denominational sacrifice for the general good of Christ's kingdom. It may require a little time, but in the end, we do not doubt, all will come to see that the history of the past, with its divisions, must not be allowed to prevent the Churches from uniting and entering upon a new and, let us hope, a still more glorious history.

One point, which has a special interest to us in England, received a large measure of attention in the Presbyteries of the four bodies. We refer to the extent of the union. Very considerable light has been obtained as to the probable decision on this point. The imperial union is out of the question; for the incorporation of the Irish Churches is not contemplated by any, and Ireland surely is as much a part of the empire as either England or Scotland. The British union, however desirable in the abstract, is beginning to be regarded by its warmest friends as impracticable at the present time. The Free Church, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and a large portion of the Scottish branch of the United Presbyterian Church, are opposed to an organization that shall embrace both sides of the Tweed. We shall not now state their reasons: good or bad, no amount of argument or pressure will, we believe, succeed in overcoming them. The most strenuous advocates for a British Church are to be found, very naturally, among the United Presbyterians in England, who dislike the notion of being severed from the parent stem. We have been pleased to notice, however, that some of our most respected brethren in that body are relaxing their position, and beginning fairly to consider the pros and cons of a separation from the North as a preliminary to union with the English Presbyterian Church. Dr. M'Leod, of Liverpool, has declared himself as follows:

"I am bound to go on to declare, after the most careful consideration, my conviction that the proposal to form one large British Church is a project which has very small prospect of success. I cherished the project as fondly as any who entertain it now can do, but I have learned that it is as nearly as possible a waste of longing and energy to pursue it. The time may arrive-some time far down in the futurea time when the difference between Englishmen and Scotchmen will be obliterated, and when there will be no national memories of ecclesiastical struggles in the North, in which the desire for so extended an organization may be hopefully expressed. But we are so far away from that time that it seems to me a kind of affectionate idleness, a building of castles in the air, to seriously contemplate the prospect; and it is a mistake to say that the reputation of our Presbyterian polity will be damaged if we cannot accomplish and manage this larger union. It is not a question of polity at all; it is a question of handling two distinct and differing races-two distant and naturally divided flocks. Do not shut your eyes to the fact that we are virtually separated already from the Churches of the North. With all my striving, I cannot interest more than two or three of my people in the movements and schemes of the Church in Scotland. That is Dan-this is Beersheba. And the distance is greater than can be counted by miles. I am myself prepared to go further, and say, that in our circumstances we ought to be separated from the North and united with our neighbours of the English Presbyterian Church. It is of the nature of a scandal that they and we are not united."

Dr. Macfarlane, before the London Presbytery, said—

"I frankly confess that my five years' residence in London has modified my views upon the subject of our amalgamation with the English Presbyterian Church. The idea of separation from our parent Church in the North was at first painful. I heard it mooted by Dr. Buchanan in his speech at the English Synod last spring, but could not sympathize with his reasons. The longer I live the more do I cleave to Christian simplicity in all things pertaining to the Church of God. I can find no reference whatever in the New Testament to such things as historical or national Churches. I do not, therefore, believe in the schismatic power either of Tweed or Jordan. I see nothing that ought to hinder the formation of an Imperial British Church-a Church which would achieve more for Christ than dubious subdivisions. At the same time,

if it were to come to the point of abandoning the union on this account, I do not say that I should be dogged and immovable. Rather than peril the union upon it, some alternative might be considered, in which essentials could be retained and circumstantials dropped. For instance, we might all unite and form a Church upon one common basis, and thereafter, if it be found proper, we in the South might be formed into the English branch of said Imperial Church, only with separate and independent jurisdiction, meeting alternately at London and Edinburgh in one General Assembly, and possessing the same colleges, halls, and missions. If this union is not to be formed at all, then I hesitate not to say that it is certain to become with us in England a very serious question whether we should not at once unite with the English Presbyterian Church. I feel it more and more strongly every day I live here, that the separation of these two Churches only damages both-in fact, it is a scandal upon, not our Presbyterianism only, but upon our Christianity."

We rejoice in these statements. They show that when the time comes there will be no obstacle to union between the two bodies in England. When will that time come? Many are asking the question, and with something like impatience. The difficulties which have arisen in Scotland, and which threaten to protract the negotiations there, do not exist in England. Shall we wait till these Northern difficulties be removed? Our opinion is that there is no need for this delay, and we believe that the determination to put an end to the "scandal" of separation between brethren so really one as are the English and United Presbyterians, will soon become so strong as to outstrip the deliberations in the North. Our duty seems clear. Without further hesitation, we in England should prepare to shake hands and unite in one independent organization. Such a union would not only greatly strengthen our position and stimulate our work in the South, but would wondrously facilitate matters in Scotland. Our relation to the Scottish United Church could be determined afterwards.

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF PALESTINE.*

MUCH as Palestine has been visited, there still remains abundance of work for the explorer. The society which has lately initiated antiquarian investigations has a most hopeful field before it. We know more of the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon than we do of Jerusalem. And this seems an

auspicious time for supplying information which cannot but prove most interesting to the student of the Bible, and which may be expected to contribute many fresh and exact corroborations of the truth of Scripture history and the accuracy of Scripture allusion.

But the antiquarian field is by no means the only one which invites investigation. Not much careful and accurate work has been accomplished in reference to the physical characteristics of Palestine, and very little in the way of setting before us the natural history of that land. Yet few subjects of inquiry are of greater interest than these. To know with precision on what flowers our Lord used to look as he wandered in his boyhood on the hills around Nazareth, and on what plants he and his disciples used to tread in their journeys about the Sea of Galilee, or as they traversed the rich lands beyond the Jordan, or as they tarried at Jericho, amid the tropical luxuriance of the Ghor; to know what birds fluttered from the bushes on their approach, and what wild animals were most familiar to their eyes:

"The Land of Israel: a Journal of Travels in Palestine, undertaken with special reference to its physical character." London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

We

this is a kind of information for which one has an irrepressible thirst. remember with what a thrill of interest it was that we came upon a hawthorn tree, in glorious bloom, a little above Magdala, on the shore of Galilee. The thought was touching-that our Lord, as he went down towards the lake, may often have been greeted by the fragrance that greeted us that day, and by the snowy whiteness of the plant, around which eluster so many home associations of childhood and spring, and happiness and hope. It is mainly in this field that Mr. Tristram has laboured, and with a success that astonished himself. For instance, in the vineyards through which he passed in ascending Hermon, though the district has been so often traversed, he procured specimens of no less than three new species of birds. And in the depths of the Ghor, the varieties he found of fauna and flora were endless.

We must, however, confess to a measure of disappointment with the book. Our desire to read it had been great, in part from the fact that we had traversed much of the same ground; in part from the circumstance that we were fortunate enough in our homeward way to fall in with the "S." and "U.," to whose guns and snares so much of the fruits of the expedition were due; and in part from the interest of the subject. When we got the book it overwhelmed us with its prolixity of detail, and its countless records of incidents of merely momentary interest. On such a day a kite was wounded but not retrieved; and on another day a buzzard was fired at, but whether it was hit or not, our author could not say. Very well to chat over these things in the cheerful tent dinner at the close of the day, but surely cumbrous and dreary in the permanent records of what, in spite of this flaw, is a valuable book. Mr. Tristram seems perfectly conscious of his failing, to judge from his frequent apologies for having described the Dead Sea journey, &c., with "too great prolixity of detail." For any one who has read the classic pages of Stanley, it will be hardly possible to follow our present author through his voluminous narrative; and yet when in very weariness you "skip," you find that you have lost more than one grain of gold in the bushel of sand. The book contains no tabulated view of the flora and fauna of Palestine, and nowhere gives the net results of the expedition. It is to be hoped that some skilful hand will extract a little volume of what would be intensely interesting and valuable from this big book. Not having time or patience for the work of entire perusal or careful selection, we closed the volume with the same feeling of disappointment with which, some months ago, we left the British Museum which we had visited in hopes of seeing Tristram's Palestine collection. There it was, but buried in packingcases, which made it unavailable; beasts, birds, and fishes in abundance, but all invisible.

The volume gives ample and interesting illustration to the fact that "no spot on the earth's surface could have been selected which could better have supplied the writers of a book intended to instruct men of every latitude and climate with subjects of illustration familiar, one or other of them, to the dwellers in every region of the world." On the summit of Hermon, Mr. Tristram found himself amid boreal birds and plants; and looking down from that spot to the plain of Jericho, sunk 1,312 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, his eye rested on a region where he had been surrounded by semi-tropical productions, the intermediate space being occupied with those of England and the temperate zone. Thus, in the land of Israel, the dwellers from Zembla to the line will find something familiar to their observation. The wisdom of God has often been subject of remark in the selection of a land so centrally situated as Palestine among the Gentile nations. May we

not equally discern his wisdom in his making this land the scene of the events and discourses recorded in a book designed for all lands and ages?

The account of the shore of the Dead Sea, in spite of wearisome detail, is interesting. Mr. Tristram noticed, as all that have visited the Dead Sea must have done, the quantities of palm stems and roots that are washed up by its briny waves. After offering some explanations which have little to support them, he says, "It seems more reasonable to conjecture them the wrecks of generations, perhaps of centuries past, accumulating here from the days when the City of Palm-trees extended its groves to the edge of the river." The preservative power of the Salt Sea may sufficiently explain this indestructibility; and certain it is that a living palm-tree in Palestine is of very rare occurrence. We commend to our readers the cogent arguments by which Mr. Tristram endeavours to prove that the Cities of the Plain were situate at the north end of the lake, not at the south, as has been usually supposed.

Our author

Perhaps the freshest portions of the book are those describing the author's adventurous journeys to the east of Jordan. There is a very marked difference in the character of the eastern and western sections of the country. To the west of the river, as every one knows, there is great scarcity of water. To the east it is quite otherwise. Still Moab is "a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills." seems to account for this by the prevalence of wood in the east; but subsequently he tells us that even where there is no timber, the characteristic abundance of water prevails. It is a subject that is worthy of fuller investigation. The richness of the loamy soil in the east, too, contrasts with its general poverty in the west. He describes the flocks and herds of sheep, goats, camels, and oxen, which he saw in Moab and Gilead, as conveying an idea of pastoral wealth such as he had never elsewhere witnessed. The Divine impulse which drew the children of Israel from these lands where, at the close of their desert journey, they enjoyed "butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan," to the stony and barren heights of Judah and Benjamin, is matter of wonder and of gratitude. To influence the world they must be, not a nomadic race, living on the spontaneous riches of the earth, but a settled people, dwelling in cities and near the Great Sea which was to connect them with the nations of the earth.

But we must not further pursue the thoughts suggested by this volume. Many points of interest might be selected. In Tyre Mr. Tristram recognised in the "kitchen-middens of shells, crushed and broken," the murex brandaris, which furnished the purple dye for which the Syrian coast was famous. He endeavours, with considerable foundation for his opinion, to show that the apple of Scripture is not our apple, but the apricot, which is the commonest fruit of the country, delicious in its flavour, and beautiful in its golden hue. This identification well corresponds with the wise man's expression, "Apples of gold in pictures of silver." The “musk-mush," or apricot, still forms the staple of the luscious confections of Damascus.

To our readers who abound in the grace of long-suffering, and who are skilled in the art of detecting needles in bundles of hay, we commend this volume. They will find in it much fresh information and passages of exciting adventure when the journey lies among the lawless Bedouins of the East.

R. H. L.

THE PROPHET JONAH.*

NOTHING in revelation presents more the character of enigma than the references alike of the Old Testament and of the New to the prophet Jonah. To a superficial observer there is no apparent ground for the manifestly important place in the plan of Divine Providence which he occupies. And we must confess to a feeling of delighted surprise at the full flood of light which Mr. Martin's book casts upon the enigma. In form the book is a detailed exposition of the prophecies of Jonah, but conducted, as all exposition ought to be, in the light cast upon them from all other parts of Scripture. And it is not merely the references to the prophet by name which are used to elucidate his character and mission. We are made to recognise the vital unity of all Scriptures, which together constitute one revelation of the same Divine purpose of redeeming love. And in special we are made to recognise that the recorded history of Jonah constitutes a no merely subordinate, but most important member of that body of revelation. The author has given a notable contribution towards the elucidation of the grand problem of criticism-the true connection between the Old Testament and the New, between the old Israelitish dispensation of the kingdom of God and the Christian. The mission of the son of Amittai to Nineveh is brought, not merely by a point, but broadly, in all its integrity and detail, into closest relationship with the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world, and with the apostolical commission to preach Christ's Gospel to all the nations. The prophet is seen to be among the most significant types of the Redeemer and his work, and truly an apostle to the Gentiles ages before Saul of Tarsus received his commission on his godless journey to Damascus. Mr. Martin makes us feel that, when rightly understood, the prophecies of Jonah take their place alongside of the prophecies of Isaiah as a minute and glorious foreshadowing of Gospel times. For the confirmation of these statements we must refer our readers to the book itself. It may, however, serve to give a hint how the work is done if we quote an altogether characteristic passage from the first lecture (p. 13):—

"The Book of Jonah degenerates into a mere perplexing puzzle, unless we give diligent heed at the very outset to the relation at this time subsisting between the seed of Abraham and the Gentile world, and to the bearing of God's special government over Israel on his keeping in store a glorious salvation for all the ends of the earth-a light to lighten the Gentiles, as well as a glory to his people Israel! It is when viewed on this high scale, and as bearing on the development of Jehovah's purpose to establish the throne of his Anointed One over all nations-a purpose yet only comparatively in the mere beginnings of its accomplishment-it is when viewed in this light that the Book of Jonah rises in our est mation from the place that it has often held, doubtless, in many men's minds-from the place due merely to a strange marvel or miracle of adventure which they wonder why the glorious God of providence should have consented to work, or the Holy Ghost consented to afford his inspiration to record-to the lofty level of a splendid and worthy interposition of Divine power, and a glorious record of Divine wisdom introducing a golden and indispensable link in the onward movement of that great redemption, the preliminary preparations for which were transacted among one peculiar people, but the issues of it designed to encompass all lands, and bind in one believing brotherhood of sonship to God, and of royal adoring priesthood, all nations of men from the rising of the sun to where he hath his going down. It was right, for the most part-so it seemed to Him who knoweth the end from the beginning it was right that, for the most part, the spirit of prophecy and the ordinances of worship should be confined to the sacred family and the special territory in which that

"The Prophet Jonah: his Character and Mission to Nineveh." By the Rev. Hugh Martin, M. A., Senior Minister of Free Grey friars, Edinburgh.