mind, and that, be it remembered, in a very brief period of time.

Now, the author contends that this position is utterly untenable, and his argument is reducible to these two propositions: first, that the interval which separates true Christianity and the portraiture of the Christ from the Jewish state of thought and feeling, out of which it is maintained that Christianity was evolved in the manner described, was immense, almost infinite; and secondly, that the laws which regulate developments in the spiritual and moral world are exceedingly slow in their operation. These are the two points of his argument. The reasoning by which he establishes both of these propositions is most convincing.

In order to demonstrate the truth of the first one, he carefully investigates the nature of the state of Jewish thought out of which Christianity is said to have emerged by the me:e laws of natural development, devoting several chapters to the task. They treat of the following subjects: The preparations made in the Gentile world for the advent of Christianity; The preparations made by Providence for the introduction of Christianity through the developments of Judaism; Messianic conceptions in the Old Testament; The developments of the Messianic conception between the prophetic period and the advent; The developments of Judaism between the termination of the prophetic period and the advent; The limits of the influence which can be assigned to the historical Jesus in the creation of Christianity on the supposition of his purely human character.

The line of thought indicated by some of these titles has been traversed by Pressensé and various other writers, but not with any thing like the same completeness. On the subject of the Messianic conceptions in the Old Testament, the author sensibly remarks: "Certain Messianic delineations are contained in the Old Testament as matters of fact quite apart from the question as to what was the intention of the writer. The question for us to consider is, to what extent could such passages have suggested to the authors of the Gospels the por traiture of Jesus? It is evident that a prophecy may be one sufficiently clear after its fulfilment, which was previously ob

scure.

Such prophecies can only in a very limited sense be said to be developments in the direction of Christianity. If they required the advent of Christianity to make their meaning plain, they can have had little influence in creating it." Again: "We do not want to know what the prophets may mean with the light of Christianity reflected on them, but what they actually did mean to the Jew. . . The larger proportion of the Messianic Psalms contains delineations of the greatness and the holiness of the idealized David. There are also Psalms which idealize David, or the author who composed them, as a sufferer. Both these species of Psalms are directly referred to in the New Testament as prophetic. Their idealization is fulfilled in the character of the Jesus therein portrayed. When the reality is presented to us, we can see that in all its great outlines the type and the ante-type correspond. But this is no measure of the conception which the twofold delineation would produce in the mind of the Jew."

These remarks are obvious enough, but we by no means agree with him in all that he says in regard to the degree in which the Messianic predictions contain a delineation of the Jesus of the Gospels, for in the chapter in which the above remarks occur, he seeks to ascertain the degree in which they do this by examining--and the discussion is elaborate and most interesting the most important of the Messianic passages contained in the Psalms and in the Prophets. It may be admitted that it is difficult for us to read the pages of the Old Testament with the eyes with which their authors, and those to whom the Old Testament Scriptures were addressed, must have viewed them. We cannot, it is true, avoid reflecting back on them the light which exists on the pages of the New Testament. Still, we are convinced that there is a much nearer resemblance to be found in the pages of the Old Tes tament to the New Testament delineations of our Lord than our author supposes to be the case; in other words that there is a larger amount of Messianic conception in the writings of the Old Testament than Mr. Row professes to be able to discover. But, however this may be, it is sufficiently apparent that these predictions would have afforded but little assistance to persons who set themselves to the work of portraying, from

the outline contained in them, the living Jesus of the Gospels. We take exception still more emphatically to much that he says in the chapter on the Judaism of the Old Testament. His language is quite too strong in regard to the low state of morals which, he insists, characterized the Jews in Mosaic times, and those of the Psalmists and the Prophets, and in regard to their want of benevolent feeling. The actual condition of these ages in regard to moral and religious attainments, Mr. Row, as it seems to us, greatly underrates. We have never met with a writer who goes to the same length in this respect. Here are a few examples of his extravagant language: "The high spirituality of the Psalmists did not succeed in liberating them from the effects of that moral atmosphere which they habitually breathed. Their morality was that of an Oriental, who was accustomed to pour out blood like water.”—“In the eyes of the authors of the Psalms this present life formed the chief scene of the moral government of God. The masses probably entertained, as all other nations have done, some general ideas about an Under-World; but of no potency to enforce the principles of moral obligation."-" Nothing tends to give us a deeper impression of the low state of religion, for which primitive Judaism was adapted, than the entire absence of any provision in the Mosaic institutes for a system of religi ous teaching."-"None of the eminent Jewish worthies ever withheld himself from a deed of blood. He saw nothing wrong in taking unsparing vengeance on his enemies, and destroying them without discrimination in the mass."-The close walk of the Psalmists with God "did not generate in their minds the feelings of humanity toward enemies. It is true that they usually viewed their enemies as the enemies of God, but this has been the case with every persecutor, even with a Dominic." The author will not find many reverent believers in the Bible who are prepared to coincide with him in these views. Certainly we are not. Nor are we ready to admit that Job, Hezekiah, and the Old Testament saints in general, were utterly ignorant of the doctrine of human immortality—were never visited with an idea respecting it.

Mr. Row speaks of the improvement or progress made by the Jews in their knowledge of truth, and their moral stand

ard, in a way which exalts human reason in matters of religion, very much as rationalists are accustomed to exalt it. At least so it appears to us in reflecting upon the manner in which he handles the topics of some of the chapters whose titles we have just given. His idea seems to be that at first the profoundest ignorance prevailed in regard to certain truths in morals and religion; but that this darkness disappeared little by little, and thus without the aid of any supernatural revelation, the doctrine of the soul's immortality, and other truths which came to be received, gradually developed themselves, and finally, some time before the advent, constituted a part of the popular belief. This concession on the part of Mr. Row to Naturalism we cannot but regret. Our conviction is that certain fundamental truths were early revealed to man, and that they are assumed from the beginning of Scripture, and that these fundamental ideas of faith and morality, "constitute the basis and background of primary truth, from which the special revelations stand out as they come successively into view." His erroneous assumptions touching these matters do not, however, materially weaken the effect of his argument. Most clearly does he show how immense the interval is which lies between the state of thought out of which, as it is alleged, Christianity grew, and Christianity itself. The chapter on "The developments of Judaism between the prophetic period and the advent" is, with whatever faults it may have, able and interesting. It treats of the tendencies of Jewish thought and feeling as represented by the three great sects of Phariseeism, Sadduceeism, and Esseneism; and which were rapidly developing themselves in the direction of Rabbinism. In these tendencies we see the last phase of Judaism, which, although it was intensely adverse to the religion and morality exhibited in the person and teaching of our Lord, yet constituted the atmosphere in the midst of which Christianity originated. How can it be maintained that within a period of a few years the one grew out of the other in conformity with the action of the laws of human thought?

But in considering--for the purpose of showing the vast interval which separates Judaism from the Jesus of the Gospels-what the starting-point was from which the Evangelical

conception of the Christ must have originated, the influence of the supposed purely human character of the historical Jesus should be investigated. The author, therefore, in the thirteenth chapter of his book inquires into this influence. For the merely human Jesus of history, with the atmosphere of thought in which he was born and educated, constituted a part of the materials in the hands of his followers when they began their work of elaborating the conception of the divine Christ. But his examination of this subject our limits forbid us particularly to notice.

We will now attend to the author's discussion of the truth contained in the second proposition, that the laws which regulate developments in the mental and spiritual world are exceedingly slow in their operation. The chapter which he devotes to its consideration is entitled "The law of our religious and moral development."

It has already been shown that if the portraiture of the Jesus is an invention and not a reality, it must have originated in the state of Jewish ideas and feelings prevalent at the commencement of our era, and must have been evolved from them by a succession of growths. And these growths must have been regulated by the law of the development of the human mind. Suppose then that the interval is very great which separates the starting-point of the conception of the portraiture, from that portraiture in its full dimensions. Then it is evident that the laws of mental development ought to be very swift in their operation in order to render possible the bridging over that interval in a short period of time. If, on the contrary, all history teaches that those laws are exceedingly gradual and slow in their action, it follows that the supposition is absurd that the mythologists in their creations advanced, in a few years, from the point at which they must have started to the full and glorious conception of the Jesus who is portrayed in our Gospels. Now, that developments in the world of mind proceed by very gradual stages, the author proves by many illustrations. He points out the exceedingly gradual progress of philosophy and of art, and of the various religions of mankind, and shows that mythic creations must also follow a definite law of growth. The whole