is enkindled in the Assembly in its behalf. And all this has come to pass while education in society and in the State has awakened more and more the popular enthusiasm, and has advanced with liberal expenditures and rapid strides. And we state the literal fact when we assert, that the sphere of this Board has been reduced well-nigh to the single agency whereby food and clothing are doled out to a moderate number of candidates for the ministry every year. Meanwhile, many in the church have grown incredulous as to the propriety of even this much effort and expenditure; influential organs of the press have called in question the necessity and propriety of the existence of the board; for which, and other reasons, it has been steadily losing popular favor, and the comparatively small sum needed for its meagre and recently reduced appropriations is with difficulty obtained. Instead of assisting the colleges in the support of the young men who are passing through their course, the Board does nothing in this direction whatever, all its funds being needed for their temporal necessities. Every one of our colleges in which candidates are educated has to expend annually, in furnishing free tuition to the candidates. under the care of the Board, fully as much money as the Board gives these students for the supply of their material wantsestimating by the proportionate expense for the education of each pupil. The college takes care of his brains, and the Board takes care of his body only. Whether or not the colleges should be required to bear this burden alone, year in and year out, without any remuneration from the church therefor, is a question that it would not seem difficult for justice to answer. When the Board has the annual collections of the church to fall back upon, and the colleges, especially in the West, wherein so many of our candidates are educated, have only the narrow income from very insufficient endowments upon which to draw, it would seem but right that the church should at least lift this burden of expenditure in her own behalf from the backs of the colleges, through the agency of her educational administration.

Thus the broader and wider sphere of increased usefulness may be re-opened to the Board, whereby it may enlarge its operations, invoke new sympathies for its efforts, and increase its usefulness to the church and to the world, in laying plans

for the establishment of scholarships, and for the payment of the tuition of the youth committed by the Presbyteries to its care, to add nothing as to the new zeal it may awaken in behalf of our colleges. That we are justified in fixing this duty upon the Board may be seen by quoting from its constitution, as adopted by the re-united church, as follows:

"Art. II.-Objects. The Board of Education shall be the organ of the General Assembly of the church, for the general superintendence of the church's work in furnishing a pious, educated, and efficient ministry, in sufficient numbers to meet the calls of its congregations; to supply the wants of the destitute classes and regions of our own country, and to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. It shall provide for the collection and judicious distribution of the funds which may be requisite in the proper education of candidates for the ministry under its care, and it shall, in co-operation with the ecclesiastical courts, do whatever may be proper and necessary to develop an active interest in education throughout the church."

Two things, by this showing, the Board is expected to do, as the organ of the church: first, to superintend the furnishing of a ministry in sufficient numbers for the demands of the church; and, secondly, to superintend the raising of necessary funds. And yet in the report of the Board for the current year, by the presentation of elaborate tables, it is shown, in its own words, that "the number of candidates for the ministry in the Presbyterian Church is not commensurate with the necessities and obligations of the Presbyterian Church in this country; the number of ministers is not enough for the churches and communicants, and it is relatively diminishing.” The report of the last Assembly Committee on Education, in considering this report of the Board, states that there has been a falling off in the number of candidates from the previous year of 38, and from two years past, of 92; and adds, that "the ratio of ministers, both to the communicants of the church and to the increasing population of the country, has continued for many years to decline." The statistics presented by the Board also show, that while the present number of candidates is 460, "the probable total annual average, in both branches of the church, from 1850 to 1869, would be 572," including 155 acad

emical students now dropped, leaving the church just where she has stood, in this respect, for the last quarter of a century, except that she has ceased her academical work. Meanwhile, the church has gone on increasing, and other boards of the church have advanced with its progress.

A comparison of the present status of the church with that of the O. S. branch alone, in 1860, will further illustrate the subject, as follows:

1876-Home Mis. $287,717 For. Mis. $517,689 Ed. $72,041 Mem. $535,210 1860 "

66

118,904 "

66

237,583 70,970

66

292,927

To these figures add, 1876, candidates 460; 1860, candidates 492; while the average amount annually contributed to education in the last five years is, according to the report, but $62,000.

Thus, while the mission funds have both been more than doubled, and the church membership is well-nigh doubled also, education has barely held its own; all the academical students, being one-fifth of the whole number, having been cut off; and while, in 1860, $6,340 were raised for the school-fund, not a dollar is reported as now secured for this purpose. The case would have appeared more hopeful if, in connection with this unfortunate showing of the Annual Report, some plans had been presented, by way of superintendence, for giving the cause a new impetus; had some adequate efforts been put forth for arousing the failing zeal of the church, or, at least, for putting an end to the gradual but sure decline. We believe that the figures prove that from the time when the church. began to lose her zeal and to cease her activity in behalf of her own colleges, the public interest waned, the funds ceased to flow, and the plan of struggle for existence by the Board began. The church surely has a right to look for the progress of this cause in relative proportion to the progress of her other schemes of work, especially since the furnishing of a ministry lies at the basis of success in every other depart

ment.

We have no disposition, as before stated, to reflect upon the Board or its executives, past or present, we are even zealous in our sympathy. But the statement of these facts seemed absolutely necessary both for the information of the

church, and for its benefit, and for the proper strength of our argument. The present time, moreover, when a change in the administration of the Board has occurred, and when there is a brief interval before full work may begin with new plans and higher purposes, seemed less offensive for the presentation of the facts, than a subsequent occasion might have proved. Under this new administration, opening with such promise of renewed vigor, may we not hope for an era of better things for church education. We have several strong colleges in the East, and quite a number on comparatively safe footing, though with very limited incomes, in the West-all are striving with much self-sacrifice on the part of capable professors to do the preliminary part of the training for the ministry that falls to their lot, conscientiously and effectively. We believe, after quite extensive examination into their condition, that they are in every respect worthy of the confidence and affection of the church. And not writing in any sense in behalf of any one of them, but sincerely desiring the success and enlargement of them all, to the utmost extent, we do with intense earnestness invoke the attention of our ministry and of our thoughtful laity to the work the institutions are doing so quietly, and to the necessity of fitting them adequately for the attainment of higher efficiency and larger results. As essential to the consecration of the purity, power, and very life of the church, as so intimately connected with the character and force of the ministry of the future, they assuredly do deserve the prayers, the cheering words, the helpful hands of all who love our Presbyterian fold. As against the encroachment of the world, as against the boasting attack of organized skeptical and materialistic forces, as against the inducements offered by other branches of the church, drawing many of our youth to their service, our colleges, though comparatively weak and much neglected, are doing duty that the future will be glad to recognize, though the present may underestimate its intrinsic value and ignore its wide extent.

The serious question, therefore, that presses upon the church in connection with their work, is not merely whether they are sufficient for the adequate supply of the ministry, provided the church do not increase but come to a stand-still, but what they are capable of doing in this direction, pro

vided her work extend as it should. And the other question follows, if these church colleges do not afford that supply, from whence have we any expectation, founded upon experience or reason, that the necessary supply can be elsewhere secured.

Art. VIII.—THE VOWEL-POINTS CONTROVERSY IN THE XVI, XVII, AND XVIII CENTURIES.

By REV. B. PICK, Rochester, N. Y.'

IN the second half of the last century, the controversy as to the age of the Hebrew vowel-points was terminated by the general acknowledgment that they were of comparatively recent origin. It is not our intention to review the whole range of literature treating on that subject, which is in part enumerated in Malcolm's Theological Index under Vowels.* We will give the gist of the matter in the briefest possible manner. As early as the ninth century, Natronai II. ben Hilai,† in reply to the question, whether it is lawful to put the points to the Synagogal Scrolls of the Pentateuch, distinctly declared the points not to be Sinaitic (i. e., sacred), but invented by the sages, hence we must not put the points to the scrolls of the law. "The same opinion as to the recent origin of the vowelpoints was expressed by no less an authority than Ibn Ezra (born 1088, and died 1176), in his Hebrew Grammar, entitled On the Purity of the Hebrew Style (Zathuth, p. 79, ed. Fürth, 1827.) From Ibn Ezra, this opinion was also espoused by some Christian scholars in the middle ages, such as the celebrated Dominican, Raymond Martin (died 1287), who in his Pugis Fidei (pars iii, dissert. iii, cap. xxi, p. 895, ed. Carpzoo, Leipzig, 1687), boldly asserted that the vowel-points in the text of the Old Testament were put there by Ben Naphtali and Ben Asher, circa

* Malcolm puts Scaliger among those who defended the antiquity of the vowelpoints, but this is a mistake, as he opposed it.

Comp. our art. Natronai II. ben Hilai in the Cyclop. of McClintock and Strong.