such is the history of our English Bible, when fully followed out, that it will be sure to raise any man far above his own vicinity, his own community, or connexions. From the beginning to the then existing moment, our Sacred Volume had been the counsellor of all departments throughout this nation, the partisan of none; and immediately after the author had penned these lines, by many who had never read them, considerably revived attention was given to the Scriptures of truth. But as we have now to raise our head, and survey a century and a half, we shall obtain a more enlarged view of the progress made; and it is not for us to present so sombre a picture of the times as that of Lewis. True, indeed, we have been accustomed all along to look to our own favoured island only, as embracing the soil where the seed was sown; but we have come to another, and more advanced stage of this stupendous cause; and in tracing it out, if we simply follow the Sacred Volume, we are invited to depart, or to look far beyond the shores of either England or Scotland.

NORTH AMERICA.

NEW MOVEMENT IN REFERENCE TO THE ENGLISH SCRIPTURES-THE BIBLE FIRST BEHELD BY THE NATIVES IN AMERICA, AN ENGLISH ONE-COPIES CARRIED AWAY TO NEW ENGLAND BY THE REFUGEES AND FOLLOWING SETTLERS-COPIES SENT ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN FOR ABOVE A HUNDRED AND SIXTY YEARS!-RESULTS DURING THIS LONG PERIOD THE RESTRICTIVE AND UNNATURAL POLICY OF BRITAIN-SHE MUST BE OVERRULED, AS HER MONARCHS HAD BEEN IN ENGLAND - THE ENGLISH BIBLE IS AT LAST PRINTED IN AMERICA-NO CONSULTATION OF THE MOTHER COUNTRY-THE FIRST EDITION ONLY IN 1782-THE FIRST BIBLE IN OCTAVO, QUARTO, AND FOLIO, PRINTED THERE IN 1791-THE SECOND IN DUODECIMO NOT TILL 1797.

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P to this period, or the middle of the seventeenth century, the history of the English Bible, in comparison with that of the Sacred Volume into every other European tongue, had sustained a character all its own. This peculiarity may now undergo a change in its general appearaace; but the singular distinction of character will remain, nay, and be more strongly marked than

ever before.

OF THE ENGLISH SCRIPTURES.

In the opening of the seventeenth century, England and Scot587 land, once united under the same crown, had received the appellation of Great Britain from her overjoyed monarch, James the First-a title peculiarly flattering to his personal vanity. In connexion with the Sacred Volume, his kingdom exhibited the aspect of an island which had been invaded from without, and which, after long resistance at first, had been ultimately subdued by the Word of God. The Scriptures in the vernacular tongue, which were now happily printing both in England and Scotland, had, from the beginning, been often also imported, nay, and from Holland copies were importing afterwards. But if perfect liberty not only to read, but also to judge of their contents, is not to be here obtained, Divine Providence has now another, and a greater lesson in reserve. The inestimable gift, or deposit, is not to be always, or even long, confined within the shores of Britain.

Of course, it could not then have crossed the imagination of any man, that the same unseen hand, which we have observed all along, was already in motion, and actually preparing for the population of a new world, where a freer life and a fresher nature were to be enjoyed; and even at the present day, few individuals may, at first, be disposed to trace the populating of the American wilderness, in any degree, to the consequences of reading the English Bible in Britain. At all events, the time had arrived, when, as it was carried out of England to the European Continent in the reign of Queen Mary, so under that of James, nay, and of seven sovereigns in succession, it was to be carried farther still. If the liberty to form opinion of its dictates was a blessing denied to many under the Tudor family, so it happened under that of the Stuarts; and the same cause produced the same effect, only to a far greater extent. that had occurred was an affair of little more than five years' Under Queen Mary I., all duration. It might be compared to the migration of those birds, who, in summer, return again to gladden the land, for at that time many returned; but now, from the American "Pilgrim Fathers," and so onward, the people in general who hurried across the Atlantic, like the passengers to eternity, were to return no more. For this singular movement of the British people, in the civil department of the British constitution, there

was not to be found even the shadow of a cause; but if the existing government of the mother country, generally speaking, was either so framed, or to be so conducted, as to charge itself with the vain task of regulating the mind, as well as that of ruling the bodies of its subjects, then was there no relief or remedy, but in another arrangement beyond seas. Hitherto, we have long, and not unfrequently, seen the Almighty overruling individuals of the highest authority within this kingdom; but, if necessary, it was as nothing with Him to overrule the realm itself. The only question will be, What connexion had all this with the perusal of the Sacred Volume in our native language, and in our native land?

The very first Bible that was ever beheld by the Indians of North America, was, unquestionably, an English one, and so early as the year 1585. That part of the Continent then visited, Queen Elizabeth had just named Virginia, and, in the expedition sent out, there happened to be one Heriot, an eminent mathematician, and apparently a kind-hearted Christian. Feeling deeply interested in the artless and hospitable Indian natives, he took advantage of the impressions made by the sight of his instruments, whether marine or mathematical, perspective and burning glasses, clocks and books. This led many of them to give credit to what he said respecting God. "In all places," says he, "where I came, I did my best to make his immortal glory known, and told them, though the Bible I showed them contained all, yet of itself it was not of any such virtue as I thought they did conceive. Notwithstanding, many would be glad to touch it, to kiss and embrace it, to hold it to their breasts and heads, and stroke all their body over with it."1

These merely mercantile and scientific adventurers, however, did not succeed. Twenty years after Sir Walter Raleigh had planted the first colony in Virginia, not a single Englishman remained alive, and the colonization of America had to await the energy of a widely different impulse, to be followed by far other results.

Although America had been discovered to England, by Cabot, in 1497, under Henry VII., the first permanent colony on the coast of Virginia did not arrive till 1607, while our present version of the Bible was preparing; but this was still nothing more than a mercantile adventure under James I. It was in the year 1620 that the refugees from England to Holland embarked on board the Mayflower, and touching, by way of farewell, at the land of their birth, proceeded across the ocean. On the 12th of November that year, these "Pilgrim Fathers," as they have been ever since styled, having their Bibles with them, kept their first Sabbath on the shores of New England. The name thus given, by Prince Charles, a few years before, seemed to send its echo back to the country which they had left for ever. The Sacred Volume in their native tongue, which these people prized above life itself, was now within the shores of a new Continent; but this was in the year 1620, whereas the first Bible with

1 Smith's Virginia, p. 11.

an American imprint was not published till the year 1782; that is, above a hundred and sixty years afterwards, or little more than only sixty years ago! Yes, such is the remarkable fact.

From the first reception of the English New Testament by Britain, it was about a hundred years before the Bible, so singularly conveyed to the island at first, began to be carried away, never to return. But what must now appear in retrospect far more extraordinary, for a hundred and sixty years the authorities at home would never permit of a single edition being printed, except within this island! The British authorities, in fact, never did give any permission, but at the end of this long period, the English Bible was then printed, four thousand miles distant, without authority or liberty being either asked or granted by any man. As if the singular history of this version must still retain the integrity of its character, down to our own day, and exhibit to the world, once more, the same independence with which it was first presented to us at home, the American edition was printed in defiance of all British restrictions, in the year 1782.

The simple announcement of this fact, though never pointed out or contemplated, as it has deserved to be, at once gives birth to a crowd of remarkable associations. Here was a period of more than a century and a half, in all which time no man, or set of men, is represented in history as particularly zealous in the business. Nothing similar to a society, confederacy, or association, was formed; the idea of either cheap or gratuitous circulation had never once entered the human mind, to any known extent; and yet, by the good providence of God, through the usual channels of commerce, from the reign of James the First, down to that of the eighth sovereign in succession, or the 22nd year of George III., was the Divine Record in English uniformly carried all the way across the Atlantic! It belongs to the Christians throughout America at present, along with those now living in Britain, devoutly to mark this as by far the most remarkable SIGN OF THOSE TIMES. It was the zeal and long-suffering patience of God which thus ministered His Word to those who lived and died at such a distance from the spot where it was prepared! Odious, indeed, and humiliating must this spirit of restriction or monopoly now appear; but as to the event itself, never were any people upon earth so singularly supplied, and for so long a period, with the Word of Life. As one step in the path of Providence, it even still suggests the idea that something far more powerful and extensive is intended, through the medium of this version, than it has ever yet accomplished.

The greatness and importance of this movement, however, can only be estimated, by observing its results; or, in other words, by adverting to the men who lived and died in America, throughout these years, and this would require a volume. But for our present purpose a very few names may suffice, and these are mentioned simply in the order of time, as they come before us.

ROGER WILLIAMS, a native of Wales, born in 1599, was the founder of Rhode Island, in 1644, and the first legislator in the world who established a government of free, full, and absolute liberty of conscience. JOHN ELIOT, born in 1604, was the

translator of the Bible into the language of the Indians, to whom he was the first Missionary. COTTON MATHER, born in 1663 and dying in 1728, left his "Essays to do good,” still doing good; to say nothing of his three hundred and eighty other publications! JONATHAN EDWARDS, born 1703, the greatest metaphysician and divine America has produced. DAVID BRAINERD, born 1718, dying 1747, that prince of Missionaries to the Indians, whose example has been of such value ever since. But time would now fail to tell of many other venerable, laborious, and useful characters; still though they were all before us, or all mentioned by name individually, one of the most notable circumstances in their lives was this-that not one of these men ever possessed any other than an IMPORTED English Bible! And all who ever heard them, all who read the book from which they preached, were using volumes which had come to them, thousands of miles, across the sea, from the land of their ancestors! A similar track, or lengthened train of proceeding, of course cannot be pointed out, with relation to any other European version of the Scriptures; and, with reference to any Bible in any language whatever, we may safely say, that the same remarkable course will never again occur in the history of future times. Meanwhile, if the path pursued has lent additional emphasis to the history of the English Bible, so it ought, assuredly, to the obligations of those millions, far and near, who now all read the same version.

To return, however, to the history itself: the first proper American imprint, as already stated, was not before 1782; though in the course of this long extended period, there was one attempt at what has been styled piracy, in a small edition of only 800 copies of the Bible, in quarto, by Kneeland and Green of Boston. But it certainly casts no honourable reflection on the monopoly so long maintained in England, that this was done only by an evasion of the patent. Carried through the press as privately as possible, about the year 1752, it bore this imprint "London: Printed by Mark Baskett, Printer to the King's most excellent Majesty." A similar expedient was resorted to with a solitary edition of the New Testament, by Rogers and Fowle of the same place. The principal man concerned in both, was Daniel Henchman a spirited bookseller,