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Lectures, delivered at Geneva, in the early part of 1857, by Dr. D'Aubigné, Dr. Bungener, Count Gasparin, and M. Viguet.

Mr. James Darling has commenced the second volume of his Cyclopaedia Bibliographica, embracing the Subjects. The first volume, already published, gives an alphabetical list of Authors, and the subjects on which they have written, with some account of their lives. The second volume, of which two parts are out, gives an alphabetical arrangement of Subjects, and refers to the authors who have written on them. Thus "a ready reference will be obtained to books, treatises, sermons and dissertations, on nearly all heads of divinity; the Books, Chapters and Verses of Scripture, and useful topics in literature, philosophy and history, on a more complete system than has yet been attempted in any language."

"The Earth and Man." By L. Alfred Maury. This is a translation from the French; it "proposes to trace the influence of external objects on the human family to show how geography and geology have contributed to the formation and character of nations; how the world about them has colored the thoughts and dictated the usages of men; and how in the origin of society the various tongues and races of the human family have received their form and development."1

"Voices of the Rocks;" a reply to Hugh Miller's "Testimony."

"Omphalos: An Attempt to untie the Geological Knot." By Philip H¦ Gosse. "The author aims to overthrow the received conclusions of geologists as to the remote antiquity of the earth, by the enunciation of a great physical law, hitherto unrecognized the law of Prochronism in Creation."

"Christian Errors, Infidel Arguments; " or, Seven Dialogues Suggested by the Burnett Treatises, the Evangelical Alliance Prize Essay, and other Apologetics.

A new edition of Dr. Henderson's Isaiah has been published.

Professor William Spaulding's Article on Logic, furnished for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, has been published in a volume by itself, and forms a very valuable work on Logical Science.

Murray has in preparation a handbook for Syria and the Holy Land. It is understood that this is to be prepared by Rev. Mr. Porter of Damascus. We may expect a reliable and valuable work.

The seventh volume of Alison's History of Europe, from the Fall of Napoleon to the Accession of Louis Napoleon, is in press.

"A New History of Modern Europe," in four volumes, from the taking of Constantinople by the Turks to the close of the war in the Crimea, by Thomas H. Dyer, is in press. Mr. Dyer's previous works, particularly his very able Article "Rome," in Smith's Dictionary of Geography, are evidences of high qualifications for the work.

George Dennis, author of "The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria," is preparing a work on the "Ancient Sites and Modern Scenes of Sicily."

1 British Quarterly.

Mr. Dennis's volumes on Etruria are a sufficient assurance of the thoroughness and value of his investigations in this new field.

We are to have a new version of Herodotus's History, edited with copious Notes and Appendixes, illustrating the History and Geography of Herodotus, from the most recent sources of information, embodying the chief results, Historical and Ethnographical, obtained in the progress of Cuneiform and Hieroglyphical discovery. By Rev. George Rawlinson, assisted by Col. Sir Henry Rawlinson, and Sir J. G. Wilkinson. 4 vols.

"The Tent and the Kahn," by Rev. Robert Stewart, D. D., has been published. This is a journey to Sinai and Palestine, in one volume.

The first volume of the Ethics of Aristotle, illustrated by Essays and Notes, by Sir Alexander Grant, of Oriel College, has appeared. The first volume contains the Essays; the second, containing the Text and Notes, is to be published soon.

Messrs. Longman & Co. have in preparation "Ancient Pottery and Porcelain; " Egyptian, Asiatic, Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Celtic, in two vols. By Samuel Birch, F. S. A.

"The Land of Promise." Notes of a Journey from Beersheba to Sidon, by Horotius Bonnar, D. D., is in press.

Life and Times of Dante, by R. de Vericour, Prof. of Modern Languages in the Queen's University, Cork, is just published in one vol. The following works also are announced :

Life of Luther, by Rev. Dr. Croly, with Illustrations.

Life of John Milton, in connection with the Political, Ecclesiastical and Literary History of his Time, by David Masson, Prof. of English Literature in University College, London.

Life of James Montgomery, Political and Poetical, by J. W. King. Curiosities of Natural History, by Frank Buckland, son of the late Dean Buckland.

Dr. Davidson: his Heresies, Contradictions and Plagiarisms. (Pamphlet.) By two Graduates.

"The World of Mind." By Isaac Taylor.

"The Student's Hume." Being the History of England based on Hume, and continued to the present time, incorporating the researches of recent Historians. 1 vol. Uniform with the Student's Gibbon.

Syriac Grammar, founded on that of Dr. Hoffmann. With Additions and Exercises. By B. Harris Cowper.

History of the Life and Times of Edmund Burke. By Thomas Macknight.

Notices of Olshausen's Commentary, Agassiz's Natural History, Miss Beecher's Bible and the People, and of some other works, are necessarily crowded out of the present Number.

THE

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA,

No. LVIII.

AND

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY.

No. CX.

APRIL, 1858.

ARTICLE I.

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE.

THE history of the English Bible has a two-fold interest. It is associated with the history of the English Church and with that of the English language and literature. In one aspect it is therefore a religious, in another a literary, history.

A peculiar and unique connection existed between the English Reformation and the translation and circulation of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue of England. In no other country can the Reformation be said to have been so intimately associated with the Word of God. On the continent the great question which severed the Protestant Churches from the Church of Rome, was the doctrine of justification by Faith. At the perversions of this doctrine by the Papal Church, Luther aimed his theses. It was because he substituted the righteousness of Christ in the place of indulgences and penance and saintly intercessions, that the thunders of the Vatican were hurled at the Monk of Wittemberg. In England, however, the great question,paramount even to the supremacy of the English king in matters ecclesiastical, was the translation and circulation VOL. XV. No. 58. 23

of the Scriptures. The history of the English prisoners and martyrs for the Faith, is the history of the translators and the readers of the Word of God in their native tongue. The Englishman who, in the 14th century, nearly 200 years before Luther, provoked the wrath of the Pope and called forth the persecuting zeal of papal Bishops, was a Bible translator. The Christian scholar whom Henry VIII. drove to the continent and there finally allowed to be burned at the stake, was a Bible translator. The first man for whom the fires of Smithfield were kindled by the "Bloody Mary," was a Bible translator. The time would fail us to tell of the multitudes who for the sole crime of printing, or possessing, or perusing an English Bible, "had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonments, being destitute, afflicted, tormented." When Great Babylon shall come in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath, not the least of her crimes will be found to be her persecutions of the translators and the readers of the English Bible.

The relation between the language and literature of England, and the translation of the Scriptures, though different from that between the English Reformation and the English Bible, is scarcely less intimate. One of the earliest uses to which the written speech of our Saxon ancestors was put, was Bible translation. English prose has but one work earlier than the first English Bible. The gradual progress and improvement of our noble tongue may be studied with advantage in the successive versions made by British Christians; and it may be safely said that no other book has so determined the spirit and affected the style of English literature; has so served as an enduring monument and standard of the purity and the power of the English language, as the version made by order of King James, the authorized version of our daily use.

The history of these successive translations, viewed in its two-fold aspect, literary and religious, we propose to present to our readers.

As early as the second century of the Christian Era, Chris

tian merchants brought with them to the shores of Britain the knowledge of the gospel, and seeking, it may be, goodly pearls, for which its waters were then famous, gave to the pagan Kelts the pearl of greatest price. In the fourth century Patrick evangelized the island which has named him her patron saint. The sixth century witnessed the labors of Columba and the foundation of the monastery of Iona among the Hebrides; and near the close of the same century, in the year 596, Augustine was sent to England by Pope Gregory to preach to the Angles the good tidings which had been proclaimed by those angels, to whom, in respect of their beauty, he had likened these insular barbarians. The labors of this Romish missionary were successful, and churches and convents and monasteries rose all over the island, to testify to the zeal with which the Saxons adopted the faith which he preached.

During this period the few Christians of the Western Church who read the Scriptures, read them in manuscript in the Latin version, made in the fourth century by Jerome, and known as the Vulgate. Few if any Hebrew or Greek manuscripts had yet found their way west of Constantinople; and, had they been possessed, they would have been but sealed books to the scholars of the British Church. These Latin MSS. existed only in the libraries of monasteries. Priests and monks alone had access to them; and on Sabbaths and feast-days doled out to the common people such meagre knowledge of the Word of life as they were either able or disposed to convey to them. Although restrained by no prohibition or fear of penalty, no one as yet thought of translating the Scriptures into the vernacular tongue.

To the Moso-Goths, a people inhabiting the province of Masia, south of the Danube, belongs the honor of possessing the first translation made for the benefit of the laity of Western Europe. It was the work of Ulphilas, a Gothic Bishop, in the fourth century. But the practical spirit, the sterling good sense and the desire for popular enlightenment which characterized their Saxon brethren, our ances

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