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THE BIBLE IN POLISH.

a revision of the rest of the New Testament to be prepared. After ten years of labour and delay, the whole was printed at Moscow by John Bogbinder, a native of Denmark. This edition is the first-fruits of the typographical art in Russia. The poor printer, though favoured by the czar, was accused of heresy and magic, and compelled to flee the country. In 1581, the whole Bible appeared at Ostrog; a second edition being printed in 1633. Between those two dates, seven editions of the New Testament were published. Copies of these editions are now exceedingly rare. In 1712, Peter the Great ordered the Bible to be revised, and in twelve years the work was completed. His death, however, and the opposition of the ecclesiastical authorities, occasioned still further delay; nor was it till the year 1751 that this revision was published. Twenty-one editions. appeared up to 1816, when the first stereotyped edition of the Russian Bible Society came from the press. Two hundred and five thousand copies of this version were printed by that Society during the ten years of its existence, and then all further Biblical labour in this form was prohibited by imperial edict.

The history of the Bible in Poland illustrates the force of female piety. The first Christian duke of Poland (Miceslaus) was induced to abandon paganism (965) through the influence of his wife. The first Polish Bible was made prior to 1890, by order of queen Hedwige, wife

THE BIBLE IN CARNIOLAN.

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of Jagellon. Another version, or possibly a copy of this previous version, was made by the order of queen Sophia, wife of a subsequent king of the same name (1455.) Only a few fragments of these versions remain.

Since the middle of the sixteenth century, six different versions have been published. The authorized Bible, printed at Cracow in 1599, was designed for Roman Catholics, and was sanctioned by Clement VIII.; it is accounted one of the best translations of the Vulgate, but in two hundred years only three editions had been printed, and those did not comprise three thousand copies. Two Protestant versions have been published, one at the expense of prince Radzivil, in 1563, and the other by the reformed church at Dantzic, in 1632. Thousands of those editions have been bought up and burned by the Jesuits. Both the Roman Catholic edition and the Dantzic edition have been largely published by the Bible Society, and about eighty thousand copies of the Bible and Testament have been issued among ten millions of people.

The Carniolan tongue is a dialect of Sclavonic, spoken in Carinthia and Styria by about three millions of people. The version now in use was made by Truber, a native who was driven from the country for his religious views, and took refuge at Würtemberg. The New Testament was printed at Tubingen in 1557; the Old appeared in 1584, and was executed by Dalmatin, aided by Melancthon. Nearly all

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THE TARTARIAN TONGUES.

the copies of these versions have been destroyed by the Jesuits. Wendish is spoken in Lusatia by a people now under the dominion of Saxony and Prussia; portions of Scripture were printed as early as 1574, but it was not till 1706 that the New Testament was published. This edition was prepared at the cost of the lady Gersdorf, the grandmother of count Zinzendorf, for gratuitous circulation. Several editions of a version of the entire Bible, prepared by some Lutheran pastors, have also left the press; the whole of those issues are Protestant. A translation was prepared long ago for the use of the Roman Catholic population, but was never printed. It was found, in fact, more effective to destroy existing copies than to circulate an adverse version. Translations were made into Wendish and Lithuanian by disciples of Luther during the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Bohemian we have already noticed. The Bulgarian version belongs to the nineteenth century.

It is a fact familiar to scholars, that many of the languages of Europe are closely allied to the Sanscrit. They agree in many of their words and inflections-that is, in matter and in form. From London to Calcutta, the IndoEuropean class of languages, including nearly all we have mentioned in this chapter, prevail. A class equally wide is the TARTARIAN. It includes the Basque of western France and Spain, the Magyar of Hungary, the Lapponese of Lap

BASQUE, FINNISH, ESTHONIAN.

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land; and nearly all the languages spoken between Finland and China. The poor Finlander speaks a tongue akin to that spoken by the Mantchou conquerors of the celestial empire. It was part of the business of the reformers to give to the people speaking some of these tongues also a portion at least of the Bible.

In 1571, the entire New Testament, in Basque, was printed at Rochelle. It was translated by a minister of the reformed church, and was dedicated to Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, and brought out at her expense. For more than two centuries no other edition in this tongue was published, and it was long thought that the whole had perished. Happily, however, a single copy had been deposited in the library of the university of Oxford. From this copy two editions have been printed in our own day. The first was bought up by the Roman Catholic bishop of that part of France, who destroyed upwards of eight hundred copies. The effect, however, has been to facilitate the reproduction of the second edition, and to call attention to the importance of truth. Into the Finnish tongue the New Testament was translated by a disciple of Luther, M. Agricola, whom the reformer recommended to Gustavus I. When the Lapponese version was made is not known, but the first printed edition was published in 1755, various tracts and portions of Scripture having been issued in 1648. A translation in Esthonian was made

by John Fischer, a German divine, in 1686, the Old Testament being published three years afterwards. The most important, however, of these Tartarian versions is the Magyar. The Magyars, originally from Scythia, are the most influential race in Hungary, and give their name to the Hungarian tongue. They are said to be, in physical and intellectual qualities, among the foremost nations of Europe. They number nearly five millions, of whom half are Protestants. The earliest Magyar version of part of the Scriptures was made in the year 1541, by John Sylvester, a native of Hungary; and Le Long speaks of three editions of the New Testament as published by the year 1574. The whole Bible appeared in 1589. It was translated by Caspard Carolé, the pastor of the church at Gonz. He had imbibed the principles of the Reformation at Wittemberg, and was prompted to undertake this work by a desire to give the gospel to his country. The seventh edition was printed at Capel, in 1704. Two Romanist versions, in the Magyar language, have also been executed, but only one published. Of that version but few copies have been put into circulation.

Such are the versions of the Tartarian class of languages which we owe to the Reformation. It may give some idea of the extent to which the Scriptures have been printed during the two hundred and fifty years subsequent to the appearance of Luther's Bible, to examine the following table. It is taken from the catalogue