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Holy Scriptures among the poor. The other parts of their work grew out of and were superadded to this, but the machinery under which the whole is arranged continues to be connected with the Bible Society as its head;" and it was considered desirable that the superintendent should become a member of the Ladies' Bible Association, in order that she might confer with them on the districts in which her sub-agent was to be occupied. Such being the manner in which a really valuable suggestion was being carried out, "a desire arose among members of the Church" (to use Mrs. Talbot's words,) to offer to the clergy, who are charged with the duty of watching for the souls, and so far as it is in their power ministering to the good in all things of the dense population of these town parishes, the services of agents of this description to be distinctly under their control, and to become a part of their parochial machinery; and the name of "Parochial Mission Women" was then devised as descriptive of the office of one sent out under the authority of the clergyman of the parish, to win her way among the home heathens of her own sex, in the most degraded and least accessible parts of that portion of the town which may be committed to his charge. The organization of the scheme was very simple, but very wise. The four ladies, with whom it originated, formed themselves into a committee, which undertook the task of collecting funds, and of ascertaining from those of the London incumbents, whose parishes stood in need of such help, whether they would desire the services of the agents described. Any incumbent who signified his wish to set on foot this work in his parish, was then requested to select himself a person out of his own parish, whom he would consider fit for the work, and also a lady fitted to be her superintendent. By this arrangement each parish priest had not only entire control over the work, but the mission woman became simply an agent of his own, employed in services among his people, which it would have been both unsuitable and impossible for him to undertake.

Of the complete success of this Home Mission, so far as it has gone, the present volume is the best proof, inasmuch as it has been published in consequence of the work having extended to such a degree that some external assistance is absolutely necessary for its maintenance. We cannot too highly commend the author for the simple straightforward manner in which she has set forth the progress of the mission up to the present time, nor the modesty and good feeling with which she deprecates the supposition that this work is intended to supersede any other which may have been already commenced, the field of labour being, as she rightly concludes, abundantly wide enough for all such attempts to advance the kingdom of our only LORD.

A Chaplet of Verses, by ADELAIDE A. PROCTOR, (London: Longman and Co.,) is likewise published on behalf of a charitable work, that of the "Providence Row Night Refuge for Houseless Women and Children." There is, perhaps, no work of mercy which appeals to the feelings so warmly as this. The special institution for which Miss Proctor pleads is the only Refuge of the kind established in England for Roman Catholics; but as the sisters who have the charge of it

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admit any who are homeless, quite irrespective of their faith, it has a claim upon all who call themselves by the Name of Him Who had not where to lay His Head. Miss Proctor's verses are very sweet and musical, and pleasing, from their deep devotional feeling and refined language; but with all due allowance for the religious atmosphere in which she lives, and the extra enthusiasm of a convert, it is impossible not to notice with pain and censure the enormous disproportion of the adoring love offered to S. Mary, with that which is reserved for our Divine LORD. One could hardly imagine in reading this work, that the poetess looked to any other as her Saviour than the Holy Mother of Him who died upon the Cross. Not thus is she honoured who loved Him best.

Mr. MORDEN BENNETT'S Sermon, preached at Bournemouth, on the occasion of a Choral Festival, (Masters,) belongs to a class which we should rejoice much to see multiplied among us. It is only by slow degrees that our people will take in the true idea of Christian Worship.

Canon HUMBLE's Remarks (Hayes,) on the debate in the Upper House of Convocation, touching the Scotch Liturgy, are characterised by his usual boldness and sagacity. At the end there is a useful catena of Divines, and others, who have borne testimony to the excellence of that Rite, now, alas! de-nationalized by the vote of a single Bishop, and he, alas, a man unfaithful to all his professions!

Dr. M'CAUL seems to us to have made a great mistake in trying to fasten a new heresy on Mr. Fitzjames Stephens, who acted as Counsel for Dr. Rowland Williams. An advocate is surely at liberty to put forward any view, as a theory, which he thinks will benefit his client; and it is neither fair, nor wise, it appears to us, to treat a view so put forward, as though it was the definite belief of the advocate who used it for a purpose, or indeed of any other individual whatever. His "Reply" is entitled, Testimonies to the Divine Authority and Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. (Rivingtons.)

We do not like either the form or the doctrine of Prayers for Cottage Homes. (Wertheim and Co.) Thus on a death in a family the survivors are taught to call such death (without exception) " a happy change;" and to say of the departed that he is "now in glory, in the presence of the LORD." A comfortable doctrine this, undoubtedly, but it overlooks both the Resurrection and the Judgment !

We have to thank Mr. BowEN EVANS for an encouraging and practical Sermon, preached at the anniversary of the English Church Union. It is entitled, Weariness in Work. (Skeffington.)

We have special pleasure in recommending Loving Service. (Masters.) It is well calculated to interest young persons in Church matters, and this we take to be the legitimate object of religious tales; yet neither heroine marries the curate, and so is not made to throw a doubt on her own sincerity, in seeking to assist the clergyman in his parishwork.

MALAN'S GOSPEL OF S. JOHN.

The Gospel according to S. John, translated from the Eleven oldest Versions except the Latin, and compared with the English Bible: with Notes on every one of the Alterations proposed by the Five Clergymen in their Revised Version of this Gospel, published in 1857. By the Rev. S. C. MALAN, M. A., of Baliol College, Oxford, and Vicar of Broadwindsor, Dorset. London: Joseph Masters, Aldersgate Street and New Bond Street. 1862. 4to., PP. 444.

THIS is indeed a noble book, and it will take its rank amongst the foremost contributions of the present century to that vast department of learning-Biblical criticism. Eleven, and often twelve, of the most valuable versions of the New Testament placed side by side, and so arranged that an open page reveals them all at once; the important word of each version placed in a foot-note to each column, so that the scholar can form his own opinion upon the aptness of the word employed in the translation; then over a hundred pages of notes culled from classical writers of every school, illustrated by parallel passages from all the important Greek Fathers; the whole printed in very beautiful types, and with a care and accuracy that almost surpasses belief;-such is our first impression upon turning over Mr. Malan's pages upon our initial sight of his book. It embodies a great enterprise indeed, whether for author or publisher; and we can only sincerely hope that our readers will, each one for himself, procure a copy for his own use, and recommend the book as widely as possible; for it would be a real disgrace to the clergy as a body, did such a book as this yield neither remuneration to the author nor profit to the publisher; and it can do neither the one nor the other, unless well supported by the small minority who are willing to encourage real learning when spent upon the holiest and best subjects, and who by such support enable the scholars of England to take a proud place beside the mightiest of the Biblical critics of Europe. We beg to offer our most sincere and unbiassed congratulations to both the author and the publisher for having so nobly completed so valuable and beautiful a book.

In proceeding to notice Mr. Malan's versions of S. John, we naturally begin our survey from his preface. It is written in a manly, sober, Christian spirit. It tells us about the original versions from which he has translated; it teaches us, in the main, rightly to distinguish between the genuine inspiration of the mind of the HOLY SPIRIT, and the media, in the form of language, VOL. XXIV.-SEPTEMBER, 1862. 3 G

through which this mind makes itself known. While we cannot help admiring the writer, we cannot subscribe all the propositions which are laid down in this preface. It opens with a notice of the revised version of S. John's Gospel by the five Clergymen, and which, on the whole, amounts to a verdict in condemnation of their work. It is followed by an eulogy upon our present authorized version, a little too florid for us to endorse; it was "the work of a guild of the most pious and most learned men of their time;" it embodies "the worship and the veneration of two centuries and a half;" no version of His Word ever held in a country the rank which the English Bible holds in England." All its good works and offices are then summed up-the comfort that it gives to the Queen and to the poorest peasant; the noble type of the language which it preserves, of which it is the main stay.

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"Time-worn as this one book is, it is yet as young and as well understood as when it was first published. And thus almost alone it stems the muddy stream of foreign words from off the land, and almost alone it keeps up the national and manly features of our former AngloSaxon tongue; and thus it saves the language of England from dwindling into the would-be English of other lands, or from becoming, perhaps, little else than the Latinized idiom of half-taught men at home. So that even those who care, perhaps, less for the lore of the English Bible than for the beautiful language it speaks, may well be jealous of alterations in that book which at first moulded that language, and which has kept it ever since whole and pure."—P. vi.

From the defence of our Authorized Version to the Textus Receptus of the New Testament is a natural transition. We say that the five Clergymen translated from this text because it was their business to translate from the same text as that which was used by the translators of the Bible. Mr. Malan asks on this subject

"Are we likely, at this distance of time, and for all the MSS. either already known or yet to be, to have a better text than they had in the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, or even the sixth century, when were made the very versions which help us at present to fix and otherwise to mend our Greek original ?"-P. xv.

Does the Textus Receptus represent any single century? Dr. Marsh long ago analysed this recension. He says, in his Lectures, (Part I. p. 112,) "The text, therefore, in daily use resolves itself at last into the Complutensian and Erasmian editions. But neither Erasmus nor the Complutensian editors printed from ancient Greek MSS., and the remainder of their critical apparatus included little more than the latest of the Greek Fathers and the Latin Vulgate." We know that Tischendorf, who had strayed very far away from its readings, has approximated to it rather than receded from it in the seventh edition of his Testament; but still, as a text, its day is

past, and we shall hail with delight the formation of a new standard text, when a body of scholars can be got together to carry on the work.

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We are obliged to differ from Mr. Malan as to his estimate of the critical value of the versions which he translates: the value of these versions as witnesses to certain readings is very great indeed. Dean Ellicott, in the prefaces to his commentaries upon the several epistles of S. Paul, has insisted most strongly upon this point; but it is rather in the exegesis than in the critical formation of the text that their true strength lies. Six years since, the Dean says that, in the Pastoral Epistles, he has "at last been enabled to carry out the long-cherished wish of using some of the best versions of antiquity for exegetical purposes." (Pref. Past. Epist. p. vii.) It was the Italic, the Syriac, and the Gothic that he used then. But he continues: "It is idle and profitless to adduce the interpretation of a version, especially in single words, unless the usual and current meaning of those words is more restricted or defined than in the original.' In the volume that appeared in the succeeding year, the Coptic (Memphitic) and Ethiopic versions were added to the three which were used before. "Surely," adds Dean Ellicott, "the opinion of men who lived in such early ages of the Church as those to which the chief versions may all be referred, cannot be deemed unworthy of attention. Surely a version like the old Syriac, which might almost have been in the hands of the last of the Apostles,-a venerable authority of almost equal authority, like the old Latin,— a version so generally accurate as that of Ulfilas, -a version so distinctive as that of the Coptic, and so laborious as Platt's Ethiopic,cannot safely be disregarded in the exposition of a Divine Revelation," &c. (Pref. to Phil. p. viii.) Another year passes by, and the Armenian Version is joined to the others; and a further appeal is made on behalf of "the critical characteristics of the Book of Life, that have been the blessed media of salvation to early churches and to ancient nations." These extracts from Dean Ellicott seem to point to the true and lawful use of these ancient versions.

We are startled a little at finding Mr. Malan writing in this strain :

"We can form no just idea of our SAVIOUR's teaching and of His conversation by reading them in the Greek of the Evangelists, which He never spoke; but we must look for them in the venerable idiom of the Peschito. Likewise we must go to the Armenian for clearness and dignity of expression; to the Georgian for particles even brighter than the Greek ones, and for a double use of pronouns, which gives great force to many renderings; to the Coptic for a nicer use of the definite article than even in the Greek, which also has not, like the Coptic, an indefinite or partitive article, often indispensable to a right understanding of the text."-Pref. p. vii.

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