Jesus into the category of one merely smitten by the misfortunes of war. Jesus never put himself into that classification. A study of certain verses in the second chapter of Phillipians where the exercise of the sovereign right of self-renunciation is set forth, and in the eighteenth chapter of John, "to this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world", would have helped to the vital point of distinction which seems to have escaped the author in its entirety, at least in this connection. The distinction lies not in the manner of the infliction of suffering but in the purpose. Surely Jesus suffered neither for his own moral discipline nor for spiritual advantage, so he was not an ascetic at all but a Saviour whose suffering was vicarious, yes, and efficacious. It is due the author, however, to say that he does have a paragraph toward the close of the book in which is asserted the Saviorship of Jesus; but its recognition does not permeate the book, and even in the paragraph referred to it is put forth almost as if it were but the fulfilment of Hindu thought. "Manilla Vachakar and Tulsi Das realized the Incarnate One in His compassion and love would suffer for the sake of men: Jesus fulfilled their thought on the Cross of Calvary." In another connection (p. 425) we find this "Jesus, whose teaching so wonderfully crowns the ideas of Hinduism, is needed to give stability and reality to the Hindu belief in incarnations". Was such the purpose of His mission or is He become merely an ornament of Hinduism?

We are told somewhere in the book that Hinduism must die unto Christianity, but it nowhere rises to a passion. The whole matter of the relation of the two religions seems to be looked upon as a matter of adjustment. Almost every Christian doctrine is shown to have a counterpart in Hinduism and one comes to feel that for the Hindu to become Christianized it is but necessary for him to build up his accepted doctrine at one point and dress it down at another. Christ is "lifted up" but is he so lifted up that the drawing power will be manifested? There is much in the book which seems to savor of an attempt to build Christianity on Hinduism. The folly of such an attempt ought to be manifest from the author's own statement that, (p. 455) "Twenty-five years ago no educated Hindu dreamt of defending Idolatry and the grosser features of caste and Hindu life, today almost every type of revivalist defends the whole of Hinduism". Notwithstanding the age and the organization of Hinduism, the terrible blight of its dread Karma, and all the efforts of the revivalists, together with all their misguided allies, the Theosophists and some others who seek to tone down Christianity so it may become an easy adjunct to Hinduism,-notwithstanding all this, pessimism, which is of the genius of Hinduism, is slowly but most surely being replaced by an optimism which is the child of western civilization and Christian teaching. Our author (p. 422) is authority for saying that the Hindu has suddenly become very modern in that his philosophy of religion now embraces all the great religions inasmuch as their founders are regarded as incarnations. The product of Hinduism in its palmy days was useless, for its ideals were not worth achieving. But a new

nationalism is rising through the revolutionizing influence of western civilization and through the ministries of the church in the name of Christ. The leaven is working from both extremes of society. The dissolution of caste has begun in that (p. 177) “the religious basis of caste has faded out of the minds of educated Hindus". The power of Christian ministries is well certified by the Hindus (p. 277-281).

The book has many worthy qualities. It will be much consulted by students of comparative religion. There is within its pages a certain system of Christian teaching which has some apologetic value; but the lines of symmetry of the system fit the frame of Hinduism, and the apologetic value is greatly vitiated by the fact that the product is not Christianity pure and simple, but a composite of certain presumed religious value everywhere presenting the flower and fruit of Christianity but always with something of the fragrance and flavor of Hinduism. It is not enough to say in next to the last conclusion of the book, "the Indian patriot must choose between tradition and the health of his country", nor is it sufficient to say in the language of the last conclusion, "In Him (Jesus) is focused every ray of light that shines in Hinduism".

Princeton.

C. M. CANTRALL,

Spirit and Power. By D. M. M'INTYRE. London: James Clark & Co. 1913.

It is a great pleasure to review a book written by a friend when the matter is fully approved and when the personality of the author is so manifest that as you read you all but see his face and hear his voice. Mr. M'Intyre is a son-in-law of Andrew Bonar and his successor in the pulpit of the Finniston church which for two generations has been the church of most fervent piety in the city of Glasgow. While this book was on the press its author was elected president of the Christian Institute which is a training school for Christian workers and has a great variety of ministries.

The material of this book is largely the substance of a series of addresses delivered in conferences, intersynodical, synodical and presbyterial, arranged for the purpose of strengthening the desire for a spiritual awakening in Scotland. The questions discussed relate chiefly to ministerial service. With characteristic modesty Mr. M'Intyre trusts the book may be of some service to young ministers and other Christian workers. The subjects discussed are varied and treat of much pertaining to ministerial fitness and function. Every page bears the banner of God's goodness. There is much of the vision of the prophet and there is everywhere the breath of prayer.

The following analysis of the seventeen chapters is not altogether amiss. What may be considered the first section-chapters one to four-opens with a sweep of the field and discusses its needs and possibilities. It has a chapter on the "Joy of the ministry", and closes with a challenge to the minister. In chapters five to ten "Revival" is the great subject. Its need and its scriptural authority are set forth. The power of the Cross and the unbroken supply of the spirit of

Jesus are discussed. It rises in intense personal penetration with the declaration, "The life of the preacher the soul of his preaching". Chapters eleven to fourteen discuss the pastoral office and methods, culminating with the minister's identification of himself with the desire of the Master. The concluding chapters emphasize the gift which is faith and the testing of truth by its relation to the Deity of Jesus. The book closes with a setting forth of the glory of love in God and in the Christian.

Princeton.

C. M. CANTRALL.

EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY

The Early Poetry of Israel in Its Physical and Social Origins. By GEORGE ADAM SMITH, D.D., LL.D., Litt.D., Principal and ViceChancellor of the University of Aberdeen. Being the Schweich Lectures for 1910. London: Published for the British Academy by Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press. 1912. Pp. xi, 102, with index. 3s. net.

The distinguished author, whose three lectures before the British Academy are recorded in a fuller form in this volume, expressly reserves to himself in his preface the right to "use the contents of these lectures in a larger work on Hebrew poetry", that he hopes some day to publish. What is given us here is therefore an intermediate sketch— something between the brevity of a three-hour course of lectures and the comprehensiveness of a major work-forming an interesting and suggestive contribution to the already rich literature on Biblical poetry. It is suggestive, mainly because of its author's enthusiasm in the elucidation of ancient literary impulses and methods through comparison with those prevailing in what he regards as similar circles in much later times. And it is interesting, chiefly because of his genius for seizing the center of each problem and holding it up for picturesque treatment, to the neglect of such details as fill up the ordinary scientific treatise.

This style of Principal Smith's is peculiarly suitable to his theme in this book. There is pervasively a poetic touch even in his handling of the poetry. Such a style keeps the reader in sympathetic humor with the writer and maintains the interest at places where it might otherwise flag.

The first lecture deals with the form of Israel's early poetry, the second and third handle its substance and spirit. The significant fact in Principal Smith's treatment of poetic form is that he commits himself definitely to the cautious attitude of those who reject the theory of absolute metrical uniformity. "The zeal," he says, "manifest in many recent reconstructions of Hebrew verse, to reduce the lines to strict metre and the parallelism to absolute symmetry, seems to me, in the light of what we do know about Semitic and other poetries, to be unscientific, and in the shadow of what we do not yet know, to be very precarious. I cannot follow the Symmetrians" (pp. 19 f).

Perhaps the happiest feature of his discussion of the spirit of Hebrew poetry, is his striking statement of the four paradoxes that he perceives in the Semitic character. These are the following: 1) "strong sensual grossness, combined with equally strong reverence and worship"; 2) "a marvelous capacity for endurance and resignation broken by fits of ferocity"; 3) "a versatile subtilty of mind, devoid of originality and power of sustained argument"; 4) “a distinct subjectiveness in the Semite's attitude to the phenomena of nature and of history, combined with as distinct an objectiveness or realism in describing these phenomena" (p. 33). It requires no long argument to make every lover of Old Testament poetry feel that in these concise statements there are gathered up real and conspicuous qualities of the authors of the Psalms, of Job, of Ecclesiastes, of the Song of Solomon. Dr. Smith is not the first to have observed any one of these paradoxes. But he has expressed, arranged and illustrated them in a way that stamps his thought permanently upon the memory of his readers. With all that may be fanciful in his tracing of analogies, his service to scholarship is unquestionable, and it is a pleasure to note that again and again he is led to plead for the early date and genuineness of poetic passages, which by a less sympathetic, penetrative criticism than his own have been relegated to a later age and an artificial impulse. For him a prime reason for maintaining the genuineness of the Song of Moses, Exodus xv., is his conviction, from the comparative study of primitive peoples and their poetry, that "to them poetry is not merely the arrangement in regular measures of vivid, musical words; nor is the composition of it left to the professional poet. Early peoples expected in poetry . . . that it shall be the product of experience rather than of imagination; that no strange heart or voice is sufficient for it, but that the very head, hands and limbs which have done the actions celebrated shall spring, warm and rhythmical, from the doing of the things to the singing of them. Of such poetry we may say that it is just the peroration of life; and that after all must be the vividest poetry" (p. 54). Verily, the old Book receives confirmation from the most varied sources. Principal Smith has just added one more to the already long array, in estimating its earliest poetry by criteria derived from a comparative study of primitive poetics. Princeton.

J. OSCAR BOYD.

The Literature of the Old Testament. By GEORGE FOOT MOORE, Harvard University. New York: Henry Holt and Co. London: Williams and Norgate. 1913. Pp. vi, 256. With index. 50 cents net.

Helps of all sizes and sorts are to be had from our publishers, designed to popularize and advertise the radical views of the Old Testament long familiar in academic circles. This little book is one of that character, and belongs to the "Philosophy and Religion" series of the "Home University Library of Modern Knowledge". Written by Professor Moore, it is just what might be expected of such an author:

a reliable presentation of the views of the Wellhausen school as to the origin and character of the Old Testament books. It is clearly written, quite succinct and yet full enough to furnish the reader a substantial grasp on the main features of the subject. For one who does not care to use so large a work as Professor Fowler's recent volume (Macmillans', 1912), and yet hardly enjoys the obtrusively text-book flavor of Professor Kent's numerous publications, this small book by Dr. Moore will prove satisfactory.

Books of this kind, designed to give general impressions and suppressing all detail, are better fitted to produce conviction of the truth of their assertions, than the other and laborious type of argument. Weak points are easily avoided, divergences among individual members of the school need not emerge, and general considerations can be presented so skilfully that the reader, unless cautioned, will scarcely realize that there can be any other side to the question. For instance, Dr. Moore in distinguishing the documents of Genesis moves lightly over the ominous raveling out of the symbols J E D P into minor "strands, each having a consistency and continuity of its own", which appears also "in subsequent parts of the history from Genesis to Samuel" (p. 42). From all that appears in such a book as this, not a suspicion would be roused of that cumbrous mass of incredibly complicated analysis which one finds, e.g., in Carpenter and HarfordBattersby. Again, Dr. Moore's view of the origin of the priestly legislation (pp. 55 f) is presented in brief outline, that hardly suggests the significant contradiction between it and the views commonly urged by Pentateuchal critics of his school. The author commits himself (p. 63) to that view of Deuteronomy which sees in it a document produced expressly to "bring about a revolution such as actually followed its well-timed discovery", and "written in the second half of the seventh century", i.e., in the reign of Josiah. So far from intimating the hopeless disagreement of critics on the questions of authorship involved here, Dr. Moore adds immediately, "this is now the opinion of almost all who admit that the common principles of historical criticism are applicable to Biblical literature". This!-when all that is needed to answer, e.g., the arguments of a Kautzsch on this subject is to read Kuenen, and vice versa. Finally, as an illustration of the ease with which in such a brief and general discussion contradictions inherent in the author's theories may be covered up, we quote, first from p. 56: "the things that Ezra and Nehemiah were most zealous about... do not stand out in the so-called Priests' Code as they do in other parts of the law"; and now from p. 64: "it was only in the Persian period . . . that the conditions implied in P arose". If one of these assertions is right, the other is wrong. As a matter of fact, the former is true; the latter is false. The "uncertainty" of the documentary analysis in the latter half of Joshua is conceded, without the admission fairly due that it amounts in fact to a breakdown. And so on. The booklet, however, has only the defects of the critical principles of its writer. As a compact exposition of those principles it is admirable.

Princeton.

J. OSCAR BOYD.