oracles of God and the heathen oracles, which Jeroboam introduced into the kingdom of Israel. That such is the import of the expression is proved by the word " being omitted before Dл, the simple copulative being the prefix to the latter word. How long that period lasted, and what vicissitudes befell Israel during that period, are problems to be solved by the settlement of another question. The second period begins with Israel's return and earnestly seeking the Lord their God, and David their king. This period is one of earnest, anxious reformation. We say again, if the Protestant nations might be adduced as an illustration, we should say that Israel is here represented as enacting what the reformed Churches of England and the Continent began to enact in the fifteenth century, when the latter adopted the language dictated for Israel, and contended with the impostor Romish "mother Church," and told her that she was not the chosen spouse of the Lord, nor was He her husband as enjoined in the first series of Hoshea's prophecies. The third period will be one of extraordinary activity, solicitude, and anxiety in making known the Lord and His goodness, which will usher in the DN "the last days" (Isa. ii. 2; Micah iv. 1).

NOTE.

THE FIRST NAPOLEON'S OPINION OF JESUS CHRIST.

A VALUED correspondent sends us the following extract from "Cooke's Lectures" at Boston:

·

"Napoleon, at St. Helena, said that something mysterious exists in universal history in its relation to Christianity. Can you tell me who Jesus Christ was?' said this Italian greater than Cæsar, and as free from partisan religious prejudices. The question was declined by Bertrand, and Napoleon proceeded, 'Well, then, I will tell you' (I am reading now from a passage authorized by three of Napoleon's biographers, and freely accepted by European scholars as an authoritative statement of his conversation in exile), Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, and I myself have founded great Empires; but upon what did these creations depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His Empire upon love, and to this very day millions would die for Him. . . . I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you all these were men, and I am a man. No other is like Him. Jesus Christ was more than a man. I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me; but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly present, with the electric influence of my looks, of my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke with them I lighted up the flame of self-devotion in their heart. Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of 1800 years Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride

of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself; He demands it unconditionally, and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the Empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him experience that remarkable supernatural love towards Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man's creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish the sacred flame; Time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range. This is that which strikes me most. I have often thought of it. This it is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.""

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE LIFE AND Words of CHRIST. By Cunningham Geikie, D.D. 2 Vols. London: Henry S. King and & Co.

THIS is the most learned work that has yet appeared on the all-absorbing THEME of which it treats. On reading it, chapter after chapter seemed to testify that the Author has left no book that was ever written, bearing ever so remotely on "The Life and Words of Christ," unread. The attentive study of the volumes before us will furnish the student with materials for displaying much learning in every branch and department of theology and jurisprudence, ancient as well as modern, Jewish, Roman, Mohammedan, and Christian. The volumes are undoubtedly entitled to an honoured place on the shelves of every theological student's book-room, on account of the many works to which they refer. The theological scholar, however, cannot but feel disappointed; he must wish that the learned Author had not overladen his work with such an overwhelming amount of learning. The frequent appeals to Rabbinical and Germanic lore reduce "The Life and Words of Christ gems buried in heaps of sand, using a Rabbinical simile, which makes success in the search for the former more than doubtful.

to a few

Then, again, we cannot help thinking that Dr. Geikie, like the brilliant Dr. Farrar, missed the all-important points of many of the incidents in the Redeemer's LIFE, and the drift of many of His WORDS. Nor do the artistic dilutions of many of the INCI DENTS and WORDS improve the intrinsic style and character of the very handsome volumes. We shall just open one of them at random. We have taken up the second, and have alighted on page 337, at the bottom of which begins a paraphrastic account of the incidents and words recorded in Luke xiii. 10-21; xiv. 1-6. reproduce the paraphrase here of the incident recorded in the former chapter:-

We

"As He was teaching on a Sabbath in the synagogue of one of the outlying towns of Perea-half Jewish, half heathen-He noticed in the audience, behind the lattice which separated the women from the men, a poor creature drawn together by a rheumatic affection, which had bowed her frame so terribly that she could not raise herself erect. As she painfully struggled into her place, Jesus saw her, and doubtless read, in her supplicating looks, and in the very fact that she had come to the House of God in spite of such physical infirmity, an evidence that she was a fit subject for His pitying help. Rising, and calling across the Congregation to her" [the Author overlooked the very important fact in the SACRED narrative, that "He laid hands on her," so that she must have been close to Him, and needed not to be called to "across the Congregation"] the welcome words fell on her ears-' Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.' The cure was instantaneous. In a moment she was once more straight and whole, after eighteen years of deformity, and her irrepressible thanks to God for the mercy vouchsafed her rang through the synagogue, and made a great commotion.

"The head of the congregation, however, was a cold Rabbinical pedant. Intensely professional, he could see nothing but an irregularity. It was the Sabbath day, and the Rabbis had decided that no cure was lawful on the Sabbath except where death was imminent. Silence!' cried he indignantly, there are six days in which men ought to work; it would be much more becoming if this person were to remember

that: and if you, for your part, want to be healed by Him, see that you come on a week day, so that He have no excuse for breaking the holy Sabbath, by doing the work of curing you on it.'

"Indignation flashed from the eyes of Jesus, and, turning to the speaker, He denounced his heartless formalism, so utterly opposed to the true religion of which He was the official representative. You, and the whole class who think with you, are hypocritical actors,' said He; 'your words prove it, for they are contradicted by your daily conduct. Do you not loose your asses, or your oxen, from the manger, where they are tied, on the Sabbath, and lead them away to water them? And if so, ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, and, as such, one of God's own people-who is of unspeakably greater worth than any ox or ass, to be loosed to-day, though it be the Sabbath, from this bond, with which Satan has chained her, for now eighteen years?'" The incident recorded in Luke xiv. 1-6 is far more diluted. Scarcely a grain of "The Life and Words of Christ to a gallon of the learning and words of Rabbinists, Talmudists, &c., &c., can be discerned in the analysis of the erudite two ponderous volumes. Upon the whole, we are obliged to own that in our humble opinion THE LIFE AND WORDS OF CHRIST have not as yet received the consideration to which the manifold theme is entitled. We state this advisedly, after having carefully read all that has been written on the subject, and after having spent years of diligent thought and study on the same.

ספרי הברית החדשה נעתקים מלשון יון ללשון עברית בהשתדלות ובהשגחת החכם פראפעסאר פראנץ דעליטש.

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK LANGUAGE INTO THE HEBREW LANGUAGE. By the diligence and the care of the Sage Professor Franz Delitzsch. Printed for the British and Foreign Bible Society by Ackermann and Glaser, Leipzig.

We have now had an opportunity of examining attentively and carefully the whole of the last "translation" of the New Testament from Greek into Hebrew. We are now more than ever confirmed in our conviction that a new translation of such a work should not be left to one, or two, or even five individuals. We sincerely trust, for more reasons than one, that the estimable and learned Professor Delitzschfor whom we cherish unfeigned admiration and Christian love-is not the author of the above title-page. The eminent scholar could never have used the word oor, 'they are translated," instead of 1, "they were revised." All that this work can lay claim to is to be a revised edition of former translations. Nor can we think that the truly modest and truly pious Christian would write, respecting his work and himself, nn nnna in, "by the diligence and the care of the Sage," &c. As regards the intrinsic merits of the revision, they may be thus classified :-Some are alterations, but certainly no improvements; others again, improved renderings, and called for emendations; and a third class consists of substitutions of one set of synonyms for another. The most important part of the revised translation before us are the improved renderings. But then they are comparatively few in number. They might all have been printed-as varia interpretationes--on four small pages, to be bound up with the existing translation published by the " London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews." It is much to be regretted that the British and Foreign Bible Society have not on their Committee scholarly philologists capable of forming an adequately correct opinion on works of the kind. They might often avoid unnecessary waste of public money.

THE HISTORY, ART, AND PALEOGRAPHY OF THE MANUSCRIPT STYLED THE UTRECHT PSALTER. By Walter De Gray Birch, F.R.S. L., &c., &c. London: Samuel Bagster and Sons.

This is a work by an author who has ample opportunities to treat such subjects as are discussed in this volume exhaustively. The author, we are told on the title-page of this his book, is "Senior Assistant of the department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, Honorary Librarian of the Royal Society of Literature, Honorary Secretary

7 See our July No., p. 375.

of the British Archæological Association," &c. An author with such advantages and such materials within his reach must inspire his readers with confidence that he has done his work well. We have read the work carefully and attentively, and we can assure its intelligent readers that upon the whole their confidence will not have been misplaced. Mr. Walter De Gray Birch has contrived to place before the student of Palæography in general, and of the Utrecht Psalter controversy in particular, a mass of information which may prove useful to one who is disposed to follow up his studies in that department of learning. We frankly own that we cannot endorse every conclusion at which our author has arrived. But our inability to subscribe to the results which he formed do not militate against the opinion which we have formed of the useful character of his book. We therefore feel that we can unhesitatingly recommend the work to intelligent students. Such students will make good use of the diversified opinions and materials placed at their service. We cannot afford space for specimens of the work. The style and character in which it was produced does not admit of brief extracts. We can assure such of our readers as are interested in the question of the comparative merits, from an archæological point of view, between the Utrecht and Harley Psalters, that they will find the work under notice deserving a place in their libraries. It should have a prominent place in the study of the learner to decipher the Western MSS. of olden times.

Amongst the various subjects which we thought required critical observations, if we had space for strictures of the kind, we marked a foot-note on p. 247. As it is not very long-it consists only of two sentences, rather brief compared with the author's usual sentences-we reproduce it here:-"The confusion between the snail, a, Shablul, of the Hebrew version, and the kηpós, caera (wax) of the Septuagint and Vulgate Versions respectively, does not appear to arise in this case from a misreading of the Hebrew points, a fertile source of so many variations in the translations of Holy Writ. We should, therefore, here perhaps conceive the difference to arise from an intention of the translator of the Hebrew into the Septuagint, not without parallel examples in other passages, to substitute the more natural and obvious metaphor of the melting of wax for the melting of a snail, supposed, but erroneously, 'to consume away and die by reason of its constantly emitting slime as it crawls along.'- Chaldee Paraphrase."

Fortunately for the Science of Language in general, and for that of the Sacred Tongue in particular, we are not left to doubtful conceptions. Such conceptions, as well as "misreading of the Hebrew points," or rather the mispointing, proved "a fertile source of so many variations in the translations of Holy Writ. The word under

"

criticism is a solecism in the fragment of the Hebrew language preserved to us in the original of the Old Testament. It proved as perplexing to ancient paraphrasts-whether Jewish, Greek, or Roman-as it does now to commentators and annotators. The word signifies neither " "snail nor "wax," notwithstanding the Septuagint and some Rabbis to the contrary. Its cognate is to be found in the Arabic, which means a shower. It harmonizes with the figure of speech in the preceding verse, "Let them melt away as waters." That which Rosenmüller and Delitzsch think argues against such a meaning argues, we are convinced, in its favour.

Should a second edition of "The History, Art, and Palæography of the Manuscript styled the Utrecht Psalter" be called for, which is not improbable, we should venture to suggest to the author the recasting of its sentences. Some of them are ominously too long. Let us take for instance the very second sentence in the "Introduction : ""The fact of there being an excessively limited number of specimens of man's handiwork upon vellum, that are to be shown as examples of the graphic art, deriving their origin during the interval between the fifth and tenth centuries of the Christian era, easily accounts for that transcendent interest springing up around, and as rapidly as it is permanently fostered by any new acquisition to swell the narrow ranks of those few surviving marvels of an archaic art, which we are now permitted to rejoice over, in that they have escaped the ruthlessness of iconoclasts; the voracious scalpel of palimpsest makers; the greed of monastic mercenaries, who so persistently derived a savage pleasure in mutilating priceless manuscripts for a small gain by the sale of parchment wretchedly renovated, or cut up into pieces; the riotous and wanton destruction of medieval reformers." Surely such a sentence should be cut up into pieces." We have marked a good many sentences of similar extent to the one which we have just quoted. We feel certain that the author will pardon our suggestion; especially when we assure him that those spots do not interfere, in our mind, with the intrinsic brightness of his interesting work.

RECORDS OF THE PAST: BEING ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE ASSYRIAN AND EGYPTIAN MONUMENTS. Published under the sanction of the Society of Biblical Archeology. London: Samuel Bagster and Sons.

This valuable series has now reached the ninth volume. The publications increase in interest as they go on accumulating. We ourselves feel, after the perusal of each volume, an impatient craving for the next volume. We have just finished the perusal of the ninth, and now long for the appearance of the tenth volume. No intelligent student-whether he be interested in art, science, or literature; in theology, archæology, philology or history-can rise from the perusal of any one of the nine volumes without feeling his mind enriched by new ideas and fresh suggestions. The translations of the Records of the Past have been produced by the most eminent Assyriologists and Egyptologists in Great Britain and on the Continent. So that the English reader -though he may be unable to construe a single sentence of the original records-may rely on having the full value of those chronicles in his "mother-tongue.'

We

Our readers will be interested in the "Chaldean Account of the Creation," translated by H. Fox Talbot, F.R.S. It is published in vol. ix. pp. 115, 116. reproduce the same here:

"THE FIRST TABLET.

1. When the upper region was not yet called heaven,

2. and the lower region was not yet called earth,

3. and the abyss of Hades had not yet opened its arms,

4. then the chaos of waters gave birth to all of them,

5. and the waters were gathered into one place.

6. No men yet dwelt together: no animals yet wandered about:

7. none of the gods had yet been born.

8. Their names were not spoken their attributes were not known. 9. Then the eldest of the gods

10. LAKHMU and LAKHAMU were born

11. and grew up. . . .,' 8

12. ASSUR and KISSUR were born next,

13. and lived through long periods. 14. ANU.

[The rest of this tablet is lost.]

THE FIFTH TABLET.

[This fifth tablet is very important, because it affirms clearly in my opinion that the origin of the Sabbath was co-eval with Creation.]

I. He constructed dwellings for the great gods.

2. He fixed up constellations, whose figures were like animals.

3. He made the year. Into four quarters he divided it.

4. Twelve months he established, with their constellations, three by three.

5. And for the days of the year he appointed festivals.

6. He made dwellings for the planets: for their rising and setting.

7. And that nothing should go amiss, and that the course of none should be retarded,

8. he placed with them the dwellings of BEL and HEA.

9. He opened great gates, on every side:

10. he made strong portals, on the left hand and on the right.

II. In the centre he placed luminaries.

12. The moon he appointed to rule the night

13. and to wander through the night, until the dawn of day. 14. Every month without fail he made holy assembly-days.

15. In the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night, 16. it shot forth its horns to illuminate the heavens.

17. On the seventh day he appointed a holy day, 18. and to cease from all business he commanded.

19. Then arose the sun in the horizon of heaven in (glory).”

Mr. Fox Talbot annotates, inter alia, "[The last word is broken off, and though

8 Lacunæ.