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reunion between the chief sections of Protestantism met with a much more successful issue. The Lutheran and the Reformed types of ecclesiasticism received from their founders such a crystalized "bent,” such a rigid selfconsistency, that they could not be made to melt into one. Having once become confessionally distinct, they had each such a positive individuality that no union could take place between them which would not be simply the death of one of the parties. So also with the Anglican church. All the overtures which it has made, both a century ago and in the present, toward a reunion of its Methodist branch with the parent trunk, have been simply propositions toward absorption. They have necessarily failed.

But what of the quite recent efforts of the old Catholics? What is the probable significance of the efforts at Bonn towards the establishment of intercommunion between the Anglican church and the great Oriental church by the mediation of the old Catholics? According to Dr. Joss these efforts, these negotiations, have a higher significance than some Protestants are inclined to give them. In the first place, they are efforts of a peculiar kind. They aim not at organic union, but simply at interrecognition, culminating in intercommunion. They look simply toward the concession and admission of the Catholic Christian churchhood of each by the others. Each church is to preserve its confessional identity, but it is to rise above its excommunicating self-seclusion, and to extend to the other the hand of fraternal recognition. But what is the anticipated benefit from this? It is only a vague benefit, but yet a very positive one. It is this: the gradual reawakening of the slumbering Oriental church to a vitally Christian life. Now if this end can only be realized even in the least degree, all will admit the momentousness of the good thereby accomplished. For the existence of the Oriental church is in itself a stupendous fact. And it will, apparently, continue to be such a momentous fact for ages and ages to come. For weal or for woe, the Oriental church has held its place in the past, and will do so in the future. It is thoroughly seated in the heart, in the habits, and national prejudices of compact millions of population. No evangelistic tide will suddenly sweep through it, regenerating it in the Protestant sense, or overturning it as an effete and dead scaffolding. If, therefore, the old Catholics can attain to orthodox recognition from the Orientals, and can serve as a medium to bring zealous, wide-awake, highchurch Anglicans into inter-communion with them also, certainly all friends of humanity will bid them God-speed. For thus the cold heart of the great Orient will, to some extent, be brought under the influence of unquestionably evangelical influence. And what if the eastern half of Catholicism should thus become at last thoroughly regenerated!

But, as a non-episcopal clergyman, Dr. Joss does not find the main hope of the church of the future in this approximation towards organic reunion between old churches once confessionally dissevered, He does not hope for organic reunion, nor even think it desirable. He rather

inclines to the opinion that even as each nation, each tribe, each class of peculiar temperaments in society, form severally so many legitimate and even desirable phases in the one common humanity, so there may and should be a particular church corresponding to the several national and social peculiarities of the various groups of mankind.

But are we, then, to give up all hope of Christian unity in the millenial future? By no means. There will be unity. But it will be a unity amid diversity. It will be a fraternal unity that concedes to the brother the right to differ. It will be a unity of love; hence it will be a unity that intercommunes. Before this Christian love, the bars of sacerdotal excommunication will fall away; the narrowness of close communion and of mutual rivalry and jealousy will be swept away as darkness before light.

In a word, the true reunion of churches in the future will not be an organic reunion, but a union of hearts in the sense of a liberally and wisely-guided Evangelical Alliance. The several churches now existing, and perhaps others yet to be formed, will heartily give to each other the hand of Christian recognition, will join each other at the Lord's table, and will turn a united front against the kingdom of darkness; but will, at the same time, be permitted to retain, unmolested, their several peculiarities of ritual and creed, of forms and ceremonies. Such is the author's ideal of church union in the future. Is it not the true one?

ARTICLE IX.

NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS. In Two Parts: on Early Civilisations; on Ethnic Affinities, etc. By George Rawlinson, M.A., Camden Professor of Ancient History, Oxford, and Canon of Canterbury; Author of the "Four Great Monarchies," etc. 12mo. pp. 272. New York: Scribner, Welford, and Armstrong. 1878.

Canon Rawlinson stated, in the " Aids to Faith," sixteen years ago: "There is really not a pretence for saying that recent discoveries in the field of history, monumental or other, have made the acceptance of the Mosaic narrative in its plain and literal sense any more difficult now than in the days of Bossuet or Stillingfleet" (Preface, p. iv). In opposition to this statement it has been confidently said that there was a settled monarchy in Egypt at least five thousand years before Christ. Mr. Rawlinson attempts to prove, in the first part of the present volume, that there is no sufficient evidence of a settled monarchy in Egypt until B.C. 2450, nor in Babylon until B.C. 2300; that the earliest traces of civilization in Asia Minor are found in B.C. 2000. It has been said also in reply to Canon

Rawlinson, that man was originally an absolute savage, and a hundred thousand years must have elapsed from the commencement of his existence until his development into his present civilized condition. Canon Rawlinson here endeavors to show that the primitive state of man was "very remote indeed from savagery," and contained "many of the elements of what are now termed civilization."

In the second part of the volume the author comments on the tenth chapter of Genesis, and, after elaborately considering the genealogical statements in the chapter, he says: "It has been shown that in no respect is there any contradiction between the teaching of the modern science of ethnology and this venerable record. On the contrary, the record, rightly interpreted, completely harmonizes with the science, and not only so, but even anticipates many of the most curious and remarkable of the discoveries which ethnology has made in comparatively recent times" (p. 252). These essays on the ethnology of Genesis are designed to disprove the theory "that while the writers of Scripture are to be held as infallible guides in whatever relates to religion and morality, in all other matters they are to be considered as simply on a par with other men, equally limited in their knowledge, equally liable to error, not a whit superior to their contemporaries, or in advance of their age" (Preface, p. v). The author strives to refute this theory, and to defend a higher and (as he believes) "a truer theory of inspiration-the theory most in accordance with the apostle's words, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.' Origen's argument has always seemed to him sound that if in the material world God has wrought every minutest part to a finish and a perfection the highest that it is possible to conceive, much more is it to be believed that in the far more important treasure of his word he has left nothing incomplete, but has given to every jot and tittle his full care, the utmost perfection of which it was capable, so that the whole is designed, and is the utterance to man of absolute wisdom" (Preface, pp. v, vi). While we think that some of the author's statements are over confident, we regard the work as rich in historical statements and remarkably ingenious in reasoning.

HISTORY OF THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER IN AMERICA. By Henry Wilson. 3 Vols. 8vo. pp. 670, 720, 774. Fifth Edition. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company. 1878.

The original plan of Vice-President Wilson, in giving to the world a history of the slave power in America, was to present little more than a Congressional History of the Rebellion and the Civil War. This history was to be founded on two previous volumes which he had published, entitled "Anti-slavery Measures of Congress," and "Reconstruction Acts." The history was to be preceded by an essay on slavery, its connection with, and bearing upon, the government. It was to be comprised in twc

volumes of moderate size; the essay occupying the first half of the first volume. This plan was afterward so far modified that the work has reached three massive volumes; and the subject of American slavery, instead of being a prefix to a mere chronicle of events and congressional proceedings, has been made the controlling topic of the whole work.

Mr. Wilson had some remarkable qualifications for preparing the history of slavery in the United States. His knowledge of the facts and personnel of American history was very extensive; he was familiar with the current politics and statesmanship of the country; he took an early and long continued interest in the "Irrepressible Conflict" between slavery and freedom. He was emphatically a man of affairs; he had sound sense and an honest heart. His own character and history qualified him to make the present narrative both accurate and life-like.

Mr. Wilson was aided in the preparation of these volumes by the Rev. Samuel Hunt, a successor of the celebrated Dr. Emmons in the pastorate at Franklin, Mass., and afterward the Congregational pastor at Natick. Here he became intimately connected with Mr. Wilson, thoroughly acquainted with his habits of thought, his political and literary plans. Mr. Hunt has enjoyed a high reputation as a faithful pastor, a diligent student of history, and a careful writer. Engaged as Mr. Wilson was in the multifarious duties of a Senator, Vice-President, and acknowledged leader of the republican party, he needed a coadjutor whom he could trust as a man of acute mind, patient in research, and painstaking in literary composition.

Every sentence in the first two volumes of the work was read to Mr. Wilson, and received his full sanction. The third volume, however, was not finished when the Vice-President was called from life. The final revision of it was committed to Mr. Hunt, and may doubtless he regarded as a fair representative of the views of Mr. Wilson even in the minutest particulars. We have reason to rejoice that the opinions of the VicePresident, his feelings and purposes, had been so fully and frequently expressed to Mr. Hunt, that the last volume of the work may command as much confidence as the preceding volumes.

The entire work contains two thousand one hundred and sixty-four pages; it abounds in interesting details, and vivid statements of political and ethical principles. It contains many passages of thrilling eloquence. It is the eloquence of facts, of strong convictions, of Christian sentiment. Clergymen ought to be familiar with the work. They will find in it numerous illustrations of biblical truth. It ought to be in the library of every American scholar and patriot.

No bistorian can always avoid the improper use of the definite article. Mr. Wilson says that "the Professsors of Harvard College and Andover Theological Seminary headed a paper "- thanking Mr. Webster "with fulsome flattery for" his speech of March 7, 1850. The first word of the above quotation makes the sentence inaccurate.

THE LEVITICAL PRIESTS: A Contribution to the Criticism of the Pentateuch. By Samuel Ives Curtiss, Jr., Doctor of Philosophy, Leipzig. With a Preface by Professor Franz Delitzsch, D.D. 12mo, pp. xxix, 254. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark; Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus.

1877.

The latest form of criticism on the Pentateuch maintains that the eleva tion of the Aaronic priesthood above the Levites in general, was the work of the Elohistic legislation, of which Ezra was the probable author, or Ezekiel and Ezra were the co-authors; that accordingly "the Elohistic Thorah which comprises the main portion of the middle books of the Pentateuch is post-exilic"; that "the claim that God revealed these laws to Moses is only made to give them an authentic character, and is a fiction, as well as the history of the consecration of Aaron (Lev. viii.) and of the Levites (Num. viii.), and entirely without historical worth." Dr. Kuenen supposes that the Book of Deuteronomy was written as late as the year 625 B.C., perhaps by Hilkiah, "as a reform programme, and was foisted upon Moses, although he was in no respect the author of it; nor does the material rest upon a reliable Mosaic tradition."

In opposition to this theory of Dr. Kuenen and others, the aim of this volume is to show that the biblical history of the Israelites presupposes such a distinction between the priests and the Levites as reached back to the times of Moses; the post-exilic books give no evidence that the priestly hierarchy was introduced in the time of Ezra; the Book of Deuteronomy, while assigning certain religious privileges to the whole tribe of Levi, yet assigns peculiar and distinguished privileges to the Aaronic priests; the arguments against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch are inconclusive and fallacious.

Dr. Curtiss deserves much praise for his original investigations of ancient manuscripts, and for his zeal in defending the authenticity of the Pentateuch. His zeal leads him to make incautious remarks here and there. He speaks of Christians as those "who have experienced the miracle of the new birth" (p. 5). He occasionally betrays a degree of feeling which tends to excite a suspicion in regard to his logic even when the logic is sound. He has been very wise in selecting the present as the time of publishing his work; for it has intimate relations with the controversies now pending in the Free Church of Scotland.

THE FINAL PHILOSOPHY; or, System of Perfectible Knowledge issuing from the Harmony of Science and Religion. By Charles Woodruff Shields, D.D., Professor in Princeton College, Member of the American Philosophical Society. 8vo. pp. 609. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Company. 1877.

The aim of this work is a good one, the execution not so good. The volume states various divergences of science from religion, but fails to

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