peasant, or even one who has just received the elements of a good English education, to understand or be much attracted by the writings of such old authors as Francis Quarles or Sir Walter Raleigh? However interesting the subjects of which these writers treat, their style is so antiquated and so obscure to the majority of readers, that any attempt which might be made to peruse their works would be speedily abandoned. Yet they were coeval with the translators of our Aauthorized Version. And the same obscurities and perplexities which emerge in their writings to an ordinary English reader at the present day, may also be expected in the common translation. Nor does it require much investigation to discover that such is the case. Many passages might be brought forward which are couched in phraseology that cannot but be perplexing, if not misleading, to those who are acquainted only with their own language, as spoken or written in their own day."

The writer from whom I have just quoted cites numerous instances in proof of his assertion.

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In several verses of Matt. v.; in Mark xiii. 2; Luke xii. 11, 22, 26, the phrase "take thought" is used, instead of the accurate expression, "being anxious." Thus, in Matt. v. 25, we have, "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life," &c., which should be, "be not anxious," &c.; in ver. 27 of the same chapter we have, "which of you by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature.' In addition to the substitution of "being anxious" for taking thought," a reference to a Greek lexicon will satisfy any one that the accurate and apposite rendering of the original for which our translators have given can add one cubit to his stature should be "can add one span to his life." Again, in Matt. v. 29, our translators have given us, "If thy right eye offend the, &c., and in the following verse, If thy right hand offend thee," &c., the accurate and intelligible rendering of the original being "If thy right eye cause thee to sin," &c., and "if thy right hand cause thee to sin," &c. The modern word for "leasing," which is used in the Psalms, is "lying;" the verb "to ear," used in various places in the Old Testament, means "to till the ground," and I venture to say that, to a modern English reader, understanding only his own language, and that probably inadequately, the proper meanings of the words quoted, and numerous other similar ones, would seldom, if ever, be attached to them.

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Passing over the numerous, or rather innumerable, grammatical defects of our version, and only naming the desirability which exists for putting the proper names of the Bible heroes and places into such a state as that they may be recognised as denoting the same persons and places in both Testaments, I now come to notice another portion of Dr. Trench's work "On the Authorized Version," an extract from which I cannot refrain from giving, its propositions and reasoning being incontrovertible :

"It is clearly the office of translators to put the reader of the translation as nearly as may be on the same vantage-ground as the reader of the original; to give him, so far as this is attainable, the same assistance for

understanding the author's meaning. Now every exact and laborious student of the Greek Testament knows there is almost no such help in some passage of difficulty, doctrinal or otherwise, as to turn to his Greek Concordance, to search out every other passage in which the word or words wherein the difficulty seems chiefly to reside occur, and closely to observe their usage there. It is manifestly desirable that the reader of the English Bible should have as nearly as possible the same resource. But if, where there is one and the same word in the original, there are two, three, half-adozen in the version, he is in the main deprived of it. Thus, he hears the doctrine of the atonement discussed; he would fain turn to all the passages where atonement' occurs; he finds only one (Rom. v. 2), and, of course, is unaware that in other passages where he meets 'reconciling' and 'reconciliation' (Rom. xi. 15; 2 Cor. v. 18, 19), it is the same word in the original. In words like this, which are, so to speak, sedes doctrinæ, one regrets, above all, variation and uncertainty in rendering.

"Thus it will sometimes happen that when St. Paul is pursuing a close train of reasoning, and one which demands severest attention, the difficulties of his argument, not small in themselves, are aggravated by the use of different words where he has used the same; the word being sometimes the very key of the whole; as, for instance, in the fourth chapter of the Romans, logizomai occurs eleven times in this chapter. We may say that is the key-word to St. Paul's argument throughout, being everywhere employed most strictly in the same sense, and that a technical and theological. But our translators have no fixed rule of rendering it. Twice they render it count' (verses 3, 5); six times 'impute' (verses 6, 8, 11, 22, 23, 24); and three times reckon (verses 4, 9, 10); while at Gal. iii. 6 they introduce a fourth rendering, 'account.' Let the student read this chapter, employing everywhere reckon,' or which would be better, everywhere 'impute,' and observe how much of clearness and precision St. Paul's argument would in this way acquire.”

There is still another defect in the present version, which would render a revision highly advantageous. I refer now to that class of unnecessarily offensive expressions (I do not particularize them) which, from a due sense of delicacy, would prevent those parts of the Scripture containing them being read by or in presence of females or children. The meaning intended to be conveyed by those passages could be expressed with equal plainness, without this unnecessary offence, and it is therefore quite time that the verses containing them should be substituted by others of a more delicate and modest character.

The question then arises, by whom or under what sanction should a revision be made? I must confess that, to me, it appears highly desirable that this work of national importance should have the authority of the highest power in the nation, or, in other words, that it should be executed under a Royal Commission. Indeed, it is to be regretted that all the Protestant powers have not been invited to send their best scholars to join in the work, and thus to make the contemplated revision of the Protestant Bible, instead of merely a revised version of the English Bible.

Of course not even a Royal Commission could make a final version

of the Bible, nor would it be desirable to do so, as it is not to be expected that the phrases used now will be any better understood some centuries hence than are some of those used in the present Authorised Version.

This deservedly celebrated version was compiled under an authority somewhat similar to that of a Royal Commission. Dr. Rainolds, a Puritan divine, in January, 1604, stated to King James I. that a new translation of the Bible was an urgent national want. The Bishop of London opposed this proposition, but James sanctioned it, and in the following July, after the necessary arrangements had been made, he wrote a letter intimating the appointment of fifty-four scholars for the preparation of the version, and instructing the bishop that whenever "a living of £20" should become vacant, to inform him of the fact, that he might recommend one of the translators to the patron.

I will not anticipate the arguments which may be made use of on the other side, although it would not be difficult to do so, they having been declaimed by unwise preachers from their respective pulpits.

But, as the desire of all should be to attain the truth, at what cost soever, and it is the bounden duty of all to advocate and insist upon correctness and accuracy in the translation of this the most important Book of all, and where, therefore, precision is all the more necessary, there is only one class of persons which can, I conceive, have a tangible objection to revision; I refer to that class (composed of only few persons, it is to be hoped) who, having elaborated some favourite dogmas for their own peculiar benefit, fear lest a thorough revision should sweep the foundation of those dogmas away. H. K.

PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD." The science of history, that of law, and that of ethic, remain imperfect until their several systems of phenomena, known to us by observation or experiment, are connected with their physiological basis, and with the system of states of consciousness dependent on physical structure and function. There are three things to be done: history to be studied, character to be analyzed, and the two connected together by referring history to character, in the first place, and character to history, by its reaction on it, in the second. There would then arise a complete and deductive science."-SHADWORTH H. HODGSON.

History.

WERE THE CRUSADES BENEFICIAL TO SOCIAL PROGRESS P

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-I.

THE verdict of nations is not unfrequently to be discovered by the unconscious change which comes over words in the course of time. As the years pass, and the associations of men concrete around the words or phrases, there comes to be attached to them an indirect, but irresistible suggestion of ideas which were not in the least related to the original term. Such terms are numerous: we have, for instance, Precisian, one rather too strict; Puritanical, religious overmuch; Cavalier, disdainfully haughty; Sophist, pretentiously wise, &c. These and similar words acquire their special connotation by an almost imperceptible gathering round them the ordinary associations which we have attached to them, until, by the frequency with which they are thought together, they begin to seem inseparable from the main meaning. Associa tions, like ivy, sometimes growing more noticeable than the original in which it has fixed, or round which it twines itself, comes to have prominence in our minds, and indicate by their suggestions the ideas we usually attach to them.

One of the words which has thus had a connotation given to it indicative of the verdict of the thoughtful, is that which first falls to be considered in debating a question such as that which has now been put before us. The word crusades, though originating in the Latin crux and the French croix, a cross, through the term croisade, yet enters our language very directly and appropriately from the Spanish cruzada a military expedition undertaken under the banner of the cross, particularly an expedition to redeem the Holy Land from the domination of the Saracens, who, being infidels, were unworthy to possess that good land. But the term has gradually declined from this special signification to mean any course of conduct undertaken for the suppression of an evil, or for the attainment of a benefit; and thence it has degenerated till it is employed to denote any romantic, hopeless, or foolish undertaking. Hence we speak of the "crusade against the corn laws; " making a crusade in favour of community of goods and of fraternity in labour; engag ing in a crusade against the vices of courts and alleys; and of commencing a crusade against gin palaces. It has even been alleged that the criminal classes are combined in a crusade against property and life. If there is any truth in the theory of the present day regarding language, that words take their hue and colour from the minds through which they pass, it seems pretty obvious that the minds of men have taken up a pretty decided opinion, adverse to the nobility, grandeur, excellence, and praiseworthiness of the Crusades, and that they now look upon them with a species of com

passionating contempt, as things on which men had foolishly set their hearts, and pursued with an earnestness disproportioned to their importance, or their possible results, perhaps on some accounts noble, but on others most certainly unwise, if not wicked.

Our first argument, then, is that, apparently, by the common consent of men, as gleaned from their use of the word, the Crusades have come to be regarded as in the main disadvantageous, because foolish and vain, wrong in aim, and fruitless in results. It is impossible, we think, either to gainsay the accuracy or to deny the relevancy of this initiatory argument-an argument which comes into immediate contact with the opponents, who believe that the Crusades have been beneficial to social progress.

I am quite well aware that it is easy to get into ecstasies on the Crusades-that the poets are against me, and especially what Leigh Hunt appropriately calls "the favourite epic of the young," has given enchantment to the subject. Tasso's "Jerusalen Delivered," which has been translated by Fairfax, Hoole, and Wiffen, is "the History of the Crusades, related with poetic licence," in which "the infidels are assisted by unlawful arts; and the libertinism which brought scandal on the Christians is converted into youthful susceptibility, led away by enchantment." Other poets have made darlings of the crusaders, and have brought dramatic incident and fine language into play to quicken the fervour of feeling in their favour; but I am not thereby the less inclined to stigmatise the Crusades as unprincipled and pernicious wars, and to affirm that the crusaders have most probably been the greatest wasters of human life to little purpose of whom history speaks.

I shall, for brevity's sake, for the present assume that the reader is acquainted with the material facts of the history of the Crusades, as related by Gibbon, chaps. 58-61; Hallam, in his "History of the Middle Ages; Charles Mill's "History of the Crusades; the translation of Michaud's "History of the Crusades ; " Simon Ockley's "History of the Saracens ; Heeren's "Essay on the Influence of the Crusades," or some other work of authority; as it would be impossible, within any reasonable limits, to give even an outline of those endeavours

"

"To chase those pagans in these holy fields,
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet

Which, eighteen hundred years ago, were nailed,
For our advantage, to the bitter cross."

Our object is not historical, but critical; we do not require to describe, but to discuss. An able historian of the period of the Crusades has justly remarked that "in their estimate of these memorable expeditions upon the political, moral, and religious aspect of society, scarcely two historians of eminence are agreed." Major Procter's statement fully justifies the selection of the Crusades as a question in history requiring consideration; and it would be easy to show from a collection of passages from various writers on this period of the wars of the cross that there are sufficient dif1870.

K