The History of Missions Author:William Brown Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECTION II. Java. Having become masters of a great part of Java, the Dutch, in 1621, opened a church in Batavia, the capital of the island; but of the prog... more »ress which they made in converting the natives to Christianity, our accounts are extremely meagre. In 1721, we are informed, that the number of Christians on this island was upwards of 100,000; that, in Batavia, there were two churches, in which public worship was performed in the Dutch language; two in vhich the Portuguese was employed: and either one or two in which the Malay was used.f The number of ministers at Batavia, when the list was full, amounted to twelve; but it appears, that of late years at least, they were men nowise distinguished either by their learning or their piety. In propagating Christianity in Java and the neighbouring countries, there is nothing for which the Dutch have been more distinguished, than by their zeal to furnish the inhabitants with the Holy Scriptures. Not many years after the commencement of their labours in this island, the Gospels and other parts of the sacred writing were published in the Malay language, which is spoken not only in Malacca, but through all the adjacent islands. In 1668, the New Testament was printed in that language at Amsterdam, at the expense of the East India Company; and, in 1733, a translation of the whole Bible was published in that city, in Roman char, acters. This version was afterwards printed in 1758, at Batavia, in five volumes, in the Arabic alphabet, with the addition of the letters peculiar to the Malay, under the direction of the governor-general of the Dutch possessions in the East. As this translation of the Bible is in the idiom of Batavia andMalacca, some have objected to it, that it is not very intelligible in Sumatra, and other Malay countrie...« less