In a rare old book published by the Bagsters, "The Bible of Every Land," is an interesting account which shows the power of the gospel over the mind of the Jew. "The learned rabbi who translated the Travancore New Testament engaged in the work solely with the design of confuting Christianity. That his triumph might be more complete, he endeavored in his translation to keep as near to the original as possible, for he never doubted but that with his scholarship and logical abilities he would find it easy to refute the statements of the text. By the time, however, he had gone through the life of Jesus, his confidence was shaken, and, as if afraid, says Dr. Buchanan, of the converting power of his own translation, he inserted a paragraph at the close of the Gospels, in which he took heaven and earth to witness that he had undertaken the work with the express design of opposing the 'Epicureans,' as he termed the Christians. A cloud hangs over his subsequent history; but there are abundant reasons for believing that he fell a martyr to the bigotry of [253] his people, and that after embracing the religion of Jesus he sealed his testimony with his blood." This reminds us of the cases of Lord Lyttleton and Gilbert West, two brilliant unbelievers, who set out to demonstrate the absurdity of the Christian faith: the one intending to show up the weakness and ridiculousness of the account of the resurrection of Jesus; the other, likewise, of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. The final issue of their work and study was that they both became believers, and each wrote on his previously chosen theme a strong treatise proving the divine claims of Jesus and of the New Testament. Those books are yet extant--"Lyttleton on the Conversion of St. Paul" and "West on the Resurrection of Christ;" and they stand as monuments of the faith-producing power of God's word, when given an even tolerably fair hearing. For "these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name."

[TAG 253-254]