ART. VII.-REVIEW OF THE BIBLE. A Review of the Bible, &c. London: Chapman. 1848. THIS is another of the multitudinous little tracts of Mr. Barker, whose followers have bestowed on him the designation of "The Evangelical Reformer." It is to our mind one of his best: it is well-timed. The rebound of Socialism has left an uncomfortable impression respecting the Bible on a number of the intelligent and well-conducted working-men of England. They cannot rid themselves of the conviction that all in Genesis is not scientifically true, nor all in Kings historically trustworthy. And yet they do not wish to be without a religion, and they cannot choose but venerate many portions of the Bible. The difficulty with them is here" Is this Book the word of God or is it not? If it is the Word of God it must be infallible, and we must receive it as absolutely and entirely true. If we cannot receive it thus, we cannot receive it at all, and it possesses over us no moral authority above any other book.” Mr. Barker steps forth to tell them in their own language that the Bible may contain the word of God, without being the word of God-that he "regards the Scriptures as of infinite value, and would do his utmost to preserve them to future ages," but that he is "far from regarding them as one whole piece of unbroken or unmingled truth." He receives "the leading religious and moral principles of the Bible ”—he regards them "with the utmost respect and reverence "—" he believes them to be in truth revelations from heaven. He believes the course of life which the leading precepts of the Bible inculcate, is the way to both peace on earth, and to happiness in heaven. He believes that in proportion as the great leading principles of religion and duty, unfolded and inculcated in the Bible, are understood and reduced to practice, will mankind become happy and prosperous, intelligent and godlike. دو He does not however believe that the world was made in six days-that man was created immortal, but that the temptation of a serpent made him mortal. He does not believe in an universal deluge, or the story of the ark. He does not believe that the conduct of Abraham was immaculate, or that all the sentiments in the Psalms are worthy. And thus he holds up the picture of a man, of pure and upright life, of sincere religious sentiment, and of a high and reverencing appreciation of the Bible, and of the good that it has done and is doing in the world-exercising nevertheless his judgment freely on the several portions of the Scripture, and refusing to receive the traditions of a remote antiquity,-the efforts of the early human mind to find out the origin of man and the origin of evil,—as absolutely infallible, and without any "mixture of error." The little work before us is plain, convincing and popular in its character. That the exact mind of the theological student will find it loose and unsatisfactory, it is perhaps therefore needless to add. There is a confusion throughout between fable, improbability, falsehood, interpolation, tradition, symbolism, imagery, poetry, and metaphysical speculation. The various passages commented upon, and which have their distinct place under some one of the above heads, and not under any of the others, are roughly classed almost indifferently under any of them. Notwithstanding these faults, which always more or less (and perhaps necessarily) attach to this writer's criticisms, there is a discriminatory vein running through the treatment of his subject which we are greatly pleased to see-a continual effort to guard against being misunderstood, and to maintain for the Scriptures their true worth, even while the writer's usual fearlessness and courage are evinced. The contemporaneousness of the appearance of the scholar-like work on the Hebrew Monarchy, reviewed in our present Number, and this honest, earnest, and popular little tract, is not without its instructiveness. Each in its way will be welcome, and has become necessary, to a considerable class of minds in this country: though there still exists the multitude, to which both will be painful, shocking and blasphemous. ART. VIII. THE CRISIS OF 1847, AND ITS - CAUSES. 1. The Rationale of the Currency Question, or the Plea of the Merchant and the Shareholder, for an improved System of National Banking. By Henry Booth. London. 2. Economist. 1847. CONSIDERING the frequency in this country of periods of severe commercial distress, it is a remarkable fact that opinion should still be so much divided as it is, with respect to the causes of their periodical occurrence. The fact is the more remarkable that the subject does not seem to be one of any peculiar difficulty. The circumstances that precede such periodical visitations are neither hidden nor remote, and are for the most part characterised by those broad, palpable features, which render it easy to observe and appreciate them. Indeed, in some cases the causes have been so apparent as to be pretty generally admitted, and in those cases where a complication of causes has been in simultaneous operation, it is perhaps chiefly upon the question of the comparative degrees of importance to be assigned to each particular cause, that controversy has arisen. Beginning with and including 1825, and ending with 1847, we have had five periods of severe commercial pressure, all, as it seems to us, mainly produced by one or other, or both, of two great causes; first, a failure in our crops; secondly, a sudden and extensive withdrawal of capital from the ordinary reproductive branches of industry, to be embarked in undertakings immediately unproductive, although of greater or less ultimate utility. The sole inducement to such extensive transfers of capital, has been the expectation of extraordinary profits (an expectation which, by the bye, has almost invariably been disappointed), and accordingly it has been a matter of accident whether the capital has been employed in our own, or gone forth to a foreign country. The disasters of 1825, and of 1837, were mainly produced by the second of these two great causes; those of 1839, and 1841-2, principally by the first; that of 1847 by a combination of the two. In 1825 we rushed into innumerable projects, wise and foolish, with the blind impetuosity of madmen; in 1837 we had lent our capital, with a fair prospect of a safe and profitable return, for the promotion of public works in America; but the resources of America, aided by European capital, were insufficient for their completion; the works were suspended, and American credit failed us. In 1839, and 1841-2, we had to contend with the accumulated effect of four consecutive bad harvests; in proof of which it is sufficient to state that, between the end of April 1838 and the end of April 1842, the price of wheat averaged 66s. 10d. per quarter, or 22s. 10d. per quarter above the average of the two abundant seasons of 1835 and 1836. In 1845-6 we have been doing, for the promotion of Railways in our own country, precisely what we did prior to 1837 for public works in America, and our means have been still more inadequate to our ends in the latter instance than they were in the former. In both cases the result has been failure and distress, aggravated in the present instance by a general and extraordinary scarcity of food throughout Europe. There is one most important difference, however, between these two great causes of national distress, viz. that the one arises from our own imprudence, whilst the other is absolutely inevitable by any exertion of human skill or prudence. For an ungenial season there is no remedy: and we must submit to it as best we may; but when we allow our spirit of commercial or industrial enterprise to run riot once every eight or ten years, we are indulging in a bad habit, peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon race, of which it is high time we should cure ourselves. Our fault is easily described. We attempt too much. We endeavour to perform with the spare capital of a few years, that which it would require the spare capital of many years to perform. We withdraw from our regular branches of industry enough to reduce them to a state of distress, but not enough to enable us to bring our new projects to a successful termination. We do, on a large scale, precisely what individuals of more energy than prudence so frequently do on a small scale: and we pay precisely the same penalty;-our regular business suffers, and our new project fails. It may not be useless, at this moment, when trade is beginning slowly to recover from the extreme prostration to which it has been brought, to bestow a few words upon each of the two great causes of commercial pressure above referred to. If we take experience as our guide, we shall find that bad harvests have almost invariably been followed by commercial distress. The years 1835, 1836, 1843, 1844, and 1845, were all years of commercial prosperity and of cheap and abundant food. The period from 1839 to 1842 (during which wheat scarcely ever fell in price below 60s., and was repeatedly at 75s. and 76s.) was one of almost constant distress; and towards the end of that period, the manufacturing population of the North of England were driven, by long continued want of employment and suffering, into an unparalleled state of disorganisation. Again, the severe crisis of 1847 has been immediately preceded by a great and general scarcity of food. If we set aside experience, and reason à priori from acknowledged principles, we shall arrive at precisely the same conclusion. The loss arising from a bad harvest is certain and irremediable. The productive industry of one year has nothing to support and maintain it, but the produce of the labour of the preceding year. If that produce has been large, it is evident that the condition of the labourer and his employer will be prosperous; if it has been small, that condition will be one of privation and distress. It is true that we may fill up the vacuum by importation from abroad, but importation will operate only as an alleviation, not as a complete cure, of the evil. In a good season we have an abundant supply raised exclusively from our own soil; in a bad season not only is our whole supply smaller, but a part of that smaller supply has been purchased for a valuable consideration. The value we have given to the foreigner in exchange for his corn is a positive irredeemable loss-it is the exact measure of one part of the injury we sustain by the failure of our crops. In the case of an individual, the sequence of cause and effect would be obvious enough. Suppose that, by my own labour, I am just able to supply myself with what I require of food and clothing:-If my crop should prove deficient, it is clear that I must either submit to a reduction in my usual allowance of food, or I must give up a part of my usual supply of clothing, in order to make good the deficiency in |