98 



THE REV. T. H. DARLOW, M.A., ON THE CIIAKACTER. 



covenant. The Lecturer had used the word " Hebrew " throughout 

 his paper, but nowadays some authorities, like Prof. Naville, 

 spoke slightingly of Hebrew. He wondered what the distinguished 

 and industrious scholar, Dr. Driver, whom we have just lost, would 

 say if he had been told that there was no such language as Hebrew 1 

 What name, could they substitute for it ? Aramaic would not serve ; 

 must they adopt Canaanite 1 A paper in the Expositor for January 

 by Prof. Margoliouth, showed that the Gospel of St. Matthew had 

 first been written in Hebrew, and then translated into Aramaic and 

 finally into Greek. 



He had himself been head of the Translation Department in the 

 Bible House for ten 3^ears, and knew something of the immense 

 difficulties which translators had to face. How, for instance, was it 

 possible to give any idea of the Bible animals to the natives of a 

 country where there was no animal larger than a flea 1 In such a 

 case the missionary would require to take about with him a 

 travelling zoological garden, or at any rate a good picture book. 

 In translating an English sentence into Chinese, it was necessary to 

 turn the sentence upside down, especially if it conveyed an 

 argument, for the Chinese method of reasoning is quite contrary to 

 our own. But when the Chinese get the Bible in their own 

 language they love it, and a Chinaman has been known to say, " The 

 English Bible is very good, but if you want to know what the 

 Bible really is, you must read it in Chinese." The italics in our 

 Bible are a testimony to the difficulties of translation and to the 

 fidelity of our translators, for they indicate passages where in order 

 to convey the sense, it has been necessary to introduce words which 

 are not in the original. 



Mr. Phillips stated that he had a brother who was a missionary 

 in Ehodesia and that he was now sending home for printing the 

 book of the prophet Jonah, which was the first portion of the Bible 

 which he had translated into Walamba. It was necessary that 

 those to whom they preached should have some understanding of 

 sin before the Gospel was proclaimed to , them. He further 

 mentioned that the Superintendent of the London Missionary 

 Society in Nyasaland refused baptism to those converts who could 

 not read the New Tsetament, urging that they had had schools in 

 that country for several yQars, and that for a convert not to be able 

 to read it showed a lack of earnestness and zeal.. 



