“She did not understand me,” thought the mother.

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

REVIEW.

The New Testament.  Translated from the Original Greek, etc.  By LEICESTER AMBROSE SAWYER.  Boston:  John P. Jewett & Co. 1858.

Few books merit the criticism which they receive; fewer receive all they merit.  Here is a work, a translation, which is more likely than most to get its deserts, because its circle of critics will be unusually large.  It purports to be a new and improved version of “the Book of Books,” and puts forth claims which will be conceded only after it shall have sustained the most extensive, minute, and even prejudiced scrutiny.  The Bible has more readers than any other book; and that which claims to be an improved Bible must, if it secure anything like a general attention, meet with criticisms from all quarters.  Mr. Sawyer is fortunate in one respect:  his work will be examined and judged by multitudes who never undertook to criticize any other book; he will have, therefore, ultimately, a popular judgment of his task and its performance.  But he is unfortunate in another point:  for he must meet that popular sentiment which at the outset looks with disfavor upon anything that has even the appearance of meddling with the commonly received and almost universally approved version of the Holy Scriptures.  Let us, in a brief space and with as little of formal and scholastic criticism as possible, examine Mr. Sawyer’s translation.

A work of such a character as this should be judged not more by its absolute or intrinsic merits than by a comparison of them with the design avowed and the claims advanced by the author.  In a task of such magnitude we ought not to expect to find everything perfect.  If the completed structure have a symmetry of proportions and excellence of finish approaching reasonably near to the plan proposed, we should not too severely censure minor defects.  Critics rarely accord all that authors claim; the former measure the actual achievement,—­the latter look to the ideal conception; if the one be in a reasonable degree commensurate with the other, we should be lenient toward the faults of the performance.

With this charitable substratum for our critical structure, let us test Mr. Sawyer’s new version by contrasting it with his own avowed design and the claims with which he introduces his completed task.  In the Preface he says,—­

“This is not a work of compromises, or of conjectural interpretations of the Sacred Scriptures, neither is it a paraphrase, but a strict [strictly] literal rendering.  It neither adds nor takes away; but aims to express the original with the utmost clearness and force, and with the utmost precision.”