fundamental metaphysical questions, and correct prevalent
erroneous ideas respecting the purpose of revelation. His book consists
of eight Meditations: Upon Natural Problems,--Christian Dogmas,--The
Supernatural,--The Limits of Science,--Revelation,--Inspiration of the
Scriptures,--God according to the Bible,--Jesus according to the Gospel.
These themes are presented so skilfully as to attract the interest of
the careless, while challenging the fixed attention of the trained
thinker. The reader will find himself lured on, by the freshness of the
author's method of handling, into the very heart of these profound and
difficult questions. He will be charmed to find them treated with calm
penetration and outspoken frankness. No late writer has displayed a
better comprehension of all phases of and parties to the controversy.
There is a singular absence of controversial tone, a marvellous lucidity
of statement, and a visible honesty of intention, as refreshing as they
are rare,--while a spirit of warm and tender devotion steals in through
the argumentation, like the odor of unseen flowers through a giant and
tangled wood. Yet there is no want of fidelity to personal convictions,
no effort by cunning shifts to bring about an apparent reconciliation of
opponents which the writer knows will not endure. With a firm hand he
touches the errors of contending schools of interpreters, and demands
their abandonment. To Rationalist and Hyper-Inspirationist in their
strife he says, like another Moses, "Why smitest thou thy fellow?"

Those who have watched carefully the tendencies of these parties for
many years must sometimes have grown despondent. The progressive school
has claimed with unscientific haste the adoption, as a fundamental
principle of Biblical interpretation, of the negation of the
supernatural. Their argument is simply, that human experience disproves
the supernatural. Man, a recent comer upon the globe, who has never kept
a very accurate record of his experience, who comes forth from mystery
for a few days of troubled life, and then vanishes in darkness,--he in
his short stay upon earth has watched the play of its laws, which were
before him and will remain after him, and has learned without any
revelation that God never has changed, never will, never can change or
suspend them! Who shall assure us that our experience of these laws does
not differ from that of Peter and John, the Apostles? How much better to
say of them