sources; and since the Apocalypse evidently originated at a comparatively early date and on Jewish ground, we are compelled, by the utter dissimilarity between its thoughts and its language and those of the Gospel, to assign the latter to Hellenistic soil, and to the far-subsequent date of a profounder transformation and more spiritualized conception of "primitive Christianity."

In these general and discursive remarks upon the new Introduction of Dr. Davidson, we have not attempted to subject these volumes to a critical review, but only to indicate their scope and character, and the spirit and method of their discussions. The readers of the author's Introduction to the Old Testament will find a decided improvement in the style of the present work. It is less combative and apologetical, burdened with fewer digressions and general disquisitions. Usually careful and discriminating in his judgment of facts, Dr. Davidson is not always a trustworthy guide through the regions of conjecture and probability. He sees clearly where others have pointed the way, but is deficient in that insight which can see by its own light when the straight way is lost.

a

His "Introduction to the New Testament" deserves a speedy republication in our own country, and a wide circulation among all who wish to know what the Christian Scriptures are, and what they are not. That constructive criticism of the New-Testament writings which our liberal theologians frequently praise, but never attempt, has been made by Dr. Davidson the object and aim of long years of study and investigation. The fruits of this study are given in the volumes before us, which are the only Introduction to the New Testament, in English, that even claims to present the results of the best modern criticism.

That Dr. Davidson's constructive work is mainly a work of reconstruction, so far from detracting from its value, is its chief and eminent merit. The efforts of those who try to build up again the old defences of Paley and Lardner and Norton, form the really destructive criticism which liberal and rational Christianity has now to fear. Such critics as

Kuenen and Scholten in Holland, Reuss and Nicolas in France, J. J. Tayler and Davidson in England, and our own lamented Dr. Noyes, are the true defenders of the faith, because the faithful and fearless defenders of the truth.

The History of Servia and the Servian Revolution. With a Sketch of the Insurrection in Bosnia. By LEOPOLD RANKE. Translated from the German by Mrs. ALEXANDER KERR. To which is added, The Slave Provinces of Turkey; chiefly from the French of CYPRIEN ROBERT. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853. pp. xvi. and 520.

Servia and the Servians. By the Rev. W. DENTON, M.A. London: Bell & Daldy, 1862. pp. xii. and 294.

Quarterly Review for January, 1865. Article, "Servia."

A FEW years since, we were accustomed to regard the age in which we lived as one essentially prosaic. The startling incidents, the wild crimes, and the virtues almost as wild, that had given the interest of romance to former times, had passed away. The occupations of men were industrial, not military; their object not fame, but money; the prevalent crime not oppression nor robbery, but "tame cheating;" the most needful virtue not chivalrous valor, but simple honesty. But "the world becomes old, and again is young." Romance and chivalry are not dead. Past forms of evil return to shock the refinement of an age that was thought to have outgrown them; and the old, strong-handed virtues come to light again, as occasion calls them forth. This we learned from the sad, yet not useless, experience of our civil war; we may read the same truth in the history of many another nation, and among them in that of the "youngest member of the European family," -the principality between the boundaries of Austria and Turkey.

The parallel between our great republic and the little state of Servia is, indeed, marked by one sad point of resemblance.

On the 14th of April, 1865, the President of the United States was struck down by the bullet of an assassin. On the 10th of June, 1868, the Prince of Servia perished by a similar fate. The distance and comparative obscurity of the scene where the latter crime was committed have prevented it from making an impression on the public mind in this country, or even in France or England, comparable to that produced by the murder of our President; but to the people of Servia the fall of Prince Michael in the park of Belgrade was not less portentous than was to us the event that turned our joy into mourning at the close of our civil war.

Lying south of Hungary, from which it is separated by the Save and the Danube, and surrounded in other directions by provinces subject to Turkey, Servia is a land of mountains and rivers, containing about twenty-one thousand square miles, equal in extent, therefore, to the two kingdoms of Holland and Belgium, and somewhat larger than our States of New Hampshire and Vermont. In the Roman empire it constituted the upper division of the province of Moesia. The inhabitants-who, according to Ranke, have been of the same race from the earliest period known-are Slavonians, and speak the softest of all the Slavonic dialects. They received instruction in Christianity from the Greek Church; but retained, or soon secured, their independence in ecclesiastical matters. The decline of the Greek empire gave them also political independence; and Stephen Dushan, the most powerful of their princes, in the middle of the fourteenth century, having conquered several neighboring provinces, assumed the titles of "Emperor of the Roumelians," and "the Macedonian Christloving Czar." The standard of orthodoxy under his rule was very simple, if the anecdote be true that is told of him,— that, on the festival of the Archangel Michael, he asked his Voivoides on which side they wished him to lead them, — towards Greece or towards Alemannia; to the Eastern or to the Western Church. "Wherever thou leadest us, most glorious czar," they loyally replied, "we will follow thee." Such an answer would have drawn a smile of approval from the stony-hearted Henry VIII.

But Belgrade was not destined to compete permanently with Rome and Constantinople. After the death of Stephen, the states he had subjected regained their independence. A century passed, and another able prince, George Brankovitsch, stood side by side with the great Hungarian commander, John Hunniades, in resisting the progress of the Turks. A Servian song tells the story, that Brankovitsch inquired of his ally what he would do with regard to religion, should he be raised to power in Servia. Hunniades replied that he would establish the Roman-Catholic Church. The same question was then asked of Sultan Amurath; and the more politic Turk answered, that for every mosque he founded he would build a church, and leave the people at liberty to follow which religion they pleased. The story may not be literally true, but it represents the truth. The divisions among Christians, and the profession of liberality by the Turks, more than their arms, reduced this principality, among whose mountains freedom might have been successfully defended, to a province of the Turkish empire.

Bitterly did the Servians have cause to repent the surrender of their independence. Their condition may have varied at times, but at the beginning of the present century they had long been a miserably oppressed people. Instead of churches being built for them, they were in most places forbidden to assemble for worship. The office of the secular priest was confined to the celebration of baptisms, marriages, and funerals, and announcing the festivals of the Church; the people resorted to the monks for the purpose of confession; but preaching, the great means of popular education as well as of religious improvement, hardly existed. The Christians were forbidden to enter a town on horseback; the Christian meeting a Turk must stop till he passed by; and was required to render personal service to any Turk who demanded it. The native race were forbidden to bear arms.

To these oppressions, and the innumerable evils that resulted from a government of force and injustice, was added at length the worst of evils, in the failure of all power of restraint, in the Court of Constantinople, over its own turbulent soldiery.

-

As in Egypt the Mamelukes, so in Servia the Janissaries, under four chiefs known as Dahis, or Superiors, subjected the country to all the miseries of arbitrary power lodged in savage hands. The Servians turned for relief to their sovereign, the Sultan. They complained that they were attacked in their religion, their morality, and their honor; no husband being secure in the possession of his wife, no father of his daughter, no brother of his sister. "Art thou still our czar?" they demanded; "then come and free us from these evil-doers. Or, if thou wilt not save us, at least tell us so; that we may decide whether to flee to the mountains and forests, or to seek in the rivers a termination to our miserable existence." The result of this appeal was a threat to the wrongdoers, — the worse than useless resort of decrepit power. The Sultan told the Dahis, that, unless they changed their conduct, he would send an army against them, not a Turkish army, but soldiers of another creed; and that unimagined evils would befall them. The Dahis asked one another to whom the Grand Seignior could allude. Would he bring Austrians or Russians foreign infidels-into his empire? "By Allah," they exclaimed, "he means the Rayahs!" They had found the explanation of the foolish threat, and took the course that their savage hearts suggested to prevent its execution. They sent their emissaries into the villages, where the inhabitants, as usual, advanced to meet them, to supply them with food or to take charge of their horses. This gave them the opportunity for seizing whom they would. The Kneses, or chiefs, were slain; and not only these, but "every person of any consideration, whether it had been acquired by military prowess, eloquence, or wealth, was put to death." "Even the sacred office afforded no protection." It was in February, 1804, that this work of blood commenced. "Horror," says Ranke, "prevailed throughout the country. Men knew not who were doomed. The belief gained ground that it was intended to extirpate the entire population. Even the poorest feared for his life. In the villages, none but old men and children went forth to meet the Turks. The able-bodied fled to the mountains, into the hiding-places of the Heyducs." By that name