authority of the Salvation Army on being offered a free supply of New Testaments replied, that the Army preferred the Old : it is stated, but we trust that it is not true, that the Boers of the Transvaal having to deal with the Be- Chuana tribes applied for a separate edition of Joshua and Judges as suitable to their requirements : a few days ago a gentleman fresh from China stated, that Genesis was not deemed a fit book for the Chinese, as the story of Lot distressed them : when it is remembered, that the Chinese immigrant is rejected by every country where he ventures to set foot, on account of his low moral standard, this objection seems far fetched. There can be no scruple in distributing the Old Testament, but accompanied by the New, as its complement and best com- mentary. It is of value as setting forth the moral duties of man to man, though by allowing Polygamy, Divorce, and Concubinage, it fails from a Christian point of view as regards man to woman : it inculcates not only the virtues of a man, but of a citizen, and sets forth the unrealized, and unrealizable, ideal of human life, and human Society, love to God, and love to our neighbours : the exhibition of devotion is always manly, and *«L.3 ( 62 ) there is no exaggeration of pathos : where pathos exists, it is genuine. In one particular the power of the Scriptures is unique, and presents a strong reason for the distribution : a reason increasing in importance in proportion to the increase of the knowledge of reading during this Century : It can do its own work itself, and effect conversion without the aid of man. This may be doubted, so I place a certain number of cases, well authenticated, on record : A native Missionary visited a town distant from Calcutta sixteen miles, and found a band of young men meeting together to study the Bible, assembling every Sunday to worship God, and read the Scriptures in the sight of their neighbours, which indicated moral courage. Some of these young men asked the Missionary to preach to them, which he did with delight : he found, that the leader of the movement had been to Calcutta, had heard the Gospel preached, had been induced to read the Bible, and try and induce others to do the same. An European Merchant put up at a village, and on parting gave some cast-off clothes to the villagers : in one of the pockets was a single Gospel, and some tracts, in the Vernacular : they were read : the Spirit of the Lord worked through them with such force, that they were converted. A Missionary gives the following story : " Some time ago " I was in one of the large towns in our district. In the " evening, after a hard day's work, I sat down by the cart to " rest, when three men came up to me, one of them falling II mil iiiHi ii ( 63 ) " prostrate at my feet after slipping a rupee into my hand. I " raised him up gently and inquired what he wanted. From " his conversation I gleaned the following story. Eleven years " ago a blacksmith in his village had bought a copy of the " New Testament from some European, who was passing through, " (I could not learn who it was) and he and this farmer and " another farmer had been reading it all these years. Six years " ago the Brahmans became so enraged, that he was held down " forcibly, and made to drink water, in which a Brahman had " dipped his toe. In all this time they had never met with a " Christian. When I went through this part of the district two " years ago, he saw some of the books, which I had sold to others, " and this day he met someone, who had seen me and bought " books, and he had dropped his work and had hurried in " without delay, reaching me, as I have said, late that evening. " His talk was a continual surprise to me. He seemed to " know the New Testament thoroughly, compared the Pharisees " to the Brahmans, and was very familiar with Paul's epistles. " I went to his village the next morning, and they were very " joyful and entertained us, saying our coming had given them " great support. He bought a first book to learn to read. His " knowledge of the Scriptures was the more remarkable, as he " had only heard them read by the others. When they brought " out the worn book carefully wrapped in a cloth, I touched it " with a feeling of reverence." Sir Charles Aitchison, my friend for many years, made the following utterance at a Meeting : I heartily endorse his senti-