Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/117

 manuscript state he got bound by the bookbinder in gilt boards, and betitled with printed letters, and then inserted them among the literary ranks of his book-board. Every one thought they were novelties printed in writing types. He had labored—I shall omit his less interesting performances—at a Collection of Errors of the Press, in German writings; he compared Errata with each other; showed which occurred most frequently; observed that important results were to be drawn from this, and advised the reader to draw them.

Moreover, he took his place among the German Masorites. He observes with great justice in his Preface: "The Jews had their Masora to show, which told them how often every letter was to be found in their Bible; for example, the Aleph (the A) 42,377 times; how many verses there are in which all the consonants appear (there are 26 verses), or only eighty (there are 3); how many verses we have into which 42 words and 160 consonants enter (there is just one, Jeremiah xxi. 7); which is the middle letter in certain books (in the Pentateuch, it is in Leviticus xi. 42, the noble V ), or in the whole Bible itself. But where have we Christians any similar Masora for Luther's Bible to show? Has it been accurately investigated which is the middle word, or the middle letter here, which vowel appears seldomest, and how often each vowel? Thousands of Bible-Christians go out of the world, without ever knowing that the German A occurs 323,015 times (therefore above 7 times oftener than the Hebrew one) in their Bible."

I could wish that inquirers into Biblical Literature among our Reviewers would publicly let me know if,