THE following letter from Principal Henderson, M.A., Lovedale, has recently been received by the Rev. J. R. Mackay, M.A., Inverness:—
“LOVEDALE,
SOUTH AFRICA, 22nd December, 1914.
DEAR MR. MACKAY,—I am sending you, under separate cover, six copies of the first section of the Xosa Metrical Psalms. The section contains twenty-four, and an edition of 000 has been printed off. Mr. Radasi has taken a first instalment of 500 copies, and small orders are expected to be received from other quarters. The booklet has been produced at a cost of 3d. per copy, at which price it is being disposed of wholesale. I have reason to expect that the 1,000 will all be required before the next section is ready, and that therefore there will be no charge for printing falling upon
your Church. We should aim in the next edition at reaching No. 72, and at completing the work in the following one. I hope you will approve of what we have judged best to do. The effect will be that when the next edition comes out we shall have the opportunity of correcting any errors that have been made in the first section, and when we come to print off the whole there will have been already two revisions of one part and one of the other. We have added a list of suitable tunes to this first section. I would suggest that when the whole is printed off a musical edition in sol-fa be also printed, and that an arrangement be made for obtaining the musical upper half of the divided book direct from the publishers of the Psalter in Scotland. This would mean a considerable saving upon having the whole book, including music, printed here, and would render it possible to sell the musical edition at such a price as would bring it readily within the means of the people. Afterwards the music might be printed in South Africa, if it was found desirable to have Xosa headings and to limit the selection of tunes. The “Minor” tunes are sung very badly by the Xosa people.
I am on the whole well satisfied with the first section. It has been worked through with exceedingly great care, and is, I judge, a successful piece of work. Some Psalms are of course very much more successfully rendered than others. In the 10th, 18th, and 21st, to take typical instances, the condensation in the original is in some passages so great that it is a matter of despair to render them in an agglutinative language within anything approaching the same limits of verse; on the other hand, some of the renderings are free and simple, and run very pleasantly, and the sense is on the surface. We do hope that this work will be the means of leading to a general adoption of the use of the Psalms in public worship in all the Presbyterian Missions using the Xosa language in course of time.
The War is continually in our thoughts, and we are very thankful for the splendid response to the call of our country’s need that has come from the North of Scotland. Here we have been torn asunder with civil strife. The rebellion has never had the support of the best people among the Dutch, but it is thought that a good deal more of plain speaking might have been expected from their leaders in condemnation of the faithlessness of the rebels. The struggle is now over, but the delay has given time to the Germans greatly to strengthen their position in the West, and it is quite clear that they are not to be overcome without a desperate struggle, and much loss of life. There has been a fine spirit among the settlers of British descent, and from this area there is hardly a family from which one or more sons have not gone forth. The native people have been showing a good spirit, but they are very anxious as to the issue. . . .
Let me close with good wishes for the New Year.—Yours
sincerely,
JAMES HENDERSON.