and Dubuisson were for some time stationed in Philadelphia, and were loved and esteemed for their virtue, zeal, and learning. While the latter was Pastor of St. Joseph's Church, in 1833, he attended to the Catholics of Trenton; that city is now honored with a Bishop. Father Molyneux was twice chosen Rector of Georgetown College; first, in July, 1793, and afterwards in October, 1806. During his Rectorship he strove effectually to elevate the course of studies and to promote among its students a love of virtue and science. Those who are familiar with the early history of the famous old college "situated on the northern bank of the Potomac, commanding a full view of Georgetown, Washington, and a great part of the District of Columbia," could, no doubt, give many interesting details relative to the great statesmen, foreign ambassadors and nobles and distinguished warriors of the Revolution who visited it during the Rectorship of Father Molyneux.

Father Molyneux during his lifetime made many distinguished friends in this country, in England, and on the Old Continent. But those who seemed to love and admire him most were those who, like himself, had consecrated their labors and their lives to the service of our Holy Church. The English Fathers whom he had known as missionaries in his native land, or as students in Belgium, always preserved for him a warm place in their hearts. In many of their letters we find them anxiously inquiring about his health or his labors. He was loved and esteemed to a greater extent still by all his brethren who devotedly labored in the missions in this country, whether their lot was cast on the borders of the Chesapeake, or in some of the more populous towns elsewhere. But the one who ever esteemed him most, the one who ever loved him most dearly, was the first Archbishop of Baltimore. There is something beautiful in the pure friendship that always existed through the varying events of life between him and the illustrious Prelate. These two great souls fully understood each other. The Archbishop, who had been trained in Jesuit schools, who had himself been a son of St. Ignatius up to the suppression of his Order, could fully appreciate the spirit that filled the lofty soul of his old professor. He could see in him a man who aimed continually to accomplish, in little as in great things, something for the glory of God and the advancement of His Earthly Kingdom. So highly did the great Archbishop esteem Father Molyneux that, over and over again, he tried to prevail upon him to become his Coadjutor Bishop. But from the dignity and the responsibility of the purple, the mitre, and the crosier, Father Molyneux always humbly fled.

After a life spent in the service of his neighbor, after a life devoted to the advancement of religion in these United States, after

a life of toils for Christ's love, Father Molyneux sank from his labors and his sufferings on the 19th of December, 1808, and went, we hope, to take possession of his crown, and throne, and sceptre, among God's angels and saints. Archbishop Carroll wrote, on the 21st of February, 1809, to Father Charles Plowden, Stonyhurst, near Clitheroe, announcing, in touching terms, the sad news of the demise of Father Molyneux. "About the beginning of December,” writes the Archbishop, "I advised you of the apprehension I was then under, of daily hearing of the death of our old, good, and much-respected friend, Mr. Robert Molyneux, which event took place at Georgetown on the 9th of that month, after his being prepared by a life of candor and innocence, and by all those helps which are mercifully ordained for the comfort and advantage of departing Christians. Not only your charity, but your friendship for him, with whom you passed so many and cheerful and happy days of your life, will induce you to recommend very often his soul to the Father of mercies. He was my oldest friend, after my relation and companion to St. Omer's in my childhood, Mr. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, remaining amongst us, as he often and feelingly reminded me the last time I saw him, in the month of September, with very slight hopes of meeting him more in this world."

In his "will," Father Molyneux says: "First, I give and bequeath my soul to Almighty God, in whose mercies I place my hopes, and my body to earth, to be decently interred." It is said, that his body, which was, indeed, "decently interred" amid the prayers of his religious brethren, and the tears and sobs of his many and dear friends among the laity, was the first laid in "the lowly valley of the dead at Georgetown."

A FEW WORDS MORE ON THE NEW BIBLE.

The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, translated out of the Original Tongues; being the Version set forth A.D. 1611, compared with the most ancient authorities and revised. Printed for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford: at the University Press, 1885. Four volumes, 8vo.

M

ANY scholars some thirty years ago had no difficulty in predicting that a revision of King James' Bible would never take place, because such revision was morally impossible. It was taken for granted that none but the best scholars would undertake the work, and they must be supposed incapable of offering to put their hands to a no less futile than laborious task. The reasons alleged why such undertaking would be premature, rash, useless, and therefore not to be counted within the range of possibility, were manifold in detail; though they might be reduced to two general heads, viz., the acknowledged excellence of King James' translation, and the incompetency of actual scholarship to improve it.

Dr. Trench1 (Dean of Westminster, and afterwards Archbishop of Dublin) decided that revision could not be thought of, because neither the Greek, nor the English, necessary for such a work, could be found in the scholars of our day. Yet the time might come when a revision, though not needed, might be tolerated on purely philological grounds. Even thus, the work could only be entrusted to Anglican scholars and divines commendable for "their piety, their learning, and their prudence." Of course, no dignitary of the English Church could be expected to allow the Scriptural work of her royal Pontiff to be examined and reformed by those outside of her pale. And such claim, for all its apparent exclusiveness, cannot be accused of harshness or injustice. The Bible of 1611 had for its author the Supreme Ruler, and, as Anglicans profess to believe, the divinely appointed Head of their Church. There can be no doubt that he had the translation made as a doctrinal and disciplinary measure for the benefit of his spiritual subjects, and chiefly that it should serve as a prop for kingly and Episcopal power against the seditious spirit of Geneva and the Puritan divines. It may be true enough that the royal simpleton

1 On the Authorized Version of the New Testament in connection with some recent Proposals for its Revision, by Richard Chenevix Trench, D.D., etc. New York: Redfield, 1858.

was egregiously befooled by his faithless translators. They tickled his ears by the most fulsome flattery, and thus blinded his eyes to their real purpose, which was to make of the translation a crafty compromise, a neutral book, in which revelation might lend its support alike to the pretensions of the hierarchical faction and to the levelling tendencies of their Presbyterian foes. But whether good or bad, a failure or a success, the book remains the property of its legitimate owner, the Anglican Church, and she alone has the right to subject it to official examination and modify it, if she will, by authoritative revision. Dr. Trench, however, showed great liberality in allowing that learned men of other denominations (with the exception of "the so-called Baptists") might be allowed to offer "suggestions" which the Anglican revisers would accept or reject as they judged best.

Mr. George P. Marsh,' writing about the same time, gives other reasons why no attempt at revision should be made just now. In the first place, English philology, or the critical study of English, is only in its infancy. Hence any revision attempted under present circumstances must be premature, and will have to be flung aside as worthless, should the day come when revision may be undertaken with some show of reason and prospect of success. Besides, he thinks, the knowledge of biblical Greek and Hebrew of which scholars will be in possession by the year 1899, will exceed that of the present day fully as much as the latter surpasses what was current in the beginning of the century. This argument, if fairly pushed, might be as conclusive for adjourning the revision to the year 1950 or 2cco as for beginning it in 1900. Mr. Marsh has another reason for putting off to a distant day all attempts to tamper with the received version. And this reason might have been profitably weighed by the revisers of 188:-84, had their object been to reproduce faithfully God's Word, instead of weakening it by insidious so-called scholarship. Mr. Marsh sees danger in the new systems of German criticism and theology, which have raised questions not of verbal interpretation merely, but of doctrine also, the discussion of which is no longer confined to Germany, but has spread to every part of the English-speaking world. And he deems it "highly improbable that a sufficient number of biblical scholars could be found even within the limits of any one Protestant denomination in either country (England or America) whose theological views so far harmonize that they would agree in new forms of expression upon points now under discussion." This, whether so intended or not, is far from a flattering compliment to Protestant unity and orthodoxy, when we reflect that such discus

1 Lectures on the English Language, by George P. Marsh. Third edition. New York: Charles Scribner, 1860. Lecture xxviii. The English Bible, p. 617-643.

sion covers points of vital interest to Revelation and the Christian religion.

Another critic, treating of the subject in the same year, thus summarily disposes of the Revision project. "The very completeness and sufficiency of the English version have, perhaps, prevented that painstaking and persevering study of the original languages of inspiration which marked the religious mind of the seventeenth century. It is certain that English-speaking Christendom cannot now present such a combination of profound scholarship and Christian charity on cardinal doctrines, as that which assisted the great work of the Bible revision in the days of King James" If this were true, the Anglican version would be a marvel of perfection, and revision could not improve but only deface its fair lineaments. But we are quite sure that the writer did not intend his language to be taken au pied de la lettre; and that the esoteric sense of his words implies only rebuke of that idolatrous veneration in which the Bible of 1611 is held by too many of its admirers, and which, by resenting any attempt to investigate its boasted fidelity to the original, tends to raise up a perpetual barrier against all efforts of scholarship to improve or correct it by revision.

In spite of all the reasonings and forebodings of Trench, Marsh, and many others at home and abroad, the Revision has been undertaken and is now an accomplished fact; the New Testament having been given to the public in May, 1881, and the Old Testament four years after, in 1885. American divines of every religious hue were invited, not only to offer suggestions, but to examine and criticise the English work of revision, and, where they dissented on weighty matters, to have their opinions recorded in a special Appendix. Moreover, amongst the revisers sat not only Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans, but even Quakers, Unitarians, and those dreadful Baptists, against whom Trench had raised his warning voice. The only condition imposed on the dissenting American revisers was, that for ten years they should abstain from issuing any edition of the Bible as their judgment would have it amended, and meanwhile "give the whole weight of their influence in favor of

1 Russell's Magazine (October, 1858). Charleston: Walker, Evans & Co., vol. iv., 87. This magazine, though making no pretensions like its Northern contemporaries and their successors, numbered among its contributors such writers as William Gilmore Simms, Paul H. Hayne, and other able exponents of Southern literature. The article whence the extract given in the text is taken, is anonymous; but we think we could place our finger on the gifted writer. It was his delight in conversation, especially when amongst his hearers there were many of the "unco godlie," to take up some one of the idols of vulgar Protestantism (King James' Bible, for instance), and actually demolish it by extravagant praise, his edified hearers applauding him meanwhile as a fellow-worshipper. It was only the elite of his audience who could discern and enjoy the quiet irony and latent sarcasm with which he did his work. In the extract quoted, one reading between the lines may find traces of the same humor.