It remains briefly to notice the Introductions which the manual furnishes to the several books of the Old and New Testaments. The field involved perhaps greater peril to the success of the work than any other; and, with certain reservations, the Editor may certainly be congratulated upon the labours of his associates. The Pentateuch, the Four Greater, and several of the Minor Prophets have been undertaken by the Dean of Canterbury, whom nature never intended to be a critic, but who seems to have been forced into criticism, in spite of his natural proclivities, by a life of diligent study. Accordingly his papers present a singular mixture of what is valuable and what is trivial. The arguments he adduces for adhering, as he mainly does, to tradition are supported by very considerable learning, and marked by a candour which is the more to his credit that it not unfrequently discloses the real weakness of his own conclusions. Too much space is devoted in his papers, as in those of Mr. Eustace Conder on the Gospels, to answering suspicions of forgery, which belong rather to the past, or, at any rate, are hardly likely to occur to the readers of the Bible Educator.' There is, on the other hand, too little direct grappling with questions that press, we will not say, for settlement, but, at any rate, for thorough discussion, such as the origin of the early documents contained in Genesis, the nature of the Books of Jonah and Daniel, the authorship of portions of Isaiah and Zechariah, &c. Useful as the Dean's chapter on the Book of Genesis is likely to be to many who have hitherto regarded it with unquestioning faith as a homogeneous history, its value is not a little diminished by the vacillating tone of his remarks upon the account of Creation. We are afraid, too, that scientific men would not have much difficulty in setting aside the following statement, if it rests upon no better support than Dr. Payne Smith's scientific reading of the first few verses of the Bible :

In the first chapter of Genesis there is a wonderful real agreement with our advancing knowledge of astronomy and geology, and especially with what is called the nebular hypothesis of creation.'*

Our space will not permit us to point out the many real merits which these papers possess, notwithstanding their lack of critical consistency and their occasional inaccuracy. It

* I, 50.

may be as well to mention in passing that the 'tamarisk and the 'acacia' do not ' produce a similar substance to the manna 'described in the Exodus," but a substance unlike it in every respect; and that 'the Cimmerian Bosporus, now the Strait ' of Yenikale,' is not, and never was, to be found at the foot ' of the Caucasus in the country of Iberia.' +

Mr. Stanley Leathes' papers on the Books of Joshua and Judges are of a different calibre, and have the great merit of advancing nothing that will have to be retracted in the course of a few years. Canon Rawlinson treats the Books of Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Esther in a manner that leaves nothing to be desired: the same may be said of the excellent papers upon the Acts, the Apocalypse, and the General Epistles, for which the Editor is responsible; though it would be hard to find a greater contrast than exists between the matter-offact style of the one professor and the imaginativeness of the other. Mr. Cox, of Nottingham, contributes several articles upon the Minor Prophets. His expansive treatment of Habbakuk, Joel, and Malachi is somewhat out of keeping with the general character of the work, and would have been the better for judicious pruning. His commentary too often runs into rhetoric, as, for instance, where he applies to the 'dim and 'dubious figure' of the prophet Habbakuk the 'questionable 'shape' attributed by Hamlet to his father's ghost, apparently unconscious that Shakespeare uses the word in its sense of easy to be questioned.' The Introductions to the Pauline Epistles are from the pen of Dr. Green, of Rawdon College, Leeds, who makes able and accurate use of the best authorities upon his subject. The omission of any special Introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews (promised, vol. iii. p. 269) is hardly justified by the allusions to it contained in Dr. Milligan's papers. § No Epistle is more widely misunderstood or stands more in need of intelligent explication.

Several biographies of Old Testament saints are to be found interspersed in the course of the work, some of which, that of Elijah for instance, are treated with a fearless and powerful hand, while the greater part hardly rise above the level of conventionality. Thus Canon Norris can reconcile it with Christian morality to write :

* I. 229.

† IV. 107.

I. 161.

§ Preface, vol. iii.

'Nothing can be grander than the burning indignation of Moses on his return, dashing to the ground the tablets of the law which they (the people) had violated, grinding the accursed calf to powder, and, in holy vengeance, seeking to wipe out their shame in the blood of three thousand who persisted in their sin. Nothing can be grander than this, unless it be his deep yearning love for these sinful people which found utterance on the next day in his agony of intercession.'

And Canon Venables is not above attempting to bring the miracle of Joshua into harmony with science by suggesting that

'We may safely rid ourselves of the notion of the suspension of the earth's rotation on its axis, which has been a stumbling-block to intelligent believers, as well as a fertile source of objection to the sceptic. An extension of the daylight by natural causes-increased refraction or the likesatisfies all the reasonable requirements of the passage.' t

If, as the writer holds-contrary to the opinion of some of the most eminent of modern orthodox critics, who see in the passage a highly poetical figure quoted from another work, and no more to be taken literally than the statement that the stars in their courses fought against Sisera a miracle of some kind was wrought in answer to Joshua's prayer, the idea of increased refraction removes no difficulty from the mind that is accustomed to regard the sun's rays as no less under the domain of invariable law than the earth's volume.

The present review may fitly be concluded with the quotation of two passages, by no means isolated specimens, of the interesting and instructivo matter with which the 'Bible Educator' abounds. The first is from the ingenious pen of Mr. Plumptre. The suggestion it contains will be new to many.

'Why, it has been asked, if St. Luke was with St. Paul on his arrival at Rome,... is his name altogether absent from the Epistle to the Philippians? If he joined in salutations to Churches that he hardly knew, why is he silent when St. Paul writes to that with which he had been so closely and so long connected? I find the explanation of this in an hypothesis, which, if not capable of proof, has, at least, the merit of embracing all the phenomena. Assume that, shortly after their arrival at Rome, St. Luke, who had been absent from his beloved flock for more than three years, was glad to embrace this opportunity of being once more in Europe to revisit the Church committed to his charge, and started (it would not take him more than three weeks to get there) on a journey to Philippi.

Note how this not only explains the omission of his name, but furnishes also the key to other problems of the Epistle. Who so likely, if what we have sketched as to St. Luke's work and character be at all true, to have been addressed by St. Paul as his true "yoke-fellow"? What more characteristic charge could have been given to him, after St. Paul's own entreaty to Euodia and Syntyche, obviously two members of the Philippian sisterhood, that they "would be of the same mind in the Lord," than that he too would help them, . . . forasmuch as they had laboured with him in the Gospel? The theory in question serves to explain other phenomena of the Epistle. It strengthens the traditional belief that the Clement mentioned by St. Paul in Phil. iv. 3 was none other than the bishop of Rome of that name, of whom we have, at least, one genuine epistle to the Church of Corinth. The Evangelist would not be likely to start alone. Clement may have been his companion. The easiest and most natural route would be to go by sea to Corinth and thence to Macedonia. In this way we account not only for the message sent to him, through St. Luke as the true yoke-fellow, but for the connection between Clement and the Church of Corinth.'*

Our second quotation is from Mr. Aglen's 'Introduction 'to the Poetry of the Bible.'

This poetic nature was doubtless given that Israel might the better perform the great functions committed to it by God. That it might fulfil this end, it needed to be subordinated to the great master truth by which the nation was possessed, and which made its glory and its strength. The poetry of the Hebrew was the handmaid of his religion; there is, therefore, in the poetry of the Bible something which elevates it above all other literature of the same kind. The transcendent nature of its inspiration seems to consecrate all other works of human genius to which we give the name inspired. Much that bears the name of poetry is degraded by unworthy associations, or by the subject on which it is employed. It is well known how the great Grecian philosopher planned to exclude from his ideal republic even the works of Homer and the great tragedians. Yet there were songs worthy as he deemed of entrance: "These two har. monies I ask you to leave, . . . the strain of courage and the strain of temperance, these, I say, leave." What would have to be added to these to exhibit the supreme excellence of Hebrew poetry? It raises the strain, not of courage and virtue only, mighty as these are, but of truth and holiness, of faith and hope, of progress and perfection, of fidelity to God, and unbroken trust in His goodness and love. Ever since it was poured forth from the full hearts of the sweet singers of Israel, the world has been drinking deep draughts of life and strength from its stream. Whatever dreams of future glory humanity shapes for itself, the poetry of the Bible is not excluded, but is welcomed as the music of the kingdom of heaven.'*

* I. 150.

It remains only to express our acknowledgements to the compiler of the capital index with which the book is furnished, together with a hope that the volumes will obtain the wide circulation they deserve. Notwithstanding its defects, the work is a step in the right direction, and if a higher value should be communicated to a few sermons, a livelier interest to a few Sunday-school lessons, a wider profit to a few hours of home study, through our recommendation, the main object of the present article will have been accomplished.

ART. V.-Disestablishment in New England.

(Continued from the January Number.)

THE best reforms are apt somehow strangely to linger in this depraved world. Quite possibly it did not improve the temper of those who were in power to have their inconsistencies so sharply thrust home upon them. Certain it is that acts of grievous injustice continued to be perpetrated in the name of law. In 1774 eighteen residents of Warwick, belonging to the Baptist society in Royalston, notwithstanding that fact had been certified in accordance with the law to the assessors of Warwick, were seized for the minister's rate of Warwick, and, in default of payment, lodged in Northampton jail. Dr. Backus, as the appointed agent of the Baptist Churches, addressed a memorial to the General Court, then in session, asking that the men be set at liberty, that reparation be made, and that effectual prevention be provided against a repetition of such injuries. His effort was so far successful that an Act was framed which passed both Houses, but the political excitement of the times caused the Court to be pro. rogued so suddenly that it was not laid before the governor, so that no Act of Exemption at all was left in force. But Backus was able cheerfully to say, 'The more they stir about 'it, the more light gains; so that my hope of deliverance in 'due time increases.'*

The next step was an appeal to the first Continental Congress. Warren Association deputed Dr. Backus to visit Philadelphia,

*Letter to Rev. Benjamin Wallin.' London.