its words. The Spirit is the vital and productive principle, both of its substance and its form. Not that He dictated its phraseology, but that the writers, in their use of language, were under His promotive and directive influence. This Spirit is the source of unity to the Bible, which, through its operation, becomes an homogeneous organism. 4. Inspiration holds as to the reasoning of Scripture. It has been asserted that the conclusions reached by the sacred writers are inspired, these being the doctrines or revelations of Scripture; but that to defend the Bible, we are not bound always to accept the reasonings employed in reaching those conclusions, because such reasonings have been supplied (it is said) by the writers themselves, out of their own resources. Let it be observed, however, that while such a notion confounds the ideas of Revelation and Inspiration, it can be further answered, that the liability to error in the reasonings of the sacred writers thus assumed, is, as one has remarked, entirely gratuitous, inasmuch as they can, in point of fact, be successfully defended against any such error.

With others, this theory (as to the uninspired character of Scripture reasoning) results, as they affirm, from the nature of the syllogism, according to which, he who asserts the inajor premiss, asserts the conclusion; in other words, that the conclusion is an inference from that premiss. Starting with this assumption, they reason thus: The major premiss being some Revelation from God, we have but to employ the formal laws of thought to reach the conclusion; and that to predicate inspiration of logic is unnecessary, and a sheer absurdity. Here, again, we note a confounding of the ideas of Revelation and Inspiration; and, moreover, it is a sufficient answer to say that, admitting this account of the nature of the syllogism to be correct, it is very far from being true that the course of reasoning, flowing from universally acknowledged principles, is so certain, and conducts to such universally accepted conclusions, as to make an inspired development of a Divine Revelation a waste of effort, and an absurdity.

But a more scientific answer can be found in that philosophical delineation of the nature of a syllogism, advocated by the late J. S. Mill. His theory is, that what follows the major premiss, is not a process of inference, but a process of interpretation; that the force of a syllogism stands in an inductive assertion, with an interpretation added; only, we must subjoin, what Mr. Mill would never do, that in cases coming under the categories of Scriptural theology and positive Divine law, general propositions, and not particular facts, would be our original data. Where the premisses are derived

from observation, the function of reasoning is simply to interpret the major premiss, which is then a general formula or record, gathered, by way of experience, from observed facts; and the conclusion is not drawn from the premiss, but according to the premiss, the original antecedent or premiss being the particular facts, of which the major premiss is the inductive assertion. "By the indications of this record, we draw our conclusion; and syllogistic rules are but a set of precautions to ensure our reading the record correctly." In cases, however, coming within the scope of Scriptural theology and positive Divine law, general propositions, not particular facts, become our original data; and the function of reasoning then is simply to interpret the language of the Divine or human law-giver, as announced, in order to determine whether God's will applies to the particular case. Hence we see the necessity of Inspiration, to serve as a guide in interpreting the Divinely revealed postulates from which the reasoning flows; and this necessity is evidently augmented, when the minor premiss, as it frequently happens, is not a self-evident proposition, but the conclusion of a second syllogism, resulting in another train of reasoning.

In this present article, our aim has been to set forth the nature of Inspiration, as expounded by our acute and elaborate author. It remains that we examine the proof which he adduces; and this we propose to do in an article which is to follow.

cii.-10

STUDY UPON THE SONG OF SONGS. By Ernest Renan. Paris. 1871.
WESTMINSTER REVIEW for April, 1874.

It may seem singular to some that Renan, a romantic sceptic, and the Westminster Reviewers, who are scientific sceptics, could find any common ground on which to work against "The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's." So it might seem as singular to others, that eighteen hundred years agone, Herod, an Oriental and a Jew, and Pontius Pilate, an Occidental and a Pagan, could find any common ground on which to act against Christianity. But these antagonistic characters easily found themselves en rapport, as the French say, when a personage was to be condemned whom both would gladly have thrust aside, though for very different reasons.

Of course, Renan cares not a French sous for the Song of Solomon, as a sacred book, or one having appreciable value, as a part of Jewish canonical Scripture. The Westminster Reviewers would not waste a drop of good London ink on it, for any claim it might put in as a bare literary curiosity; for they might exclaim over it, as the mathematician did over "Paradise Lost,"-" Well, what does it prove!" But if it is really and truly a canonical book, and reputably an inspired one, then Monsieur Renan can take unfeigned delight in showing that an amatory drama-a mere erotic poem, like one of the licentious Catullus, to which the "Westminster Review" specially likens it is fit for the niche, into which it has been ex

alted by dogmatic theology. Anything calculated to make the mistakes of theology glaring-to work a solitary one of them into a big sized blunder, like an Irish bull-can afford some minds the same sort of gratification which thrills through Satan, when he beholds the fall of a good man from the path of virtue.

Accordingly, as we are prepared to expect, Renan can make nothing out of Solomon's Song, but something so violently, not to say shamelessly, erotic, that religionists ought to blush to find such a tract among articles which they are called on to venerate, as if the gift of a better world, and the endowment of inspiration. With him, it casts a shadow of darkness and spoliation on all the rest of the books associated with it, and becomes, like the fabled upas-tree, destructive to its neighborhood.

And this is a conclusion which even a scientific sceptic like a Westminster Reviewer can behold with a satisfaction, not surpassed by that with which Sancho Panza would have looked upon the savant "who invented sleep." For he has an account to settle with the Bible, for grievances of another sort, and if the volume can be brought into moral disrepute, this helps on its depreciation for the scientist. So such a Reviewer tries to eke out, with his historic and philosophic literature, the fancies of Renan, and winds up with the supremely comfortable reflection that Religion is most effectually and altogether done for. "We have learned to smile at the credulity of the theologian, we deride his pretensions, and tread his dogmas under our feet. Whether for good or for evil, faith is becoming a thing of the past, and it would be wise in those concerned to set their houses in order without delay." That is to say, Religion has only got to whine out its Nunc dimittis, and be permitted to slink off into silence and oblivion. Rather a poor way, this, we fancy, of trying to convert people to other folks' modes of thinking; but we suppose we must take things as we find them.

Still, the case is manageable enough, we venture to believe, even with worldly weapons. We can composedly retort the high disdain, in its own style of argumentation. We can, for instance, ask with what sort of face science can boast of mathematical accuracy, and at last tell us, with the drollest sort of visage, that she has for centuries been mistaken about such a grand, central, and fundamental fact as the distance of the earth from the middle of the solar system? This is a fact of such immeasurable importance, that all the world is astir to settle it, if possible, by the transit of Venus, in 1874. It enters

into all our calculations about time, in ten thousand ways and shapes, and yet science has missed the figures for it by thousands and by millions! So, if we poor theologians make now and then a small mistake, we opine that scientists should be a little less derisive, and remember, with more fidelity, the old adage: Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur. If Catullus did not write this, Horace did, and he ought to be sufficient for our purpose.

But, to be somewhat graver, for fastidious readers. The Reviewer, anxious, for his own ends, to bolster Renan, seems to think we must abandon the Song of Solomon, because it can be proved to be a drama. Indeed? This is certainly startling. For, then, we suppose, it follows logically, that we must relinquish the Apocalypse, which even respectable theologians have considered to be, at the least, not undramatic. And then Genesis must follow suit, with its drama of Creation and the Fall; and so on, till there is nothing left which is worth careful keeping.1

Yet, it is to us something "bran new," that because a composition is put into the dramatic form, it ceases to be truth at all, and becomes the reflection of an utter unreality-becomes what Pindar calls "the shadow of a dream." Why, the history of St. George of Cappadocia might be dramatized, but he would be none the less a reality to our British cousins. The story of Joan of Arc might be dramatized, and be none the less memorable to Frenchmen. Our own countryman, Longfellow, has written a dramatic volume which he calls "The New England Tragedies," but old John Endicott's eye of fire, the raw backs of Anabaptists, and the wry necks of Quakers, cannot thereby be converted into shadows of the past, or fancy-pieces hung along the walls of a gallery of pictures.

For our poor selves, not having the fear of Renans or Westminsterians before our eyes, we are presumptuous enough to declare, that we can glean a lesson out of the Song of Solomon, which we think no mean one, nor beneath the dignity of an inspired composition, nor inconsistent with its truth as a part of our tuition from on high. The Reviewer, it is not to be gainsayed, loses over it his equanimity, and becomes as severely positive as if

According, however, to Professor Lee, the Reviewers and Renan are altogether mistaken in connecting the idea of drama with Hebrew literature. "Neither the Hebrews, Chaldeans, Syrians, nor Arabians, so far as we know, ever yet entertained anything like the drama of Greece, or in the least degree assimilated either to its dramatic or epic composition" (Lee's "Job." Introduction, p. 11).