What effect the sudden withdrawal of state acknowledgment will ultimately have upon Buddhism in Burma, remains to be seen. But of the three great religions of the East Indies, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, Hinduism, by far the most ancient, and by far the most numerous, and by far the most profound, appears destined to yield first to the conquering Cross. ANDOVER. Charles C. Starbuck. BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES. JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. A Sketch of the Progress of Thought from Old Testament to New Testament. By CRAWFORD HOWELL TOY, Professor in Harvard University. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1890. 8vo, pp. xviii, 456. It was John Stuart Mill, if I mistake not, who being asked by an angry opponent whether he would concede that two and two make four, replied that he must first know what use would be made of the concession. The opposition manifested to some of the plainest conclusions of modern Biblical science can be accounted for only on the ground of fear lest the concessions should be put to a wrong use. This fear will no doubt be stimulated rather than allayed by the book before us. Professor Toy is in a sense the coryphæus of the higher criticism in this country. In this volume he uses its data in a manner not at all calculated to defend "the views commonly held by the church." But not to prejudge the case, let me give an outline of the book. 66 The Introduction is on the general laws of the advance from national to universal religions. "The rise of Christianity out of Judaism is a fact which, though of enormous significance, is yet in conformity with a well-defined law of human progress," is the first sentence. Religion is developed in society, and may be regarded, therefore (like language and ethics), as a branch of sociology. The growth of society is subject to laws of growth. Religion will be subject to these laws. The general conditions under which religious progress has been made are the same as those which control the formation of nations, and those which determine progress within the nation. "A religion in the better sense of the term is the organized product of a national thought concerning man's relation to the divine" (p. 7). Historically, religions have generally grown up by aggregation, well-known examples being the pantheons of Egypt, Babylonia, and Greece. Even the so-called universal religions are subject to this law. "In Islam we have a mixture of ideas from three sources, the old Arabian religion, the Jewish, and the Christian. Christianity has blended with the religious and moral ideas of the New Testament much un-Jewish European thought. The Judaism of the two or three centuries just preceding the beginning of our era combined Hebrew and Greek conceptions. Wherever there is intimate intellectual intercourse between nations, this larger religious syncretism must follow (p. 11). Besides this law of external growth, religion shares the internal growth of society, being constantly modified by changes in science, art, and ethics. Its advance will be in accordance with the general character of social progress. The conclusion of the Introduction is made by a brief mention of the universal religions which illustrate the law, - Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. The author considers, also, some "stunted and arrested growths," as Stoicism, Confucianism, the religions of Egypt and Persia. The proper theme of the book is the development of religious thought from Old Testament to New Testament. The proper starting point is the time of Ezra. At this time the religion of Israel had attained its full growth. The nation had reached a practical monotheism; it had worked out a reasonably sound and satisfactory theory of practical social ethics; and the organization of public worship in the temple was substantially the same as in New Testament times. "It is at this point that we begin our study. We are to trace the history of the Jewish religious ideas from the fifth century on, and to follow them into the New Testament times" (p. 50). The first inquiry concerns the sources of our knowledge, that is, the literature of the period. Professor Toy accepts the prevailing critical theory as to the date of the Law, though he recognizes the fact that "the divine instruction (tora) had been gathering volume for centuries, and the national feeling had been moving toward the conviction that this instruction was its organic law" (p. 49). He also accepts the late date of Zechariah ix.-xiv. and Joel. He places Jonah, Esther, Judith, and Tobit together, between 250 and 150 B. C., and a little later, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus, though "the book of Proverbs is no doubt the result of numerous collections made at different times." Further, "the theology and the historical conditions of the great body of the songs of our Psalter indicate the Greek period as the time of their composition" (p. 61). The book of Daniel is put, of course, about B. c. 164, and the book of Enoch not much later. With these must be classed the Sibylline Oracles, the Assumption of Moses, the Book of Jubilees, and the books ordinarily known as Apocrypha of the Old Testament. The doctrinal development, as shown in this literature, passing on into the New Testament, is considered under the heads: God, Subordinate Supernatural Beings, Man (including Sin and Righteousness), Ethics, the Kingdom of God, Eschatology, and the Relation of Jesus to Christianity. The longest chapter is the one on Man. These chapters are so full of matter that it is extremely difficult to compress them. Perhaps the outline of a single subject will give an idea of the author's method. Under the rubric Righteousness he proceeds as follows: Old Testament Conception. Old Testament conception of moral goodness: prophetic standard. Succeeding Development of the Idea of Righteousness. Synagogues (origin and influence). Parties (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots). New Testament Conception. Teaching of Jesus (spiritual character of his nomism). Paul's doctrine of imputed righteousness (Old Testament basis : doctrine of faith). Opposition to Paul's Apparent Antinomianism. Subsequent History of the Idea in the New Testament. The Insufficiency of the Jewish National Nomism. Contrast between the Outward Method of attaining Righteousness. and the Inward Method. There is clearly room for a treatise on every one of these points. The limits proper to a review will not allow detailed discussion. I will mention a few points of general interest. The author does not find an entirely consistent Biblical psychology. He does not accept trichotomy as the doctrine of the New Testament, though he modifies this so far as to say: "It is true that Paul employs the terms spirit and spiritual in a peculiar way to express the regenerate nature, the soul of man after a new life has been breathed into it by the divine spirit. It is a distinction which seems to be confined in the New Testament to him and his school" (p. 180). The author recognizes the practical character of the New Testament revelation: "The characteristic of the New Testament teaching is its intense conception of sin as the one great evil in the world, as the central fact of life, around which range themselves all the powers of heaven, earth, and hell. All the manifestations of God in history look finally to the annihilation of this malignant power of the human soul" (p. 220). He has a high idea of the prophetic teaching: "For the old mechanical idea that the Deity was appeased by a gift, the prophets desired to substitute the conviction of the necessity for repentance and reformation. This protest of the prophets represents a most important advance in the ethical conception of sin and the deliverance from sin" (p. 221). He emphasizes the originality of Jesus: "It was a profound spiritual instinct of Jesus which led him to make it [the idea of the Fatherhood of God] the central point of his theistic teaching. He discerned its dominant relation to other sides of the conception of God; he infused into it the warmth and coloring of human feeling and the practicalness of everyday life, and therefore he is to be regarded in a true sense as its author" (p. 86). "The very conception of God as Father implies a tenderness of sympathy and a spirituality of relation which involved a new departure in religion" (p. 269). "In a few words Jesus has comprised all that is essential in moral principle, and held it up as the one necessary condition of perfected human society. Even where he does not offer direct solutions of social-moral questions which have arisen since his time, he furnishes the principles which contain the solution (p. 341, compare pp. 417, 435). As a consequence, he gives Christianity the highest place among religions: "Christianity, starting from the national Judaism, found itself forced... to abandon the merely national point of view, and to regard divine worship and the divine presence as divorced from human limitations. This divorcement was best expressed in the language of the time by the declaration that God was [is] a spirit, a designation which ascribed to him the sum-total of the highest side of existence. The idea, once announced, became a possession for mankind destined to be fruitful of best results. It has not always retained its purity, but it has never completely faded from men's minds; and it is to early Christianity that we owe its definite formulation and its establishment as an element of human life" (p. 89). Though we know of no religion that is actually universal, it is "difficult to see why Christianity in its simplest New Testament form should not prove universally acceptable" (p. 36). Nevertheless, the author's point of view is naturalistic: "Religion must be treated as a product of human thought. For, supposing a supernatural intervention for the communication of truth, it must, in order to be successful, conform to human conditions and have a real genesis in man's mind" (p. 1). The Messianic hope was 66 a natural1 product of the conviction of Yahwe's care for Israel" (p. 49). "The gospel accounts which ascribe miraculous powers to him [Jesus] may be explained as the product of reverent tradition" (p. 125). "How he [Paul] came to his special view it is impossible to say with definiteness. It was most likely an intuition, an idea that burst up in his soul out of the mass of material over which he had been brooding; he describes it as a revelation" (p. 274). "The belief early established itself that he [Jesus] had risen from the dead, . . . a belief which may be regarded as the natural pendant to the conviction that he, though he had died, was the Messiah" (p. 426). Here is where the issue will be raised. Let us concede every minor point. Let us admit the critical presuppositions of the author. Let us, with him, emphasize the logical connection of Judaism and Christianity, and the orderly development of one from the other. Let us concede the influence of Greek thought upon the New Testament writers. The question still remains, Do we still recognize God in this process? The originality of Jesus, was it simply a talent for religion, or was it in truth God manifest in the flesh,? On this point our author leaves us in doubt. Perhaps he will say this is a matter of personal concern, and that in a treatise on the science of religion he has no right to assume anything more of Christianity than of any other religion. But many of us it seems more of an assumption to take the other position. Henry Preserved Smith. THE CHURCH FOR THE TIMES. A Series of Sermons. By WILLIAM FREDERIC FABER. Pp. 81. Westfield, N. Y.: The Lakeside Press. 1891. 25 cents. The author of these sermons is pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Westfield, N. Y. Their subjects are: The Church's Faith; the Church's Worship; the Divine Church; the Church's Mission; the Church's Methods; the Church's Confidence. The preacher's conception of the church is spiritual and catholic. Alive to all that makes for progress in doctrine, worship, and ministry, he is thoroughly imbued with the historic spirit, and his utterances have a consequent breadth, depth, and weightiness, combined with stimulating power. For the importance of the themes of these discourses, their method, wisdom, and timeliness, we wish that they may have a wide circulation. Egbert C. Smyth. THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: the General Epistles of St. James and St. Jude. By Rev. ALFRED Plummer, M. A., D. D. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son. This is one of the best in this series of popular homilies upon the Scriptures, and combines very skillfully instruction and religious edifica 1 The italics here and elsewhere are mine. 2 In a note, p. 425, Professor Toy accounts for the noteworthy fact that the disciples retained their faith in Jesus even after his death by the parallel cases in other religions. He seems to overlook the fact that in these cases continued faith in the prophet did not produce the belief that he had risen from the dead. tion. It is especially happy in its frank and helpful suggestions upon questions now agitating the public mind concerning the infallibility of the Biblical writers and the bearing of New Testament references upon the interpretation of the Old Testament. One cannot but be grateful also for the estimate put upon the Old Testament Apocrypha, and the plea for a better acquaintance with it. The various critical questions concerning the authorship of these epistles, their relation with other parts of the New Testament, and their right to a place in the Canon, are discussed soberly and lucidly. It may be doubted, however, whether the effort to place the onus probandi upon one who questions the authenticity of these epistles is quite successful. The fact that, after a considerable period of doubt and divided sentiment, the church finally accepted them as canonical, has its weight, but does not relieve the student from the necessity of testing their right to a place in the Canon with much care and caution. It does not seem to be a very decisive argument. William H. Ryder. THE WRITERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: THEIR STYLE AND CHARACTERBy the late Rev. WILLIAM HENRY SIMCOX, M. A. New York: Thomas Whittaker. ISTICS. This little book is a supplement or continuation of the somewhat larger volume which appeared last year upon the language of the New Testament. It notes especially the peculiarities of the different writers of the New Testament which distinguish them from one another. It is the work of a careful scholar and, though of less value than the book which preceded it, it will assist to the better understanding of the contents of Scripture. The author holds that the internal evidence against the genuineness of Mark xvi. 9-20 is quite decisive, and that the pastoral Epistles are probably written by the apostle. Two useful Appendices fill more than half of the volume, one noting the affinities in the vocabularies of different New Testament writers, the other, the differences between the Greek of the New Testament and that of other Hellenic and Hellenistic writers. William H. Ryder. Japanese Girls and Women. By Alice Mabel Bacon. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 1891. Pp. ix, 333. $1.25. This gives that intimate view of Japan which can only be given by a woman, and that only in giving knowledge of the interior sex. goes to the heart. It The book begins with babyhood. One envies Japanese babies and mothers, both for the simplicity and naturalness of baby-clothing. On the other hand, insufficient nourishment, and the singular neglect of milk, breed weakness and disease. The habit of sitting on the legs, begun in infancy, the author shows to be the main cause of Japanese diminutive ness. The author thinks that Japanese babies inherit better manners than ours, and this native start, especially with girls, is steadily improved upon, giving a most attractive combination of simplicity and dignity. Irresponsibleness, entire dependence, combined with the reception of affection and respect, brings about, says the author, a female character sweet, pure, bright, though with all the depths of the being unstirred. But |