the pure Hebrew in which the Prophets, and Solomon, and David, and Moses wrote, were of course able to profit by them in the original. But inasmuch as four hundred years previously, in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, "they gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading," these were probably few; and all the rest were obliged to understand them through the medium of a translation, either verbal or written. Nor did the gift of tongues bestowed on the Apostles, alter the case; for while this gift was granted to them, we have no intimation that the gift of understanding pure Hebrew, was granted to the inhabitants of Judea, and much less to the multitudes assembled at Jerusalem from other nations. Rather the gift of tongues was intended to remedy the want of this knowledge, and to enable the Apostles so to deliver the word of God verbally, as to cause "Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt and Lybia, Cretes and Arabians, to hear in their own tongues the wonderful works of God." The course therefore which our Abbé views with such horror, that of translation, is precisely the means rendered successful in apostolic days-and in spreading the gospel ever since.

We also happen to have extant the very translation then chiefly used, and which the apostles appear to have quoted more frequently than the original text, the Septuagint, which our Abbé's brethren have for centuries allowed to be a defective translation, while protestant writers do not attempt to conceal its imperfections. Thus then, conveyed through the medium of an imperfect translation, was the word of God rendered the means of creating men anew, and of enabling them to bring forth the fruits of righteousness to the praise

and glory of God, even in apostolic times,-with the exception of the few in Judea or elsewhere, who could read David and the Prophets and Moses in pure Hebrew. Such has also been the case from the apostolic to the present times, at Rome,-in Britain,-and in every country in which Hebrew and Greek have not been vernacular and thus nearly all the fruits of righteousness which have ever arisen from the gospel, have been produced through the medium of translations more or less imperfect.

The slightest reflection will also be sufficient to convince us, that the word of God can never produce fruit in India, any farther than it may be translated into the various idioms of the country. While we concede to our Abbé the necessity of Preaching to the fullest extent in which his "fifteen hundred native clergy at Goa" can exercise it, we beg leave to ask him from whence these preachers are to obtain a constant supply of matter, but from such a translation? European missionaries may gain ideas from some European translation if not from the originals; but without a native translation these "native clergy," must be totally disqualified for their work. Further that most of these who preach and teach the Divine word, must ever be native converts, will appear evident to those who reflect, that it was so even in apostolic times. With the exception of the Apostles and the Jewish evangelists, Silas, Philip, Timothy, Titus, Mark, and a few others, who were those employed in teaching the word in the first century, but native converts? Who were those whom Paul and Barnabas ordained elders in every city in Pisidia, but native converts? Who were the elders of the Ephesian church but heathen converts? That this must be the case in India is still more evident. If in apostolic times this was

unavoidably the case in the churches within a few hundred miles of Jerusalem, how much more necessary must it be in India, five thousand miles distant from Europe by the nearest route, and by sea fifteen thousand, as well as so oreign in its climate and habits to the European constitution?

This the Abbé himself confirms by informing us, that "the native clergy of Goa amount to nearly fifteen hundred." Unless these then be able to read the scriptures in Greek and Hebrew, they must read them through the medium of some translation, or not read them at all. And whether these native clergy are gainers by reading the scriptures in the Vulgate, when Latin is a language so entirely foreign to them, rather than in their own country idiom, we need scarcely examine, as it does not in the least alter the case. If they can read the Vulgate, it is still through the medium of a translation that they gain every idea they have of the Scriptures, whether these be many or few; and if they cannot, they can gain no ideas of the divine word,-and hence they can impart none to others. It is evident therefore, that unless native preachers acquire some European language, which after all can introduce them only to a translation of the Scriptures, or have the Scriptures given them in their own idiom, there is no possible way in which the divine word can be taught in India to any extent. And whether it be better to incur the expense of training up "native clergy" in the study of Latin, that after many years, they may imperfectly understand an imperfect translation, or to give a translation to twenty millions at once and all their unborn posterity in their own idiom, is a question which we suppose even a child can decide.

But our Abbé seems to have overlooked the fact that

even his training up his native clergy to read a Latin translation, does not remove the necessity for one into the idioms of the country! Could all these " native clergy," read the Scriptures even in Greek and Hebrew, unless their countrymen were equally versed in Greek and Hebrew, they must still translate into their native idem every sentence and phrase and idea of the Holy Scriptures which they communicate to them! Our Abbé himself, however unwillingly he did it, translated the Scriptures into the idiom of the country for thirty years, although he did it to so little purpose! He may possibly think we are slandering him; but we can easily substantiate our charge. Unless he conversed with every brahmun and shoodra he met, in Hebrew, or Greck, or Latin, he translated the word of God into the idiom of their language, if he ever mentioned to them a single sentence or word from Scripture! And we are not certain that a verbal translation has any advantage in point of correctness over one written or printed. This brings us full on the question. Let the Native or the European preacher be so versed in Greek and Hebrew as to preach in these languages with the greatest fluency, still is he constrained to TRANSLATE all he gives the natives of Scripture into the idioms of India. A translation of the word of God into the idioms of the country, is therefore INSEPARABLE from publishing the gospel in India in any way whatever.

A verbal translation however, must be so much below a written one in correctness it must leave a man so fully at liberty to give as little as he likes of the divine word, and to mix with that little whatever he may chuse besides without the least fear of detection, when no written translation exists; that it is questionable whether, even if the Scriptures had been given to

"native clergy" alone, to use our author's phrase, and had been for ever withheld from the lay converts, it would not have been better for any honest missionary situated as was the Abbé, to sit down in the leisure of cool retirement, and commit to writing such a translation of it as he could review many times, examining every phrase and word, than to leave this translation to be made from week to week in all the hurry of an extemporaneous address. That it would be better for a few to sit down and do this in the leisure of cool retirement, who might feel a peculiar delight in weighing phrases and words, and consulting lexicons and books of reference; and years after it had been printed to avail themselves of their further thoughts, and the remarks of as many friends as they could obtain; and thus go on to a second, a third, or even a sixth edition, should their lives be spared so long, as is the case with the Bengalee edition now in the press at Serampore, we believe few will doubt beside the Abbé.

It is therefore evident that supposing the scriptures are never to be given to the converts in general, but to be kept wholly for the use of the native teachers, the Abbé's own experience has decided the question against himself. A verbal translation EFFECTS NOTHING. He translated them verbally into the idioms of the country for thirty years, (unless the little he chose to give of the divine word in all this period was really none !) and left all his native assistants to give, in the same extemporaneous and hurried manner, just what ideas they could collect from a Latin translation, or if unable to read Latin, what they could recollect of his weekly or daily, verbal translation. Is it any wonder that in these circumstances, what they thus received and again extemporaneously gave forth, should be a mere shadow,