be so formed, as that the shapes of beauty and loveliness shall be everywhere the first to reveal themselves. His feelings may be so educated as that this discovered beauty shall make a ready and deep impression on them. He may, in short, be so trained as that the proper æsthetic influence shall be the controlling, the ever-present influence of his life. This may be, indeed, with nothing of the vitality of real virtue. He may have the form of godliness and know nothing of the power. But while this is supposable, it is yet hardly probable. The form invites the substance, as the substance seeks the form. The thirst for the beautiful and graceful, which has been awakened and strengthened into a permanent passion and habit, by the study of its forms in nature and in art, will urge, with an eagerness, which the will must be stubborn indeed to resist, to see it in the higher, purer, lovelier sphere of manners and morals. The divine image it has loved to contemplate, as reflected in the outer world, it will long to see directly realized and revealed in its own inner being. Not only will a proper æsthetic culture thus bring before the forming and developing soul, the reality of true and perfect virtue, as an assimilating and modelling power; not only will it exclude and forestall the occupation of the soul with gross sense; but it will furnish the external habits congenial to virtue, and suitable to become its embodiment, inviting the exertion of virtuous principle, and urging to it by all the power of an excited and confirmed love of true beauty and excellence.

In the present world, where the grosser sense so much predominates, and where pure virtue meets with hindrances and obstacles in every endeavor to express and expand itself, the distinct culture of the outward and formal seems indispensable to the highest moral perfection. It is a radical mistake to suppose that principle will, of itself, unaided, always secure an appropriate expression. It is not so with regard to any mere mechanical principle in any of the manual arts. The study of the manner is as essential to rapid progress, as the knowledge of the end, and the purpose and physical strength to accomplish it. A poetic thought, and a poetic impulse, will not secure a poetic product. There is needed a power to secure the form requisite the poetic body; and the mere poetic conception and impulse will not bring this power. The body is of sense; and until power is attained in the domain of sense, the very matter in which the form is wrought, and the poetic conception embodied, is beyond the control of the fashioning artist. Homer, assisted by all his gods, could never have embodied his divine Iliad in the language of a Hottentot. The body may be worthless without the indwelling soul. A specious art may sacrifice the substance to the form. Still the life must have its body, its appropriate body, or it has no reality in this present world. Both are needful; and each is indispensable THIRD SERIES, VOL. III. NO. 3.

11

to the perfection of the other. Virtue has a Herculean work, indeed, before it, to reduce the grossness of a besotted sensualist; to restore brightness to his dull eye, and elasticity and spring to his rigid limbs; to express itself in its appropriate form. How far more readily does principle enter the channels through which external purity, gentleness, kindness, and integrity, have habitually expressed themselves? Not that the forms of virtue should be taught or acquired before or without the substance, or the substance without the form, where there is freedom to inculcate both. But, unhappily, depraved man is totally averse to the substance of virtue; and, enchained in sense, must needs be reached by the form, and be captivated to virtue through the very sense that binds him. Herein appears the wisdom of the gospel system which redeems men, not by the abstract inculcation of the reality of, and abstract nature of, holiness, nor by a revelation of the divine to his mere speculative reason, but by "God manifest in the flesh."

A true æsthetic culture being thus beneficial, not to say indispensable, to the propagation and perfection of all virtue, it will be seen to be peculiarly necessary as a corrective and antidote to the evils which have been enumerated, as characterizing modern society.

The refined sensualism of the present day can be effectually met and overcome only by the revelation of true moral beauty to the excited sense. If the view we have taken be correct, then it would seem that the proper cure of this sensualism is by a decided, vigorous effort put forth into all the departments of Art, and extended to the early training, to fix the eye on real beauty; to elevate and enlighten the æsthetic sense, and turn it upon the only proper object in all æsthetics, true moral beauty. Thus the sensual tendencies of the times may, by being overruled and directed aright, be made subservient to a spiritual development and progress.

Thus, too, the commercial spirit of the age may be sanctified to a holy end; and its mission be made serviceable to true virtue. Let the wealth which it generates be applied to one of its proper objects or ends-the supply of æsthetic materials, of objects of taste; and let the same be at the same time æsthetically trained, so as to be capable of discerning in every form of beauty and grace the representation of moral excellence; let æsthetic principles and habits so predominate and rule in society, that the intercourse of man with man shall be under their control; and commerce shall work a work for the world that mammon never dreamt of,-which shall destroy its power for evil, and convert a threatening destroyer into a most efficient benefactor.

The absoluteness, the unchanging worth and true moral excellence of all true beauty, is the antidote, also, to that puling philanthropism so rife at the present time, which sees no deeper than the surface, and is ready to let every foundation of virtue and morals fall away, if it may only build up a wall against the spread of this

outside evil, and will spill the life-blood, if it may stanch a little purulent sore on the surface. Such short-sighted philanthropy, such superficial sentimentalism can be cured only by the inculcation of the true worth of the spirit as compared with the body, and by a discovery to it of the true seat and ground of all that is good, all that is lovely-true moral excellence, pure spiritual life.

The true æsthetic doctrine, moreover, is a corrective of the religious formalism of the times. It teaches, and more effectually than any abstract reasoning can teach, how absurd it is in rational man to rest in sense and show, when their office is only to reveal the spiritual and real. A true æsthetic experience, a cultivated and confirmed habit of reading in every form addressed to the outward sense, its spiritual import, will never be in danger of laying the foundations of its spiritual hopes and aims on shadowy sense.

ARTICLE VIII.

THE NARRATIVE OF THE SYROPHOENICIAN WOMAN.'

BY PROF. W. M. REYNOLDS, Gettysburgh, Pa.

"It

THE language of our Savior in his conversation with the Syrophonician woman, seems to me to admit of a more satisfactory explanation than I have ever yet seen given of it. Even Olshausen, in his commentary upon the passage, expresses himself thus: seems as though he who knew what is in man, should at once have helped this woman, as her faith could not have been unknown to him; and although he had his wise purposes, which induced him to confine his efforts to the Jews, yet in her case also (as he had done in others, compare Matt. 8: 10.) Jesus might have made an exception, without distressing her with harshness. In fact the harshness seems so severe, the bitterness so bitter, that it is difficult for the Christian heart to look upon this as a part of the lovely portraiture of the mild and merciful Son of man. Christian experience alone enables us to understand what is here stated."

This last remark is doubtless true; but no one knew better than Olshausen, that a "right understanding" of Christ is to be obtained only by taking his words in their highest, which is their proper import. We cannot agree, therefore, that it was the main design of our Savior here, as Barnes expresses the common idea, "to test her faith, and exhibit to the Apostles an example of the effect of

Matt. 15: 21-28. Mark 7: 24-30.

persevering supplication." These were indeed incidental results, as Olshausen beautifully developes them in the conclusion of his remarks, in loc. "As God himself is compared by the Savior to the unjust judge, who frequently refuses to listen to proper requests; as the Lord wrestles with Jacob at the ford of Jabbok, and thus makes him Israel; as he would kill Moses when interceding for his people; so faith often experiences that the heaven is brass, and seems to mock its petitions. Our Savior here proceeds in a similar manner. The withholding of his grace, the manifestation of a mode of dealing entirely different from that which the woman may at first have expected, operated as a dam does upon a mighty mass of water; the whole inward power of her living faith now burst forth, and the Savior allowed himself to be overcome, as the Lord had done in his contest with Jacob. In the mode in which Christ here answers a request for aid, we, therefore, see but another form of his love. Weakness of faith he meets by anticipation; from strong faith he stands aloof, in order to perfect it."

Whilst we are willing to take this statement as generally correct, we observe, that it does not meet the great difficulty, before alleged, of the apparent harshness in our Savior's language to this woman, whose humility was as deep as her faith was exalted. "God," we are told, "resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble;" and this was especially true of Jesus, in whom was exactly fulfilled that prophetic declaration,-" A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench;" so that when "he had opened the book" and read those words, "the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted," &c.; he could say, "this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." And all the people "bore him witness, and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth."4

I believe, therefore, that something further than has yet been given, is still wanting to exhibit the true import of our Savior's language to this poor and afflicted Canaanitish woman. This defect we think is supplied by the consideration, that it was his design to show both her, and his disciples, and all succeeding ages, who were the genuine children of Israel, and rightful heirs of all the promises and blessings of that kingdom of heaven which he came to establish upon earth. Taking this view of the case, we shall find but little difficulty in the interpretation of the passage.

Mark tells us (v. 24), that the Savior "wished no one to know" that he was in the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon, whither he had retired from the fury of Herod, and the persecutions of the Jews. Nor did he wish to make himself known to the Gentile

Luke 18: 3. Gen. 22: 24, et seq. 3 Exod. 4: 23. 4 Luke 4: 16–22.

inhabitants of that country, for the time for his manifestation unto the heathen had not yet come. As a general thing, they were not yet prepared to receive him. But "he could not be hid" from those who expected, longed for, sought after, and believed in him, as did this Greek who had heard of his fame and miracles, and believed that he was the "son of David," the long-promised Messiah, prophecies of whom, heathen writers tell us, had long pervaded the East, and would easily reach this country bordering upon Judea. Her faith stimulated by her necessities, her "daughter grievously vexed with a devil," 2 doubtless led her to pray for the appearance of this deliverer, this "star out of Jacob, and sceptre out of Israel," 3 and when it is revealed to her that he had actually come into her very neighborhood, she went forth at once (ovσα) in search of him, and with her petition already prepared, she publicly acknowledged his dignity and implored his assistance, "Have mercy on me, O Lord!"

The Savior's silence, and apparent indifference to this touching appeal, would both excite the Apostles' attention, and impress them more deeply with what was to follow. The woman is not discouraged. She sees compassion in that noble countenance, pity in that melting eye. She draws nearer, falls at his feet, worships him, and urges her suit with still greater earnestness. Even the Apostles, despite all their Jewish prejudices against the Gentiles, are moved; they also intercede for her; "Grant her request and send her away" (for so, with Kuinoel in loc. we understand the phrase, "лólvoor aur, non est simpliciter dimitte, imo majus quid involvit, auxilio tuo recreatam dimitte," is his apposite remark.) "For she crieth after us," in this connexion, does not indicate merely vexation, but rather sympathy.

Jesus never forgot in his own practice, the theory which he inculcated upon others. He had said, "give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine;" and when sending them forth to proclaim the coming of the kingdom of heaven, he had charged them, "go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." It is well known that the Jews considered all Gentile, heathen, or foreign nations as "dogs," deeply defiled, and utterly abominable in the sight of God, unfit to come into the congregation of the people of Jehovah here upon earth, and shut out from all hope of heaven. They, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were exclusively the people of God, and the sole objects of his care. Does our Savior sanction these narrow and fanatical ideas? Does he mean by "the house of Israel," the lineal descendants of that patriarch?

1 See the well known passage in Tacitus, Hist. v: 13.

2 Matt. 5: 22. 3 Numb. 24: 17. 4 Isaiah 42: 2.

Matt. 7: 6.6 Matt 10:5, 6.