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The Structure of the Old Testament; a Series of Popular Essays. By REV. STANLEY LEATHES, M. A., Professor of Hebrew, King's College. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1873.

The author of this interesting book is well known as an ardent student of the Scriptures and a zealous defender of them. His contributions to the apologetics of the Old Testament and the New, in the form of "Boyle Lectures," have always been welcomed by Christian scholars. Not marked by profundity or exhaustiveness, what he has written has been suggestive and stimulating. He seems to believe more than he avows. He knows the dangerous rocks and avoids them. He prefers the open sea. Evidently cherishing a theory which, to his mind, solves many a difficulty, he leaves theories to theorists, and marshals the facts which theorists themselves are compelled to admit. His defences of revelation are accordingly outline defences-pertaining to the outworks of Christianity rather than to the citadel itself.

The volume whose title we have indicated above, belongs to the same class. It is popular rather than critical. It, however, groups acknowledged facts so skillfully, so cautiously, and so uniquely, that the reader feels himself in new fields of thought. No one, we think, but Professor Leathes would attempt to maintain the organic structure of the Old Testament from the leading characteristics of its literature. He would follow the old paths. He would search for the central thought and its development, or reason from the unity of its teachings, or attempt to defend the controlling ideas in the Old Testament and the New as

essentially harmonious, suggesting one revelation springing from one Divine mind. But this is not Professor Leathes' way. Assuming the fact that, in the Old Testament there is a large number of books, with a great variety of authors, and an equal number of styles, pervaded by the same essential truths, he seeks to bind them together as if but one book, with one author, by the marked characteristics of their literature. "It must be our endeavor," he says, "to analyze, to a certain extent, the monuments of this literature with a view to discovering and drawing out its essential unity." "Four classes of composition are readily distinguishable, and to one or other of these classes, every single book may with more or less propriety be assigned." Tracing the stream to its source, he divides these classes into the historical, the prophetical, the poetical and the legal. For the first he uses Ezra as the chief representative; for the second, Isaiah in the era of Hezekiah; for the third, David; and for the fourth, Moses. Around these names, as nuclei, he collects and arranges the several books and authors, and causes them to expound the unity of their history and the unity of their divine authorship. How these several classes blend together to sustain his argument, may be illustrated by a single selection from what he terms the poetic element:

The Hebrew poetry, as represented by the book of Psalms, is not without its bearing both on the historic and the prophetic elements of the Old Testament, and so forms a link in the integrity and unity of its structure. The historic Psalms, such as the seventy-eighth, the hundred and fifth, the hundred and sixth, the hundred and thirty-fifth, and hundred and thirty-sixth, whatever may be their date, are of priceless value, because they serve to confirm the substantial truth of the national records. They are an independent witness to the salient points of the national history. It is important to observe the limits at which these historical summaries respectively end. The first goes no farther than the reign of David, who may have been still king when it was written. The second ends with the occupation of Canaan. The third is doubtful, as it may either embrace the period of the Judges, or may be a review of the entire history down to the close of the monarchy, though the former is more likely. The fifth and sixth go no farther than the wars of Joshua, if so far. It is not possible to pronounce with certainty on the date of these Psalms, but there can be no doubt that, from their contents, a presumption exists in favor of their high antiquity, as it would have been natural in any later writer to carry down his allusions to the history nearer to his own time, which it is manifest, has not been done. But in proportion to the antiquity of these Psalms, is the value of their independent witness to the history of the nation. And the mere fact of their silence, as to any events of which we have not the written record, is a strong reason for inferring that this record was in existence at the time when they were written, and a proof that it was deeply imprinted on the memory of the people. It is this double stream of historical narration and of national poetry corroborating it, that is so characteristic of the Hebrew literature, and that is at once unique in the Old Testament, and an evidence of its structural unity.

The book is full of such germinal arguments. We commend it most heartily. The miracle of the Bible really is, that from so many combinations, solos, duets, trios, quartettes, and choruses, there should be produced but one oratorio.

Memorials of a Quiet Life. By AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE. Two volumes, pp. 499, 482. London: Strahan and Company. 1872. This is the beautiful story of a beautiful life, or rather group of lives most beautifully twined together. It discloses the domestic relations in

which those remarkable brothers, Augustus and Julius Hare, fulfilled their work in life. The central character is the widow of Augustus Hare. His "Sermons to a Country Congregation" were reprinted in this country, nearly a generation ago, and were eagerly read as wonderful illustrations of the power of a scholar to adapt religious instruction to the minds of very simple folk, in a common rural parish in the south of England. Julius Hare is well known, not only by the "Guesses at Truth," which was the joint production of the two brothers, but by "The Mission of the Comforter," and other volumes which showed his large scholarship and devout spirit. The widow of Augustus survived both of them many years, and was a person every way worthy of association with them. We have rarely known a life or read a biography so thoroughly pervaded with the sweetness and holiness of religion. The biographer has done little besides allowing these lives to tell their own story through letters and journals. And it is a blessing to the world to know such lives in the revelations which are here made of their innermost spirit.

Literature and Dogma: An Essay towards a better Apprehension of the Bible. By MATTHEW ARNOLD, D. C. L. Boston: James R.

Osgood and Company. 1873.

Mr. Arnold had better stick to literature. Ne sutor ultra crepidam. The literary part of this essay is pleasant reading, as all his work in that line is. The theological part of it is crude even to ignorance. We agree with him in the estimate he puts upon the utility of large reading and literary tact in the interpretation of the Bible, and the apprehension of religious doctrine. But when he presumes upon his literary equipment as sufficient to demolish the theology of Christendom, and even the very basis of Christian belief, and rushes upon the field with no training and no weapons but such as are furnished by his practice in literary criticism, the assault seems as ludicrous as it is harmless. He says much that is happy and valuable on the ethics of the Bible, and if he had shown an equal power in unfolding the religious ideas contained in the Old Testament, he might at least have saved himself from contempt. He denies all conceptions of a personal God, and substitutes for the Scriptural or the theological idea the awkward makeshift of "the enduring Power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness." Sifted to its substance, such pen-phrasis for God seems to be an unsuccessful attempt to make out a moral government of the world without a moral Governor, or an intelligent and righteous force which is not Will, and from which Personality is eliminated. The New Testament reveals "the mind of Christ," but through a turbid and uncertain medium. The reporters made many mistakes, failed to understand Jesus, and left the New Teslament for every man to extract from it as much truth and moral help as he can. The miracles he deals with quite summarily. He does not attempt to explain them away, or to explain them at all. He simply says that the human mind is slowly and surely outgrowing its reliance

upon them as evidences of religion. "And for this reason: It sees how they arise. It sees that under certain circumstances they always do arise, and that they have not more solidity in one case than another." That the miracles which accompanied Jesus Christ, the Great Miracle, should arise out of the fact itself, rather than out of the credulity of the human mind, certainly is not very incomprehensible, or incredible. If Mr. Arnold knows little of theology as a science, or of the philosophy of religion, he has not failed to catch the odium theologicum, the spirit of contempt towards others, which is rather remote from the "sweetness and light" of that culture of which he has made himself, or been made an apostle.

Text-book of Intellectual Philosophy for Schools and Colleges; Containing an Outline of the Science, with an Abstract of its History. By J. T. CHAMPLIN, D. D., President of Colby University. New edition, greatly improved. Woolworth, Ainsworth and Company. New York and Chicago.

Dr. Champlin is a man of solid, roundabout, practical common sense, rather than of a subtle, speculative, theorizing mind. He has had a large experience in teaching mental science. This book carries in all its parts the evidence of both these facts, and its excellencies are due to each of them equally. There is no attempt at originality, yet the author has been independent in his judgments, and has given with judicious arrangement his own system. The principles of the Scottish philosophy form the general basis of the treatise. We could wish the author's style were somewhat more felicitous at times, but are glad to have from our honored friend a new and improved edition of this work. It is published in a manner every way adapted to its character and design.

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Life, Journals, and Letters of Henry Alford, D. D., late Dean of Canterbury. Edited by his WIDOW. Pp. 542. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Company. 1873.

Dean Alford is as widely known in this country as any scholar of the English Church, with the possible exception of Dean Stanley, through his edition of the Greek Testament. This book gives an interesting story of his laborious life. His days seem to have been shortened by hard work. He was born of a clerical family in Somersetshire, though his father lived at the time of his birth, in 1810, in London. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won a fellowship, though his desire for marriage with his cousin led him to forego its advantages, and to become Vicar of Hymeswold, where he continued eighteen years, when he removed to London, and was incumbent of Quebec Chapel for nearly four years, till his appointment by Lord Palmerston to the Deanery of Canterbury.

He appears to have been a man from the start of very religious spirit, decided moral courage, of restless industry, and of rather versatile talent. He was, certainly in his last days, a liberal Churchman, and in the "Contemporary Review," which he founded, advocated generous fellowship towards Nonconformists, such as was not common in the Anglican communion. His best work was in his edition of the New Testament, and though he is surpassed in special lines by Ellicott, Lightfoot, and Wordsworth, on the whole this remains the best among English helps to the study of the original New Testament. He wrote considerable poetry, and did much other literary work. He died Jan. 12th, 1871, in his sixty-first year, evidently of an over-worked brain. His widow has compiled these memorials of his life with good taste and judgment, though with details which will hardly interest strangers. Dean Merivale and Bishop Ellicott, both personal friends, have furnished some kind. and just estimates of his character and work, which will be read with particular interest.

The Gospel According to Matthew, together with a General Theological and Homiletical Introduction to the New Testament. By JOHN PETER LANGE, D. D. Translated from the German, with additions, by Philip Schaff, D. D. New York: Scribner, Armstrong and Company. Octavo, pp. 568.

A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, for the Use of Bible-classes and Sabbath-schools. By JOHN J. OWEN, D. D., LL. D. New York: Scribner, Armstrong and Company. Pp. 415.

The Gospel According to Matthew. Explained by JOSEPH ADDISON ALEXANDER. New York: Scribner, Armstrong and Company. Duodecimo, pp. 456.

Notes on the Gospels, Critical and Explanatory. By MELANCTHON W. JACOBUS. Matthew and Mark. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers. Pp. 114. $1.50. For sale by Gould and Lincoln.

The Gospel According to Matthew, with Notes; Intended for Sabbathschools, Families, and Ministers. By NATHANIEL MARSHMAN WILLIAMS. With Illustrations. Boston: Gould and Lincoln. Duodecimo, pp. 332.

Notes on the Gospel of Matthew; Explanatory and Practical. By GEO. W. CLARK, author of "A New Harmony of the Gospels." A Popular Commentary upon a Critical Basis, especially designed for Pastors and Sunday-schools. With Illustrations. Philadelphia: Bible and Publication Society, 530 Arch Street.

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