Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

civilization have just arisen, as a shining sun upon the darkened earth, in consequence of the treaties made by England for the suppression of the slave trade with some one score and a half or more of African kings and chiefs, shall all go back again, and humanity scream for agony at the sight? Shall Liberia and Sierra Leone, that have so long, as Commander Foote and many others testify, exerted a noble redeeming influence on the surrounding tribes, and that have been to so many victims rescued from captured slavers, the opening doors to civilization and finally to their long-lost homes, shall Liberia and Sierra Leone be whelmed beneath the waves? Says the well known traveler Barth, once more: "With the abolition of the slave trade all along the northern and southern coast of Africa, slaves will cease to be brought down to the coast, and in this way a great deal of the mischief and misery necessarily resulting from this inhuman traffic will be cut off."-Vol. i, pp. 12, 13. But instead of its abolition, what if we open the sluiceways wider, even to their utmost capacity?

present is, in fact, And shall the weak

Speaking of the evils of domestic slavery in Africa, he says, "But the abolition of the foreign slave trade would be the beginning of a better system."-Vol. ii, p. 327. Now what system of degradation and woe will fallen human beings at last create there, if slavery and the slave trade are finally to swing forth into full and lasting career! He says again, "The slave trade at abolished on the North Coast."-p. 327. and half civilized powers on the north of Africa be left to point before the world the finger of scorn and shame at the United States for keeping the western coast open still and evermore to the horrors of the slave trade? When the English pressed the king of Dahomey to sign a treaty abolishing the slave trade, he plead to be excused, and said, "No other trade is known to my people.

Who will pay my troops? Who will buy arms and clothes for them? Who will buy dresses for my wives? Who will give me supplies of cowries, rum, gunpowder, and cloth, for my annual 'customs?' The slave trade has been the ruling principle of my people. It is the source of their glory

[ocr errors]

and wealth. Their songs celebrate their victories, and the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery."-Foote, pp. 82, 83. And now shall the treaties with slave kings prohibiting the slave trade, or the slave trade itself, be abolished? Shall slave commerce be fully opened once more, and the kings of Dahomey, and Ashantee, and the Gallinas, and all the rest, generation after generation, go, licensed by the civilized world, go, unbridled, to their only business, the slave trade, "and men celebrate with songs their victories over their victims, and mothers lull their babes to sleep with notes of triumph over fellow beings. reduced to slavery?"

For two hundred years and more, from the beginning of the African slave trade, Africa had remained stationary or been degenerating in her barbarism, until the partial suppression of the slave commerce, and the opening of missionary labors inaugurated a more promising era. And now that the United States and Spain―amiable partners!-may have the felicitous profits of slavery, is the slave trade to be kept on its course, and Africa to be held to her heathenish doom-to her fate as the play-ground of robbers and murderers,—while millions on millions of human souls, yet unborn, shall be borne into mournful, suffering slave life and out of it, onward through generations unpredicted and unnumbered by man! God forbid !

ARTICLE V.-PROFESSOR LEWIS'S NEW WORK, “THE DIVINE HUMAN IN THE SCRIPTURES."

The Divine Human in the Scriptures. By TAYLER LEWIS, Union College. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers.

THIS volume, which we are informed in the preface is introductory to a more complete and full discussion of the figurative language of the Bible, is designed to present the views of Prof. Lewis upon the inspiration and authority of the Divine Word. The author is widely known among the scholars of our country for his familiar and profound acquaintance with the languages and the philosophy of classical antiquity, and for the deep interest and the unusual success with which he has prosecuted his inquiries into the habits of thought, and the religious convictions of those early ages. His publication of "Plato against the Atheists" disclosed the depth and extent of his researches into the religious ideas of antiquity, as well as the ability with which he applied the philosophical conceptions of that era to the subsequent forms of skepticism. His comments upon the Book of Job showed how successfully he had entered into the vague but real beliefs of that remote period in regard to death and a future life. More especially, however, should we refer to his Six Days of Creation," as elucidating the breadth of his investigations into the early conceptions of the Hebrew mind in regard to the creation, and the important ideas which in the Bible cluster round the narrative of that great event. That work, in consequence of some sharp allusions to modern. science and some of its advocates, provoked opposition, and drew upon itself a severity of criticism that prevented its reaching in public estimation the position which, in our opinion, it unquestionably deserves, as a profound, useful, and satisfactory discussion of that great subject.

It affords us real pleasure to welcome him again into substantially the same field of thought and argument; and to in

troduce to the notice of our readers his suggestive and valuable work upon the inspiration of the Scriptures.

The aim of Professor Lewis to vindicate the claims of the Bible, leads him to present his views, first, of the nature of inspiration, and next, of some evidences which may be offered. for the inspired character of the sacred volume.

In respect to the nature of inspiration he maintains a position which is substantially identical with that which prevails throughout New England. The whole Bible he believes to be inspired-to possess a character of absolute truth in all that it really affirms, through a ceaseless supervision and impulse of the Divine Spirit, guiding the writers of the Biblical books. The title of the work-The Divine Human-indicates the idea which he wishes to present-God speaking through the conceptions, emotions, and language of men; a true and real union of the mind of God with the human mind in the Scrip

tures.

This conception is strongly distinguished from both of the two theories which are current among the different classes of religious thinkers. One of these, holding a theory of plenary inspiration, seems to deny all true action of the human agents of God's revelation, and holds all their language to be directly suggested of God, for the expression of absolute truth. The peculiarities of individual writers are ignored and denied; the habits of thought of each individual pass for nothing; expressions and conceptions are not selected by the free working of the inspired mind in its own accustomed ways, as most natural and appropriate to it, but are suggested by the Infinite Wisdom as absolutely conveying the truth. All the language of the Scripture is inspired in precisely the same sense and way; and all individual peculiarities are lost in the mechanical utterance by the writer, of conceptions not his own.

The other class holds up to view the human element, and regards inspiration as the quickening and elevating of a devout soul to high views of truth, and to ennobling conceptions of duty, which it is then left to express in its own way, by its own accustomed imagery and machinery of thought.

These two views seem to possess between them the elements of a more comprehensive and complete inspiration than either

of them exclusively maintains; and this combination of the two opposite schemes forms the system of Prof. Lewis. He regards the former as defective in some important respects. It is no true inspiration of the man. The words he utters are not his own; the figures of speech which he employs do not express the analogies and images under which he is led to view the truth. He is no otherwise inspired than a bird might be, which should be impelled to utter, without understanding, the articulate sounds of human speech. Though defective in this respect, however, it saves the great and fundamental conception which lies at the bottom of all inspiration; it authenticates the message as a real communication of truth from God to men. The latter view, on the other hand, while it maintains a real inspiration of the man, is no inspiration of his work; and leaves his message to his fellow men without any attestation of its accuracy. His description of the vision in which Heaven stood open before him, and even his record of observed facts, are prejudiced by all the inaccuracies of his own defective understanding, and his own imperfect recollection.

Professor Lewis regards inspiration as embodying a concurrent agency of God and man, in the preparation of that record of truth which should be given to the world as the guide of its faith. The inspired writer is indeed lifted up to behold realities and conceive truths, to which human power could never attain; but he is not left to his own multiplied errors in the utterance of them. A Divine supervision secures the truthfulness of all his utterances, and makes his communication to mankind a reliable and authentic transcript of the Divine wisdom and the Divine will.

Up to this point the conception of inspiration which we have described will probably receive the approval of all discrimi nating and devout readers. But our author carries it to even a higher point, to which all may not be quite ready to follow him. He regards the Divine agency as not terminating in such a supervision as shall secure the real accuracy of the message of God, but as itself actively selecting and guiding the expression of it. Not only are the figures of speech which are employed for the expression of emotion all of Divine suggestion, but the language in all its particulars is equally

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »