the same time. Agreed further to remit all other points on the subject brought before the conference to the committee, with instructions to consider the suggestions that have been made, and bring up a report with practical recommendations to the meeting of presbytery in February. Received a telegram stating that the Rev. Thomas Whitelaw had accepted the call from King Street. Appointed his induction to take place in Kilmarnock, on Thursday the 3d January 1878. Remitted circular from the Committee on Superintendence of Young Persons to a committee of presbytery, with instructions to take steps to carry out recommendations of Synod. Appointed next meeting to be held on the second Tuesday of February.

Paisley and Greenock. This presbytery met at Greenock on Tuesday, 4th December. Read extract minute of Home Board, that an annuity of £50 had been granted to Mr. Monteith. Read letter from Mr. Borland, declining the call to Renfrew. Appointed the induction of Mr. Alexander Duncan, in Roxburgh Street, on the 18th. A call to Mr. Alison, Cupar, from Alexandria, was sustained. Took up questions of which Mr. Macrae gave notice. It was carried by a majority that the whole matter be taken up in a committee of the whole house. When the presbytery resumed, the finding was that in point of procedure the presbytery do not admit the right of Mr. Macrae as a member of Court to move the presbytery in the form of questions, and they therefore refuse to entertain the questions. Also, strongly disapprove the tone of the questions, as well as the failing to obtemper the decisions of presbytery in March last. Recall his attention to this deliverance, and again enjoin him to give heed to the exhortations therein contained; and that he be admonished to this effect from the chair.

OBITUARY.

Died, at Horndean, on the 15th December, Rev. John Stark, in the 53d year of his age, and the 29th of his ministry.

BELMONT STREET CHURch, aberdeEN— CENTENARY SERVICES.

Services in connection with the centenary of this congregation were held on Sabbath, 11th November, when Dr. Logan Aikman, Glasgow, preached in the forenoon and evening. On Monday evening a service was held, the attendance being very large. Among the speakers were Principal Brown and Professor Salmond of the Free Church.

In connection with these services, Mr. Beatt, pastor of the congregation, read an interesting account of its history. Having adverted to the origin of the Secession Church, he said in reference to the beginning of the Belmont Street cause:

There were only 'seven,' it is said, to commence the cause-the sacred number. They were associated together as a 'praying society,'- -an institution which was peculiar to these times, and had been so for a hundred years previously. Over the whole of Scotland such societies had existed, and religious life had been cherished and strengthened, sometimes actually preserved, by them through the parishes of the land. These seven met in a hired room in the city during the week for prayer and Christian fellowship; and having membership in Craigdam congregation, eighteen miles distant, they joined there at least at the seasons of communion. Their increase was very slow, for 'Seceder' was a name of reproach then, and those who bore it had to endure a measure of persecution. There is a tradition that the Burgher Seceders required the presence of a town's officer at one period at their church-door to prevent disturbance, and that the Burgher minister could not appear on the streets even, without some Seceder of standing in the town with him. This 'praying society' may never have been thus disturbed, but the public feeling being such must have hindered its growth. However, there was a gradual increase, and the little company ultimately removed to a hall in the Spital, which, as far as audience went, is said to have been regularly crowded. In 1772, there is the first mention of this Praying Society in the records of the presbytery, and the mention occurs in connection with a petition for a supply of sermon, which was granted.

Twice in 1776, and once in the April of 1777, the society petitioned the presbytery, through the session of Craigdam, and

pressed their prayer to be congregated, but on all three occasions the request was virtually refused. The power of importunity, however, was known to these people, and before the latter year was out they were again before the presbytery. From the records we make the following interesting extract showing their success :

'Keith, 12th November 1777.-Entered upon the consideration of the reference from Craigdam and petition from Aberdeen, and, after a considerable time was spent upon the subject, a motion was made and agreed to, namely, That, as the people in Aberdeen have been for some time past, and presently are, insisting upon being disjoined from the congregation of Craigdam, and erected into a congregation by themselves, to be supplied with sermon by the presbytery; and as the session of Craigdam in their reference declared that they are all agreed in the expediency of said disjunction, the question now be put, Disjoin the people in Aberdeen who are presently under the inspection of the session of Craigdam from said session and congregation, and erect them into a congregation by themselves, to be supplied by sermon by the presbytery as they can overtake it, or not? This question being accordingly put as above, it was carried nemine contradicente, Disjoin and erect. Wherefore the presbytery did, and hereby do, disjoin the people in and about Aberdeen that are under the inspection of the session of Craigdam, from said session and congregation, and erect them into a congregation by themselves, to be supplied with sermon by the presbytery as they can overtake it.'

To complete this part of the history, we quote from a Ms. diary kept by James Aiken, shoemaker, who was a member and afterwards an elder of the church. This diary has been kindly lent me by Dr. Maitland Moir. James Aiken notes:'November 23d, 1777. - Mr. William

Brown, in the Spital Kirk, declared that to be a new congregation of the Seceders in and about Aberdeen.'

For two years thereafter worship was continued in the Spital, and then the congregation proceeded to build a church.

On the 2d April 1779, part of Caberstone Croft in Belmont Street was taken in feu. Before the same month was ended the building was in progress, and by the first Sabbath of November it was opened for public worship,—an expedition which shows there was energy among these people. No particulars exist as to the cost of this church; but though it could not have been great, considering the homely plainness of the structure, still, remembering the fewness of their numbers, such sacrifices were necessarily required as witness to the love these fathers had for the ordinances of the sanctuary. The first minister of the church was Michael Arthur, inducted 26th June 1782. The minister succeeding him was William M'Call, ordained 8th April 1789. The minister following him was John C. Brown, LL.D., inducted 24th April 1850. As grandson of Brown of Haddington, he came of good Secession lineage. After thirteen years in Belmont Street congregation, he returned to the Cape, on his appointment as a professor of botany. He has since been minister of a congregation in Berwick-on-Tweed, and now, as without a charge, he lives in Haddington. The present minister, David Beatt, was ordained on 18th April 1865. The old building was taken down in September 1867, and a new church was opened in January 1869, on the same site. cost was over £3000, which already has been nearly all defrayed. Considerable increase in the membership has taken place in recent years, and, with several other marks indicating progress which need not be here enumerated, the congregation may be described as very prosperous.

ART

PILATE'S QUESTION, 'WHENCE
THOU?' An Essay on the Personal
Claims asserted by Jesus Christ, and
how to account for them. By JOHN
KENNEDY, M.A., D.D., etc.

Edinburgh: David Douglas. 1877. LORD LYTTELTON's famous tractate 'On the Conversion of St. Paul,' has done good service to the cause of Christian truth; and its peculiar value consists mainly in its concentrating attention on one indisputable fact,—the fact, namely,

The

and shows, by a brief but comprehensive and exhaustive line of argument, that this fact stamps with equal indisputableness the truth of the claims which He thus asserted.

It has been very often remarked in an incidental way by Christian apologists, that the high admiration of the character of Jesus Christ, and of the morality taught by Him, which is frequently, indeed usually, professed by disbelievers in the divine origin and supernatural character of Christianity, is really on their part a flagrant self-contradiction; for Jesus Christ did more than inculcate and exemplify a singularly high and pure morality. Along with this, He claimed for Himself obedience and homage as divine, asserted equality and oneness with God His Father, and assumed the place and titles of the Old Testament Messiah; and it is obvious that to disallow the truth of these claims is to reduce this man of unblameable morality to the low level of a fanatic or impostor, chargeable with manifest untruthfulness in one or other of its various forms. In the hands of Parker, Renan, and many others of the same general type of belief, the character of Jesus Christ becomes an inextricable enigma,

-a man of the purest character, who constantly mingles with the loftiest moral teaching the assertion of falsehood, -a man most devout and reverential, who daily utters profanity and blasphemy, a man most humble and unselfish, who indulges habitually in the language of vain assumption and selfglorification, only to be saved from being stamped as daringly impious by being relegated to the region of the absurd and the nonsensical.

This is the argument which Dr. Kennedy developes. His treatise consists of two parts, the one containing an exposition of what it was that Christ claimed, the other the argument based. on this foundation. The latter, which naturally occupies the larger portion of the work, takes account of the various methods which may be or have been resorted to by way of explaining these extraordinary claims. Two main hypotheses are taken up and disposed of,-1. That which assumes conscious dishonesty in a greater or less degree; 2. That which assumes that the claims put into the mouth of Christ originated in a later age. Having tried and found wanting

both hypotheses, he comes to the only other, viz. that which declares the claims asserted by Christ to be original and true, and in an elaborate discussion shows how this supposition meets and accounts for all the peculiarities of the case. The argument is conducted with all Dr. Kennedy's well-known learning, eloquence, and logical precision, and we shall be disappointed if the book does not speedily take rank among the standard works in Christian apologetics.

ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL DESCRIBED AND EXPLAINED ACCORDING TO ITS PECULIAR CHARACTER.

By C. E. LUTHARDT, Professor of Theology at Leipzig. Translated by C. R. GREGORY, Ph.D., Leipzig. Vol. II.

COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN ; WITH A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. Translated from the second French Edition of F. GODET, D.D., Professor of Theology, Neuchatel, by S. TAYLOR and M. D. CUSIN. Vol. III. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1877. THESE two new volumes of the Messrs. Clark's Foreign Theological Library form a welcome Christmas boon to the students of the Apostle John and of the New Testament. The work of Dr. Godet is now complete in its English dress; and this second volume of Professor Luthardt extends from chapter ii. ver. 12, to the end of chapter xi. Both works are admirable, and may be said to be equally valuable. Both are thorough in investigation, resolute in encountering difficulties, and honest and earnest in tracking out the truth. Both, likewise, are characterized by reverent treatment of the divine word, by evangelical principle and spirituality of sentiment. But though much alike, they are at the same time quite independent, and in some respects very unlike; and the difference between them is

perhaps sufficiently indicated by saying that the one is German and the other is French. Godet is probably calculated to be the more popular. The style is more lively and interesting, the translation is couched in more easy and flowing English, and doubtless also his work is in a pre-eminent degree suggestive and original. At the same time, the author has his special weakness, and it is nearly related to this point of preeminence. In the straining after ori

ginality he not unfrequently 'falls on the other side,' and degenerates into exaggeration and artificiality. We find instances of this in the volume before us, at p. 20, in the explanation of Christ's indignation or 'shuddering' at the grave of Lazarus; at p. 275, in reference to the blood and water from the Saviour's side; and at p. 357, where is reproduced, though hesitatingly, his strange idea that the Apostle John has been exempted from death, and survives in the body in an inconceivable manner, after the example of Enoch and Elias. This over-straining Luthardt avoids; and hence, if more arid and less interesting, his work is on the whole more sound, judicious, and reliable. We turned with interest to his explanation of Christ's words (chap. v. 17), 'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,' of which the ordinary view, as found, e.g., in Trench and Alford, has long appeared to us inadequate and erroneous. We were pleased to find that what seems to us the true significance of the language is here clearly set forth. All the action of God since the creation, or rather since the Sabbath of God which concluded the creation, is essentially related only to Christ and His work; therefore it is of a salvation-bringing, a redeeming kind. In this sense, then, Jesus speaks these words. The redemptive working and executing God's saving will still continues, and is not yet at an end. Its Sabbath has not yet come.' In Godet's exposition of the verse we find another example of his besetting sin as a commentator,-of straining after novelty, which leads him, after objecting to Luthardt's explanation, and by a very roundabout process, to an almost identical result:- 'The subject in question here is the work of salvation and the moral education of the human race. This divine work has for its basis the very cessation of God

from His creative work in nature.'

We regard both books as indispensable to thorough students of the Bible; and when the next and concluding volume of Luthardt is published, English readers will have in their possession a very complete thesaurus on the Fourth Gospel.

MESSRS. OLIPHANT & CO.'S CHRISTMAS PUBLICATIONS FOR THE YOUNG. 1877.

(1.) HEROES OF DISCOVERY: Livingstone, Franklin, Park, Cook, Magellan. By SAMUEL MOSSMAN. New Edition, with Portraits.

THIS is a very handsome volume; and as it recounts in a clear, vigorous, and interesting manner the chief adventures of those great heroes of discovery whose names are given, it is sure to be very popular with young men.

(2.) POLLY WYATT; or, Virtue its own Reward.

A pleasantly-told story, illustrating the truth that life is a discipline, and consists in something better than the abundance of temporal possessions.

(3.) THE LITTLE SAND BOY; or, Who is best off? A True Story, from the German of ОTHLIE WILDERMUTH.

This story is a fresh and vigorous delineation of character, and shows how a boy possessing mental power and moral purpose, even though born in unfortunate circumstances, is sure to excel. (4.) FRED THE APPRENTICE, translated and adapted by Mrs. CAMPBELL OVEREND,

Is also a book for boys, and urges to habits of self-restraint, industry, and integrity.

(5.) THE FIRST PRINTER'S EARLY Days Gives an interesting glimpse in connection with the life of Gutenberg, of the origin and early history of the art of printing, and will prove informatory as well as attractive.

(6.) MISS TROUBLE - THE HOUSE AND HER ADVENTURES, by SARAH M. S. CLARKE,

Is a very lively and racy story, full of innocent merriment, and,, with a true appreciation of child-life, shows what even a child may do in making or marring the happiness of others.

(7.) GIDEON BROWN: A True Story of

the Covenant, and of the Persecution in Scotland, as related by himself. Edited by CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D. Dr. Mackay, in his prefatory remarks to this story, which originally appeared in the pages of a well-known magazine, says: It attracted much attention at the time for its truthful pictures of a

stormy period in Scottish history.' The times of the Covenant still possess a peculiar charm for the people of Scotland; and while this narrative will enlist the interest of boys, it will also be read with profit by their seniors.

(8.) BLACK_HARRY; or, Lost in the Bush. By ROBERT RICHARDSON.

A book after a boy's own heart. In a simple and natural way Mr. Richardson describes the adventures of two boys who were lost in the bush, and who were recovered through the sagacity and perseverance of a noble-hearted negro, whom, with youthful love of mischief, they had often taken pleasure in teasing, but whose worth they came thoroughly to appreciate. To this is appended a little story, 'Joe Wilmot,' which

shows that even a boy's life can be happy, only when it is in harmony with

the word of God.

These eight volumes, with their beautiful illustrations and admirable teaching, form a small library which young people will greatly prize, and from the perusal of which they may derive much profit as well as pleasure.

THE PRESBYTERIAN MONTHLY: A Review of Biblical Literature and the Church Aspects of Public Questions. No. 1. November 1877.

Edinburgh: Published at the office of The Presbyterian Monthly.

Ir a journal were to call itself The British Empire, and were only to represent the views of a very infinitesimal part of the population residing in an obscure corner of said empire, it would justly be thought to have erred in choosing its title.

Into an error of this kind The Presbyterian Monthly evidently has fallen, for, in so far as it has a specialty, it represents only the opinions of a narrow section of the great Presbyterian Church.

Its animus and purpose may be gathered from the following extract from a paper entitled 'At Sea :'-'The learned men to whom the Free Church was entitled to look for guidance in dark and cloudy days have given her We assume that the days have a dark and cloudy look. "Not at all," they say, we are only at sea. ."" Possibly they and we mean much the same thing; but whether it be so or not,

none.

66

6

every one knows that the Church gave them places and honours and power; she put them in offices of trust, expecting that they would keep a good lookout for storms and rocks, and all dangers. With trustful simplicity she allowed them to go their own way, and to do their own liking, teaching as they listed, without fear or suspicion from her. But when she is in the midst of danger, or thinks she is, where are these trusted guides? With the utmost frankness they tell us they are "in perplexity, and want time to make up their minds."' BOB: SOME CHAPTERS OF HIS EARLY LIFE. By Rev. ALEXANDER MACLEOD, D.D., Birkenhead.

manner.

This little story is in his happiest It has a pathos of its own, but, as told by Dr. Macleod, it is exceedingly touching. It tells of the trials and triumphs, ay, and of the sins too, of a gifted and noble youth, who, by the force of his character and the exercise of his art, rose from the humblest position to one of honour. Whilst it is written in the interests of temperance, it enforces other virtues also, and should be circulated by thousands.

TIYO SOGA: A Page of South African Mission Work. By Rev. JOHN CHALMERS, of the United Presbyterian Church, Caffraria.

Edinburgh Andrew Elliot. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1877.

Nor a few of the ministers of our Church who were in its Divinity Hall nearly a quarter of a century ago, remember their sable fellow-student of that time, Tiyo Soga. Mr. Soga would have been interesting on account of his high character and excellent gifts had he been as one of ourselves, but the fact that he was of a coloured and heathen race invested him with peculiar interest. Great things were expected of him as a missionary amongst his countrymen, and these expectations were realized during his too brief but bright career. It brought sorrow to many a heart when