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and the most accomplished scholars in the Church do well to employ their pens on this kind of composition.

The work which shall endure as the model and standard history of the Church, has not yet been written. The materials for it have been most industriously brought together. The ponderous tomes, beginning with the thirteen folios of the Madgeburg centuries on the Protestant side, and the thirtyeight of Baronius and his successors on the Romish side, followed by the sixteen quartos of Tillemont, the twenty quartos of Fleury, (extended by Fabre to six more, and by La Croix to other six more, making in all forty-two,) and the forty-five volumes of Schroeck and Tschirner, together with the immense stores in other and later writings, lay at the feet of the proper student and competent author materials enough for a work that shall satisfy all reasonable demands. It is true the writer who would give us a proper history of the Church, must not be a mere compiler from other authors; but those who have gone before him in the same path may be used as guides, or it may be in some cases as beacons. What, it may be asked, would satisfy us? Probably the answer would be an ideal not likely to be made a reality. We should like to have a Church History in our own tongue, distinguished by the genius and learning of Neander, without his diffuseness and laxity; the system (and learning, too) of Gieseler, without his rationalistic temper; the heartiness (con amore purpose) of Dr. Schaff; the ecclesiastical position of Hooker; and the love of the Gospel in its doctrines and spirit found in Milner. We ask a hard thing. We could wish, at times, that Church History were only what Milner would have it, a history of evangelical piety. We wish we could throw back within the lines of secular history the lives of men who, in spirit, were only of the world. But we can not pull up the tares without uprooting wheat also. We have often heard honest Christians regretting the records in the Bible of Abraham's failings, of Jacob's offenses and his sons' outrages, especially of the scandals of David's fall and Solomon's. And then, as we have said, a great writer remarks, that the reading of Church History might endanger the steadiness of a faith not beforeVOL. VI.-26

hand deeply founded. But "offenses must come," and history must be faithful. Christianity is not to answer for the faultiness of the material with which it works, as the sculptor is not to blame for the defects of the marble on which he exercises a perfect art. Outside of all human opinions, of human weaknesses and crimes, even though seen in the Church, and of human hostility to the truth, there lies a foundation for faith which the babe in Christ can build and rest on with a confidence as reasonable and sober and fixed as that which we have in the testimony of eyes and ears. Of the problems given us in Providence, we must not look for a solution in an age, nor in more ages than one. "With the Lord a thousand years are as one day." The mystery which is in germ in one age shall be opened in its ripeness in after ages. The call of our Master and Leader sounds through all time: "Have faith in God."

ART. IV. THE GERMAN TRANSLATION OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.

1. Das Allgemeine Gebetbuch, etc. The Book of Common Prayer, according to the United Church of England and Ireland-in German. London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 1845.

2. Das Buch des gemeinshaftlichen Gebets, etc. The Book of Common Prayer according to the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America-in German. NewYork: 1847 and 1852.

THE desire of bringing about a fusion of the two Evangelical Confessions in Germany, is as old as the Reformation itself. Although guarded against by official declarations and documents, it was nearly accomplished by the first King of Prussia, at the beginning of the last century, when the infant kingdom had to look for aid and sympathy to England and its people.

It was then that union with the Church of England was seriously agitated, that Bishops were consecrated and the first German translation of the English Prayer-Book ushered into the world. But as the movement had originated in outward pressure, so it subsided soon afterwards when that pressure was removed by the Peace of Utrecht.

Under the dissolving influence of modern indifferentism, the fusion, at last, was carried out in our own times; but the other thing needful, namely, the building up of a Church, out of the fragments of defunct sects, is little more than the pium desid eratum of a few theologians and statesmen.

Some of the Prussian kings, it is true, being tired of their supreme Episcopate, sought relief in bestowing the title of Bishop upon some worthy general superintendent; they even concurred with the Church of England in founding the Episcopal See at Jerusalem; but how far they might have gone if permitted, or how far their successors will go when times will seem to be more propitious, can only be known to such as are initiated into the secrets of the Prussian cabinet. In the mean time we may take it as a good omen, that the name of a Prussian diplomatist has been associated with a new German translation of the English Book of Common Prayer, which in all probability is the same with the first of the works standing at the head of this article.

While these things were going on in Germany, our own Church of America could not remain indifferent, in view of the great spiritual destitution of those hundreds of thousands. who leaving their homes in Germany, were pouring into this country from year to year. Means had therefore to be provided to reach them in their country districts, and above all in the large cities, where they form a notable portion (in some. of them almost one half) of the population. Among these means, a good translation of the Book of Common Prayer was. always thought to be not the least efficient.

How far any German translation of the Book of Common Prayer may be a good one, in the sense in which this term is applied to the English text, we are not willing now to discuss. We would merely observe that a very good one, in the common acceptation of this word, was wanted, when the matter

was first brought before the General Convention in 1841. A Committee was then appointed to examine a translation which was presented, but owing to some disagreement among themselves, the Committee was discharged in 1844, and a new committee (consisting of Bishop Onderdonk, of New-York, the Rev. Ch. F. Crusé, D.D., and Professor Tellkampf, of Columbia College, New-York,) appointed to prepare a new translation, and in doing this, to use that version of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England which, according to Bishop Onderdonk's statement, was then about to be effected under the special supervision of the well-known Chevalier Bunsen.

It is under the hands of the two latter members of the Committee that the German translation of the American PrayerBook originated, and by them it was recommended to German congregations, in a notice on the reverse of the title-page, as perfectly in accordance with the English text. (See copy of 1847, at the head of this article.) Soon, however, it was found out that this translation was defective; hence a new Committee, consisting of the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Maryland, and the Rev. D. Rose, was appointed, by the General Convention of 1850, in order to effect a revision of it.

Thus originated the new or revised German Prayer-Book, as shown by a copy of 1852 at the head of this Article. It is however, to be observed that there is no mention made, either on the title-page or in the notice of the Publishing Committee, that this is a new, revised edition; on the contrary, the same notice, already mentioned, signed by the same names, namely, C. F. Crusé and Theo. A. Tellkampf, is reprinted here, without the slightest intimation of another Committee's coöpe ration in it.

Having thus taken a glance at the history of the translations before us, let us see now how far either of them, particularly the American, may be a fit means for missionary work among Germans, especially those whom it is the intention of our Church to reach. The idea of fitness first, and of necessity, excludes every thing that may work against our intentions; and secondly, it includes every thing that may promote the end

to be attained. In regard to the special object in view, a translation of the Book of Common Prayer will be a fit means for evangelizing our German brethren, first, if it be effected in such a way as really to render the sense without grammatical blunders, and secondly, by rendering the sense of it in such appropriate language as most easily reaches the heart.

In both these respects, we are sorry to say, neither of the translations comes up to what may be expected. Several of the mistakes of the London publication were left intact when transplanted upon American soil, and many others appeared in the American translation which were not found in the English one. We can never believe that the Chevalier Bunsen bestowed any great attention to the translation made in England, nor can we be induced to think that the American Committees closely and minutely examined those portions which they have admitted into their own work.

In order to convince the reader of this statement, let us open the books before us. On the very first page, after the Preface, the American translation has the following rubric: Zweckmaessige Psalmen an gewissen Tagen, that is to say: SUITABLE Psalms on certain days. The London translation renders this by the word besonder, which means special or particular. That neither of these words comes up to the meaning of the word proper in this place, and that the American rendering is the worse of the two, needs not to be dwelt on before readers familiar with these things. In fact, it is to be wondered that it did not occur to the translators that the word "proper" stands here for appropriated or appointed.*

But let us turn to the Order for the Daily Morning Prayer, and especially to the Exhortation. The sentences being taken out of Luther's translation of the Bible, the first portion of the Daily Morning Prayer subject to remark is the Exhortation.

The London translator begins with, Innig geliebte; which we would dislike to say. The American translator renders the Dearly beloved, as far as possible, verbatim, by Theure Geliebte; in which he is decidedly more happy than his brother translator on the other side of the Atlantic. Still, it struck

* The Proposed Book has the word "appointed," instead of "proper."

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