and titles judicial, which present its severer side to our contemplation. We cannot now enter at any length upon this important branch of the general subject. All familiar with the Bible know that our religious vocabulary has been greatly enlarged from this source; and can, without prompting, recall the occasions and circumstances, miraculous and otherwise, which constitute their basis. Such, in kind, are the histories of Noah and the deluge, of Lot and the cities of the plain, of Pharaoh and the plagues of Egypt, of Sinai and the murmuring and rebellious Hebrews, of Joshua and the conquest of Canaan, and a multitude of simliar works and manifestations. But our limits require us to turn now to other topics, and we dismiss the entire catalogue of names, titles, and terms, forensic and judicial, with the remark that they cover the most mysterious and awful arena in the entire scheme of divine revelation one which mere human reason is utterly incompetent to deal with. To adjust and represent truly and safely the aspects of inflexible justice, in a system whose fundamental aim and essence, whose very raison d'être is a manifestation of love and mercy infinite, could only be done by its Divine Author. We may, and must, conclude that the methods adopted were the best possible, if not the only ones, by which even Jehovah could adequately reveal these awful aspects of his incomprehensible character. He has chosen to do this through the agency of numberless exhibitions of these attributes severe, operating in visible, miraculous, appalling judgments. The narration of these things embodies all, or nearly all, our knowledge in this abyss of deepest mystery, and also the vocabulary of names and terms by which it can be reverently studied and safely propounded. And let us not fail to notice that the conditions, circumstances, and occasions which evoked these manifestations of divine wrath were not accidental, but pre-arranged by him whose thoughts and ways are high as heaven above ours. The comprehensive conclusion and ultimate result of the whole study is beautifully condensed in the ninety-seventh Psalm: "Clouds and darkness are round about him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne."

ARTICLE VII.

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

BY REV. GEORGE H. WHITTEMORE, A.M., ROCHESTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

THIS is the title of a small volume by the Rev. George Rawlinson, M.A., Camden Professor of Ancient History, Oxford, of which an American reprint, with additions by Professor Horatio B. Hackett, of Rochester Theological Seminary, has lately been published.1 Externally its choice style is worthy of the famous Riverside Press, Cambridge; while the names above given are a guarantee of the intrinsic value of the work. It is a happy day when the "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge" can command the services of so accomplished a scholar as Professor Rawlinson, who fourteen years since gave a course of Bampton Lectures on the same subject, and who, in the prefatory words of the American editor, " is well known as the author of our ablest works relating to the old Asiatic monarchies connected with Jewish history, and occupying a prominent place in the Old Testament." Dr. Hackett, fresh from his great task of marshalling American scholarship for the perfecting of Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, may certainly indulge the modest aspiration that his supplementary contributions to this small, but comprehensive treatise, so much in the line of his life's employment," will be found to harmonize with the author's design, and may prove acceptable to the reader."

The object of the book is to exhibit the testimony of profane history to the trustworthiness of the biblical records. The Bible is peculiarly adapted to receive such confirmation, if it can be shown to exist, because it is so largely made up of personal and national history. It is so human, as well as so divine a book. The connection of religion and history has been well set forth by Auberlen, in his "Divine Revelation," remarking

1 Boston: Henry A. Young and Co. 1873.

upon Jehovah's declaration to Abraham, that the object of his being chosen was that he might command his children, and his house after him, to walk in the way of the Lord (Gen. xviii. 19): "Here the careful transmission of the divine revelation is made a duty; for, as in the Acts (xviii. 25; xix. 9, 23; ix. 2) and elsewhere, genuine religious instruction has always been historical. It consisted of the declaration and explanation of the facts, and the careful impressing of the words of revelation on the mind. So there was formed, without doubt, a certain form of the account of the main facts. The New Testament furnishes an instructive analogy in the synoptic tradition of the life of Jesus. Whatever we may think of the relation of the three synoptic Gospels to one another, one main consideration for the explanation of their connection will be the similar oral tradition."

The least reflection will verify this trait of the sacred records. Divine communications are made to their recipients in connection with great events, like the deluge or the Egyptian bondage. The things related were not done in a corner. The ordinary and the miraculous events of Jewish history occurred, many of them, on the broad stage of Israel's relations to the greatest nations of their day and of all time. Such being the case, if the historical accuracy of the Bible. can be proved, the value of it is, that it is evidently unstudied and secondary; for the mind of the writer is often plainly on subjects of higher importance, so that he has left matters of history imperfectly explained, or obscurely alluded to, which yet are shown from other sources to be correctly stated. If, then, he has been substantially faithful in that which was least his concern, the notation of the external circumstances,-how much more may we confide in his fidelity to the true riches of heavenly communications made to him. We proceed to some account of the volume before us, and some general notice of what it has accomplished.

The work proper contains eight chapters, to which the American editor has added Appendices on the Assyrian Story of the Flood and the Moabite Stone. The introductory

chapter presents the historic character of biblical religion as affording a contact with profane history, and announces, as the scope of the work, a comparison of the sacred and secular records, in their various points of contact, during the Old Testament period. Attention is justly directed to the many opportunities existing for confutation, if the Bible were untrue; and, with the presumption thus shown to be in its favor, from the number and variety of the tests it has victoriously sustained, the hope is confidently expressed of exhibiting an all but universal "harmony, which seems to have reached a stage that entitles it to take its place among the evidences of religion."

Passing, in the second chapter, to institute the comparison with reference to the earliest records of the Bible, it is recognized that historical illustration, strictly speaking, is impossible for the first two thousand years or more of the race, until the time of Abraham, which may be called, in a general way, the epoch of the commencement of profane history. Recourse is therefore had to the traditions of different leading races, or divisions of races, concerning paradise, the fall, primeval longevity, the discovery of the arts, and the deluge. These traditions are largely consentaneous with the statements of the Bible, and the conclusion is deemed irresistible that the Hebrew account of the deluge is the authentic one, from which the others have been more or less deflected; for, upon the supposition of the truth of the sacred narrative, the others can be not unreasonably regarded as corruptions, while the reverse cannot be shown probable. Additional tradition on this subject is brought forward in the American edition, and reference is made to the important confirmation of scripture from the Assyrian Story of the Flood, as recently deciphered and made known by Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum, London, since the publication of the English edition. It may be allowable here to add, that, even since he made the translation given in the Appendix to the American edition, Mr. Smith has discovered a new and interesting fragment belonging to the

deluge series of inscriptions. In a letter to the London Daily Telegraph, respecting the collection brought home by the expedition of Assyrian discovery confided to his charge, he says: "When last year I published a translation of the text in question, I was obliged to note with regret that in the first column of the inscription there were about fifteen lines entirely lost. The lacuna occurred at a point of high interest to students and the world in general; for the Divine Instructor of Sisit was about to give orders for the embarkation in the ark. It is needless, therefore, to say with what satisfaction I lighted upon the welcome tablet which fills up this very important gap. The fragment I found during the Daily Telegraph expedition belongs to the first column of the deluge series of inscriptions; it continues the speech of the god Hea, the commencement of which is on the portion of the tablet already in the Museum. On the fragment of the old collection, Hea tells Sisit to warn the world, because of the wickedness of the people; on the Daily Telegraph portion, Hea continues by predicting the flood, and then commands Sisit, as follows: On the coming of the flood which I shall send, thou shalt enter into the ship, and the door of the ship turn, thou shalt send into the midst of it thy corn, thy furni ture and goods, thy gold and silver, thy male slaves, and thy female slaves, the sons of the army, the beasts of the field, the animals of the field; all that thou hearest thou shalt do;

they shall spread, and they shall guard the door of the ship. Sisit attended and opened his mouth, and spake, and said to the god Hea, his lord.' Five lines of the speech of Sisit follow this. They are too mutilated for exact translation; and then in the answer, Sisit refers to the difficulties in the way of the work. I need not dwell upon the interest of placing this account side by side with that contained in the book of Genesis."

The triumphant verification of the tenth chapter of Genesis, and its accord with the latest ethnological and linguistic inquiry, are alluded to by both editors; the English writer citing the high authority as an Orientalist of his distin