OF THE 13IBLK INFERRED FROM ITS VERSIONS. 



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The Rev. F. C. Lovely, B. A., thought that, as the previous speaker 

 had mentioned the Walamba language, it might interest the meeting 

 to know that the Book of Jonah, translated into the Walamba 

 language, by Mr. W. A. Phillips, of Nyasaland, was at that time 

 being carried through the Oxford University Press, by the 

 Trinitarian Bible Society. 



Mr. P. F. Wood said he had very great pleasure in listening to 

 Mr. Darlow's address ; it was interesting in its subject, charming in 

 its phrasing, and would prove very useful. We were not astonished 

 at its excellence as we are accustomed to get good things from the 

 Bible House. Christian people needed to be educated to understand 

 the need for translations and the difficulties experienced in making 

 them so that the Christian Church might learn to pray for translators. 



Mr. M. L. Rouse said that the fact recalled by Mr. Darlow that 

 the Bible of Jerome was from earliest times known as the Vulgate, 

 i.e., version made for the people, exemplified the principle which 

 was believed in at its making, and long afterwards, that the Bible 

 ought to be turned into the common language of those to whom its 

 doctrines are preached. Yet that very version had in later centuries 

 been made the instrument of exclusivism ; for the priests of the 

 Church of Rome objected to any other being read : the people must 

 not read the Word of God in their own language but only in Latin. 

 A Roman Catholic priest had once told him that the Church 

 had originally possessed an official Bible in Greek, which as 

 regards the Old Testament, was a miraculous rendering from the 

 Hebrew, but that Jerome thought it advisable to make a trans- 

 lation from the Hebrew into Latin, " because the Greek Septuagint 

 did not give all the nice shades of meaning found in the Hebrew 

 original ; " a strange thing to say of a version made correct by 

 miracle ! Since then, the Latin Vulgate had been the official 

 Bible of the Church ; to allow another to take its place would be 

 grossly to mislead the readers. He admitted, however, that there 

 were other vernacular versions made from the Hebrew Old 

 Testament and Greek New Testament before Jerome's time ; such 

 as the first Syriac, the Coptic, and the Gothic ; so that the principle 

 had been recognized that it was a good thing to give the Bible to 

 a people in their own language and he could not mention any 

 Church Council as having examined into the matter, and decided 

 against such translations. He also allowed that in preaching he 



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