an Armenian origin in the ecclesiasticism of the modern Ethiopia; while the interposition of Egypt betwixt it and Greece or Syria, naturally accounts for whatever particular influence the Copts may have had over the faith and practice of the Abyssinians. Next, in the Coptic hierarchy, to the Patriarch of Alexandria (who resides at Cairo), comes the Abuna of Abyssinia, customarily the patriarch's nominee; and, indeed, the Greek Church and the Coptic appear to be positively united in the person of a dignitary who, while head of the Copts, is co-ordinate with the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, in the synodical government of all the Greek Christians in Turkey.

The connection of modern missions with the ancient Ethiopia was originally established by the Portuguese priests in the sixteenth century, although the existence of Christians in the country has been discovered in the fifteenth, when an Abyssinian ambassador found his way to the Council of Florence. The Jesuits from Portugal saw the country abounding in monks and hermits all along from the Thebais into Abyssinia. Covilham, one of the two envoys despatched from Lisbon in quest of PRESTER JOHN, penetrated to the king's court in 1490, at Shoa, and brought back an Abyssinian prince as the true Timon prince. This practical result was a connection between Portugal and Abyssinia, lasting more than a century; during which, still more efforts were made to win over prince and people to the Romish faith. In 1603, at the persuasion of Paez, the king, his brother, and the nobles of the Court, publicly conformed.

The first thing Dr. Johnson wrote for the press was the translation, in 1735, of the Jesuit Lobo's "Voyage to Abyssinia in 1625," a book which records the conversion of Sultan Segued, Emperor of Abyssinia, with many of his subjects, to the Church of Rome, and is recommended by the translator for its simple probability in a thoroughly Johnsonian preface, every antithesis and epigram of which are levelled at the exaggerations of Bruce. A quarter of a century later, he reproduced in his "Ras-Selas, Prince of Abyssinia," the scenery and colouring which he had stored up from the vivid pages of the Portuguese father.

The Jesuits were now in the ascendant; and historical inquirers find themselves referred on all questions to two of their writers, Ludolf and Tellez. But, in priority of time, that influence became implicated, perhaps conflictingly, with the French; and in fact, in 1634, the Portuguese, priests and laymen, to the number of four hundred, were driven out of the country. In the last years of the seventh century, a French surgeon, Poncet, had the good fortune to cure the king, then at Gondar, of some severe complaint. Bruce was the first of

English travellers to visit the country. He also made a great impression by curing the king's son of small-pox, became a great favourite at court, and after spending some four years in the country (1768 to 1772) left behind him "a great name." Notwithstanding the vanity which marks his narrative, it was not published till within four years of his death in 1790, when after escaping so many perils by land and by sea, he died from the consequences of a fall downstairs as he was conducting a lady to her carriage. The Herodotus of modern times, he startled and stumbled Europe with marvellous narrations, some of which, however, have been confirmed, though others retain the fabulous taint first attributed to them. Next came Salt, who visited Abyssinia twice, in 1805 and in 1810; and about the same period, Lord Valentia; and, from time to time, until now, Pearce, Gobat (Bishop of Jerusalem), Küppel, the German, Isenberg and Krapf, also Germans, and our own countrymen, Major Harris, Kirk, Beke, and others.

Mr. Salt was the man who first made our nation reliably acquainted with the social, intellectual, and moral condition of the Abyssinians. The king of his day retained a court jester, a historiographer, and a painter. Paintings (such as they were) adorned both churches and private dwellings. The copying of manuscripts was a distinct profession, with cane for pens, parchment for paper, and we know not what for ink. At the head of

the church spiritually (for the king was head of it politically), was a sole bishop styled Abuna, or Our Father. We are speaking of 1810, when the Patriarch of Jerusalem had just commissioned a Greek as Abuna, the presumption being that this office had been held by a succession of foreigners from the time of Frumentius.

When Mr. Salt visited the country, polygamy was still allowed, some gentlemen having five wives, and the king as many as he pleased. But the secular clergy were restricted to primitive example, not merely having only one wife at a time but not being allowed to take a second on the death of the first., Mr. Salt could not make a very favourable report of the intellectual attainments of the clergy; but he gave them credit for decision in the performance of their offices, some of which resembled those of the Church of England. He himself, indeed, consented to stand godfather to a boy at baptism. After naming the infant George, he was called upon first to prove his own competence for sponsorship by reciting the Belief and the Lord's prayer, and then "to make much the same promises as those required by our own church.”

Besides narrating many illustrations in his book, Mr. Salt brought the religious condition of the Abyssinians under the

special notice of the leaders of evangelization in this country. The Jesuit fathers gave the people the Scriptures when they made proselytes of them. The copies were from the ancient Ethiopic version, taken (according to Ludolf), from the Septuagint. Bruce brought back a complete copy of the two Testaments in Ethiopic, and acquainted us with the quadripartite division of each adopted by the Abyssinian priesthood, including the Apocrypha with the Canon, and putting the Apocalypse into a supplement by itself. He also brought over three copies of the Book of Enoch in Ethiopic (one of which is in the Bodleian), taken from a Greek manuscript, of which all but a fragment had been lost. On examination, it was found to contain, in the second chapter, the very passage, word for word, quoted in Jude. An English translation of the entire book was published in 1822, by Dr. Lawrence, of Oxford.

Twelve years before (namely, at the close of 1810), the attention of the British and Foreign Bible Society was first called to the subject of supplying the Abyssinians with printed copies of the Ethiopic Scriptures. This was done by the Edinburgh Bible Society, at the instance of Dr. George Paxton, Professor of Divinity to the Antiburgher General Associate Synod, and author of the well-known "Illustrations of Scripture." The claim of the Abyssinians to consideration was urged on the grounds of their unshaken adherence to Christianity under peculiar temptations and discouragements; of the declension of that religion among them from the want of instruction; of their disposition and ability to read the Scriptures; and, lastly, of "the opportunity of communication at that time existing, and which," as Dr. Paxton observed, "if lost, might not be recovered for ages." These arguments had such weight that a sub-committee was appointed (of which Mr. Salt and Lord Valentia were made members), whose deliberations, after a year and a half spent in diligent inquiry, resulted in a recommendation to print a portion of the Ethiopic Bible by way of experiment, until Sir Evan Nepean, then about going to Bombay as Governor, should ascertain whether a complete copy of the Bible in that version could be procured from Abyssinia. Either, therefore, there must have been some mistake as to the completeness of the copy brought by Bruce, or it had escaped the memory or eluded the search of the Committee. From the testimony of that traveller himself, it is evident that much difficulty would attend the endeavour to procure a complete copy of all the books from Abyssinia, where, except in churches, and not always in them, it was unusual to see more than the Gospels or the Acts in individual keeping or possession. The Bible Society began with the Psalms and the Gospels of

Matthew and John, all of which were printed from the text of Ludolf.

While, however, these were being prepared in Ethiopic, it came out that at Cairo, under the direction of M. Asselin, Chargé d'Affaires of France, one Abraham, an Ethiopian by birth, who had travelled with Bruce, had acquired a good knowledge of English in India, and was well versed in both modern and ancient languages, was engaged in rendering the Scriptures into Amharic, the spoken tongue of the majority of the Abyssinian people. This enterprise, entirely new, was completed in ten years, when the translator, retiring to Jerusalem, there to die and be buried, caught the plague in that city, and thus early obtained the consummation of his wish. The existence of this version being made known to the Committee in Earl-street, instructions were sent out to the late Rev. W. Jowett, author of "Christian Researches in Syria," uncle of the present Professor of Greek in Oxford, and then himself an agent of the Church Missionary Society in the East, to negociate for the purchase of the manuscript, which thus, in 1819, became the property of the Bible Society.

As in some other similar cases, so in this, the precious merchandise had a narrow escape of being lost at sea. On its safe arrival, arrangements were immediately made for the simultaneous publication of the four Gospels in Ethiopic and in Amharic, both under the care of Mr. Platt, the Society's learned librarian. All this took place between 1822 and 1824. The books, when printed, were sent to Malta, and conveyed thence by missionaries to Abyssinia, where they were so gladly received that the Society determined to print two thousand copies of the whole New Testament in Amharic, and as many in Ethiopic, the Old Testament likewise being put to press. The printing of the Amharic Bible had in 1834, proceeded as far as to the end of the Book of Moses, when Mr. Gobat, now Bishop of Jerusalem, who had laboured under the Church Missionary Society in Abyssinia, came on a visit to England, and encouraged the Committee of the Bible Society with pleasing accounts of the value set by the people upon the Gospels. Two years later, the Pentateuch was put to press; and, in 1839, the completion of the Old Testament set Mr. Platt at liberty to concentrate his whole attention upon the New, which was by and by issued in a corresponding form. Thus were the whole Scriptures given to Abyssinia by the Bible Society in both the learned language and the vulgar tongue.

The literature of the Abyssinians is considerable for a people who have not the printing press. They catalogue some 150 books, most of which are quasi-religious, and many of them translations from the Greek fathers. The Ethiopian version of

the translation is traditionally ascribed to Vicentius, their first bishop. In the list compiled by Krapf, are a calendar, a liturgy, and hymns, many of which are addressed to the Virgin Mary. There are also the Last Words of Christ to the Apostles before His ascension; Revelations to Moses not in the Pentateuch; a Letter written by Christ; a Book of Exorcisms (often buried with the dead); Prayers to Saints; Miracles of the Virgin, while three years and a half in Abyssinia with the infant Jesus; the Nine (Greek) Apostles of Abyssinia, with many others partly of an historical or biographical character, but to a large extent apocryphal and legendary.

The best means that we have of continuing the narrative of modern evangelization in Abyssinia from this point is furnished by Dr. Krapf, secretary of the Crishona Institute at Basle, and from 1837 to 1855 an agent of the Church Missionary Society. Intimately acquainted with Bishop Gobat and other missionaries in that region, he made several visits to Abyssinia, covering a space of eighteen years, and obtained, probably, as intimate a knowledge of the Abyssinian character as is possessed by any foreigner living. On his arrival at Adowa, the capital of Tigré, about the close of 1837, he joined Isenberg and Blumhardt in diligent prosecution of their labours for the Church Missionary Society. Accompanied by them, he visited the Prince, Ubie, who made them prisoners, but did not keep them so. Both the priests and their chief men were inimical to Protestantism, partly from bigotry, but more from greed; and, from that time, Krapf and his companions were overpowered by the adverse influence of two French explorers and two Roman Catholic priests accompanying them, who won Ubie with gifts, and persuaded the Alaka (or unordained superintendent of churches) that their two paths were identical. Instigated by the Frenchmen and their priestly companions, the Abyssinian priests destroyed all the Bibles and Testaments brought by Krapf that they could lay hands on. Quitting Tigré, he turned his face towards "the Christian Kingdom of Shoa," his companions awaiting at Cairo or elsewhere the decision of the Church Missionary Committee as to their subsequent movements. Isenberg, meanwhile, having been invited by Sahela Selassie, the King, to Shoa, went with Krapf to his court. In June, 1839, they found their way to his mountain capital at Ankober. His Majesty, being satisfied of the purely religious purpose of their mission, went with them to Argolala, the secondary capital, bordering upon the country of the Galla tribes. They requested him to give them a few boys to educate. He promised compliance; but, having misgivings, retracted, under the plea that they wanted doctors, masons, and smiths,