one denying this, we need not argue its claims as a matter of doubtful disputation. Nor need we undertake to show that the missionary spirit is essentially the spirit of Christianity, and that wherever a church is planted in any country, to it should be committed the oracles of God.

It is, however, worthy of special notice, that God himself simultaneously spoke and wrote the legal and symbolic dispensation. He not only preached the law, but wrote the law with his own hand, and gave the autograph to Moses, of what he had spoken to him in the mount.

In the same spirit of wisdom and philanthropy, the apostle spoke and wrote Christianity in sermons and epistles. Even our Saviour himself made John the amanuensis of the seven epistles to the Asiatic churches. For accurate and long preservation of words and ideas, the pen and parchment, the stylus and the wax, the chisel, the lead, and the rock, are indispensable. Hence, neither the new nor the old dispensation was left to the chances of mere oral communication or tradition, but they were written by prophets and apostles, or by their amanuenses, and given in solemn charge to the most faithful depositaries-the primitive churches -with solemn anathemas annexed, to protect them from interpolation, erasure, or blemish, from the hand of

man.

But the languages in which the Holy Oracles were originally written, died soon after the precious deposit had been committed to them. This death, however, became the occasion of the immortality of that precious deposit.

Living tongues are always in a state of mutation. They change with every generation. The language of Wickliffe, of Tindal, of Cranmer, of James I., is not the language of this country nor of this generation. Wickliffe's version needs now to be translated into the English of 1850. But

the Greek of the New Testament, and the Hebrew of Old, having ages since ceased to be spoken, have ceased to change; and therefore, with the language of that age, are stereotyped the general literature, the philosophy, the poetry, the history-the classics of the Greeks and Romans; together with the Septuagint, and other Greek versions of the Jewish scriptures.

Next to the deluge, not only in proximity of time, but in its calamitous influence on the destiny of man, was the confusion of human language at the profane and insolent attempt to erect a temple to Belus, and a city to prevent the wide dispersion of Noah's progeny. The monumental name Babylon, awakens in every thoughtful and sensitive heart a series of painful reflections on every remembrance of its grievous associations. But for it, as among all animals without reason and conscience, there would have been, through our whole species, but one language and one speech.

It has thrown in the way of human civilization and moral progress, barriers that neither can be annihilated nor overcome. It has more or less alienated man from man, making every one of a different dialect-more or less a barbarian to the great portion of his own species. As one of our most moral and evangelical poets has said of mountains, we may say of languages; for languages, like mountains, interposed

"Make enemies of nations; who else, Like kindred drops, had mingled into one.” Till then, the vernacular of every child was that of all mankind, and was a part and parcel of humanity itself, to interest him in every one of his species as his own flesh and blood. But foreign tongues indicate a foreign origin, with which, most frequently, some ungrateful associations arise, that estrange and alienate from the claims of a common brotherhood.

But, most of all to be deplored, this divine judgment has thrown very great obstacles in the path of the

evangelical ministry. It was, indeed, as observed already, miraculously overcome by the gift of tongues, instantaneously conferred on the Apostles at the time of the coronation of the Lord Messiah. They had access, at once, to many nations, whose representatives returned from Jerusalem richly laden with the word of life to their countrymen. But the necessity that was overcome on the memorable Pentecost still exists, more or less, as a very formidable obstacle to the conversion of the human race to one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one communion; and must, of necessity, be overcome. And here we state our first argument in favor of translations of the Holy Scriptures into all languages spoken by man capable of receiving, in their vocabularies, the precious oracles of the Living and True God.

But I am met at the threshold with the assertion that this is a subject in which all Christendom is agreed, and that it would be but a waste of time to discuss such a question. The necessity of translating the Living Oracles of the Living God into all the nations of earth, as the means of their conversion and immersion, I am told, is universally conceded by Jew and Gentile. But have they, in any other way than theoretically, conceded it?

The Jews' religion and revelation, now called the Old Testament, was not designed for all mankind, in the same sense as the Christian revelation and religion are designed for all mankind. The Jews' religion was specially given to one nation for its own sake. It never was essentially a proselyting institution. Its genius and nature were restricted to the natural seed of Abraham. There is no precept in it commanding it to be preached or promulged to all the world. Still, the Jews' institution had in it the elements of Christianity, and on that account, it is invaluable to all the Christian kingdom. They,

too, have set us an example; for when the Jews were sown through different countries, they had their oracles translated into the language of these countries. Hence, the first translation made in Egypt by the seventy learned Jews, all natives of Egypt, assembled in Alexandria, not by the command of Potlemy Philadelphus, but during his copartnery of the throne of Egypt with his father, was designed to give the Jews throughout the world a version in the then prevailing dialect. Thus originated the celebrated Septuagint. This, however, preceded the Christian era only 285 years.

But the necessity of improved versions is rather our present subject, and with reference to this, the Jews are worthy of our regard. They were not all satisfied with this venerable and invaluable translation, though the best ever made into the Greek tongue. It is honored, and consecrated, too, by the fact that it is quoted in the New Testament, and is thus sanctioned by the holy apostles themselves a correct exponent of their own Hebrew original. Philo the Jew, Josephus, and the primitive Christians, also gave it the sanction of their approval.

Notwithstanding all this, many learned individuals, both Jews and Christians, took exceptions to some parts of it, suggested corrections and emendations numerous and various. Accordingly, Aquila, a Jew, who once professed, but afterwards renounced Christianity and relapsed into Judaism, undertook and finished a new version in the forepart of the 2nd century. His chief objection to the Septuagint was its too periphrastic character; and avoiding this alledged defect, he became literal to a fault. It was, however, read with interest as early as the middle of the 2nd century of our Christian era.

Almost contemporaneous with this was the version of Theodotion, an Ebionite Christian, who supposed

that a rather freer version than that of Aquila was desirable. Next to his appeared the version of Symmachus. More skilled in Hebrew, according to tradition, than Theodotion, he makes many alledged improvements, but borrowed too much, and rather indiscreetly, from his predecessors. Besides these private versions of the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek vernacular, no less than three anonymous Greek versions appeared before the middle of the second century; which, because of the columns they occupy in Origen's Enneeapla, are called the 5th, 6th, and 7th versions. Thus the Septuagint, which reigned without a rival for some three centuries, till the close, we may say, of the 1st century of Christianity, has, in some one hundred and fifty years, no less than six Greek rival versions, all the fruit, we must suppose, of a desire for an improved version. It may be observed, that the author of the 6th translation of this class, as arranged in the Hexapla of Origen, was evidently a Christian. So far, then, as the learning, judgment, and piety of the authors of these six Greek versions of the Old Hebrew Testament afford an example or argument, it is decidedly in favor of our effort to have an improved version of at least the Christian Scriptures.

We do not, indeed, regard every new version, whether undertaken by public or private authority, an improvement. But there is little ground to doubt that these six versions, together with the Septuagint, would enable any person of the genius and learning of Origen, to furnish a better than any one of them. Hence it is that Origen's Hexapla is regarded as one of the most valuable offerings of the third century to the cause of Biblical translations.

But the necessity of original translations, and of improved versions of former translations, has much more to commend and enforce its claims

upon public attention, than the customs of the Jews or the spirit and character of their religion. Christianity, or the gospel, in its facts, precepts, and promises, was divinely commanded to be promulged throughout the whole world. Neither its spirit nor its design is national or secular, but catholic and spiritual.

It is a dispensation of divine grace, adapted to the genius, character, and condition of minkind, as they now are. It grasps in its broad philanthropy the human race, and throws its benignant arms around all the nations of the earth. It is, therefore, the sin of the church, if there be one of Adam's sons who has never heard, in his own tongue, the wonderful works of God.

In its hale and undegenerate days, the gospel was borne on the wings of every wind, and, as far and as soon as possible, it was promulged by the living tongues of apostles, evangelists, and prophets, from Jerusalem to the confines of the most barbarous nations; and on equal terms tendered to Jew and Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free.

It was not only spoken, but written and translated into every language accessible to those to whom were committed the oracles of God. For this purpose God gave plenary inspiration to the first heralds of the cross, and, therefore, it was as accurately announced to the inhabitants of the Ultima Thule, in word or writing, as to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the radiating centre of the Christian church.

But it must be written as well as spoken, because the word in the ear is evanescent, compared with that word written and pictured to the eye on parchment. The command to preach the gospel to every creature is not fulfilled, when only spoken to those whom we see and who can hear. Were speaking the only way of preaching, then the deaf could never have the gospel preached to them.

In that case, Paul could not, with truth, have said that "Moses was preached every Sabbath day, being read in the synagogues.'

We sometimes converse with the present as well as the absent, by signs addressed to the eye. Words spoken are only for those present. Hence the necessity that an age of apostles and prophets should be an age of writing as well as of speaking a finished language. And such was the era of the Jew's religion-but still more emphatically, such was the Christian era.

The great revelations of the Bible originated in ages and countries of the highest civilization and mental advancement. Egypt was the cradle of the learning and wisdom of the world when Moses, the prophet, the lawgiver, and oracle of Jehovah, was born. From Egypt radiated the light of the world under the reign of the Pharaohs. And Moses was profoundly read in all the learning of the Egyptians. He was therefore chosen to speak to his contemporaries, and to write for posterity the oracles of God..

Jesus the Messiah was born at the city of David, educated neither in Egypt nor in Nazareth, but from heaven, by a plenary inhabitation of a divine nature and of a divine spirit. He taught in Jerusalem, in the temple, and in the presence of the Rabbis, and Scribes, and Elders of Israel. Christianity was first preached, instituted, and received in Jerusalem, and thence radiated through Asia, Africa, and Europe. It was written in the most finished language ever spoken on earth, so far as a copiousness, a richness of terms, a perspicuity, a precision, as well as a majesty and grandeur of style, enter into the constituency of language. Hence the pen, alike with the tongue, was employed in giving utterance and free circulation to the Word of Life, from its first promulgation to the final amen of the apocalypse.

The Holy Spirit and the spirit of the gospel did not cease to work with the age of the apostles. Preaching and teaching, writing and translating from language to language, the word and works of God-the sayings, the doings, and the sufferings of the Saviour begun and prosecuted with untiring energy and assiduity by the original apostles and evangelists of Christ, were still continued, with zealous diligence, by the succeeding age. Peter was not the only man of his day that said, "I will carefully endeavor that you may be able, after my decease, to have these things always in remembrance." This was the spirit of all the family of God, capable of such an instrumentality.

In the 2nd century, we find the whole Bible, Old Testament and New, translated into the Syriac tongue. The oldest, most literal, simple, and exact version in that language, is called the Peschito, or the Literal, because of its great fidelity to the original text. In after times, other versions were published in the same tongue.

Egypt was favored at an early day with two versions—one in the Coptic for the lower, and one in Sahidic for the upper Egyptians. Of the Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Persian, Gothic, Sclavonian, and Anglo-Saxon versions, we cannot now speak particularly. Suffice it to say, that the philanthropy of the gospel, wrought more effectually than that of the law, in giving version after version of the law and the gospel to the nations and tribes that embraced it.

At the commencement of the Christian church, the Roman empire stretched from the Rhine and the Danube on the North, to the Sandy Deserts of Arabia and Africa on the South; and from the River Euphrates on the East, to the Atlantic Ocean on the West.

Over this vast extent of territory their language was, more or less, spoken. Important, therefore, it was that the Living Oracles

When Jerome had risen to some conspicuity, the Itala was pronounced canonical. This version, containing both Testaments, was made from the Greek. Hebrew scholars, capable of correctly translating the Hebrew Bible, could not then be found. The first half of the 2nd century is generally agreed to have been the time when the Old Itala first made its appearance. During that century, it was certainly quoted by Tertullian. But, as Horace judiciously remarks, before the 4th century had closed, alterations and differences, either designed or accidental, had equalled in number the interpolations found in the Greek versions before corrected by Origen. Pope Damasus assigned the work of revision to Jerome, who conformed it much more to the Greek. But this only induced Jerome to attempt a new version of the Old Testament from the Hebrew into Latin, for the benefit of the Western church. Still, notwithstanding the reputation of St. Jerome, and the authority of Pope Damasus, the version was introduced by slow degrees, lest weak minds might stumble. But through the partiality of Gregory I. it gradually rose to ascendancy, so that ever since the 7th century, under the name of the Vulgate version, it was extensively adopted by the whole Roman church.

The Council of Trent, convoked by Paul III. A.D. 1545, continued under Julius X. and consummated under Pius IV. A.D. 1563, after a

In course of time, the Old Itala and the Vulgate became so mixed up that both fell into great confusion, and were interspersed with many and great errors. Hence originated Stephens' seven critical editions of the Vulgate, extending from A.d. 1528, to A.D. 1546-a period commensurate with the sessions of the Council of Trent. The Doctors of the Sorbonne condemned them, and ordered a new edition by John Hortensius, of Louvain, which was finished in 1547. But yet another improved version was called for, and finished in 1586, with critical notes, by Lucas Brugensis. Finally, however, it was condemned by Pope Sixtus V. who commanded a new edition, and having himself corrected the proofs, he pronounced it, by all the authority of his chair, to be the authentic Vulgate; and issuing a folio edition, commanded it to be adopted throughout the Roman church.

But notwithstanding the labors of the Pope and the seal of his infallible decree, this edition was discovered to be so exceedingly incorrect, that his successor the infallible Clement VIII. caused it to be suppressed, and published another authentic Vulgate, in folio size, in 1592, differing. more than any other edition, from that of Sixtus V. These facts are a full refutation, if we had nothing else to alledge, of all the pretensions of Bellarmine and the See of Rome, in favor of the Vulgate. Some learned men, of much leisure, have marked out several hundreds of differences