THE BIBLIOTHECA BIBLICA

IN BENGAL.

THE Bibliotheca Biblica is a Repository for Bibles in the Oriental languages, and for Bibles only. They are here deposited for sale at moderate prices; and lists of the various versions are sent to remote parts of Asia, that individuals may know where to purchace them; the commerce from the port of Calcutta rendering the transmission of books extremely easy. Those who desire to have copies for gratuitous distribution, are supplied at the cost prices. This institution is under the immediate superintendence of the Rev. David Brown, late Provost of the College of Fort-William: and it is supported by all the translators of the Bible in India, who send in their versions, and by the College of Fort-William, which sends in its versions.

There have been already deposited in the Bib liotheca Biblica four thousand volumes, in the following languages:

The Superintendents have recently sent to England for the following supply of Bibles, which is now collecting for them, viz.

Attached to the Bibliotheca Biblica is a TRANSLATION LIBRARY, containing books for the use of the Translators of the Scriptures. As this Library is not complete, many of the necessary works not being procurable in India, a list of the volumes required will be published; in the hope that learned bodies, and individuals having duplicates, will be pleased to present them to the Bibliotheca Biblica in Bengal.

This institution was first organized by the Rev. Mr. Brown, with a full reliance on the patronage of the British and Foreign Bible Society, which has cordially embraced his views, and of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, and of the Universities in the United kingdom, which we hope will enrich its Translation Library.

The Rev. David Brown, Senior Chaplain of the East-India Company in Bengal, formerly of Magdalen College, Cambridge, has now been twenty-seven years resident in India; and is the zealous promoter of Sacred Learning in the East. Marquis Cornwallis first recommended him to the Court of Directors as a proper person to fill his present important situation, and this he did from a personal knowledge of his truly upright and disinterested character. And of the many Governors that have succeeded, there is not one, we believe, who has not had occasion to bear testimony to his merits. Marquis Wellesley, in particular, honoured him with his confidence and esteem, to the end of his administration. It was under the auspices of that Nobleman, that Mr. Brown instituted the "Calcutta CHARITABLE FUND for distressed Europeans and others" of which it may be truly said, that it has been a fountain of mercy to thousands in Bengal

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for ten years past, it having been established in the first year of the new century.* Mr. Brown would have probably returned from India with his large family by this time, but his diffusive benevolence in private charity, and in public undertakings, both in India and England, and the frequent demands on a man in his public station, he being at the head of the Church in Bengal, have not permitted him to increase his fortune suitably. And now the prospect which opens to his view of being more extensively useful than before, in encouraging translations of the Scriptures, and in promoting the objects of the Bible Society, makes him willing to remain a few years longer in India.†

THE ARMENIANS.

A LEARNED author, in a work published about the beginning of the last century, entitled The

* This Institution not only assists occasionally, but pensions permanently, Europeans, Mahomedans, and Hindoos.

+Since writing the above, the Church in India, has sustained an almost irreparable loss, by the death of the Rev. David Brown. (1814.)

Light of the Gospel, rising on all nations, observes" that the Armenian Christians will be emi"nently qualified for the office of extending the

knowledge of Christianity throughout the na"tions of Asia."* This is undoubtedly true. Next to the Jews, the Armenians will form the most generally useful body of Christian Missionaries. They are to be found in every principal city of Asia; they are the general merchants of the East, and are in a state of constant motion from Canton to Constantinople. Theirgeneral character is that of a wealthy, industrious, and enterprising people. They are settled in all the principal places of India, where they arrived many centuries before the English. Wherever they colonize, they build Churches, and observe the solemnities of the Christian Religion in a decorous manner. Their Ecclesiastical Establishment in Hindostan is more respectable than that of the English. Like us, they have three Churches in the three capitals, one at Calcutta, one at Madras, and one at Bombay; but they have also Churches in the interior of the country.† The Bishop sometimes

* Fabricii Lux Evangelii, p. 651.

+ In Bengal alone, they have Churches at Dacca, Sydabad, and Chinsurah.