much beauty and propriety in the petitions offered up in the sixtyseventh Psalm. God be merciful unto us—THAT thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations! God blesses the world by blessing the church, and making it a blessing. A statesman would wish for an increase in population, that the army, and navy, and every other department of society, might be filled and shall not we pray for the prosperity of the church of God; that faithful misisters, missionaries, and every other description of Christians, may not be wanting?

Finally The regard we bear to the souls of men, especially to the rising generation, must render these blessings desirable. It is not yours, but you, that we seek. Our hearts' desire, and prayer to God for you, is, that you may be saved. If we recommend you to attend the gospel and embrace it, is it because we want to enlist you under the banner of a party? God knoweth ! Yet we shall say to you, and especially to the rising generation, as Moses said to Hobab, Come with us, and we will do you good; for the Lord, we trust, hath spoken good concerning us and it shall come to pass that whatsoever good thing the Lord shall do unto us, that will we do unto you.

REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION,

MR. EDITOR,

ALLOWING all due honour to the English translation of the Bible, it must be granted to be a human performance, and as such, subject to imperfection. Where any passage appears to be mistranslated, it is doubtless proper for those who are well acquainted with the original languages, to point it out, and to offer, according

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to the best of their judgment, the true meaning of the Holy Spirit. Criticisms of this kind, made with modesty and judgment, and not in consequence of a preconceived system, are worthy of encouragement. But besides these, there is a species of criticism which offers itself from a more familiar source, and of the propriety of which the mere English reader is competent to judge; namely, the division of chapters, the use of supplementary terms, &c.

If the following example of the former kind, be thought worthy of a place in the Biblical Magazine, it is probable I may on a future occasion, send you more of the same nature.

The seventh chapter of John ends with these words : And every man went unto his own house. The eighth begins with these: Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. Here I conceive, the for mer chapter ought to have ended for here ends the labour of the day, and each party is described as withdrawing to his place of retirement.

The whole passage contains a beautiful representation of the breaking up of a fierce dispute between the chief priests, the pharisees, the officers whom they sent to arrest our Saviour, and Nicodemus. In the picture which is here drawn of it, we see at one view the very hearts of the different parties; and if the subject were made to end with the retirement of Jesus to the Mount of Olives, it would appear to still greater advantage.

The pharisees and chief priests having sent officers to take Jesus, return without him.

Pharisees. Why have ye not brought him?

Officers. Never man spake like this man!

Pharisees. Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers, or of the pharisees, believed on him? But this people, who know not the law, are cursed.

Nicodemus. Doth our law judge any man before it hear him? Pharisees. Art thou also of Galilee? Search and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.

Historian. And every man went unto his own house : Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives.

What an exhibition is here given in a few simple words, of the workings of mind in the different parties! Follow them respectively, to their places of retirement, and judge of their feelings.

The officers, stunned with conviction, and stung with the reproaches of their employers, retire in disgust. The pharisees, transported with rage and disappointment, go murmuring to their houses.-Nicodemus, having ventured, though mildly, to repel their outrage, feels himself suspected of a secret adherence to the Galileans, and is full of thought about the issue of things. Jesus, with the most perfect calmness and satisfaction, retires to the place whither he was wont to resort for prayer and communion with God!

Ilow shall I give thee up, Ephraim; how shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah: how shall I set thee as Zeboim ? My heart is turned within me; my repentings are kindled together. Hosea xi. 8.

THIS most beautiful passage, by the addition of the supplemental how, to the second and fourth questions, is made to be a continued address from Jehovah, to Israel; but read it without them, and it is an alternate appeal to his own goodness, and to the conscience of the offender. In the one he looks within himself, and addresses himself in a kind of divine soliloquy. How shall I give thee up? How shall I make thee as Admah? In the other, he looks at Ephraim as an offended father would look at a disobedient child, and asks him to say, whether he should give him up or not? Shall I deliver thee, Israel? Shall I set thee as Zeboim? Speak sinner, speak! Pronounce thine own doom! Art thou willing to be cast off? Can thy heart endure, and thy hands be strong, in the day that I shall deal with thee? What sayest thou? Wilt thou, by persevering in sin, set seal to thine own condemnation ?

It is a kind of debate between justice and mercy, wonderfully adapted to convince and to affect. On the one side there is a most pointed implication that Ephraim, or the ten tribes, deserved to be given up to the destroyer; for that his wickedness was equal to that of Admah, and Zeboim, Sodom, and Gomorrah. Give him up, (saith justice,) and let him reap the due reward of his deeds! Set him as a mark for mine arrows! Make him an example of divine displeasure! Let the smoke of him rise up for ever and ever!

On the other hand, mercy interposes, contends with judgment, pleads ancient love and ancient promises and thus arrests the arm of vengeance. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I make thee as Admah? My heart is turned within me! My repentings are kindled together! This appeal of Jehovah to his own love and faithfulness, I need not say, is inimitably tender. It teaches us also, that in showing mercy, he is influenced by no cause out of himself; that all arises from undeserved favour and self-moved goodness.

ANSWER TO AN ANONYMOUS LETTER FROM AN "OBSERVER," ON HIS OBJECTIONS TO FOREIGN MISSIONS.

MR. EDITOR,

I SHOULD not have thought it necessary thus publicly to notice. an anonymous letter, had it not afforded me an opportunity of answering an objection to foreign missions, which has been more than once advanced-That of its interfering with exertions in favour of our own countrymen. I shall say but little of the gross

misstatement in the letter, as that my going to Scotland in 1799 was to "witness the state of that country," and to "concert measures for doing good;" that I did not "condescend" to halt, and preach between York and Newcastle; and that "it cannot be said that one convert has been made" in foreign missions. Such assertions must have arisen from the want of information. My journey was merely owing to a kind invitafion given me to go and receive the donations of a number of my fellow-Christians, who were willing to contribute to the giving of the holy scriptures to a great nation which had them not, as all the country between York and Newcastle has. My excursion was not a preaching one, though I did preach, and that to the utmost extent of my power. If I had taken half a year, I might have stopped much oftener than I did but then it is possible my own congregation would have reminded me that "charity begins at home." Whether success has, or has not attended foreign missions, the accounts which have been printed of them, so far as human judgment can go in such matters, will enable us to decide.

The only question that requires attention is, Whether the spirit which, within the last ten years has prompted Christians of different denominations to engage in foreign missions, has been favourable or unfavourable to the propagation of the gospel at home?-It is a fact which cannot be disputed, that within the above period, there have been far greater exertions to communicate the principles of religion to the heathenized parts of both England and Scotland, than any former period within the remembrance, at least, of the present generation. If I were to say they have been five times greater than before, I think I should not exceed the truth. Nor has that part of the kingdom, to which the writer of the letter alludes, been overlooked. And how is this fact to be accounted for? Will this friend to village-preaching unite with Bishop Horsley, and say, it is the effect of political motives; and merely a new direction of the democratic current, which was interrupted by the treason and sedition bills in 1795? If so, we might ask, How came it to commence two years before those bills were passed? How is it, that it should have prevailed, not so much among those dissenters who took an eager share in political contention, as those who