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PREFACE.

THE commencement of the Protestant Mission to China, was closely connected with a scheme for translating the Scriptures into the native language; a work to which the pioneers devoted much time and attention. Their successors in like manner, have kept this before them as an object of first importance; and the continuous application thus bestowed, from the beginning, on this branch of the enterprise, has been productive of results gratifying to every friend of the cause. The incipient labours of Morrison, Marshman and Milne, brought to completion the two first entire translations of the Bible, which appear to have issued from the press simultaneously about the year 1822.

No great period was allowed to elapse till this was followed up by revision and amendment, a work which had been contemplated by the first translators, even before their own productions had been given to the public. The combined efforts of Drs. Medhurst, Gutzlaff and Bridgman, in concert with the son of Dr. Morrison, led to the respective versions of the two first-named missionaries.

Subsequent to this, the new translation of the New Testament by the Committee of Delegates, issued in 1850, and the Old Testament by the members of the London Mission, some two or three years later, were followed up by a revision of the whole, at the hands of Dr. Bridgman and Mr. Cul- . bertson.

Another version of the New Testament had been carried on at the same time, by the Rev. J. Goddard, the agent of the Baptist churches in America; and his work has been for the most part used by the members of that denomination,

A complete translation of the New Testament into the Mandarin dialect, chiefly by Dr. Medhurst, has been widely circulated; and a second translation by the resident missionaries at Peking is well on to completion.

Translations of the whole New Testament have been made into the local dialects of Ningpo and Fuhchow, and detached portions of the Old and New Testaments have appeared in the Shanghae, Canton, Hakka, Amoy and Kin-hwa dialects.

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