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not capable of definite solution, whether Coverdale translated from the original. Mr. Whitaker has attempted to show, that the Hebrew text is by Coverdale, most faithfully and ably translated, and the sense most consonant to the original always adopted. This strong asseveration may well be doubted. Dr. Geddes scruples not to affirm, that this translation is one of more merit, and is more according to the original, (such as Coverdale had it,) than the present authorized version, which is commonly read in the churches. In some annotations to a translation of the New Testament, recently published by Mr. Penn, that gentleman undertakes to prove that hitherto there had been no direct English translation from the Greek, but only through the medium of the Latin, with occasional references to the Greek text; and in these examples, it will be found, that Coverdale, unlike Wiclif, Tyndale, and the Vulgate, has translated directly from the Greek, and not through the medium of any interpretation whatever. This assertion, so far as Tyndale is concerned, is without foundation. In his Preface to the "Obedience of a Christian Mann," Tyndale writes like one at home in the original languages. "The Greeke tongue agreeth more with the Englysshe than with the Latyne, and the properties of the Hebrue tongue agreeth a thousand tymes more with ye Englysshe than with the Latyne." It has been the common opinion that Coverdale copied, with some revision, Tyndale's New Testament, and the small portions of the Old which the latter had translated. The compiler of the Life of Coverdale affirms that the contrary will be manifest from an examination of the two versions. This Life is by an anonymous hand. The compiler collects a considerable variety of interesting particulars. The style is, however, not one of a practised writer. There is a very good portrait of Coverdale.

16.-China, its present state and prospects, with especial reference to the spread of the Gospel, containing allusions to the antiquity, extent, population, civilization, literature, and religion of the Chinese. By W. H. Medhurst, of the London Missionary Society. Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1838. pp. 472. We received this volume just as the last sheet of the Repository for October was going to press. We have been happy to see that the high opinion which we then expressed of its merits has been unanimously confirmed by the public press. It discusses the prominent topics of interest relating to China in a succinct, candid, and intelligent manner. Just that kind of information is communicated which is fitted to excite an interest in the country and its institutions, and to lead us to search for fuller details. These details may be found in the excellent history of China by Davis, in the journals of the English embassies, and in the Chinese Repository. Mr. Med

* See Dabney's Reprint of Tyndale, p. 25.

hurst's work is of a popular character, but still not deficient in the marks of authenticity and accurate observation. The author is well fitted to tread in the steps and to assume the responsibilities of Morrison and Milne. We hope that there will be, ere long, a sufficient degree of interest awakened in behalf of China both in this country and in Europe, to justify more copious accounts than we have yet had of the structure of the language, of the nature and degree of divergency of the various dialects, of the actual progress made by the Chinese scholars or literati, and of the real value of the writings of Confucius, and of the other more important specimens of the native literature.

We will here subjoin some statements, which we find in a late German periodical, copied from the " Annales de la Propagation de la Foi," touching the Romish missions in China.

The missions are divided into three great apostolic vicariats and three bishoprics. The vicariats are Chan-Si, Fo-Keen, and SuTchuen. The bishoprics have their seats at Peking, Nanking and Macao. The vicariat of Chan-Si embraces four provinces, from three to five bishops, and seventeen native priests. In one district of one of the provinces alone there are 60,000 Christians. The mission in the vicariat of Fo-Keen is in a very flourishing state. In some places public worship is openly celebrated. In one province 30,000 Christians are counted. Two other provinces contain 9,000 Christians. The vicariat of Su-Tchuen has two bishops, nine European priests, thirty native priests and 15,000 Christians. The bishopric of Peking has 40,000 Christians, that of Macao about 40, 000. "It needs only one Constantine," thus all the missionary ac counts agree," to bring the 300,000,000 of Chinese into the bosom of the church."

15.-Friderici Windischmanni, presbyteri, ss. theologiae ac philo

sophiae doctoris, Vindiciae Petrinae. Ratisbonae: pp. 135. This book is written in a very earnest and powerful manner, in opposition to those who doubt or deny the authenticity of the second epistle of Peter. The author has particularly in his eye the work of Meyerhoff. Dr. Hermann Olshausen, whose essay is found in Bibl. Repos. VIII. 88, after a very candid and cautious discussion, decides in favor of the epistle on internal grounds, while the external evidence is, in his opinion, too scanty and feeble to justify much reliance. Windischmann comes to the conclusion, that it was known in the earliest times, that its authenticity was questioned by none, that it differs, indeed, from the first epistle in certain phraseology and sentiments, but that this difference can be well explained by the different nature of the subject discussed, while there are many traces of resemblance, that there are some difficult passages in it, which, notwithstanding, if rightly understood, will particularly confirm the SECOND SERIES, VOL. 1. NO. I.

331

sincerity of the writer, that the description of heretics agrees only with the apostolic times, and that its resemblance to Jude demonstrates its apostolic origin. A large portion of the volume is taken up with an inquiry relating to the time and place when and where both epistles were written. The author concludes that the first epis tle was writeu at Rome (Rome intended by Babylon), and that the second epistle was most probably written in the same place, as Peter in it refers to the epistles of Paul which were written at Rome, and as he speaks of his own death as drawing near, which took place, without much doubt, at the same city. The epistles were addressed, as the writer thinks, particularly to the Jewish Christians, but in an important sense to the Gentile Christians, as Peter refers to the epistles of Paul which were directed to the latter.

16.-Hoary Head and the Vallies below. By Jacob Abbott. Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1838.

The great characteristic excellence of the author is manifest on every page of this little book. We mean the power of most accurate description, a microscopic observation of what passes under his eye, and an exact transference to paper of what he has seen, and in the order in which things appear in nature. Nothing can be more to the life than the description of the mechanic shop with which the first story opens, the conversation between the father and his son, the anxious and complaining solicitude of the mother, and the several incidents relating to sick little Benny. On the question of the general utility of the volume, there will be various opinions, according to the judgment of different persons concerning novel writing. For ourselves we must say, that the great truth intended to be conveyed by the author, namely, that a substance cannot change itself, that the heart of man cannot renovate itself, is very strikingly illustrated. It does not appear merely in didactic statements at the beginning and end of the book, but it is interwoven in the thread of the narratives. We are not hurried away from real life. Real life is described to us. We see what we are, and what we ought to be.

ARTICLE XIII.

MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.

United States.

A volume of Selections from the German will be published early in the ensuing Spring, translated by Profs. Edwards and Park of Andover. The principal contents will be as follows: I. The sinless character of Jesus, by

Prof. Ullmann of Heidelberg. II. Specimens of the German Pulpit, by Prof. Tholuck of Halle and others. III. Life of Plato by W. G. Tennemann. IV. Comparison of Platonism with Christianity by Prof. Baur of Tabingen. V. Life of Aristotle by Dr. A. Stahir of Halle. VI. The origin of Sin and Evil, by Prof. Twesten of Berlin. VII. Biblical Articles by Profs. Köster, Tholuck, Umbreit and others. VIII. Miscellaneous articles, by Profs. Neander, Ullmann, and others.

Prof. Emerson of Andover, is preparing for publication a translation of the history of Augustinism and Pelagianism, by G. F. Wiggers, Prof. of Divinity at Rostock, Germany, with notes by the translator. The work will probably soon be put to press.

Prof. Stowe of the Theol. Seminary near Cincinnati, is preparing a translation of Rosenmüller's Commentary (Compend.) on the Psalms, with additional notes of his own; which will be speedily printed.

The above works will be issued from the Press of Gould & Newman, Andover.

Germany.

The controversy occasioned by the publication of Strauss's Life of Jesus continues to rage with unabated fury. Kantists, Hegelians, Rationalists, Semi-rationalists, Supra-rationalists, the disciples of Schleiermacher, and rank infidels have all entered the lists. The firing of Strauss's blunderbuss seems to have been a signal for a general discharge along the whole line. The third edition of the work was published last summer, in two large volumes octavo. He has also published a little work entitled, "Gallerie meiner Gegner," which would still indicate that he holds up with good courage against the storm of missiles which have fallen around him and on him. It is said that the controversy would already fill a respectable library. Among the opposers of Strauss are the names of men no less distinguished than Neander of Berlin, Tholuck of Halle, Harless of Erlangen, Hengstenberg of Berlin, Lange of Duisberg, Müller of Marburg, Paulus of Heidelberg, Sack of Bonn, Ullmann of Heidelberg, Eschenmayer of Tübingen, Baumgarten-Crusius, etc. Archbishop Whately's Historic Doubts respecting Napoleon Bonaparte have been translated and published. Volumes have been put forth in ridicule ;-one represented as an appendix critically examining the life of Mohammed from a Schiite tradition, and proving the whole life to be a mythus; another volume, supposed to be written in some future century denying that any such man as Martin Luther ever existed. The controversy shows the extreme, the boundless activity of the German mind, the unsettled state of the religious world, and the eagerness with which multitudes are prepared to rush into open skepticism.

It is sometimes said, that the systems of philosophy in Germany are evannescent, and give place one after another, to an uninterrupted succession of novelties. We observe, however, in one advertisement, a notice of the republication of the works of Kant, Fichte and Hegel. Kant's whole works

are in the process of publication under the editorial charge of Rosenkranz, and Schubart. Hegel's complete works are also publishing. Volume X., published last summer, contains his Lectures on Esthetics. C. L. Michelet has published at Berlin a history of the systems of philosophy in Germany from Kant to Hegel. We are very glad to see a notice of the issuing of the third volume of Ast's Lexicon Platonicum, sive vocum Platonicarum Index. The edition of Plato's works by Ast in nine very convenient volumes, octavo, has long been out. The ninth was published in 1827.-The two Grimms late of Göttingen are preparing a very extensive dictionary of the German language. Jacob Grimm's German grammar is a book of the highest authority. The dictionary will be completed in about six or seven volumes. -The celebrated Lassen is preparing to publish a Sanscrit Manual, and a a manual of Indian Antiquities. The last named was to be in three volumes, the first volume to appear in the course of 1838.-A new edition of Tholuck's sermons on the principal points of christian faith and practice has been published in two volumes.-We collect the following notices of some of the German universities from a late number of the Allgemeine Kirchen Zeitung published at Darmstadt. Erlangen. This university contains 184 students, of whom 140 are theologians. Bonn. In this university are 689 students, of whom 184 are theologians, 188 attending on the Catholic faculty, and 76 on the Protestant. Heidelberg. 468 students, of whom 25 are theologians. Giessen. The following was the course of lectures, last summer, in the evangelical theological faculty of this university-Kuinoel on select passages in the historical books of the Old Testament, Credner on Job, on Introduction to the New Testament and on church history, Meier on the epistle to the Corinthians, and on history of doetrines, Palmer on Catachetics and on Symbolic, and Dieffenbach on Dogmatic and Homiletic. Breslau. In the evangelical faculty of this university, Schulz lectures on encyclopedia, methodology and on some of Paul's epistles, Knobel on Introduction to the New Testament, the minor Prophets, christian ethics and catachetics, Middledorpf on Introduction to the New Testament, and the Psalms, Böhmer on the Straussian controversy or the life of Jesus exhibited in his actual labors, christian antiquities, and church history, Hahn on Dogmatics in connection with ethics and symbolics, and the first part of church history; Suckow on practical theology. The theological seminary is under the charge of Schulz, Middledorf, Hahn and Böhmer; the homiletic institute is directed by Hahn and Suckow. Freiburg. Hug lectures on the Introduction to the New Testament; Wetser on Arabic, biblical Hermeneutics, and Hebrew language; Schleyer on Joel, Amos, Galatians and Ephesians; Vogel on modern church history; Staudenmeier on dogmatics, and on the theory of religion and revelation; Hirscher on christian morals; and Werk on pastoral theology and liturgies. Göttingen. Students in the summer quarter, 1838, were 729, of whom 173 were studying theology.

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