Obsolete Words in Bible and Prayer-book. Some confusion arises from the fact that the one English word 'hell,' represents two Greek terms, which mean respectively the 'invisible world' generally, and the place of torment.' It is this last sense that the word always bears in modern usage, and hence arises a misunderstanding of the clause in the Creed, and of the text; e. g. 'I have the keys of hell and of death' (Rev. i. 18), where hell signifies the whole of the unseen world. It is sometimes used for death. In the Bible version of Ps. xviii. 4, we read, the sorrows of death;' in the Prayer-book it is the pains of hell.' In other places it means the 'grave.' 'Like sheep they are laid in the grave' (Ps. xlix. 14, Bible version). ; 'They lay in the hell like sheep' (Prayer-book). 'Hell' is derived from a word meaning to cover,' and is simply the covered, hidden place, answering exactly to Hades, the unseen. Chaucer uses the old verb 'hele,' to hide. The Wife of Bath says that women cannot keep secrets: 6 'Parde we women connen nothing hele.' The other word to which I referred occurs in the Athanasian Creed. 'Incomprehensible,' now means 'impossible to be understood;' but in this place it is the translation of the Latin immensus, and, as applied to God, denotes that He cannot be comprehended or confined within bounds, but that He is everywhere present, and filleth all in all.' Hooker writes, Presence everywhere is the sequel [i. e. the necessary result] of an infinite and incomprehensible substance, for what can be everywhere but that which can nowhere be comprehended?'-Eccles. Polity, v. lv. 4. Both 'prevent' and 'let' are employed in the very opposite senses of 'forwarding' and 'hindering.' 'Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings;" 'We pray Thee that Thy grace may always prevent and follow us.' The first meaning of the word is to anticipate,' or 'go before.'. We can do no good thing without God's help and leading, therefore we pray Him to prevent ús. A sentence of Bishop Sanderson illustrates how one meaning merged into the other. He says that a former sermon of his has given dissatisfaction to some, and adds, ' It is not unlikely I be blamed against for this, unless I shall prevent it;' i. e. unless he answered by anticipation the objections which he foresaw. Prevent is not used in the Bible or Prayer-book as equivalent to 'hinder;' but we seldom employ it now in any other sense. Bishop Horsley, however, who only died in 1806, writes, 'I doubt not but you prevent me in the interpretation of this character." 'Let,' to allow,' and 'let,' to 'hinder,' are two distinct words, and come from different roots. The latter is obsolete except in legal documents; but is used in the Prayer-book and Bible. We are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us' (Collect for 4th Sunday in Advent). It only occurs five times in our version. The text in which most obscurity arises from its use is perhaps 2 Thess. ii. 7—' He who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way;' 'a passage,' as Canon Lightfoot observes, 'difficult enough without any artificial obscurities.' Latimer writes, Others do sell too dear, which doth let many to buy.' The word does not appear as a substantive in our translation, except in the heading of Deut. xv., but it was once in common use. Bishop Andrewes, commenting on our Lord's forbidding Mary Magdalene to touch Him, observes, No let in Him but He might be touched; the let in her, she might not touch Him.' T Bavid Livingstone, LL.B., B.C.L. HE ancestors of David Livingstone were small farmers of Ulva, in the Hebrides. They left to their descendants no gold or lands; but what was of far greater value-an honest name. One of them, when on his death-bed, called his children around him and said: 'I have searched carefully through all the traditions of our family, and I never could discover that there was a dishonest man among our forefathers. If, therefore, any of you should take to dishonest ways it will not be because it was in our blood. I leave this precept with you-Be honest.' The parents of David occupied a humble position, and at the age of ten the youth obtained employment as a 'piecer' at the Blantyre Cotton-works, situated a little above Glasgow, on the river Clyde. The boy thus early thirsted for knowledge, for with his first week's earnings we are told he purchased a Latin grammar, and began the study of that language at an evening-school. When nearly ten more years had passed away, David, by using well all his spare moments, had contrived to master Virgil and Horace, besides storing his mind with a large amount of information gathered from scientific works and books of travel. During the last of these years he formed the determination of becoming a medical missionary, and with this object in view he entered upon a course of study at the Glasgow University, supporting himself Dr. Livingstone. during the winter terms by his summer's earnings as a cotton-spinner. In September, 1838, he passed the necessary examination and was admitted into the Training College of the London Missionary Society. Two years later he was appointed to Kuruman, an African station founded thirty years before by Hamilton and Moffat, about 700 miles from Cape Town. Soon after his arrival, secluding himself from all European society, he devoted some months to the mastery of the language, laws, and manners of the natives, and thus acquired a knowledge that proved of immense advantage to him in after years. In 1843 he removed to Mabtosa, and was there nearly killed by a lion, sustaining the severe fracture of the arm that, never properly uniting, formed one of the chief means by which his body was identified on its arrival in England. In the following year he married Moffat's eldest daughter Mary, who became, to use his own words, the best spoke in his wheel at home, and a great comfort and assistance to him in his travels abroad.' Nearly five more years were spent in labours among the Backwains at Charuane and Kolobeng; then he set out in company with Colonel Steele and Mr. Oswell, and crossing the Kalahari desert, discovered Lake Ngami. The travellers were told of a wellwatered and thickly inhabited country lying beyond, but in consequence of the lateness of the season they were compelled to return to Kolobeng. The next year Livingstone, taking with him his wife and children, made two further attempts to reach this region, which occupied a portion of Africa previously supposed to consist of sandy desert. In the second of these attempts he was successful, and in the country of the Makololo he discovered the noble river Zambesi. Finding no spot, however, suitable for a settlement, and dreading the effects of the climate on the health of his family, he returned to the coast, and saw those nearest and dearest to him safely embarked for England. After a short stay in Cape Town, Livingstone again made his way to the Makololo country, and having examined the upper part of the Zambesi, he proceeded to find a road by which the interior tribes could hold commercial communication with the western coast. The journey thereto the return to the interior, and an expedition to the eastern coast along the course of the Zambesi and past the magnificent Victoria Falls,' occupied the great explorer until May, 1856. Nearly four years had then elapsed since he started from the Cape, and as no news of him reached Europe during the whole of that time, serious fears were entertained for his safety. At the end of the year 1857 he was once more in his native land, and was awarded the gold medals of the Geographical Societies of London and Paris, as well as the honorary degrees of LL.D. and D.C.L., from our National Universities. In March, 1858, Livingstone again set forth on his travels. This time he was placed at the head of a scientific expedition, and commissioned by the British Government to thoroughly explore the Zambesi River, with its mouths and tributaries. The great inland sea-Lake Nyassa-was discovered in the following year. In 1862 he was joined by his wife; but sad to tell, she was stricken down by a fever and died at Shupanga, having been with her husband only about four months. After this calamity two years were spent in further explorations, and then Livingstone was recalled home. Before returning to England, however, he made a voyage of 2500 miles to Bombay. Dr. Livingstone.-The Old Yew-tree. In 1865, Livingstone (then approaching the 53rd year of his age) left England with the main object of exploring the country between Lakes Nyassa and Tanganika. After the news of his arrival on the African coast nothing was heard of him for a long period. Then came the startling story of his murder, that weighed so heavily upon the minds of his friends and the public, until it was disproved in 1867 by the English expedition under the command of Mr. Young. During the next four years a few letters from Livingstone himself reached the coast, the last of them being dated May, 1869. A long period of silence followed, and at length many began to fear that he must have perished. In 1871, however, a search expedition was despatched by the proprietors of the New York Herald, under the command of Mr. Stanley, and, to the joy of the whole civilised world, that gentleman succeeded in discovering and succouring the great traveller at Ujiji, on Lake Tanganika. Livingstone gave Stanley an account of his wanderings during his lengthened absence, and spoke of further explorations that would occupy him for eighteen months longer, at the end of which time he hoped to return to his native land. But Livingstone was destined never to complete the task he had imposed upon himself. While wading day after day through streams and oozy marshes he was attacked by dysentery, and on the 4th May, 1873, he died at a place called Ilala, in the 60th year of his age. His faithful attendants, knowing how dear his remains would be to his countrymen, carefully conveyed them over 1000 miles of desert, swamp, and forest, to the coast, and from thence they were brought to England. On the 18th of April, 1874, the body of the great philanthropist and explorer was carried to its last resting-place in Westminster Abbey. An immense crowd assembled to witness the mournful procession on its road thither, and within the sacred building were present all his nearest living relations and many of the old companions of his travels, besides a vast sorrowing and sympathising congregation. His countrymen, from the Queen, who sent a wreath for his coffin, to the working-men who attended his funeral, honoured him as one of the truest heroes of our age-a brave soldier of the Cross of Christ-a self-sacrificing friend of the enslaved African- a pioneer of civilisation and commerce -an undaunted traveller, who laid down his life rather than flinch from the duty which he had imposed on himself. H. B. A. The Old Yew-tree. HUNDREDS of years a-dying, and yet not killed; Its hollow trunk with huge stones kindly filled To keep its knotted sides from breaking in, Itself so very old, and they so thin. A gaping skeleton in churchyard seen, Men wonder soul and body hold together, D. G., Tettenhall The Pitman to his Wife. SIT ye down on the settle by me, I've got something to say to thee, wife: I want to be a new sort of man, and to lead a new sort of life. There's but little pleasure and little gain in spending the days I spend, For where's the profit and where's the good, if one begins to think, In making away with what little sense one had at the first through drink? And as to the pleasure that some folk find in cards or in pitch-and-toss, We'd be sure to light on some great dispute; and then, to set all right, I've got a will, dear wife, I say, I've got a will to be A kinder father to my poor bairns, and a better man to thee; And to leave off drinking and swearing and all, no matter what folk may say; For I see what's the end of such things as these, and I know this is not the way! You'll wonder to hear me talk like this as I've never talked before, But I've got a word in my heart that has made it glad, and yet it has made it sore! I've got a word in my heart that has pierced it through and through; Why, wife, if it had been St. Peter, or even the blessed St. Paul, Or St. John who used to lean on His breast, one couldn't have wondered at all, If He'd loved and died for men like these, who loved Him so well; but you see It was me that Jesus loved, wife! He gave Himself for me! It was for me that Jesus died, for me and for such-like men, And couldst Thou love such a man as me, my Saviour? then I'll take It wasn't that I might spend my days just in work, and in drink, and in strife, I've got a Friend, dear wife, I say, I've got a heavenly Friend, American. |