open, in their geography, their natural history, their social and religious state, so many countries, before almost if not altogether unknown,-such as Greenland, Iceland, large portions of Africa, with the contiguous islands, Burmah, Siam, and Eastern Asia, the Indian Archipelago, Polynesia, and many parts of our own vast continent; the answer to this inquiry is obvious, and it is necessary. Commerce has not done it. It never would do it. Commerce is too selfish to engage extensively in enterprises of this nature. Literary curiosity and interest have not done

At least, they have accomplished but little. If we except the efforts-very laudable ones, I confess of the London Geographical Society, in their attempts to explore the interior of Africa, mere literary interest has effected almost nothing. The important work to which I refer has been performed obviously and almost exclusively by Christian missionaries. It is a result-though but an incidental one-of their sacrifices, their conflicts, and their toils. And the debt of gratitude which it imposes is justly due, in great measure, to them.

In the foregoing remarks, I have endeavored to show that, from the character of missionaries, as learned, gifted men-from their situation, as permanent residents in foreign lands, having a familiar acquaintance with languages, localities, and other circumstances-and from the nature of their pursuits, being scholars, teachers, travellers, authors, as well as preachers of the gospel,—it might justly be anticipated that they would be able to do much for the cause of science and learning, as well as for the promotion of their more immediate objects. The learned world have much to expect of them. The connections between their great enterprise and the interests of learning are sufficiently numerous and obvious to justify such expectations. I have shown, too, as fully as possible within the limits assigned me, that the expectations which might reasonably be indulged have thus far been realized. In a great variety of ways, missionaries have labored in the cause of science, and have done all that for its advancement which could well be expected of them.

It must be borne in mind, however, that the missionary enterprise at least the Protestant missionary enterprise" -is but just commenced. The great object aimed at is but in the infancy of its accomplishment, and the incident

al advantages to be anticipated are but just beginning to be realized. And if, under all the disadvantages of a new and untried undertaking, when the number of missionaries is comparatively few, and the most of them have been at their stations but a little while, so much as we have seen has been already done, what great results are to be expected, in the progress and consummation of this holy work! When the unevangelized portions of the earth shall have been explored and fully occupied by Christian missionaries-when, fired by a quenchless, apostolic zeal, they shall have penetrated and permeated the heart of Africa, the central and northern regions of Asia, the wilds of America, the deserts of New Holland, and all the islands of the sea-when they shall have scaled the walls of China and Japan, and planted the standard of the cross in every place on which the light of heaven shines-when missionaries shall have been longer at their posts, and shall have become more thoroughly acquainted with the languages, the literature, the localities. and circumstances of the different nations-when their schools, their presses, their colleges, their seminaries, shall have been longer in operation, and, under the influence of these, native mind, all over the earth, shall have been roused into action, and learned natives, in great numbers, shall have been raised up-in a word, when the missionary enterprise, now in its infancy, shall have had a full development of its powers and resources, in a manly growth, and a just consummation-what great results may assuredly be expected, not only in a religious, but a literary point of view! I know not but I may be mistaken in the judgment I have formed in reference to this matter; but really it has seemed to me that the literature of the world has more to expect from the successful prosecution of the missionary enterprise, than from any other cause whatever. I certainly know of no other cause I can think of no other-which is likely to produce so great results, even in a literary point of view.

And if this be true, then I may, in conclusion, address myself boldly and earnestly to literary men, and bespeak their favor for the cause of missions. Some of my readers, I know, deeply sympathize with this cause, from higher considerations than those here suggested. You love it, and value it, as philanthropists and as Christians. You

wish to see the multiform cruelties of the dark places of the earth abolished-their idolatries purged-their superstitions and their crimes for ever done away. You wish to see the debased soul of the, poor heathen enlightened, elevated, purified, sanctified, and made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.

But if any shall read these pages whose views are unlike those of evangelical Christians generally, in regard to the primary objects of missions, such will bear me witness that these objects have not been urged unduly, on the present occasion. I have exhibited the missionary work in other connections, and have endeavored to enforce it on other grounds. I have addressed myself chiefly to literary men-the professed friends and promoters of science and learning. And, in view of what missionaries have already accomplished for the cause of learning, and the greater things which they may be expected to accomplish, I ask such men to dismiss their prejudices, if any have been indulged, and to regard, henceforth, with interest and favor, the mighty enterprise in which missionaries are engaged. I ask the literati of our country to follow, with their eye, those hundreds of learned, educated men, who are already abroad in different parts of the earth. Watch their movements; read their journals; note their discoveries in the different departments of useful learning. Listen to the accounts-not of unprincipled libertines, who sometimes wander among them, who cannot endure the strictness of their discipline, and to whose ungodly lives their holy example ministers a constant reproof-but to the accounts of enlightened, virtuous, honorable men, who have the opportunity of witnessing the results of their labors; and the more you become acquainted with missionaries in this way, the more, I am sure, you will honor them. The more you know of their work, in its progress and results, the more you will become interested in it, and the more earnestly you will desire to see it consummated.

ARTICLE VII.

LITERARY NOTICES.

1. A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, anterior to the division of the East and West. Translated by Members of the English

Church.

Revised from a former With Illustrations from 1840.

Vol. I. The Confessions of S. Augustine. Translation. By the Rev. E. B. PUSEY, D. D. S. Augustine himself. 8vo., pp. 363. Oxford. Vol. II. The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem. Translated with Notes and Indices. 8vo., pp. 308. Oxford. 1838. Vol. III. Part I. The Treatises of S. Cacilius Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, and Martyr. Translated with Notes and Indices. 8vo., pp. 318. Oxford. 1839.

Vol. IV. Parts I and II. The Homilies of S. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. Translated with Notes and Indices. Evo., pp. 654. Oxford. 1839.

THERE are two points of view which may be taken of this enterprise of the Oxford divines, the one involving questions of an ecclesiastical nature, the other, considerations connected with general literature. Of the former, however great the interest of the subject, and however important a full and manly discussion of it would be, the limits of a literary notice forbid us to treat. Those who are acquainted with the present state of the English church, with the circumstances which caused the union of the old aristocracy and the high church party against the reformers in church and state, and with the character of the men at the head of this publication, will not be surprised at the phrase, "the Holy Catholic Church," in the title of the work, nor at the attempt made in the notes to revive a veneration for the crudities, as well as the sound doctrines and authorized usages, of the ancient church.

The Library of Fathers is edited by the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D. D., Regius Professor of Hebrew, the Rev. John Keble, M. A., Professor of Poetry, and the Rev. J. H. Newman, B. D., Fellow of Oriel College, all of Oxford. Its chief design is to furnish the English reader with the leading treatises of the fathers on "Doctrine, Practice, Exposition of Holy Scripture, Refutation of Heresy, and History." Still, the originals of the works translated are also to be printed, so far as it shall appear desirable. Only entire treatises are to be translated; brief notices of authors are to be prefixed, and a few short notes, after the manner of the Benedictines, are to accompany the text. Four volumes octavo, of about four hundred pages each, are to be published annually, at the cost of nine shillings a volume to subscribers, and the addition of one-fourth to the public. Each volume, or at most two

*The retail price in this country is about $2,75 a volume.

volumes, are to form a whole in itself, but the volumes are to be continued uniform, so as to form complete sets.

Beside the works named at the head of this article, the following are in a course of preparation, viz., Cyprian's Letters, to form the second part of volume third; Chrysostom's Homilies on Matthew and John, on the remaining epistles of Paul, his treatise on the Priesthood, and his epistles; the doctrinal treatises and epistles of Ambrose; Athanasius's four orations against the Arians; tracts on the incarnation, and on the Holy Spirit, and historical documents; Augustine's Anti-Pelagian tracts, homilies on the Gospel of John, and the Psalms, and some of the epistles; his practical treatises, epistles, and City of God; Basil's letters, treatises and homilies; Cyril of Alexandria against Nestorius; the homilies of Ephraem Syrus; the Ecclesiastical Histo: of Eusebius; sermons of Gregory of Nazianzum; sermons and commentaries of Gregory of Nyssa; Hilary on the trinity; Irenæus against heresy; Jerome's epistles; Justin Martyr's works; sermons and epistles of Leo the Great; sermons of Macarius; Optatus on the Donatist schism; Origen against Celsus; Tertullian's works; Theodoret's ecclesiastical history, compendium of heresies, and dialogues, and a few miscellanies.

While this selection appears to be well adapted to answer the particular end of the publication, it is, also, in general, very well fitted to meet the wants of the scholar. Some of the works included in the selection we should have preferred to pass by, and others, now omitted, we should have inserted. But on this point we cannot reasonably enter any special complaint. With these general remarks, we pass to the separate volumes now before us.

(1.) Augustine's Confessions. This volume, though not first in its actual appearance, constitutes the first of the series. As we have, in a former number, expressed our views of the character of these Confessions, we have occasion now to consider the merits of the translation only, and the value and extent of Prof. Pusey's labors. The only English version of much value, which the translator could have before him, was that of the Rev. W. Watts, D. D., made in 1650. "This, however," it is said, in the preface, "which frequently retained the former translation [by Sir Tobias Matthews, a Catholic], retained also a good many faults; and, with some energy, it had many vulgarisms, so that, though it was adopted as the basis of the present, the work has in fact (?) been retranslated." We regret that we have not the old translation at hand, to verify this last assertion. If it be a new translation, it must have cost no little labor to give it such an antiquated dress, and to collect and embody so "many vulgarisms." We will group together a few of the elegances of Dr. Pusey's diction, if he is ambitious to claim them. The translation is full of such words and phrases as the following: "tongue-science," "haddest," "I was chief in the rhetoric school, whereat I joyed proudly," "any one an hungered," "as is their wont," "before foresignified," "no whit relaxing," "my forepassed time," "by hap," "any whither," "still and still,” “bespoken him most knowing," "mad vanity of pride," "affirm that too stiffly whereof he is ignorant," "make trial what he thought thereon," "misliked them evil," "to be freed wherefrom I was to go." The passage which we translated in the March number of the present year, eightieth page, is presented thus by Prof. Pusey: "For, passing through one of

VOL. V.-NO. XX.

76