even a bully may have, might be explained in various ways: probably the adoption of an allegoric system of moralising, that supervened at a certain point in the production of these Arthurian poems, has had something to do with it; for under that system Tristram not unnaturally becomes the simple unmitigated type of that degenerate knighthood prevalent immediately before the "passing of Arthur:" his life and character disgust us; but his doom does not move us, and hence does not appal.

*

But the ignobleness of the present Tristram is perhaps less directly traceable to the exigencies of the didactic plan of the Idylls of the King in their complete and "proper shape and order," as expounded by the late Dean Alford, than to that defect in the main conception of the Arthurian story which has elsewhere been pointed out as robbing the King of all human dignity, and involving of necessity a low level for the surrounding characters. In the old story the birth of the traitorous Modred from the incestuous connection of Arthur with his half-sister, whom in a fit of youthful folly he embraces "unknowing and unknown," is at the foundation of the whole legend of the Round Table from beginning to end; and Arthur, grown to the full heroic proportions of his adult manhood, but mated with one who is more queen than wife, stands apart from Guinevere, disregardful of her life and needs, awaiting in tragic dignity the fulfilment of the weird prophecies of Merlin concerning his end, and the end of the whole great scheme that has occupied the energies of his life. Throughout the noble old story of Sir Thomas Mallory the careful reader discerns that ever-greatening, ever-approaching Nemesis which, in the highest tragedies, dogs the heels of some lesser lapse, holding up ruin and downfall and death as surely as if the crime were of the blackest; and the doom of the terrible crime of incest falls as unerringly and inexorably on Arthur and all the great work of his life's shaping, as if that crime had not been committed unwittingly in the garb of the lesser crime of juvenile lightness and incontinence. In removing this element of the legend, and leaving Arthur only the insipid and half-human features of the "blameless King, the Laureate has deprived both Arthur and Guinevere of the tragic dignity which alone could fit them for a high poetic

* See Under the Microscope, by A. C. Swinburne (D. White, 22, Coventrystreet, 1872), a pamphlet which, though not sustaining a very dignified position in connection with what is known as the "Fleshly School" scandal, contains some admirable criticisms, and notably an exposition of the low standard of the Laureate's Arthurian characters.

treatment. The Queen's adultery with Lancelot, a man immeasurably inferior, as the Laureate would have us think, to her own devoted lord, is neither more nor less fit for poetic treatment than the like sin of any Mrs. Jones or Brown in like circumstances, and is not at all the same thing as the sin of a neglected and embittered Queen, arising from the weird and tragic isolation of a doomed King. On the other hand, the persistent attachment of Arthur to such a woman as the Laureate's Guinevere, his persistent belief in her chastity long after her sin has become the common babble of the land, leave him with not much more dignity than one sees in the merest cuckold of our coarsest school of comedy,though there is certainly nothing intentionally light or trivial in the Laureate's treatment of vice, as there is in the comic treatments.

Whether this general cause of depression, or some more special cause, be at the root of the degradation discernible in this new Tristram, the result is clear enough; and we come back once more to the hope that we have the last of the "Arthuriad" in our hands, that he who has so long led triumphantly in the choir of our thoughtfuller lyrists has laid by, once for all, a subject or set of subjects whereon he has failed to throw the full human interest necessary to make、 narrative poetry of the highest value, and that we may now again become his debtors for some of those loftier strains that no man living can pour forth with more of music and mastery.

ART. VII.—The Argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews. A Posthumous Work by GEORGE STEWARD, Author of "Mediatorial Sovereignty," &c. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1872.

WE cannot read this title-page without the renewal of a feeling of bereavement. Mr. Steward was a theologian whose rare gifts of thought and expression, whose lofty and comprehensive views of the economy of the "truth as it is in Jesus," and whose unbending fidelity to the evangelical maintenance of that truth from the pulpit and from the press, placed him in the foremost class of those men in whom the Church does well to glorify God. His published works are an honour to Christian theology: we may say to Methodist theology; since, though he did not close his career in the Methodist ministry, and while in that ministry was independent of any and every traditional school of teaching, his writings truly reflect the noblest characteristics of what we may call the theology of the Methodist revival. His greatest work, the Mediatorial Sovereignty, is a grand vindication of the place of Christ as the centre of all truth that concerns the human race, and the foundation of all that is revealed of the Moral Government of God. It gives a close and searching analysis of the various forms of the one truth under all the dispensations, and exhibits their synthesis in the sovereign government of Christ, with a dignity and an eloquence which have few parallels. It is one of those books which approve themselves only to those who are content to read more than once, and to ponder deeply while they read; but to them it will be, as it has been, full of sound instruction, and even more full of high stimulant. The present volume is said to have been intended as a Supplement. But it no otherwise bears that character than as it finds in the Epistle to the Hebrews the New Testament text and illustrations of some of the fundamental principles of its predecessor.

This is a style of commentary for which we have great respect. It may be said to consist of dissertations on the current of thought in the Epistle, rather than on the words of the Epistle itself. Thus it combines the interest of exposition and the interest of the theological treatise. Mr. Steward's mind was pre-eminently adapted for this service.

Mr. Steward as a Theologian.

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He could never have pursued the wearisome task of examining the readings and determining the text; nor would grammatical interpretation have been in harmony with his habits and tastes. But for broad and comprehensive generalisations; for the power of seizing and unwinding the thread of the Apostle's thought; and, above all, for the exhibition of the relation of that thought to the great centres of theology, whether Christian generally or Pauline in particular, he had no small ability. The reader of this volume will soon discover what we mean. He will miss many a discussion on vexed passages which he might wish for; and think some difficulties passed over too easily, because to the expositor's mind they were no difficulties. But he will never find wanting a thorough and profound appreciation of the high theological bearings of the passage or paragraph discussed.

The expression "high theological bearings" escaped naturally from our pen. Whoever has read Mr. Steward's writings with any care will understand what we mean, and how appropriate the words are. There is a high and there is a low theological tone; there is an indefinable but most certain difference between theologian and theologian, which does not depend simply upon the intellectual taste of the writers themselves, but upon the style of religious thought to which they have been trained. This distinction between the dignified, elevated and nobler theories of Divine truth and their opposites is altogether independent, also, of ecclesiastical influences; it has nothing to do with sacramental views. It is the result simply of a true contact of the mind with the Person and dignity of Christ, and it makes itself almost instantly obvious, at any rate to those whose perceptions have been trained to acuteness in this matter. Now Mr. Steward was born to be one of the nobler order of theological thinkers. He held as little of the sacramental element in his views of the Gospel as he could well hold; he had no sympathy with that doctrine which Calvinists associate with the term. In these respects he was quite low enough; but still he was eminently a high theologian, and his system of Divine truth was based upon a few great principles concerning Christ which none can hold without keeping their theology at a high elevation.

The foremost amongst these is a reverent submission of the intellect to the revelation of God's will, however made; but especially as made in His Word. Reverence, pure reverence, for Divine things, as such, is a much rarer grace among Christian men and Christian teachers than it was in old times. It is impossible that the mysteries of the Christian

faith should be assailed, and the documents of Christianity contested, by Christian ministers themselves, without the effect of lowering, almost insensibly, but surely, the spirit of childlike reverence and faith in all classes. With Mr. Steward, reverence for the things of God and for the Holy Scriptures were one and the same. He was as much disposed as any man could be, both by natural constitution and by acquired habits, to contemplate God and Divine truth intuitively, without the intervention of the mirror of the Written Word. He had his reveries, and deep meditations, and hours of still ecstasy of unmeditated thought. But he was remarkably faithful to the authority of the Written Scriptures; and, believing the Bible to be in a sense peculiar to itself the voice of God to man, he heard every word of it with a trembling reverence.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is of profound interest to all true theologians, especially to those whose affinities are with the contemplative and semi-mystical elements of theology. Indeed, it may be said that, sooner or later, every earnest student of the Scriptures comes under its strong fascination. Nor are the reasons far to seek. The deep impressiveness of the Temple reigns everywhere; and all the doctrines and mysteries of the Christian faith are as it were invested with the solemnity of the Holiest. The most affecting symbols and ceremonies of the Old Testament are explained in their true eternal significance; so that we feel that mysteries hid from ages and generations are here made manifest. To the theologian the Epistle is, as it were, the necessary counterpart of those to the Romans and the Galatians. In these the Mediatorial Court and the Household of Sonship are opened; and all the doctrine and all the phraseology are in harmony with these. The language is everywhere that belonging to righteousness and the adoption: not indeed exclusively, but still very largely, Christian theology is in them judicial and forensic, on the one hand, filial and familiar on the other. But in this Epistle to the Hebrews, and in this alone, Christianity leaves the Court, and even the House, and dwells in the Temple. All its doctrine and all its ethics have the solemnity and sanctity of the sanctuary upon them. Hence the unfailing joy which the devout mind experiences in the study of it. Having heard his sentence of justification in the Court of Mediatorial Justice, the Christian student passes, through the House where adoption and all its privileges reign, into the Temple where he is sanctified and sealed.