"Yet more explicit is the description of the blood-covenanting which brought into loving unity David and Jonathan." If he means blood-covenanting in the sense of inter-transfusion, or even the shedding of blood, we look in vain for any such explicit description. Now we do not deny these things; but we claim that the evidence is wanting. In the case of Abraham and Abimelech, the description of what they did is specific; the presents exchanged are described; the planting of a tree and the kind of tree planted are noted; and it seems very improbable that the most important part of all, the mingling of blood, should have been omitted if it actually occurred. There are many other points that it would be profitable to examine, but lack of space forbids. We have tried to notice the strongest and clearest facts and arguments adduced by the author to show that bloodcovenanting is a primitive rite, and has "bearings on the Scripture;" but we fail to find such facts recorded in the volume as the title-page led us to suppose existed. The bearing which this whole matter of bloodcovenanting has upon the work and office of Christ, though it forms an important part of the work, we have omitted. It has been our purpose to examine the facts, and leave to others a consideration of the theories based upon them. There is undoubtedly a wide field for inquiry suggested by this work. There is much to be explained in regard to the significance and office of blood in the Jewish covenant, and in the redemption of humanity. This book is a move in the right direction. It touches on matters that are worthy of careful and constant study. The book is interesting and suggestive, and we admire the spirit of Christian devotion on the part of the author which finds expression in the quotation with which he closes the Appendix: "Take, dearest Lord, this crushed and bleeding heart, GUILFORD, CT. Edmund M. Vittum. NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. A STUDY OF BIBLE VERIFICATION IN THE RANGE OF COMMON EXPERIENCE. By E. C. CUMMINGS. Pp. 348. Portland, Me.: Hoyt, Fogg, & Donham, 193 Middle Street. 1885. THIS book is an important contribution to Christian thought. The author may fairly claim to have presented in it a new and very instructive way of regarding Christianity. The revelation which the Scriptures contain he rightly assumes to be not primarily a disclosure of things remote from human life, but of things which are in most intimate relation with it, if above it, and which can only be understood when its true meaning is perceived. The Scriptures give, therefore, as the correlate of their teaching about God information as to man and human life. We should miss their meaning were we not to learn from them what God is doing with the race as it passes on its course through the earth. We may expect, then, he justly infers, as we scrutinize the conditions under which man lives, in their influence upon him, to find in them corroborations of the Scriptural teaching. It is only in a limited degree that man is the author of his own character. The cosmical and social influences to which he is subjected from birth, and his hereditary tendencies, combine with And when he is made, member of an organism Human life, therefore, the movements of his will in fashioning him. he is not a complete whole in himself, but a apart from which he cannot be understood. must seem to one who fairly examines it to be, as it were, the hand of God, moulding men into worthy members of the divine kingdom. On this just and important deduction the author has built an elaborate and beautiful structure of thought. One feels in reading the book that composing it was a delight; that it was written because thoughts cherished for many years sought expression. The symmetry of its arrangement, the completeness with which the conceptions are wrought out, and the almost dainty finish of the style, give an impression of ripeness. The thoughts have evidently had time to mature and take on full shape and fit coloring. We give, from the introductory chapter, the writer's own statement of the divisions of his inquiry. He undertakes to seek both in Scripture and in nature evidence, "I. As to our common subjection under the constraints of cosmical and social conditions and social governance. The world tutelage. "II. As to the presumably peculiar inability of primitive man to cope at once with the problems confronting him, and the special danger of his yielding, from unwise choice, to physical tendencies against the higher law of his being. — The fall. "III. As to that faith and loyalty in man through which he is open to suggestions from above, and can move in a manner to be held approved, reasonable, and acceptable in a provisional way, in default of advanced knowledge, faultless obedience, or ideal devotion. The principle of justification. "IV. As to the development of man's apprehension and experience of the not-good as necessarily correlative to his progressive knowledge of the good; together with his possibly wilful violation of faith with respect even to obligations on which his physical welfare depends. - The mani festation of evil. "V. As to the motive and method of man's reconciliation with God, in the revelation of his character and will, and of his deliverance from the errors and corruptions of a comparatively irresponsible and childish career. The law of atonement. "VI. As to the judgments in which faith is appealed to, knowledge increased, and law enforced, till the consummation of the world history. - Crises in the progress of redemption." To the prosecution of these inquiries Mr. Cummings brings a mind familiar with the methods and general results of social and historical science, and possessing a subtle insight into the operation of moral and spiritual forces. The chapters on "Tutelage a Law of Nature," "Cosmical Tutelage," "Ages of Human Development," and "Death as Conducive to Life," may be mentioned as of especial value. That no attempt should be made to meet objections to the theistic view of nature was only to be expected from the book's being addressed to believing minds. Perhaps, however, something more than a passing notice might profitably have been given to those oppressive facts which seem inconsistent with the author's conception of human life as in every case a process of divine tutelage; the cramping and distorting effect of degrading conditions upon untold millions; the brutal violence which has robbed so large a part of the race of a goodly share of life; the ravages of famine and pestilence. It is assumed by the writer that those from whom the good opportunity is wrested here will have some equivalent in another life; an assumption the rightness of which I am not disposed to question. But granting this, the fact still remains to be dealt with that life has not hitherto fulfilled its proper tutelary function for a very large part of mankind. A failure to recognize and explain this will be regarded by many as a defect in the book. To those of its readers who think that this dark fact results in various ways from the presence of moral evil, the inference is natural that if it had had its due effect upon the writer's mind, his conception of the world would have lost the appearance of a somewhat arbitrary though genial optimism. The least satisfactory chapters, to many readers at least, will be those which treat of Biblical facts. Especially in those which treat of the work of Christ is it hard to see the fulfillment of the author's intention. Are they an attempt to verify the Scriptural teaching about Christ by an appeal to the reader's knowledge of moral and spiritual laws? Then should not a complete presentation of that teaching, at least so far as contained in our Lord's own words, have been made? Was it not arbitrary to leave out his assertion that his death was the ground of the forgiveness of human sin, and those which imply his essential oneness with the Father? Or are we to suppose that the author wishes to present merely so much of the Scriptural teaching concerning Christ as corresponds to man's spiritual experience, and is therefore verifiable by us? But what guarantee have we that such a representation would not be one-sided and misleading? And certainly the language used seems intended to portray the Christ whom men followed and whom the church adores. The obscurity of the book at this point seems, to speak frankly, to be due to the fact of the author's mind not being entirely freed from a conception of the revelation contained in the Scriptures which he has himself repudiated, namely, that it consists essentially in ideas rather than in facts. We find him, for example, saying (p. 343) that "testimonies and representations, naturally unverifiable, though accepted as standing for what is true, cannot rule in human conviction with the authority of selfevidence. Such elements in the Bible, as in other literature, are open to doubt and discussion by the very law of our human faculties." But the view of the Bible which has made it a book of "testimonies and representations" is happily obsolescent. It comes to a clear-sighted faith today as the record of facts which belong to the development of human life, yet show a new entrance of the divine into that life. This is especially true of the career of Christ. It is the kernel of the Biblical teaching. To the Christian it is a series of unique facts; the expression of an incarnation of God. It is not "naturally verifiable." But surely it "rules" his conviction. His faith in it is not merely that which comes from accepting certain testimony as "standing for what is true." He has certitude regarding it, for his nature is capable of an immediate knowledge of God, and it finds the incarnation an essential element in its conception of Him. If we own the validity of Christian knowledge, if we admit that Christ, though a veritable man, was more than man, and that his work was one which man could not have done, can we be sure that he is justly presented in his connection with history, unless the historic ground of that in his Person and work which is superhuman is distinctly set forth? Let it be added that these criticisms do not touch the leading thought and motive of the book, and that repeated perusal of it deepens the first impression made of fellowship with a comprehensive, refined, and ear nest mind. Edward Y. Hincks. THE UNKNOWNn God, and OTHER SERMONS. Preached in St. Peter's, Vere Street, by the Rev. ALEXANDER H. CRAUFURD, M. A., formerly Exhibitioner of Oriel College, Oxford. New York: Scribner & Welford, 743–745 Broadway. THE position taken in the opening sermon, which gives the title to this volume, is substantially that of Sir William Hamilton, as quoted by the author: "The Divinity, in a certain sense, is revealed; in a certain sense, is concealed He is at once known and unknown. But the last and highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar to the unknown and unknowable God. In this consummation nature and revelation, paganism and Christianity, are at one." Christian agnosticism is "that great angel who wrestles with man in the nineteenth century," and refuses to tell his name. The trouble with doubt, as with faith, is that it is not sufficiently agnostic. The dogmatism of the critics is as rash and simple as that of the theologians : "Probably God knows how to exist in divers ways not known or approved of by Mr. Matthew Arnold. Perhaps Mr. Matthew Arnold has no right to dogmatize complacently about the ocean depths of the Atlantic, merely because he holds in his hands a tea-cup of its waters." These sermons are written in the spirit of revolt from dogmatism of every kind, but the terms in which the author expresses his dissent seldom mean as much as they seem to imply. The beliefs of the author are continually asserting themselves through his questionings and denials, and the tone of his thought is always reverent and sympathetic. Some of the sermons show a fine insight into the workings of the human heart under the power of grace. Here is a strong and true passage from the sermon on The Strangeness of the Spiritual Life: "I believe that it is forever true that a genuinely spiritual nature cannot become unspiritual. Though the soul of an Augustine should be so plunged in the mire of evil that his very garments should abhor him, still that illuminated spirit, that God-haunted soul, could not lose the stamp of the Infinite and the impress of the Eternal; could not rest in sin, could not think evil good, or good evil; could not mock with Voltaire, could not sneer with Gibbon; could not permanently accept the food of swine, that is, the grovelling doctrine of a soulless materialism. The spirituality of David set limits to his deterioration, and said to the advancing tide of wickedness, Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.' Wondrous and full of prophetic fore-splendors are the earthly resurrections of spiritual natures. Saints slain by evil are constantly coming out of their graves of corruption, and appearing unto many, clothed in white garments of infinite sorrow and immortal aspiration. The mind of the spirit of God is constantly reviving into life the dry, withered bones of the real imperishable elect." Similar in quality but more plaintive in tone is this passage from the sermon on The Travail of the Creation: "Man's heart is indeed an inexplicable mystery. It seems to be endowed with so much more capacity for affection than is needed in this life, or rather its loftier specimens seem to be so endowed. God seems to have communicated some of his own mysterious infinity to the deeper hearts of the sons of men. Hence their inevitable sorrow in this life; hence their insatiable thirst; hence their perpetual disappointments. Truly, if this life were our all, we might well invent a new beatitude, and say, Blessed are the shallow-hearted, for they shall not be grieved. The tenderest heart that the world ever knew was the saddest it belonged to Him whose visage was marred more than any man's, and his form more than the sons of men.' And so also was it with St. Paul: shallow minds might think the world a very friendly, comfortable place, but the finer ears of the great Apostle had heard the whole creation groaning. And now as the soul listens with sympathetic mournfulness to the unceasing groans of the whole creation, is it able to find any meaning in this strange discipline of suffering? To some extent I think it is. St. Paul seems to have peeceived clearly that the present condition of the world is merely transitional and introductory; he could look forward to a great restitution of all things; he believed entirely that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. St. Paul knew that the pains of the creation, as it now is, are after all only the pains of growth." The pages before us abound in sayings which invite quotation, but on the whole the thought is not altogether satisfying. It is not usually fair to draw personal contrasts which are suggested by circumstance and outward relations, but in the present instance our attention is called by the author himself to the "saintly Frederick Denison Maurice," in whose old church he was accustomed to preach at irregular intervals, though never as an incumbent of the church. Maurice was a prophet. His words are full of awe, weighty with the certainties and assurances of truth. The sermons of Mr. Craufurd do not show a like grasp upon eternal verities; they lack something of the master's prophetic fire and vision. William J. Tucker. THE BIBLICAL SCHEME OF NATURE AND OF MAN. By Rev. A. MACKENNAL, B. A. 8vo, pp. 126. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 1885. FOUR useful lectures on Biblical Theology for laymen. The first sets forth the Genesis poem of creation, as a confession of faith in God, as real and as good, and in God's care for a people. Such a confessiontheory is, indeed, the clew to Biblical theology, and to the Bible. And God's yearning for a people is one of the most touching traits, and therefore one of the truest, in old Hebrew theclogy. The second lecture sees in the story of the fall utterance of faith in God's perfection as well as in man's sin. But it is in Lectures III. and IV. that the finest feast is spread. They expound New Testament theology, a field where material has been prepared far more abundantly than on Old Testament domains; although, indeed, as yet few have put out the hand to turn the sheaves into bread for the people. Lecture III., on " Adam a Figure of Christ," exhibits the early Christians' faith in the solidarity of mankind. That central fact of life is found to be a central declaration of the Gospel; and the importance and preciousness of the Person of Christ lies largely in his personal manifestation of that great fact of life. The last lecture, "On the Consummation of Human History," rises at times to singular beauty and power. Full of inspiration for the reader who knows life's conflicts are the words of pages 78, 79, concerning the triumph for which Jesus ever strove : — "An enforced homage was never grateful to Him. He was pained at any |