ters of Him who came to save sinners to be the first to turn their backs upon the fallen, and to try to shut every door against them. It is humiliatingly contemptible in its Pharisaism.

My Quebec friends suddenly left for the Continent. I promised to join them at Paris in a day or two and accordingly soon found myself crossing 'the silver streak.' The steamer was much overcrowded. The weather was dull, and it was dark and stormy. We soon felt the effect of the chopping sea of the channel and I looked about for a seat to which I could comfortably hold on. I discovered a bench opposite the gangway, close to the cabin wall, at one end of which was seated an apparently tall man, of good presence and with a remarkably long grey moustache. Along the bench appeared, from the irregular surface, to be small pieces of luggage covered by a shawl. Seeing no reason why one man should occupy so much space, I quietly sat down about the middle of the bench. It seemed to me that it was remarkably soft and yielding. In a moment, the tall stranger sprang to his feet and, with quivering moustache and blazing eyes,

angrily exclaimed Sir, that's my niece.' I looked along the bench, and at the other end, saw a lady's upturned face. Too astonished (at the indignity of being sat upon'), to speak, her dark eyes flashed her indignation and her horror. Horribile dictu! I quickly realized that, in the darkness, I had calmly sat down upon the recumbent form of a ladye faire.' Quickly I turned to the indignant uncle and explained that I had supposed that the shawl covered 'somebody's luggage.' He answered that the lady was an invalid niece of his, that he was taking across for change of air, and whom, being very weak, he had placed in a recumbent position on the bench. I expressed the regret that I sincerely felt to the lady, and her uncle, hat in hand, assured me that he felt satisfied that the painful occurence was entirely owing to an unfortunate mistake. We became good friends on the way across and united in hearty abuse of the wretched accommodation afforded travellers who, on business or on pleasure bent, had to cross the Channel.

(To be concluded in our next.)

O°

UR last number had passed from

under our hands before the grim Conqueror, with the odds tremendously in his favour, had ended the play of life and death which for eighty days had drawn all eyes to the bedside of the stricken President, and, in spite of a nation's prayers and a world's solicitude, had closed a tragedy which will live long in the hearts of millions. Elsewhere in the present number the

mournful event, which well lends itself to treatment by the elegiac muse, receives a fitting, sympathetic tribute. But here, also, we may be permitted to hang the garland of a few prosewords upon the tomb of a true man, who, seeking neither honour nor place, but in the path of duty called unexpectedly to the highest seat in the nation, won both imperishably. The universality and spontaneity of the

grief which the death of President Garfield has called forth, has only been equalled by its intensity, an intensity which the minute detail of each day's record of progress or relapse from the period when the miscreant's bullet sped its way into the sufferer's side, did much to call forth. But there was more than this to quicken the sympathy and to deepen the sorrow of the millions on both sides the Atlantic, who daily scanned the bulletins for tidings of the President's condition, and who were at least to learn that the struggle was over, and that the surgeons' skill and the tending hand of love could do no more. There was more even than the spectacle of pain resolutely endured, of heroic fortitude and Christian resignation. There was the knowledge that the chosen of a great nation had fallen a martyr to the disease which has long been preying upon its vitals, and who, strong in a patriot's strength, had given his life to cleanse it of its foulness. Nor was the sacrifice that of a mere politician, actuated by the motives of his kind, and looking no higher than the downfall of a clique opposed to him. The man and the work were far other than this. Death, no doubt, brings its idolatries, and the press has probably spoken extravagant words of Garfield. But this is true of the man, that in him were embodied the worthiest qualities of human nature. Few indeed have come to the Presidential office better fitted, morally and intellectually, to preside over the nation. whole career as a public man testifies to this. But of the elements that were great in him, none shine so conspicuously as his honesty and his courage Eighteen years of public life left no stain upon him, while his loyalty to duty, and his fearlessness in pursuit of it, whether as soldier, schoolmaster or statesman, are noble incentives to his countrymen.

His

His sense of honour was ever acute, and he frowned upon boss-rule as if it were the plague. Had he lived, what work, we ask ourselves, would he not have done! How he would have repressed machine politics, and what a crusade he would have led against the spoils system! But, alas, this was not to be, and the chance that was the nation's has, for the present, passed by. Yet do we hope that whatever is good in the nation has received a new impulse from his life and death. Those who believe in the deep, strong current of the Divine influence in human affairs will feel that certainly there was a design in the sacrifice he was called upon to make. An event which so impressed itself upon all, hushing the clamour of faction, and quelling, we trust not merely moinentarily, much of turbulence and wrong, was surely fraught with some lasting, beneficent purpose. The surge of moral emotion throughout two continents, which bespoke reverence for exalted worth and keenest sympathy with the misfortune that had laid him low, must surely issue in some good, at least to the people of his own nation. Whatever the lesson is to bring forth, we will hope the best from the change in the national administration. President Arthur has said that, all the noble aspirations of my lamented predecessor which found expression in his life . . . will be garnered in the hearts of the people ; and it will be my earnest endeavour to profit, and to see that the nation shal profit, by his example and experience.' In this the new Chief Magistrate will best commend himself to universal approval, and most effectually impress the lesson which the tragic death of President Garfield is peculiarly fitted at the present time to teach to the American people.

GUESTS OF THE ROUND TABLE ON THE INSPIRATION QUESTION.

IT.

COMMENT NO. I.

T seems to me that the author of 'The Rational View of the Bible '* occupies the extreme left position with regard to the origin of the books that constitute the Old Testament literature. The traditionalists who occupy the extreme right hold that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch; that the succeeding books were written by writers as nearly as possible contemporaneous with the times and events treated in the respective books; and that the Old Testament Canon was formed by Ezra, and a body of Elders first called into existence by him, known in Jewish tradition as the Great Synagogue.' This view is given by Josephus, and evidently embodies the current tradition of the Jews as far back as his day. Kuenen may be taken as the representative of the Rationalists who occupy the extreme left position. He throws aside Jewish tradition altogether, on the ground, not only that evidence produced a thousand years after the events occurred to which it refers is no evidence at all, but also that the only way to ascertain the truth on the subject is to look into the books themselves and there find out the literary and historical circumstances in which they grew up. The data may be scanty, but they are the only data we have, and they are to be construed in accordance with those principles of development that the mental and religious history of every other people illustrate. To him there is no more of the supernatural in Jewish history than in any other history, ancient or modern. The accounts of miracles are wholly mythical. The Hebrew prophets were

* A Rational View of the Bible: a course of Lectures, by Rev. Newton M. Mann, Rochester, N. Y. Toronto: Rose-Belford Publishing Co., 1881.

statesmen or popular leaders. Predictions were always uttered after the event. The Hebrews developed from barbarism to civilization, as other nations have developed; from crude religious notions and a low state of morality to monotheism and the lofty moral code expressed in the writings of the prophets; from the simple nature worship that characterized all the nations round about them to the elaborate ceremonial of the Levitical ritual formulated subsequently to Ezra.

A middle position is occupied by a school of which Robertson Smith is the best known exponent. As he agrees with the Rationalists that the books of the Old Testament must be interpreted by the same critical principles which we apply to all other ancient books, and that the highest evidence in regard to their authorship, dates, and the circumstances in which they were written, is what can be found by interrogating the books themselves, some people have hastily assumed that his position is the same as Kuenen's. On the contrary, he and his friends maintain that his method is the only one that modern scholars can acknowledge, and that he takes the only ground on which the destructive criticisin of Knenen can be met. Accepting, not only with Kuenen, but, as he claims, with the vast and increasing majority of Biblical critics, the new views with regard to the composition and growth of Hebrew literature and the late formation of the Canon, he finds in that literature itself much that the philosophical principles of the Rationalists make them unwilling, and, we may say, unable, to see. believes thoroughly in the supernatural guidance of the Hebrew Church, in the miracles recorded in its records, in the inspiration of the prophets, and contends that the critic who does not acknowledge the peculiar relation of the Jewish people to God throws away the ouly key that can unlock all the difficulties which the facts of the case present. Whether his position be tenable or not, it is simply dis

He

honest to class him with Kuenen. He fearlessly accepts the critical principles of the Rationalists, and considers that he applies them more rigorously than they do; while in his dogmatic interpretation he is at one with the extreme right.

A THEOLOGICAL TEACHer.

COMMENT NO. II.

But surely Dr. Robertson Smith makes to criticism concessions fatal to Faith? Like others, who have thought that half measures of revolution could be made final, he is but giving an impulse to a destructive process which will not leave one stone standing on another in the Christian Temple. Such men are the Girondists of Theological Destructive

ness;

the future of the movement they have inaugurated belongs to logicians who have the courage of their opinions. Half a century ago Dr. Arnold led the first, timid, semi-orthodox Broad Church advance. His most gifted son denies Immortality and a Personal God! Such speculations as this of Dr. Robertson Smith and the German theologians,' of whose voices his is the echo, are dangerous, not because it matters in the least whether Deuteronomy was written by Moses or Jeremiah, but because the suggestion of doubt to the popular mind replaces an unreasoning faith by an equally unreasoning disbelief. And, after all, are the arguments of the German criticism so very cogent? As, according to the legend, the Prophet Isaiah was sawn in two, so the German critic divides the prophet into two distinct Isaiahs, an earlier and a later he deals with the College of the Apostles just as Mr. Crooks does with that of Upper Canada. And on what evidence? All the evidence we have!' in the case of the prophet, the occurrence of predictions which those who disbelieve in the supernatural gift of prophecy assume at once on the face of it to be a proof that the portion of Isaiah containing the predictions was written after the event predicted.' But to those who believe in prophecy as a distinctive feature of revelation, this reasoning is of no value. So on the meagre foundation of a passage in one of Paul's letters, in which he mentions one solitary instance of disagreement with Peter, a theory of two parties, a Pauline and a Petrine, is built up! In reading Ewald's great book on Israel, I

was astonished at the way in which that eminent Hebraist shifts and transposes everything so many Psalms by David, sixteen, I think this and that fragment possibly by Moses, if such a person ever existed; and all this on his own unsupported authority, without any argument which even a Hebrew expert could appreciate.

It seems to me possible to suggest a modest but useful working theory in dealing with the question of the authorship of books of such vast antiquity, respecting which it is admitted, both by

extreme right' and 'extreme left,' that nothing that can be called evidence is within our reach it seems to me we cannot do better than acquiesce in the general belief as it has come down to us, not on the authority of the Church,' but, as we trust, and are very generally right in trusting, popular tradition as to places or events. And in the East, conservative in all things, the popular account of the authorship of a sacred book would be doubly likely to be the true one. The question of authorship need be no trouble to a Christian; it is one he can safely pass by. Its discussion, when so little evidence exists, is a mere barren logomachy, whose only result can be to unsettle men's minds, and lead those who get the habit of this second-hand scepticism to conclude, that if the books were not written by the alleged authors, the books themselves are of no authority. CLERICAL CONTRIBUTOR.

COMMENT NO. III.

These questions can not be ignored. It is not only a crime, but a mistake, to teach false history; and it is no longer possible for the clergy to pass by these topics. They are not now contined to the dry tomes of theologians. They form a part of popular literature, and the laity, if they find their spiritual guides silent respecting questions which concern the truth or falsehood of what is taught in every Sunday-school, will draw their own conclusions. If a liberal clergy will not teach the Christian side of modern criticism, the field is open to Bradlaugh and Ingersoll, who are not afraid to face the consequences of their system all round, and who certainly have no reserves' or 'mysteries.'

'Clerical Contributor' is sincere, I believe, in thinking his policy of holding aloof from ' dangerous' issues the safest

for popular faith. But, in the first place, such questions as the authorship of the 'Books of Moses' do not stand alone; they form part of the discussions which are in the air' of the present age-questions which the religious thought must face, where it is not the cant of a paid profession or the stupidity of a fanaticism like that which on Sundays in suminer makes the Toronto Queen's Park re-echo with the screech of its blasphemous doggerel. Outside these two classes, all men who think at all on the subject of religion in our day are irresistibly impelled to ask questions which the clergy do not seem to care about attempting to answer. In total opposition to 'Clerical Contributor,' I would have the clergy deal openly and fairly with all such matters as the authorship and inspiration of the Bible, with the question of the Future Life, with the question of a literal or figurative Second Advent. In order to do so, those of the Episcopal and Methodist Churches at least must first learn a little about the reasoning of their opponents. Narrowing influences must be supplemented by reading some of the books which form factors in the thoughts of all educated men. To face these matters fairly would by no means necessarily lead to conclusions hostile to faith. Few thinking men who do so face them fail to find that, all the better for the casting down of unrealities and half-beliefs, 'the things that cannot be shaken do remain.' Belief in the unknowable God does not vanish with Paley's notion of a magnified watchmaker; nor do the consolations of the Book of Books seem further from us when we believe that they are the human utterance of men and women like ourselves, not of an inspiration forced through their lips as we force a tune through organ pipes: Faith in Responsibility and Hope in the Future may be ours when we have ceased to picture that Supreme Tribunal of Conscience before God, as a mere mediæval pageant of Thrones and Books and Trumpets. Let the clergy do as educated laymen do. Let them meet the difficulties of these perplexing questions fairly. Let them acknowledge fully what they cannot prove to be no matter of hard dogma ; and let them point to the grounds of Hope that remain to Faith, to the difficulties which beset the path of those who dogmatically deny, as well as the difficuuties of those who dogmatically attirm. There is abundant room for a new and telling

class of sermons for those who would take this line honestly and fully. Of the three sermons I have heard lately, one was on the type presented by Melchizedek,' the other two had not the faintest connection with any moral or intellectual teaching, or anything that could help to make life better or brighter. Now, in the opinion of most of the laity, Melchizedek is becoming just a little uninteresting. Might not a change of subject be good? I cordially agree with what is said by A Theological Teacher' as to A Rational View of the Bible.' In the first place, the book is a mere English précis of the German Kuenen; in the second, the author is animated by a spirit of partisan hatred against Christianity and the Old Testament, which makes him, in my judgment, unfair. The Hebrews of the exodus could not have been the brutal savages he represents them, after such long contact with the civilization of Egypt. Perhaps A Theological Teacher' will communicate with us further on this interesting subject. He was but too brief. A LAYMAN.

COMMENT NO. IV.

It is impossible for the workers of society to go into the niceties of Biblical criticism. None but a few men of exceptional leisure, and still more exceptional scholarship, can even attempt to weigh the evidence adduced by such books as Supernatural Religion' and its opponents as to the age and authorship of such books as the Fourth Gospel. Therefore it would be a gain to the intelligent religious aspirations of that large class which has little leisure and less scholarship could we be assured of some broad doctrine as to the nature and use of the Sacred Books, one on which the mere question whether John wrote the Evangel or the Vision current under his name would become a matter of no practical religious importance. Suppose that broader doctrine were to teach that all good gifts come from on High, all enlightenment from the Father of Light. The teaching of the most Human of the Gospels, the glowing imagery of the one great poem which comes to us from primitive Christianity, owe their religious value to themselves, not to their date or authorship; still less to the talismanic sanctity with which ecclesias