of the Early Fathers" (two views), "Rights and Duties," Joseph Mazzini; "An Address before Harvard University," Rev. W. S. Rainsford, D.D. SERIES B: "The Railroad Strike of 1894," Professor W. J. Ashley, M. A.; "An Interpretation of the Social Movements of Our Times," Professor Henry C. Adams, Ph. D.; "Arbitration and Conciliation," Rev. W. D. P. Bliss; "The Slums of Great Cities and their Problems," Rev. P. W. Sprague; "Political Economy and Practical Life," Rev. Professor W. Cunningham, D. D.; "The Housing of the Working People," Rev. P. W. Sprague; "A Bibliography for Students," "An Eight-Hour Day," "Amercan Trades-Unions." BOOKS RECEIVED. THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC. By Rev. JAMES M. ALEXANDER. New York: American Tract Society. $2.00. THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH. (The Expositor's Bible.) By W. H. BENNETT. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son. $1.50. CHRISTIANITY IN THE UNITED STATES from the First Settlement down to the Present Time. By DANIEL DORCHESTER, D. D. Revised Edition. New York: Hunt & Eaton; Cincinnati: Cranston & Curts. $3.50. CREATION: GOD IN TIME AND SPACE. (Studies in Theology-IV.) By RANDOLPH S. FOSTER, D. D., LL.D. The Same. $3.00. LITERATURE OF THEOLOGY. BY JOHN FLETCHER HURST. The Same. $4.00. THE CHRIST DREAM. BY LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D. D. The Same. $1.20. THE WAY OUT: A Solution of the Temperance Question. By Rev. HUGH MONTGOMERY. With an Introduction. By DANIEL DORCHESTER, D. D. The Same. $1.00. THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. By Bishop J. M. THOBURN, D. D. The Same. $1.00. THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST. By JOSEPH AGAR BEET, D. D. The Same. $1.50. HOME CLASSES OF THE HOME DEPARTMENT OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. By M. C. HAZARD, Ph. D. Boston and Chicago: Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society. HEDONISTIC THEORIES from Aristippus to Spencer. By JOHN WATSON, COLLEGE SERMONS. By the late BENJAMIN JOWETT, M. A. The Same. $2.00. HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS. BY AMORY H. BRADFORD. The Same. $1.50. HISTORY OF The People of ISRAEL. By ERNEST RENAN. Boston: Roberts Bros. $2.50. HISTORY OF DOGMA. BY DR. ADOLPH HARNACK. Translated from the third German Edition. Vol. I. The same. $2.50. THE BIBLIOTHECA SACRA. ARTICLE I. THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE; OR, HOW A LAYMAN THOUGHT OUT HIS EVIDENCES. BY THE HON. JAMES MONROE, LL.D. WHEN still a student in Oberlin College, I read, for the first time and with enthusiasm, Lord Macaulay's brilliant and instructive essay upon John Dryden. I was specially impressed with one thought-a thought then new to me and probably much less familiar to readers generally than it now is. I quote several sentences which, though not wholly consecutive, furnish a fairly clear presentation of his theory. In speaking of those who have made notable contributions to the progress of society, the distinguished writer says: "Those who have read history with discrimination know the fallacy of those panegyrics and invectives which represent individuals as effecting great moral and intellectual revolutions, subverting established systems and imprinting a new character on their age. The difference between one man and another is by no means so great as the superstitious crowd supposes. . . . For, in fact, it is the age that forms the man, not the man that forms the age. Great minds do indeed react upon the society which has made them what they are, but VOL. LIII. NO. 210, I they only pay with interest what they have received. . . . It was long disputed whether the honor of inventing the method of Fluxions belonged to Newton or to Leibnitz. It is now generally allowed that these great men made the same discovery at the same time. Mathematical science, indeed, had then reached such a point that, if neither of them had ever existed, the principle must inevitably have occurred to some one within a few years. . . . We are inclined to think that, with respect to every great addition which has been made to the stock of human knowledge, the case has been similar; that, without Copernicus, we should have been Copernicans; that, without Columbus, America would have been discovered; that, without Locke, we should have possessed a just theory of human ideas. Society has indeed its great men and its little men, as the earth has its mountains and its valleys. But the inequalities of intellect, like the inequalities of the surface of our globe, bear so small a proportion to the mass, that, in calculating its great revolutions, they may be safely neglected. The sun illuminates the hills while it is still below the horizon; and truth is discovered by the highest minds a little before it becomes manifest to the multitude. This is the extent of their superiority. They are the first to catch and reflect a light which, without their assistance, must, in a short time, be visible to those who now lie far beneath them." I. So far Lord Macaulay. Putting now his thought into a form which is better suited to my present purpose, I would say that every production of the human intellect is a natural outgrowth of that age in which it is given to the world. I would not include in this proposition self-evident truths-the axioms of mathematics, the postulates of ethics, and the intuitions of psychology. These are the property of the human mind as such; they belong alike to every age, and are accepted by every human being as soon as they are understood. I refer rather to every thing which is the result of a process of reasoning to all intellectual and moral systems—to every thing which may be said to have been thought out or elaborated by the human mind. Great moral and intellectual revolutions, great discoveries in science, great inventions, have been achieved not because some one man has lived, but because the whole advanced thought of the age was close upon. and was soon to reach these stages of progress. This doctrine in regard to the productions of the intellect is in itself so reasonable, and is so entirely in harmony with the teachings of history, that I am not without hope that my readers are already disposed to accept it. But it may add to the satisfaction with which they will follow my argument, if the doctrine should be somewhat further expanded, and be more fully illustrated. It is safe to assert that the child does not more obviously exhibit the lineaments of the parent than does every effort of the intellect the marks of its own age. The most original discoveries in science, the profoundest speculations in philosophy, are no exceptions to this rule. A thorough acquaintance with the history of these, even, will reveal the workings. of antecedent influences to which they stand in the relation. of effect to cause. There is nothing mysterious, nothing anomalous in such productions. Given, a perfect acquaintance with all the tendencies of an age, and the characteristics of the most original work of that age are readily accounted for. You see why, in accordance with the known laws of mind, that very result should be reached, and no other. It is the natural expression of the cultivated heart and intellect of its time. In accounting for the fact that a great reform in religion or philosophy was begun in a certain century, it does not help us much to be told that a man by the name of Luther or Bacon lived in that century. The presence of such a man will doubtless somewhat hasten, but his absence cannot long retard the fulfillment of the age's mission. Nature has too many children to be thwarted in her plans by the loss of If the queen bee die, the labors of short time, delayed, but her place is The forest of coral would continue one or many of them. the hive may be, for a soon filled by another. to rise from the bottom of the sea, though the bulkiest zoophyte whose secretions might be added to the pile, should be struck from existence. We sometimes speak of original men as being centuries in advance of their age; but this is a scarcely pardonable hyperbole. The most original man is only a little in advance of the cultivated and far-seeing minds of his age. He is only the interpreter of the signs of the times. He only gives men a name for the work which they themselves have commenced, but which they do not as yet fully comprehend. His highest boast must be that he stands. a little in advance of the onward march of his generation. He may be in the vanguard of the great army which is moving on to take possession of some promised land. He may occupy a point of observation higher than that of ordinary minds, where his eye can sweep a wider horizon than theirs. From the top of Pisgah, as Macaulay, quoting the poet Cowley, has said of Bacon, he may already behold goodly mountains waving with cedars, and lands flowing with milk and honey. But even this point will soon be left far in the rear by the multitudes which are now behind him; and should he perish by the way, the eager host will soon sweep over his grave, without a pause, under the conduct of some other leader, to enter upon their expected rest. It is true, as we have already been told, that not only does the age act upon original men, but original men react upon their age. But here action and reaction are not equal. The very power with which a great man moulds his age is a power for which he is indebted to the age. Nor is this anything more than what we might reasonably expect. The most original man is himself a product of the age in which he lives. He is the son of parents belonging to that age, and from that age has received |