statement of the ground covered by our author (pp. 709-843.) The external evidence, critically examined in accordance with the plan usually adopted, must, of necessity, be passed over with the remark that, in the reference to Clement of Rome, the parallel passage is not the one already quoted; and it further seems strange that Acts xx. 35 was not cited as proof that the writer, whether Luke or another, did not quote from Clement the phrase and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus,' which do occur as we have seen in the latter's Epistle, c. xiii. The passage here placed in juxtaposition to the text of the Acts is in entire concord with it, the only difference being that Clement uses the phrase in an exhortation, and the compiler of the Acts puts them as a maxim uttered by our Lord Himself. So far Supernatural Religion traverses the old ground; but henceforth we are bound to admit that he makes out a strong case regarding the Acts of the Apostles. It is admitted that the third Gospel and the Acts bear strong marks of a common origin; as our author says the linguistic and other peculiarities which distinguish the Gospel are equally prominent in the Acts.' The theory here advanced is that the book was written as a sort of Eirenicon with a view to reconciling the Jewish and Gentile sections of the Church. There is certainly much to enforce a theory of that sort. The balance is held evenly between Peter and Paul; where one Apostle is represented as performing a miracle, the other is stated elsewhere to have worked one of a similar description. All runs smoothly at the Council of Jerusalem. Peter, in the episode of Cornelius, acknowledges the reception of the Gentiles; Paul, in the way of compromise, goes so far as to circumcise Timothy, and so on. The most serious objection against the Acts is its distinct contradiction of St. Paul's narrative of the events which succeeded his conversion during a long series of years. Here the plain statements of Paul in an Epistle to the Galatians, the authenticity of which is beyond dispute, must outweigh those of the unknown author of the Acts, and they are directly contradictory in all essential particulars. The hostility between the 'pillar' Apostles, as St. Paul somewhat disdainfully calls them in his epistle, and himself, never ceased, so far as we can gather, during the lifetime of the first dis

putants. Those who, as St. Paul says, seemed to be somewhat, whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me,' (Gal. ii. 6), 'who seemed to be pillars,' (v. 9), he distinctly mentions by name as James, Cephas (Peter) and John. Now

if St. John wrote the Apocalypse, there is abundance of evidence that St. Paul's disregard of the Apostolic school at Jerusalem was returned with interest. To Ephesus it is written, 'I have tried those which say they are Apostles, and are not, and have found them liars;' and to the Church at Smyrna : But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, and to eat things sacrificed to idols' (iii. 14). It is contended that these attacks were aimed particularly at St. Paul by the Judaizing section of the Church. In the Clementine Homilies there is a similar assault against the Apostle of the Gentiles scarcely disguised.' He is there represented under the name of Simon Magus, and St. Peter follows him from city to city,' for the purpose of denouncing and refuting his teaching.' Moreover he is not numbered with the Apostles in the Book of Revelations; they are still only twelve. We may add that our author enters into an elaborate comparison of the speeches placed in the mouths of Stephen, Peter and Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, and claims that they are of the same nature as those we find in Greek and Roman historians, i. e., efforts to reproduce what the writer supposed the speaker likely to say. Stress is particularly laid upon the dissimilarity in views and opinions between the St. Paul of the Acts, and the St. Paul of the Epistles.

The fifth part on the direct evidence for miracles deals with the Epistles and the Book of Revelations. Considerable space is devoted to Paul's treatment of the Charismata, or gifts of tongues, &c., but upon that branch of the subject, the reader must consult the work for himself. The rest of the volume (pp. 9711079) examines fully all the evidence for the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. There is nothing new in the exhibition of disagreements between the Gospel narratives; yet in Supernatural Religion it is made with conspicuous lucidity and acuteness. Yet, after all, the supreme fact that the reality of

those stupendous facts was firmly believed by all Christians from the first remains indisputable. That there should be circumstantial variations in the accounts handed down seems not only natural, but inevitable under the circumstances attending their composition. As against the advocates of verbal inspiration, our author's proofs are invincible; but they do not in the slightest degree invalidate the basis of Christianity as an historical religion, still less the inestimable morality and spirituality which form its distinctive and imperishable essence. Those who deny the possibility of a supernatural revelation, no matter what may be the strength of the evidence in its favour-and our author is one of them-need hardly trouble themselves about discrepancies in testimony which they have antecedently resolved to reject at all events. Failure of proof is a matter of little or no consequence, if one is convinced that no proof can avail to prove a given proposition. When the author of Supernatural Religion took his stand upon 'universal experience,' there was an end to satisfactory controversy regarding the authorship and contents of the sacred writings. It was natural, therefore, that as he began with Hume, having traversed the circle, he should end where he began with the crucial test of antecedent improbability.

Probably the last task undertaken was the worst. Myths, as Strauss urged, may grow, and if our Gospels were written a century or a century and a half after the events they record, there is abundant scope for the mythical theory; but the words of St. Paul are not so easily got over although our author wrestles with them valiantly. He admits that four of the Epistles attributed to Paul were undoubtedly written by him between twenty and thirty-five years after the crucifixion. These are those addressed to the Romans, the Corinthians, and the Galatians. There is no reasonable doubt that the five following epistles and the first to Timothy are genuine; the other pastorals are

open to some objection, and the letter to the Hebrews was certainly not written by St. Paul. Here then, so far as four Epistles are concerned, we are on secure ground, and from them may be gathered, although differently stated, the universal belief of the primitive Church that Jesus rose again and ascended from earth to heaven. The Apostle not only "received" it—a word upon which our author dwells somewhat unnecessarilybut asserted vehemently that he had himself seen Jesus in bodily form since His ascension. There is no mistaking the positiveness and force of statements like these: "Last of all He was seen by me also," and again, when he was vindicating his disputed claim to the dignity of the apostleship: "Have I not seen the Lord Jesus?" The fact may be disputed, and may be explained or dissolved into delusion, optical or cerebral; but that the apostle, in common with the evangelists and the entire body of early Christians, believed that Jesus rose from the dead is beyond all question; for we have the undisputed testimony of St. Paul upon that point.

Having thus cursorily glanced at the chief features of this elaborate work, we very sincerely recommend it to careful and earnest perusal. Those who have studied only the orthodox sidethe rather feeble apologists of theological colleges-will be astonished to learn how little the real difficulties of the case are exposed by their professorial mentors, or perhaps even known to them. A professor would do more real service to a

senior class in divinity, by taking Supernatural Religion, even for purposes of refutation, than by the hum-drum system which even yet treats the Scriptures as a book homogenous and complete, beginning with the creation, and ending with a curse upon any one who shall add to or take away, not from the particular "book of this prophecy," but from any of the books found between the two lids of the Bible. The times of such ignorance as this ought at all events to be past and gone for ever.