messengers bearing new treasures of wisdom and of knowledge. For to every age is granted light according to the measure of its need and of its worthiness, and this thoughtful, inquiring age needs more light than other ages, and true as it is trying to be, with an earnestness seldom matched, to all the light of the past and present, God grant that it may be found worthy of the larger light it needs.

The historical study of Christianity. All, and more than all, that I have said, it is accomplishing and will yet increasingly accomplish. But, brethren, we have not studied Christianity aright if our study has not taught us that there is more of Christianity than history records-more than history ever can record. For what is Christianity but the perpetual incarnation of God in humanity-the perpetual union of God and man? And if it be this, we have not understood. it, and we cannot in any measure interpret it to others, unless we have been led beyond the visible and temporal, which we call historic Christianity, and which is ever changing, into the presence of the invisible and eternal, which we call essential Christianity, and which changes not. However variously, in different places and at different times, it may incarnate itself in objective form, God cometh to the soul of man--whether here or elsewhere, whether now or long ago -in form always and everywhere the same. A history of the visible kingdom of Christ men may write and we may study, but the kingdom which cometh in the hearts of men -that kingdom without which the other were a meaningless and empty show--no man can describe, and only he can know in whose heart it is already come.

ARTICLE IX.

NOTES AND CRITICISMS.

I.

MR. HUXLEY AND THE HEALING OF THE GADARENE, OR THE "SWINE MIRACLE."

WE read that Jesus and his disciples in one of their journeys crossed the Sea of Galilee, and that, near where they landed, was a man with an unclean spirit, or, as in another verse, possessed with the devil. And when the man saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him. Then ensued a most remarkable colloquy.

Jesus said, "Come out of him, thou unclean spirit."

The man cried with a loud voice, "What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee that thou torment me not." Jesus asked, "What is thy name?"

He answered, "My name is Legion, for we are many."

And he besought him much, not to send them away out of the country. (Now there was, a good way off, near the mountains, a herd of about two thousand swine feeding.)

And all the devils entreated him, saying, "Send us into the swine." And Jesus gave them leave. And they went out of the man, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and were drowned.

And they that fed the swine fled, and told in the city and in the country, what had occurred. When the people went to see what had been done, they saw him that had been possessed with the devil, and had the Legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind.

This is what Mr. Huxley somewhat coarsely calls, "The Swine Miracle." He says he does not believe a word of it, but that "all he knows of law and equity teaches him, that the wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanor of evil example." By which, if he intends anything more than a meaningless, malicious slur, which I should hate to believe him capable of uttering, he asserts that, if the account is true, Jesus was guilty of a wicked and objectless destruction of other people's property.

The truth seems to me to be directly the opposite, and I hope to show, that, "if the account is true," the destruction of the swine, so far from being a wanton act, i. e. objectless, or as children say, just for fun, was justified by reasons of ample importance.

Jesus professed to have come into the world on a mission to redeem the human race, and to raise it to a higher and nobler life. He claimed for himself the highest possible authority, saying that he was the Son of God. He offered two lines of proof, one founded on the exalted character of his teaching, with this we have now nothing to do,-the other on his lordship over the world of matter, and the invisible world of spirits. He healed diseases, opened the eyes of the blind, and the ears of the deaf, restored withered limbs, and raised the dead. Even the winds and waves obeyed him, and became suddenly calm, as if at his word inertia and momentum had ceased. By walking on the water, he caused gravitation to recognize in him its master. As to his power over the invisible world demonstrative proof was more difficult. We read, it is true, that he cast out devils many other times, but those acts lacked that completeness of proof, which compelled the onlookers to admit the reality of the miracle. When a blind man had been healed, his friends could see what had been done. When the child of Jairus was restored to life, her parents and others could see her, talk with her, walk with her, and be sure that she was alive. But when devils were cast out, there was no evidence that the persons from whom they were said to be expelled, were afflicted with anything worse than a more or less acute mania, complicated with epilepsy. An important link was lacking in the chain of proof. This omission was supplied by the occurrences on the shores of the Lake of Galilee. As in other cases of demoniacal possession, it might be possible to explain the man's part in the transaction as due to one of those hallucinations, common even now among the insane, in which the unhappy sufferer regards himself as possessed bodily with a host of evil spirits. There would be nothing remarkable in a lunatic's addressing Jesus as he did, nor in his asking permission for the supposed spirits to enter into the swine. And, reducing it all to the plane of an ordinary transaction, and, regarding Jesus as only a man, it would not be strange that he should humor the poor creature, and give the permission sought. But here explanation on such a theory, comes to a dead stop. For as soon as Jesus gave leave to go into the swine, something went from the man, and left him "sitting, and in his right mind.” A fit of insanity, it is quite conceivable, might suddenly But no hallucination, no insanity, no form of mental disorder, no bodily disease, could go hurtling through the air to the herd of swine which up to this moment had been quietly feeding "a good way off." Whatever it was, it had power to make them leave their feeding-place, break away from their keepers, and, contrary to the instincts of their race, run violently into the sea. What went from the man to the swine was invisible and incorporeal. It had power to move from place to place. It asked for, and waited for, permission. It had exercised its faculties in wrecking the unfortunate man who had been possessed, and it desired to destroy the swine. In short, it was a company of evil spirits. No other explanation is possible; in no other way can the fact be accounted for, that, when Jesus gave leave to whatever it was in the man, the swine at once ceased feeding and ran violently into the sea.

cease.

"If the account is true," it follows, therefore, not, as Mr. Huxley charges, that Jesus was guilty of a wanton destruction of other people's property a wicked and unreasonable act,-but that, in order to demonstrate a truth of value infinitely transcending the value of any number of herds of swine, he saw fit to give those spirits license to show their power and malevolence. I do not know of any way in which the same result could have been as satisfactorily attained with less injury. "If the account is true," it seems unnecessary to discuss the ownership of the swine, in the presence of him who was the Son of God and who gave such proof of his divinity. If all governments have the right of eminent domain, how much higher was his right who, "if the account be true," was Creator of both the swine and their owners!

As to the importance of this act, it seems to me that none of Christ's miracles, except his resurrection, was equal to it. They served to demonstrate his power over the visible world only. Even raising the dead did no more, for, in all of those cases, there was no evidence that anything was done more than to set again in motion the bodily mechanism which had stopped. But this miracle would prove the existence of an invisible, incorporeal, spirit world, of living sentient beings, powers of evil, whose chosen work was to do injury. It would prove, too, their inferiority in power to Christ, and that they were held in check by him.

To me the truth of this narrative is not a mere hypothesis, made for the sake of determining whether Christ did right or wrong; as, in a play we decide upon the character of the actors and their deeds as if it were all true. To me it is all real, and I am glad to believe that Christ actually did allow this manifestation of power and malevolence. It lifts, the curtain, and by a glimpse of what is beyond, proves so much.

It is worthy of notice, as illustrating Christ's character, that by no other act did he inflict suffering on any sentient creature. One act of this kind was needed to demonstrate the reality of demoniacal possession. One instance did it. A repetition could do no more.

Christ's object in permitting the devils to destroy the swine is so patent, that I am surprised that Mr. Huxley should speak of it as a wanton act. Perhaps, however, this is no more remarkable than that he, who in all other matters is so keen to question, and so ready to reject any and everything which rests on tradition, should base attack after attack on the Bible story of creation, on no better foundation than an unexamined traditional exposition of its teachings. It proves that the weaknesses-shall I say the prejudices?—of human nature are not confined to theologians, nor even to the Interpreters of Genesis,' " of whom Mr. Huxley entertains so low an opinion. CHARLES B. WARRING.

Poughkeepsie, New York.

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II.

OLD TESTAMENT BOOKS.

THE past year has brought to Bible students who are not specialists in Assyriology, continuations in two series of translations of texts. A fifth volume of the "Records of the Past" has appeared, not confined as were the volumes of the old series to inscriptions of a single land, but containing a selection of" records" of various lands. Another part of the "Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek" under Schrader's care has appeared, viz., the first half of the third volume. It contains inscriptions of the Old Babylonian rulers. A fourth volume, completing the series as contemplated, will contain religious and poetical inscriptions. There will follow an extra volume giving the Tel el-Amarna tablets. It is a pleasure to reflect now and then that it is not necessary for every student to do all the work that is to be done. Professor Sayce especially may be relied upon to keep us posted through the Academy and other papers, as well as in his own publications, of important discoveries in his line. In view of the intense interest with which all Bible students are watching the excavators, the criticism passed upon him and others that they are sensational in their reports, seems unwarranted. The results of recent work of the Exploration Fund in Palestine has been to renew our confidence that the Holy Land has secrets which it can and will reveal about itself, and we shall by-and-by not be shut up to records of foreign countries to learn what experiences that land passed through. It is deservedly a popular theme for writers and for speakers to show the relation of these discoveries to the Old Testament. Numerous publications have appeared during the year that place before lay readers the important results.

English students wait with great anticipation for the completion of the various series of commentaries appearing in England. In the "Expositor's Bible" most of the volumes of the year are upon the New Testament, but McLaren has published the first volume of the Psalms. In the “Cambridge Bible" Professor Davidson's "Ezekiel" has been well received. His work upon Job was one of the best of the earlier volumes, and this last volume finds a hearty reception. It is profound and clear, with fine appreciation of the theological relations of the prophecy. The New Testament section of the series has been completed the last year. Parker's “People's Bible" is complete with the seventeenth volume, as for the Old Testament, and lacks two volumes upon the New.

Of interest to the Bible student are the views expressed by Ex-President Fairchild of Oberlin in his newly published "Elements of Theology," as to the nature of inspiration. The chapter treating of the subject has been printed in this periodical, and the "Theology" has been reviewed; but coming as they do from one who is nearing the end of a long career, and especially because that career has been a theologian's, it is well to draw attention to them again. The truth of Christianity turns, he believes, not on the inspiration of the Scriptures, but on their truthfulness. Investigation of inspiration may be along two lines. First, if inspired the writings will show it; they do show it,