go EUROPEAN FEMALES. 193 converts and female children in the schools; of the example which they set before all, as wives and mothers and friends, bringing up their children for God, and diffusing peace and happiness around; how do they add to the universal and to the individual influence which is exercised over European society, and promote the general good which must hand in hand with the conversion of the heathen, and which must have an important bearing upon the prosperity of Hindosthan. On other grounds, I could prove that it is reasonable, expedient, useful, and scriptural; the system of celibacy is too much in accordance with Popery and its priests, and has given rise to many evils disgraceful to the cause of Christ; and as the unmarried are not so highly respected, among the heathen, as the married, it is desirable and necessary that the institution* should be honoured; and that missionaries, in every relation of life, should be examples of all that is pure, lovely and of good report. It is not uncommon for a heathen when he hears that the missionary is unmarried to ask if he is a Catholic. CHAPTER XII. ON TRANSLATIONS AND ORIGINAL WORKS IN THE VERNACULAR TONGUES. THE REFORMATION FROM POPERY-THE LATIN LANGUAGE-BISHOP GARDINER-THE EXERTIONS OF THE REFORMERS-VIEWS OF THE FIRST MISSIONARIES-TRANSLATION OF THE SCRIPTURESOBJECTIONS MADE BY OPPONENTS-THE MADRAS BIBLE SOCIETY -BIBLE THEOLOGY THE USE WHICH THE NATIVE CHRISTIANS MAKE OF SCRIPTURE-THE DISTRIBUTION OF TRACTS AMONG THE PEOPLE-THEOLOGY ADDRESSED TO HINDOOS. THE liberty of the press, associated with the dissemination of truth, affords the greatest promise to future exertions. At the revival of literature in Europe, and at the time of the Reformation, nothing had a greater influence in the changes which took place, than the invention of printing and the labours of the press. From the days From the days of the apostles when every man was permitted to hear in his own tongue the wonderful works of God, to the period when Luther and his coadjutors burst asunder the shackles of an ecclesiastical despotism, the use of the Latina dead language-had shut up the stores of learning and of theology from the mass of the people. “ During the sixteenth century, and in the reign of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, a person who did not read Greek and Latin, could read nothing or next to nothing. The Italian was the only modern language which possessed any thing that could be called a literature. All the valuable books then extant in all the vernacular dialects of Europe, would hardly have filled a single shelf."* Latin was every thing. The mass was performed in Latin; the prayers were read in Latin; sermons were delivered in Latin; conversations between the great and the learned were carried on in Latin; and lectures on subjects of interest, and books of every description were written in Latin. Whatever was delivered in the vernacular tongues was thought to be worthless, vulgar, illiterate and contemptible. In a word, the same method was adopted to support the reigning superstition, which has sustained every other idolatrous system, and which exists to this day in the mythology of China, and of Hindosthanthere was a language which was sacred and another which was profane-a language in which theology and literature and science were wrapt up in mystery, and another that was suited to the common people and to the usual engagements of life-a language through the medium of which alone God ought to be worshipped, and men ought to be prayed for, and another in which it would be a deadly sin to • Edinburgh Review, cxxxii. p. 10. CHAPTER XII. ON TRANSLATIONS AND ORIGINAL WORKS IN THE VERNACULAR TONGUES. THE REFORMATION FROM POPERY-THE LATIN LANGUAGE-BISHOP GARDINER-THE EXERTIONS OF THE REFORMERS-VIEWS OF THE FIRST MISSIONARIES-TRANSLATION OF THE SCRIPTURESOBJECTIONS MADE BY OPPONENTS-THE MADRAS BIBLE SOCIETY -BIBLE THEOLOGY—THE USE WHICH THE NATIVE CHRISTIANS MAKE OF SCRIPTURE-THE DISTRIBUTION OF TRACTS AMONG THE PEOPLE-THEOLOGY ADDressed TO HINDOOS. THE liberty of the press, associated with the dissemination of truth, affords the greatest promise to future exertions. At the revival of literature in Europe, and at the time of the Reformation, nothing had a greater influence in the changes which took place, than the invention of printing and the labours of the press. From the days of the apostles when every man was permitted to hear in his own tongue the wonderful works of God, to the period when Luther and his coadjutors burst asunder the shackles of an ecclesiastical despotism, the use of the Latina dead language—had shut up the stores of learning and of theology from the mass of the people. During the sixteenth century, and in the reign of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, a person who did not read Greek and Latin, could read nothing or next to nothing. The Italian was the only modern language which possessed any thing that could be called a literature. All the valuable books then extant in all the vernacular dialects of Europe, would hardly have filled a single shelf."* Latin was every thing. The mass was performed in Latin; the prayers were read in Latin; sermons were delivered in Latin; conversations between the great and the learned were carried on in Latin; and lectures on subjects of interest, and books of every description were written in Latin. Whatever was delivered in the vernacular tongues was thought to be worthless, vulgar, illiterate and contemptible. In a word, the same method was adopted to support the reigning superstition, which has sustained every other idolatrous system, and which exists to this day in the mythology of China, and of Hindosthanthere was a language which was sacred and another which was profane-a language in which theology and literature and science were wrapt up in mystery, and another that was suited to the common people and to the usual engagements of life-a language through the medium of which alone God ought to be worshipped, and men ought to be prayed for, and another in which it would be a deadly sin to Edinburgh Review, exxxii. p. 10. |