any longer, but the works of the new school, devoted, as it was, to the cause of ungodliness, licentiousness, and infidelity. And, in connection with this subject, we were further called upon to observe how remarkably the language is characteristic of the people.

And is it not always so? As a language degenerates, is it not a sure sign that the people are degenerating too? If men cannot bear energetic and nervous language, it is because they are afraid of strong and determined thinking. Their thoughts, their feelings, their conduct, and their language, all become tame and feeble together; and nothing is strong, but the current of vice and corruption. Exceeding weakness and exceeding wickedness may, indeed, very well go together; for it requires no effort to swim downward with the headlong stream of lust: but to do any thing greatly good, energy and resolution are required; for it can only be done by striving and struggling against the current of nature, in ourselves and in others. And, in order that there should be virtuous energy in the conduct, there must be strong and clear thinking, and staight-forward decision of judgment; there must be vigour of inward principle, the deep sense of duty, and that abhorrence of evil and baseness which inseparably accompanies a high standard of moral excellence. And where these things are, there will, there must, be powerful language to express them: things must be called by their right names and the squeamishness of language, which modern sentimentality affects, will not suffice to express the thoughts and feelings of those who have indeed, or desire to have, the hearts and minds of heroes and of martyrs. For example: there is a new-fangled generation of ministers in Holland, who think it dreadful, and even impious, to speak of God's wrath. What then must we say? "God's displeasure!" (The word ongenoegen in Dutch is even weaker still.) Is not this enough to shew to what dreadfully low views of God's holiness and the sinfulness of sin they are come? They can have no Christian standard, no scriptural views of sin or holiness, who are so meally-mouthed.

We seem, perhaps, to be wandering far from our subject; but, without giving some hint of our views on these points, we cannot explain what we mean by saying that Satan has been busy with the changes and false refinement of modern languages. But, to return to the Dutch language and the Dutch Bible: We are persuaded, that when the States Translation was made, amongst other favourable circumstances, the language was come to its vigour and perfection. The translators and revisers did all that in them lay to fix the standard. But in every thing human there is a principle of decay and ruin, and of this Satan avails

himself. In Holland he certainly raged against the truth with a peculiar vehemence, and against every thing connected with it. In that country there had been no constellation of literary talent about the same period, to concur with the translators of the Bible in fixing the standard of the language. Many other circumstances combined to make the effort unavailing; and especially the varieties in the language of the different provinces, and sometimes of the different cities-which is perceptible to a traveller even to this day. Then, many of the most eminent writers wrote principally in Latin. The small extent of the country afforded but little encouragement to the cultivation of the native literature, and made the people also peculiarly susceptible of the impressions of that which was foreign. Germany was on one side, and France on another, to infect Holland with the evils which belonged to each. And what proved perhaps in the end the most unfavourable circumstance of all was, that the cultivation of the elegancies of Dutch literature fell principally into the hands of those who were not merely indifferent, but decided and bitter enemies, to the truth. Vondel, their greatest poet, was a bitter Remonstrant, both in religion and politics, and did all that in him lay to make the orthodox party hateful and contemptible. He was also the centre and director of a literary society; and thus gathered around him a large proportion of those who were likely to influence the literary taste and feelings of the country. This society adopted and brought into use a spelling very different from that used by the translators of the Bible: and this was a first step to further innovations in the language. It may be thought a trifle how we spell, and some would alter the spelling as fast as the pronunciation alters: but this is absurd, and the way to hasten onward endless innovations, till no trace of the original language remains. In the course of time the pronunciation of words will vary greatly from the spelling. This has been the case, more or less, with all languages: but if the spelling be retained, the etymology of words is not lost by these changes of pronunciation, and therefore it is less likely that the true meaning will be lost; for, while that remains, the origin of the word may be traced, and therewith the connection between all the cognate languages, which to the real student is of no small importance. Besides, we find, that, as the spelling becomes obsolete, the books become obsolete too, with all the treasures of wisdom and truth which they contain: and this is Satan's purpose in introducing all these changes; in which also those who are evidently his servants are commonly most forward. For these are the men who, rejecting the light which Scripture and experience combined, and mutually illustrating each other,

might throw upon such subjects, are continually setting up absurd and unfounded theories of their own; and upon these they proceed to introduce novelties and alterations without end. The changes in the spelling (as is always the case) made way for many more; till gradually the Dutch Bible became antiquated; and the modern refinements enervated the language to such a degree that it sounded harsh and uncouth. We remember to have met with a teacher of the Dutch language who plainly confessed to us that he could not understand the Bible when he read it all his study of the language had been according to the modern school. And, though we were surprised at this declaration when we heard it, we came afterwards to understand it, especially when we found that the modern refiners and polishers of the language were all of the neologian or infidel school; and van der Palm, though the most specious, is, we suspect, the worst of the set. We cannot doubt that there has been an organized conspiracy to render the old Dutch Bible, and all the good old-fashioned Dutch divinity along with it, utterly unintelligible and disgusting to the people; and that Satan himself is at the bottom of it: and in order to carry this design into effect, all the children in all the schools, from the highest to the lowest, are trained to read and speak nothing but this new-fangled dialect, which for force and energy is not to be compared to the old. We have heard both and read both : and when, after hearing four or five of the preachers of the modern school, we at length lit upon one of those who yet cleave in some measure to the old fashion, both as to language and divinity, we were amazed at the difference. We then heard a solemn, powerful, and nervous language, admirably calculated for a preacher who is really in earnest to impress his hearers with the weighty truths of the Gospel.

But this good old-fashioned tongue Satan and his servants would gladly discard altogether: for they do not much care if the truth be here and there preached, so it be but preached without any force or energy, in a tame, unmeaning style, which is suited only to tickle the fancies of those who have itching ears.

One of the great engines of this conspiracy against the interests of truth and godliness in Nederland is Professor van der Palm's New Version of the Bible; the more dangerous because the changes we have already referred to afforded a specious pretext for the publication, and because the work has been conducted with great subtlety. The gross and monstrous absurdities of German neology have been carefully avoided. The Dutch are not a people who would endure them. The Germans are fanatical enthusiasts in their infidelity and neology; but the

Nederlanders are a slow, considerate, and sober-minded people, in comparison; and the enemies of the truth among them are cautious and specious. But the false and soul-destroying principles of neology are all embodied in the work; and it is calculated to lead men further from the truth than itself appears to go. Professor van der Palm is a man of considerable talents, great industry, and (according to the notions of the new school) of vast reading and extensive learning. But we suspect the new school. We believe that Satan has here been at work with the ancient, as well as with the modern languages. He could not alter them, indeed; but we suspect that all this late inundation of Oriental learning from the German school of Michaëlis, Eichorn, Gesenius, and the Rosenmüllers, has been little else than a device of Satan to make the Hebrew and the Holy Scriptures unintelligible and uncertain. We wish, indeed, that some profound and patient scholar would take this subject in hand, and examine it to the bottom. Let him examine the works of such authors as we have mentioned. Even upon their own principles, we are persuaded that some of them could not stand. We know, for example, that Gesenius on some subjects has made a parade of learning for the worst of purposes-with no other design than to serve the cause of infidelity-and we know that a child, who really examined the matter by his own rules, might refute him. But we wish that some one, who has talents, learning, time, and (above all) the fear of God before his eyes, would search this matter to the bottom. It would require a life to do it thoroughly: but we strongly suspect, that, if the Oriental literature of the new school were turned inside out, it would be found (in proportion to its high pretensions) vastly empty and insignificant. The investigation is highly important. We should thereby know what the cause of sound learning has really gained by the labours of these men. So long as we take them for guides we cannot know this. They have shewn themselves in so many respects dishonest and absurd, that they can deserve no confidence in any thing. But by a thorough comparison of the new school with the old, we might discover and embrace the real advantages of both; and get at last upon more certain ground than we can pretend to stand upon at present, while one is contradicting what the other asserts, and there is no moderator to interpose between them.

In the mean time Professor van der Palm comes forward, as a doctor of the new school, in regard to divinity and Oriental literature, as well as in regard to the Dutch language. Instead of being selected by the churches, with solemn prayer to God, as one of a chosen band of pious and learned men, he proposes

himself alone to this great work; being, it seems, in want of money; and certainly contriving in a most tradesman-like manner to get the whole profits of the work to himself, for he obtains a long list of subscribers, pockets the money for each part as soon as it is published, and himself turns printer and prints it in his own house. Instead of the national work of a Christian state, we have therefore the private speculation of an individual, and this a man of whom it is commonly reported that he cannot pray before or after his sermon without a written form before him and what a reproach this must be among the pious people and old-fashioned remnant in Holland, our brethren on the other side of the Tweed would probably understand much better than we in few words could explain. That he knows nothing of the spirit of prayer, or of true religion, his own annotations abundantly testify. It is, perhaps, unfair to insist on, or even allude to, stories which are currently reported to the discredit of such a man, in a country where party feeling on subjects connected with religion still runs high: but certainly it is to be lamented that he who undertakes such a work should not have the general testimony of all parties to his personal respectability. If, however, we do allude to reports, it is because we cannot forget them, and because they served to us as a salutary warning not to be led away by that high reputation for talent and learning, which his own party take care to sound forth on every side. It is sufficient for us to look to the book itself, which will not allow us to look upon van der Palm in any other light than that of a time-server, who is (with great care and caution) trying how far it is possible to keep on good terms with all partiesthe contemptible party of old-fashioned bigots among the rest— Obscurants and Extinguishers*, of course, being excepted.

The book a trading speculation, and the writer a man of whom his admirers boast that wherever he preaches he suits himself to the opinions of the congregation, whether orthodox and Calvinistic, or Arminian, or Pelagian, or Arian, or whatever else! Is this the way, or is this the man, to set about a version of the Bible? as if nothing were needful in a translator of the Scriptures but a mere parade of learning! How different was the feeling and opinion of our own pious translators, as we learn from their address to the reader :

*Extinguishers (in Dutch, Dompers), the name actually given by the illuminati of the nineteenth century to those who still adhere to the old-fashioned doctrines of the Bible: whereby unwittingly they declare to us, that their illu mination comes from beneath; and therefore (like a farthing rushlight) is to be put out with an extinguisher. If their light came down from heaven, it would have nothing to fear from extinguishers.