insurmountable difficulties (in view of the problems which would have had to be solved) which must have encircled those persons who were engaged in its creation. In the two chapters, the fourteenth and fifteenth, entitled, "The Jesus of the Gospels no mythical creation," and "The moral aspects of our Lord's character an historical reality," he reverses the process. Supposing the mythologists to be about to commence their work, he begins with them, accompanying them closely in all their way as they proceed, and fixes the attention of his readers on the tremendous obstacles which must impede their progress at every step. Nothing can be more dispassionate, more careful, nor more searching than the reasoning of these two chapters, which, together, occupy nearly sixty pages of the book. And some of the paragraphs have a special interest for the contemplative mind which takes delight in reflecting upon the majesty and beauty of our Lord's character. But of the contents of these chapters, as well as of those of the last four alluded to, we must omit all notice. We will conclude our article by briefly considering the argument of the twelfth chapter, entitled, "The portraiture of Christ, as it is depicted by the four Evangelists, constitutes an essential unity."

In this chapter he proves. its historical character from the fact of this unity. Mr. Row is of opinion that the numerous instances of diversity and agreement in three of the Evangelical narratives prove that they are the work of many minds. He believes that the Synoptic Gospels which are so remarkably characterized by these phenomena underwent a considerable amount of oral transmission, or in other words, that there was at first an oral Gospel for a considerable length of time; that parts of this oral Gospel were then reduced to writing; and that of this Gospel which was partly oral and partly had been reduced to writing, the Synoptics are three different reports. During the moderately long period in which the Gospel was in an oral form, a large number of distinct human personalities and human agencies were employed in its transmission, and in this way the Synoptics came to be the work of many persons. He strenuously maintains that this is the only explanation of the singular discrepancies which we discover in

the different Evangelists, united, as they frequently are, with the closest verbal agreements. The variations were introduced in the course of the transmission. "The vast amount of diversity," he says, "which our Gospels present us with, both in their form and aspect, constitutes a proof which is absolutely irresistible, that they are the work of a multiplicity of minds. No single mind, nor even several minds, could have constructed four histories, which could have contained the agreements and disagreements, the samenesses and variations, which are presented by our Gospels." *

The argument then is, that if we find that the portraiture of the Jesus is a perfect unity in all the aspects in which it is depicted, then, inasmuch as it is the work of a multiplicity of minds acting without concert, this unity proves the truthfulness of the portraiture, or that it is the portraiture of one who had an historical existence. Under such circumstances, the assumption of its truthfulness is absolutely necessary to account for its oneness, whereas its oneness cannot possibly be explained if a multitude of men working without concert invented it. The advocates of the mythic theory as to the origin of the portrait, also postulate a multitude of persons for its production, but they have no way of explaining its unity, for they decry its truthfulness. They may indeed contend that there was no unity in the various conceptions of the original portrayers of the Evangelical Christ but on the contrary irreconcilable diversities, and they may insinuate that when the four Evangelists undertook to write their narratives they effaced the diversities and imparted to the Jesus a certain degree of unity. But the answer to this is, that the unity underlying all and the minutest portions of the narratives is of such a character as to show that it was inherent in the numerous fictions out of which the Gospels were composed, and if this was the case they were not fictions.

As, then, the nature of Mr. Row's argument in this chapter

*In the October number of this Review, for 1848, there is a very interesting article from the pen of Dr. J. A. Alexander entitled. "The Gospel History." In the course of the article he gives the hypotheses of Eichhorn, Schleiermacher, Giesler, and Hug of Freyburg, by means of which they attempt to account for the resemblance and difference of the Gospels without denying the veracity of either.

in proof of his position that the Divine man, instead of being an ideal creation, was a reality, of which each Evangelist has given a portrait taken from a somewhat different point of view, requires him to establish the fact that a substantial unity underlies the whole portraiture; he proceeds to show, with his characteristic fulness and conclusiveness of reasoning, that the Jesus of the Gospels does present us with a substantial unity in all the multiform aspects in which the Evangelists hold him up to our view.

Now in regard to all this, we would remark, 1. That it is to be regretted that in connection with Mr. Row's method of accounting for the diversities which we discover in the Gospels, viz., that they are the work of a multiplicity of minds, he makes the hurtful concession that they contain some real discrepancies or inaccuracies of historical statement. He holds an unsound theory of inspiration. These concessions are more clearly and expressly made in the last chapter of his book, where he shows that the Gospels fulfil the historical conditions on which they are based. Whether the Synoptics are compared with each other or with the fourth Gospel, it cannot be proved that any statement contained in one is really. inconsistent with any which is made in the others. 2. There are certainly apparent disagreements in the four narratives. It is very probable that there was at first an oral Gospel, but there are other methods for satisfactorily accounting for these apparent variations besides the one which the author maintains that it is necessary for us to adopt. We should probably be able to explain most of them by distinguishing between mere juxtaposition in the record, and immediate chronological succession. 3. Mr. Row's argument is, that if we assume that many persons were engaged in the production of the Gospels, each acting independently of the other, then the fact that the portraiture in its multiform aspects is a perfect unity, proves that it belonged to one who really existed. But the unity is at least an argument against the mythic theory whether the Gospels are supposed really to be the work of many minds or not. That theory is, that all the parts of the portraiture were the creations of the imagination of an immense number of Christ's deluded followers. As the inventors of the myths

which compose the Gospels were many, the mythic stories were numerous. And they owed their existence to the spontaneous powers of the mind, "acting not in obedience to reason but to impulse." They had the most difficult problems to solve. Each mythic story consisted of a small fragment of a character. Each mythologist went on creating fictions independently of all the others. And these inventions, produced in the manner described, united together, resulted in the production of the glorious portrait which we have presented to us in the Evangelical Gospels. Now, if this is propounded as an account of the origin of the portraiture, it is sufficiently refuted when it is shown that that portraiture is a unity. It is selfevident that "a complicated unity could never be evolved" by means of a succession of such creations as these. If, therefore, we explain the variations in the Gospel by some other method than that which Mr. Row adopts, and refuse to admit with him that many persons were the authors of them the argument against the mythic theory founded on the complicated unity of the portraiture still has force.

With these comments on the chapter which treats of the essential unity of the portraiture of the Evangelical Jesus, we must bring our review of this able and interesting book to a close of some of its chapters we have only been able to give the titles. It has been our desire to enable our readers to form some idea of both the compass and the thoroughness of the author's argument. We should rejoice to see an American. reprint of the work. It cannot have a wide circulation without doing much toward settling the controversy to which it relates.

ART. VI.--China as affected by Protestant Missions.

THE subject divides itself under three heads. 1st. China; 2d. The commerce and civilization of that great empire; and 3d. What the missionary has done to bring it prominently before this country and the world. China is in the same latitude. with us, having similar varieties of climate. As we have the Atlantic, so they have the Pacific ocean. As we have thirtyeight States, so they are divided into eighteen provinces. As the State of Massachusetts has its own notions and peculiarities that differ much from those of South Carolina, so these provinces have their peculiarities, and we study them in whole and in parts. As we have governors, so they have viceroys; but these rule two provinces. As we have a few first-class cities, so they number theirs by hundreds, if not by thousands. As we have forty millions, so they have nearly four hundred millions, and are about ten times as populous.

We propose to speak of the greatness of China, under different heads. China is great in her antiquity. Founded before Nineveh or Egypt, she still exists. Before Romulus built the walls of Rome, before Samuel anointed Saul to be king over Israel, she was a vastly-extended, mighty empire. Her records reach back four thousand years. Before Columbus was born, a canal twelve hundred miles long was finished. Their great wall, covered with granite, has been built twenty centuries. While we Americans were barbarians-before the days of Alfred the Great-while our ancestors were savages, the merest plebeians of China were clothed in silks and satins. Visited by Marco Polo in 1250, the first European traveller who ever saw them, and who told about their civilization, their silks, their porcelains, and their wonderful cities, he was pronounced insane and the greatest liar of his age. It is only lately we have recognized him as a truthful traveller. Then China is great and almost unrivalled among nations in her age and antiquity.

She is also great in her discoveries. The fruit of her genius, science, and investigation. Secluded from the world, she