extreme type? Then the original and historic Christ becomes a social reformer par excellence, a more or less modified sans-culotte of the French revolutionists; and the Sermon on the Mount becomes a lecture in political economy. We have all been interested of late to observe that Colonel Ingersoll has taken to preaching. If the Colonel should develop sufficient assurance to claim that his religion, according to the Christ-consciousness of the latest and most reliable critics, is the original and genuine Christianity, we should have a very instructive illustration of the unique possibilities of the Christian-consciousness theory. But I believe Colonel Ingersoll has not yet advanced so far as to make this claim. This final step in the forward movement may be reserved, providentially, for Brother Rusk, of the Church Militant.

It is not best, we may conclude, to give ourselves over hastily to the Christian-consciousness theory; and yet it is perhaps almost as dangerous to reject it, in these strange days in which we live. For if you hesitate to accept the new Christian-consciousness, if you cling to the letter of Scripture or of the old theology, when the new theology would gladly lead you into the light and liberty of the spirit, the denunciations of the Saviour are hurled against you, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees!" And we then find ourselves in the confusing predicament of Pastor Goetze in the old days, who fondly imagined he was defending the Christian faith, and was amazed to learn that he was in fact the enemy of the truth, while Lessing represented the genuine Christianity of Paul and of Luther. This is a clever style of argument, and usually effective in a popular discussion; but the question arises, in reference to the successors of Lessing and Schleiermacher, whether they are chargeable with intellectual confusion or moral dishonesty.

Now would it not be a good thing if we had a book, written by the Holy Ghost, an essentially reliable objective standard of truth, instead of leaving each man to follow his

own philosophical notion or whim? Yes, I think we can all agree it would. This is just the old theory. Then why not stand by it? If we have no such book, if the Bible is a tissue of lies, let it go, of course; but this has never been made out, has never been admitted except by a few men possessed by the insane delusion that the world will be instantly converted if Christianity can somehow be made scientific,-i. e. be emptied of all supernatural and genuinely religious elements. Now this sort of thing has been tested in the past, and found to be a dismal failure and temptation of the Devil; and there is no occasion to repeat the experiment in this country. We had better stand by the Bible, for when the Bible is gone we are gone religiously, and we should let no one deceive us on this point; when the Bible is gone we may as well, organize a society of ethical culture, and begin all over again. We had better stand by the Bible, even at the risk of being out of fashion in the cut of our theology,-not having the latest from Berlin, Edinburgh, or Boston.

We hear often in our day of John Robinson's farewell words to the Pilgrims, "More light is yet to break forth from 'God's word." I sometimes wonder whether, if Robinson had known how this remark of his was to be used in future years, he would not have devoted the valuable time of his farewell address to other topics. If the good man were to appear among us to-day, however, I fancy he would affirm that his proposition is correct, but would insist that it be properly interpreted. There is no scarcity of new ideas in our time, and there is a general desire on the part of their advocates to back them up by scriptural authority; but the question is whether these new ideas are "light," and whether they have, in fact, "broken forth from the word." I doubt not that if Robinson should appear among us to-day he would suggest that all that is new is not "light," and that it is possible so to use the Word that a vast deal not of light, but of darkness, may appear to break forth from it.

ARTICLE IV.

THE FINAL CHAPTERS OF DEUTERONOMY.

BY THE REV. W. SCOTT WATSON, M. A.

THERE is a part of the Pentateuch which even the most conservative critic must rationally attribute to another pen than that of Moses. So evident is the fact of its presence, and so short its extent, that it is not generally necessary to make any allusion to it while writing in defense of the traditional view of the origin of the rest of the five books. We propose to examine this addendum and to determine its limits and authorship. We shall find that it is exactly similar to a closing chapter added to a modern autobiography to tell of the last moments and posthumous honors of the subject of the book, and that therefore the recognition of its existence in no way compromises the theory of the Mosaic origin of all that precedes it.

EXTENT.

There is much more unanimity in regard to the presence of an appendix to Deuteronomy than there is in regard to the amount of matter that should be embraced under that designation. Its beginning has been placed at Deut. xxxi. 1; at xxxi. 24; at xxxii. 44; at xxxiii. 1; and at xxxiv. I. A single reading of the thirty-fourth chapter should suffice to convince any person that it was not composed by the great lawgiver of Israel. It would be absurd to say that he himself wrote the account it gives of his death and burial, including the assertion that "the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days: so the days of

weeping in the mourning for Moses were ended” (ver. 8). The record of the obedience given by the people to Joshua, and the statement that "there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses," also clearly imply the lapse of some time since the death took place. Should any one remind me that Moses was a great prophet, and assert that God was able to qualify him to write this chapter, I would reply, that if he could, he would not. The gift of prophecy

was never given to falsify history. There is nothing in the text to show that we have before us aught else than a plain post-eventum narrative of actual occurrences. We have as much reason to look upon any other apparently-historical passage of the Old Testament as having been written in anticipation of the events as we have to consider this one in such a light. If we find prophecy here, it will be difficult to prove any part of the Bible strictly historical, and to show, for instance, that what is said about the patriarchs, the judges, and the kings refers to the past, and not to the still future.

When we come to consider the authorship of the thirtythird chapter, we find we must make a distinction between the composition of the blessing contained therein and the record of it. If we admit the truthfulness of the introductory verse, we must attribute the former to Moses-"And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death." Is there any reasonable ground for denying the correctness of this ascription that has come down to us from the remote antiquity?

The manner in which the lawgiver is referred to in verse 4 affords no proof that he was not the author. In many other places in the Sacred Scriptures (as well as in profane · histories) we find the writers speaking of themselves in the third person; compare with this, for instance, the introductory verses of two of Balaam's parables (Num. xxiv. 3, 4, 15, 16) and the way in which the royal Psalmist puts prayers

for the king, i.e. himself, into the mouth of the people in Psalms xx. and xxi.

Wellhausen says: "According to the view of the poet of Deuteronomy xxxiii. the Israelites did not go to Jehovah to Sinai, but the converse; He came to them from Sinai to Kadesh: 'Jehovah came from Sinai and shone from Seir unto them; He lightened from Mount Paran and came to Meribath Kadesh."" This is an unwarranted translation. The

-Me) מְרִיבַת קְדֶשׁ of Deut. xxxiii. 2 differs from the מרבבת קדש

ribah of Kadesh") of xxxii. 51, etc., both in the letters and in the vowel-points. (In the Samaritan Pentateuch, which has not the masoretic vowel-marks, there is even a greater difference in the letters, the two expressions being respectively and p na) "Sinai," "Seir," and "Mount Paran" of verse 2 are each preceded by a which the critic translates by "from." Why did he not pursue the same course with the of instead of departing

from it with the result of making a contradiction? The proper translation of the phrase is that given in the Revised Version, "from the ten thousands of holy ones [Marg., Heb. holiness]."

Here are two extracts, the first from Bleek, the second from Kuenen, which, while bearing directly on the question before us, also admirably illustrate the treatment of the professedly prophetical passages of the Old Testament that finds favor in certain quarters: "From the way in which (Deut. xxxiii. 13, 17) Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) is spoken of as being especially fortunate, we should be inclined to fix the date of the composition at a time when Ephraim was still predominant among all the tribes, therefore before the age of David. But by the saying about Benjamin (ver. 12) we are led to a time after the building of the Temple, for the purport of these sayings can only refer to a position of Jehovah's sanctuary in the territory of this tribe,