nation. In fact, the Talmudists gravely teach us:

"And thus Moses our Rabbi had commanded us, from the mouth of THE POWER [the Almighty], to coerce all that come into the world to accept the precepts which were enjoined upon the sons of Noah; and whosoever has not accepted them, shall be killed." There is no difference whatever in the missionary spirit which moveth upon the face of the Koran and of the Talmud; the only difference is the respective operation; the professors of the former are dominant, and therefore active; the professors of the latter are not dominant, and their zeal therefore dormant. Of the Parsees anon. At present, thus much for the Professor's accuracy in his category of non-missionary religions.

But to the counterpart of his division, the grouping of which is so painfully offensive to the believer. The following are the introductory

remarks of our lecturer on comparative theology:

"Now look on the other cluster-Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. All these, while they differ widely, have faith in themselves, have life and vigour, they want to convince, and they mean to conquer, and from the earliest dawn of their existence these three religions have been missionary. Their founders started them on this principle of spreading truth and refuting error, and this gives to them all a common expression, and lifts them high above all the other religions of the world."

We know not with what feelings the professing Christian congregation at Westminster Abbey, on that disgracefully memorable evening, listened to this extraordinary grouping; we can only say that we read it the following morning with burning shame and confusion of face at the seemingly unseemly acquiescence in the statements of the random lecturer. Christianity, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism are placed on a par, but to Buddhism is given the place of honour and priority; notwithstanding that Christianity is primitive Judaism unveiled. Notwithstanding that Christ said, "Before Abraham was, I am." HE, "Buddha," and Mohammed are put on the same pedestals, and spoken of in the common term of "founders." The respective doctrines they teach are spoken of indiscriminately as "truth;" notwithstanding that Christ emphatically said, "I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE; NO MAN COMETH UNTO THE FATHER BUT BY ME." Then comes an apocryphal account of the settlement of "the sacred canon of the Buddhist Scriptures," the sending forth of "intrepid missionaries," some specimens of their sayings and doings, which the lecturer wound up, "thus there was a movement in a new world, the opening of a new day, the beating for the first time of the great heart of humanity." Mohammedanism was then slightly touched upon as a missionary religion. "And as to our own religion," continued the lecturer, "it would cease to exist if it ceased to be missionary, if it ceased to regard its Founder's parting words, 'Go ye into

all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.'" The lecturer forbore to finish the missionary mandate.

Then comes an eloquent panegyric upon missionaries, upon love and truth, from the lecturer's visionary standpoint;-but instead of mitigating the insult to, and degradation of, Christ and Christianity, the panegyric only aggravates the offence, inasmuch as the proffered kudos sounds too much like irony and sarcasm. How the spirit of dear, martyred, sainted Bishop Patteson would have chafed to find himself puffed by lips which strove to extinguish and quench the "Light of the world!" The lecture was as strange and profane a medley as we have ever read, and the lecturer one of the most presuming on a reputation that we have ever encountered.

We must notice, ere we take leave for the present of the painful subject,—we may have to recur to it when the lecture is published, with the lecturer's corrections and approval,-what the professor advanced about what he calls "non-missionary religions." We have already pointed out his mistake about Judaism. We wish to set the comparative theologian right on another point in connection with the Jews, as well as regards Zoroastrianism. The professor began the second part of his discourse on his comparative theology in the following strain :

"But let us look attentively at the religions in which the missionary spirit is at work, and compare them with those where it is not at work. The former are alive, the latter dead or dying. The religion of Zoroaster, of Cyrus, of Darius, of Xerxes, which but for the battles of Marathon and Salamis might have been the religion of the civilised world, is now only professed by 100,000 souls: its adherents have decreased in four years from 400,000 to 100,000, and probably in another century it will have disappeared altogether. The Jews are about thirty times the number of the Parsees, and are therefore still considerable; but they are unlikely to increase, though from the natural characteristics of the race it can hardly be imagined that they will ever disappear altogether. Still, they seem to have paid the penalty of their anti-missionary character."

In the words of a French reviewer of last century of M. de Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, we would say to our "philosophical" lecturer on comparative theology :-" Soit dit entre nous, Monsieur, c'est porter un peu loin l'abus d'une haute réputation." Was Zoroastrianism a nonmissionary religion? Did not its founder declare war against the king of Touran to compel the Touranians to embrace his religion? M. de Anquetil, the most learned French Orientalist of last century, translator and editor of the Zend Avesta, describes Zoroaster thus :-" This great man was an enthusiast, an impostor, a persecutor, who, in order to establish his religion, caused the blood of nations to flow." What was Zoroastrianism? Was it not a bantling of Judaism? It was admitted by all Zend scholars that that religion was known by the name of

Kish Ibrahim, Millat Ibrahim. Even if we reject Hyde's theory that "Zoroaster was a Jew, and had been a disciple of Daniel, or of some other of those illustrious Hebrews who were raised to the highest employments by the kings of Persia; that from a Jew he became chief of the Magi; that he reformed the Persian religion according to that of his ancestors; that with this view he gave a sublimer sense to the worship of fire, announced the unity of God, the necessity of worshipping Him only:"-we say that, even eschewing the idea of Zoroaster's antecedents, we are forced to admit, by the evidence which Zoroastrianism affords, that the system is in many respects an adaptation of Judaism. We cannot afford space to enter at length into this interesting question, but we would just give a specimen or two from the Zend Avesta to show the origin of the work. Ormusd, the name for Deity in that work, says in it, "I am a word of light, O Zoroaster, which I command you to announce to the whole world." One of the Zoroastrian prayers begins :— "I implore thee, Almighty Ormusd, let my cry come into thine ear, let my voice reach thee." Here, then, another of the tabulated great religions of the Professor, and the product of his favourite Aryan race, is of problematic classification. Un Critique de votre réputation, Monsieur, devroit être un peu plus exact.

When speaking of the battles of Marathon and Salamis, it never occurred to the Professor to introduce the hand of the "God of battles into his discourse. Who could possibly shut his eyes to the Providence which shaped the destinies of the Greeks and Persians in those battles. At Marathon the Greek force consisted only of ten thousand men, whilst the Persian army counted half a million; but the vast host of Persia was completely vanquished and scattered. Ten years later, at Salamis, when Xerxes appeared in the Grecian waters with a fleet of two thousand sail, he was utterly vanquished by the Greek commander Themistocles, who had only three hundred and ten sail at his command! Had the Almighty nothing to do in those battles? Why should His name have been utterly ignored by the Professor, when invited to lecture on Christian missions at Westminster Abbey? But for those battles, Zoroastrianism might have been the religion of the civilised world! Indeed! and have superseded the religion of Moses and the Prophets! Did not Darius, Cyrus, and other great potentates in that part of the world issue proclamations in favour of the religion taught by an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, an Ezekiel, a Daniel, and others?

How very considerate to the Jews! "From the natural characteristics of the race, it can hardly be imagined that they will disappear altogether." This in a Christian Cathedral, in which the Word of God, the Bible, is professed to be believed in! The Bible which contains "the sure word of prophecy" respecting Israel's past, present, and future! Never was such a daring insult offered publicly, in a Christian church, to

the Bible which the Christian holds as most precious, as was done on Wednesday evening, the 3rd ultimo, at Westminster Abbey. We know no parallel to the enormity, except the episode recorded in the thirty-sixth chapter of Jeremiah, of one of our own kings of evil report, Jehoiakim by name, cutting to pieces, in the presence of Judah's princes and nobles, a roll of God's word, and destroying it by fire. It may be said of the congregation at Westminster Abbey, as it was said of the audience in Jehoiakim's "winter-house :"-" Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words."*

How painfully out of tune, out of tone, out of taste, must the lecture have sounded after Bishop Heber's soul-stirring hymn! That pious Christian Bishop knew Buddhism as well as the Oxford Professor of Comparative Philology, and yet he indited the following :—

We repeat-the lecture which followed that hymn must have sounded painfully out of tune and Christian tone. To us the lecture was both gross and grotesque. We would once more adopt the words of the French writer whom we have already twice quoted, and say to our wouldbe Cathedral teacher :-Vous jouissez depuis long-temps d'une assez belle liberté de tout dire. Levez le masque, et combattez à découvert. What we say unto him we say to every member of his school who continues to be a professed member of the Christian Church.

The lecture, however, forces upon the thoughtful Christian several grave considerations. (a.) Is Professor Max Müller as great an adept in Comparative Philology as he is in Comparative Theology? Our friend "H. C. Oxoniensis writes to us that he is no blind follower of the Professor's theories, and adds that "no careful and intelligent reader of Max Müller's works would pin his faith to all the Professor says, without minute and critical sifting." (b.) Suppose an unprotected curate in sole charge of a parish had invited a layman, and a layman with such views as Max Müller espouses, to hold forth his peculiar tenets in the parish church, would the Bishop have allowed him to escape without punishment or censure? (c.) Is not the proceeding of Wednesday, the 3rd ultimo, as legitimate a subject for the "Church Association" to try in a court of

* Jer. xxxvi. 24.

justice as the proceedings in ritualistic churches? (d.) Ought we not more than ever to lift up our warning voice and to testify to the Churches to take heed to the "sure word of prophecy," in order to counteract such subtle theological poison as is now and then dispensed at Westminster Abbey and its satellites? We ought, and—God helping us-we shall do it too.

IS

FUTURE DIVISION OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL.
BY REV. J. B. GOLDBERG.

'S the land of Canaan again to be divided amongst the children of Israel? Are they once more to return to the Promised Land and take possession of it? Have they not already had it in their power ? Moses, and, after him, the son of Nun, divided it amongst their tribes, in which they dwelt for many centuries, both during the first and second temples. They were cast out and banished from it because of their sins and iniquities, and through their faithlessness and disobedience they forfeited every claim to it. What reason, what authority, is there for saying that that stiff-necked people are to return to the land, and the land to be re-divided amongst them?

Questions, remarks, and assertions of this kind, and many others similar to them, are often heard when Israel's future is touched upon, or when the promises made to the fathers are brought forward. Even among those who take their stand upon the infallible Word of God,-who rightly bring every question to the Scripture touchstone,-even amongst these there are not a few who dismiss Israel's claims, hopes, and prospects, as things past and gone, never more to return. They are content to rest upon old and justly discarded opinions, which owed their birth to the Church's darkest days, when God's ancient people were treated as outcasts, when every Scripture promise was appropriated to Christians, and those which could not by any human ingenuity be tortured into the service of the Christian Church, were for that very reason assumed to have had their full and final accomplishment.

In the following paper we hope to show that Israel's hopes and expectations are not lost; that as in spiritual matters, so in temporal things, "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance;" that every one who desires to handle the word of God honestly and faithfully must allow, that not a few weighty and interesting promises to that people still await their fulfilment.

Now Israel's great charter, the nation's indefeasible title to the Promised Land, is recorded in Gen. xv. 18, and runs on this wise:"In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river,