on his heart, the wisdom of the wisest who do not act on that system, will be confounded before him." He next adverted to the happy situation of this highly favored country-favored indeed in the enjoyment of many blessings to which other countries had long been strangers, "but let us not," he said, "exult in our happiness as if it were the result of our own wisdom; let us bless God as a nation, as we do bless God as individuals; let us not approach the throne of grace in self approbation, but remember that we owe our superiority to the blessing of God through the propagation of the Gospel: let us recollect that the best of men, and the most pious of nations, if it could be so said of ours, after all fall short of what they ought to be, and have more ground for humiliation than applause. The language most becoming to us will be "God be merciful to me, a sinner."

He proceeded to allude to what had fallen from another gentleman, as to that solemn feast of Pentecost, when we are told, that, by a particular inspiration of Divine Grace, the power of language was given to the Apos. tles, and every one heard them speak in his own tongue. He was himself impressed with this before it had fallen from the lips of another, and had said to himself, "How happens it that in this joyful assembly, without prejudice, without contention, every sect should find itself addressed in its own language, whether as members

of the Church of England, or classed among the various descriptions of Protestant Dissenters-how find we this whole assembly of one accord, and one mind?-Why, because this day we felt and understood the true principles of the Christian faith." He believed that the blessing of God was upou them; that from that day forth arose the strong hope that all animosities on the subject of religious opinion would be done away, though he believed that a difference of opin ion, on points where the great foun. dation of faith was the same, may have been permitted by God, for preserving alive a zealous spirit to inves tigate the doctrines contained in the holy Scriptures.

A sum of £500 was collected in donations and annual subscriptions, on this interesting occasion.

ORDINATIONS.

ORDAINED, at Lanesborough, on the 8th of June, the Rev. JoHN DE WITT, as colleague with the Rev. Daniel Collins. Sermon from 1 Cor. iv, 2.

At Greenwich, (Mass.) the Rev. EZEKIEL RICH, as an evangelist.

At East Bloomfield, (N. Y.) the Rev. DARIUS O. GRISWOLD.

At Geneva, (N. Y.) the Rev. Mr AXTELL.

At Deerfield, (N. H.) "the Rev. NATHANIEL WELLS. Sermon from 2 Cor. iv, 5.

VOLCANOS.

IN our numbers for March and December, 1811, mention was made of earthquakes at St. Michael's, one of the Azores.

On the 16th of June in that yead, a violent eruption of smoke and flame was observed to burst from the surface of the water about two miles to the westward of St. Michael's. The eruption continued to increase till the 18th, when the crater of a volcano

began to appear above the water, where the soundngs had before been 240 feet. On the 20th the new island was a mile long, and 150 feet high. By the fourth of July, it had risen to between 200 and 300 feet in height. It contained a basin of boiling water, which discharged a continual stream into the sea.

An eruption of the volcanic moun. tain in the island of St. Vincents, (mount Souffriere) took place on the

4th of May last. Huge stones, and spouts of fire were thrown from the mountain with increasing violence for three days. Torrents of burning lava descended from the sides of the mountain, and destroyed every thing valuable for a considerable distance. The vivid brightness of the flames much resembled the lightning of a tempest. Large rocks were split off from the mountain, and fell upon the vallies with tremendous desolation. Violent shocks of earthquake were experienced, and the noise resembled a mixed sound, made up of the raging of a tempest, the roaring of a troubled sea, and the bursting of thunder.

NEW WORKS.

A Sermon delivered at the Inaugu. ration of the Rev. Ebenezer Porter, A. M. to the office of Bartlet Professor of Sacred Rhetoric in the Thelogical Institution at Andover, April 1, 1812. By Abiel Holmes D. D. Minister of the First church in Cambridge. Boston; S. T. Armstrong.

An Address delivered June 24, 1812, at the funeral of Mrs. Sarah Cumming, consort of the Rev. Hooper Cumming, Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Newark,

(N. J.) By James Richards, A. M. Pastor of the first Church. New York; Whiting and Watson. A second edition. Boston; S T. Armstrong.

A Sermon, delivered at Charlestown July 28, 1812, the day appointed by the Governor and Council of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to be kept, as a public Fast, through out the Commonwealth, in consequence of the Declaration of War against Great Britain. By Jedidiah Morse, D.D. Samuel Etheridge jun. Charlestown.

Calamity, Danger, and Hope: a Sermon preached at the Tabernacle in Salem, July 23, 1812, the day of the Public Fast in Massachusetts, on account of the war with Great Britain. By Samuel Worcester, D.D. Salem; Joshua Cushing.

A dispassionate inquiry into the reasons alleged by Mr. Madison for declaring an offensive, and ruinous war against Great Britain. Togeth

er with some suggestions as to a peaceable and constitutional mode of averting that dreadful calamity. By a New England Farmer. Two edi tions. Boston; Russell and Cutler,

An Address delivered before the Washington Benevolent Society, at Portsmouth, July 4, 1812. By Daniel Webster. Portsmouth, (Ñ. H.) William Treadwell.

An earnest caution against suicide, Boston; Joshua Belcher, 1812.

NEW EDITIONS.

THE sixth edition of Dr. Morse's Geography, arranged on a new plan, and improved in every part by a laborious examination of most of the late respectable voyages and travels, in Europe and Asia, by free use of the information in the abridgment of Pinkerton's excellent Geography, and by the late admirable Statistical Ta bles of Hassel. This edition is greatly altered as to matter and plan, in consequence of the great changes which have taken place in the world, and the great advancement of geographical knowledge. Unimportant matter has been omitted or abridged, and yet the additions have increased the size of the work about 200 pages.

At the close are added an abridg ment of the last census of the United States, a Chronological Table of remarkable events from the creation to the present time, an improved list of ancient and modern eminent men, and a copious index to the whole work.

Baxter's call to the uncontroverted. Salem; Henry Whipple, 1812.

Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the Uuited States; with an abstract of his last will and testament. To which is prefixed a portrait of the Author, and a comprehensive sketch of his life and character. Salem; Henry Whipple.

DR. BUCHANAN.

A LETTER from the Rev. Dr. Bu chanan to a gentleman in Boston, dated May 30, 1812, contains the fol lowing sentence: "My weak state of health forbids me to think of visiting Palestine at present."

VOL. V.

No. 4.

EVANGELICAL

EXERTIONS IN

ASIA.

No. IV.

Containing a condensed history of modern Translations of the Scriptures into the Languages of Eastern Asia.

THE Tamul Bible, the first edition of the Scriptures that was published in the East, was com

pleted at Tranquebar in 1719, by Ziegenbalg, the first Danish Missionary, after the labor of fourteen years; and has since passed through "a succession of improved editions." From the Tranquebar press issued subsequently, the Book of Psalms in the Hindostanee language and Though the Dutch obtained an establishment

Arabic character.

in the Indian seas a century before the Danish Mission commenced, they were later in their attempts to put the Word of God into the hands of the natives. The Malay Bible was published in the Arabic character at Batavia, in 1758, under the direction of Jacob Mossel, Governor General of the Dutch possessions in the East Indies. The whole of the New Testament, and three books of the Old, were also translated into the language of Ceylon, VOL. V. New Series.

and the greater part or the whole of the New Testament into the Chinese, a copy of which was pre served in the British Museum. This appears to have been all that had been done in modern tion to Asia before the com times to give a written Revela mencement of those exertions which have distinguished the present age.*

In undertaking a version of the Scriptures into the Indian tongue, the translators had not to acquire as many distinct languages as there are names in their accounts. Those names in general denote only different dialects derived from one common root, and bearing a strong affinity to each other, so that when one known a knowledge of the rest was easily acquired. Sir William Jones supposed that all the lan guages of Asia might be traced to three roots, the Arabian, the

was

Indian or Shanscrit, and the Tara

tar.

The Shanscrit, there is no doubt, was anciently spoken over very extensive regions, and be came a dead language from the desire of the Brahmins to lock up their sacred Writings from the

common people. The vernacular languages of Hindostan are only the provincial dialects into which the primeval tongue gradually degenerated, after the people were forbidden to read the Shanscrit books; and they bear much the same relation to that original language that the Italian bears to the Latin. The Shanscrit is the immediate parent of the Hindostanee, the Bengalce, Mahratta, Orissa, Telinga, Carnata, Guzerattee, Tamul, &c. the meaning of four words out of five of them all being at once suggest ed by a knowledge of the primitive tongue. It is the parent also of the Pali, the language in which literature and science are preserved and the rites of religion celebrated in India beyond the Ganges; and of the language of Java, into which the Brahminical religion was early introduced; and of one of the three component parts of the Malay tongue; and, through the ancient Zend, of the modern Persic, (though this by others is considered the offspring of the Arabic;) in a word, of almost every language from Arabia to China. Of course there is a great affinity between these several dialects; as for instance, between the Bengalee, Orissa, and Cingalesc; between the Telinga, Tamul, Canara, and Carnata. With a knowledge of the Hindostanee alone, which is called "the grand popular language of Hindostan,' one may he understood over almost all that country. This language, though it "pervades Hindostan generally," is chiefly spoken in Bengal, and to the West as far at least as Delhi. From Bengal to Delhi it is the current language.*

B. P. A. vol. i, p. 79 note, S48.

In the province of Bengal, be sides the Shanscrit, three distinct languages are used, though not with equal currency; viz. the Bengalee, the Persian, (which came in with the Mogul conquerors, and is properly the lan guage of the Moors,) and the Hindostanee. The latter is called by Dr. Buchanan one of the primary languages of Asia, and in the opinion of Halhed, was for many ages spoken through all Hindostan; but Dr. Carey, after being in India a year, pronounced it nothing but a jargon mixture of Bengalee and Persian. It varies much in its dialects, and in some of them is indeed mixed with other languages. The Bengalee is spoken by the Brahmins, and the caesto cast, called the coits; and is the sole channel of epistolary communication among the Hindoos of that province. As their accounts are kept, and their business transacted in no other language, it is sometimes called "the commercial Bengalee.” The Persian and "colloquial Hindostanee" are used by the Moors, the former by people of rank. The lower class of the Hindoos, the mass of the people, understand only "the colloquial Hindostanee," which sometimes seems to be spoken of by Mr. Carey as a debased dialect of the Bengalee, but at other times is declared by him to be a confused mixture of Hindostanee, Bengalee, Persian, Armenian, Portuguese, and English, consisting of very few words worked about to mean almost any thing, and varying in dialect every ten or twelve

Q. R. No. 1, p. 46-48. Ed. R. No. 32. p. 391-396. Pan vol. vi, p. 36, 37. Ch. Res. p. 154, 155 note, 200.. Star in E. p. 15.