them within reasonable compass, so that even a weak faith may more easily submit to endure them. Others, such as those connected with the chronology of the early part of the Old Testament, he admits in all their force; but pleads his rights to stand on the defensive, and wait till all the argument against the biblical archives is complete. For the witnesses do not agree among themselves; the chronological cycles which are worked up to confront or correct the only Book of the Generations may be suffered to demonstrate their own fabulousness, and explode their own theories, before the scriptural account of men's dispersion and spread through the earth is triumphantly vindicated.

signal intervention. Excavations, inscriptions, disinterred manuscripts, discoveries and new generalizations in science, have always hitherto been in favor of the word of God, without one solitary exception. The student, therefore, who be lieves, may bide his time: he will never be made ashamed. Learned servants of revelation are working indefatigably, and God is working with them. Our own generation is destined to behold a great revolution in the relative position of believers and rationalists; and if for a season, the serpents of the wise men's and magicians' Egyptian enchantments are not all at once swallowed up by Aaron's rod, we must regard it as the trial of our faith. They will all disappear in due time, with every other vestige and relic of that old serpent, the father of the lie.

Before concluding this short notice, we would embrace the opportunity which these volumes fairly afford of urging the claims of Old Testament literature upon all students, and especially upon all young students, of the word of God. Old Testament literature is, undoubtedly, a very extensive term; and it would be easy to exhibit its comprehensiveness in such a manner as to overwhelm the imagination

It is wisdom not to be impatient in demanding, on many points, the final defense of the champions of revelation. There is a standing still before the going forward. Biblical criticism is as surely under the supervision and controlling providence of the Divine Spirit, as the holy book itself was the fruit of his inspiration. But biblical criticism has its probation. It has had its times of ignorance which God winked at; it has had its times of mad rebellion which God has borne with; but it has never been without its sanctified la--in the manner of the programmes of borers, whose toils have been more or less blessed from on high. In its darkest and dreariest stages it has not been without its tokens of being owned of God; he has interposed, in his own time and in his own way, to give a right direction to its efforts, to open up new regions of investigation, and to provide, sometimes very suddenly, the materials for the settlement of long-disputed questions. When the time has come, and biblical learning has proved itself more worthy of the honor, he will make it still more abundantly triumphant over all its enemies. There are documents and evidences unknown as yet to men, which Divine Providence can easily open up and unseal when his purposes have ripened. Nineveh and Babylon waited long for the disentombment of their precious memorials and vouchers. Meanwhile, he will keep his servants humble, and let his enemies do their worst. Most of those who study the word of When their schemes, and theories, and God-of those, at least, whom we have in calculations have taken their final labori-view-are engaged in the absorbing work ous shape, it will be a light thing for of expounding and preaching it: while, him to point his servants to some hidden therefore on the one hand, there is every facts which will upset them all. Biblical reason why they should reap the fruit of criticism has had its critical periods of the learned labors of others, their time

the old Biblical Introductions-and thus defeat our own object. The consummate study of the ancient Scriptures involves, indeed, a tremendous curriculum of preliminary equipment, the application and use of which would task the unflagging energies of the longest life. In the nature of things this can be required as a duty, or permitted as a privilege, in the case only of a few men. In this sense, there must be a vicarious toil, the benefits of which the common mass of biblical students must be content gratuitously to enjoy. God sends some of his servantsand many who scarcely know that he sends them thither-into their closets, that they may carry on indefatigable processes of research, the results only of which the great bulk of us can enter into. For here the great_rule holds good-" Other men labor, and we enter into their labors."

and opportunity for doing so is of necessi- | of their value is lost to the reader who ty restricted. To them it is of the utmost has suffered his Hebrew and Greek to fall importance to know how to enter into into disuse. The work which suggests other men's labors: this is a great art of these reflections owes much of its excelitself; an humble one comparatively, yet lence to disquisitions which can be only ample in its compensation for toil: to very partially understood by the mere have the keys of learned men's treasures, English reader, but which, on the other and to use them well; to know their lan- hand, require a knowledge of Hebrew guage, and thus to understand their words. which may be very slight, provided it be But, without any figure, it is language that accurate. is here concerned-the Hebrew, the sacred tongue preeminently; the Greek, the language of the Old Covenant made new; and the Latin, as the handmaid of both. With the first of these alone we have now to do.

Few young ministers go out into their great work-and fewer still will henceforward go out into it without a fair grounding in the elements of the Hebrew. There is no study for the further prosecution of which, after the foundation is well laid, there are more facilities. In this, more than in most branches of learning, it is the good beginning that makes the heaviest tax. When a thorough working acquaintance with the structure of the language is once acquired, the highest and noblest career of sanctified study is thrown open. With a few well-chosen guides, the young divine may search the ancient Scriptures for himself, in a sense in which no one can search them who is altogether unacquainted with the original tongues. For, although he may never arrive at, or even aspire to, independent critical skill, he will be able to follow intelligently those who do possess it, and enter thoroughly into the spirit of investigations which he might not be able to conduct for himself. The best modern commentaries, moreover, whether on the Old or the New Testament, presuppose in the reader some familiarity with the originals: not only in Germany, but in England also, it is the original text which is expounded: and, consequently, much

Much might be said-were these remarks more than mere closing suggestions-on the claims of Hebrew literature. We might dwell on its profound interest, as opening the Bible to the student in its own primitive unmatched simplicity, which no earthly translation can adequately re-produce; on its amazing exactitude, the result of that miracle of generations which preserved the Canon before the time of Christ, and the supervision of Providence over the dark labors of the Masorites afterwards; and on the absolute obligation which rests, in these golden days of opportunity, upon all young ministers to cultivate a study which, per. haps, was not made so obligatory upon many of their predecessors. But we must refrain; and close with one word of advice. Let the young man in whose hands God has placed the price to buy this wisdom, esteem it one of the most precious blessings of his early training. Let him give the first place in his studies to the sacred letters in which it pleased the Holy Ghost to enshrine the Old and New Covenants. Let him interweave these studies with all his devotional, practical, and professional communion with God's word. This will require unwearied diligence, and involve, perhaps, a large sacrifice of other literature; but any such sacrifice will be repaid a hundred fold; and, whatever other pursuits he may have to lay aside, let him never forget that the vows of the Bible are upon him.

FUNERAL OBSEQUIES OF RUFUS CHOATE.