our missions in the East; and gladdened was the heart of every true believer, when a Protestant bishopric was established in Jerusalem. Yet we may assure ourselves, that if Palestine fall into the hands of France, or Austria, or Russia, none of these powers will permit an English episcopate to flourish there. Let us hear the bishop of Victoria, speaking at one of the May meetings:-"In these eastern seas I perceive the emissaries of the papacy far in advance of us, and Protestant Christianity disproportionately represented in these oriental lands. I see that our alliance and joint operations in these regions have bequeathed to the next generation a legacy full of embarrassment. Britain has a great work to do among the scattered regions of her empire. She has to christianize India. She has to gather into the bosom of the church those widely scattered tribes of the human race that are under the shelter of her wing." A mighty work indeed lies before us; calling for the united efforts of rulers and people; without which, it has been well remarked, no entire nation was ever brought into the fold of the church. Instead, therefore, of loudly proclaiming our independence, and, as it were, discharging and exonerating men in power of the responsibility that lies upon them as Christians; the most strenuous efforts should be used to warn and awaken them; seeing ungodly councils, if persevered in, ensure the ruin of the proudest empire. [NOTE. We are indebted for this paper, as well as for several preceding ones bearing the same title, to a dignitary of the church in Ireland; and we are glad to lay it before our readers, requesting, however, at the same time, that the views it advocates may not be assumed to be our own. On the great question here discussed, the "Christian Observer" is open to both parties.-EDITOR.] To the Editor of the Christian Observer. SIR, In an article on Hymns, Hymn-writers, and Hymn-books, in your August Number, mention is made of a hymn on Hebrews xi. 16; of which, you remark, "you had previously no knowledge." It may, perhaps, be not uninteresting to trace the history of this apparently new hymn. It is derived originally from a Latin poem in rhyming hexameters, De Contemptu Mundi, written in the twelfth century by Bernard of Clugny, a contemporary and countryman of his more celebrated namesake, Bernard of Clairvaux. This poem was first published by the great Lutheran divine, Flavius Illyricus. An extract from it is given in Dean Trench's Specimens of Sacred Latin Poetry, Part of this extract was translated by Mr. Neale, of Sackville College, in his Medieval Hymns, and from this translation more than half the hymn you have quoted is, with alterations, taken. It is certainly Vol. 60.-No. 286. 5 L curious that a poem, written by a monk in the twelfth century, published by a Lutheran, made known in our time by an English Highchurchman, and translated by a noted Tractarian, should find its way into a hymn-book which you describe, no doubt truly, as having "a flavour of Plymouth Brethrenism;" and thence into the pages of the Christian Observer. To make good my assertion as to the origin of the hymn, I append the corresponding verses of Mr. Neale's translation, and of the hymn quoted in the Christian Observer. HYMN QUOTED. Hope of the coming glory Is love, and life, and rest. Our hearts within us burn. Oh! kingdom full of joy, And sorrows can't alloy. NEALE. The mention of thy glory Is unction to the breast; And love, and life, and rest. Thy happy name they weep. In the remaining lines the likeness is not so great; they are rather suggested by, than taken from, Mr. Neale's translation. I trust you will excuse this communication, especially as you observe that some of your readers may have known long since verses which never met your eye. It would, I think, be interesting, and not unprofitable, to trace the process by which several popular hymns have been brought to their present form.-I am, sir, your obedient servant, A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. The Works of Thomas Goodwin, D.D., sometime President of Magdalene College, Oxford. Two volumes. With general Preface by John C. Miller, D.D., Lincoln College; Honorary Canon of Worcester; Rector of St. Martin's, Birmingham. And Memoir, by Robert Halley, D.D., Principal of the Independent New College, London. Nicholl, Edinburgh; and Nisbet and Co., London. 1861.These volumes are the first of a series of standard divines, whose works are to be republished under the direction of a council of publi cation. The Puritan period comprehends the writings of the best authors generally known to us as Puritans. They are handsome octavos, at a very reasonable price. Of the contents we can only say of one and all of them, that while the style is sometimes cumbrous and redundant, the materials are rich even to superfluity. If our reader is of the class who loves to skim over a volume, lay it down, and take up another, cheap as they may be, let him not waste his money on the writings of the Puritan divines; if he can set himself to a close morning's work, and be satisfied not to leave his study until he has thoroughly mastered one at least of the sermons in these volumes, two things we will venture to promise him if he be a preacher; first, that his doctrine shall be transparently clear; and secondly, that his sermons shall not be of that order of which it is just now the fashion to complain, that they have nothing in them. We observe with pleasure that the works of the eloquent Manton are soon to follow. Those of Henry Smith, though belonging to a much earlier date, ought not to be omitted. He was termed in his day the Chrysostom of the English pulpit; he was much more; the perorations of some of his sermons we rank amongst the finest compositions in the English language. Manton, too, as a prose writer, was equal to the best of his day, Milton always excepted, and perhaps Lord Clarendon, and the wicked author of "Killing no Murder." Another volume from the other side of the Atlantic, Truth through Fiction, by Jacob Abbott. London: Ward and Co., Paternoster Row. This is the same Jacob Abbott whose Young Christian, and Corner Stone, had an amazing popularity some five-and-twenty years ago, and its theology is much the same. In a preface of a few lines, "it takes everywhere for granted that salvation for the human soul is to be obtained through repentance for past sin, and faith and trust in the merits and atonement of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Our catechism teaches a sounder doctrine: repentance is that whereby we forsake sin, and faith is that whereby we steadfastly believe the promises of God. To them that believe their faith is counted for righteousness, but not their repentance, though the two are inseparably connected. The hero of the story commits a great crime; his conscience is aroused; and although he has escaped detection, he resolves to surrender himself to the sheriff of the county, and makes a long and wearisome journey to the sheriff's house for that purpose: his courage oozes out as he proceeds, yet he screws it up, and actually knocks at the sheriff's door: like many another visitor who makes a morning call, he is only too happy to find that the sheriff is not at home. What occurred is described in one of the finest pieces of bathos which we have read for a long time. "He walked with a brisk and resolute step up the yard, and knocked at the door. The little girl who answered the summons said that her father was not at home, but was expected very soon; and she invited the stranger to walk in and wait a little while. M'Donner hesitated. His resolution was like a great bubble, which had been growing thinner and thinner, and verging towards its dissolution, while it still retained perfectly its appearance and form; and even increased rather than diminished in size and beauty; so that when he approached the door, his mind was completely filled with what bore every semblance of determination; but it was a mere phantom, a shell, hollow and delusive, the substance being gone. It required but a touch to cause it to burst and disappear. "Or perhaps, more correctly, he was like a rocket slowly approaching the vertex of its path, its projectile force nearly exhausted, and strong earthly tendencies ready to draw it back with accelerated velocity to the ground. M'Donner's resolution was all but exhausted; attractions of prodigious power were all ready to reassert their dominion over him. He turned round, away from the little girl, his mind poised in equilibrium, and just then his eye fell upon the bâton of the sheriff standing in the corner of the entry-the painted badge of his office--the symbol of disgrace, and ignominy, and miserable solitude-of bolts, and bars, and gloomy cells of stone. It furnished just the touch necessary to burst the bubble. "M'Donner said hastily that he would not wait then, but perhaps would call again, "I think he will be in very soon, sir, said the little girl, persuasively. "I will not wait now, I believe,' said he, half looking over his shoulder as he left the steps. Will you leave your name, sir?' said the girl, raising her voice, and stepping out upon the threshold. "No consequence,' said M'Donner, without stopping to turn round." (pp. 179, 80.) With this the scene closes, and the book too, which three short paragraphs bring to a conclusion-"a conclusion," as Doctor Johnson says in his Rasselas, "in which nothing is concluded." But we are left to suppose that poor M'Donner lost his soul in consequence. Let it not be supposed that Jacob Abbott fairly represents American theology. We prefer to seek it in the pages of Dwight and M'Ilvaine. At this season few new books are published, and none have come before us requiring any particular notice. Reprints are the order of the day, and provided they do not lead us to retrogression in thought, we accept them with pleasure. We have noticed one of the most valuable of these. Another more purely critical in its character is before us. Biblical Commentary on the Gospels, and on the Acts of the Apostles, adapted expressly for Preachers and Students. By Hermann Olshausen, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Erlangen. Translated from the German. Third Edition. 4 vols. Clark, Edinburgh; Hamilton and Co., London; Robertson, Dublin.-Olshausen stands in the first class of critics; as a Professor of theology," we place him much lower down; and therefore the publishers have done well in permitting the translator to correct some of his errors in brief notes at the foot of the page. It may seem at first that a sound critic must be of necessity a sound expositor, but this by no means follows. Let us take an instance. Olshausen gives a soundly critical view of the three circumstances, mentioned by Matt. iii. 16, connected with our Lord's baptism, but his exposition is perfectly gratuitous. The descent of the Spirit did not take place before the submersion, but immediately thereupon; but we are not bound to accept the critical explanation of this unquestioned fact, namely, "that the one part of the action-the submersion-represents the negative aspect,-viz. the taking away of the old man (Rom. vi. 4), in the other part-the emersion-the positive aspect,-viz., the appearance of the new man is denoted; the communication of the Holy Ghost must therefore have been connected with the latter." We are not prepared to accept this dogmatism. Nor do we approve of what follows; "but that all this did not pass as a spectacle before the assembled multitude, but was seen by Christ and John alone, is clearly implied in Matt. iii. 16, and in John i. 32. Spiritual eyes are needful for the contemplation of spiritual transactions; he only who possessed such was in a condition to behold the working of the Spirit. An unconscious surmise, roused by the mighty working of the Spirit, may have crossed the minds of the multitude at the sublime instant, when the flower of heaven descended to earth; but the transaction itself was not seen by them." This appears, to say the least, very questionable. Indeed, Olshausen himself seems to have been in some doubt; for in a note we are told, "it is not intended by these remarks to assert that in the whole occurrence there was not something visible, and audible to all." But here for once we question his criticism. The aur, in verse 16, we have always read as referring to Jesus, and not to John, (Olshausen refers it to the latter); and on reference to Winer we find ourselves borne out. "In Matt. iii. 16, aur and en' aúróv relate unquestionably to Jesus." (Grammar of New Test. i. 16.) Still let it not be supposed that Olshausen is, upon the whole, other than an orthodox and evangelical divine. His exposures of Strauss and the infidel school are often masterly, and on the great points of essential doctrine he is generally correct. We have said enough, if we have intimated to the biblical student that he must draw the line carefully between Olshausen the critic, and Olshausen the commentator. As a critic, he needs no praise of ours; his fame is, we believe, established among sound scholars and orthodox divines. Angels, Cherubim, and Gods; or, an Enquiry into the Signification and Application of these and other kindred expressions used in Holy Scripture. 8vo. (pp. 429.) London: Wertheim and Co. 1861.The work recently published under this title propounds a novel and singular theory, though carefully and closely reasoned out by a detailed comparison of Scripture, and with considerable learning and ability. The writer seems to be of sound evangelical views on the vital doctrines of religion, and strongly opposed to the saint-worship of the Romish church. 1. It seeks to prove that such words as "angel of the Lord," "angel of God," or indeed the word "angel" in any connection, denotes a Person of the sacred Trinity; this being the case sometimes in the Old Testament, and frequently in the New. In many cases, doubtless, the "angel of the Lord" is the Lord himself; though in many others, the interpretation will be new to most of our readers. 2. In this portion of the work it is argued, and probably with justice, that Michael the archangel is the Son of God; but it is much more difficult to conceive that Gabriel should be a name for the Holy Spirit. 3. The "cherubim" of Ezekiel's visions are said to signify the same Divine Person, as also various emblems met with in those visions, such as "the wheels," "the rings," "the chariots," "the whirlwind," "the flaming sword at the gates of Paradise," &c. 4. Though the word "gods" came subsequently to denote idols, the work of men's hands, yet its primary signification is said to have been the "angels that kept not their first estate," who, assuming a gigantic but human form, intruded and even reigned as kings on earth in primæval times, though doomed to extermination, and ultimately perishing as Canaanites, Amorites, Anakim, &c. Sihon and Og were specimens of them. Goliath and his sons were among the last remnants in Palestine, though indications of them are supposed to be traceable in Grecian fable, and in giant remains said to be found in various parts of the world. Life of Richard Porson, MA., Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge, 1792 to 1808, by the Rev. J. Selby Watson, M.Ă. London, 1861.-To many of our older readers the name of Porson will call up recollections of past days and of college life, of Greek metres long forgotten, and the preface to the Hecuba. Porson was then the Sir Isaac Newton of Greek; he has since been dethroned by German critics. Whether they will retain their empire; whether the inner life of the Greek language, of which we hear so much and understand so little, is really to be developed under their anatomical methods of treatment; or whether a broader, and yet, as they would tell us, a more superficial, view of the subject may not prove eventually a more philo |