Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

We have received a short communication from a "Friend of Truth and Justice," requesting us to correct a remark which we made in our introductory article in January, 1837, in relation to the British Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. We there stated that at the time when this Society was publishing the Bible in two languages, the British and Foreign Bible Society were publishing it in 150. Our correspondent suggests that the former society does not, like the latter, limit its operations to one department of effort but that its labors embrace schools, missions, distribution of the Bible, and other books, translation of the Bible, lending libraries, and the relief of temporal necessities. Our correspondent also suggests that the former Society had accomplished a great amount of good before the rise of the Bible Society in 1804. In 1711, the Christian Knowledge Society had given instruction to nearly 5000 children; in 1761, it had established upwards of 1400 schools, in which were 40,000 children, in England and Wales, besides similar schools in Scotland and Ireland, and had in 1784, planted a number of missions, etc. We have only to say, in justification of ourselves, that the facts in our article were taken from Mr. Choules's Origin and History of Missions, that taking all the labors of the Christian Knowledge Society in view, at any one time, since the Bible Society was formed, it has exhibited much less energy than the latter, and that what energy it has possessed, has been apparently much augmented by the establishment of the Bible Society. These were the positions taken in our article, and we think the facts will warrant them, notwithstanding the suggestions of our correspondent.

A new edition of Prof. Stuart's Hebrew Chrestomathy and also of his Grammar of the New Testament Dialect will be published during the present year.

We observe that the Rev. Dr. Adams, president of the college of Charleston, S. C. has published a new work on Moral Philosophy. We hope to be able to give it an extensive review hereafter.

Prof. Hitchcock of Amherst College has published De La Beche's excellent Manual of Geology, with additional notes and illustrations.

PERSIA.

We have just received the following items of information from Mr. Perkins of Óoroomiah. "You inquire respecting European travellers, now in these regions. I know of but few. Monsieur Auchet Eloy, a French botanist recently travelled through Persia and the adjacent regions. He had gathered a large and very valuable collection of botanical specimens, and had reached Constantinople on his return; but in that city of conflagrations, his lodgings took fire, and his collection of plants and flowers-the fruits of almost endless toil-were all consumed in the flames. I think he will repeat his botanic excur

sions, in these regions, as I believe it was his intention to publish. Mr. William Hamilton-a young English gentleman, has recently travelled in Asia Minor, and, I believe, to some extent, also, in Mesopotamia. He is a very able young man, and it is understood that he will publish the result of his travels. James Brant, Esq., His Britannic Majesty's consul at Erzroom, has travelled extensively in Asia Minor, and an interesting article from his pen, on the regions over which he has travelled, together with a map of the same, recently appeared in a periodical magazine of the Royal Geographical Society, published at London. I was kindly entertained by Mr. Brant, during my late visit at Erzroom, and he mentioned to me his intention of soon making a tour into Kurdistan, the result of which he will doubtless be able to give to Christendom important information, respecting regions, which have never yet been visited by a European. The English embassy, in this country, are, at present, doing little of a literary nature. Its members are too fully occupied in political matters, to allow them the necessary time. Mr. Mc Neill, the ambassador, is a man of very high literary standing. Many interesting and able articles, from him, have, within a few years, appeared in Blackwood's Magazine. All the articles on Persia, that have been published in that work, are from his pen. The lithographic press, which was formerly at Tabreez, is now at Teheran, employed in publishing a periodical newspaper, under the auspices of the king. This is the first newspaper ever published in Persia-four numbers have been issued-and, though it is a small thing in itself, it is a day-star of glory for the civil regeneration of this country. It is edited by a Persian Meerza, who was once ambassador to England,-who speaks the English language-and is ardently desirous to see the light and civilization of Europe introduced into Persia. And as this light rolls in, how important is it, that the gospel should come with it, and give it the right direction! We have nothing new, respecting Mount Ararat. On my late journey to Erzroom, I again passed along its base; and I never felt so strong a desire to ascend it as in this instance. The earliness of the season, however, forbade the attempt. The snow extended down, at that time, (May,) almost to its base. But I have no doubt that it may be ascended, on the north-west side, which is by far the least steep, with the aid of proper facilities and preparations, and at the right season of the year. In August and September the snow covers not more than one third of the mountain. The region west and south-west of Ararat presents striking indications of having felt the effects of former volcanic action. For a distance of fifteen or twenty miles the surface of the ground is almost entirely covered with stones, each weighing from five to ten or fifteen pounds, which give indubitable evidence of having been in a state of partial fusion."

THE

AMERICAN

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY.

NO. XXX.

APRIL, 1838.

ARTICLE I.

THE EVIDENCES OF THE GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS, BY ANDREWS NORTON. Vol. I. Boston, 1837.

Reviewed by M. Stuart, Prof. Sac. Lit. in the Theol. Seminary, Andover.

THE volume, which bears the title given above, is certainly a production of no ordinary stamp, and is a phenomenon in our literary hemisphere which ought to excite much interest. Our country has hitherto been very sparing of contributions to the stock of sacred literature; at least of such as are the fruit of long and intense study, and the result of a widely extended knowledge of antiquities either sacred or profane. We have so few men who can afford to bury themselves for a long time in the closets of libraries, and so few libraries that have closets well stocked with books; withal we are so intent upon the practical business of life-on making our fortunes, or building up a mere temporary and popular fame, or grasping at officethat we grow impatient under protracted years of effort in the acquisition of individual knowledge, and seldom endeavour to accomplish what the riper scholars of Europe are every day labouring to accomplish. And what is very discouraging to the few, who can surmount the usual obstacles, resist all temptations to acquire a mere short-lived celebrity, and consent to plough and sow with the certain apprehension that they must VOL. XI. No. 30. 34

wait for the harvest until some future period which may not arrive before it is too late for them to witness its gathering in— what indeed has hitherto almost paralyzed every attempt among us at long protracted and severe literary effort, is, that when any thing of this nature has been executed, it has rarely if ever met with such success as to encourage new adventurers in the same or the like undertakings. If a book does not either entertain the mass of our public, or show them how to become richer or more thrifty in their business, or is not indispensable as a professional work, the publishers may regard themselves as unusually fortunate, in case they get off without solid loss. from an edition of 750 or at most 1000 copies. This is true of almost any thoroughly literary work which can be named.

It were easy to support these allegations by appeal to particular facts; but the detail of them would be an ungrateful labour, and lead me, moreover, quite away from the execution of the more pleasant task which I have now undertaken to perform. If any reader is so sensitive to the honour of the literary character of those who dwell this side of the Atlantic, as to look with suspicion on such statements as I have made, and to call them in question, let him make trial at the office of even the most intelligent and liberal of our publishers, and see what the result of his inquiries about the publication of a work of deep and recondite literature will be. Nor can he justly blame the publishers. How can they afford to print what the American public will not patronize? And how can they be responsible for the pursuits and the taste of all their countrymen ?

Mr. Norton is one of the very few among us, who are placed in circumstances of literary ease and comfort. Not constrained to pursue the daily duties of an office, which he once held in the University of Cambridge, in order to provide for himself and his family, he seems to have relinquished them for the sake of a higher object-to devote himself without reserve to the pursuit of sacred literature in some of its most interesting and important branches. The work before us is the fruit of the leisure thus secured; and surely it bears testimony that this leisure-time has been very busily employed.

The author tells us, in his preface, that he began this work in 1819, and that he was then 'so much in error respecting the inquiries to which it would lead him, that he believed it might be accomplished in six months.' Every tyro in literature who afterwards makes any considerable advances, can at a later day

sympathize with such a feeling as this. He remembers the time, when he wondered that such men as have taken the lead in sacred literature or theology, should have occupied so many years in doing what seemed to him to be feasible in the course of a few weeks, or at most of a few months. How often is the diligent scholar reminded, that the mount of science is like that of natural vision; the higher you ascend, the wider the prospect is extended. Even when we reach the summit, it is only to see that the prospect is boundless in every direction.

Mr. Norton, it seems, has been busied some eighteen years with his undertaking, instead of six months; although this is not to be understood of his first volume only which is now published, but also of two more which are yet to appear. The public cannot complain of the author, by alleging in this case that he is hasty in his performance, seeing that the "nonum prematur in annum" has been doubled in the present instance But the book in question gives evidence enough that it has not been lying idly by, during the greater part of these eighteen years. The investigations which it developes could never have been made without much time and severe labour.

It seems to have been the general persuasion of the English and American public, since the publication of the great work of Lardner on the Evidences of Christianity, and that of Paley, that little or nothing more remained to be done, in regard to the literary and archaeological part of this undertaking. Lardner seemed to have exhausted all the store houses of ancient Jewish, Heathen, or Christian testimonies to the existence and genuineness of the New Testament books; and Paley, who has added little indeed to the archaeological part of this undertaking, has thrown the whole substance into such a compact, tangible, intelligible form, employed such skill and address in his reasoning, and so admirably adapted the whole to popular ends, at least for the instruction of the greater part of the well-informed community, that there did not seem to be any call for further effort in regard to this part of Christian Apologetics. In addition to this it should also be remarked, that within the last half century very few infidel works have appeared in the English language, which had any claim to literary pretensions, or which needed any refutation from a knowledge of antiquity. They have been little else than a repetition of the stale criticisms and jeers of Voltaire, La Mettrie, Paine, and a few others of the like class; and whatever show of argument has been exhibited,

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »