Norhides obscured amid the tempests of the sky, But melts away into the light of heaven." She was in the full bloom of youth, and had been a Christian upwards of nine years - an ornament to the profession of the name of Jesus, quietly and meekly adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour. She was a delicate and tender plant, that shed a healthful fragrance around her own humble sphere, unseen and unknown by the pursuers after this world's friendship. There is something very interesting in the life of a Christian female. Her sphere may be circumscribed and humble, but it is nevertheless important, having the finest sensibilities, and a heart softened into the love of Jesus. "Tis hers to diffuse the salutary effects of that love, in deeds of sympathizing kindness, into the hearts and homes of the widow and the fatherless. This is another instance to us of Death's impartiality "Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the North wind's breath, And stars to set; but all, Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O death!" Yes, Death has a snow-white chaplet twined for the brow of all: the ignorant babe that lisps on its mother's knee, the independent youth, and the happy maiden, are no more steeled against him than the "weary old and grey." -His will be done in whose hands are the lives of all. May the Lord bless the dispensation of his providence to her widowed mother and friends, who are left to mourn their loss! May they remember, though it is loss to them, to her it is gain! And may we all more seriously consider our latter end, that we may more faithfully apply our hearts unto wisdom! J. MUIR. FRASERBURGH, FEBRUARY 17TH.Dear brother: It is with keen sorrow that we have again to state, the falling asleep of another useful member of the few in this place. How mysterious are the ways of our Heavenly Father! Two of the most useful, in less than six months, have been called away. The subject of our present memoir, who died on the 13th instant, is the widow of our late brother, William Murray, of Turriff, one among the first in the North who pleaded for a return to primitive Christianity; and our departed sister, to her last, did what she could to the MARCH, 1852. THE IMPORTANCE OF A PURE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE LOUISVILLE, Ky. November 3, 1851. ELDER A. CAMPBELL-Dear Sir: I am directed, by the Provisional Committee, earnestly to solicit your attendance on the convention of the friends of a revised and corrected edition of the English Scriptures, to meet in Memphis, Tenn. December 26th proximo. I hope you will find it convenient to attend, and give your powerful influence to that noble enterprize. The object of the convention is, to unite all who are friendly to a pure version of the Scriptures in English, upon that one object, and thus divest it of the other unfortunate issues involved in the organization of the American Bible Union—and to coöperate with that institution in that solitary work. The committee also direct me to request you to address the convention on the following theme: "The importance of procuring a pure English version, shown from its bearing on the existing divisions and corruptions of Christianity in English Christendom." Of course, if you prefer, you can modify this theme, or select some other. Please let me hear from you at your earliest convenience respecting these matters. Your's respectfully, JOHN S. WALLER, Chairman of Provisional Committee. EXTRACT FROM A. CAMPBELL'S REPLY. Although I could not, in the midst of my numerous and various duties, public and private, bestow that attention to the transcendent importance of the great object of this meeting, yet the long cherished interest which I feel, and have so long felt, in reference to such an undertaking, compelled me to waive all apologies, and to volunteer my services, such as they might be under all the circumstances, and to do the best I could, in so short a time, on a subject so grand and comprehensive. The following discourse is the best I could furnish, and without further apology, I submit it to the candor and generosity of my numerous and various readers. "God, in these last days, has spoken to us by his Son" (Heb. i. 1.) WHILE, before the days of open vision or of oral revelation, our Heavenly Father may have, on numerous and various occasions, communicated to his saints ideas and volitions in the form of simple suggestions, he did, in the Patriarchal times, as well as in the Jewish age, personally speak to individual men—and then, through them, as prophets, or his mouth, to their respective contemporaries and posterity; but he has now spoken to mankind by his Son, by whom, and for whom, he builded the universe and constituted the ages of time. Since the WORD that was "in the beginning with God, and that was God," became Emmanuel—“ God in us," and "God with us"—all the public communications of God to man have been by words addressed to his ear, or by pictures presented to his eye. Language, therefore, coeval with the first public revelations of the divine will to man, necessarily consisted of visible symbols or of articulate enunciations. And as the Author and Founder of the Christian faith was from the beginning with God the Father, and in reference to creation and redemption, the efficient divine agent by whom and for whom all things were created and constituted, he, in reference to future developments, was, from the beginning, significantly called THE WORD OF GOD. The language first spoke, coeval with Adam and Eve, continued one and the same; continually, however, enlarging with man's progress in the knowledge of things human and divine, during a period of seventeen hundred and fifty-seven years. That language, we presume, was the ancient Chaldee. This presumption is J generally, if not universally, acquiesced in by the most eminent antiquarians of the present day. Its calamitous confusion, one hundred years after the flood, in the age of Peleg, was intended to divide and scatter the human race all over the earth. In no very long period afterwards interpreters became necessary, even amongst conterminous neighbours. As men were scattered all over the face of the earth, dialects or diverse forms of speech, multiplied and increased. Finally, the idea of a foreigner was matured, and, in the Chaldee or primitive language, was called a Barbarian, from the Chaldee word BARBER—a monumental proof that the Chaldee language preceded any other dialect known to history or to man. But This division of speech grouped men together, according to their dialects. while it became a bond of union and coöperation, it also became a line of demarcation, and of consequent alienation. So much so, that as one of our most moral poets has said— "Lands intersected by a narrow firth Truly we may say, with all the pages of history before our eyes, that languages interposed, have made more enduring enemies than either mountains or rivers have ever made. Thus the science and art of interpretation, or translation, became necessary at an early period of the world, and gave birth to a calling which has continued from the days of Nimrod till now. The language of Holy Writ, the history of the world, and the nature of the work, justify the assertion, that interpretation and translation are identically the same work. To translate, is but to transfer or carry an idea from one language to another. I, therefore, choose to illustrate my conception of a true and faithful translation of the Holy Scriptures, by the fact usually called the translation of Enoch and of Elijah to heaven. In their translation to heaven, these saints were whollybody, soul, and spirit-carried up to heaven. Their bodies, souls, and spirits, were alike taken up to heaven; but their bodies and souls were changed into a glorious harmony with their spirits. They assumed a new costume, and appeared in a new style, without the evaporation or annihilation of a single element essential to their individual and proper personalities. Thus, when we have every individual idea, sentiment, emotion, and volition found in the original Scriptures, with the evaporation or annihilation of a single element essential to their identical constituency, transferred from the Hebrew original of the Jewish Scriptures, and from the Greek original of the Christian Scriptures, into our vernacular, as now spoken in the year 1851, then, and not till then, can we have a perfect and complete translation of God's words and ideas, of his character and will, into our native tongue; and so of every other language spoken by the human race. It was a very essential arrangement of God's all-wise and benevolent providence, in the ages of inspiration and new revelations, that the church should be furnished with "the gift of tongues." Thus perfect translations of the Christian gospel and institutions were at once communicated to the nations of the earth in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as well as in ruder and less perfect dialects of speech, by those great fathers of mankind, into whose care and keeping were committed the new oracles of God. The first translations of the Christian Scriptures were, therefore, in perfect harmony with this view of the subject, consummated by inspired men, or men possessing spiritual gifts. And this unfolds to us the wisdom and grace of God displayed on the opening of the Christian age, in vouchsafing to the twelve apostles and others, gifts of tongues, as full and perfect as he vouchsafed to them clear and comprehensive knowledge of the New Institution, called “the Reign of Heaven." Thus, as in the giving of the Law, God, in the person of the Father, descended to Mount Sinai, veiled in pitchy darkness-made more terrific by the awful demonstrations of his presence, which made Sinai shake to its centre, and Moses quake as an aspen leaf—so in the introduction of the gospel, God, who had spoken by his Son in human flesh, now appears in the person of the Holy Spirit, in separated tongues of fiery brilliancy, and communicates the gift of tongues, and the gift of infallibly interpreting, not merely the ancient Scriptures, held sacred for ages, but the marvellous facts and events lately consummated in the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and glorification of the Lord Jesus. This gift of tongues is too superficially considered, and probably less regarded, in its sublime and comprehensive bearings, than almost any other display of divine interference concomitant with the origin of the Christian dispensation. The Christian Religion, in a more comprehensive and sublime sense than we seem to be aware of, is, indeed, a "DISPENSATION OF THE SPIRIT." The Holy Spirit is the spirit of wisdom and of revelation. It is, also, the spirit of truth, and the spirit of heavenly eloquence, surpassing all the eloquence of angel or of man. Hence, at the commencement of every chapter of the three dispensations of Nature, Law, and Gospel, the Holy Spirit was the great consummator of all the acts of the drama of creation, of legislation, and of redemption. In the first dispensation, darkness sat upon ancient chaos till heaven and earth were born. He moved upon the face of the waters, till air, and earth, and sea, were replenished with all the forms of life. In the second dispensation, he directed the angels that waited upon Moses, and handed down by them, from God the Father's right hand, "the Fiery Law." In the third dispensation, he again descended to the earth; and when Mary was espoused to Joseph, he fashioned out of her person the body of the Lord Jesus. When Jesus had, by his coöperation, dispossessed demons, held nature in abeyance, and raised the dead, after his demise, he quickened his dead body with a new and imperishable life, and transmuted it into an unfading beauty and a glorified immortality. When Jesus was crowned in heaven with glory and honor, he descended to earth, inspired his apostles with heavenly wisdom, and gave them power to announce the glad tidings, with triumphant success, in all the languages of earth. He then became the Holy Guest of his body, the church, and gave to it an infallible knowledge of the mysteries of Christ. He furnished the ideas and the words which they uttered, and finally gave them all the powers and eloquence of earth; amongst which were pre-eminent, an intuitive knowledge, and an infallible use of every tongue then spoken by their auditors. And last, though not least, he created a host of inspired translators, to give a living form, in all the languages of earth, to the sublime conceptions and wonderful developments of Almighty love, in rescuing man from eternal death. Thus are we, step by step, led to that special topic now before us, indicated in our theme, viz. "The interpretation of tongues." Be it, then, emphatically observed, that while there are diversities of gifts, there is but one and the same Spirit; and while there are diversities of administrations, there is but one and the same Lord; and while there are diversities of operations, it is one God that worketh all these by all persons. Here, then, are beautifully simplified the offices of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in the sublime drama of man's redemption, so far as the subject of spiritual gifts is discussed by our great Apostle to the nations of earth. All the operations are of the Father, as the original cause. All administrations are by the Lord, as the dispensing cause. All impartations are by the Holy Spirit, as the immediate efficient cause. The Roman adage is forcibly developed here Facit does himself what his agent does. God the Father works all through the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus administers all by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit effects all by the immediate inspiration of the Apostles and the Apostles consummate all by the Word which endureth for ever." And to this Word was given a local habitation in the Greek originals of the volume now lying upon our tables. Our immediate duty, privilege, and honor, is, therefore, most obvious. We are first to understand it ourselves, and then endeavour to make others understand it. But have we a true and faithful translation of it in our own vernacular? All Christians admit we have not, as their hundreds of commentaries, and their thousands of marginal readings and translations, satisfactorily attest. There are false translations, mistranslations, and defective translations, in the judgment of all denominations in Christendom. There are false translations, such as give a wrong meaning; mistranslations, which give an indefinite or unprecise meaning; and there are defective translations, which only give a part of the meaning, or that do not fully express the whole mind of the Spirit. Of each of these we shall give an example. Jesus is made to say, (John v. 37,) "The Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape." In this version there is a flat contradiction of the Saviour's assertion. The Father, he affirms, has borne witness to me; and yet he is made to say, "You have neither heard him, nor seen him bear witness to me!" This is not more inconsistent with the argument, than should I affirm that a certain person present had attested my orthodoxy, and yet, on calling him to appear as witness before you, he arises and says, “1 have never before heard this person speak, nor have I at any time before seen him." In such a case, would you not say that I had failed to redeem my pledge? But when we contextually translate these words, the argument is obvious and unobjectionable. It is this: "My Father has attested me. Did you not hear his voice?" When he said, at my baptism, "This is my beloved Son;" did you not see his symbol, or a form" of his presence, when the Holy Spirit, in the appearance of a dove descending from heaven, perched itself upon my head? This is a grammatical and rational rendering of the passage, making the context suggest the punctuation—a rule which, on many occasions, the most learned translators are obliged to follow. 66 There are, also, mistranslations—such as the selection of an inapposite meaning of a word instead of one apposite to the case, giving a loose and indefinite expression, instead of one that gives the precise translation of the passage. This may be fully illustrated from many passages taken from any one of the Evangelists. We shall confine ourselves to the first of the four. Matthew xxiii. 23, "The weightier matters of the law-judgment, mercy, and faith." Neither "judgment" nor "faith," in their established usages, was, at this time, in our Saviour's eye, nor necessarily in his language. We care not, |