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miserable to whom they have extended the hand of charity are written in the book of the Eternal, and those sighs will be changed to a chorus of thanksgiving before the throne of the Creator. These ladies have been permitted, under the favouring influence of divine sanction, to erect a building which will stand as a monument of the Christian love that laboured so perseveringly and successfully in its erection.

"We meet here to congratulate those ladies; and while we speak in the language of congratulation, let us not forget that there is still more to be done for those who are to be the recipients of their charity. The road they have travelled has indeed been a via dolorosa, but it is a path that has been cheered by bright and precious beams; and for the good work they have done, and for this example to posterity, the Almighty will open a house of refuge for their souls.

"Multitudes of friendless creatures will here find a home. The mother who, on her death-bed, leaves her helpless children to the care of a heartless world, will rejoice as she reflects on the home where they will be sheltered from the storms of life. Here is a building which has cost some eighteen thousand dollars, built in the most substantial manner, examined by the committee and commended in the highest terms, and capable of containing a family of two hundred persons, giving them protection, and instilling into their minds Christian principles for their future life. Adult females are to be received here, and afforded temporary protection. Children will also find a refuge here until the Christian's God has provided them with parents -until families will come forward and say, 'We will adopt them as our own."

THE TEN TRIBES.

ABORIGINES OF AMERICA.

Many years ago, Dr. Boudinot, of New Jersey, published a work of great interest, called the "Star in the West," in which he attempted to prove, that the North American Indians were the descendants of the missing tribes. The work was read and laid aside with incredulity -forty years, however, have developed many circumstances and discoveries, tending to confirm the opinion of Dr. Boudinot, and the work, though out of print, is one which, to the curious, would amply repay a perusal. We have never doubted the fact. Nine and a half tribes, were carried captives from Samaria, two and a half, Judah, Benjamin, and half Manasseh, remained in Judea, or in the trans-Jordanic cities, and the latter constitute the eight millions of the existing nation. All that we know of the route taken, is from the Second Esdras, an

Apocryphal book, but one of great antiquity, and entitled to respect. The notice runs thus:

"Whereas thou sawest that he gathered another peaceable multitude unto him: those are the ten tribes, which were carried away prisoners out of their own land, in the time of Osea the king, whom Salmanazer, king of Assyria, led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so they came into another land.

"But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a farther country, wherein never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land, (Assyria,)there was a great way to go, namely, a year and a half."

-and

They marched towards the north-east coast of Asia-some remained in Tartary, and many went into China, where they have been sixteen hundred years, and are numerous at this day. The main body crossed at Behring's Straits to our continent, the more hardy keeping to the north, Hudson's Bay and Greenland; the more cultivated passed down on the shores of the Pacific, through California to Mexico, Central America and Peru, and there they met with their old enemy, the Phonicians, (the Canaanites,) who, having discovered the country five hundred years previously, had formed colonies, built the city of Palenque, with pyramids like those they had erected in Egypt, at Cholula, Otamba, Paxaca, Mitlan, Tlascala, together with hieroglyphics, planispheres, zodiacs, temples, military roads, aqueducts, viaducts, bridges of great grandeur, existing at this day, and all proving that they were built and settled by those who had erected Tyre, Babylon, and Carthage. When the tribes of Israel encountered their old enemy in the new world, they fell upon and destroyed them a second time, and when Columbus discovered the country, he found various tribes of Indians whose origin was unknown. These are the missing tribes, and this is the opinion of Adair, Heckwelder, Cherleveaux, McKenzie, Bartram, Beltrame, Smith, Penn, Menassah Ben Israel, the Earl of Crawford, Lopez de Gamara, Acosta, Malvenda, Major Long, Boudinot, and Catlin; all eminent writers and travellers.

We trace the march of the tribes through Asia to this continent. After 2000 years, we find the red men of America bearing the strongest marks of Asiatic origin, and divided into 300 different nations, remarkable for their intellectual superiority, their bravery in war, their good faith in peace, to be the descendants of the lost tribes, and identify them by the following religious rites, peculiar to all our Indians, and to the Israelites :

1. Their belief in one God.

2. In their computation of time by their ceremonies of the new moon. 3. In their division of the year into four seasons.

4. In their erection of a temple-having an ark of the covenantand also in their erection of altars.

5. By the division of the nation into tribes, with a chief or general sachem at their head.

6. By their laws of sacrifices, ablutions, marriages, ceremonies in war and in peace, prohibition of eating certain things, by traditions, history, character, appearance, affinity of their language to the Hebrew, and finally by that everlasting covenant of heirship exhibited in a perpetual transmission of its seal in their flesh, a custom only of late relinquished. All the Indians on the American continent from Labrador to Cape Horn, are the descendants of the tribes, which, as Esdras says, went into a farther country.

Mr. Catlin, who lived some years among the Indians of the northwest, assured us that all the Mosaic laws, traditionary with them, were strictly enforced; and William Penn, who had no suspicion of their origin, says, "I found them with like countenances to the Hebrew race. I consider these people under a dark night, yet they believe in God and immortality, without the aid of metaphysics. They reckon by moons -they offer their first ripe fruits-they have a kind of feast of tabernacles-they are said to lay their altars with twelve stones-they mourn a year-and observe the Mosaic law with regard to separation."-(M. M. NOAH.)

(As corroborative of, and in connexion with these remarks of M. M. Noah, Esq., we add a short extract which we have taken the liberty to make from an unpublished work of our distinguished countryman and friend, JOHN M. PAYNE, Esq. His long residence and laborious researches among the Indian tribes of the South, especially the Cherokees, have enabled him to collect very valuable information concerning their historical and moral traditions. We hope Mr. Payne will ere long give to the public the results of his labours-which cannot fail to prove an important addition to American history.

The extract we have made seems to identify the ancient Cherokees with the lost tribes, and is as follows:)

THE CHEROKEES.

"There appears to have been a belief, as far back as the history of their nation can be traced, that certain Beings came down from on high and formed the world, the moon, and the stars. These beings were supposed to have always existed together, and always to have been identified with each other; one in sentiment and action, and so remaining eternally.

"We call them Beings, because the Cherokee word designating them, implies according to the peculiar genius of the original language, not only more than one, but more than two. One part of the nation only designate them in general terms: in another part, the aged employ three different words to express their name, which are at present obsolete, but which analogy, as well as the definitions given by such natives as remember them, explain to mean, first: U, ha, lo, te, ga, that is, Head

of all power, or, literally, Great beyond expression-second, A, ta, no, ti, that is, United, or, literally, The place of uniting; allusive to the spot where vows of perpetual friendship are made, and third; Usgo, hu, la, signifying, as nearly as can be ascertained, the bowels just below the breast; and supposed to be here employed synonymously with the same word in our own language, when applied to affection or the mind.

"These Beings, say the Cherokee, will ever continue unchanged. They created all things-know all things, and are present every where, and govern all things. The Beings thus described, are understood to be the same with One mysterious Being, of whom the ancients among the Cherokees say that he was a God, and yet a king, appearing sometimes as a man; in short, that he was both spiritual and material. He had a name which must never be uttered, except by some one specially consecrated for the purpose, nor even by him except upon a hallowed day.

"This name was Ye, ho, waah. He gave a hymn to their ancestors which might only be sung by persons selected for that purpose. The language in which it is expressed is not understood by the present race, and is what they call the old language. Many yet living remember the last of the speakers of that language, and represent them as having been devoutly wedded to their ancient usages.

"These three Beings employed seven days in the creation. The world was created at the commencement of the autumnal new moon, with the fruits all ripe. Hence that moon begins the year, and is called the great moon.

"Man was made of red earth. The first man and the first woman were red. The red people are, therefore, the real people, as their name, Yo, wi, ya, indicates.

"At first serpents were not poisonous-no roots were poison;—and man would have lived for ever, but the sun passing over, perceived that the earth was not large enough to support all in immortality that would be born. Poison was inserted in the tooth of the snake, in the root of the wild parsnip, and elsewhere; and one of the first family was soon bitten by a snake and died. All possible means were used to bring him to life, but in vain. Being overcome in this first instance, the whole race was doomed to death."

[ORIGINAL]

TRANSLATORS AND TRANSLATIONS.

[This article was received from its accomplished author, J. T. S. SULLIVAN, Esq., a few weeks before his death, and is therefore one of the latest, if not the very last of his productions.

Mr. Sullivan received a finished education at a German university. His perfect acquaintance with the German language, and high literary attainments, qualified him to correct the errors here noticed, and insure the accuracy of his own translations. The beauty and force of the latter will be apparent to every reader.

Under the obituary head the editor has given all the notice that his scanty materials afforded of his generous and gifted friend, and hopes he will be pardoned for remarking here, that he was indebted to him for many kind offices, and for timely sympathies and encouragements, which the heart feels, but the pen cannot describe.]

English literature has received numerous additions to its valuable treasures, or rather to its folios, by the so-termed translations from foreign authors. A foreign work may be rendered in English, it may have an English version given of it; it may be done into English, and it may be translated into English. When a work purports, upon its title-page, to be a translation, we look not to be disappointed; but, unfortunately, our hopes are too often bitterly checked, and we sometimes begin to think the word translate cannot be understood.

To translate, says the dictionary, is "to interpret in another language;" which means, we presume, to give in one language what is spoken, written, or promulgated, by whatever means, in another language. This is not, to give something like what is spoken or written in another language, but to give the ideas, convey the impression, and produce the same effect to and upon the mind of one nation which the original does, or is intended to produce, when understood, upon that of another. If we are correct in this, to translate is no easy matter. It is not merely the taking up of a foreign author, and, aided by a dictionary, to give the literal meaning of the words he uses. Far from it! To be a translator, one must be familiar with both languages; and not only with the languages, but with the associations connected with certain words and expressions used in different ways, and with the shades given to expressions. To acquire this, one must do more than sit in his study, and, by reading and application, learn what words mean. It may do for a scientific work, where the subject is confined to the technicalities of science, and intended only for scientific minds; but if you travel beyond, something more is necessary. If you VOL. II.—MARCH, 1849.

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