the words of Moses in the original law, by some later copyist. Dr. P. then adverts briefly to the purpose of the three feasts-the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, to the rite of Circumcision, and to the provision of the Tabernacle as an appropriate place for worship.

The book of Leviticus records transactions which occurred in one month, and is chiefly a record of laws which Moses received authority to promulgate during his second retirement in the mountains. The appointed worship of the Hebrews was not prayer nor music, but the offering to the Deity of articles of food and drink. But offerings did not originate with the Jewish faith; they were previously in general practice. Dr. P. takes that side of the much vexed controversy on the origin of propitiatory offerings, which attributes them not to Divine appointment, but to the spontaneous suggestions of the human breast. He then discusses the Mosaic ritual with respect to the material, the manner and object, and the place of offerings. This chapter is very interesting. Nadab and Abihu were smitten by God as a solemn enforcement of the Law when first enjoined. Dr. P. then examines the Jewish Police laws, which were designed to effect four paramount objects, to withhold the people from idolatry-to preserve health-to promote civilization-to present and enforce religious obligations. The last twelve chapters of Leviticus may be considered as an exposition and illustration and supplement of the code given on Mount Sinaiof a miscellaneous character, abounding in details, and including much wise legislation.

The book of Numbers opens with a census of the people, made according to the tribes and families, and with the arrangements respecting the tribe of Levi and its duties in the Tabernacle. We have not room to pursue into detail the remarks of Dr. Palfrey upon the organization of the people, their wanderings and battles, their obstinacy and lapses, and the successive enforcements of new legal provisions detailed in the books of Numbers and of Deuteronomy. Many questions of great interest are discussed with powerful reasoning and wide erudition. It is impossible for any attentive reader to peruse this period of Jewish history without assenting to the remark which has often been made, that the Old Testament is the most entertaining book ever written, independently of all its religious claims. It is pleasant and truly edifying, to observe how a large and liberal study of the record dispels many of those dark clouds which have gathered over it. An objection or doubt started by ignorance or superficial inquiry gives place before the searching criticism of true scholarship, and leaves in

its place something which is full of lofty meaning. We are confident that most readers will find in the book before us a key which will unlock for them many treasures of ancient wisdom, and render the perusal of the Old Testament one of the most delightful occupations of the Sabbath hours. No array of learned incumbrances disfigures the clear text of the Volumes we are describing.

Neither do we feel at liberty to undertake, in limits so brief as our own must necessarily be, to exhibit the opinions which Dr. Palfrey has stated and illustrated at length in his second Volume. Many of them involve questions which he himself has been obliged to cripple, that his work might not be larger than the patience of his readers. We must however admit that his views and interpretations will give but little countenance to many opinions which are currently maintained in the Christian world, and that they will make sad havoc with many preconceived, but not the less resolute, misconceptions which are closely woven into the faith of the multitude. Undoubtedly it will occur to many readers to ask whether Dr. Palfrey does not allow too much or too little, whether he defines clearly and deeply enough the boundary line between fact and fable, and whether, in surrendering much that has been believed and reverenced, he vindicates what he retains by any better arguments than would hold in equal force for what he rejects. It may be that individual taste and judgement appear sometimes to make a discrimination, which ought rather to be justified by some general principles. This however is a bias which does not at all affect the grounds and relations of truth, though it may for a time impede its discovery. Nothing indeed can be more important than that we should clearly distinguish the inspiration of God from the invention of man, and that we should decide by fixed and incontestable canons of judgement between what is in itself true, solemn and authoritative, and what merely recommends itself to this or that individual as possessing such attributes. Yet how is this distinction to be made? who is to form for us these rules of judgement? Two facts are indisputable,-that there is a vast variety of opinions concerning the claims and the character of the contents of the Old Testament, and that many of these opinions are childish and absurd and receive no countenance whatever from the book itself. Individual inquiry after all must pursue these opinions, verify, discriminate or challenge them, and after the most that has been done and said the result cannot be that war will take the place of peace, discord of harmony, and doubt of certainty, for there is neither peace, harmony nor certainty

apparent now. The safest course will always be, as it always has been, for every man to open his mind honestly and thoroughly to instruction, to surrender without good reason nothing that he cherishes or reveres, to receive without absolute conviction nothing that gives him anxiety, and, more than all, not to identify his own opinions with the truth, nor be over-anxious lest truth should perish if he perish. The commentator on the Old Testament has in many respects an unwelcome task. What with liberal interpreters and allegorical interpreters, the advocates of verbal inspiration, and the dealers in myths and natural supernaturals, the commentator needeth independence and reverence, fearlessness and hesitation, at the same moment. In no department of literature has the folly of partial wisdom made more melancholy exhibitions of itself than in the folios, and children's "own books," about the Old Testament. And not only printing, but the sister arts have perpetuated and disseminated the crude notions of superstition and ignorance. Michael Angelo has decked his famous statue of Moses with horns, Raphael in one of his brilliant frescos in the Vatican represents the Deity in human shape as kicking the little round earth into its place, and we have now before us, in a child's book, a picture of the darkness which could be felt-Moses standing out in full view to prove by his extended arms that the darkness could be felt, and by his bright countenance that it was not darkness. How can these prejudices be overborne but by arguments and discussions which give momentary alarm?

On two points of importance which are presented to notice in the second Volume, we may offer to our readers a brief statement of the views of the author. In his Lecture on the Canon he had vindicated to himself the privilege of distinguishing among the different books of the Old Testament those which might bear different characters according to their contents, design or authority, and he objected to the common opinion, which makes no discrimination between them, as not justified by any sufficient evidence. He accordingly makes a wide distinction between the book of Genesis, and the four following books of Moses. He maintains, from remarkable internal evidence, that the Lawgiver was the author of Genesis ; and his general idea of it is, that Moses intended it as an Introduction to the four following books. The purpose of this Introduction is the point to be decided. The first eleven chapters of Genesis have been generally regarded as an inspired history of the creation of the world and of the human race, and of the first instruction of men in religious truth. Dr. P. maintains

a different opinion. He looks upon Moses as no official historian, and as having designed nothing more than to acquaint the Hebrews with the character and fortunes of their ancestors, with the foundation of their claim to Canaan, and with the recognition in times before their own of the great truths upon which the injunctions contained in their Law were based. For the sake of completeness Moses begins with the creation of the world; but he does not narrate that event with the aid of inspired wisdom concerning it. This supposition is needless. His history bears on its face the proof that it was a compilation from different records and traditions, which survived and were within his reach, and from which he composed the narrative as we read it. It does not contain an inspired, but a wholly human history, and it answers the purpose Moses intended it should answer, not that of teaching men geology by inspiration, but as a fitting introduction to that history and Law of the Hebrews in which he himself was concerned, and which he has chronicled as an eye-witness.

Again, Dr. Palfrey regards the books of the Law as standing upon different grounds, in point of authority, from the rest of the books in the Old Testament. He recognises two supernatural dispensations,that by Moses, and that by Christ. The common opinion is, that the two were connected by a succession of miracles and inspired prophets, whose writings now in our hands are to be regarded as, alike with the Law and the New Testament, the oracles of God. Dr. P. on the contrary makes as broad a distinction between the Law and the Prophets, as the Reformers made between the writings of the Apostles and the Evangelists and the works of the Fathers of the Church. The supposed predictions scattered through the Prophets, which seem to indicate the expectation of the Messiah and the wider extension of God's care over the nations of the earth, Dr. P. regards as by no means original communications of hidden wisdom to the authors, but as statements of the hope or belief which grew up among the Hebrews, founded upon the promise of a new Prophet to come at some distant period, first uttered by Moses.

But we must again advise our readers that the work before us must be judged only upon a thorough perusal of its contents. We can safely promise them rich instruction and pleasant information on many points of interest, where ignorance generally prevails; and if the argument offered to them runs counter to their wishes, they must meet it as well as they can.

G. E. E.