hasten to say a few things much more in accordance with our feelings of veneration and admiration of the author. Spotted he may be, indeed, as a writer, but he is a spotted sun. The truth appears to be this, he is so entirely engrossed with the greater things of his subject that he pays too little attention to the lesser ; like some noble veteran marching into action, with his step measured by martial notes, who keeps his form erect, his eye on the face of his enemy, and his arms scientifically poised, but who forgets these smaller proprieties as he leaps to grapple with his foe. But where battles are fought on the plains of logic; where the ear is not stunned by clashing thunders, nor the eye blinded by the smoke and dust of the conflict; where all are expected to keep scientifically cool-in such contests, (to dismiss the figure,) the writer must not forget that, after all is said, we must approach to an understanding of his ideas through the little avenues of words, parentheses, colons, and commas. And should a Scotchman ever forget that the noble Graham of Wallace's day had his bosom pierced through a little crevice in his armor?

The style of Chalmers is quite original-Chalmerian. He probably has, and ought to have, no imitators; for who can be a Chalmers but Chalmers? We must, in this matter, be content to admire him at a respectful distance, as we would an Achilles in the successful use of his armor; and, in such a case, our most prudent course would be to acknowledge his superior greatness, his valor, and his achievements; and, not presuming to imitate, not daring to envy, be satisfied with wishing we were Achilles ourselves but, since we are not, and cannot help it, and there is no use in trying, join cheerfully in the chorus of his praises, and be content to be what we must be. D. D. B.

Lima, Jan. 4, 1847.

ART. VIII.-A Concordance to the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. By Rev. GEORGE COLES. New-York: published by Lane & Tippett, for the M. E. Church. 1847.

WHY should a new Concordance be made? Is not this another instance of literary plunder,-seizing a transatlantic book, changing it a little, perhaps for the worse, here and there, and then palming it off upon the community as the genuine product of American brain? We confess such was our fear when this book was announced; but mature examination has dissipated the fancy, and

convinced us that no great and laborious undertaking was more needed than this which is just accomplished. The Bible, -the Bible, is the one great instrument of apostolic men. With that in their hands, and the love of God in their hearts, and a sound judgment, they can go out, whether as pioneers of civilization, or among the enlightened and misled, and point them to the fount of endless life. If, in addition to this, a Hymn-book can be given them, songs of praise will soon mingle with devotion and instruction, and divine worship will be complete. Next to these two should certainly be placed the Concordance. The Bible is perfect, the Hymn-book and Concordance should be;-the one as an exponent of the enthusiasm, the confidence, and enjoyment of the Christian, the other as the most valuable aid to the investigation of the inspired word.

Men conversant with the Bible, and who could spare their time from an immediate enforcement of its claims upon their fellowbeings, have ever loved to study it; and what would appear to others the most forbidding and tedious toil, has been endured by them with cheerfulness and delight. We believe that the energy which has carried some commentators and Biblical critics through their apparently superhuman labors, has been something more than the zeal of a classical critic, bending his mind for years upon the text of some merely human and not superior author. They have toiled to aid all future generations in obtaining the mind of the Spirit. Verily, if they have done this in prayer, and for good, great will be their reward.

It is evident that a minute examination of the text itself, a collection of parallel or apparently conflicting passages, an elucidation of scripture by scripture, would be among the first efforts of Biblical students. But the character and worth of these investigations would be modified by the advancement and demands of the age. In the time of the "wonderful doctor," Roger Bacon, who seemed to stand in scientific and literary pursuits almost alone, at least in England, who was confined in a cell in his old age twelve years from his practice of the "black art," whose knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was supposed to be a means of communication with infernal spirits-in this age, when the building of the two arches of London bridge cost less than the "faire written" Bible bequeathed by W. de Howton to the Abbey of Croxton, it could not be expected that any studied aids to the examination of Scripture. would be furnished. And yet then it was that Antony, of Padua, wrote his Concordantiæ Morales, or concordant passages, according to the Vulgate. This may be regarded as a germ of concord

ances, and therefore deserves great credit. Many discoverers in the sixteenth century surpassed Columbus, but he was the leader and prince of them all.

The first real Concordance was prepared by that indefatigable Dominican friar, the cardinal Hugo de S. Caro, provincial of France. Having completed his Correctorium Bibliarum, or Correct Text of the Bible, with the various readings in the margin, he wrote an excellent commentary on it all, dividing the text for convenience' sake into chapters, which have been used according to his division ever since. There remained still another task for him, and that was to construct an extensive index, or concordance, by which any desired passage might be found. Deeply impressed with the difficulty of the project, he is said to have called five hundred monks to his aid. Notwithstanding all this care, it was not free from error, and was far from complete; though it is the basis of all modern Concordances. It was written in Latin, and published in the year 1238. Soon the Hebrew and Greek texts underwent that close examination and arrangement to which the Vulgate had been subjected, and finally various translations were made. The Greek Tauelov, of Erasmus Schmidius, is among the best, and is said to leave but little more of the kind desirable in Greek.

In the year 1550 appeared the first English Concordance. It is entitled "A Concordace; that is to saie, a worke, wherein by the ordre of the letters A, B, C, ye maie redely find any word conteigned in the whole Bible, so often as it is there expressed or mencioned. By John Marbek." The difficulties attending the production of such a book, great in themselves, were enhanced by the unaccountable persecution to which all industrious and independent scholars were in that age subject. An unlearned but untiring man, he undertook, for his own improvement, to copy with his own hand the Bible; but by the advice of another was influenced to attempt the translation of a Latin Concordance into English. Having proceeded through the letter L, he was seized, on some foolish pretext, imprisoned, and his papers lost. When liberated, he began again, and finished the work; but for want of means, and from the size of the book, could not get it published, and finally rewrote and condensed it all in the form in which it at last appeared. The above volume, though a prodigy in its day, would furnish but little assistance at present; as then reference could be made only to the beginning, middle, and end of chapters, since it was not till five years after this was published that the great French printer, Robert * Townley's Biblical Literature, vol. ii, p. 270. VOL. VII.-29

Stephens, in the intervals of a horseback ride from Paris to Lyons, divided the chapters into verses.

By far the most popular English Concordance is Cruden's, which has already been used more than a century; and certainly it should not now be superseded by another, unless defects are detected and avoided by its rival. Its principal defects are the following:1. It is larger than necessary. By omitting parts of the passages not necessary to recall the whole, it may be abridged, and be equally useful. 2. It is incomplete. Though a slight use of it may not expose this, yet it is not always possible to find the desired text by reference to some important word. 3. It is not invariably accurate, though far superior in this respect to its predecessors. The most thorough Biblical students have long since noticed its deficiencies and wished for another. Dr. A. Clarke preferred Butterworth's, yet acknowledged this to be imperfect. Dr. Scott, the commentator, designed to prepare one himself, and actually devoted some years to the project, but relinquished it through other pressing duties. When asked if Cruden's would not answer every practical purpose, he replied as follows:-"The errors and deficiencies in Cruden are tenfold more than are generally suspected; and I believe several reasons induce even the proprietors to wish to substitute a new work, under a new name, in the place of it. Had I not been impeded by age and infirmity, and unexpectedly taken off from completing it, I am persuaded it would have been published. As it is, I have my labor for my pains."*

But it seems that this drudgery, as many would term it, was not thrown away; for as he informed his son,-" Whether this work ever comes to anything or not, it repays me for my labor by the delight I receive from having the whole body of Scripture thus kept constantly revolving before me."t

If preparing such a work be of so great advantage, how profitable must be its frequent use!

It is the destiny of everything imperfect to pass away. However impregnably defended, it must disappear. This is true of both great and small things. Again,-whatever is good and correct, however encumbered with the imperfect and the feeble, will not be totally ruined with them. It will re-appear like truth in philosophy, which re-presents itself amid the dissolution of successive systems, and thus proves its own indestructibility. But our present deep thinkers and mighty intellects could never have become what they are, had they not been preceded by others not inferior, but still their servants. They have but to remove the rubbish of * Life of Thomas Scott, D. D., p. 299. † Ibid., p. 298.

former generations, strengthen and illustrate what they had discovered, and add a little to the universal stock. The pioneer has indeed a laborious task. The rough wilderness must be subdued; but the freshness of hope, the spirit of the leader, encourage him. One after another follows, each adding to, and correcting, the plans of the preceding, till the regular city, and village, and town, with roads, orchards, gardens, and canals, show the triumph of Christian civilization. Without Socrates, Plato could not have written; and Plato has modified, and directed, and strengthened the philosophy of all his successors. There is now no original writer on philosophy, or morals, or theology. We breathe the spirit of the past. Though not a sentence may be taken from another, yet the thought itself is but the perfection of others' thoughts.

Thus is it with lexicographies and all books of reference. The labor of the present age is to complete the efforts of the preceding. Though the Latin has been the language of the literary world for centuries, and the Greek studied as long, within a short time have the best Lexicons in these languages appeared. This we believe to be true of Concordances. The volume now under consideration has avoided many previous errors, amended inaccuracies, supplied deficiencies, and rescinded superfluities, and now presents itself as adapted to render the student all the aid that can be afforded by a work of its class. No small task is it to edit such a volume. Many a ready writer can produce, currente calamo, in a few weeks, a volume larger than this; but often even then its life, like that of an ephemeron, will be less than the time employed in bringing it into being; but the production of an extensive volume, of which almost every word must be examined again and again, and every line verified by reference to another book, is a task from which nine-tenths of our bookmakers would instinctively shrink. Again, the value of such a work depends much upon its typographical accuracy. Frequent errors in print would justly procure its condemnation, yet nothing but great care could prevent them. So far as we have examined this book, its execution is an honor to its compiler and the publishers.

Little need be said upon the usefulness of such a work. As in nature nothing is insignificant, but all items in God's great plan, so in revelation, nature's great counterpart, all its portions are but parts of one stupendous whole. Limited, and consequently often erroneous, are the thoughts of that man who confines his view to one field of observation, as to one of the many phases of the universe; so, too, all the parts of God's word must be faithfully studied, and weighed, and adjusted to each other, to give a correct