6

have arrived in a happy moment! Where is your man, colonel ? for he was colonel in the militia,-'Here, sir,' ordering his boy to dismount. The baron's countenance altered; we saw and feared the approaching storm. A sergeant was ordered to measure the lad, whose shoes, when off, laid bare something by which his stature had been increased. The baron, patting the child's head with his hand, trembling with rage, asked him how old he was. He was very young, quite a child. Sir,' said he to the man, you must have supposed me to be a rascal! Oh no, baron, I did not.'-' Then, sir, I suppose you to be a rascal, an infamous rascal, thus to attempt to cheat your country. Take off this fellow's spurs; place him in the ranks, and tell General Greene from me, Col. Gaskins, that I have sent him a man able to serve, instead of an infant whom he would basely have made his substitute! Go, my boy; take the colonel's spurs and his horse to his wife; make my compliments, and say her husband has gone to fight for the freedom of his country, as an honest man should do. By platoons! To the right wheel!-ForwardMarch!''

Stern soldier as he was, he had tender memories of a wounded heart, and therewith not more mirth than manifested itself in quiet, dry humor; nor any rigidity of discipline so severe but it could bend to a sense of justice.

For instance :

ble.' All this passed with the baron's hat off, the rain pouring on his venerable head! Do you think there was an officer or soldier who saw it, unmoved by affection and respect? Not one."

The American government has not cared to cherish the memory of the man who saved their army from dissolution; and, therefore, we are the less surprised that American people have not cared to respect his grave. A public highway was needed, and the grave of the old soldier happened to lie in its way :—

"The ashes of the man who, after a stirring and eventful life, had well deserved the rest of the grave, had to give way to the wants of a few farmers. There even was no sacrifice required, no money to be spent, if the road had been made a little to the right or left of its present direction, for the land is of no great value in that neighborhood. But the citizens of the county which Steuben had honored as his residence, scarcely knew him; they did not pay the slightest regard to common decency, and thus the petty interests of the living farmers prevailed over the claims of the deceased hero to a quiet resting-place. The road cut off about one-third of the grave, but no one thought of removing the remains. As if Indians had dug up the place, for a while the coffin was exposed to storm and rain, and a very credible eye-witness relates that it had once been opened by the neighbors, who could not resist the temptation of getting a piece of Steuben's old military cloak. When Benjamin Walker heard of this sacrilegious violation of the sacred remains of his old friend, he caused them to be removed to a more suitable resting-place."

The above is not creditable to the local

"Steuben was rather haughty in his bearing, which did not in the least diminish his frankness and cordiality in social intercourse, and he was of easy access, benevolent, and full of a high sense of justice. At a review near Morristown, a Lieut. Gibbons, a brave and good officer, was arrested on the spot, and ordered to the rear, for a fault which, it afterward appeared, another had committed. At a proper moment the commander of the regiment came forward and informed the baron of Mr. Gibbons' innocence, of his worth, and of his acute feelings under his unmerited disgrace. Desire Lieut. Gibbons to come to the front, colonel. Sir,' said the baron, addressing the young gentleman, the fault which was committed by throwing the line into confusion might, in the presence of an enemy, have been fatal; I arrested you as its supposed author, but I have reason to believe that I was mistaken, and that, in this instance, you were blameless. I ask your pardon; return to your command; I would not deal unjustly toward any one, much less toward one whose character as an officer is so respecta- sons."

feeling, at all events; nor was the memory of Von Steuben more honored by Lafayette, who disliked the energetic disciplinarian. In 1824, the Frenchman, on his visit to America, was invited to inaugurate a monument to his old companion in arms, “but he refused to accede to the request, excusing himself under some shallow pretext." True. heroism is not always to be found dwelling in the breasts of popular heroes. By the state, and by individual rivals, Von Steuben seems to have been grievously wronged,— illustrating thereby the remark of the notable Tom Brown, that, "Great bodies of men are subject to all the infirmities of particular per

POETRY. Our Dead, 130.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

Christian Remembrancer,

131

Edinburgh Review,

139

Author of Heir of Redclyffe,

147

All the Year Round,

165

Ladies' Companion,

172

Saturday Review,

181

184

188

190

Bookworld, 130.

Economist,

66

Saturday Review,

Word with Brother Jonathan, 146. Holy Bells, 183. The Messiah, 183. The Saviour, 183. Church Time, 183. A Risen Saviour, 183. The Saviour's Praise, 183. Public Worship, 183. A Lost Love, 187. Pathways in Palestine, 187.

SHORT ARTICLES.-The New Unfermented Bread, 138. Talma and the Bishop, 146. Christmas in America, 171. Madame de Stael, 192.

The next number will contain a continuation of "The Luck of Ladysmede," which will remind readers of Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe. Also a continuation of "Hopes and Fears." Of graver matter, there will be an article on Dr. Tulloch's Leaders of the Refor mation (would it were longer). Also, West Indies; Morocco; Caribs; Mind and Body; Women Artists; Hoop-petticoats, etc., etc.

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From The Christian Remembrancer.

1. Journals of the General Convention of the American Episcopal Church. 1853

and 1856.

2. New York Church Journal. 1857, 1858.

3. Mixed Societies in Principle and in Practice. By the Rev. A. C. Coxe, D.D. of

Baltimore. 1859.

4. Apology for the Common English Bible. By the same. 1857.

5. The Western World Revisited. By the Rev. H. Caswall. 1853.

6. Bishop White's Memoirs of the Episcopal Church. Philadelphia, 1820.

It was in the year 1607, while our present version was in the hands of the translators, that the first English settlers disembarked on the coast of Virginia. Although these early emigrants were members of the Established Church, the great majority of the subsequent colonists of America were professedly Dissenters. Yet, as Protestants, they generally regarded the Bible as the foundation of their faith, understanding by the term "Bible," the authorized version of the Church of England. When the Revolution broke out in 1776, a large proportion of the Church people and of MR. BAINES, in moving for a select com- their clergy took part with the crown, while mittee of the House of Commons to inquire the Dissenters were generally attached to the into the nature and extent of the "Queen's republican party. At the restoration of peace Printer's Patent," is reported to have asked in 1783 many of the churches were deserted the House to consider "whether it had any or in ruins; the clergy, who never had numright or prerogative to restrict the printing of bered much more than two hundred, were the Holy Scriptures." "The Holy Scrip-greatly reduced, and as bishops had never tures," he proceeded, "were given in charge been tolerated in America by the home-govto no particular section of the Church, to no ernment, no form of ecclesiastical rule expriest, to no prince, to no sanhedrim or senisted. ate, neither to Jew nor to Gentile; but liberally and impartially, as the rains and dews of heaven. They were made the universal patrimony of mankind; and he appealed to the House, as they had given freedom to trade and industry, and to the negro slave, removed every restriction from conscience, and maintained the liberty of the press; to bestow upon England the crowning blessing of a free and unfettered Bible."

Now it is not our object at present, to discuss the question whether the charge of the Holy Scriptures, in their general acceptation, more properly belongs to the Church of Christ or to the civil authority. Nor do we deem it necessary to remind our readers that the title

page, the dedication, and the translators' preface to the reader, concur in proving our authorized version in particular to be, like the prayer-book, a Church of England work, designed for Church of England purposes; and therefore, strictly speaking, under the rightful guardianship of the Church of England. But since "free trade in Bibles" was the professed object of Mr. Baine's motion, and since the experience of America is now largely appealed to by certain politicians in support of their theories, we have thought that a few facts connected with the history of our authorized version in the United States would not be without value, under existing circumstances, in England.

Under these untoward circumstances, synodical action commenced, and the Church

gradually formed her system of annual Dio

cesan Conventions, and of a triennial General Convention. In these conventions the clergy and laity had equal votes, or were equally represented, with the useful provision of a "vote by orders," an arrangement which makes the consent of both clergy and laity nece:sary to any act or resolution. Being now free from its old political entanglements, the Church elected its bishops, who derived their consecration in the first instance from the Scottish and English prelates. Even in the jealous eye of the law, the "American with that Church in England which had reEpiscopal Church" was considered identical nounced the pope, reformed the prayer-book, and translated the Bible. It still retains, for instance, the lands given to the Church of while the property of Trinity Church, New England in Vermont and New Hampshire, York, originally given by Queen Anne, has attained, through the growth of the city, the estimated at above seven millions of dollars in value of nearly two millions of pounds, being 1857. Though little recruited by emigration, the Church in the United States usually doubles itself in about thirteen years, an increase mainly due to the rapid influx of persons from other "denominations." At the present time, it numbers about thirty-eight

bishops, two thousand clergy, one hundred contemplation. To the committee had beer. and thirty-five thousand communicants, and perhaps two millions of worshippers.

assigned the duty of contracting with the institution just named, and of reporting to the Convention the result of their labors.

We have thus briefly alluded to the history and position of the Church in America, be- The Convention of 1853 held in New York, cause that Church has succeeded to whatever was attended by thirty bishops, in the upper duties may be supposed to attach to the house, and by a lower house consisting of one Church of England in regard to the author- hundred and fifteen clerical and eighty-five ized version. A few such preliminary state-lay-deputies from thirty dioceses. There was ments are also necessary to explain the sub-present also a deputation from our own Socisequent action of our American brethren on the same subject. It must likewise be remembered, in the same connection, that the general and state governments of the United States are constructed on principles which disqualify them for all pretext of interference standard in religious matters, and that consequently the law of the land provides no security for the correctness of Bibles.

ety for the Propagation of the Gospel, consisting of Bishop Spencer, Archdeacon Sinclair, the Rev. E. Hawkins, and the Rev. H. Caswall. Among many other items of business the report of the committee on the version was laid before the lower house. The report stated that—

"The first and not the least important of its labors appeared to be that of ascertaining on what edition of the Holy Scriptures in the English tongue now existing most reliance could be placed for correctness of text and tion in folio, A.D. 1611, is that which appeared accuracy of typography. The Princeps edifrom the hands of the translators appointed by King James I. of England, and is the text of the Holy Scriptures used in our Church, and as widely as the English tongue is diffused."

The manufacture and sale of Bibles being open to all, a number of incorrect editions were very early printed and circulated; and in 1817, the General Convention was led to consider a proposal for adopting a standard edition. This proposal was occasioned by "the discovery of a large edition extending very widely" says Bishop White, "a corruption of Acts, vi. 3, by perverting it to a sanction of congregational ordination. In- After giving a brief history of the revision stead of whom we may appoint over this made by Dr. Blayney in 1769, the committee business,' which is the exact translation of proceeds :the original, the edition has it,' whom ye may appoint over this business."" In 1823, this proposal was finally carried into effect, and the generally received English standard was made the standard of the Church in America. The continued publication, however, of inaccurate editions made it necessary that further measures should be adopted, and it was considered highly expedient that American readers should be supplied with an exact reprint of the most correct copy obtainable in England. The subject accordingly came before the General Conventions of 1850, 1853, and 1856, and will probably afford much discussion to the same assembly in the autumn

of 1859.

In the Convention of 1850 a committee was appointed "to procure and supervise the publication of a standard edition of the Holy Bible." At the same time a proposal was submitted by a Church institution, the New York Bible and Prayer-book Society, to become the publishers of the standard Bible in

Memoirs of the Episcopal Church, p. 310.

"In our own country, where the publication of the Bible is at every man's option, too many editions have been found, crowded with typographical errors, and faulty in numerous other not unimportant respects, while even in England, where by the laws of the land, from editions of the Holy Scriptures emanate, varifour sources alone, under royal authority, can ations, though slight, are apparent between the copies bearing the impress of those sources.

"The incorrectness of so many editions, and the blemishes of all, united with the duty of our Church as its hereditary guardian to protect the integrity of the English Scriptures, attracted, so early as the year 1817, the attention of our General Convention to the subject, and in 1823 the edition of Eyre and Strahan, published in England, and then considered the most perfect extant, was recommended as the standard to be recognized by our Church, till such time as she thought proper to put forth an edition of her own. At subsequent triennial meetings, the subject was again and again brought before both *See Journal of the General Convention of 1853 p. 32.