The Reciprocity Treaty. 451 were drawn up and signed by the Earl of Elgin, as the representative of the British Government. By this treaty, the Americans possess the right of fishing in the British waters on the coasts; but from this the salmon and river fisheries are excluded. On the other hand, the following articles, the produce of the British Colonies or of the United States, shall be admitted into each country, duty free :-Grain, flour, breadstuffs of all kinds; animals of all kinds; fresh, smoked, and salted meats; cotton, wool, seeds, and vegetables; undried and dried fruits; fish, products of fish, and all other creatures living in the water; poultry, eggs; hides, furs, skins, or tails, undressed; stone or marble in its crude state; slate; butter, cheese, tallow, lard, horns, manures; ores of metals of all kinds; coal, pitch, tar, turpentine, ashes; timber and lumber of all kinds, round, hewed, sawed, manufactured in whole or in part; firewood, plants, shrubs, trees, felts, and wools; fish, oil, broom corn, and bark; gypsum, ground or unground; hewn or wrought or unwrought burr or grindstones; dye-stuffs, flax, hemp and tow, unmanufactured rags. And, finally, the navigation of the St. Lawrence Canal is thrown open during Her Majesty's pleasure to American citizens; and the British and Canadian people have the right of navigating Lake Michigan.* It will be readily perceived what a stimulus this treaty will impart to a reciprocal trade between the two countries. Already its effects are felt in an extraordinary degree as a commercial speculation, whilst the increasing intercourse between them cannot fail, we hope, in promoting a harmony, as members of the same family stock, which will allay any feelings of bitterness that may heretofore have existed. We should have been glad to give some account of the marvellous growth of most of the Canadian cities and towns; of the rapidity with which whole districts have been peopled, and of the splendid success attending honest industry and perseverance. We could speak of the freedom, civil, political, and ecclesiastical, enjoyed by the people, the excellence of municipal arrangements, the orderly respect for the laws evinced by all, and the entire absence of that political agitation which a few years ago shook the colony to its centre. Certain it is that, since self-government was granted to Canada, we have heard nothing of annexation;' and we firmly believe, that if the colonists had the choice of continuing its connexion with England, or of becoming an integral part of the United States, there is scarcely a man who would not choose the former. Whilst proud, however, of their British descent and of English laws and institutions, they make no scruple of adapting them to their own social condition, and will admit of no control in their own private affairs. They know best what they require, and they * Morris, pp. 55-57. provide it for themselves without the capricious and arbitrary interference of a Colonial Minister. Wisely has the British Government abandoned that unwise system. It is now anxious only to see the colony prosper to the full extent of its capabilities; and the benefit of the concession is found in seeing a grateful and loyal people carrying out, with that self-reliance which past success superinduces, public works of the most stupendous character, for the sole purpose of developing the boundless resources of their noble country. We could also have wished to speak of the geological character of the Canadas; of their vast metallic and mineral stores; of the iron, copper, lead, and other metallic deposits; of the auriferous region, 10,000 square miles in extent, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, which, however, we fervently hope, will not tempt the Canadians to search for that metal. These and a great many other topics are detailed in the works before us, and we must content ourselves with referring the reader to them, where they will find every information respecting this valuable and most interesting portion of Queen Victoria's transmarine dominions. This splendid country is open to the hard-working and industrious emigrant, from whatever part of the world he inay come; but it is especially the second home of the English farmer or labourer. Unlike our other colonies, it is situated at an easy distance from our shores, and enjoys a speedy and frequent intercourse with the mother country. Steam navigation has shortened the travelling distance between them indefinitely; and soon the electric telegraph will unite Canada with England-so far at least as mind and its intercommunication are concerned— much more nearly than were formerly two British towns teu miles distant from each other. But Canada is peculiarly a desirable residence for the British emigrant on account of its being (Western Canada, at least) essentially a British colony, where the manners, laws, institutions, and modes of business of the old country, its civil and religious associations, literature, habits of thought, and the sober observance of the higher claims of piety and virtue, are in full vigour and exercise. The entire absence of religious strife, too, arising as it does, not from an indifference to religion, but from a general and tacit agreement amongst the different sects to waive all idea of ascendancy, is a striking feature in Canadian society, and is materially conducive both to the happiness and the prosperity of the country. To the British emigrant, therefore, whether farmer or labourer, Canada holds out inducements far superior either to any other of our own colonies, or even to the United States. With all its advantages, it is in a manner at our doors; and in transferring ourselves thither there is little more difficulty, at the present day, than in removing from one part of the United Kingdom to another; whilst the certainty The English Scriptures :-Testament or Covenant? 453 -so far, at least, as human efforts can go-of success to an industrious and sober man diminishes, if it does not banish, the pain of separation from friends and country, by making regret give place to hope; and the abandonment of wonted enjoyments is cheered by the rational anticipation of future independence. There are thousands of persons in Canada,' says a writer in The Canadian News, 'at the present time, who arrived there within the last twelve years penniless, and are now the cultivators and owners of cleared farms varying from fifty to two hundred acres in extent. Most of them, after earning a few pounds at day labour, settled down in localities which were then the very heart of the untrodden forest, but are now well filled with a population, every member of which, with scarcely an exception, is sober, industrious, and thriving? With respect to the works before us, Mr. Martin's History of the Colonies will be a standard work of reference, always useful, but soon obsolete, so far as statistical information goes. Progress is too rapid in these new countries, and the yearly, almost daily, changes too great, not to baffle the attempt of a writer to give permanent data on any social subject or question whatever. Dr. Lillie's work is valuable for the information it contains, but has one great defect, the absence of a table of contents, which is an indispensable appendage, especially to works of that character. The two prize Essays are well written, and will afford inquirers on the subject of Canada all the information they want. Mr. Hogan's book in particular is written with much spirit and taste. ART. VII.-Diatheekee, Covenant, not Testament, throughout the Book commonly called the New Testament: or, The Old and New Covenants the proper Title for the Bible. A Contribution towards a Revision of the present Authorized Version. London: Trübner and Co. 1856. THIS little pamphlet gives us an opportunity of introducing the Bible-revision controversy to our readers, without entering at present upon its discussion at large. The writer assails the venerable title-page of our English Bible as based upon a mistranslation of a simple word, which prevails more or less through the entire New Testament. The question thus raised is very limited, but very important: it involves philological criticism, but its settlement must mainly rest upon exegetical and theological grounds. We shall confine ourselves strictly to its discussion, and trust that our first contribution to this important controversy will be a successful defence of the name immemorially given to our collected Scriptures. On the general subject we prefer to keep silence a little longer. The controversy has reached a stage at which ephemeral notices are too late, and final pronunciation would be premature. It is transferred from the newspapers and serials to the closets of learned men, from which are issuing from time to time the results of such criticism as the present age can bring to the subject, both for and against the projected revision. It will be soon enough to do our part toward the final decision of the public mind, when our critics have furnished us with a wider induction of particulars on which to generalize, and when our new translators have given us some further specimens of their work. It will not be long before the controversy will make a far more direct and general appeal than it has yet made to the judgment and piety of the English people. Meanwhile, we wait the issue with a strong confidence that nothing but good will come of the concentrated attention thus fixed upon our translation as an object of criticism. It will be seen that those are in error who think that Providence is prompting this generation to rid the English Bible of a multitude of blemishes fatal to its purity as the word of God; that no new translation is necessary, even if the resources of our learning were competent to engage in it; that any extensive disturbance of our version would be both an outrage upon its majesty as the pure standard of our language, and an experiment fraught with untold danger to the interests of religion; and that the margin of our Bible is quite broad enough for any such revision as it requires. On the other hand, it will be seen that those good men are also mistaken, who see in this movement nothing but a device of Satan to shake that confidence in the English Scriptures which leagues against him such multitudes of men in every part of the earth. But we must redeem our pledge, and return to our particular subject. The Holy Ghost never from the beginning fixed the name of the volume which contained the works of which He was the author. He left that to the inference and selection of those who were made its depositories. Our Lord used in His day the titles which currently distinguished the entire Jewish Scriptures, and its several component parts; but He gave no name to the writings which should publish His own Gospel, and found His kingdom throughout the world. When the canon of the new dispensation was complete, a designation was found in the writings of St. Paul, which gave a new name to the volume of the old dispensation, aλaià Aia0ýn, translated, in our version, 'the Old Testament.' This expression, used in 2 Cor. iii. 14 with direct reference to the works of Moses, evidently included by synecdoche the entire Scriptures of the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, and was used in the earliest ages of the Christian Church, though never before, as their collective title. As early The primitive Meaning of Testament. 455 as the second century, we find ἡ καινὴ Διαθήκη used in contradistinction, according to the antithesis of 2 Cor. iii. 6, as the collective title of the writings of the new dispensation. This was translated by the Latin Christians Novum Testamentum, and in process of time superseded for ever Instrumentum, Fœdus, and every other term which had been in use. The propriety of the universal acceptation of this twofold designation of the Scriptures, suggested rather than imposed by St. Paul, has never been impeached. The two antithetical In expressions are so constantly used throughout the Apostle's writings, as to point them out to the Church as the title prepared by the Holy Ghost for all ages, and for all the world. But this writer stoutly contends against the old Latin translation Testament, and represents a considerable number of commentators who would exterminate this relic of Latin barbarism from the Bible altogether. Their objection to it rests upon the idea which it involves of a testamentary disposition, an idea which they allege to be entirely absent both in the older and later Scriptures, and to have no place whatever in Divine revelation. În order to sustain this assertion, a passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which they regard as the sole stronghold of that delusion, is subjected to a most subtle and searching criticism. That much abused passage being delivered from the error which has for so many ages lain intrenched in it, the Scriptures are pronounced free from all allusion to a testament as ratified by the death of Christ, and the uniform rendering of in the Old Testament, and Siaonin in the New, is decreed to be, not testament, but covenant. The error, being thus ejected from the Book itself, should of course be banished from the title-page which it has marred in such countless multitudes of copies in all languages. But we may fairly, at the outset, contest this last point. Even if we were to surrender the translation testament in those few instances in which our translators have thought fit to substitute it for covenant, there would still be sufficient reason in the original meaning of the terms respectively for retaining the former as the superscription of our sacred books. This we shall make evident by the concessions of our opponents themselves. The word testamentum, as the oldest Latin translation of the Hebrew and the Septuagint dialńên, had the broad signification of a document or thing by which a man made known and confirmed his will. As such it faithfully reproduced and reflected the wide and unlimited meaning of dialnin, 'a disposition, arrangement, or appointment;' just as, like the Greek word, it came afterwards to signify almost exclusively the certification of a man's will with regard to his property after his decease. Now, we may venture to affirm, that the original Greek term was used to designate the Scriptures in its widest acceptation; and similarly, that its Latin representative was adopted without any |