Joseph Angus, Baptist Mission House, London, to Rev. [Benjamin] Clough, 14 September 1841.

Baptist Mission House

6 Fen Court, London

Sept. 14. 1841

My dear Sir

   We are anxious to know something of the Cinghalese Versions of the New Testament and as you are perfectly conversant with the language, we venture to trouble you in these matters. Perhaps you will kindly favour me with a reply.

1.     Are there more than two translations—one executed by you & Mr Chater—the other, that executed by the Church Missionaries.

2.     We have by us a Cinghalese New Testament, with the dates 1780 and 1814. What can this be?  The Church Mission versions made by the Old Propagation Society or some other?

3.     What are the honorific terms which your version contains & which the C. Mission version omits?

4.     Are the words [Greek words here are translated as baptize & baptism] translated or transferred—This I ask to be able to answer others.

   Trusting that you will excuse the trouble I thus give you

                           Believe me to be

                                       Yrs very faithfuly 

                                                   In Xt Jesus

                                                   Joseph Angus

Revd  Mr  Clough.

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), p. 227 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 861, fol. 3, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Joseph Angus (1816-1902) served as BMS secretary (1841-1849) and President of Regent’s Park College, London (1849-1893). The Baptist Mission House was located in Fen Court, in buildings owned by the Particular Baptist Fund. At the time of the above letter, Angus, then twenty-five, had been sole secretary of the BMS for about two months. Others mentioned above include Benjamin Clough, Methodist missionary in Ceylon, and James Chater (1779-1829), BMS missionary in India, Burma, and Ceylon, 1806-1829.