cious superstitions of the Pagans. The translation of the Scriptures into the Batta and low Malay will not, we trust, be lost upon the Netherlands Bible Society. In Banca, Borneo, Celebes, and the thousand other Islands of the Indian Archipelago, Europeans are known as traders, and only as traders; nay, the very policy of the Dutch and English has been adverse to the extension of religion and education. In the Moluccas, where imperfect traces of the Christianity planted by the Spanish Missionaries may be found, British and Dutch Missionaries have been labouring since 1814; there have been seminaries established for the education of schoolmasters, and a Bible Society for the circulation of the Scriptures. The number of Christians in the Islands is supposed not to exceed 20,000. The nominal Christians in the Philippine Islands are supposed to amount to 1,800,000-all the result of Roman Catholic exertion; we fear the real Christianity of the natives is but trifling, as there is reason to believe that the name is frequently assumed as a ground for claiming European protection, and for exemption from the Mohamedan fasts. It would seem that the implicit obedience enforced in Paraguay by the Jesuits, is effected also by the system pursued here towards the natives. No Christian can look upon this picture of Asia without deep regret, and no Briton without a conviction that his nation has not acted up to its high situation and important opportunities. We may trust that this spirit that has been recently excited will be more permanent and blessed.*

If Asia be in its prospect a source of regret, how much more is Africa, of whose degradation Europe is not only the witness, but, in a great degree, the agent. The apathy of our governments permits the existence of the robbers of the Northern shore, and we have acted for centuries the part of robbers in other quarters with less excuse, because with more information. The Slave trade has performed its deadly work wherever European cupidity has introduced it, and the countries that received, early in the first or second century, the light of the Gospel, now scarcely preserve the least glimmering of it, or are sealed up against its advances. In Egypt, so early Christianized, the Coptic Church clings to its ancient faith, with an inflexible perseverance characteristic of their country. The Patriarch resides in Cairo, but his twelve bishops have their sees usually in Upper Egypt. The Greeks have ten churches in Cairo: their Patriarch is resident in Alexandria. Besides these, there are Armenians and Roman Catholics, and the animosity between these sects is as violent at present as it was in the early ages, and renders them the contempt and the prey of their Mohamedan rulers. The Copts, who are the most numerous, are Jacobites. Conversions from Mohamed are not heard of. The Church Missionary Society

* We cannot leave Asia without regretting many of the observations that occur in this part of our Author's work, whether they are to be ascribed to the Author or Editor. We do not quote any passages, but we would caution our readers equally against the sentiments and the statements contained in the general observations on Asia.

has, at present, some Missionaries resident in Egypt, who may be enabled to infuse new life and vigour into this ancient and degraded church.

The Church Missionary Society has likewise deputed its agents in Egypt, to attempt a settlement in Abyssinia, and the circumstances of that country, and the confidence placed in the English equally by the King and the Ras, give great hopes of being able to succeed. This ancient church, the eldest child of the Egyptian, has preserved its Jacobite opinions, and preserved them, although surrounded by Moslems and Pagans. In the 15th century, the Portuguese discovered to their astonishment this Christian nation, and a mission of priests soon followed, who obtained considerable influence at the court of Gondar :-This however had an end, and the Roman Catholic patriarch was obliged to quit Abyssinia. In 1632, all the Catholics were expelled, and every attempt at a return has been frustrated. The visit of Bruce, and subsequently of Mr. Salt, have rendered England popular; and the long residence there of Pearce and Coffin,* two Englishmen who voluntarily remained in the country, has given us a means both of mastering the language and of being acquainted with the country, that may be turned to good account. The four Gospels have been translated into Amharic, the vernacular language of the country, and the Ethiopic Scriptures have been prepared.

Without alluding to the interior of Africa or its Eastern coast, where there are still some scanty relics of the power of the Portuguese, we may remark that a singular excitement has taken place in Madagascar, the largest of the African islands :-Radama having mastered the greater part of it, to consolidate his power, entered into treaty with the English, agreed to discountenance the slave trade, to send some Madagascar youths to England for education, and to receive missionaries. Their success in conversion has been inconsiderable, but their schools contain above 2,000 children, and many educated by them, have become superintendants:-The New Testament has been translated, and the Old is in progress. Radama has lately been removed by death, but his successor has adopted the same principles.

(To be continued.)

REVIEWER REVIEWED.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

SIR,--Having lately read with very peculiar interest, and with a deep sense of obligation to its author, "Anderson's Historical

* Pearce, our readers are aware, is dead :-Coffin is with his son at present in England, negociating for assistance to the Ras. The latest accounts from this country state, that all things are in confusion, that the succession to the throne has been changed, and that the new king has become a Mohamedan; this event will impede for some time the progress of the mission.

Sketches of the Ancient Native Irish," I took up your last Number with no little anxiety, to see whether your opinion of it coincided with my own. I was pleased to find a notice of it in the table of contents for February, and I turned immediately to page 139.

I do not mean to enter into any review of your review, which, I believe upon all wholesome rules laid down by "critics," would be quite inadmissible. You who have been a very zealous oppugner of the assumed infallibility of the Pope, would I suppose be a very sturdy maintainer of your own, when passing sentence ex cathedra" upon a poor author.

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If I mistake not, the asserters of Popish infallibility have maintained, that that wondrous quality, attached only to the decisions and conclusions which issued from the " Chair;" but was not claimed, either for the facts upon which the decisions were made, or for the arguments by which the conclusions were arrived at. I suppose then, that I shall escape the charge of contumacy, when I declare that I do not intend in this paper, to say a word against your decision, however unfavourable as to the ancient learning of Ireland; nor against your conclusion as to the numbers now speaking the Irish language in this country; but I will claim my privilege to say, that the reasoning employed and the facts adduced, put into the balance against those of Mr. Anderson, would not have led me to the same results.

I do not conceive, that the fact of their having been in those days of supposed literature, "treasons, conspiracies, rebellions, murders, even of sovereigns, effusion of blood like water," disproves the existence of schools, and seminaries, and learned men, any more than the existence of the very same, will now prove that there is no University in Dublin, or that there are not at present 11,823 schools in Ireland, and 560,549 scholars.

Neither do I admit, that, because your Reviewer in travelling through Ireland, speaking only the English language himself, heard every where the English language spoken, therefore the Irish language is "rapidly withering away." I remember well, that for years I was in the habit of paying an annual visit to a family residing in a certain county of Ireland;-I lived with those of the same rank with myself; I rode out from place to place; I heard the master of the house give directions to his servants, both in and out of the house; I heard him converse with the people in the garden, the field, and on the road; and for many years I had not the least idea that any language was spoken in the country, except English; but when I became interested in the education of the people, and was then led to make enquiries, I found that Irish was the language of almost every house; and whilst the labourers would answer their master on the common concerns of the farm, or the garden, in English, Irish was the medium of intercourse at every fire-side;-And in that county there is now a large and encreasing circulation of the Scriptures in the Irish language.

But the object of my addressing you at present is, if you will

allow me, not so much to quarrel with what you have done, as to supply what you have not done; and to bring before your readers some portions of Mr. Anderson's book, which I conceive particularly worthy of attention.

You must permit me to direct your observation to a large proportion of the first 64 pages, which your Reviewer has said to be " оссиpied with that glaring thing, the literary history of learning in Monkish times," for in fact, not in the 64th, but in the 13th page, (could it be a mistake of the press ?) Mr. Anderson dismisses these dark and obscure times, and introduces us to the 14th century. He makes us acquainted with Richard Fitzraugh, or Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, who may be well called the Wickliffe of Ireland; who indeed deserves the more attention, as he lived in the age preceding that great luminary of Britain, and is said to have possessed, if not with his own hand translated, the New Testament in the Irish tongue; so that probably that too-muchneglected language, was the first of the languages of the United Kingdom, into which the Scriptures were translated. According to the information of Baleus, quoted by archbishop Usher, this translation or a copy of it was concealed by him in the walls of his church, with the following note, "When this book is found, truth will be revealed, or will shortly appear."

In page 21, Mr. Anderson introduces his readers to a group of names that ought not to be passed over; Kearney and Walsh, Donellan and Daniel or O'Donnell." The two first "ought ever to be remembered as the men who first began to pursue the only effectual method of enlightening their Irish brethren, so far as the art of printing in their own language and character is necessary. They were the men who first introduced Irish types into this country, and obtained an order that the prayers of the Church should be printed in that character and language; and a church set apart in the chief town of every diocese, where they were to be read, and a sermon preached to the common people. Accordingly we are informed that in the year 1571, Queen Elizabeth provided at her own expense, a printing press and a fount of Irish types, in hopes that God in mercy, would raise up some to translate the New Testament into their mother tongue." The first book printed with these types, was a catechism and primmer by Kearney. The New Testament, completed by the last of the four above-mentioned, Wm. Daniel or O'Donnell, was printed with them in 1603, the expense being defrayed by the province of Connaugh and Sir Wm. Usher, Clerk of the Council; and the Book of Common Prayer, translated by Daniel, was printed in 1608.

Mr. Anderson gives us a detailed and very interesting account of the excellent Wm. Bedell, first provost of Trinity College, and afterwards bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh. I can assure those not already familiar with the subject, that they will be amply repaid by reading the account of his exertions in the cause of Irish education, and of the opposition he received from Protestants, both in Church and State. They will feel grateful to God, for his success

in procuring from the Convocation which assembled in Dublin in 1634, the following canon. "Where most of the people are Irish, the church-wardens shall provide at the charge of the parish, a Bible and two Common Prayer Books in the Irish language.""When the minister is an Englishman, such a clerk may be chosen, as shall be able to read those parts of the service appointed to be read in Irish."

"In following up these canons, no one exerted himself with so much zeal as Bedell. Already he had composed a short catechism, which he had printed, in one sheet, English and Irish, in parallel columns, containing the elements of Christianity, several forms of prayer, and some of the most instructive passages of Scripture. These he widely dispersed, for they were received with joy by the Irish, many of whom now seemed to be hungering for the bread of life. The Irish Bible required by the canon was not yet, of course, in existence; but the PrayerBook in Irish he ordered to be read in his cathedral every Sabbath, for the benefit of his Irish countrymen who now assembled there, while he himself never failed to attend. His clergy he engaged to institute schools in every parish, and proceeding vigorously with his translation, he at last completed it, resolving to print it at his own expense."-p. 30.

Your readers would no doubt be highly interested in the account of his struggles and difficulties, till at length his project of publishing the Bible was put an end to by the first rebellion, 1641; then this pious bishop, in the midst of outward troubles breathed out his soul in peace:-Calling his children around him, he addressed them in the tenderest and most affectionate manner, expressed his Christian confidence, and on the 7th of February 1642, entered into his eternal rest. "The chief of the rebels gathering his forces together, accompanied his body to the church-yard with great solemnity, and discharging a volley at the interment, cried out in Latin, Requiescat in pace ultimus Anglorum,' whilst one of the priests who were present exclaimed, 'O sit anima mea cum Bedello !

Nothing after this time was printed with Queen Elizabeth's types. They passed from the hands of one King's printer to another, till at last they were secured by the Jesuits, and by them carried over to Douay, for the express purpose of forwarding their own views in Ireland, through the medium of the Irish language. It was forty years after his death before any thing was done towards the printing of his version of the Old Testament, when it found a patron and a friend in the Honourable Robert Boyle, under whose auspices the New Testament was reprinted in 1681, and the Old Testament printed, for the first time, in 1685.

of

Mr. Anderson gives us in page 51 a very afflicting summary the little that had been done in the seventeenth century for the Irish people. It can be no way put forward so well as in his own language.

"In concluding these notices of the seventeenth century, in which Britain was tasting even the luxuries of literature, and blest with the satisfaction and benefit