Europe, would be virtually shut out of the pale of European powers, and become essentially an Asiatic pation. And this contemplated European Congress under the lead of the Emperor Napoleon, finding the Emperor Alexander thoroughly intractable as to the interpretations put by the other great powers, upon the treaty of Vienna, which contains the only European recognition of any title in Russia, to any part of Poland; could only break up as a failure, or by another European act, cancel the former recognition of the Russian title, and begin a war that would probably last a century. The grand folly has been, for Europe to attempt to preserve the nationality of the Poles, without preserving the independence of Poland. We see before us the issue of such an experiment, after ninety years of inconceivable crime and misery. And now the Emperor Alexander, with his title of original conquest, and ninety years of holding, and European recognition when Europe had destroyed the first Napoleon; is hardly likely to be very seriously alarmed for his title, by the menaces of the Napoleon now reigning. The best commentary on his intentions, yet made public, is probably his fleet wintering on our coast, to avoid being frozen up in the Baltic during this critical winter. Now it is impossible for us to enter here into the merits of those vast questions. If we have succeeded in suggesting to our readers, in this, as in the preceding cases, some chief grounds of our convictions, or our conjectures; we have done all we could expect towards explaining our hope, that America, in her great trouble, is to be helped by the troubles both of her European friends and enemies. The state of Europe, produced by the Polish revolution, does not appear to us, to leave either France or England in a position, just now, to risk war with the United States, in aid of our insurgents; nor does the position of Russia allow her, to consent willingly to the destruction of the United States, in case that attempt is made. We reiterate, therefore, let us seize the respite, and subdue the insurgents.

It has not occurred, in the course of this paper, to speak separately of the great military operations, on land, much less to criticise any particular portion of them; nor to make separate mention of our powerful and rapidly increasing navy, nor of the enormous and constantly recurring injuries inflicted on our commerce by piratical vessels, built, fitted out, and virtually

owned in England, and roaming the high seas under a flag recog nized as national, by no nation in the world. Of the increase of our marine force, some idea may be formed, from the single fact that the fleet on the Mississippi and its tributaries, is said to have increased, within two years, from three vessels and about five hundred men, to a hundred vessels and many thousand men. We can not prolong this article, however, by entering now upon additional questions, of such extent and importance. Nor is it gracious, or quite appropriate, to close it with expressions of regret and disappointment. We have made it plain, we think, that an immense work has been done, and that the nation is able and resolved to finish it. We could make it quite as plain, we suppose, that the nation is restless at the delay, which it justly apprehends is not to be accounted for, by any shortcoming on its part, or any thing in the nature or extent of the work itself, when compared with the enormous force, preparation, and expense lavished on it. No degree of skill, courage or activity on the part of the insurgents, ought to exceed that on our own part; and certainly if that be so, the long delay in subduing them on land, and sweeping their half dozen pirates from the high seas, has already reached the utmost limit that is creditable to the Government, or safe to those it has entrusted with the means of commanding success. The inquest of the Republic will be fierce, as well as terrible, when wearied with the exhortation, Let us subdue the insurgents,-it suddenly lifts up the stern cry, Why have we not subdued the insurgents? To betray, to stultify, to trifle, to seduce, to deceive, a great nation to dishonor and shame, are crimes never forgiven.

ART. VII.-RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. Part I.

Abraham to Samuel. By ARTHUR PENRYN STANLEY, D. D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford, and Canon of Christ Church. With Maps and Plans. New York: Charles Scribner, 124 Grand Street. 1863.

DR. STANLEY has produced a work which combines uncommon excellences with marked defects. He is an accomplished historical scholar, has enjoyed the advantages of oriental travel, and possesses an imaginative and constructive mind: hence the excellences of these Lectures. He is, if so much may be said without offense, latitudinarian, or Broad Church, in his theology: hence their defects.

The celebrated French scholar, M. Renan, says of a visit which he made to Palestine: "The striking accords of the texts and the places, the marvelous harmony of the Gospel ideal with the country which served for its frame, were to me like a revelation. I had before my eyes a fifth Gospel, torn, but still legible, so that thence forward, through the medium of the narratives of Matthew and Mark, I have seen, instead of an abstract being, such as one would say never existed, a noble human figure, living and moving." The Holy Land made similar impressions on Dr. Stanley in relation to Old Testament history, and these impressions he has reproduced on his pages with a master's hand. The richest information, a true poetical genius, the widest sympathy with the past, and a power of vivid word-painting, contribute to the general effect. No other book, in the language, gives such reality to the scenes of sacred history, to the very persons and habits of its principal characters, to actual life in Egypt, in the wilderness and in the land of Canaan. The whole story, under his treatment, acquires the body and solidity of a real present experience.

M. Renan returned from Palestine to prepare a Life of Christ, in which the Master is represented as the grandest human being that ever appeared on earth, and nothing more; not divine, not superhuman, "either in mission or endowments." Dr. Stanley has not reached analogous conclusions respecting the Old Testament history; on the contrary, he accepts these scriptures as holding, within their compass, supernatural revelation, and concedes to Abraham, at least, the possession of a supernatural call. But he reduces both inspiration and the natural, too often, to their lowest terms. For example, he rejects the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Old Testament. "There may be," he says, "errors in chronology,-exaggerations in numbers-contradictions be

tween the different narratives. These may compel us to relinquish one or other of the numerous hypotheses which have been formed respecting the composition or the inspiration of the Old Testament. But as they would not destroy the value of other history, so they need not destroy the value of this history, because it relates to sacred subjects; or prevent us from making the very most of those portions of it which are undeniably historical;" etc. (Introd. xl.) Again, in a note, at the end of the volume, he says that the arithmetical errors which have been pointed out in the narrative of the Old Testament "are unquestionably inconsistent with the popular hypothesis of the uniform and undeviating accuracy of the Biblical History." He then gravely proposes a critical procedure, by which the "incredibility of one part of the narrative" of the exodus "becomes a direct argument in favor of the probability of the rest;" and suggests still further that we should extend to different parts of the Old Testament "the same laws of criticism which we apply to other histories, especially to Oriental histories." When it is remembered how large the allowance which must be made for the exaggerations and extravagances of "Oriental history" the rule is seen to be "broad" enough for Colenso, or even Ewald himself.

After the same example (sit venia verbo) of unbelief, he deals with the miracles of the Pentateuch: reducing them to the minimum. In treating of the ten plagues inflicted on Egypt, he speaks vaguely of the "proportion in which the natural and supernatural are mingled" (p. 131); and describes them as "the interventions of a Power above the power of man" (p. 132). But it is hard to tell whether he regards them as miracula or as mirabilia only; as true miracles or as remarkable interpositions of the Almighty, in the way of an overruling Providence. Whether, again, 600,000 armed men, according to Moses, or 600 armed men, according to Laborde, left Egypt, Dr. Stanley leaves "to the critical analysis of the text and the probabilities of the case." (p. 137.) He is equally cautious in committing himself on the question of the miraculous, in the passage of the Red Sea. It is one of those occasions on which "deliverance is brought about not by any human energy, but by causes beyond our own control. Such in Christian history, are the raising of the seige of Leyden and the overthrow of the Armada, and such above all was the passage of the Red Sea." (p. 145.) In the chapter on Israel in the Wilderness, he makes no mention of the Pillar of Cloud and of Fire, and so escapes the problem of the supernatural contained in that phenomenon. "In respect of the support of Israel in the wilderness, he observes that "we can not repudiate altogether the intervention of a Providence strange, unexpected and impressive in the highest degree, unless we are prepared to reject the whole story of the stay in the wilderness." (p. 161.) If the

author had qualified the word "Providence" with either of the adjectives "supernatural" or "miraculous" his statement would have lodged satisfaction, instead of doubt, as to his real sentiments, in the minds of some of his most thoughtful readers. In the graphic description which is given at pp. 256, 257, of the passage of the Jordan, the supernatural features of the transaction are fairly reproduced. But the author expresses with unusual confidence, the opinion that the arrest of the sun and moon, at the word of Joshua (x: 12) is to be taken in the popular and poetical sense, according to the "unanimous opinion of all German theologians of whatever school;" just as the expression "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera" is commonly understood. (p. 276, note.)

Nor is Dr. Stanley's treatment of Prophecy satisfactory. He divides the prophetic teaching into three parts, according to the three famous words of Bernard :-Respice, Aspice, Prospice; showing that the prophets were interpreters of the Divine Will respecting the past, the pres ent and the future. The first two of these parts are well handled, but the third, or predictive character of the prophet, is dwarfed into narrow dimensions. He states that "the Hebrew prophets made predictions concerning the fortunes of their own and other countries, which were unquestionably fulfilled. There can be no reasonable doubt, for example, that Amos foretold the captivity and return of Israel; and Michael the fall of Samaria; and Ezekiel the fall of Jerusalem; and Isaiah the fall of Tyre; and Jeremiah the limits of the captivity. (p. 517.) The exception to which this catalogue of fulfilled prophecies is liable is this:-it does not recognize several of the same class which are, perhaps, more striking than any here mentioned; as, for example, the prediction of Moses respecting the dispersion of the Jews, the predictions respecting Egypt, Moab, Babylon, etc. Dr. Stanley, on another page, introduces the Messianic prophecies; but the reader is left in wonder how an accomplished scholar, a preacher of the gospel and a man of genius, could make so little out of the very grandest themes of the Old Testament Scriptures.

There is very little theology, or profound religious philosophy, in these Lectures. As notable instances of a failure to apprehend the primal laws according to which sacred history unfolds the divine idea, it may be mentioned, briefly, that although Dr. S. treats professedly of the Jewish Church, irrespective of the Jewish State, he does not trace the development, through the ages, of the plan of salvation; and he sinks the covenants nearly out of sight. He contemplates the covenant of circumcision with the eye of a poet, and makes no mention whatever of the covenant at Sinai. How can the history of the Jewish Church be explicated in neglect of its fundamental laws and constitutions?