in ignorance of the time when this blessed change shall happen, may it be in a century, in a year, while we ourselves yet live ?-and we ask any one whether, in contemplating this prospect, death does not depart entirely from his view, and whether he has any other language with which to answer the declaration of Christ, 'Behold, I come quickly,' than that of the Apostle, Amen, even so come, Lord Jesus.' 6 Now it is undeniable that this thought of Christ's coming was in the days of the Apostles much more before the mind of the Church than it is now. We do not ask was it so rightly or not; it is enough for us that such was the fact. Every epistle teems with allusions to it. It is thought of for instruction, for warning, for comfort, and we are not aware of one single passage where with the happy ease of modern interpretation it is spoken of as a periphrasis for death-it was constantly and intently dwelt upon as something literally to come to pass-and this all taking place at a time when faith in Jesus was so lively, and love to him so warm, it is not to be wondered at that death was disregarded. The contemplation of the future was closed in by the prospect of Christ's coming again; and if the believer thought, this is the great rule of humanity, it is appointed unto all men once to die, and after death the judgment,' he thought immediately again, the case is now altered for me, for unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation' (Heb. ix. 27, 28). Such then is the view with which the Scriptures present us of our present condition and our future prospects. It is impossible to say that it is not one of importance, or one not pregnant with results of the greatest moment for our state of feeling and for our daily practice. How many are the fears of death which even the believer has; what a dark tinge does it give to the future when before him he sees so constantly the coldness and corruption of the tomb-while, on the other hand, how much more animating the thought, I never die, I have life in Christ, and that life lasts for ever; death is now to me but a step in my onward progress,-not that which unclothes me, but rather that which clothes me with a glorious immortality. How much more would the Christian, realizing this thought, be led to live above the world than he often does. How emphatic would the exhortation of Paul then become to him: Seek the things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, for thou art dead, and thy life is hid with Christ in God.' His life is not now mere physical life, not life in the world; it is in Christ; must he not then live less to the former, and more to the latter? Above all, it would make him think more of the Saviour; we should have fewer in the Church who, VOL. III.NO. VI. 2 c who, turning their bread to ashes in their mouth, nourish themselves by what they change to a dead theology, instead of being nourished by a living Lord; and feeling more that Christ was living in us, we should fill more the position which he calls on us to fill; 'as he was, so also should we be in the world.' PROFESSOR VON EWALD ON DR. SAMUEL LEE'S To the Editor of the Journal of Sacred Literature. MY DEAR SIR,-I request you to give Professor Von Ewald's answer to Dr. Lee a place in the Journal, as the most fitting means of securing so small a document from oblivion and obscurity; and I venture for the sake of those who discern that much more important interests are involved in this strife than anything merely personal to those engaged in it, and who may wish to follow the course of the discussion to preface his letter by a brief summary of the incidents which have led to it. It was in the Preface to his Hebrew Grammar of 1841, pp. 11—15, that Dr. Lee first publicly, and at some length, accused Professor Von Ewald of having appropriated some of his discoveries on the nature of the tenses, and on the use of the accents. A copy of this Grammar, bearing on its title the date of 1844, was shown to Professor Von Ewald, in June, 1845, and he thought it due, both to himself and to the cause of sound biblical philology, to rebut these dishonouring imputations. He wrote his Reply in the same month, and entrusted it to me to publish it in England, where the accusation was made, and where alone anybody could be found capable of believing it. I designed this Reply to accompany a work on which I was then engaged; but, as circumstances caused me to postpone the publication of that work, the Reply was deferred by the fate of its companion. During this interval of delay, I accidentally saw the March number of the Churchman's Monthly Review for 1847, and there found that Dr. Lee, while engaged in controversy with some one else, again renewed his charge of plagiarism, and asserted that Professor Von Ewald had pillaged him.' This circumstance was the means by which the long-delayed Reply was at last published in the May number of the Churchman's Review for the same year. The Reply, which incidentally discusses some of the most important problems of Hebrew grammar, aimed at establishing two points: first, at declaring the author's most unequivocal and solemn denial of his having appropriated, or of his even having had the opportunity of appropriating, any of Dr. Lee's discoveries; and secondly, at demonstrating that, even in the views which he is accused of pillaging, he differs most essentially from Dr. Lee. I soon learned, from Dr. Lee's own announcement in the Churchman's Review, that he purposed publishing an answer to the Reply; but, in spite of all my my solicitude to learn the fact of its appearance, it was not until the 6th of January of this present year, that I was able to ascertain that he had put forth An Examination of the Grammatical Principles of Professor Von Ewald; also, of the Defence of himself against the Charge of certain Plagiarisms, by Samuel Lee, D.D., 1847 (Seeleys, 126 pp.). It was not until the 10th of the same month that I could dispatch a copy of this pamphlet to Professor Von Ewald; and the receipt of it has elicited from him the following short answer. When your readers are apprised that, notwithstanding Professor Von Ewald's explicit and earnest asseverations to the contrary, the Examination teems with every insulting repetition of the charges of 'purloining,' they will, doubtless, admit that no man of honour could possibly condescend to prolong a personal controversy on such unequal terms. JOHN NICHOLSON. Inglewood House, Penrith, Feb. 12, 1849. LETTER BY PROFESSOR VON EWALD. 6 I have only just received the pamphlet which the Rev. Dr. Samuel Lee, late Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Cambridge, published against me, in England, as long ago as the year 1847; and I consider it utterly unnecessary to reply to him in the manner which I formerly adopted. But I hope that all those who have followed the course of this controversy on the science of the Hebrew language (a controversy which Dr. Lee began, and not I), and who have read the papers concerning it in the Churchman's Monthly Review for 1847, will hold me perfectly excusable when I now assert, in reference to the new proofs of Dr. Lee's character as a scholar and as a man : 1. That, as a teacher of Hebrew, he understands nothing of that language, since every pupil in a German gymnasium, who intends to visit the University as a theological student, knows infinitely more of it than he does. 2. That he possesses only an exceedingly mediocre, uncertain, and inexact knowledge of those Semitic languages which are, comparatively speaking, much easier to understand thoroughlysuch as Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopic; and that he does not correctly apprehend even a single line of Sanscrit, which he likewise pretends to know. 3. That he neither knows, nor is able to conceive, what sciencei. e. the art and certainty of human knowledge-is. 4. But that, as a man also (as, to my great regret, I must now declare before all the scholars of England and America), he neither possesses honour, nor a love of honour, since he is not ashamed, in spite of my remonstrance, to re-assert the most scandalous untruths with aggravated effrontery, and even to increase their number manifold; as if lies could be made into truths, by being reiterated a thousand times, and by being garnished with new fabrications. I entirely overlook the circumstance of his accusing me of neology and heresy for, were he to aim at understanding what neology and 2 c 2 heresy heresy are at all, and especially what they are in our time, he would first be obliged to acquire a much more profound knowledge of the Bible than he now possesses. No Christian, however, should so conduct himself as either by his speaking, or even by his keeping silence-to extend the kingdom of falsehood, uncertainty, and ignorance. H. EWALD. Göttingen, Feb. 2, 1849. MR. PORTER'S REPLY TO DR. DAVIDSON'S CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM. HAD Dr. Davidson in his Review of my Principles of Textual Criticism, inserted in the last number of the Journal of Sacred Literature, pointed out the faults of my work, showing where it is incorrect, wherein it is defective, and how it might be improved, I should have felt grateful to him for the trouble taken in exposing my errors. Or had he contented himself with accusing me, as he has done, of ignorance, self-sufficiency, presumption, &c., I should have left the readers of the Journal of Sacred Literature to form their own judgment of the accusation from the manifest spirit of the accuser; but when these charges are followed up by a distinct imputation of plagiarism, I feel that I ought not to be silent: and I respectfully claim from the Editor permission to defend my personal and literary character in the Journal which has circulated the attack. The charge is conveyed in the following terms: 'In parting with our author, we merely suggest whether it might not have been more generous to have acknowledged his obligations to Horne's Introduction and Davidson's Lectures on Biblical Criticism. The plan and purpose of his volume coincide with those of the latter work, although no one would think, from Mr. Porter's preface, that a work similar in design to his had ever been issued from the English press. "It would," says he, "have been every way more desirable had a scholar well accomplished in these branches of learning, assumed to himself the task which I have here attempted; but having waited for years in vain to see such a work as the present from some abler pen, I have thought it better to offer my own contribution to the science of theology than to linger in the expectation of seeing that performed by others which no other seemed willing to undertake." This language is in harmony with the very liberal use of the first pronoun throughout the volume, as well as with the writer's adventurous manner. That he has borrowed from the work in question with all its mistakes, it would be easy to show, but it is not needful. The volume before us is at least twenty years behind the present state of the science. We praise the author for his laudable attempt. We commend him for his great diligence and labour. We thank him for the beautiful fac-similes he has furnished. He possesses creditable learning and respectable ability, but his self-sufficiency is scarcely compatible with the character of the true scholar, much less with the real value of the present work. He must pardon us for saying that there are still a few scholars in Great Britain who could produce a much better and more correct work than his, and we are not without hopes that some of them may soon be induced to publish a volume which will give a fair view of the science of criticism as far as it has truly advanced. This cannot be done except by a thorough German scholar, and it is highly presumptuous in any other to attempt it.' In this extract I have marked a few passages in italics, to which I wish to direct the reader's attention and my own. The last of them, He must pardon us for saying,' &c., implies that I claim to be, of British scholars, the one best qualified for producing a work on Textual Criticism but have I not expressly asserted the reverse in my preface? nay, in the very sentence which Dr. Davidson quotes from it in proof of my self-sufficiency? It is true that I have intimated my ignorance of any work in English, similar to my own, and calculated to be equally useful to the student; but as Dr. Davidson only hopes that a better book than mine may hereafter see the light, it may be presumed that he, too, is unaware of the existence of any other, at present in print, which can be ranked as superior to mine. Of course I am acquainted with several English books treating of the same subject, but some of the ablest of them are too old to be of much use; others only discuss one portion of the science, and several are so disfigured by an inconvenient and illogical arrangement, inconsistent and selfcontradictory statements, glaring inaccuracies even in the translation of easy Latin sentences, and the clumsy introduction of irrelevant topics, that they rank far below the hand-books employed by the students of other sciences. In these respects I think I have made some improvement, but as in the prosecution of my task I have been compelled to speak of versions of the Scriptures in the Egyptian, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, Sclavonic, Moso-Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and Persic languages, with which I am entirely unacquainted, I have expressed, and now reiterate my regret, that no scholar, well accomplished in these branches of learning,' has hitherto undertaken the task which I have attempted. But if this ignorance of mine disqualifies me for the duty which I have undertaken, it ought to have acted as a barrier against the publication of Dr. Davidson's Lectures; for I observe that in his Appendix, p. 394, he, too, confesses his unacquaintance with these languages. As to the German, with which he conjectures that I am unacquainted ('Perhaps the writer does not know German'), I beg to state that I have read in that language several of the works mentioned in the Review, and some others not there enumerated, though I have not thought it proper to parade before my readers a number of names of writers whom few among them ever would have an opportunity of consulting. It may be that the style of my preface abounds too much in the use of the first pronoun,' but this can hardly be avoided when a writer has to explain his own motives, unless he be disposed to diversify his language, as Dr. Davidson has done, by the employment of two pronouns referring to himself in one and the same paragraph. 'The author originally intended, &c. He formed the purpose of publishing, &c. I have neither aimed at making them copious nor meagre,' &c., Preface to Lectures, p. iii. iv. Why should a writer who can appropriate two personal pronouns at once envy me the modest and necessary use of one? But all these are matters of little moment when compared with the charge of having incurred 'obligations' which I have not acknowledged, both to Dr. Davidson himself and to Mr. Horne. Of Mr. Horne's work I have repeatedly spoken, and always with a degree |