And many people will, we are persuaded, feel that it is a position of some awkwardness. We must frankly admit that we do not feel this awkwardness. There are difficulties of the same kind in the New Testament, which have never been satisfactorily solved. It is probable some of these will hereafter admit of a better solution than we venture to hope for in the case of the Mosaic numbers. The true reply is, that difficulties need not cause any uneasiness to one who is satisfied that the truth of the narrative rests on substantial grounds of evidence. Let us take a somewhat similar case; there are many logical puzzles that ordinary people cannot see their way through. For instance, the celebrated case commonly known by the name of Achilles and the Tortoise.' People of the commonest intelligence can understand the difficulty; that is, they can see that it seems logically proved that Achilles will never overtake the tortoise; but it requires both more knowledge and more acuteness than most people possess, to expose the fallacy. By far the greater number of people who hear the difficulty proposed give it up at once, and many will believe that there is no solution that can be given. Coleridge gave a most ridiculous explanation of it, and one which any person of logical mind must have felt to be most unsatisfactory. We think the Archbishop of Dublin quite failed to grasp the real solution, or he never could have spoken of it as he does in his Elements of Logic.' But what we are concerned with now is, that few persons are capable of completely understanding the true answer, which is, however, perfectly easy to an arithmetician and geometrician, such as Dr. Colenso is; yet they cannot disbelieve the real truth of the case, if they would. Now, the cases are parallel, with this exception, that people are not under the same inability to disbelieve the Mosaic narrative as they are a problem of motion, in which they can apply the practical rule of solvitur ambulando. The mass of people must acquiesce in a multitude of unsolved difficulties; and if it be replied, that nobody denies that, but that it is sufficient that they should know that some one can meet these difficulties, and overcome them, we answer, let such persons wait and see what those who may be expected to solve all such difficulties say about them. Meanwhile, let them not be uneasy at the prospect before them; and if they feel so inclined, let them satisfy their minds as to the general argument upon which the evidence for the Mosaic history rests. At the risk of plagiarising from Leslie's tract, we may give a brief account of the historical evidence for the Exodus. It will not be denied that it was received as true at some time or other in Jewish history. We need not care about what supposition we make as to the period. Fix upon the time of one of the Judges, or the reign of Saul, or that of Hezekiah. It does not

6

matter, for the argument's sake, which we take. Well, then, when first the work was known, it assured the Jewish people that they were annually celebrating the passover in commemoration of their deliverance from the land of Egypt. But if this book was a fiction, it would at once have been rejected as such. It could not have been accepted, because people would have said: We have no such thing as a feast of passover, which we have been keeping. The coming out of Egypt may be true or 'false; but we are not going to adopt, as our national history, ' a book which tells us that we have, from that time to this, annually celebrated a feast of which we never heard before.' The Jews, then, must have been at this particular time observing the passover in commemoration of the delivery from Egypt. The force of this argument is multiplied a thousand times, if other institutions alluded to in the books of Moses be taken into account. Any one who will consider this must see that the Mosaic account could not but be true as to its main particulars. And if it be objected that this does not prove anything as to the particular numbers objected to by the Bishop of Natal, we reply that it at least amply refutes his absurd assertions, resting on no shadow of evidence, other than numerical difficulties, that the narrative of the Pentateuch is in its character unhistorical.

And here again we would have paused, but we should give so very imperfect an idea of the unblushing effrontery of this volume if we neglected to notice the concluding remarks, that we must trespass on the reader's patience a little longer.

We gather from the last chapter that the writer means to continue his work in the constructive line. He fancies that he has destroyed the credit of the Mosaic narrative, and means to continue his investigations in the direction of discussing the manner and the age, or ages, in which the books of Moses and of Joshua were composed. Meanwhile, Dr. Colenso is anxious to fill up the aching void, which will, he thinks, undoubtedly be felt by those persons whose faith is in danger of collapsing as they find the foundations on which it rested failing them. The author need not, we think, have been so very anxious on this point. Unless the agitation is kept alive by prosecutions, which it may, however, be very desirable to commence, he may rest assured that his book will be a kind of nine days' wonder. Few persons will be found to read it or talk about it in six months' time, and to these it will be but a meagre kind of consolation to be referred to the author's 'lately-published "Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans." Meanwhile, it may be worth the while of all persons to consider what deference they ought to pay to the judgment of a bishop who tells us, that he should have felt no scruple in ordaining a native candidate for orders without

requiring him to utter such a falsehood as the law of the Church of England requires-viz., the declaration of unfeigned belief in the Canonical Scriptures,-who holds his own commission by virtue of such declaration on his own part, and who, to complete the preposterous absurdity of his position, contradicts himself by asserting, in the very same volume, that he is not aware of any breach of the law of the Church of England involved in the denial of such belief.

The remainder of the concluding chapter is occupied with various remarks, in which the question of Inspiration and its limits, is hopelessly confused with that of historical truth; and the book ends with two quotations from Eastern authors who knew nothing of the Pentateuch or the Bible, in which the author appears to intend to do battle with an imaginary combatant, who is supposed to deny that God's Inspiration ever flowed through any other channel than the works of Jewish prophets, and the only object of which, in the connexion in which they stand, is to exalt heathen inspiration at the expense and to the disparagement of the revelation vouchsafed to Moses.

256

NOTICE S.

MR. JOSEPH M'CAUL has contributed to the Record newspaper, and published in a separate form, a 'Criticism of Bishop Colenso's Criticism' (Wertheim). It is a useful contribution to the literature of the subject, and Mr. M'Caul's Hebrew learning is supported by the testimonies of living Jewish scholars. We wish Mr. M'Caul would not think it necessary to be funny. Hebrew is, but humour is not, his strong point. The pamphlet is quite worth reading, though it is rather spoiled by its fragmentary character.

Sir Roundell Palmer's book, 'The Book of Praise' (Macmillan), is important under several aspects. That a distinguished lawyer has found, or made, opportunities for a literary undertaking which involves considerable research and pains, and that the subject-matter is religious literature, is a pleasing reflection. But independently of the testimony which is given to the editor's personal character, this volume is in itself a valuable one. It is not a hymn-book, nor does it aim at adding another to those compilations of which we have already a superfluity; but it is a sort of specimencatalogue of religious poetry, exhibiting the powers of many poetical minds, and the influence of many schools of religious thought. The arrangement is somewhat artificial, and, like that of all class-catalogues, it may be open to some objections; and we are not sure that we should not have preferred a merely chronological order in the poems. The plan being eclectic, differences, not to say contradictions, may be found in the theology of many of the more subjective pieces. But the positive merits of the volume consist in the anxious care bestowed by the Solicitor-General, in connexion with Mr. Sedgwick, in restoring the text to the original authority. It has been too often thought that a religious poem may not only be appropriated, but mutilated and altered by any and every succeeding editor. Against this abuse, confined certainly to neither High-Church nor Low-Church hymnologists, the Book of Praise' affords a vigorous and standing protest. With great care the original authors of several hitherto anonymous pieces have been recovered: the evidence, however, which attributes While shepherds watched their flocks by night' to Nahum Tate, we think defective; and we should have thought that the very remarkable poem, CVIII. the oldest of all the original New Jerusalem hymns, and undoubtedly derived from an ancient Latin source, was later than the time of Queen Elizabeth, to which it is here referred.

Of Church Calendars and Almanacs the number is legion. We are disposed, as usual, to assign the first place to Parker's Church Calendar,

which appears in several diocesan adaptations. A rival is published by the English Church Union, under Mr. Masters' auspices, and exhibits, in a pretty volume, advanced views and directions in ritual matters. The old-fashioned series of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge presents, however, great variety in the way of size and price; and we think we must give the palm for cheapness to this set of indispensable annuals.

Two very valuable volumes of University Sermons have been published by Messrs. Parker, of Oxford. The one by Dr. Williams, of New College, exhibits the genius loci under very favourable circumstances. The Bishop of Oxford's collection enhances, were it possible, his character for activity, eloquence, and range of information.

We scarcely think that Mr. Simeon's intellectual reputation will be enhanced by Mr. Abner Brown's well-intentioned publication, 'Recollections of Simeon's Conversation Parties' (Hamilton). However, few persons will rise from the perusal of the volume without finding that Simeon was not altogether a Simeonite. He was a vain man, and a weak man, but good, and earnest, and true. He lived chiefly to acquire influence, and he succeeded by acts almost feminine, but he used his influence well. He made party men, but was not a party man.

Eighteen Years of a Clerical Meeting' (held at Alcester) is edited by Messrs. R. Seymour and Mackarness. In depth and fulness these debates far exceed in value Mr. Simeon's small dictatorship on his tea and neophytes at Cambridge. The volume exhibits an earnest and faithful transcript of the amount of Church feeling in recent years.

Mr. Edward Monro's Pastoral Life' (J. H. and J. Parker) is a good specimen of the writer's peculiar powers, and cannot be read without deep solicitude and anxiety by those to whom it is addressed. There is a deal of thought as well as vivid writing in the volume.

Among the most important volumes of Sermons is one by the Bishop of Brechin (Masters). The subject is the 'Grace of God,' and is treated with the Bishop's fulness and depth.

'Silvio' (Masters) is the completion of a sketch of an allegory left incomplete by the author of the Shadow of the Cross.' Higher recom. mendation would be impossible.

'Thoughts on the Church Catechism' (Mozley) is, what many such brochures are not, really full of thought; and more than this, it suggests thought in those for whom it was intended. Helps to catechising are often aids to idleness.

'Idleness and Industry contrasted' (Mozley), is the title of a set of Sermons by Mr. Holland Lomas, which might have been suggested by Hogarth's pictures. It is no slight praise to say that there is very much of Hogarthian sense and vigour in Mr. Lomas's preaching; and he preaches in sensible idiomatic English.

NO. CXIX.-N.S.