There is still another point in the different bearings of our subject which calls for our attention, namely, the use which has been made of the Vulgate in the formation of other received versions. The French, Italian, Spanish, and German Bibles which were published before the sixteenth century were wholly taken from the Latin.* Luther, while he translated from the Greek, made great use of the Vulgate, though Coleridge has represented him "with sullen and angry hope reaching for his sworn enemy only when the original is absolutely unintelligible." In England, Tyndale, Coverdale, and Rogers, and James's translators were also evidently influenced more or less by the Vulgate, either directly, or through Wiclif and Luther. If any critical value is to be attached to the Vulgate, it is because it may contain some readings from the oldest Latin versions, from which, by careful criticism, may be deduced the readings of the most ancient Greek MSS. There are certainly many erroneous renderings in the Vulgate itself, and in the Rhemish Testament, which tend to strengthen the perversions of the Church of Rome. For instance, John and Jesus are made to preach, not, “repent ye," but, "do penance." Matt. iii. 23, iv. 17. We might cite numerous instances of a similar character. Besides these there are many variations from the Greek original, such as the following. Matt. xxviii. 1. "And in the evening of the Sabbath which dawneth on the first of the Sabbath." A very wretched translation. Mark vii. 13. "Going out of the coasts of Tyre, he came by Sidon, to the sea of Galilee." This is founded upon an absurd various reading. Luke xi. 53. "The Pharisees began to stop his mouth about many things." But by the true rendering, in our version, they did exactly the contrary. As it regards the common use of Christians, the Vulgate must be pronounced corrupt in many important passages. The opinion so often advanced, that it is better to circulate an erroneous copy of the Scriptures than none at all, does not recommend itself to us without some qualification. If there were no other objection to such a course, it is enough to say that it tends to perpetuate a great evil, and is in fact the principal bar to its removal. Simon, Hist. Crit. des Vers., cap. 28, 40, 41. G. E. E. ART. VII. Nature. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1836. 12mo. pp. 95. We find beautiful writing and sound philosophy in this little work; but the effect is injured by occasional vagueness of expression, and by a vein of mysticism, that pervades the writer's whole course of thought. The highest praise that can be accorded to it, is, that it is a suggestive book, for no one can read it without tasking his faculties to the utmost, and relapsing into fits of severe meditation. But the effort of perusal is often painful, the thoughts excited are frequently bewildering, and the results to which they lead us, uncertain and obscure. The reader feels as in a disturbed dream, in which shows of surpassing beauty are around him, and he is conversant with disembodied spirits, yet all the time he is harassed by an uneasy sort of consciousness, that the whole combination of phenomena is fantastic and unreal. In point of taste in composition, some defects proceed from over anxiety to avoid common errors. The writer aims at simplicity and directness, as the ancient philosopher aimed at humility, and showed his pride through the tatters of his cloak. He is in love with the Old Saxon idiom, yet there is a spice of affectation in his mode of using it. He is sometimes coarse and blunt, that he may avoid the imputation of sickly refinement, and writes bathos with malice prepense, because he abhors. forced dignity and unnatural elevation. These are grave charges, but we make them advisedly, for the author knows better than to offend so openly against good taste, and, in many passages of great force and beauty of expression, has shown that he can do better. The following sentences, taken almost at random, will show the nature of the defects alluded to. "Now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable, as language, sleep, dreams, beasts, sex."-p. 7. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball."— p. 13. "Whilst we use this grand cipher to expedite the affairs of our pot and kettle, we feel that we have not put it to its use, neither are able." "Therefore is Space, and therefore Time, that men may know that things are not huddled and lumped, but sundered and individual." - p. 48. "I expand and live in the warm day, like corn and melons." p. 73. The purpose of the book, so far as it may be said to have a purpose, is, to invite us to the observation of nature, and to point out manifestations of spirit in material existences and external events. The uses to which the outward world is subservient are divided into four classes,-Commodity, Beauty, Language, and Discipline. These ends the writer considers as the final cause of every thing that exists, except the soul. To the consideration of each he allots a chapter, and displays, often with eloquence and a copious fund of illustration, the importance of the end, and the aptitude of the means provided for its attainment. In the latter part of the work, he seems disposed to neutralize the effect of the former, by adopting the Berkeleyan system, and denying the outward and real existence of that Nature, which he had just declared to be so subservient to man's spiritual wants. Of the chapters on "Spirit" and "Prospects," with which the work concludes, we prefer not to attempt giving an account, until we can understand their meaning. view. From this sketch of the author's plan, it would seem, that he had hardly aimed at originality. What novelty there is in the work, arises not from the choice or distribution of the subject, but from the manner of treatment. The author is not satisfied with that cautious philosophy which traces the indirect influences of outward phenomena and physical laws on the individual mind, and contemplates the benevolence of the Deity in particular instances of the adaptation and subserviency of matter to spirit. He contemplates the Universe from a higher point of Where others see only an analogy, he discerns a final cause. The fall of waters, the germination of seeds, the alternate growth and decay of organized forms, were not originally designed to answer the wants of our physical constitution, but to acquaint us with the laws of mind, and to serve our intellectual and moral advancement. The powers of Nature have been forced into the service of man. The pressure of the atmosphere, the expansive force of steam, the gravity of falling bodies, are our ministers, and do our bidding in levelling the earth, in changing a wilderness into a habitable city, and in fashioning raw materials into products available for the gratification of sense and the protection of body. Yet these ends are only of secondary importance to the great purpose for which these forces were created and made subject to human power. Spiritual laws are typified in these natural facts, and are made evident in the whole material constitution of things. Man must study matter, that he may become acquainted with his own soul. - to "All the facts in natural history, taken by themselves, have no value, but are barren like a single sex. But marry it to human history, and it is full of life. Whole Floras, all Linnæus' and Buffon's volumes, are but dry catalogues of facts; but the most trivial of these facts, the habit of a plant, the organs, or work, or noise of an insect, applied to the illustration of a fact in intellectual philosophy, or in any way associated to human nature, affects us in the most lively and agreeable manner. The seed of a plant, what affecting analogies in the nature of man, is that little fruit made use of, in all discourse, up to the voice of Paul, who calls the human corpse a seed, 'It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.' The motion of the earth round its axis, and round the sun, makes the day, and the year. These are certain amounts of brute light and heat. But is there no intent of an analogy between man's life and the seasons? And do the seasons gain no grandeur or pathos from that analogy? The instincts of the ant are very unimportant considered as the ant's; but the moment a ray of relation is seen to extend from it to man, and the little drudge is seen to be a monitor, a little body with a mighty heart, then all its habits, even that said to be recently observed, that it never sleeps, become sublime.” — pp. 35, 36. Thus far, whatever we may think of the truth and soberness of the writer's views, he is at least intelligible. But his imagination now takes a higher flight, and the bewildered reader strives in vain through the cloud-capt phraseology to catch a glimpse of more awful truths. Who will be the Edipus to solve the following enigmas? "This relation between the mind and matter is not fancied by some poet, but stands in the will of God, and so is free to be known by all men. It appears to men, or it does not appear. When in fortunate hours we ponder this miracle, the wise man doubts, if, at all other times, he is not blind and deaf; 'Can these things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud, for the universe becomes transparent, and the light of higher laws than its own shines through it. It is the standing problem which has exercised the wonder and the study of every fine genius since the world began; from the era of the Egyptians and the Brahmins, to that of Pythagoras, of Plato, of Bacon, of Leibnitz, of Swedenborg. There sits the Sphinx at the road-side, and from age to age, as each prophet comes by, he tries his fortune at reading her riddle. There seems to be a necessity in spirit to manifest itself in material forms; and day and night, river and storm, beast and bird, acid and alkali, preexist in necessary Ideas in the mind of God, and are what they are by virtue of preceding affections, in the world of spirit. A Fact is the end or last issue of spirit. The visible creation is the terminus or the circumference of the invisible world. Material objects,' said a French philosopher, ' are necessarily kinds of scoria of the substantial thoughts of the Creator, which must always preserve an exact relation to their first origin; in other words, visible nature must have a spiritual and moral side.'" 6 - pp. 43, 44. In the chapter on "Discipline," the lessons of Nature are enforced with great energy and directness. Man is not so constitutionally active, but that he must receive repeated monitions to labor, or the powers of body and mind will rust and decay. Wants and cravings are imposed upon him, some of which his very physical constitution imperatively requires to be satisfied, and immediate stinging pain is the punishment of neglect. Once gratified, they recur, and provision must again be made. To the knowledge of higher wants he arrives by more extended observation and by every advance in knowledge. Thus, the thirst for truth is insatiable, and increases from gratification. Nature entices us to toil, by offering to gratify the lust for power, and subjecting herself to our dominion. She assumes the harness, and allows us to guide the reins, that she may carry us onward. An exact correspondence exists between the constitution of the soul and of the universe. The love of beauty, of dominion, of comfort, find their appropriate food in the various relations of things, that first called these passions into being, or at least first made us conscious of their existence. Variegated colors, brilliant appearances, curious forms, call us away from the chamber and the couch, that we may walk abroad and admire. The desire of fame and the social instinct are adapted to each other. Either principle alone would be inefficient and useless. United, they are continually pressing us to action. Industry is the great lesson of life, and the universe is the teacher. But man is not only an active, but a moral being. The constitution of society, the relations which connect him with his fellows, are his instructers in virtue. A hermitage is no school |