MEMORIALS OF THE INQUISITION. these horrid tribunals were inhumanly constructed for torture. They have been likened to graves for the dead, though they varied according to the degree of alleged delinquency. A jail in Spain and Portugal was actually named Santa Casa, or the holy house, because the Inquisition imparted of its own sanctity to all connected with it. On entering it (in Portugal), the prisoners were shaved and dressed. Their fare was wretched, and kept in some cases as near as possible to the point of starvation, that if the prisoners had property, the more might remain to the Inquisition at the confiscation that followed upon the sentence. The harpies of the Holy Office often lived upon the prisoners, if they had means, like vermin upon those whom they infest. Hence annoyances and privations more galling to some generous spirits than even the torture and the rack. Those who were confined in the worst class of cells, generally sat in utter darkness, and were sometimes kept there for several years, without a visitor but their keeper, that they might be subdued by the horrors of their dungeon, and compelled by suffering "to confess things which oftentimes they had never done." No one durst even mutter a syllable in those dungeons. The silence was absolute and profound, like that of the grave; and if a lamentation, a moan, or a wail was heard, the rules of the Inquisition, commanding silence, were strictly enforced against the sufferer. If admonition failed to restore it, bodily correction was resorted to; and a case is on record, in which one of those confined died of blows inflicted because he could not refrain from coughing. One design of this stringency was to preserve perfect secrecy, which was proverbially regarded as "the strength of the Inquisition," and prevent any intercourse between cell and cell. Any relaxation that was granted, was in word and appearance rather than reality, and if danger was dreaded, the prisoner might be laid in irons. In short, of all the systems ever devised for harassing and tormenting men accused, and wearing them out by a kind of living death, the system adopted by the Inquisition, especially in Spain, was the most perfect-solitude, starvation, silence, bodily correction, and chafing insult, were the bitter ingredients which made up the lot of the prisoners. From such wretchedness even the rack was a kind of relief; and if any other alleviation was vouchsafed, it was rather in contravention of the laws than in harmony with them, while in all that regarded what was reckoned heresy, men and women shared the same fate. On one occasion clemency to one of the accused, on the part of a servant of the prison, was rewarded with incarceration for a year, with two hundred stripes, wearing a garment of yellow (the badge of disgrace), and banishment for ten years from the city and territory where the mercy had been shown; while the odious title, "The Protector of Heretics," was attached 343 as a stigma, on account of the humanity displayed. In our next notice we design to advert to the crimes of which the Inquisition takes cognizance, with the mode of procedure before the Tribunal. Meanwhile let us ask. Would any one suppose, while glancing over these paragraphs, that we have been describing measures adopted for spreading and upholding the religion of peace, and mercy, and love? Has it ever occurred to think that all these diabolical plans were executed by men professing the religion, or pretending zeal for the cause, of Him who would not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax? Nay, rather, do not these details exhibit, as in the lurid light of the fires which the Inquisition so often kindled, the origin, the spirit, and the tendency of the revolting system? We here see into the very heart's core of Popery. We discover its real nature, as the Antichristian system which tends to overlay the religion of love, and rear in its place the invention of fiends. Popery is, no doubt, now shorn of much of its virulence. The Inquisition now has not the same startling sound, nor the same Satanic power, as of old. But let that creed regain its former sway over men's consciences, and souls, and fears, and the system will be found essentially and unchangeably the same. Its errors are part of its very being--nay, Popery has no existence but as error, inasmuch as it is, in all its parts, the direct antagonist of the revelation of God, which is truth. Then, its delusions are organic, and not merely functional you cannot remove one of its dogmata without destroying Popery itself. In other words, it must be utterly swept awayit cannot be improved or amended; and unless the nations become alive to the horrors of the system, others besides Constantine of Seville, one of its murdered victims, may have reason to exclaim-"O my God, were there no Scythians in the world—no cannibals more fierce and cruel than Scythians, into whose hands thou couldst carry me, that I might escape the paws of these wretches!" Let no Romanist, or no enemy of God's truth here retort, Did not Melancthon, did not Cranmer, did not Calvin, did not others of the Reformers persecute in their turn? Popery itself, the creed in which they were reared, must be held responsible for all such violations of the law of love-the liberty which man enjoys of being responsible only to his God for his faith. So thoroughly does Popery appear to be the religion of blood, that even those who had escaped from its thraldom in other respects, retained some marks of their bondage in this; and all who seek the emancipation of mind, the salvation of the soul, the glory of God in the growth and propagation of liberty, civil and religious, will seek, by Christian means, and in a Christian spirit, the downfal of the Man of Sin, the overthrow of Antichrist, the unmask ing of the Mystery of Iniquity, the extinction of that deceivableness of unrighteousness which signalizes the system which exalts itself above all that is called God. It is mercy to the nations, it is mercy to the Romanists themselves, to unveil the real nature of that false faith. The well-being of man throughout the world is identified with its downfal; and all who are knit together in the bonds of the true Catholic religion should labour and pray, in the spirit of their Lord, for the subversion of the delusions of Rome. Since Friar Thomas Torquemada gave the Inquisition its laws in 1483, and Valdes recast them in 1561, how many thousands of God's saints have been slaughtered! Though dead, do they not still speak against the odious system? THE WHOLE FAMILY. (From Rev. B. Slowe's "Whole Family in Heaven and Earth.") WHOLE family! It is not easy to conjoin other two words that would awaken so many tender associations or furnish so many topics of exhilarating or saddening interest. broken and dispersed. O how tender and subduing "We all are here, You that I love, with love so dear; THE ANNALS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE.* (From the Free Church Magazine.) OUR present design is to gather from the pages of the elaborate work whose title we have prefixed to this paper, some notices of the English Bible. It never was the policy of Popery to put the Scriptures into the hands of the people. Till nearly the end of the fourteenth century there was no translation of the Word of God into the English language. Trans "God setteth the solitary in families;" and you can probably recollect when you was a constituent of a whole, and, in some respects, of a happy family. Then you were all, parents and children, sheltered by the same roof, and grouped at the same fire-side. Then, thrice a-day, you surrounded the same table, and partook of the bounty of Him who "openeth his hand and satisfieth the desires of every living thing."lations of some small fragments there were Then you" went to the house of God in company," and occupied the same pew, and listened to the same expounder of the heavenly oracles. Then, morning and evening, you sat in reverent silence, and heard a chapter read from the family Biblee-a peculiar book, whose shape and appearance you can never forget, and the like of which you have never yet seen. Then you bowed, an unbroken circle, around a common altar, "When kneeling down to heaven's eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prayed.” Then, as you had one home, and sought no other, your joys, griefs, and interests were one. You had "all things common." Then, as affection bound together, the thought of separation was inexpressibly painful. You deprecated the rupture of the family tie as an evil of unsurpassed magnitude." but no translation of the whole Bible. Those who were unacquainted with the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages, knew as much or as little of the Word of God, which maketh wise unto salvation, as an ignorant and vicious|| priesthood might be able and willing to teach them. Wickliffe was the first who translated the whole Bible into English. He knew neither Hebrew nor Greek, and translated from the Latin. His, therefore, was a translation from a translation, and so far it was imperfect, though still an unspeakable boon to his country. vented till about 1435, and therefore copies of It was finished in 1380. Printing was not inWickliffe's translation could be multiplied only by the slow and expensive process of the transcriber's pen. Notwithstanding this it ob Those days of home comfort-of sweet domestic endearment--are fresh in your recollection, and only by the annihilation of your being can they be extirpated from your memory. Your thoughts love to linger about those sunny scenes, and from them extract the honey that sweetens the bitterness of pre-tained a wide circulation, and exercised a great sent cares and disappointments. And the farther you advance in life, the more frequently do your minds recur to them as a fount of solace that the heart knows how to appreciate. But that circle of home kindred, once and so long complete, has been broken. That family, once whole, has felt the touch of the breaker's wand, and some of the fragments are mouldering in the tomb where other dead are congregated, or in some country graveyard, where in summer grow the fern and the wildbrier, and in winter the cold north wind spreads over them a snowy mantle. Other portions, widely sundered, have become centres around which new circles are forming, that are soon, in like manner, to be and salutary influence. Wickliffe's opinions, or rather the knowledge and belief of Scrip ture truth, made great progress. The Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester, sons of Edward!' III, favoured and protected Wickliffe; and successfully a bill brought in to suppress the the former, in his place in Parliament, opposed English version of the Word of God. England possessed no Bible in her own language, except The Annals of the English Bible. By Christopher Anderson, in two volumes. London: William Pickering 1845. THE ANNALS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE. this version in manuscript, for the next 150 years; and it is not a little singular that Wickliffe's translation is now being printed for the first time. The substratum or foundation of our present English Bible is not the translation of Wickliffe, but that of William Tyndale, which, after five revisions from the Hebrew and Greek, still stands, word for word, in many places of our authorized version. Tyndale was a man of considerable learning, having studied at both the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. At an early period of his life he was deeply convinced that the best remedy for the ignorance of the laity, and the corruptions of the clergy, was the throwing open to all the Scriptures of truth; and, in an argument which he had with a dignitary of the Church, he was roused to say to his opponent, "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures than you do." 345 with which to combat ignorance and superstition. The quarto edition was completed as well as the octavo one, and both of them found their way into this country soon after they came from the press. But as it was of the quarto edition that the king and Wolsey had been forewarned, it was that edition which was seized, denounced, and condemned; whilst its smaller companion, the octavo edition, was circulating unnoticed and unopposed in thousands throughout the land. And it is a remarkable fact, that God permitted man's condemnation to fall first on that translation which was loaded with glosses and comments, and to fall so heavily as to crush it entirely; whilst the translation without note or comment remained, and spread, and multiplied in spite of the most furious and persevering endeavours to destroy it. God will take care of his own Word: when man makes addition to that Word, even in the shape of an honest and faithful comment, the mingled gold and clay must take its chance among human compositions. Tyndale went abroad, probably to Hamburg, where he seems to have published a translation first of Matthew and then of Mark. In 1525 he is believed to have removed to Cologne, Tyndale's New Testaments arrived in Engwhere he put his translation of the New Testa- land in the early part of 1526. It is not known ment to the press. But the printing had pro- from what port of the Continent they were ceeded only as far as the tenth sheet, when shipped; it was probably from several, as the John Cochlæus, one of the bitterest enemies stock which had been printed was wisely kept that ever lived to the translation of the Scrip- in different places. Simon Fyshe, a lawyer in tures, came to the knowledge of what was London, and George Harman, a merchant in going on. By his influence with Herman Rinck, Antwerp, were the first active instruments in one of the leading men of Cologne, the senate bringing over the English New Testament, and was prevailed upon to interdict the printer from putting it into circulation among the people. proceeding with Tyndale's work. Tyndale And so early as January 1526, many of the immediately fled from Cologne, taking with him learned youths in London, and in the two unithe printed sheets of his translation, and went versities, were eagerly reading the Word of up the Rhine to Worms, where there was more God in their own language. In a very short Lutheranism and more freedom. And striking period the effects of this appeared. A number enough, that which Cochlæus designed to be of the most promising students of Wolsey's a hindrance to the publication of the Scrip- own college (Cardinal College) at Oxford were tures in the English tongue, proved the occa-suspected of heresy, apprehended, and subjectsion of two editions instead of one issuing from the press; for at Worms Tyndale not only completed the printing of the quarto edition begun at Cologne, but also printed an octavo edition. Cochleus and Rinck, on discovering what was going on at Cologne, had written to England informing Henry VIII. and Wolsey of the translation of Tyndale, and beseeching them to be on their guard against its introduction into England. Tyndale was aware of this was aware that his book had been minutely described to the king and Wolsey; and this seems to have led him to change its form, with the view of baffling the vigilance which might be employed to keep it out of the hands of his countrymen. The quarto size was changed for the octavo, and certain notes or glosses which he had added on the margin were omitted ;indeed, Tyndale seems to have come very early to the conviction that the Word of God, withont note or comment, was the best weapon ed to very harsh treatment. To stay the progress of the evil, a number of Tyndale's New Testaments and other books were publicly burnt in London by Wolsey's order, and in his presence, in February of the above year. This was immediately followed by an address in the king's name, denouncing Tyndale's quarto New Testament, the only one apparently yet known to the enemies of the Word of God, and ordering the book to be burned wherever it could be found. But all this was of no avail. Unable to prevail on the people to give up the treasure of the Scriptures to be destroyed, it was determined by Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, to trv what could be done by purchasing up and burning this very troublesome and dangerous translation. Three editions had been published, and the archbishop succeeded in obtaining a part of these, at a cost of £60:9:4d. of the money of those days, and equal to about £997 of our money. Of course, as far as the suppression of Tyndale's translation went, the attempt was perfectly futile. Many copies continued to be brought over from the Continent. Zealous, active men were found who engaged heartily in circulating them in England. These carried them to the principal towns, and travelled through the country disposing of them to the people, who were now both well prepared to receive, and anxious to possess them. From February 1526, we have Garret, Necton, Lome, Fyshe, and others, receiving books from abroad, including the quarto and octavo editions, and also the editions of Matthew and Mark, published separately, and disposing of them in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Bradford, Lynn, and many other places. Tyndale, who was still on the Continent, now set himself to translate the Old Testament; and by the year 1530, the five books of Moses were published and introduced into England; and in 1531 he further published a translation of Jonah, with a bold, searching, seasonable prologue. In 1534, whilst the star of Anne Boleyn was in the ascendant, the Scriptures were brought freely into England; no one hindered. But the translator's life was drawing to a close. He had been hunted from place to place by the active enmity of Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, the king, and the bishops, for many years; but the hand of the Lord had protected him; at length he was apprehended at Antwerp by one Phillips, at the instigation probably of the enemies of the Bible in England, and under the authority of certain persecuting decrees of the German Emperor. This was in 1535. He was imprisoned in the Castle of Vilvorde for about a year and a half, and suffered martyrdom on the 6th of October 1536; being first strangled, and then consumed to ashes. Before his death about twenty editions of his translation of the New Testament had been published; and at the very time when he was suffering martyrdom, a folio edition-the first copy of the New Testament printed in England-was going through the press of the king's printer in London. In 1537 the whole Scriptures were translated into English, and published by Miles Coverdale. A curious circumstance attended the publication of Coverdale's translation. It was dedicated to Henry and Queen Anne Boleyn. But after it was printed, and before it was published, that unfortunate queen was beheaded. The dedication, therefore, must needs be changed, and accordingly some copies are found in which the ANNE has been altered by the pen to JANE. In the same year another translation of the entire Scriptures was published by John Rogers, otherwise called Thomas Matthews, a dear friend of Tyndale. This consisted of Tyndale's version as far as it went; that is, the whole of the New Testament, and the Old Testament to the end of Second Chronicles, with sundry detached portions left by Tyndale in manuscript. These Rogers carefully revised, and added the remaining portion from the end of Second Chronicles to the conclusion of the Old Testament, from Coverdale's translation, carefully compared with the original, or from a new translation of his own. The Word of God was now all translated into the English language, the art of printing was invented and in full operation, and nothing could either send back the Scriptures to repose in the learned languages, or stay the spread of them in the vernacular tongue. Edition after edition poured from the press, many of them printed in England, in despite of the policy and violence of the partisans of Popery, till the Word of God swept away all opposition to the reading of it, and had free course throughout the land. We turn now to Scotland. Fragments of Wickliffe's translation in manuscript found their way into that country; and there can be no doubt but that manuscript copies of the New Testament, in the vernacular tongue were possessed by several Scottish families before Tyndale's translation was printed. With re gard to that translation, many copies of it were brought over to Scotland by the Scottish merchants trading with the Continent, about the same period that it was introduced into England. We find Hackett, the English ambassador, thus writing from Mechlin, of date February 20, 1526, to Cardinal Wolsey: "By my last writing to Mr. Brian Luke, I advertised him how there were divers merchants of Scotland that bought many of such like books (New Tes taments), and took them into Scotland-a part to Edinburgh, and most part to the town of St. Andrews." Popery, as usual, opposed the introduction of the Scriptures, and many suffered because they bought thein, read them, believed them, obeyed them. At length, in 1543, the Parliament issued a proclamation, declaring it to be lawful for all to have and read the Holy Writ, both the New Testament and the Old, in the vulgar tongue, in the English or Scotch. Still, and the fact is singular enough, Scotland was sup plied with Bibles almost wholly from England and the Continent. No Bibles were printed in Scotland for more than a hundred years, except a folio edition in 1579, and another folio edition in 1610. The first pocket Bible printed in Scotland did not appear till 1638. DISAPPOINTMENTS. "THE inhabitants of Maroth waited carefully for good, but evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem." "Behold," says Hezekiah, "for peace I had great bitterness." "We looked for peace," says the Church, "but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!" Indeed, whatever engages our affection may become a soure of sorrow; whatever excites our hope may prove the THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE RAIN. of disappointment. Such is the hard condition which we take all our earthly comforts. we secure from disappointment with regard ? This is the tenure by which we hold all our sions; and nothing can be more uncertain. man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes re taken in an evil net, and the birds that are t in the snare; so are the sons of men snared evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we o into such a city, and continue there a year, uy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know hat shall be on the morrow. For what is your It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little and then vanisheth away." > we secure from disappointment in our health? blessing is necessary to our relishing every other ment; but how precarious is the continuance of Upon how many delicate and combined causes it depend! How easily may some of them be ged? Are we ever safe from those accidents 1 may strike, or those diseases which may invade How many have been compelled by pain and osition to drop an enterprise which they had taken a journey which they had begun!" e we secure from disappointment with regard to ren? The forebodings of the parental mind are and flattering; but, oh! how unanswerable to expectation have events often proved! "This shall comfort us," has been said of many a i, who has been dismembered or sickly in body, uded in understanding, vicious and disorderly in embarrassed and miserable in circumstances. father had looked forward and promised himself ntertaining companion; and behold the care and expense of fourteen years carried down to the e! See Rachel-she has been laying aside the e garments her busy hands had wrought, and ing out of sight the toys which lately charmed desire of her eyes-and, "weeping for her childrefuses to be comforted, because they are not." re we secure from disappointment with regard to ndship? How many of our connections have pped us already, and by their painful defections e called upon us to cease from man! How small he number of true sterling friends who will abide day of trial! Some of those who are now fawn, would not, if a change of circumstances occurred, en know us. They leave the garden in winterere is nothing to gather. The flower which they ced in their bosom, as soon as it has exhaled its rfume, they throw withered into the dust. Of at use is the scaffolding when the building is ished?-it is laid by out of sight. My brethren," s the renowned sufferer, "have dealt deceitfully a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass ay: what time they wax warm, they vanish; when is hot they are consumed out of their place." Are we secure from disappointment with regard to operty? Where can you safely lay up treasure -on earth? Water inundates, flames devour, moth d rust corrupt, thieves break through and steal. ches make to themselves wings and flee away. ppearances may be favourable, plans may be well id, every assistance necessary to success may be ocured; but "the race is not to the swift, nor the ttle to the strong; neither yet bread to the wise, or yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to Money is a defence," and hence it is so xiously desired, so universally pursued; but how any have fallen from the highest affluence into the pths of indigence, and have had their necessities mbittered by the recollection of the plenty which nce made their cup to run over! "Woe to him that em all." | 347 coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!" "Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest amongst the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.”—Jay. THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE RAIN. BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY. "MOTHER, it rains," said a little girl, who was looking out at the window. "I am sorry not to make a visit to Emma. She invited me twice before, but it rained, and now it is raining hard again." "I hope you will not be unhappy, my dear," said her mother. "I think I notice the tears upon your cheeks. I will not say it is a little thing, for the troubles of children seem great to them, but I trust you will be patient, and wait pleasantly for good weather." 'Mother, you have told me that God knows everything, and that he is always good. Then he certainly must know that there is but one Saturday after oor in the week, and that all this time I have to play with my little friends. He must know that it has rained now these three holidays, when I wished so much to go abroad. And can he not make sunshine whenever he pleases" "We cannot understand all the ways of God, my child; but the Bible tells us he is wise and good. Look out into your little garden and see how happy the rose-buds are to catch the soft rain in their bosoms, and how the violets lift up their sweet faces to meet it, and as the drop falls into the quiet stream how it dimples with gladness and gratitude. The cattle will drink at the stream and be refreshed. Should it be dried up, they would be troubled; and were the green grass to grow brown and die, they would be troubled still more, and some of them might perish for want of food." Then the good mother told her daughter of the sandy deserts in the East, and of the camel who patiently bears thirst for many days, and how the fainting traveller watched for the rain cloud, and blessed God when he found water; and she showed her the picture of the camel and of the caravan, and told her how they were sometimes buried under the sands of the desert. And she told her a story of the mother who wandered into the wilderness with her son, and when the water was spent in the bottle, she laid him under the shade to die, and went and prayed in her anguish to God; then how an angel brought the water from heaven, and her son lived. She told her another story from the Bible, how there fell no rain in Israel for more than three years, and the grass dried up, and the brooks wasted away, and the cattle died, and how the great prophet prayed earnestly to God, and the skies sent their blessed rain, and the earth gave forth her fruit. Many other things this good mother said to her child, to teach and entertain her. Then they sang together a sweet hymn or two. and the little girl was surprised to find the afternoon so swiftly spent, for the time passed pleasantly. |