Harbinger, May 1, '65.

A GREAT DISCOVERY.

formed by excavating, he uses the term,
which represents the operation to express
the known effect of that operation, not-
withstanding that in the instances under
consideration the effect was not thus pro-
duced. Still, in the passage cited the word
excavate has its one and only meaning. It
is used figuratively, but its one meaning
is preserved. What the writer says is,
that the bone was cut out, though in reality
there was no cutting in the case. The
other illustration is from the Times news-
paper, and is most directly to the point, as
it relates to the word immersion. Just as
baptizo is sometimes used when the effects
of dipping are produced by other means,
and yet retains its own signification, so
with our word immerse. In every day
talk things are said to be immersed, or
plunged, or dipped, which are in the posi.
tion usually produced by immersion, but
which have not been immersed. The
case selected is from a report of the open-
ing of a new dock by the present Emperor
of the French. The Times alludes to it
thus-One of those cross accidents that
will spoil even imperial fêtes intervened
between preparation and execution. The
long-expected IMMERSION, as a spectacle,
was a total failure. The water was to

169

have been let into the excavation in a great
sudden rush through one of the two locks
that connect the inner basin with the
smaller ones between it and the sea. But
this was a failure. A subdued stream
crept in and spread itself almost impercep-
tibly over the space, and hence the disap-
pointment.' Observe the water was to
be let in with a sudden rush and fill the
dock as you would fill a cup by dipping it
into the sea. Because the dock when fill-
ed is in the state in which it would be
were it dipped into the sea, it is said to be
immersed, and that rushing in of the water
in which, properly speaking, there is no
immersion-is represented by the word
immerse. But note further, in the case
cited the writer refuses to apply to the
slow and partial filling of the dock the
term immersion. The expected immersion
was a total failure.' Did the water not
come in? It did flow in, but that 'great
sudden rush' which would warrant the re-
porter to speak of the dock as dipped in the
sea was not realized. Will any one say
that our word immerse means to pour?
Surely not. Yet it does so mean if baptizo
signify pouring, and in no other way can
any word of the bapto family be made to
look in that direction."
G. G.

A GREAT DISCOVERY-VISIBLE SPEECH.* WE are generally in the wrong direction with our suffrages and plaudits. The instruments of ruin and destruction are received and glorified with jubilant laudation. Some tremendous gun or withering and suffocating fire awakens stormy enthusiasm, and the trumpets are sounded loudly. But surely it is finer, and more in the path of true elevation, to welcome the instruments of civilization-the mechanism of progress and peaceful glory.

tried without satisfactory results. He has moved in a better direction by constructing symbols which represent all the possible sounds of articulate speech. I have said articulate speech, but the truth is, all sounds may be represented by his symbols-the hidden runlet with its quiet music, the rasping noise of the corn-crake, or the rush of the North wind among the mountain pines.

The greatest discovery in this line has been made by Professor Bell, the most philosophic elocutionist of our day, who has long been distinguished in Edinburgh by teaching elocution from a scientific basis. His present discovery is A UNIVERSAL ALPHABET. Such an invention has long been ardently desired by philologists and masters of social science, but the realization seemed a long way off. It is here in the midst of us, ready for appropriation. Mr. Bell has not completed his system by travelling the old road of collating all the languages. That path has been

* Hamilton, Adams, and Co. London.

That the reader may faintly realize the value of this social and moral engine let me say, "That the Scriptures may be written in any language or dialect, however rude and barbarous, that the illiterate may be taught to read the Bible in their own tongue in a very few weeks, and that the missionary could read with perfect certainty in accurate conveyance a language with which he himself was totally unacquainted."

The symbolical language discovered and perfected by Mr. Bell has been tested by all kinds of sounds, guttural, dental, and nasal, and by words uttered in all languages, and by keen men of all grades and professions. There can be no doubt of its reality, its simplicity, or its importance. I might just men

170

BIBLE UNION REVISION.

Harbinger, May 1, '65.

tion, in concluding this notice, that the ity divided, may we not regard it as at power and universal applicability of the least a prophetic indication of better symbols are found in this fact-the days when a universal language is signs are not arbitrary, not like our found? Something actually grown in own existing alphabets. Each symbol the midst of us which is not divisive has a precise physiological relation to a and scattering, but gathering and unigiven sound and the position of the or-fying; so that men of one blood, though gan of speech while employed in enunciation.

If it were a sign of degeneracy when language was confounded and human

of a thousand dialects, may rapidly and surely speak to each other the deep things of our common humanity.

G. G.

THE BIBLE UNION REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. THIS volume is now on hand. Recently we gave the strongest things said against it, and now find it requisite to do no more than give a sample from the other side. On the fifteenth versary, held in October last

of the Society. He concludes by saying that the present affords an auspicious and opportune time for the vigorous and successful prosecution of our work. By re anni-bellion, revolution, and war, God is tearing up the very foundation of wrong in our land: and is ploughing and preparing it for the reception of the 'incorruptible seed' of his kingdom-His pure word of truth. By his wonderful providences, he is redeeming an oppressed people from their bitter bondage; leading them through the Red Sea, and through a wilderness of trial and suffering to a flaming, thundering, and war-rocked Sinai, from whose fiery top he will proclaim to them, and to their oppres sors, too, his 'perfect Law of Liberty.' Reverently kneeling, Ethiopia, stretches out her hands to God, and by his providences he commands us to give to her the 'bread of life.'

"Brother Brewer, pastor of the Disciples' Church, New York, congratulated the Union upon the presentation of the complete revised New Testament to the friends and patrons of the Society. At former anniversaries we had received instalments of that great work; but now the Bible Union, like the angel of the Apocalypse, appears in our moral heavens with the full and everlasting Gospel, clad in the garments of a new beauty. The fifteenth anniversary brings with it a proclamation of emancipation, for the whole New Testament, from many errors that have obscured its brightness, and made it the slave of church and party.

tion, and furnished a large instalment, which may be used with advantage till that which is perfect is come. But Bible Union work is not to be meaevery one should remember that the

But, whatever Bro. Brewer may say He remarked that he deeply regretted to the contrary, there is cause for disthat there was among some of his brethren satisfaction. The Union has not given a feeling of disaffection toward the Union; what we had a right to expect, what for he felt that this would not be if they we hoped for, and what they had the understood the matter aright. In the first means to supply. Still they have corplace, there was no just ground for dissatis-rected very much that needed correcfaction; for the Union had always been faithful to the great principles, and plan of its organization, and had pushed forward its great work as rapidly as the means at its command would allow. In the second place, had the Union fallen into any errors in the prosecution of its work, these dis-sured by this one production. Its Ansatisfied brethren are taking the wrong nual Report, now before us, sayscourse to correct them. Instead of with drawing from the Society, and opening hostile batteries upon it, they should remain inside the organization, and there labor to remove any error or obstacle that might impede the great enterprise. Let the Union move grandly on in the noble work, and these elements of impatience and dissatisfaction will soon disappear; and the few who may now be alienated by mis. understanding and ignorant misrepresentation, will again become the firm friends

"It thrills our hearts with grateful emotions to contemplate the amount of Scriptures circulated by the Bible Union. În the report read at the May meeting, the aggregate, from the commencement of our labors, was stated to be more than 67,000.000 of pages of sacred Scriptures. For a Society which has been so closely devoted to the work of revising the English Scriptures, we regard this as an extent of distribution within fourteen years which the most sanguine projector of the

Harbinger, May 1, '65.

ANDERSON'S REVISION.

organization could hardly have anticipated. In connection with this, we think it proper here to repeat a part of the concluding portion of that report:

We see what has already been accomplished.

A Spanish version of the New Testament, unequalled in purity and elegance, approved and commended by the best Christian scholarship in that language. An Italian version, faithful and idiomatic, surpassing any other in the language, and needing but few improvements to make it equal to our Spanish version. A manuscript revision of a large part of the German Testament, from the hands of native scholars, with much preparation for the completion of the revision, when we shall have the requisite means. Similar and more extended preparations for the French New Testament, with one gospel printed as a specimen, exhibiting a high degree of excellence. A part of the English Old Testament revised, and far more in forwardness, and the accumulated work of the ripest and best biblical translator of every other part. The whole English New Testament, revised and re-revised, the most of it printed in forms commanding the admiration of the scholar, and the work on the eve of completion from the hands of the Final Committee. In the meanwhile, an extensive system of circulation and distribution, sustained both at home and abroad, which, when summed up with its results, appears sufficient in itself to satisfy the lover of the truth for all the labor

171

and money expended. The prospect of
the future is as broad as the world, and as
lasting as time. Every year brings new
advocates of our principles. Every year
establishes the enterprise more firmly in
the hearts of its friends. Every year opens
new doors of usefulness.
Every year
extends the scope of our operations.

Our attention will be directed to the Old Testament, and no effort will be spared to press forward the translation and publication of that portion of God's word, as fast as the most scrupulous fidelity to the original, and attention to the purity and symmetry of the English expression of it, will admit.

It must not be thought, that our labors upon the revision of the English New Testament will here cease. None are more sensible than our revisers that the present work, however well done under the time and circumstances, is yet capable of great improvement. The need of such improvement will be more and more disclosed, as the book is used and criticised. Your board hope to be able to adopt proper measures for collecting and weighing valu. able criticisms, and pursuing further inquiries and investigations, both with regard to the Greek text and the English translation, so that at some suitable period every needed improvement may be introduced, and the work stand forth to the world a monument of faithfulness, accur acy, perspicuity, and elegance, unsurpassed and unequalled."

ANDERSON'S REVISION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
H. T. ANDERSON TO M. E. LARD.

DEAR SIR,--I have read with care your notice of my translation, found in vol. ii. No. 2 of your Quarterly. It gives me pleasure to acknowledge that you have proved chreematizoo to be a transitive verb in the instances quoted by you. These instances are, however, not found in the New Testament. I do not acknowledge that you have proved this verb to be transitive in the New Testament. I will say, that as I have been engaged in translating the New Testament, and as I write much of things contained in it I have my mind employed about New Testament usage. I will admit, that had I been as particular as I ought to have been, I should have said that chreematizoo is, in New Testament usage, intransitive.

Now, you quote my words as you found them in the Review, and judge of my trans. lation of Acts xi. 26, by my words as found in the Review. I was aware of the fact

that the verb chreematizoo is used transitively in other authors. But looking at its use in the New Testament, I did not think of the fact that it was used transitively in other works. You have shown that other authors use it transitively. But, with this admission, (and I should not think of denying a known fact,) the question still remains: Is it transitive in the New Testament? You prove its transitive use in other authors, and infer its transitive use in the New Testament. Let me give you an example from the New Testament. I quote first the translation.

"So then, if, while her husband lives, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress” (Rom. vii. 3.)

The Greek is, moichalis chreematiseishe shall be called an adulteress. The noun moichalis is in the nominative case. What say you to this, Bro. Lard? Is not chreematisei, as here used by the Apostle

ANDERSON'S REVISION.

Paul, in the active form? You know that themselves. Such instances of its use need it is. Is it transitive or intransitive? Per- no comment. Must I add that an intranmit me to say that I have not made a trans-sitive verb is one in which the action is lation of the Septuagint, nor of any of the confined to the subject? Greek classics, and published it to the world. The translation that I have made is a translation of the New Testament. When I write of things contained in the New Testament, what I affirm or deny is to be understood of these things. Had my affirmation been made of the use of chreematizoo in other works, then there would be point in your review of my words as you found them in Bro. Franklin's paper. The question, then, is one that confines itself to New Testament use. Let us see then where I can find proof of the affirmation that chreematizoo should be translated as I have translated it; that is, by the words were called."

ANDERSON'S REVISION.