general title of "The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church." These discourses are now in their sixth edition, and, we doubt not, will continue to be studied with pleasure and with profit for many years to come. Few men of our time excel Mr. Dale in the distinctive and exalted gifts requisite for effective preaching. His possession of these gifts is attested by the fact that he has been able to command a crowded congregation for many years in the spacious chapel in Carr's Lane, where his predecessor, John Angell James, hone with so brilliant a lustre for half a century. The people of Birmingham have plenty of heart, and a public instructor of cold nature, however intellectual or however learned, would influence them but little; but their heads are as hard as their hearts are warm, and they have not much patience with mere emotionalism and "gush." They can appreciate good rhetoric; but it soon tires them, unless it is sustained and guided by a robust, practical common-sense. Their leaders must have something substantial to say, and must say it in a thoroughly frank, intelligible, and straightforward manner-with as rich a glow of feeling as the subject and the occasion may naturally call for, but at the same time with clearness, point, relevancy, and unmistakable moral earnestness. They have long recognised in Mr. Dale all these qualities, and it is now a good many years since they gladly gave to him a foremost place in the social, political, and religious movements of their great town. But Mr. But Mr. Dale's fame as a preacher of truth and righteousness is not confined to Birmingham; it extends throughout the land, and even to the United States of America. His ability as a polemical theologian is admirably illustrated by

He

his treatise on "The Atonement," the Congregational Lecture for 1875. developed his idea of what the preacher should be, and how he should conduct his work, in "Nine Lectures on Preaching," delivered at Yale, New Haven, Conn., one of the most comprehensive, compact, inspiring, and safe productions on that subject ever issued from the press. His peculiarities and powers as a preacher may be estimated by the four volumes of sermons which he has given to the public. Of course, it must be admitted that the most successful preacher does not always prove to be at once the soundest and most popular Biblical expositor. In this latter order of pulpit ministration, however, Mr. Dale seems to be as much at home and as effective as in any other; and we have often wondered why the author of "The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church" allowed so many years to pass before producing another work of the same order. Our desire for such a work is at length gratified by the appearance of these twenty-four lectures on the Epistle to the Ephesians, in which all Mr. Dale's versatility of intellect, resources of knowledge, and strong spirituality are put to full use.

In his Preface he tells us that he has "learnt that there are large numbers of Christian people to whom expository lectures of this popular kind are of more service than ordinary commentaries;" he might have added "than ordinary sermons." We should be glad to believe that such lectures were coming into vogue in our English pulpits. The proper work of the preacher undoubtedly is to expound and enforce the teachings of the Word of God, and what more effective method of accomplishing this task can be chosen than that of taking the separate Books of

This

Scripture in their entirety, analysing their contents, bringing their grammatical and connectional meanings into clear view, and showing their bearings upon the errors, the sins, and the sorrows of the time? If expository discourses are unacceptable to our congregations, it cannot be because Scripture is too dry and barren to admit of such treatment in a way fitted to interest and profit them. The Bible is a vast treasury of precious truth which our human life in this world imperatively needs for its inspiration, comfort, and guidance; and out of that treasury it is the business of the preacher to be constantly bringing things new and old. cannot be done best by taking a sentence, or the fragment of a sentence, here and there, calling it a text, and using it as a motto for a theme upon which the preacher may descant according to the turn of his mind, or the peculiarities of his theology. Topical preaching has its function and its place, but our congregations are most efficiently taught the deep things of God when the thoughts of divinely inspired men are laid open in the form and order which inspiration has given to them. In Scotland this matter has been understood and appreciated much more fully than amongst ourselves; and there is reason to rejoice when able English preachers, like Mr. Dale, set themselves to the higher task of exposition, and show how it may be discharged in such a way as to make it at once attractive and instructive to the audiences they have to address.

Of the expository work before us we can scarcely speak too highly. Baptists, however, are not likely to be satisfied with Mr. Dale's theory of Christian baptism as stated, but only very slightly discussed, in his remarks on the 26th

verse of the 5th chapter of the epistle. We might admit that theory to be not without beauty, if only we could regard it as Scripturally true. He says :—

"Baptism when administered to a child is a declaration that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ has atoned for its future sins; that, apart from its own choice, the child belongs to Him; and that, by the purpose and will of God, the child is blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus."

This account of baptism can scarcely be said to be vindicated-it is dogmatically asserted. Where Mr. Dale finds it either in the letter or the spirit of the New Testament we are unable to discover. It seems to us to come only from his own imagination, or, at best, to be a mere corollary from his way of interpreting the words: “The Living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe." Whatever the meaning of those words may be, we are unable to detect in them even the germ of the baptismal rite as set forth in the teachings of Christ and His apostles. Mr. Dale is an accomplished logician, and no man is more ready to bow to Scripture authority than he; but we think he would be sorely baffled in the attempt to show the consistency of his theory of Christian baptism with the many passages immediately relating to that rite in the Divine Word. We may as well say, further, that "Calvinists" of even a milder type than Dr. Gill are certain to take exception to his statement of the doctrine of election, as found in various passages in the second and third lectures, which cover verses 3-6 of the 1st chapter of the epistle. No doubt our author is justified in repudiating the sterner features of the Calvinistic creed as set forth in the Westminster Confession of faith; but

we think he falls short of Paul's teaching on the subject of Election when he

says:

"According to the Calvinistic conception, some men who are still children of wrath, even as the rest,' to use a phrase which occurs later in this epistle, are among the elect,' and will, therefore, some day become children of God. That is a mode of speech foreign to Paul's thought; according to Paul, no man is elect except he is 'in Christ.' We are all among the nonelect until we are in Him. But once in Christ we are caught in the currents of the eternal purposes of the Divine love; we belong to the elect race; all things are ours; we are the children of God and the heirs of His glory. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing . . in Christ.' God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.""

To be Divinely "chosen in Christ" is not necessarily to be chosen when our identification with Christ is realised by faith. Paul says that "God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world." Mr. Dale seems to take the choice before the foundation of the world as an election of character, not of persons, but, so far as we can see, he makes no attempt to prove that this is the teaching of the Apostle. He merely asserts it as a fact, and his assertion will have to go for so much as, and for no more than, it is worth.

Other points put forth in these lectures might be alluded to as being open to objection, but we forbear for want of space. Happily, in our study of the volume we have seldom been compelled to conclude that Mr. Dale is mistaken in his apprehension of the doctrinal teaching of the New Testament. We know of no clearer exposi

tion, and no abler defence of the great scheme of Redemption through the Blood of Christ, than the one which he has furnished in Lecture V. It will abundantly repay the most careful perusal by strengthening the faith of the reader in what we do not hesitate to pronounce the most vital truth in Holy Scripture. Mr. Dale has long been known for his power in dealing with ethical questions. That power has found ample scope in the work before us. It comes out in

many parts of the volume, but is especially conspicuous in the latter part, where he deals, with remarkable clearness, precision, and force, with "Miscellaneous Moral Precepts (chapter iv. 25; v. 21), with the relations between Wives and Husbands (chapter v. 22-33), between Children and Parents (chapter vi. 1-4), and between Servants and Masters (chapter vi. 5-9).

We thank Mr. Dale warmly for this new gift from his powerful pen, which will largely promote healthy religious thought and life in our own time and in the times which shall follow; and we trust that we may not have to wait seventeen years more for a third gift of like kind.

MEMOIR OF ISRAEL ATKINSON. By R. Hoddy, Editor of the Gospel Herald. London: W. Wileman, 34, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street; Brighton E. Atkinson, 2, North Road.

MR. ATKINSON was a Baptist minister, first at Raunds, Northamptonshire; then at Woolwich; and afterwards, for twenty-seven years, at Ebenezer Chapel, Richmond Street, Brighton. He died in the May of 1881, in the sixty-fourth