པ <mined every line and sentence of what they did, constantly--correcting it by their own exemplar of the original text, which they must in so many years have laid up in mind, (that is, allowing them common capacity,) they might have made each of these versions,nearly as correct as they had made the two or three first and principal versions they had undertaken. Indeed had it not been for their marvellous stupidity, five or six individuals would not have been necessary; seven two in the course of five and twenty or thirty years" incessant-study, might with perfect ease have examined pand corrected the whole of the twenty versions of the New Testament which they have published. If" many natives understand thoroughly and even speak fluently more than seven or eight of these dialects," surely one of these missionaries, had he possessed common capa-city, might in twenty or twenty-five years have obtained a knowledge of ten of them, when he studied more every day of his life than any one of these natives, in four or five. Nothing then but their miserable want of intellect, has prevented" these missionaries" from producing, with their opportunities, and the help of so many native pundits each speaking fluently more than seven or eight of these twenty dialects, respectable and perspicuous, instead of "low," and "vulgar" and eunintelligible" versions. There is however no cure for inveterate stupidity; men may be the most industrious plodders on earth, and yet not have a spark of genius, and scarcely an atom of intellect. Neat, and accurate these translations are not, our author himself being witness, and of his candor and impartiality he himself has given us sufficient information in the beginning of his work. No doubt a man like him teeming with these virtues, therefore, has examined all the versions which در he thus condemns, and has adduced sufficient proofs to convince the most incredulous of the impartiality of his sentence. . Moreover the works of these missionaries doubtless unite with the proofs he has brought in proclaiming to all; the ignorance and incapacity, the low, vulgar, and grovelling taste of these men. Their ignorance even of Indian grammar is sufficiently evident in the philologi cal works in Sungskrita, and Chinese, and Bengalee, and Mahratta, and Telinga, and other Indian languages, published by them in this period. Nor is their low and vulgar taste less evident in what they have published in the English language, "the Friend of India" for example. This indeed was to be expected, for it is impossible that a man should rise above his own level. Men so áccustomed to lowness and vulgarity in their translations, particularly while in finishing them they conversed with the most learned men in these languages which India afforded, cannot avoid carrying the same wretched, low, vulgar taste into composition even in their own language. The public therefore are able of themselves to judge of the truth, and candor, andimpartiality of our author's allegations. As this however cannot alter the truth of the position's already so fully demonstrated from scripture, that the spreading of Christ's kingdom among the five hundred millions in Eastern Asia now under the dominion of boudhism and brahmunism, is to God as the ordinances of heaven; that this was never done even în apostòlic times but by giving the heathen the word of God able to make them wise unto salvation,” and that as neither Greek nor Hebrew is vernacular in India, it must be given them in the idiom's of India, if its inhabitants are ever made wise unto salvation; this unac countable failure of these missionaries in the work of translation, merely through their wonderful stupidity, does not remove the necessity of such translations being made. On the contrary it calls loudly on themselves to lay aside all feeling of resentment, (if indeed persons so stupid are susceptible of such feelings,) thankfully to accept reproof at the hand of this fellow-laborer, and as their experience and acquaintance with these Indian dialects must now be greater than ever, to exert what little capacity they may have, in carefully weighing every passage our author may have kindly pointed out as defective, and in devoting the remainder of their lives to improving the whole of these versions. To secure this however, it is necessary to examine what our author has really said respecting any version they have sent forth, and carefully to weigh every hint and emendation he may have suggested: and to this we shall immediately proceed. The first version he mentions is, "the New Testament translated into the Malayan dialect" in p 39, thus; "In my last journey, to the coast, I saw a letter on the subject from a missionary in Travancore, to a person of the same description at Pondicherry, in which were the following expressions:- Many hundred sets of the New Testament, translated into the Malayan dialect, have been sent to us (without our - asking for them), to be circulated among our Christians. I have perused this performance: the translation is truly piteous, and . only worthy of contempt: one cannot peruse four verses without shrugging up the shoulders. This large collection of New Testaments now in our hands, places us in a very awkward situation if we leave them to rot in our apartments, we fear to expose ourselves to the displeasure of those who supplied us with them, who appear anxious to have them circulated, and if we follow their instructions on the subject, we cover ourselves with ridicule."" : This however does not afford the least assistance to the Serampore missionaries in correcting the versions of the New Testament they may have published; for this is not one of theirs. They are not quite certain what this can be ; but they know that they have never published any version of the New Testament either in Malayan or Malayalim. They think it possible that our author may here allude to the gospels in Malayalim, a version of which Dr. Buchanan procured in his journey to the coast in 1806, and which were printed at Bombay about the year 1809. The next version which our author mentions is, a translation into Telinga of the Gospel of St. Matthew, which he in 1816 found in Talairu in the Bellary district, where between thirty and forty Telinga Christian families reside. It seems that having received this book from a European gooroo or priest, whom our author understands to have been a protestant missionary, these Roman Catholic christian familics, unable to understand it, in their perplexity" applied to some pagans living in the same village," and ultimately to a brahmun astrologer, who at length informed them that it was a treatise upon magic, which he advised them to destroy. This anecdote, introduced by our author "to give some idea of the versions of the Holy Scriptures now extant in the country, and of their utility," has not, unhappily for him, the least to do with the versions of the Serampore missionaries; as in 1816, the date of his letter relating this anecdote, they had published no part of the Scriptures either in Telinga or Kurnata. Hence, whether this gospel was correct or not, respecting which nothing appears from this story, it was none of theirs. They suppose it may have been a copy of St. Matthew translated by an excellent young man, the Rev. A. Des Granges, who died in 1810, about six years after he had arrived in the country; and if so, it was the first attempt at translation by a young missionary whose untimely death prevented his bringing it through the press. But nothing can be learned from this anecdote,-beside that which ought to cover our author with shame, the dreadful ignorance of these Roman Catholic christians. And has the Abbé with his predecessors, after three centuries of labor, left a village of proselytes containing thirty or forty Christian families, so wretchedly ignorant, that they do. not know the gospel of St. Matthew from a book on magic! What, not a book fairly printed in their own character, in which the first verse was, “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ?" Is this causing "the word of Christ to dwell richly" in his converts? or did the converts of the Apostle need this, and not his? Is it a Christian Missionary who relates this fact? and can he do it without blushing? Is it any wonder that such converts apostatized by thousands to Mahometanism? In the great and last day, at whose hand will be required the blood of those souls who have thus perished for lack of knowledge? We have now examined two of the three versions brought forward by the Abbé, without finding the leasthint that can assist us in improving the versions he so much reprobates; for these two are not those of the Serampore missionaries! Let us examine the third, in analysing the first chapter of which, our Author expends six pages; and prefaces this analysis with an exordium describing it as so low and ludicrous in point of style, that the natives have agreed in saying; "if it were intended to render the Christian religion for ever contemptible and odious to the pagan Hindoos, there are no surer means to attain this end than to exhibit our records under |