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up the placard in their windows, "Colenso lent to read." Every bishop in England wrote letters in the papers, forbidding him to preach in their dioceses, and calling him often by the most insulting names. One of them spoke of him and his book in one letter as "false, childish, heretical, blasphemous, abominable, unhappy, blind, daring, ignorant, self-sufficient instrument of Satan."

It was at this time the writer first saw him, at the table of a distinguished man of science. The first impression he gave was that of a most courteous and high-bred gentleman; the second, that of a man powerful physically and by strength of will; the third, that of extreme sincerity, simplicity, and sweetness of character. A tall, strong man, some six feet one or two inches in height, with gray eyes, iron-gray hair, regular features, and a jaw, not coarse, but so strong and firm as to suggest to every beholder the idea of indomitable resolution; a man who could wrestle with a marauding Caffre, or contend with an Archbishop of Canterbury, equally readily at any time. In this respect, the contrast the bishop presents to his fellow heresiarch, Professor Jowett, is very curious. No one can see the small retreating chin and delicate figure of the Oxford divine, without feeling the truth of the observation we have heard him make,-that he writes with a sense of duty rather than pleasure, and that the calm contemplation for which his immense forehead seems formed, suits his taste infinitely better than the dusty arena of controversy. Bishop Colenso, on the contrary, seems one of those soldiers of truth and right, to whom the call to put on the harness and strike a blow in the open field could not be by any means unwelcome; not a man who could harbor a spark of personal animosity, or who had, in all his armory, one crooked or poisoned weapon, but still one who would go to the battle right bravely; not the Erasmus of the new Reformation, but the Luther who "would go to the Council if there were as many devils in Worms as there were tiles on the houses."

In after-days we were privileged, by near neighborhood and his extreme kindness, to see much of the bishop and his family; and the impression of the first interview never wore

VOL. LXXXIII.-NEW SERIES, VOL. IV. NO. I.

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off, but increased to the deepest sense of his goodness, courrage, and ability. Perhaps some of the writer's American friends will understand all that it means to her, to say that he seemed almost like the dead master he himself so much loved and honored: Theodore Parker. His home-life, in his small house in Kensington, was a beautiful one, in spite of the shoals of letters of abuse, the pamphlets, books, intrusive and impertinent visitors (some of whom came from Ireland on purpose to attack him) wherewith he was daily assailed. Most of the leading men of science of the day, Huxley, Carpenter, Tyndal, and notably the "Dean of the Faculty," Sir Charles Lyell, and his family, rallied to him; and if he was made to feel much hate, he was not without much honor and regard. For three years he continued to live in London, working with incredible diligence at his five large volumes. How he managed to write them in his little study underneath the room where his daughters practised the piano, and his sons made their chemical and often detonating experiments, and where visitors streamed in and out all day, often bringing him up to give them his never-failing cordial welcome,-how he did his most difficult and anxious work, like another Hooker writing his "Ecclesiastical Polity," while stirring his child's cradle with his foot, was often a cause of marvel to us. As we pass the now-deserted house, and look in at the windows of the empty study, we think how good and brave was the labor there accomplished.

The trial of Bishop Colenso by the Bishop of Capetown, and three other bishops of South Africa, was a stupid farce. The sentence of the highest court in England, setting aside all the pretended powers of the judges, quashed it as a bubble. A practical way of troubling the Bishop of Natal, by stopping the payment of the salary guaranteed to him, has also eventually been frustrated. His friends raised for him a sum of upwards of £3,000, which, with his modest habits, amply sufficed for his purposes; and the recent sentence of Lord Romilly has forced the Trustees of the Colonial Bishoprics' Fund to pay him back the entire arrears of his salary, — thus leaving him just £3,000 the richer for their petty attempt at

persecution. At last, feeling his work in England to be accomplished, and his native and English people constantly entreating him to return, Bishop Colenso sailed with his family for Natal, in August, 1865. He has, since his arrival, met with much opposition from the clergy, but nearly entire sympathy from the laity of his diocese. It is almost needless to say he has acted, as ever, with consummate mildness and forbearance in all controversies. The scenes in his cathedral when the doors of the chancel were closed, an excommunication against him read, and the very harmonium locked up to mar his service, and when he quietly took his place, led the singing, and preached one of his calmest sermons, was a sort of epitome of the whole war. He has recently published a volume of the sermons he has preached since his return to his bishopric, sermons in which many of the theological questions of the day are dealt with in an able and thoroughly original manner. But the peculiar merit of these discourses is one above their learning and originality. It consists in that warm and simple piety, that strong, clear faith in the LIVING GOD, which has been from first to last the characteristic of the man whom his enemies proclaim as the most dangerous infidel of the day. Well will it be for England, if, fifty years or a century hence, her clergy, with all their cowardly tampering with truth, have left in the hearts of the masses of her people such real and manly faith, faith in God and duty and immortality, as breathes through every word and deed of the heretic Bishop of Natal.

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ART. II.

NOYES'S HEBREW PROPHETS.

A New Translation of the Hebrew Prophets, with an Introduction and Notes. By GEORGE R. NOYES, D.D., Hancock Professor of Hebrew, &c., and Dexter Lecturer in Harvard University. Third edition, with a new Introduction and additional Notes. vols. Boston: American Unitarian Association; Walker, Fuller, & Co. New York: James Miller. 1866.

A THIRD part of a century has elapsed since the first appearance of this work. It had been preceded by the Translations

of the Book of Job and of the Psalms; and was followed by those of the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles. We now have these various works presented in a new and uniform edition, and increased in value by diligent revision and additional comments. Of this edition, we propose now to speak only of "the Prophets." We may have some remarks to offer on the other two volumes at a future day.

Mr. Noyes's version of the Prophets came to the world from the quiet town of Brookfield, where its author then held the pastoral office. The gentle and poetical mind of Henry Ware perceived the fitness of the scene and the employment, and expressed its thought in the following sonnet:

"In rural life, by Jordan's fertile bed,

The holy prophets learned of yore to sing;
The sacred ointment bathed a ploughman's head,
The shepherd boy became the minstrel king;
And he, who to our later ears would bring

The deep, rich fervors of their ancient lays,
Should dwell apart from man's too public ways,

And quaff pure thoughts from Nature's quiet spring.

Thus hath he chose his lot whom city pride

And college hall might well desire to claim;
With sainted seers communing side by side,

And freshly honoring their illustrious name.
He hears them in the field at eventide,

And what their spirit speaks his lucid words proclaim."

The country pastorate was exchanged at length for the office of instructor in the Divinity School at Cambridge; and there the venerable translator of the ancient prophets still remains, the honored guide and model of the prophets of today.

The present edition of Dr. Noyes's Translations is far from being a mere reprint of those which preceded it. The same faithful study which was evinced in his earlier labors is exhibited in this reproduction of their results. We have compared the present edition of the Prophets, both in the text and notes, with the previous ones, and have everywhere found the marks of a careful revision, aided by the study of works which had appeared in the interval. A marked instance is found in the notes to the Book of Daniel, where the

introductory remarks are more than doubled in length, and the comments on the famous passage of the "seventy weeks" (Dan. ix. 24-27), are greatly extended, and enriched with the renderings of eight recent critics. The author's care is observable, however, not only in passages of such marked importance, but in amendments of the translation, or additional notes, in numerous instances of less moment. We observe with satisfaction, that, in some passages where the translation has been altered, it has been by a nearer approach to a literal rendering; as in Isa. lii. 15, and liii. 8, 10. The most important addition, however, is the new Introduction, comprising more than eighty closely printed pages, and discussing, with equal learning and acuteness, the important subjects of prophetic inspiration, and the connection between the predictions of the Old Testament, and the revelation of the New.

The merit of Dr. Noyes's versions has been long and generally admitted. The pages of this periodical,* in former years, have borne testimony to the high appreciation of them by those who sympathize with the religious views of the author; and those of other sentiments have added expressions of their approval. Thus "The New-Englander," for October, 1846, says, in a notice of the volume containing the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles:

"The other translations have been issued at earlier periods, and have been received with general favor, as in the main accurate and reliable versions of these parts of the Sacred Volume. We do not see in them the same peculiar genius for rendering the poetic parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, which is so striking in De Wette; but they are, as a whole, perhaps superior to any English version."

The qualification which accompanies this praise can hardly be considered as diminishing its value; for an English translation cannot fairly be compared with one in German, without allowing for the advantages which the latter possesses. The German, inferior to the English in some elements of strength and beauty, is much more suitable for translations. It ad

See "Christian Examiner" for January, 1834; January, 1838; and May, 1846.

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