aid for the compilation. Is Solomon's Song a mere epithalamium? If so, we do not believe that Solomon had any divine assistance in writing it. Are there many portions of the Old Testament, where the writers show themselves independent of peculiar divine guidance, and subject to the prejudices and errors of their times? Be it so. We should antecedently expect the penmen of the earlier and less perfect dispensation, to have been endowed with a less intense and pervading inspiration; to have lived less constantly in the perception of spiritual truth; to have had only transient glimpses, where the apostles enjoyed open vision. We should antecedently expect to find more of the merely human element in the earlier Scriptures, which were designed to be but as "a light shining in a dark place, until the day should dawn and the day-star arise." The question of inspiration should be discussed solely with reference to the religious contents of the Old Testament. The question is, whether those things in the Jewish Scriptures, which were beyond man's knowledge or foresight, or far above the light of those times, were discoveries, speculations, happy guesses, or whether they were actually derived from the inspiration of God.

Among the internal marks of the inspiration of the writers of the Old Testament, we would first name the religious unity and harmony, which pervade it. The writers all have the same conception of God, of devotion, of duty. This has not generally been the case among the less cultivated nations. The Jupiter of Homer differs from the Jupiter of the later Greek tragedians. The popular conceptions of every personage in the Pantheon of Greek mythology were gradually developed, and essentially modified by time. On the other hand, the Jehovah of Moses, Isaiah, and Malachi, at intervals of many centuries, during which vast revolutions had been wrought in the national condition and culture, is one and the same Jehovah. The conception reached the highest form, which language could give it, in the writings of Moses, nay, in the very name Jehovah; and in that form it remained fixed, until Jesus softened it with warmer beams of fatherly love. Nor yet can we trace any diversity among these writers, as to the way in which God is to be worshipped, or the duties which he requires.

The frequent loftiness of thought and style in the Old Testament, beyond all other ancient writings, lifting the soul, as it

were, into the very presence chamber of the Deity, sustains the idea, that these majestic passages were written by men, whose spirits had been elevated and expanded by special nearness of converse with the Divine Being. There are portions of Isaiah and Ezekiel, there are some of the Psalms of David, which are, to the devout ear, more like a voice from heaven, than like the words of man.

In fine, the Old Testament stands out in such a prominent contrast to all other equally ancient writings extant, even to the writings of the wisest and best men in the most cultivated ages, that we know not how to account for its sublime theology, its clear and high views of duty, its pervading tone of confidence and authority, except by ascribing to its authors special illumination from the spirit of God. We cast our eyes over the brightest pages of profane literature, and find nowhere a view of the divine nature, on which we can repose; but see the mind distracted among a multitude of clashing deities, bowed down by the spirit of fear and trembling, dreading the thunderbolt without ever trusting the love of the divinity, cringing before gods, possessed of all human, and worse than human passions and infirmities. We then turn to the Bible, and we read; "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Now all the logic in the world can never convince us, that we are indebted solely to that old barbarous king of a nation unlettered and unrefined, for these sentiments, which anticipate the very spirit of Jesus; which express all, and more than all, that the most pious heart can feel; which will still be the burden of our song, when beyond the reach of earthly infirmity, "the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed us, and shall lead us unto living fountains of waters." We might make similar remarks with regard to very many passages, which present glimpses of God, of truth, and of duty, which our hearts tell us are the very highest of eternal verities, and which stand entirely alone in the literature of the world before Christ, both as to their depth and fulness of meaning, and tone of majestic and simple confidence, in which they are announced.

The numerous fulfilled prophecies, contained in the Old Testament, offer a more tangible, though hardly a stronger proof of

the inspiration of its writers, than the traits to which we have already referred. We have no room to discuss these prophecies. They cover a large portion of human history. The fulfilment of some of them can be distinctly traced in the past; that of others is now in progress, and known and read of all men. The present condition of the Hebrew nation could hardly be described, in many of its distinctive and unprecedented features, with more accuracy by a modern geographer, than we find it foretold in the Old Testament. Could blind chance have conjured into being phantoms of poetic fancy, that should thus correspond to actual events across the gulf of ages ? Could she bring together, and work into the brains of those old seers just the same elements, which after many centuries Providence would embody in the counsels and destinies of nations? This is harder to believe, than that she could paint a flower, or blunder a world into being. The recurrence of the same harmonies at distant intervals, in the sphere-music of time can be accounted for, only by supposing the harmony to have been first struck by the same omnipotent hand that repeats it.

We have also, in favor of the inspiration of the writers of the Old Testament, the testimony of the infallible Jesus and of his inspired apostles. Jesus says, "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me;" that is, which foretell me, which have a prophetic character, a character which could result only from divine inspiration. And again; "Had ye believed Moses, ye would also have believed me; for he wrote concerning me," prophetically of course. In like manner Jesus, epitomizing the whole Old Testament, speaks of what was written concerning him "in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms." He also often quotes these writings as of divine authority and final appeal.

The apostles also continually quote the Old Testament as authoritative. St. Peter says; "The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the holy spirit." Paul too writes to Timothy; "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, (or, more properly, pervaded by a divine afflatus,) and is profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

We have completed our argument; and have shown, we trust, that the inspiration of the sacred writers rests on a firmer VOL. XXXII. - 3D S. VOL. XIV. NO. II. 28

basis, than that of anile superstition. We are aware that on this subject it has become fashionable to take low and lax views. To us faith on this point appears the part of sound philosophy. If God stands to us in the paternal relation, in which Jesus presents him, an intrinsic, a priori probability attaches itself to any theory, in proportion as it brings him near to his children, and appeals to their implicit confidence. In a world not fatherless, for the short-sighted and frail children of an infinite Father, it is more philosophical to believe, than to disbelieve in miracle and inspiration. The philosophy of the filial heart is higher and of vastly more worth, than that of the doubting hea d

A. P. P.

ART. V.-A Journal written during an Excursion in Asia Minor, 1838. By CHARLES FELLOWS. London: John Murray, Albemarle St. 1839. 8vo. pp. 347.

It is singular, that with the wealth and literary leisure of England, discoveries remained to be made in a country so near and accessible as Asia Minor, down to so late a period as 1838; discoveries, we mean, among the ruins of antiquity. Yet Mr. Fellows has made such discoveries, and so incomplete has even his survey been of this country, as well as of travellers who preceded him, that, we suppose, discoveries of the same sort yet remain to be made. So interesting, however, is this region, both from classical and religious associations, abounding in monuments of Greek art, in its best days, and covered with the sites of celebrated cities, so beautiful in its scenery, and withal, so safe to the traveller, in the character of its population, that the wonder is, a single stone remains unturned, a single valley, hill, or ruin, unexplored. One would have thought that to the gentleman-scholar, the literary idler of the three kingdoms, it would have proved a field irresistibly attractive, and would have been long ago exhausted. No project of travel would seem to promise a higher enjoyment, than for a Fellow of one of the Universities, without care or 'responsibility,' or a younger son turned adrift with some five or six

hundred a year, or the heir apparent of some rich merchant,— having first studied the humanities more or less at Cambridge or Oxford, to take the steamboat some bright morning for Constantinople or Smyrna, and twenty days after find himself, with Homer in his hand, on the plains of Troy, puzzling out the foundations of the divine city, or stumbling with open sketch-book among the broken columns and sculptured tombs of Xanthus or Sagalassus. Very sure we are, that there are some on this side the water, who with fewer advantages than we have supposed, save the humanities more or less, without the luxury of horses, camels, or attendants, without rich fathers or livings, and with not more than half six hundred pounds, would esteem it the highest good fortune, to be able just to reach the shores of Asia, and who, once there, would engage not to leave behind them a valley or a hill unexplored, an inscription uncopied, nor a ruin unmeasured or unsketched. When such thoughts occur, one is moved to repine and covet his neighbor's goods, notwithstanding an apostle's hint concerning contentment, and even a Pagan's ;

Pæstum, we believe, was discovered somewhere about the middle of the last century, though lying almost in sight of the usual route of idle travellers. Mr. Fellows is to be ranked among discoverers in this sense, though he wandered scarce five degrees of latitude from Constantinople, and was not many days out of sight of the Mediterranean; but that he had made discoveries, he himself seems to have been ignorant, until he returned to London and submitted his labors to the Savans there. He had very naturally concluded, that a country, the very home of the Greek, the most classical of all classical lands, next to Attica itself, about which geographers, and critics, and poets had been writing, dogmatizing, or guessing for centuries, was as familiar to them in its minutest features as Yorkshire, or the Campagna. His surprise must have been great, and pleasant as great, to learn that, all undreamed of by himself, he had actually done great things, and placed himself in the ranks of those, who have made additions to the sum of human knowledge. The success of his first adventure led him to undertake another tour in 1840, from which