or an attack of murderers, no one of which ideas suits the conditions. It is perhaps better to keep to the slaying of victims for a feast, and view the rich men as the victims. Calvin says, ye have nourished etc, "significat sibi indulgene non modo ad naturæ satietatem sed quantima fert cupiditas." He says too that the rich prolong the feast to the end of their days. In his view the oxen are killed for the rich and are not compared to the rich. De Wette, the Delegates' the Mandarin and Mr. John, take the other. It is not a very important difference. The animals gorge themselves before they are slain and the guests gorge themselves at the feast. The rich men are compared possibly to both by mixed metaphor. Mr. John might abandon the to which Mr. Giles objects with reason, and take instead of it,, which is in Mencius and is very smooth. Instead of the obscure rendering of the New Westminster Revision we have in Chinese, by inserting the slain victims, a translation which retains the idea of the Syriac, and that of some of the Reformed renderings in the 16th century when Europe bent its energy specially to translation and exposition, as also of De Wette in our own time. "Nourished your hearts," is rendered in Pool, "nourished yourselves," "vos metipsos." In Ex. 4: 14, Est. 6: 6, Job 10: 13, Job 27: 6, heart has the meaning self in the Hebrew. "Or," he continues, "enutriendo corpora vestra exhilarastis animos vestros synecdoche metonymica." This does not agree with Mr. Giles' rendering. The words are those of Piscator whose name is evidently a Teutonic Fisher latinized. If we followed the Syriac and De Wette, we might omit to avoid too much paraphrasing, and translate the word fattened transitively, before your bodies, as in A, and then add "like victims on the slaughtering day." I would not omit "as" or "victims," for they are needed in Chinese to shew the reader what the apostle really meant. But neither of the versions quoted by Mr. Royall is far wrong. Mr. Giles' "when others are perishing around you," is not in the spirit of the passage. Better than this is honest Piscator's notion which includes the pleasure felt by the fattened animals in eating to the full. We could keep the Delegates' rendering just as it is, if we follow him and desert the banner of Calvin, Beza and Erasmus. Language is representation, a picture in fact. Translation is complete when the picture of the original is transferred to a new language with exactitude. A certain amount of paraphrasing is required in translation from Greek, and Hebrew into Chinese, but it must be happily done, and not exceed due limits. If translators are charged with giving commentary for a literal rendering, the best thing they can do is to defend the thesis that paraphrasing is often required, and that literal translation when not intelligible is no translation at all. At present the Delegates' Version is rather underrated, but it suits the reading class because its phrases are smooth and forcible, and this will ultimately ensure its popularity, for a missionary is usually inseparable from his teacher and subordinates his judgment to his so far as he sees that the teacher is in possession of the real idea of the sacred writer. Other things being equal the smoothest renderings ought to prevail in the end. An "easy "Wenli is a smooth Wenli. How can the Delegates' version be other than "easy" when it is smooth and forcible? JAMES CHAPTER V, VERSE 5. Whether the above verse has been rightly or wrongly translated by the Delegates, the authors of the Mandarin version, and Mr. Griffith John, must depend on the meaning of St. James when he wrote it. The meaning of the passage under note-Ye have nourished your hearts in the day of slaughter-is by no means easy of interpretation. Mr. Giles tell us, "that the meaning is simple enough when read with the context." In this opinion, however, Mr. Giles may be regarded as standing alone. If the passage is so simple, how is it that the most learned commentaries have failed to agree as to the meaning of it? Mr. Giles' dogmaticism greatly detracts from the value of his criticism. The two views generally given of the passage in question are treated with characteristic contempt by him. "Mr. Royall," he tells us, "has quite missed the point" in the view adopted by him. And yet it is the view given by Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Laurentius, Bengel, and others of our best commentators. The view adopted by these three versions is the one given by every modern commentary in my possession. Mr. Giles, however, treats this interpretation of the passage as being altogether out of the question. Mr. Royall had ventured to say, that the turn given to the passage by the three versions, "may pass as a good commentary." This Mr. Giles will not allow for a moment. "I," says Mr. Giles, "venture to think it is wholly inaccurate, and therefore very bad, commentary." Perhaps I may as well, for Mr. Giles' benefit, quote a part of Alford's note on the passage. It will show him that, if the translators have erred, they have done so in good company. Says Alford: "Day of Slaughter, i.e. as Theile, 'Similes sunt pecudibus quæ ipso adeo mactationis die se pascunt saginantque lactæ et securæ.' This seems the simplest and most obvious interpretation. It need not be dependent on the insertion of the ws; the sudden and direct application of the persons addressed requires no particle of comparison." Having cleared the ground, by thrusting aside the only two probable views of the passage, Mr. Giles tell us what, "St. James surely meant." So far as I can see, there is no ground at all for supposing that this is what St. James meant, except the fact that Mr. Giles thinks so, doubtless a very substantial ground in the eyes of Mr. Giles, be its intrinsic value what it may. I have read the passage with the context, and I cannot put Mr. Giles' meaning into it. Either of the two other views seems to me very much more probable. I have a good many commentaries on the New Testament in my possession; and I have just been looking them up, in order to see if I could find one among the interpreters who had been fortunate enough to light on Mr. Giles' simple meaning. I have not found one. This being the case, it seems to me that the translators can do nothing better than dismiss Mr. Giles' interpretation as of no value, and stick to the other two. I would advise that they leave the text in each of the versions to remain substantially as it stands, and to introduce a translation based on Mr. Royall's view as a marginal rendering. It might be asked if that, after all, would be a translation of what the Apostle said. I think it certainly would be a translation of what the Apostle meant; that is the one rendering or the other would be so. In passages of this kind, the translator is bound to have recourse to circumlocution in order to make the sense clear. If Mr. Giles thinks otherwise, let him by all means try it and give us the result. Let him, without a word of commentary, give us a translation of this passage based upon his own view. Personally I should be glad to see what he could make of it. One word with reference to the Chinese of Mr. John in the rendering of this passage. Mr. Giles pronounces it faulty. I have put the verse before a number of Chinese scholars, and without one exception they pronounce the style faultless-perfectly idiomatic and perfectly clear. They tell me that the meaning of the passage in Chinese is "like beasts on the day of their slaughter," the meaning, I presume, which Mr. John intended to convey. I venture to think a change of to, suggested by Mr. Giles, would give no sense at all. B. Editorial Notes and Missionary News. PRAYER FOR THE EMPEROR OF may be endowed with heaven-sent wisdom, that the people under him NEWS OF THE MONTH. on A suggestion has been made that special prayer should be offered for the Emperor of China at the present time. We heartily respond to the suggestion, and urgently recommend that all should unite in frequent and earnest prayers at the throne of the heavenly grace on With the present number, the his behalf. There can be no valuable series of Letters question that the young Monarch "Methods of Mission Work," by is at an age of special importance Dr. Nevius, is concluded. There in regard to the formation of have been calls for these letters in character, and the adoption of a separate form, and they will soon. principles, which will determine the future policy of his government. It is eminently proper to pray that the influences under which he now is, may be controlled of God to advance the interests of his kingdom. It is not only a general duty to "pray for kings and for all in authority" of which we here speak. There are special reasons should induce us to make that sup plication for the Emperor at the present time. On the 28th of the 6th month near at hand, he will enter on his sixteenth year. By a decree of the Empress Regent, just promulgated, we learn that her Majesty will resign the Regency in the first month of the coming Chinese year, and that her nephew, his Majesty the Emperor, will then assume the reins of government. Not long afterwards we may expect the marriage of the Emperor to take place. Let us present many ardent prayers to God for him, that he be offered for sale by The Presbyterian Press. Their usefulness to the cause of missions, has but just commenced, and we doubt not will long continue. We learn from Japan that Mrs. M. C. Leavitt has arrived there from Australia, and has commenced her efforts in behalf of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union at Yokohama. She may be expected in China in the early fall. The Illustrated Christian Weekly, refers to a prospectus of a new College for China, to be established in some central city, to which Dr. Happer is devoting his energies, hoping to raise for it an endowment of $300,000. Provisions are to be made at once for Preparatory Collegiate, and Medical Departments. A little incident recently occur. red at a missionary Boys' Boarding Rev. Dr. Blodget writes from Peking:"A beautiful harvest of wheat covers the ground. We can hardly expect such a harvest oftener than once, or twice at most, in ten years, owing to the lack of rain in the spring. The two steam dredging machines of the Viceroy have done good service in the lacustrine regions of the province in deepening the channels of the rivers, and redeeming from the waters the fields of the farmers." We have to acknowledge the receipt of a "Presentation Copy" of The Psalms translated by Rev. Griffith John, printed at "The National Bible Society's" Press, Hankow. In the accompanying circular it is stated that, "It represents a year's constant labor." "If it is so desired, the publishers will issue these Psalms bound up with such Testaments as are in tended for use by Christians. As it is, to those who wish for it, copies will be forwarded at the rate of one dollar and a half per hundred." We shall of course be excused from a critical study of this new version in Easy Wenli, but it will receive the attention it deserves from Chinese students throughout the land. No less than twenty new species of the genus Primula have recently been described in the Bulletin of the Botanical Society of France, by M. A. Franchet, from the mountains of Yunan, collected by M. Delaway, a French missionary. They are said to have the great beauty of most primroses, and are, like many others of the same genus, fond of a sub-Arctic locality. These were nearly all found at elevations varying from 10,000 to 13,000 feet, and many hugged the glaciers of that region. The New York Independent. New York have recently republished Robert Carter and Brothers, of in beautiful form, "Our Life in China," by Mrs. H. S. C. Nevius, as one of their Home Series. The Foreign Missionary says of it :"It is worthy of a reprint, as being, after all that has been written, one of the best of our books on China. Perhaps it has scarcely a rival in the special line of matter-of-fact and common-life description at which it aims." We learn from China's Millions serve, as for May, that Rev. J. W. Stevenson has accepted the appointment of Director's Deputy of the China Inland Mission, and that various Superintendents will follows:-Rev. J. Meadows, for Chehkiang; Rev. J. McCarthy for Kiangsu and Kiangsi; Rev. W. Cooper for Ganhway; Rev. F. W. Baller for Hupeh and Honan; Rev. G. F. Easton for Shensi and Kansuh; Mr. G. W. Clarke for North Shanse; Dr. Cameron for Shangtung; and Mr. A. C. Dorward for Hunan and Kwangsi. Rev. Dr. Blodget in the newspapers sions of Burmah in particular to urges the Baptist Misenter China from the "Back Door;" and we notice that Mr. J. T. Morton, a merchant of London, offers to bear the whole expense of sending four men to South West China by that route for five years, at a figure that will not be less than $25,000. The Rev. W. Swanson, English Presbyterian Mission, Amoy, made a fine address at the late Annual |