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and read by its Secretary, the Rev. Dr. Van Kleeck, and afterwards referred to a committee of five. The Report of the Foreign Committee was also presented and read by its Secretary, Rev. Mr. Denison; and, on motion of the Rev. Mr. Abercrombie, it was resolved “To refer as much of the report as relates to the African mission to a committee of five; as much as relates to the Chinese Mission to a committee of five; and as much as relates to the Greek Mission and other subjects, to a committee of five." The committees in reference to Africa and China submitted unanimous reports heartily indorsing the action of the Foreign Committee, and recommending these fields to the prayers and interest of the Church. The Committee appointed to examine that part of the report relating to the Greek Mission, submitted a majority report, expressing satisfaction that the Foreign Committee has continued to feel an "undiminished and abiding confidence in the character and ministry of the Rev. Mr. Hill, and in the management and results of the missionary work at Athens." A minority report was also submitted with the following resolution:

"Resolved, That a Special Committee of three be appointed to inquire into the expediency of abandoning the principle upon which the missions of this Church to the decayed churches of the East have hitherto been conducted, and which have received the sanction of this Board; as also into the expediency of appropri ating to the mission in Greece only such sums as may be specifically designated for that mission by the donors, and to report to the Board at its next meeting."

On motion of the Rev. Dr. Hawks this motion was modified and passed in the following shape:

"Resolved, That it be referred to a Foreign Committee, carefully to investigate any specific charges that may be presented to them, on respectable individual responsibility, touching the Greek Mission."

The Annual Sermon was preached before the Board by the Bishop of Western New-York, from first chapter of Malachi, eleventh verse.

A public missionary meeting was held on the evening of the 14th in Christ Church, when addresses were delivered by the Bishop of Tennessee, and by the Rev. Drs. Clark, Wilmer, Van Kleeck, and Hawks.

The Board adjourned sine die October 15, 1858.

The Foreign Intelligence is crowded out from this issue by a press of other matter.

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A Plain Commentary on the Four Holy Gospels, intended chiefly for Devotional Reading. Philadelphia: HERMAN HOOKER. Pp. 938. 8vo.

ILLUSTRIOUS as are the contributions of the Church of England to the wealth of theological libraries, they have been small indeed in comparison with the high and peculiar responsibilities of its clergy. When one remembers those stately piles at Oxford and Cambridge, and their army of scholars, so many of them fastened there for the best part of their lives, in the very air of consecrated studies, or passes from cathedral to cathedral, and looks over the list of endowments, yielding such necessary leisure and abundant competence; he is tempted to ask, how it is possible that for the space of three centuries,. any biblical question should have been left in the dark, or any corner of Ecclesiastical history unsearched, or that British Christians should still be able to inquire unanswered for any commentary of whatsoever order.

Alas! wealth and leisure do not make most of the books. which are needed and which are read. Tyndale and CoverVOL. VI.-10

dale, poor exiles, fleeing for their lives, translated and printed the Bible. Hooker in his lowly parsonage, rocked the cradle and wrote the Ecclesiastical Polity. Hammond, Cave, and Bingham were parish priests; such were Bishop Butler and Bishop Newton when their great works were composed; and the large labors of Scott, of Townsend, and of Hartwell Horne, have owed little to the calmness of colleges, but every thing to patient industry in the midst of multiplied duties.

The "Plain Commentary on the Four Holy Gospels," was, however, as its author gratefully records, "compiled, for the most part, in the shelter of a college." Amidst many questionable characteristics and deplorable fruits, the "Tractarian" movement is free from the reproach of soothing the slumbers of learned and ecclesiastical indolence. The presses and the pens of Oxford were never more active, and we welcome, in this book, an evident result of devout and assiduous study applied to the oracle of truth in a spirit of reverence and godly fear. But a task so grave is not to be accomplished once for all, and by a single hand, so as to leave no harvest for future gleaners; and it is not enough when a volume comes before us with claims like those which are here conveyed, less in the title than in the preface, to meet it with mere phrases of compliment, however sincere and just.

It is a commentary "intended chiefly for devotional reading," "for those who study the Gospel in a devotional frame of mind, who read it in order to live by it, and desire, while they read, to have their attention aroused, their heart informed, and their curiosity in some degree gratified." (P. 7.) Criticism, as it lingers over words and delights in superficial explanations of minute difficulties, sometimes its own creation, is lightly regarded, and the criticism of a multitude of erudite Germans is heartily loathed and trampled down. Little indeed do some of the admirers of "those same learned Thebans" appreciate the Teutonic professor of the last generation; the earnestness with which he would follow out any theory, exegetical, philological, or historical, wherever it might lead; and, united with this, the indifference, inconceivable to our practical natures, as to the actual fact, or the surprise with which, in many

cases, he would have become convinced that his hypothesis was

true.

The author of the "Plain Commentary" prefers the ancient current of interpretation before even the more orthodox and pious of modern writers. We do not contest this choice, but the golden sentences which he has culled to adorn his pages, are not to mislead the unlearned, as if it were only in such soberness that venerable fathers have spoken. A fair comparison between ancient and modern interpretation, on the whole, should bring out also to view the labyrinth of fanciful, allegorical, conjectural, and mistaken applications which have the authority of some of the greatest names of Christian antiquity.

It would seem too, that, if modern writers were to lend any aid, it might have been drawn from a wider circle. Rich and profound as are the sentiments which are cited, yet was no sacred wisdom to be gathered except from a few friends of the author, divines of one school, writers and preachers of merited, but somewhat local renown? The quotations from the Rev. Isaac Williams far exceed in number those from any other modern author; and next are those from Dr. Mill, and the joint commentary of Archdeacon Hale and Bishop Lonsdale. There are a few from Dr. Moberly; a few from Dean Trench; several from manuscript or printed sermons of cotemporaries of the author at Oxford, such as Marriot, Eden, and Hobhouse; and beyond this ring he scarcely ventures into any contact with living authors. Amongst our classic divines, no one can blame a choice which singles ont as guides, though not exclusively, Pearson and Leighton. We do not recall an instance in which an English author, not of the Church of England, appears to have been consulted. He is, however, no stranger to the writings of some Americans, such as Robinson and Barnes, both of whom he cites; the former for illustration and the latter for censure. The references to the Fathers are numerous as well as happy. In the earlier part of the book, a node was adopted, we know not why, of designating both them and more modern interpreters, not by their names, but by some venerable title, such as "an ancient Bishop of the East," "a great doctor of our own Church," "a pious writer," "a

holy archbishop;" but this circuitous and rather affected habit is afterwards abandoned.

The writer has entered on his work with a conscientious dread and abhorrence of the rash and superficial spirit which has so often employed itself in what, for want of a good English word, is called "exegesis;" for men who knew how to interpret, to explain, to expound with all wisdom, were not accustomed to this infinite detail of trivial criticism. Our fathers in the Church and in the faith, gave to the text of Scripture a manly study, and received its meaning with that honesty with which a good man listens to his neighbor in whom he confides. Then, they expected to find in that meaning itself a depth and fullness, a sanctity and divinity, which were all its own; which distinguished the Holy Scriptures from all other books; and which made them, from Genesis to Revelation, one grand chain, so that touch it where you might, it vibrated and flashed throughout. "The testimony of Jesus was the spirit of prophecy ;" and concerning him a thousand things were written in the law of Moses, and in the Psalms, which, but for the key afforded by the example of his own interpretations and those of the Holy Ghost through the Apos tles, might have been locked up in perpetual obscurity. It seems impossible that any reflecting person should believe our Saviour to be indeed the subject of allusion in passages of the Old Testament which in the New Testament are applied to Him, and not at the same time reject any narrow and skeptical system of exposition, under which the sacred volume is every where made to say as little as it can, and is cross-examined, as it were, at every step, by a hostile advocate. A poor thing it is to study the Bible in that temper; and the whole strength of the teacher and the scholar will be exhausted in raising and removing a host of pigmy objections.

The author of the "Plain Commentary" rises above all this. He expects difficulties, and even mysteries, in any communication which man can receive from a higher world; and he justly believes that, while in any prospect thus opened into eternal scenes, "the known will always remain infinitely less than the unknown," all patient and devout study will never

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