what it was while everything else was changing and advancing. Gaslight, railroads, steam ships, and telegraphs, are only the symbols of a wonderful change in the world. We look in vain for steam, gas, and telegraphic machinery in the Church. No doubt much has been done these last forty years, but anything effective must be in harmony with the age; it must not go back to serge and hair shirts, to rope girdles and bare feet, to the mimicry of monkery and to playing at monks by shaving the heads of boys of seventeen and calling them priors, and by puerilities of that sort. Men are wanted with intellect and mental furniture, with God's fear, faith, love, and zeal, and these, by whatever name we call them, may do good service. The Archdeacon of London would restore some of those inferior orders of the ministry who are better known in Church history than in modern practice, and he would also revive suffragan or titular bishops. There are many admirable suggestions in the papers here collected, and we fancy that whatever controversy may arise as to the names by which the new workmen are called, there will be little or none as to the need for active measures. At the same time our own preferences are not in favour of a resuscitation of obsolete and outlandish titles, and we believe there would be a still stronger objection to such titles as are connected with the national reminiscences of Popery. Archdeacon Hale's publication is well worthy of attention. Gleanings from Scripture. By the Rev. FREDERICK WHITFIELD, A.B. London S. W. Partridge. MR. WHITFIELD is the author of several books which have met with extensive approval, and the one before us is equally fitted for edification. It is written in an excellent spirit, and in a clear and attractive style, very earnest and devout. English Common Sense versus Foreign Fallacies, in Questions of Religion. By JOHN DU BOULAY. London: Rivingtons. A BRIEF but spirited discussion of many topics of importance at the present time. Well worth reading. Our Eternal Homes. By a BIBLE STUDENT. London: Frederick Pitman. THERE are many curious and interesting speculations in this elegant little volume. With much that it contains we should readily agree, but there are opinions advanced in it which we should not assent to. Evangelischer Kalender. Jahrbuch für 1865. Mit Beiträgen. Herausgegeben Von FERDINAND PIPER. Berlin Wiegandt und Grieben. London: Williams and Norgate. In this popular and instructive annual, we find an almanac, an elaborate essay on Dante and his theology, a series of Christian biographies, and other interesting matters by different writers. It is a very excellent thing of the kind. The essay on Dante is alone worth the shilling the cost of the book. Scripture and Science not at variance: with remarks on the historical character, plenary inspiration, and surpassing importance of the earlier chapters of Genesis. By JOHN H. PRATT, M.A., Archdeacon of Calcutta. Fifth Edition. London: Hatchard and Co. WE are very pleased to find this useful and ably written manual in its fifth edition. It is a book which should be in everybody's hands. Notes on Spirit and Soul; also on the relation of Heart and Spirit, in 1 Cor. ii. By S. HANSOM. London: Nisbet and Co. THIS is a contribution to the right understanding of the words "spirit," "soul," and "heart,' as found in 1 Thess. v. 23, and 1 Cor. ii. The author's observations are very well and forcibly put. What he says is well deserving of attention. Royal Society of Literature: Annual Report; The President's Address; List of Members. 1864. THE Bishop of St. David's is the President of this useful Society. His address is interesting on several accounts, especially for the indications it furnishes of recent matters of importance to the learned world. With reference to the Simonides debate, the bishop thinks it for ever settled adversely to Simonides; and we think so too. On Dr. Newman's Rejection of Liguori's Doctrine of Equivocation. By the Rev. F. MEYRICK, M.A. London: Rivingtons. MR. MEYRICK is thoroughly acquainted with the questions he handles in this cleverly written pamphlet. Nothing but miserable quibbling can even seem to refute what he here advances. The Scribe instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven. An Ordination Sermon preached in the Cathedral of Cork. By Rev. JOHN QUARRY, A.M. Dublin: Hodges, Smith, and Co. A CAPITAL Sermon with some appropriate notes. We are glad Mr. Quarry has published it, and hope it may do good. The text is Matt. xiii. 52. The preacher touches upon a number of questions now very prominent, and handles them in a summary but effective manner. The Epistles of St. Paul for English Readers. 1 Thessalonians. By C. J. VAUGHAN, D.D. London: Macmillan and Co. DR. VAUGHAN is a good Greek scholar, but he has been a teacher of Greek, and he has been tempted to make a very literal verbal rendering of one of St. Paul's Epistles. There is much that is admirable in what he has now done, and so far we quite approve of it; but the literal verbal translation is a mistake if not a failure, because those who are in a position to appreciate it must know Greek already. We say they must know Greek, for the translator has allowed many peculiarities of Greek idiom and expression to pass into English. If he does this in what he intends to publish, he will greatly lessen the usefulness and acceptability of a most desirable project. We also think he has been too careful to limit his illustrative notes to such points as Scripture itself throws light upon. Ancient Biblical Chronograms; or, a Discovery of the Chronological use of the Majuscular Letters occurring in the Text of the Hebrew Scriptures. By WILLIAM HENRY BLACK, F.S.A., etc. THIS is a paper read before the Chronological Institute, and its object is to shew that the large letters which occur in the Hebrew text have a meaning. By connecting those which are found in the several divisions of the Bible, the author arrives at the conclusion that they are chronological indications of some important dates in Old Testament history. Chronograms, as they are called, are common in comparatively modern times. They are ordinarily regarded as ingenious methods of perpetuating a date or a number. The word Lateinos, as it is written by Irenæus, is made a chronogram in one sense, because it is made the exponent of the number 666 in Rev. xiii. 18. We must be cautious, however, about placing too much reliance upon such calculations: for example, the words Apocalypsis Divina Beati Johannis, treated as a chronogram, make 666. Mr. Black's essay is very ingenious, curious, and worthy of attention. Customs and Traditions of Palestine, illustrating the Manners of the Ancient Hebrews. By E. Pierotti. Translated by T. G. Bonney. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co. London: Bell and Dalby. Christian Certainty. By S. Wainwright. London: Hatchard and Co. Hymns from the German. A new and enlarged Edition. Translated by F. Eliz. Cox. London: Rivingtons. Replies to the Third and Fourth Parts of the Right Reverend the Bishop of Natal's "Pentateuch and book of Joshua critically examined." By Franke Parker, M.A. London: Bell and Daldy. These and some other publications reached us too late to be reviewed in the present number. Several contributions also have to stand over in consequence of the extra space allotted to exceptional matter. The increase in the Correspondence of the Journal, renders it desirable that our friends should study brevity, and should forward as early as they can, such letters as are intended for speedy insertion. MISCELLANIES. Christian and Jewish Inscriptions.-We have looked with some interest into the evidence supplied by the inscriptions on the muchcontroverted question, regarding the number of Christians who embraced the profession of arms in the early days of Christianity. The strong denunciations of the military oaths by Tertullian, De Idolatria, and the martyrdom of St. Maximilian for refusing to serve, on the ground that it was unlawful for him as a Christian, have been urged as a proof that there cannot possibly have been any considerable number of Christians in the Roman army during the first centuries of Christianity. The number of epitaphs of soldiers in M. Le Blant's own collection is very small, and the same is true of the collection of M. De Rossi. But M. Le Blant has taken the trouble to compare the total number of soldiers who appear in a collection of about ten thousand pagan inscriptions, with that of the soldiers who are registered in a collection of about four thousand seven hundred Christian inscriptions; and he has ascertained that, while in the pagan list the soldiers form 5.42 per cent., they are only 0.57 per cent. in the Christian. It may well be doubted, however, whether this comparison is a fair one. Considering the lofty notions which were inculcated and entertained in the early Church as to the dignity of the Christian profession, which was held to excel and overshadow all earthly titles of honour, it is far from probable that Christian soldiers, as a general rule, would parade upon their epitaphs the titles of any other warfare than that of Christ. Many of the inscriptions, therefore, which bear no evidence of the military profession, may yet be epitaphs of soldiers. Moreover, it is certain that a very large proportion of the ordinary epitaphs of pagan soldiers regard officers of higher or lower degree. Now it is equally certain that the proportion of officers would be much lower among the Christians than among the pagans. We are inclined, therefore, on the whole, to believe that the comparison made by M. Le Blant can by no means be relied on, as a conclusive test of the actual proportion of Christians to pagans in the armies of the early empire, and that the question must still remain open for determination upon other and independent grounds. These very inscriptions, indeed, present, although in a different matter, a curious example of the occasional inapplicability of such tests. It is well known that a very large proportion of the early Christian community was drawn from the class of slaves and freedmen; and as, among the pagan epitaphs, the names of slaves and freedmen are of very frequent occurrence, one might naturally expect to find them in a similar, or nearly similar, proportion in the Christian collections. Now, strange as it may seem, allusions to the servile condition are almost entirely unknown in Christian epigraphy. Marangoni, in thirty years' exploration, met but one single epitaph of a freedman. M. Le Blant could only discover two a Cap. xix., p. 117. (Ed. Rig.) NEW SERIES.-VOL. VI., NO. XII. Acta S. Victorini, p. 136. K K epitaphs of deceased slaves (p. 22), and some five or six other inscriptions in which the names of living slaves are mentioned. The obvious ground of this suppression was that which is often professed in the acts of the judicial examination of the martyrs; viz., that in Christ there is no distinction of bondsman or free, and that by the Gospel liberty of Christ, the social stamp of slavery was obliterated, once and for ever, upon earth. By a somewhat analogous application of the scriptural principle that man's life on earth is but that of a pilgrim or sojourner, and that his true country is beyond the grave, the Christian inscriptions habitually ignore all mention of the birthplace or country of the deceased. Out of about five thousand Christian inscriptions in Seguier's Index, only fortyfive make mention of the country; and it may be added that, as if in recognition of the evangelical counsel to leave home, and father, and mother, and brother, and to follow Christ, the same persistent suppression extends, in nearly the same degree, to all those details of descent, at least as a designation of the individual, which form so conspicuous a feature in the pagan inscriptions of the corresponding period. But we have dwelt too long on these critical discussions, and it is time to turn to the inscriptions themselves, as illustrating the Christian spirit of the several ages which they represent. It is hardly necessary to say that, in the ancient epitaphs, as in the modern, the utmost diversity of style may be recognized. In a notice of the Roman catacombs, published in this journal some years ago, the reader will find some epitaphs most touching for the extreme simplicity of their language and sentiment; and this simplicity is certainly the prevailing characteristic of the earlier inscriptions. But, on the other hand, we occasionally meet most exaggerated examples of the opposite style; and even M. De Rossi's volume, not to speak of M. Le Blant's, may, in some of its specimens, challenge comparison with the most affected sentimentalities of Père la Chaise, or the pompous inanities of our own St. Paul's. Such rhetorical compositions, however, are the exception, while simplicity, and perhaps even rudeness, is the rule. Some inscriptions, indeed, are in the latter respect almost a puzzle. It needs all M. De Rossi's ingenuity to interpret the following: HIC QVIESCIT ANCILLA DEI QUE DE SVA OMNIA POSSEDIT DOMVM ISTA S CAVSA MANBIS IIIIX KHLENDAS OTOBRIS CVCVRBITINVS ET ABVMDANTIVS HIC SIMVL QVIESCIT Disregarding the strange agglomeration of errors of case, of gender, of number, and of orthography, which are crowded into these few lines, M. De Rossi adopts the reading of Marini: "Hic quiescit ancilla Dei, quæ de suis omnibus possidet domum istam, quam amicæ deflent sola "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. iii. 28). |