On the best method of exhibiting the structure of the Prose and

EDITORS, AND REVISERS OF THE BIBLE. 7

conscience purely and faithfully translated ... having only the manifest truth of the Scriptures before mine eyes.'

Such honesty of purpose can only be obtained and acted upon where there is faith, prayer, and pureness of living; and after all, no man can rise from his work as a translator without the consciousness of his great shortcomings. When Judson had completed the Burmese Bible, he made the following entry in his diary : 'Jan. 31, 1834. Thanks be to God! I can now say, '' I have attained.'' I have knelt down before Him, with the last leaf in my hand, and imploring His forgiveness for all my sins that have polluted my labours in this department, and His aid in future efforts to remove the errors and imperfections which necessarily cleave to the work, I have commended it to His mercy and grace ; I have dedicated it to His glory. May He make His own inspired ·word, now complete in the Burman tongue, the grand instrument of filling all Burmah with songs of praises to our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.'

The history of Bible translation is a history of triumph over linguistic and other difficulties. It has yet to be written. The nearest approach to it is to be found in Bagster's 'Bible in every Land : ' but it would take volumes to detail the lives and characters of the men ; the marvellous ways in which they were led to undertake and carry on the task; the practical obstacles which they overcame; the unlooked-for calamities which sometimes befell their work when it was nearing its completion ; the providence which guarded them, the zeal which animated them, the results which rewarded them. As an example of the personal toil involved in this undertaking, we may give the experience of Mr. Hands, one of those engaged in the Canarese version. Writing in 1828, he says, 'The work was commenced sixteen years ago, and scarcely a day has passed in which I have not laboured therein ; it has engaged the best part of my time and strength : many of the books have been revised and re-copied seven or eight times.' It is stated that when Luther was preparing the complete edition of the Bible, a select party of learned men assembled every day to revise every sentence, and sometimes they returned fourteen successive days to the reconsideration of a single line, several days being given occasionally to a single word. If this was the case with such men as Luther, who was translating into his mother tongue, and who was surrounded with an atmosphere of erudition, what must be the perplexities of a man who stands almost alone, with no great amount of learning, rendering the Scriptures into a language in which there often exists no literature at all, not even a grammar or dictionary, nay, in some cases not so much as a written language. Such was the case with Elliot, ' the apostle of the Indians,' who translated the Bible into a Massachusetts