THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

NOTES FROM THE ORIENTAL CONGRESS AT LEIDEN.

THE Sixth International Congress of Orientalists was held in Leiden, Sept. 10-15, 1883, and brought together more than two hundred scholars from various parts of the world. Probably no more successful meeting has been held since the first organization of the Congress at Paris, in 1873. According to a good custom, the management of the body was intrusted to a committee belonging to the country where the meeting was held; the officers were all from Leiden. Professor Kuenen was President, Professor Kern, Vice-president; the Secretaries were Professors De Goeje and Tiele, and among the other members of the committee were such well-known men as Land and Oort. It would be easy to speak at length about these gentlemen; and the tireless energy and unvarying courtesy with which they discharged their arduous duties cannot be too highly appreciated. The magistrates and citizens of Leiden, as well as the officials of the Hague and Amsterdam, joined with the representatives of Dutch learning in making the sojourn of so many strangers among them memorable for ceaseless and lavish hospitality.

The members came from near and far: Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Arabia, India, Ceylon, Java, America, all sent delegates, and there were members not in attendance from Servia, Algiers, Syria, and Japan. Holland was, naturally, more largely represented than any other country. Great Britain came next in order of numbers, and then France and Germany. The United States, with three members present, came far down the list, - at which, again, no one can be surprised.

Sight-seeing and feasting divided the time with the more serious work of the Congress; but though these pleasant things were of much interest at the time, they may be here passed over. For its real business the Congress was organized in five sections, the first of which was divided into two sub-sections. I. Shemitic section: (a.) Arabic; (b.) Other Shemitic languages. II. Aryan Section. III. Áfrican Section. IV. Section for Central and Eastern Asia. V. Malaysian and Polynesian Section. From the nature of the case, it was in the proceedings of Section I. that students of the Bible found the discussions in which they were most concerned. Section I., a, chose as its president M. Ch. Schefer, of Paris. The Vice-presidents were Professors Socin (Tübingen) and Goldziher (Buda-Pesth); the Secretaries, M. Guyard (Paris) and M. Snouck Hurgronje (Leiden). Section I., b, was officered by Professor Schrader (Berlin), President; Professors Robertson Smith (Cambridge) and Kautzsch (Tübingen), Vice-presidents; M. Carrière (Paris) and Mr. Rylands (London), Secretaries.

A few of the papers which were of value to Old Testament scholars may be mentioned. The first subject which occupied I., b, was the best method of editing the text of the Old Testament. The suggestions contained in Professor Oort's paper on this topic were simple, and related

chiefly to the disposition of various readings and emendations in the text and the margin, and the reason for noticing the matter here lies not in any special ability or judiciousness exhibited in the paper, but in the intrinsic importance of the subject itself. If there were any considerable mass of well-sifted and tested material ready to be edited into a critical Hebrew text of the Old Testament, then the considerations of Dr. Oort would be very well in place. But so long as this prerequisite is unfulfilled, the imperative need of a better text points in the direction of hard, patient, minute study of the documents upon which chief reliance must be placed in constructing it. These documents are the ancient versions. When we consider that we are only beginning to get a thoroughly prepared text even of the Septuagint, and that, for lack of encouragement, this is appearing without an apparatus criticus, it will be evident that years of unnoticed labor and unwearied comparison of results among workers in this field must precede any earnest attempt at a revision of the present Hebrew text. The emendations suggested in the exigency of his interpretation by this or that Old Testament exegete may be at times of value; but the work that clamors to be done in order to bring us as near to the original of the Old Testament as, thanks to an abundance of MSS. and generations of study, we have been brought to the original of the New, is a very different matter.

The variety of the topics discussed shows itself as we turn to a paper, read by Professor Tiele on the following day, on "The Goddess Ishtar." There is probably no man living who has thought so earnestly and written so powerfully on the history of the ethnic religions as Professor Tiele has done, and this brief paper contained a close and brilliant attempt to explain the Babylonian conception of Ishtar (y, Ashtoreth, Astarte) as a personification of the fruitful earth, and the mythological treatment of her hardships and triumphs in Babylonian poetry as at bottom an account of the fortunes of the earth, exposed to cold, darkness, and tempest, but emerging into the freshness and beauty of the spring.

Rev. J. N. Strassmaier (Widness, Lancashire, Eng.) gave an account of some Babylonian contract tablets which are preserved in the Museum at Liverpool. American scholars, who think chiefly of Liverpool as a place to arrive at and to leave, may be interested to hear of this new attraction in a city whose attractions are really not few.

Other papers in I., b, which deserve notice, but cannot be easily summarized here, were that by Professor Schlottmann (Halle) on the strophe in Hebrew poetry, those by Professor D. H. Müller (Vienna) on the broken plurals in the southern Shemitic languages, and on and ba in Sabean, that of Professor Oppert (Paris) on some new Babylonian inscriptions, those of M. Halévy (Paris) on " Assyrian Allography," a new attempt to prove his untenable theory that the Akkado-Sumerian language is only Shemitic Babylonian with a different system of characters, and on the Thamudite inscriptions; and in I., a, a paper by Professor Land (Leiden) on the Arabic Gamut, and a posthumous and unfinished paper by the late Professor Dozy (Leiden) on the religion of the Harranians.

Especial attention should be called to a carefully prepared essay by Dr. J. F. McCurdy (late of Princeton) on Permansive forms in Assyrian. Dr. McCurdy takes the ground—which he fortifies by ingenious argument and ample illustration that the Permansive or Perfect forms

of Assyrian are developed, not out of the participle, as seems at first more natural, but out of the infinitive. The correctness of this interesting opinion must be a matter for future discussion.

Section I., a, furnished a suggestive contribution to Shemitic study in a plea by Professor Landberg (Stockholm) for greater attention to the spoken language of the Bedouins in studying the classical Arabic. Professor Landberg has spent much time among the Bedouins, and had with him in Leiden Sheikh Amir al-Madani, from Medina. He has found a most striking similarity between the language which the Bedouins now speak, and the literary Arabic, and is convinced that the former throws much light upon the latter. The preservation of the classic language, through so many centuries, in the mouth of the denizens of the Arabian wilderness, is a very remarkable fact, which the isolation of these tribes can only in part explain. It is a new proof of the persistence of linguistic phenomena in the Shemitic race; it suggests the likeli hood that the spoken languages of the Hebrew and Assyrian peoples may not have differed very materially from the language of their documents, and it lessens from a new side the strain which is put upon belief by the view of those who still hold that the ancient Hebrew literature which is preserved to us covers a period of a thousand or twelve hundred years.

A single word, at least, seems to be due to Section III. (Africa), where Professor Lieblein (Christiania), and Dr. Golénischeff (St. Petersburg), presented communications not destitute of interest; the one especially for Biblical scholars, since it treated of the Egyptian religion; the other, for them in common with a wider circle, since in it the young Russian specialist discussed the origin of the alphabetic value of certain hieroglyphs. If, as is now generally not universally-held, the Phenician alphabet, and hence our own, was derived from the Egyptian hieratic, everything which bears on the appearance of germs of an alphabetic system within Egypt itself, claims attention from those who care for the origin of that process which we find it so hard to follow backward, but which has resulted in the culture of the Japhetic as well as the Shemitic race. In connection with this may be mentioned an animated discussion which took place in Section II. (Aryan) on the origin of the Indian (Sanskrit) alphabet. It was opened by a paper from Mr. Cust (London), deriving this alphabet from the Phenician.

It is perhaps evident from the foregoing remarks that while nothing of exceptional novelty was discussed at the Congress, there was plenty of material for solid and serious debate.

The general advantages of such a gathering cannot now be dwelt on. They are such as the opportunity for the interchange of views and mutual stimulus between scholars, who otherwise might never meet; the opportunity for combining scholars in great scientific undertakings, and giving forcible utterance to the wishes of thoughtful students; and, for the city and country where the meeting is held, a considerable permanent impression and valuable impetus resulting from the presence of a large body of finely trained and enthusiastic men, who come― - not to make money, nor to spend it, not to glorify themselves or congratulate each other, but. from a pure interest in language and literature and history, a genuine zeal in acquiring and imparting knowledge. It is these considerations which might well be emphasized, if we should ever have the prospect of entertaining the Oriental Congress in America.

Francis Brown.

STUDENTS' MISSIONARY SOCIETIES IN AMERICA AND GERMANY.1 THE fourth annual convention of the Inter-Seminary Missionary Alliance met in Hartford, Conn., October 25, 1883. Three hundred and forty-five delegates, representing nearly thirty seminaries, were in attend

ance.

Papers were read upon "Lessons from the History of Missions," "Moravian Missions," "Departments of Foreign Missionary Labor and their Requirements," "Needs and Methods of Western Frontier Work," and "How to Arouse and Maintain Missionary Interest in the Churches; and these subjects were discussed with a great deal of interest and spirit by the delegates. The actual work of missions was represented by several missionaries, who spoke of their fields, and of the difficulties and rewards of their labors.

Addresses were also made at the evening sessions by the Rev. A. J. Behrends, D. D., on "The Principle of Christian Missions; the Rev. Richard Newton, D. D., on "Paul, the Model Missionary;" Prof. A. A. Hodge, D. D., on "The Call to Foreign Missions."

On Sunday afternoon the Rev. L. T. Townsend, D. D., spoke on "Old Testament Types of Orthodoxy and Liberalism, Micaiah and Zedekiah," - a theme whose connection with the objects of the Alliance we are unable to divine; and in the evening the delegates and a large congregation were addressed by the Rev. A. J. Gordon, D. D., on "Preparation for Service."

This abstract of the proceedings can give no idea of the enthusiasm that was in the convention itself, and which reached its height perhaps in connection with the powerful personal application of the principle and duty of missions which Dr. Hodge made.

The results of such gatherings, the interest excited in them and carried back by the members to their seminaries, ought to be apparent at what is after all the critical point in the work of Missions at home and abroad, the supply of the right men in sufficient numbers. The Alliance is an agency at work in the right place. That the movement originated spontaneously among the students, and has been managed wholly by them, is encouraging. It is a hopeful sign that Foreign and Home Missions are regarded not as clashing interests, but as harmonious parts of one work. It is an indirect gain, which may some day be the direct gain of both Home and Foreign Missions, that a feeling of comradeship is developed among students of different denominations, and a disposition to treat denominational differences generously. Unless the writer is mistaken, it was the pretty strong feeling of the convention that if the young men directed what may be called denominational strategy, two or three Missionary Boards would not so often be contesting with one another the possession of a field too small to sustain more than one church, and that the waste of money, and the worse waste of men, would be stayed, if not stopped. These are hopeful things; we look for good to come of them.

There lies, however, in the very power of these conventions to rouse 1 Report of the Fourth Annual Convention of the American Inter-Seminary Missionary Alliance, Hartford, Conn., October 25, 1883. Über die akademischen Missionsvereine Deutschlands. Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, 1883, pp. 454–

461.

enthusiasm to a high pitch the danger that a certain class of men will be swept away by the current, without fairly measuring their own ability. The question, "Am I called to be a missionary," is but one form of the fundamental question, "Where can I be most useful." And this is a matter for the soundest and most deliberate judgment, taking into view all aptitudes and disabilities. The less the disturbing factor of feeling, especially of epidemic impulse, enters into this judgment, the fewer failures and disappointments there will be.

From this point of view, as well as from others, it seems to us to be a mistake, although no doubt it is made upon principle, that the men who alone almost have an expert knowledge of what is needed in the missionary as well as of the needs of the field, the history and methods of missions, the missionary secretaries and editors of the different churches — should not be asked to contribute of their knowledge. There need be no fear that such men would abuse the occasion in sectarian interests, and if the catholicity of spirit among the delegates is genuine there need be no fear of the suspicion.

From the statistical tables annexed to the Report of the proceedings of the convention we gather the following: There are connected with the alliance 52 seminaries and theological schools, 32 of which reported to the convention. In the 32 reporting seminaries there are 1707 students. Of the classes which graduated in 1883, 35 have entered, or are about to enter on foreign missionary work; 65 on home missions. These figures of course are only approximate, as the reports in this column are not complete.

The Report of the convention has been printed in very good form under the direction of Mr. C. H. Dickinson, of Yale Seminary, New Haven, Conn.

In connection with this Report, which brings before us the missionary activities of our American theological schools, it is interesting to read the account which Theo. F. Christlieb has recently given of the missionary societies in the German universities. Several of these missionary societies have been in existence for many years. (Berlin, e. g., since 1824; Halle, 1842; Bonn, 1849; Rostock, 1860; Leipzig and Tübingen, 1868.) Others have been founded more recently. The whole number is now twelve.

Within the last two or three years there has been encouraging advance both in the number of universities on the list and in the membership and activity of the societies. The whole number of members in the winter term, 1879-80, was 201; in the winter term, 1882-83, 410. The largest societies are at Halle (60), Leipzig (57), Göttingen (50). Berlin has thirty-two members; Breslau - the smallest

- nine.

By no means all the students of theology are connected with these societies. In Rostock the proportion is seventy-five per cent., Greifswald thirty-five per cent., Göttingen twenty-two per cent., while at Leipzig the proportion is only about eight per cent., and in Berlin seven. In Göttingen twenty per cent. of the members are from other departments of the University, but in most cases there are few, if any, but theological students. The societies at the different universities have no connection with one another. An alliance has been several times proposed, and the plan, including a constitution, annual meeting, prize essays, etc., but hitherto nothing has been accomplished in this direction.