learned Societies in Asia and Europe. The Christian and Jewish plates together make fourteen pages. A copy was sent in the first instance to the Pundits of the Shanscrit College at Trichiur, by direction of the Rajah of Cochin; but they could not read the charac ter. *-From this place I proceed to Cande-nad, to visit the Bishop once more before I return to Bengal.

THE MALABAR BIBLE.

AFTER the Author left Travancore, the Bishop prosecuted the translation of the Scriptures into the Malabar Language without intermission, until he had completed the New Testament. The year following, the Author visited Travancore a second time, and carried the Manuscript to Bombay to be printed, an excellent fount of Malabar types having been recently cast at that place. Learned natives went from Travancore to superintend the press; and it is probable that it is now nearly

*Most of the Manuscripts which I collected among the Syrian Christians, I have presented to the University of Cambridge; and they are now deposited in the Public Library of that University, together with the copper plates on which are engraved the fac-similes of the Christian and Jewish Tablets.

finished, as a copy of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, beautifully printed, was received in England some time ago; and presented to the Bible Society: This version of the Scriptures will be prosecuted until the whole Bible is completed, and copies circulated throughout the Christian regions of Malabar. *

The Author received from the Syrian Christians the names of several Christian churches in Mesopotamia and Syria, with which they formerly had intercourse, and which constitute the remnant of the ancient church of ANTIOCH. These have, for the most part, remained in a tranquil state under Mahomedan dominion, for several ages; and the Author promised the Syrian Bishop that he would visit them, if circumstances permitted. For this purpose he intended to have returned from India to Europe by a route overland; but the French influence at the Court of Persia, at that time, prevented him. He has it now in contemplation to make a voyage from England, and to fulfil his promise if practicable; the relations of amity subsisting between Great Britain and the Porte and Persia rendering literary researches in these regions more easy than at any former period. He proposes also to visit Jerusalem and the interior of Palestine, Greece, and the Archipelago, with the view of investigating subjects connected with the translation of the Scriptures, and the extension of Christianity.

THE SYRIAC BIBLE.

It has been further in contemplation to print. an edition of the Syriac Scriptures, if the public should countenance the design. This gift,

it

may be presumed, the English nation will be pleased to present to the Syrian Christians. We are already debtors to that ancient people. They have preserved the manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures incorrupt, during a long series of ages, and have now committed them into our own hands. By their long and energetic defence of pure doctrine against anti-christian error, they are entitled to the gratitude and thanks of the rest of the Christian world. Further, they have preserved to this day the language in which our blessed Lord preached to men the glad tidings of Salvation. Their Scriptures, their doctrine, their language, in short, their very existence, all add something to the evidence of the truth of Christianity.

The motives then for printing an edition of the Syriac Bible are these:

1. To do honour to the language which was spoken by our blessed Saviour when upon earth.

2. To do honour to that ancient Church, which has preserved his language and his doctrine.

3. As the means of perpetuating the true Faith in the same Church for ages to come.

4. As the means of preserving the pronunciation, and of cultivating the knowledge of the Syriac Language in the East; and,

5. As the means of reviving the knowledge of the Syriac Language in our own nation.

On the Author's return to England, he could not find one copy of the Syriac Bible in a separate volume for sale in the kingdom. He wished to send a copy to the Syrian Bishop, as an earnest of more when an edition should be printed.

The Syriac Bible is wanted not only by the Churches of the Syrian Christians, but by the still more numerous Churches of the SyroRomish Christians in Malabar, and by the Nestorian and Jacobite Christians in Persia, Armenia, and Tartary, who also use the Syriac Language.

THE ROMISH CHRISTIANS IN INDIA

IN every age of the Church of Rome there have been individuals, of an enlightened piety, who derived their religion not from "the com, mandments of men," but from the doctrines of the Bible. There are at this day, in India and in England, members of that communion, who deserve the affection and respect of all good men; and whose cultivated minds will arraign the corruptions of their own religion, which the Author is about to describe, more severely than he will permit himself to do. He is indeed prepared to speak of Roman Catholics with as much liberality as perhaps any Protestant has eyer attempted on Chris tian principles: for he is acquainted with individuals, whose unaffected piety he considers a reproach to a great body of Protestants, even of the strictest sort. It is indeed painful to say any thing which may seem ungenerous to feeling and noble minds; but those enlightened persons, whose good opinion he is desirable to preserve, will themselves be pleased to see that truth is not sacrificed to personal respect, or to a spurious candour. Their own church sets an example of “ plain