'The Book of Joshua,'*by Principal Douglas, is a fitting companion to his commentary on the Book of Judges. It forms one of a series of Hand-Books for Bible Classes in the course of publication by Messrs Clark; and for those who use Joshua as a Bible class-book there is no better hand-book. But, considering the other contents of the Bible, and the shortness of the period that young people can be in Bible classes, Joshua is not very likely to be much employed for this purpose. As a commentary, however, on the book, it is one of great value. Indeed, from its taking careful note of all the recent discoveries in Palestine, it is an indispensable companion to all past commentaries upon the book. Principal Douglas is obviously a man of great learning, and fully acquainted with the Rationalistic commentaries upon the book, but he has not been led to assign its composition to a late period in the history of Israel, or to ignore or deny the Messianic teaching of the book. In a few skilfully put sentences in the introduction he shows the absurdity of supposing the Book of Joshua to belong to the age of Ezra, or to some period still later in Jewish history. In the fifth chapter, verses 13-15, he distinctly identifies the angel of Jehovah with the Son of God sent forth from the Father to the Church even then, though made known much more obscurely to the Church of the Old Testament than to us in the fulness of the time.' Dr Douglas would add to the valuable service he has done to the Church by his commentaries on Joshua and Judges if he would continue the series through Ruth and Samuel.

'The Very Words of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,' is a carefully printed grouping on separate pages of our Lord's words as they occur in the Gospels. We need scarcely say that these words are of inestimable value. But, after reading through the book, we confess still preferring to read these words in their setting as they occur in the Gospels. And one of the good ends the editor of this book has attained is the conviction that the Gospels cannot be improved upon, and that, after all, there is nothing like reading them in the form in which they came from the pen of inspiration itself. The editor of this volume is careful to disclaim all idea of exalting one part of Holy Scripture above another, and plainly holds that all Scripture is the word of Christ, the great prophet of His Church. The book is issued at a cheap rate, and we have no doubt will be useful to invalids and those who have but little time to spare, the classes for whom its compiler designed the volume. But we have as little doubt that its perusal

The Book of Joshua. By G. C. M. Douglas, D.D. Cr. 8vo, pp. 122. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

1882.

will send its readers back with increased delight to the Gospels themselves.

of gatherings from the papers of the late Miss 'Starlight Through the Shadows' is a book Frances R. Havergal. It contains eleven short papers, intended to form the first portion of a daily book for Invalids.' Then follow Marching Orders, L. to IX., reprinted from the Church Missionary Gleaner of 1879. The last seventy pages are occupied with sixteen outlines of addresses and other miscellaneous papers. All of them have the clearness, fervour, and Scriptural character that have made Miss Havergal's other writings such favourites with multitudes of readers.

'Lays for Leisure Hours'§ is a volume of poetry by a lady, one of whose poems appeared in our pages last June. The volume is of unequal merit, but some of the shorter poems have not a little beauty, and show that Miss Dow is capable of higher things than she has yet done. As a specimen of the tone and gracefulness of Miss Dow's pages we transfer the following:

" FOLLOW JESUS. 'Go, follow Jesus' steps,

And in His work take part;
Go, comfort those who mourn,
And heal the wounded heart.
'Go, gather in the lost,

There's room in Jesus' fold;
Go, gently bring the young,
And kindly cheer the old.
'Go, lead to God the soul

Oppressed with doubt and fear;
Go, speak of Jesus' love,
Till shadows disappear.

'Go, work with heart and mind,
Ón Jesus' strength rely;
Go, tell the troubled soul

Of peace and joy on high.'

Miss Jean L. Watson's 'Life of Principal Candlish' is a pleasantly-written book, and in its 178 pages conveys a very faithful idea of what its theme was. Dr Candlish was one of the most remarkable of the distinguished men that, heralded by Dr Chalmers, appeared in the first half of this century in the Established Church, and awakened it out of the torpor of Moderatism, and by their zeal and energy called into existence the Evangelical party, which ultimately found itself compelled to renounce State connection, and form for itself the Free Church, that, by its many noble deeds, has given a new glory to our country. From the moment that his voice was first heard in the General Assembly in 1838 down to his death in 1873 Dr Candlish occupied a first place, not only in his own section of the Church, but in every society with which he

Starlight Through the Shadows, and Other Gleams from the King's Word. By the late Frances Ridley Havergal. 16mo, pp. 176. London: J. Nisbet & Co. 1882.

Lays for Leisure Hours. By Margaret Russel Dow. Cr. 8vo, pp. 246. Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot. 1882.

was associated. He had a wonderfully busy life, and he threw his soul into everything he set about, yet he found time to produce a large quantity of literature. His acknowledged works amount to some twelve or thirteen volumes, all of them thoughtful and suggestive, fresh in the treatment of their themes, and expressed in a nervous English, more like that of a student who had devoted his hours to the study of our language than that of a leader in every evangelic enterprise of his time; yet these acknowledged works are but a small part of what, in the shape of letters, articles, pamphlets, addresses, &c., he must have given forth to the world. Men who take the foremost place in public affairs are sometimes supposed to suffer in their piety. The incessant activities of their public life leave little time for devotion. Dr Candlish had simply to be heard in prayer, say at the annual opening of the Free College, or in his ordinary ministrations in the sanctuary, to see in the simplicity, fervour, and evangelic savour of his utterances that, amidst his multifarious public duties, he was living in daily communion with God.

'Canada is the first of the Colonists' Hand-Books issued by the Tract Committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, in accordance with the plan noticed in our Intelligence last month (p. 118). It is fitted to be highly useful to emigrants, from the information and valuable counsels it contains. As might be expected from its source, it gives full information regarding the Episcopal Church in Canada, but it says nothing of other Churches. In an appendix it gives a form of a commendatory letter, and suggests that any clergyman giving a letter commendatory to a parishioner should copy out the letter in his own hand in preference to using a printed form, and that his letter would probably be still more valued, and likely to be more useful, if it could be written on the back of a photograph of the parish church or the cathedral of the diocese, or have such a photograph appended to it. The appendix also contains five forms of prayer for emigrants. It is to be regretted that a book otherwise so excellent should unmistakably teach baptismal regeneration, a doctrine which, carried out to its full consequences, can only end in this life in landing its recipient in the Church of Rome.

'Wonderful Words of Life: A Manual for Home Missions,' t is a book of well-selected Scripture texts, by Mrs Ashby, with a preface by Mrs Pennefather, giving some practical details of a Flower Mission. To those engaged in such a mission the book is fitted to be highly useful.

* Colonists' Hand-Books. No. I. Canada. Cr. Svo, pp. 48. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 1882.

+ Wonderful Words of Life: A Manual for Home Missions. Compiled by Mrs Edmund Ashby, with a Preface by Mrs Pennefather. 18mo, pp. 92. London: John F. Shaw & Co. 1882.

The Presbyterian Journal, issued in Philadelphia, although denominational in its name, is wonderfully catholic in its sympathies. We have often transferred from its pages. To those who wish to know what is going on in all branches of the Christian Church in the New World we know nothing better than this journal. It is a weekly, and costs a dollar and a-half-i.e., six shillings and threepence a year.

issued in Boston, like the Presbyterian Journal, The Watchman,§ an organ of the Baptists, is also denominational in character, but it is not the less catholic and evangelical and missionary in its aims. Its name is familiar on we have taken from it. It is somewhat larger our pages from the many admirable papers than the Presbyterian Journal, and costs two dollars and a-half in the year.

'Service,' by Mrs Pennefather, is a sequel to a volume that we briefly noticed last October. It is formed of sketches and addresses touching on the many questions likely to be mooted among young or inexperienced workers in the Lord's vineyard. Mrs Pennefather has obviously a large experience, and her counsels Christian workers, whether young or old, canare wise and loving. Her book is one that not read without profit.

Mrs Raleigh has produced a life of her husband that will be prized by all that knew him. She has been singularly successful in catching the tone in which the life of such a man should have been written, and the book is not too long, as biographies are apt to be. Indeed, in many respects it is quite a model biography. It calls up Dr Raleigh to the very life.

Dr Raleigh was born in Castle-Douglas, in Kirkcudbright, in 1817. His father was a member of the Reformed Presbyterian congregation in that town. Outdoor preaching was common among the Reformed Presbyterians at that period, and at one of these outdoor meetings he was baptised. A year after Raleigh's birth, the Reformed Presbyterian congregation at Castle-Douglas received John Osborne as its first minister. Osborne, from all accounts, was a man of great powers as a preacher, and attracted multitudes to hear him. In summer he seems usually to have preached in the open air, and he was singularly effective in weaving into his discourses allusions to the scenery around him. Early in his career he began to develop tendencies that ultimately led to his separation from his brethren. In 1841 he published a

The Presbyterian Journal. 15 North Seventh Street, Philadelphia.

§ The Watchman. 14 Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass.

Follow Thou Me' Service. By Mrs Pennefather. Cr. 8vo, pp. 194. London: John F. Shaw & Co. 1882.

¶ Alexander Raleigh: Records of his Life. Edited by Mary Raleigh. Cr. 8vo, pp. 318. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black. 1881.

volume, entitled 'Introduction to the Philosophy of Man, Harmonising Revelation and Science.' From this book it is not easy to make out what his views were, save that he exceedingly disliked the forms in which truth had been presented by his former brethren, and is unsparing in his condemnation of these forms. Raleigh sat under this brilliant and erratic preacher until his eighteenth year, when he followed his father to Liverpool. Although he was altogether a different man from Osborne, yet it is not difficult to see in Dr Raleigh's sermons, in their avoidance of doctrinal statement, and in his views about inspiration, and his dislike of the term Calvinism, and yet in his admiration of the Covenanters, that his first minister had given an abiding impress to his mind. In Liverpool young Raleigh attended the ministry of the Rev. John Kelly, then beginning his ministry in Bethesda Chapel. Osborne was far from being an attractive man in private, but Mr Kelly must have been a man of singularly persuasive ways to young people. Kelly's history had been not unlike Raleigh's own. Raleigh, after he left school, was an apprentice for three years to a draper in Castle-Douglas. Kelly, when he left the Heriot's Hospital in Edinburgh, served as an apprentice to a gunmaker in Edinburgh until an accident, that deprived him of one of his fingers, rendered him unfit for manual labour, and the governors of Heriot's Hospital sent him to college. Mr Kelly at once exerted a formative and confirming influence over Raleigh's mind. In his twenty-first year he became a member of Mr Kelly's congregation. Mr Kelly advised him to study for the Christian ministry. There were many difficulties in the way, but Mr Kelly's own example was encouraging, and in the winter of 1840 Raleigh was admitted a student of the Independent College at Blackburn.

Mrs Raleigh very beautifully tells the story of his early struggles of his failure in health, of their marriage, of his settlement at Rotherham, and of how he there recovered health and vigour, and entered upon a career in which he soon appeared as one of the most winning and successful preachers of our time. It was a great charm to hear him preach. His voice was singularly melodious, and he had it under complete control. His sermons were read, yet he had made himself so familiar with their contents by hours of previous perusal that his preaching had the attractiveness of what is best both in spoken and in read utterance. There was little or no doctrinal discussion in his sermons, but they were full of fresh presentations of the side lights of our Christianity, and they appealed to the emotional part of our nature in a way that few preachers can. Perhaps Dr Raleigh was best in unfolding character. His 'Book of Esther' and his 'Story of Jonah' have not had the popularity of his Quiet RestingPlaces' and other volumes of sermons, but they have elements of enduring popularity

that will give them a permanent place among our commentaries upon Holy Scripture.

'The Oracles of God,' 'Three Pictures! and Which is Mine?' and 'The City,'* are the last tracts issued by Dr Ryle, the Bishop of Liverpool. They have all the excellences that have given him a first place among the tractwriters of our time. "The Oracles of God' is a and the privileges and duties of those who wise statement on the inspiration of the Bible, possess such a precious book. The other two are the substance of sermons preached at St Mary's, Oxford, and both are valuable in a high degree.

SIN PROGRESSIVE. The woman looked at the fruit. She admired its beauty. She desired to know its taste and to experience its effect. She touched it, plucked it, fondled it, tasted it, ate it, and was ruined. First, distrust; then, disbelief; then, sinful desire; then, deadly disobedience, and the work is done!

MORE EXPECTATION.-With more expecting great things from God, there would be more attempting great things for God, and greater things would be bestowed by Him as an encouragement of expectation. The divinely appointed means of grace on the Sabbath ought to be regarded as fully adapted to answer the purpose for which they were appointed, which certainly embraces the 'perfecting' of Christians, and the conviction and conversion of sinners. Accordingly, these results are to be confidently looked for, with no other thought than that God will grant them while He hears the prayers offered on the Sabbath, and blesses the word then preached. This should be expected as the ordinary result of the praying and preaching of the day, and any failure in relation thereto should be felt as a great disappointment, even such as might be felt if some special efforts had not been crowned with success. When regular Sabbath services are ineffectual, the disappointment should be something as if unusual services, like those of protracted daily and nightly meetings, were unsuccessful. Certainly a blessing upon the Sabbath should not be actually surprising, so as to indicate that it was unexpected. It is strangely incongruous to be disappointed by receiving a blessing rather than by not receiving one. Ministers must be thus expectant, and act accordingly; and so must members of the Church; all feeling disappointed and troubled when the Sabbath brings no appropriate blessing. The unsaved, also, must be made to expect gospel blessings, by seeing ministers and churches expecting them. In this way there can be living churches.-Boston Watchman.

* The Oracles of God: A Paper for the Times, on the Inspiration of the Bible. 12mo, pp. 24. Three being Thoughts on Acts xxvi. 24 29. 12mo, pp. 32. Pictures! and Which is Mine? A Word for 1882, The City; or, The Sight which Stirred St Paul. 12mo, pp. 32. By John Charles Ryle, D.D., Lord Bishop of Liverpool. London: W. Hunt & Co.

THE

NOTHER objection to the Johannine authorship is the alleged indebtedness of the author of the Gospel to Philo for the conception of the Logos, or Word, which stands at the beginning of the book as a designation of Christ in His state of pre-existence. The first remark to be made in answer to this allegation is, that the idea of the Logos, and the doctrine associated with it, in the Gospel, are utterly at variance with the system of Alexandrian-Jewish philosophy, of which Philo is the leading representative. In the Gospel the Logos is personal. In Philo the Logos is predominantly the self-revealing potence of the hidden, ineffable Deity. If, as Zeller holds, the Logos is ever thought of by Philo as a real hypostasis, the passages having this import stand opposed to the current of his teaching. Many of the soundest expositors of Philo do not concur in the opinion of Zeller that the Logos in his writings is ever conceived of as truly personal. Again, the notion of the Logos in Philo is usually the Platonic idea of reason.' It is this idea which he more commonly connects with the term, and not the Old Testament conception of the Word; whereas, in the Gospel, the Platonic conception is utterly absent. Once more-and this is the most important consideration-the cardinal thought of the prologue of the Gospel, that of the Incarnation of the Logos, is in direct antagonism to the fundamental philosophy of Philo. His system is dualistic. Matter, in his view, is utterly alien to the Deity. Nothing can be more repugnant to the system of Philo than the declaration that 'the Logos became flesh' (i. 14). The Judaic Gnosticism, which denied the Incarnation as anything more than an appearance, or temporary connection of the divine Christ with the man Jesus, was the legitimate and actual offspring of the Philonian speculation. It was Cerinthus, who probably began his career at Alexandria, against whom, according to the declaration of Irenæus, John wrote. Cerinthus carried out the dualistic theory, and taught that the heavenly Christ joined Himself to Jesus at His baptism, and forsook Him at the passion. The theology of the Gospel and First Epistle, so far from being borrowed from Philo, is repugnant to his essential doctrine and to the heretical scheme based on it. Finally, even the phraseology of John can be accounted for by supposing it drawn mainly, and perhaps exclusively, from the Old Testament. The prologue makes it evident that he had in mind the narrative of the creation by the word of God, in Genesis. The word' of God is said, in the Old Testa

ment, to have come to the prophets, revealing His attributes and will. In the Psalms and in Isaiah the 'word' is personified, and divine attributes and works are attributed to it. From these sources the evangelist may have taken up the term which struck him as most fit to designate the personal Revealer of God, whose incarnation and life in the flesh he was about to describe. Whether the choice of this term by the author of the Gospel is to be accounted for wholly in this way, from its Old Testament use, as Weiss thinks, or whether discussions about the Logos, which were fomented by Alexandrian speculation, may have likewise influenced him in his selection of phraseology, are questions into which we do not here enter. At all events, the term Logos' was found by him to be a proper vehicle for expressing that idea of Christ which His own testimony and the impression made by His life had stamped upon the disciple's mind. Could it be proved that the source of this term was Alexandrian, the Apostle's definition of it was none the less a reversal or rectification of the Alexandrian idea connected with it. Philo's philosophy, it should not be forgotten, was not all his own creation. It had its roots in prior, widely diffused Judaic speculation. In the reports of the teaching of Christ in the Fourth Gospel, the term Logos nowhere appears. It is clear that the author merely sums up, in the prologue, in language of his own, the instruction which Christ had given concerning Himself.

The author of the Gospel was a Jew, and a Palestinian. The strong Hebraic colouring of his style is acknowledged by Keim, as well as affirmed by Ewald. The principal conceptions, as 'life,' 'light,' 'truth,' are drawn from the circle of Old Testament thought. The authority of the Old Testament, the inspiration of Moses and the prophets, are assumed. With the characteristic elements of the Messianic expectation the author is familiar. The same is true of Jewish opinions and customs generally. Witness his acquaintance with the prejudice against conversing with women (iv. 27), with the mutual hatred of Jews and Samaritans (iv. 9), with the opinion that deformity or suffering implies sin (ix. 2). He is intimately conversant with Jewish observances, as is seen in what he says of the 'last day of the feast' (vii. 37)-the day added to the original seven, the wedding at Cana, the burial of Lazarus. The allusions to the geography of the Holy Land are those of one personally conversant with the places. Of the Sea of Galilee, the passage across, and the paths on its shores, he has an accurate recollection. Respecting the topography at the

opening of chap. iv., Renan remarks that it could emanate only from one who had often passed into the valley of Sychem. He has in his mind the image of the Pavement, or platform on which Pilate's chair was placed, with its Hebrew name, Gabbatha (xix. 13).

We have now to consider the relation of the Fourth Gospel to the other three. Here the same phenomena which persuade some that the Fourth Gospel is spurious convince others that it is genuine. The longer ministry of Jesus-extending to at least two and a-half, and probably to three and a-half, years and His extended labours in Judea, are obvious peculiarities of the fourth evangelist. But his representation of the life and ministry of Christ, although independent, is not contradictory to that of the synoptists. The 'country' of Jesus, it is to be observed, is still Galilee; for this is the right interpretation of John iv. 44. Luke, in the long passage relating to the last journey of Jesus to Jerusalem (ix. 51, xviii. 14), brings together matter a portion of which appears to belong in connection with the ministry in Judea. Independently of such particulars as the relation of Christ to the family of Mary and Martha, the lament of Jesus over Jerusalem (Luke xiii. 34, seq.; Matt. xxiii. 37, seq.) admits of no tolerable explanation except on the supposition that He had frequently taught there. How often' must have meant more than the efforts of a few days. The apostrophe plainly refers to the city, not to the Jewish people as a whole, to whom Baur would arbitrarily apply it. In Luke, the verse immediately before reads, For it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.' This passage establishes, on the authority of the synoptists, beyond the reach of doubt or cavil, the longer Judean ministry of Jesus, and thus confirms the testimony of the Fourth Gospel in this essential particular. Luke (vi. 1) distinctly implies the intervention of at least one Passover between the beginning and the close of his public life. Who can avoid seeing that the profound impression made by Jesus is far better accounted for if we accept the chronology of the Fourth Gospel than if we conceive His ministry limited to about a twelvemonth? The truth appears to be that in the early oral narration of the life and teaching of Christ, perhaps for the reason that His labours in Jerusalem and the neighbourhood were more familiar to the Christians there, the Galilean ministry was chiefly described. The matter was massed under the three general heads of His baptism and intercourse with John the Baptist, His work in Galilee, and the visit to Jerusalem at the Passover when He was crucified. If the author of the Fourth Gospel was a nonapostolic writer of the second century, no satisfactory reason can be conjectured for his deliberate departure from the apparent chronology of the received authorities. He might easily have brought Jesus into conflict with Pharisees more frequently elsewhere than in Judea. He might have invented visits inter

mediate between the two Passovers. If, as is alleged, he was of an anti-Judaic spirit, why should he thus cling to the Passovers? Why should he present a chronological scheme which could only tend to provoke suspicion and expose him to contradiction and detection? The writer, whoever he was, was evidently acquainted with one, if not all, of the earlier Gospels. Why did he not set his new portrait into the old frame? The most reasonable hypothesis certainly is that he was conversant with the facts, and was possessed of a conscious and acknowledged authority which excluded from his mind all fear of contradiction.

The alleged discrepancy between the Fourth Gospel and the synoptists respecting the day of the month when Christ was crucified has been urged as an argument both by those who advocate and those who oppose the Johannine authorship. Was that Friday the 14th or the 15th of Nisan? And was the Last Supper at the usual time of the Passover meal, or on the evening before? It is held by many scholars that there is here a discrepancy between the fourth evangelist and the other Gospels; that he, unlike them, makes the Last Supper to have occurred on the evening before the day on which the Passover lamb was killed and eaten, and the crucifixion on the morning following. Bleek, Neander, and numerous others, admitting the discrepancy, bring forward considerations to prove the superior accuracy of the Fourth Gospel in this particular, some of which are drawn from incidental observations in the Synoptists themselves. The Tübingen school insisted on the opposite inference. They have contended that the author of the Fourth Gospel purposely misdated these events in order to make the crucifixion synchronise with the slaying of the Paschal lamb, his intent being to convey the idea that the Passover is supplanted by the offering of Christ, 'the Lamb of God.'

The renewed examination of the Gospels has led me more and more to doubt whether the fourth evangelist really differs from the synoptists as they are ordinarily understood.

cannot but think that the more conservative critics, as Meyer, Weiss, Westcott, Ellicott, have asserted with an unwarranted degree of confidence the interpretation of John which places the Last Supper on the day prior to that of the Paschal meal. It is still a very doubtful question of exegesis. On the supposition, however, that the discrepancy really exists, there is no just ground for the conclusion unfavourable to the accuracy of the Fourth Gospel. The motive assigned by the Tübingen school for the alleged falsification of the date is totally insufficient. In the first place, if the author of the Gospel had wished to represent Christ as the antitype of the Paschal lamb, he had no need to alter the chronology for this end. Christ is termed by Paul our Passover' (1 Cor. v. 7). In the second place, it is not even certain that the evangelist designs thus to represent Christ.