1566. The edition published in 1562, having been sold, a new one now appeared.

1568. A new translation, promoted by Archbishop Parker, came out, called the Great English Bible," and sometimes "the Bishops' Bible."

1572. The above edition was again reprinted, and called "the Holy Bible," and had the distinction of being divided into verses, which was the work of different bishops.

1584. The Papists now discovering that it was impossible to prevent the circulation of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, printed a copy at Rheims, and called it "the Rhemish Testament."

Quest. Could God make more worlds than one?Ans. Yes: for he is Almighty, and hee made it not of any matter: for that should have bin exhausted: but more he would not, because hee being one, delights in unitie.

Quest. Why in Hebrew saith Moses, Gods created, joining the noune plurall, with the verbe singular? Ans. To signify the mystery of the Trinitie, one essence in three persons. It is the property of the Hebrew phrase.

Quest. Why in the beginning of this booke, speaketh Moses only of heaven and earth? Ans. Because by the name of heaven, he comprehends all celestial bodies, and by the name of earth the elements: for water is in the earth, and fire and aire, as witnesse the springs and exhalations, in earthquakes, and burning mountains, or hote waters.

1603 to 1610. The last and best English translation of the Bible was that occasioned by the conference at Hampton Court, in 1603. At this meeting many objections were made to the "Bishops' Bible," when, after due deliberation, it was recommended to have Quest. Did God create the earth moveable or not? a new translation. King James accordingly issued Ans. Immoveable. Job 38. Psal. 39, and 104; this is an order to prepare one. "Not for a translation alto-understood, in respect of the whole earth: yet it moved gether new, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one; but to make a good one better, or of many good ones, one best." In 1604, fifty-four learned persons were appointed to this most important task; but they did not commence until 1607, when the number were reduced, by deaths, to forty-seven. Notwithstanding this diminution in their number, they completed their work in three years, and dedicated it to King James.

After this edition was published, the other translations dropped by degrees, and this became generally adopted. True, it was published by authority, but there was neither canon, proclamation, nor act of parliament to enforce the use of it. Selden, in speaking of this translation, says, "the translators in King James's time took an excellent way. That part of the Bible being given to him who was most excellent in such a tongue, and then they met together, and one read the translation, the rest holding in their hands some Bible, either of the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, &c. If any found fault they spoke; if not, they read on."

ANTIQUATED EXPOSITION.

Extract from an Antiquated Frposition on the Fourteen first Chapters of Genesis, by way of Questions and Answers, by Abraham Ross, of Aberdeen, bearing date 1626, and dedicated to Lord Verulam, Lord High Chancellor of England.

ON CREATION.

Quest. Was the world created, or eternal? Ans. Created. 1. There can bee but one eternal. 2. Almost all the Philosophers are against the eternitie of the world. 3. They that hold it eternal, can bring no sound reason. 4. The most ancient monuments of records amongst the heathen, are not so old as the Flood of Noah.

in respect of parts, by earthquakes, Job 9.
Quest. Of what figure is the earth? Ans. Round,
this figure is most perfect, capable, ancient.

Ans.

Quest. Is the earth vnder the water or not? Vnder, because heaviest : yet Exod. 20. Psal. 24, and 136, it seems the water is vader the earth; but it is to be vnderstood, that a great part of the earth was made higher than the waters, for man's habitation.

Quest. Why cannot the whole earth move? Ans. Because hee is in his naturall state, which if it should move, it should ascend: and this is against the nature of the earth.

ON THE SERPENT.

Quest. What is meant by the Serpent? Ans. Not the diuell: for so these words should be metaphorically vnderstood; but this is a misterie, and no allegory: nor the image of a Serpent, for it was not a picture, but a real Serpent that was cursed, neither was it a naturall Serpent that did speake: for speech and reasoning alone naturally belong to men, not to beasts: for they neither have reasonable soules, nor the instruments of speech: but it was the deuill that spake in the Serpent, vsing the same as his instrument to deceive. So then, there was, both a Serpent, which is proved both by the speech of Moses, and the punishment inflicted on the Serpent; and besides, the diuell, which is knowne both by his speech and reasoning with Eua, as also by the testimonie of Christ, calling the deuil a man-slayer from the beiginning, John 8.

Quest. Why was the diuell so carnest to tempt Eue? Ans. Because he hated God, and would not have man to glorifie, but to anger him; because of his pride and enuy; for he could not abide that man should be in such happiness, himself being in misery. Quest. Why did Adam eat this fruit? Ans. Partly through the instigation of his wife; partly through curiosity, desir ing to try what kind of fruit this should be, which God did prohibit. Quest. Was the sin of Adam and Eua the greatest sinne that ever was committed? Ans. If we do consider one sinne with another, then wee say, that Adam's sinne was not the greatest, for the sin against the Holy Ghost is greater; but if we re

Books!" exclaimed the host, opening his eyes | Art of War;" the other, a little squat, Dutch-built with amazement as he spoke Sapperment! if you volume, a dictionary of the German language: unforneed good treatment for yourself, and good stabling tunately not even my ennui could give me a relish for your beast, you need not go farther than the sign for the stout warrior's tactics, or give me a desire to of the Golden Eagle; but, as for books! you must go conn over the Lexicon, so that I was on the point of to Gottingen if you want books." resigning myself to my fate, when, on casting my eyes again to the shelves, my attention was arrested by what appeared to me some papers bound round with a leathern thong.

"And pray," I replied, "what am I to do with myself, in this inn of yours, till bed-time; for, as to stirring out while this confounded rain is pouring down, it is out of the question."

64

"Der Teufel!" ejaculated my landlord, with all that bluntness of manner which still characterizes some of the German hosts. You have got a bottle of my choicest hock, better was never tasted in all Germany-a ham from one of our primest boars, and a warm hearth to sit by-there is no great hardship, I should think, in passing away a few hours in my best room, when you have all these by your side."

I requested to see them. My host took them down, but shook his head, as he laid them on the table, remarking, that they did not belong to him, but to his confessor, who, being obliged to leave Oberwessel for some time, had consigned them to his care, with a strict injunction not to pry into the contents, as they contained some unholy tale not fit to meet the eye of a good Catholic; here the landlord crossed himself devoutly. My curiosity was now excited, and like a Here was a situation for a man of restless tempera- true son of Eve, I secretly determined to have a peep ment! A dull, dirty room, in an old tumble-down at the forbidden scroll; opportunity soon favored my hostel, without even the usual redeeming point of a intention, for the host shortly after quitted the room, plump and pretty landlady, within doors; while with- though not before he had carefully replaced the roll out, descended a tremendous rain, deluging the streets upon the shelves. He was no sooner gone, than I of Oberwessel, and making every kennel like the locked the door, to prevent sudden intrusion, and channel of some mountain stream. I had already been again abstracted it from its hiding-place; the strap detained two days within the town, by the stormy which confined it was soon undone, but the task of state of the weather, and felt my situation grow more decyphering the writing on the parchment was one irksome every instant; but the idea of passing a third of no little difficulty, time and damp having, in some within the walls of the Golden Eagle, without the places, wholly obliterated it. Besides this, I had to chance of extracting an answer from any one, save my contend with the singular and obsolete wording which heavy-eyed, peevish host, made me heartily consign pervaded the whole, rendering it at times, almost untown, rain, inn, host, and last not least, my rambling intelligible; however, the spice of the antiquary within propensities, most irrecoverably to the devil! Theme, prompted me to pursue my labors, in the hope third day dawned-dawned, did I say? No, I mistake; of finding something which might throw a light on the old German clock certainly proclaimed the hour of day-break, but day-light I saw none, unless the thick yellow mist, seemingly possessed of tangible properties, which I beheld from my window, might be called by that name. At all events, I was aware that I had another period of twenty-four hours of insupportable dullness to endure. But let time wave his wings ever so slowly, still they are moved; in a word, noon passed, and evening approached. I grew desperate, and asked for the loan of some mental food, to accompany the viands spread for my supper on the table. The reader has scen the repulse I met with; still I was not to be defeated. "But pray, what are those volumes ?" I replied, pointing to a range of shelves above me, on which reposed two dusty books, amidst an incongruous collection of culinary utensils.

Mynheer is welcome to look," said the landlord, at the same time reaching the books down from their resting place. I shrugged my shoulders as I glanced at them-the title of one was, "Marshal Saxe on the

the customs and manners of the olden times, to which, judging by its mouldering condition, and the beforementioned singularity of idiom, it evidently belonged. For the story, I could make little of it, save that it appeared to be a record of crime interspersed with the ravings of a frenzied maniac. On the first page was inscribed, in rather larger letters than the rest of the writing:-"To Hirgald, now Abbess of the Black Nuns;" on the second, the manuscript commenced as follows:

"I am dying! the cold death-drop is on my brow, and every rush of the burning blood through my veins, hurls me onward to the grave. Yes, Hir. gald! long, long, ere this scroll of crime meets thine eye, I shall be no more. The hand which traces these lines is now ringed by the cold red worm-the slime of the foul eft is on my cheek, and the very air that I gasp for, is the poisonous vapor of my dungeon; yet I reck not this, it is a sister's blood that weighs on my brain, like molten lead, burning, maddening

Hirgald! dost thou remember the young, | I was still within my chamber. The evening breeze
waved the tendrils of the ivy that clung around the
casement, at which I sat; but it cooled not the fever
of discontent which burnt beneath my bosom. Sud-
denly the sound of my name, uttered in a low whis
per, fell softly on my ear, and shortly after, a voice,
replete with melody, breathed forth a romaunt of the
troubadours of France. The subject of the lay was
the praise of beauty, and as I listened, I heard my
name again mentioned in the course of the song.
Trembling with curiosity and agitation, I bent forward
from the lattice to discover the unseen minstrel, and,
almost shrouded from my view by the shadow of the
turret, against which he leaned, I beheld the figure
of an armed man, standing on the range of ramparts
beneath. The voice ceased, and the figure, stepping
forward from the shade of the tower, presented itself
directly before me. The armor of the unknown glit-
tered brightly in the beams of the rising moon, and I
could perceive that he carried, slung around his neck,
a small lute, and bore in his right hand a tilting spear.
This, and the golden spurs, gleaming on the heels of
his steel shoes, evinced the stranger to be one of the
knights who had been engaged in the tournament. I
was rising to leave the casement, but the unknown
made an earnest gesture of entreaty for me to stay; at
the same time affixing something to the point of his
lance, which he raised to a level with the lattice.
The moon's ray now shone full upon the countenance
of the stranger; it was a face, Hirgald, that, once
seen, could never be banished from the memory of the
beholder. It was beautiful! Oh, how beautiful!
And yet, as I gazed, a strange, an indefinable sensation
seemed to thrill through my veins. I was fascinated,
yet I shuddered as I looked. The knight still kept
his lance resting against the base of the casement, and
I now perceived that a small billet was attached to
the point of the spear, which, from the signs he made,
I saw he wished me to remove. I hesitated an instant,
then stooped and lifted the letter from the weapon. I
had no sooner done this, than the warrior lowered his
spear, and, bowing till the snowy plumes of his hel-
met mingled with the white scarf, twined over his
hauberk, disappeared from my sight, amidst the sha-
dow of the surrounding turrets. For some time I sat
motionless, hardly drawing a breath, till the last clank
of the unknown's mailed footsteps ceased to strike
upon my ear. At length all was silent, save the dis-
tant sound of the revelry and wassail, which broke
upon the stillness of the night, mingling with the
sullen dash of the Rhine against the walls of the
castle. The billet of the stranger still rested unopened
in my hand, or I should have believed all that had
passed to have been the wild creation of a heated
brain; but a glance at the letter convinced me of its
reality, and, hastily tearing away the silk which con-
fined the vellum,* I cast my eyes over its contents..

the innocent being you once loved, when hope was
in her heart, and joy in her eye? Then Bertha, of
Odenstein was happy, but when thou, friend of my
youth, departed from my father's halls, a sudden-a
fearful change came over me. Soon after, as thou
knowest, the grave closed on my angel mother. Oh,
Hirgald! how that mother loved me, how-but I must
not wander. She died, and I was left alone, mother-
less, friendless. I felt, I knew, that my father loved
me not-Marguerite, my sister Marguerite, was his
darling, while I, his youngest born-his motherless
youngest born, neglected and despised, became the
scorn of the vassals of my house, and the very serfs
bent not the knee, nor vailed the cap as I passed. I
would have reposed my sorrows on the breast of my
sister; but she, too, repulsed the overflowings of my
heart; I would have loved her, Hirgald, but she
shrank from my affection, all—all seemed to hate and
forsake me. Oh, Hirgald, did I deserve this?-Was
I misshapen in my form! that my father should have
held me as if I were some vile, foul thing, unworthy
of the name of woman? Did I ever fail in my duty
to him, that he should have lavished all his love on
my sister, while he banished me wholly from his
heart? But it was so; then came the withering feel-
ing on my soul, as if the fiend despair had cast the
shadow of his foul pinions on my heart, blighting and
desolating all the good thou hadst striven to impress
upon me; I shunned both cloister and banquet, and
the gloom of the wild forest, when the night-blast was
howling through its glades, was more pleasing to me
than the festal dance, or the lighted hall; it was at
this time that my father held a high festival at Oden-
stein, in honor of my sister's birth-day; she had at-
tained her twenty-first year; the fame of Marguerite's
beauty had spread far and near, and prince and baron,
knight and esquire, flocked from all parts to behold
the heiress of the broad lands of Odenstein. It was
on the third day of the festival, I was alone in my
chamber, which overlooked the gay tourney held in
the court-yard below; but I heeded not the glittering
scene before me; the clangor of the trumpets, and the
shouts of the heralds, fell alike unnoticed on my ear.
The burning tear of wounded pride was on my cheek,
and my hot brow was throbbing with the fierce emo-
tions of my heart.

"Marguerite, the haughty Marguerite, the queen of the gorgeous revel, knew not the being she treated with contempt; whom, (even now my hand trembles with rage as I write,) she had-had forbidden, ay, forbidden to appear within the lists. She knew me not, I say; she knew not that beneath the outward show of timidity and reserve, I concealed a spirit even prouder than her own: that passions slept within my breast, which, once roused, were fierce and ungovernable, as the mighty Rhine, when its swollen waters are rushing past the walls of Odenstein. Ilirgald, she would not let me love her, and, at length, I felt that I hated her-ay, that day I knew I hated her with a horrible, a deadly hate * The tourney had been long over, the neighing of the coursers, and the war-cries of the knights, were heard no more; yet

* Although I have found it necessary to modernize greatly the idiom of the manuscript, there were many little illustrations of the customs of by-gone days interspersed, which, I thought might add, in some degree, to the interest of the tale; these, therefore, I have left unaltered. However, I may, perhaps, ven

Oh! that I had cast the accursed scroll into the moat | in the secret silence of my chamber, when he was below; better, far better, would it have been had breathing the vows of passion in my ear; but when blindness struck me, ere I gazed on its fatal charac- I saw him riding to the hunt, guiding the rein of ters. And yet, Hirgald, with what rapture, with what my sister's palfrey to the glades of the forest, talkecstasy of pleasure did I peruse the lines traced upon ing with her, smiling with her-hell, hell, seemed its folds. I, Hirgald, I! the desolate, the scorned, the within my breast, and I hated Marguerite more and forsaken, was addressed in the language of respect, more." of love! Oh! how my heart bounded with delight to know that there was one being, who did not hold me in contempt, and that being so beautiful, nay, even so godlike, in his form. I laughed, I sang, till I sank exhausted, with the delirium of my joy, on my couch.

*

*

A few lines were here also erased, but I was enabled to pursue the thread of the story:—the writing was again visible as follows:

"The sun had sunk, and I was still standing on that grassy hill, Hirgald, where you and I have often sat together in the happy days of my childhood-you watching the glorious pageantry of the setting sun, and I twining chaplets of the wild flowers for your dark tresses. It was on this hallowed spot that I stood

listening to the swell of the distant organ and the choral chaunt of the vesper hymn, which came boom

"I have been with you,' were the words of the writer, in your solitary walks-I have watched the glimmer of the taper in your lonely turret, when you dreamed not of my presence. This, and this only, must plead for my present intrusion on your privacy, which, to you, I am fearful, must appear both sudden and presumptuous. Let your own beauty also pleading across the valley from the convent, on which we for me that beauty which (though I lowered my victorious lance before the throne of the lady Marguerite) alone possessed the homage of the heart of

"CONRAD WOLFSTEIN.'

"Wolfstein! Wolfstein! yes, yes! it was, indeed, the name that I had heard proclaimed by pursuivant and herald, as the victor in the tilt. The tourney had passed before almost unnoticed on my eye and ear; but now I remembered all-the pawing steeds, the glittering mail, the nodding plumes, gonfalon and pennon, all was again before me. Yes, it was that form whom I had seen hurl knight after knight from his saddle, till the air rang from barrier to barrier with the applause of the spectators; him, whom I had just seen bending before me, low as a pilgrim at a holy shrine. Holy! did I say! What?-what have I to do with aught that is holy? I that I have no hope either in this world or in the eternity to come: I, the cursed, the--"

have so often gazed. The wild, fierce thoughts which

had filled my mind since my first interview with Wolfstein, gradually gave place to a gentle, soothing calm, and I thought of the days of my innocence; I thought on my angel mother, and it seemed as if her voice was mingled with the hymn of praise-as if her spirit was watching over her degraded and guilty child. My heart was softened, and I felt that I could forgive my sister all the injuries she had heaped upon me-nay, that I could even see her become the bride of-of him! him who had wronged me irreparably, and not call down a curse upon her head Just then

a footstep sounded behind me; I turned and beheld my father. He did not pass me, but, pausing by my side, he took my hand, and gazed earnestly on my pale cheek;-for an instant, the stern look, which I

was accustomed to meet from him, faded from his face, and shading back the hair from my forehead, he asked- Bertha, are you ill? Those four little words, how they thrilled through me! They were the first words of kindness I had heard from him for years. I could not answer him; I was too happy; but flung myself on his breast and wept. My tears did not fall vainly; for my father pressed me closer to his bosom, and half led, half supported me from the spot. Oh! then, then, how I loved him. We had just reached the foot of the hill when I raised my head from my father's neck, and looked up. Oh, God! what a form was there standing between us and the moonbeam. The form, the dress, was that of Wolfstein, as when I first beheld him on the ramparts; but the face!-a glance at that, seemed to scorch my eye balls to their inmost core; it was not of earth, it was the visage, Hirgald, of a fiend! wearing a smile of horrible mockery

"The festival was over, the revelry had ceased, the banquet-hall no longer resounded with the carousing of the guests; they had all departed from the castle save him-him, the adored, the worshipped on its detestable features. I gazed but for an instantof my heart. I was no longer the miserable, grief- the air seemed to grow dark and hot around me, and stricken being who pined in solitude a few short felt as if it pressed heavy on my breast-my tongue weeks before I had now something to love, some-clove to the roof of my mouth, and I sank senseless at thing to live for, and I was happy. Yes, Hirgald! my father's feet. When I recovered my recollection, I was happy, but it was when he was by my side, ture to explain, without offending all my readers, that it was formerly the fashion to confine the envelopes of letters with silk.

my father stood over me with a sword gleaming in his hand, as if awaiting the attack of some unseen enemy; but the evil spirit was no longer there, the moonlight streamed brightly on the spot where it had