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god, and its suddenness and severity in connection with the act of Moses mark it as a preternatural withdrawal of light. Yet it has an analogy in physical phenomena. After the vernal equinox the south west wind from the desert blows some fifty days, not however continuously but at intervals, lasting generally some two or three days. (Thus Lane, Willman and others quoted by Knobel.) It fills the atmosphere with dense masses of fine sand, bringing on a darkness far deeper than that of our worst fogs in winter. While it lasts no man 'rises from his place; men and beasts hide themselves; people shut themselves up in the innermost apartments or vaults. So saturated is the air with the sand that it seems to lose its transparency, so that artificial light is of little use.' The expression 'even darkness that might be felt' has a special application to a darkness produced by such a cause. The consternation of Pharaoh proves that familiar though he may have been with the phenomenon, no previous occurrence tad prepared him for its intensity and duration, and that he recognized it as a supernatural visitation.”

Once more. Of the Book of Leviticus it is said: "Leviticus has no pretension to systematic arrangement as a whole, nor does it appear to have been originally written all at one time. Some repetitions occur in it; and, in many instances, certain particulars are separated from others with which, by the subject-matter, they are immediately connected. There appear to be in Leviticus, as well as in the other books of the Pentateuch, pre-Mosaic fragments incorporated with the more recent matter. It is by no means unlikely that there are insertions of a later date which were written, or sanctioned, by the prophets and holy men who, after the Captivity, arranged and edited the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The fragmentary way in which the Law has been recorded, regarded in connection with the perfect harmony of its spirit and details, may tend to confirm both the unity of the authorship of the books in which it is contained, and the true inspiration of the law-giver."

Concessions, such as these, on the part of English annotators on Scripture, mark a new era in biblical study and research, and are calculated to lead to a general revival of deep interest in the subject. In the volume before us, we may add, the new renderings of words and passages are printed in heavy type. Readers can thus readily examine them and compare them with the received English text. They appear to be few after all. The committee for an improved translation will find their labours lightened by the "Speaker's Commentary." The ultimate acceptance of the results of their toil by the public will be thereby too rendered more certain. By the time the eight royal octavos are out, the popular mind will be ready for the desired change. As we have already said, the commentary now introduced to the English-speaking public is for a period of transition. In it as few prejudices as possible are stirred, whilst difficulties have been calmly met, reasonally discussed, and as far as possible put on an intelligible footing. The text to which the notes are appended is the version of 1611, printed once more in the ancient style, with the common divisions into chapter and verse, the old quaint headings and the marginal readings. When the improved translation itself comes to be put forth, it is to be hoped that the division into chapter and verse will be discarded, figures at the side of the pages for purposes

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of reference being used instead; that an arrangement of the matter of each book will be adopted which will be in accordance with the intentions of its author, and that the interpretation of names will be inserted whenever the context implies that such interpretation is given, as, for example, where Eve is said to have been so named because the mother of all living,' an explanation unintelligible if it is not announced at the same time that Eve means Life. Notwithstanding the great pains which have manifestly been taken with the typography of the volume before us, a few oversights are discernable as, for example, in the word intended to be "Tabernacle" at p. 694, and in that intended to be "Shakespeare" at p. 876.

MODERN SCEPTICISM. A course of Lectures delivered at the request of the Christian Evidence Society. With an explanatory paper by the Right Reverend C. J. Ellicott, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Toronto: Adam, Stevenson & Co.

The truth of a religion is not really affected by the errors of its apologists: otherwise Christianity would hardly have survived till now. But a bad impression is produced by weak defences, especially if they are put forth with authority, or with any semblance of it; and such, we suspect will be the practical effect of the volume before us, notwithstanding the eminence of the contributors and the learning and ability which some of them display. The very form of the work strikes us as unfortunate, if it be designed for the satisfaction of those who are in doubt. Suspicion is excited by the appearance of twelve writers, all of them bishops or clergymen, organized under the auspices of a religious society to defend what will be deemed to be professional opinions. A far greater effect would be produced on minds which are seriously seeking for fresh assurance of their faith by the work of a single inquirer, even one far inferior to these writers in eminence, if it were clear that he had studied the question impartially, and that he came forward under no influence but that of a desire to make known the truth. Moreover, where a number of writers are dealing with different parts of a great subject, the treatment is pretty sure to be imperfect, and the most difficult portions, which in the case of an apologetic work, are the most important, are apt to be declined by everybody, and thus to be neglected altogether. This has in fact happened in the present The first and fundamental duty of a Christian apologist is to prove that the Gospels were beyond doubt written or dictated by eye-witnesses, and trustworthy eye-witnesses, of the miraculous events which they record. This is the very basis of the whole inquiry, and without it, disquisitions, however learned and eloquent, on the possibility of miracles, the probability of a revelation, or the excellence of the Christian type of character, much more confutations of other religious or philosophical systems, are fabrics in the air. If it were alleged that a miracle had been wrought in Toronto or Montreal, we should at once inquire, not whether miracles were possible to Omnipotence, which no man without holding contradictory propositions can deny; nor whether the miracle was worthy of the Divine Majesty and likely to serve a Divine purpose; but who had witnessed it.

case.

First in the series of lectures ought to have stood one on the authorship of the Gospels and the sufficiency of their authors as witnesses to the miraculous facts. But this topic is hardly touched on in any part of the volume. Consequently the work will be read by those for whose benefit it is chiefly designed with little profit and probably with little

attention.

The best of the lectures appears to us to be that on Positivism by the Rev. W. Jackson, who at all events grapples with his subject vigorously and effectively, though his tone in parts is not so judicial as might be desired. The weakest, strange to say, is that by an ex-professor of Theology at Oxford, Dr. Payne Smith, whose paper on Science and Revelation, besides being extremely weak and vague in its reasonings, is defaced by some very poor attempts at wit.

The Archbishop of York (on Design in Nature) displays a general acquaintance with science rare as well as laudable among clergymen, but he does not do much more. Dr. Rigg (on Pantheism) runs into pulpit declamation, and he is betrayed, in an evil moment, into an endorsement of the proposition that "all we ask is that we may be allowed to believe in a God and a real Divine Providence, as powerful and wise and good as Mr. Darwin's Natural Selection:" as though the heart, craving for a God of goodness and mercy, would be satisfied by belief in a force, the leading characteristic of which is the ruthless cruelty of its operations. In the papers of Dr. Stoughton (on the Nature and Value of the Miraculous Testimony to Christianity), and of the Bishop of Carlisle (on the Gradual Development of Revelation) we see nothing calling for particular notice; though Dr. Stoughton is to be commended, in our humble judgment, for opening with a reference to the words of our Lord to St. Thomas as showing that honest doubt ought to be removed by proofs and not to be denounced as a crime. Professor Rawlinson (on the Alleged Historical Difficulties of the Old and New Testament) cannot fail to display learning when dealing with questions of Oriental history; but he also shows bias to an extent which will be fatal to the acceptance of his conclusions by any who are not overpowered by his erudition, and his assertion that he has exhausted the alleged historical difficulties either of the Old Testament or of the New would by no means be admitted by his opponents. Mr. Row (on Mythical Theories of Christianity) puts with much force the difficulty of explaining the production of such a character as that of Christ by any known process of the human imagination. Mr. Leathes (on the Evidential Value of St. Paul's Epistles) is able and striking, though deficient in that judicial impartiality without which no reasonings will find admission into a doubting mind. The Bishop of Ely (on Christ's Teachings and Influence on the World) is comprehensive, erudite and suggestive; but in his survey of the moral history of Christendom he ignores such adverse facts as the Crusades, the Extermination of the Albigenses, the Religious Wars of the 16th and 17th century, the Inquisition, the Penal Code; and he claims Roger Bacon as one of the scientific glories of the Christian Church, omitting to mention that he was persecuted for his scientific pursuits by the ecclesiastical authorities of the day. Canon Cook (on the Completeness and Adequacy of the Evidences of Christianity) is fatally weakened by the omission in the commencement of the volume of that portion of the evidences which

as we have already pointed out is the foundation of the whole. The explanatory paper by Bishop Ellicott pleases us by its tone of candour and of charitable sympathy with serious doubt, a tone of which we feel the want in the papers of some of his coadjutors.

A volume of lectures written by such men could not fail to contain much that must be acceptable to believing Christians and worthy of the attention of all; but we cannot persuade ourselves that it will have much influence in turning the current of adverse opinion or bringing Modern Scepticism back to faith in Christ.

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We have said that for the most part Mr. Longfellow gives us the Gospel narrative unimproved; he has, however, introduced some improvements. "Manahem the Essenian," "Simon Magus," and "Helen of Tyre," are added to the Gospel characters, and the valdid simplicity of the Evangelists is relieved by more ornamental passages.

The demoniac at Gadara raves in this style,

"O Aschmedai !

Thou angel of the bottomless pit, have pity!
It was enough to hurl King Solomon,

On whom be peace!-two hundred leagues away

Into the country, and to make him scullion,
In the kitchen of the king of Maschkemen!
Why dost thou hurl me here among these rocks,
And cut me with these stones?"

None but a great poet could have conceived the delicate distinction between "hurling him among the rocks" and "cutting him with the stones." Peter closes the scene by exclaiming,—

"Let us depart ;

For they that sanctify and purify
Themselves in gardens, eating flesh of swine,
And the abomination, and the mouse,

Shall be consumed together, saith the Lord!"

The Transfiguration also receives a new touch of beauty and grandeur from the master hand,—

"See, where he standeth
Above us, on the summit of the hill!

His face shines as the sun!-and all his raiment
Exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller
On earth can white them! He is not alone!
There are two with him there; two men of old,
Their white beards blowing on the mountain air,
Are talking with him."

In the garden of Gethsemane, Peter says,—

"Under this ancient olive-tree, that spreads Its broad centennial branches like a tent, Let us lie down and rest!"

The prettiness of expression is so natural in the mouth of the fisherman, and harmonizes so well with the Agony, that it would be hypercritical to remark that, of all trees on earth, the olive is the least like

a tent.

The Council in the High Priest's Palace is opened by the Pharisees, who say in chorus,

"What do we? Clearly something must we do, For this man worketh many miracles." "Something must we do" is evidently the poetic quivalent of something must be done. Caiaphas replies,

"I am informed that he is a mechanic, A carpenter's son; a Galilean peasant, Keeping disreputable company.'

Pontius Pilate begins a long soliloquy, with,—

"Wholly incomprehensible to me, Vainglorious, obstinate and given up

To unintelligible old traditions, And proud and self-conceited are these Jews." He ends with,

"I will go in, and while these Jews are wrangling,

Read my Ovidius on the Art of Love."

Barabbas sings in prison,—

"Barabbas is my name,

Barabbas, the Son of Shame,
Is the meaning, I suppose,
I'm no better than the best,
And whether worse than the rest
Of my fellow-men, who knows?

"I was once, to say it in brief,
A highwayman, a robber chief,
In the open light of day,
So much am free to confess ;
But all men, more or less,
Are robbers in their way."

Is this from a "Divine Tragedy" of the Passion, or is it from the Beggar's Opera?

The drama is preluded by an "Introitus," consisting of a philosophic dialogue between an angel and the Prophet Habakkuk, whom the angel is carrying through the air. It is closed by an epilogue solemnly headed "Symbolum Apostolorum," and consisting of the Apostle's Creed, divided into twelve portions, each of which is repeated by one of the twelve Apostles.

While the Gospel is still sacred in the eyes of millions, it would perhaps be better taste in poets to select some other subject for dramatization. But, apart from this, "The Divine Tragedy" is a failure, and something more. Boston will, no doubt, as usual, applaud, and call upon the rest of the world to applaud; but the rest of the world, if we mistake not, will be of opinion that Mr. Longfellow has presumed once at least too often upon his highly factitious reputation.

ENGLISH LESSONS FOR ENGLISH PEOPLE. By the Rev. Edwin A. Abbot, M. A., and J. R. Seeley, M. A. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Boston: Roberts Bros. 1872.

Two well-trained English scholars have here combined to produce some useful and carefully digested "English lessons for English people." The dedication to the Rev. Dr. Mortimer, formerly headmaster of the city of London School, refers, among other advantages enjoyed by the authors as his pupils, to the appreciation of the right use of their native tongue which he fostered, and to the special encouragement given there to the critical study of Shakespeare.

The important part which a mastery of the "cunning instrument" of our native tongue is now beginning to take in education is one of the most healthful signs of modern culture; and this instalment of " English Lessons" is a valuable contribution towards the needful manuals alike in demand by teachers and pupils. It deals philologically with the language; though this is the least effective part

of the book. But it also discusses etymology in reference to style; treats of the diction of prose and of poetry; and furnishes many useful hints, equally applicable in the critical analysis of English authors and as an aid to the student in the formation of his own style. With the same object in view, the simple elements of rhetoric are discussed in the chapter on Simile and Metaphor; and an appendix containing hints on some errors in reasoning deals equally concisely with some of the most available elements of logic.

It is very questionable if it is possible by any prescribed rules or directions to guide a beginner in forming a style for himself. Familiarity, by careful critical reading, with the best style of English classics; and a judicious censorship applied by the teachers to his exercises in English, are the most effective means towards the formation of a good style. But the rules in diction, and the criticisms on selected examples both in prose and verse, introduced in parts II. and IV., are calculated to be of great use to teachers, and to advanced pupils, at a stage where they are learning to appreciate their own defects. Common sources of ambiguity and redundancy are dealt with and illustrated. The obscurity, for example, so frequently illustrated by the modern fashion of reporting Parliamentary debates in the third person, is discussed, and traced to its cause ; and its excess illustrated thus: "He told the coachman that he would be the death of him, if he did not take care what he was about, and mind what he said." Whether the carelessness of the coachman, or the wrath of its victim, is to lead to the threatened death of the other, can only be determined-if at all -by the context.

The difference between a colloquial and written style, and the part played by emphasis in giving expression to spoken language, however carelessly uttered, are dwelt upon; and the necessity enforced of exercising a much greater care in the arrangement of words, and the construction of sentences, in writing than in speaking.

from the ephemeral interest taken in the latest of our royal marriages. A year ago, the loyal feelings of the English people were enlisted in favour of a matrimonial alliance which had more than one claim to popular approval. It was a love-match-a fact of itself sufficient to evoke the most generous enthusiasm from the hearts of the people. It was also a breaking-down of the barriers of class exclusiveness, as well as a notable exception to the tra ditional system of foreign marriages, at which Englishmen have always looked askant. The young couple were united amidst the hearty good wishes of an approving people, and departed on their wedding tour, let us hope, to a long life of mutual love and happiness.

The pageant over-the third volume of the royal novel concluded-the interest which had temporarily centred in the court, faded out of the public mind. Mr. Buchanan's work appeared in England when the enthusiasm was at its height; but it has never been properly introduced to the Canadian reader. It certainly merits perusal, apart from the temporary occasion which gave it birth. The author, as our readers are aware, is a poet of considerable reputation. The scenes he describes are wild and romantic enough to excite the most active imagination and there are, besides, abundant sources of attraction and amusement in the game, the literature and the unkempt population of the Western Highlands. The sporting chapters are written with gen. uine enthusiasm; and in the literary sections, we have translations from Donald McIntyre, the Burns of the Highlands, and also from the Norse Saga of Haco the Dane. As a frontispiece, we have vignette portraits, admirably executed in photolithography, of Her Royal Highness the Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne. The book, as a whole, is one which we take pleasure in recommending to our readers.

PURE GOLD SERIES OF CANADIAN TALES, No. 2. "A LIFE WASTED." By T. J. Vivian. Toronto: "Pure Gold Printing Establishment."

But the portion of this book which pleases us most is the third part, on Metre. Here the whole question of English prosody is carefully reviewed ; and that perplexing difficulty to the young student, Our thanks are due to the "Pure Gold" Company of the difference between quantity and accent is dealt for their efforts to give Canada a series of pure and with in an unusually clear and simple manner. So healthy tales. "A Life Wasted" unquestionably also the English cæsura and pause, as diversely merits that appellation. It is the work of a young used by Milton, Dryden, Pope, &c. The transi- writer, and is marked, like most of the works of tional verse, rhythm, and true metre, variously young writers, by some overcrowding of character adapted by Shakespeare to dramatic dialogue and incident. But it shows power both of painting teration, alike in its early and later forms; and the character and of devising incident. One of the incispecial metres of English verse; are dealt with care- dents, a somewhat too minute account of a surgical fully, yet concisely. operation, we could have wished omitted. We shall look with pleasure for the fulfilment of the promise of future excellence held out by "A Life Wasted."

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Altogether this little work is a valuable addition to the manuals recently produced in response to the growing demand for means adequate for teaching the English student the history of his vigorous but highly complex native tongue.

THE LAND OF LORNE; or a Poet's Adventures in the Scottish Hebrides, including the Cruise of the "Tern" in the outer Hebrides. By Robert Buchanan. New York: Francis B. Felt & Co. Toronto: Adam, Stevenson & Co.

This work, dedicated by permission to the Princess Louise, has probably suffered somewhat

LORD BANTAM : A Satire. By the author of "Ginx's Baby." Canadian Copyright Edition. Montreal: Dawson Brothers.

Anything from the pen of the author of "Ginx's Baby" is sure to find plenty of readers among that large class of persons to whom light philosophy is welcome and to whom the process of sustained thought is irksome. "Lord Bantam " bears a very close resemblance to the brochure by which the author

made his first and greatest hit. It is the satirical biography of a young nobleman who is brought into contact with the different political and social movements of the day, and falls for a time, under the influence of extreme liberalism, but in the end recovers himself and is the lord again. The satirist hits out right and left always with freedom and sometimes with force, at every party and school, ecclesiastical and social-in its turn. His own aim we find it difficult to detect. Not long ago he presented himself as a candidate for a seat in Parliament on a platform so extremely liberal as to repel the less thorough-going section of the Liberal party in the constituency: but he now seems inclined to embrace political Conservatism, and to stand by the Constitution as it is. Mr. Gladstone, under the pseudonym of Sir Dudley Wright, is bitterly assailed and taxed with having been actuated by the worst motives in ousting the Conservatives from power and disestabishing the Irish Church. Whether, with his political Constitutionalism, the author of "Ginx's Baby" intends to combine extreme, and virtually communistic, plans of social reform, is a question which we could better decide if we knew how to distinguish what is serious from what is ironical in his philosophy. He takes credit to himself, under the proper forms of modesty, for unique perspicacity and comprehensiveness of view in Colonial questions. With evident reference to his late pamphlet on Imperial Federalism, he makes Kelso, Lord Bantam's admirable instructor, say, "Look at the way in which the high business of our Government is now carried on. Can you pick out a single man who looks beyond the limits of the present, or the narrow circuit of these islands, or who takes any broad, practical view of the Imperial future? Only one of them all has uttered a timorous squeak about a great confederation of English-speaking peoples, but from the rest, on the destinies of Empire, we have had nothing but dead silence, or twitterings about cost and policy, as abject, narrow, and disloyal as they were perilous. As yet, no man of them has propounded in noble, heart-stirring, vivid language, the idea of a united Britain-not the isolated nodules of these petty isles, but the far-stretching Imperial boulder of a third of the globe." Perhaps some readers will be of opinion that no language can be more heart-stiring and vivid than this.

Canada has an especial interest in the author of "Ginx's Baby ;" and his success is a proof that Colonial products are not regarded in England with such disdain as, in our irritable moods, we are apt to imagine. Probably this circumstance had its share in inducing a Canadian house to republish "Lord Bantam." But they would have been warranted in

doing so by the liveliness of some portions of the book itself, though the author's first effort in our judgment remains his best.

LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME, WITH IVRY AND THE ARMADA. By Lord Macaulay. LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS AND OTHER POEMS. By Professor Wm. Edmonstoune Aytoun, D. C. L. Rouse's Point, N. Y. The International Printing and Publishing Company. John Lovell, General Manager.

Literature must not forget her helpmate, typography. The International Printing and Publishing being one of our own countrymen, at Montreal, we Company being partly Canadian, and its manager may fairly claim this little volume as a triumph of the typographic art among us and as an earnest of triumphs yet to come. We could have wished that the paper had been a little heavier; but in other suited to the pleasant use to which its form and its respects the work is exceedingly beautiful, and wellappearance at the season of gifts seem to point. It is needless to rehearse the praises of either of the two authors whose congenial lays are here printed together, and who would have been glad, no doubt,

to find themselves united, and united in a volume which is so graceful a tribute to their joint fame.

BETWEEN

CASSELL'S HISTORY OF
THE WAR
FRANCE AND GERMANY, 1870-71.-Vol. I.
London Cassell, Petter and Galpin.

The first volume of this work brings us to the close of the year 1870. Like all the works issued by Messrs. Cassell & Co., it is artistically excellent, as a whole; although there is an inequality perceptible in the character of the engravings we were not prepared to meet. The letter-press is very fairly made up; it, of course, shows some traces of hasty preparation, inevitable perhaps under the circumstances. Too much of it seems to have been picked up from the journals of the time, and has a fugitive air about it to which we reluctantly deny the name of history. At the same time, with every allowance for haste and imperfection, Cassell's History is a work we can honestly recommend to our readers. It gives a fair estimate of the causes of the war-a very clear narrative of its progress-and an interesting resumé of the circumstances which led to the collapse of France and her resources. The work is admirably got up, in every respect, and will unquestionably achieve a wide circulation on both sides of the

Atlantic.

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