This very circumstance stands directly opposed to every supposition of fiction in the present passage, which, were it fiction, would certainly prove a mere copy here. Add to this, that the present rite is evidenced as being the more ancient and original, representing completely the symbolical action; but on the contrary, Exod. xxiv., where the blood is only sprinkled on both sides without the covenanting parties passing actually between the slaughtered victims, appears as a modified usage, abbreviating that ancient and complete form, as is wont generally to be the case with rites of that kind. Besides, it ought not to be overlooked, that the rite mentioned in Genesis wears more of a universal character connected with heathen usages, while, on the contrary, that which is described in Exodus has a more particular and theocratic character. (See Winer, p. 236.) Indeed, according to a statement which is certainly of late date, being that of Ephrem Syrus, the same custom was found among the Chaldeans, which leads that Father to explain this passage as being connected with the ancestral custom of Abraham. See C. de Lengecke de Eph. Syri arte herm., p. 13.

.

This section shows how, in connexion with divine promises of the most remarkable nature, exceeding all human expectation, the faith of Abraham, however frequently and greatly it might be in danger of wavering, was confirmed and strengthened on the part of Jehovah in a truly pædagogic method [!]; so that he persevered in the same faith as a true servant of his God. Hence a sign is now given him in a solemn manner, by which he may learn that Jehovah enters into quite a peculiar relation to him as he does with no other inhabitant of the earth. Associated with this sign, however, there is a constant reference to the one great promise which reaches far into the future, which here appears, where a new animation of his much-assailed faith is concerned [], not as the repetition of what was previously announced, but as a still more exact definition of it, so that the friend of God may know that the counsel of God is as precisely defined and unchangeably certain as it is wonderful and glorious. Hence the promise has here a twofold reference-to time and place; but always in peculiarly prophetic style describing the outlines of the object: a foreign land in general-400 years as the time of servitude, from which the fourth generation shall escape-limits from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates-are announced by the prediction; all so genuinely prophetical, and at the same time so accordant with Abraham's point of view, that we are here obliged to recognise certain historical truth.

It is the more strange that this historical character has been refused to this section, and that it has been determined to explain it as poetry. According to De Wette, Beitr. pp. 77 foll., a comparison of chap. xvii. should make this especially clear, since the poet proves himself to be an imitator of this latter piece, who here embellishes at greater length the subject that is there repeated in a simpler manner. Certainly, in both places, it is a covenant relation that is spoken of as the basis of the narrative; but the narratives themselves are quite distinct from one another. In chap. xvii., it is not the founding of such a relation that is spoken of at all; but such a connexion is there rather presupposed as established, and it is only a new token of it that is given, so that

what there was in it to imitate cannot be discovered. De Wette should rather have satisfied himself with affirming, that the simple idea of God's making a covenant with Abraham is in this way embellished by the poet; but he says not a syllable to touch or to prove the point, that the detailed form of that idea here is an inadmissible, or, in the way in which it is represented, an impossible one.

'Von Bohlen, indeed, is of opinion (p. 178) that the defenders of the Mosaic origin are here involved in a dilemma by the prophecy in xv. 13, foll., since it must then be looked upon as a vaticinum post eventum-a conclusion which is not obvious, since, just on the contrary, if that prediction was really a previous one, it is indisputable that, at the time of its fulfilment, it must have possessed a special importance for the Mosaic period, but afterwards by no means so. Hence it is strange that much later writers should have hit on the thought of inventing such a prophecy, which for him and his era had not at all that interest and importance.

The mention of the Kenites in verse 19, is also regarded as speaking against the Mosaic composition, who, according to Judges i. 16, iv. 11, sprang first from the brother-in-law of Moses: Von Bohlen, p. 182; Stähelin, p. 110. But the contrary is plain from Numbers xxiv. 21, where mention is made of this people. In the passages of the Book of Judges, besides, Moses's father-in-law is called "the Kenite;" how can he, then, have first given this people their name ?'-Pp. 152-154.

ART. VIII.-Memorials of Theophilus Trinal, Student. By Thomas T. Lynch. Longman & Co.

We do not recollect having met with the name of this author before; and if the present be, as it seems, a first performance, rarely has a work of higher promise fallen in our way. Professedly it is made up of certain prose and poetic memorials of one Theophilus Trinal, student; but whether he be living or dead, is left to the conjecture of the reader. From the evasion of this point, and the extreme penury of praise to which the editor seems restricted whenever he happens to add a remark on any of the extracts he gives, we cannot help concluding that the student and editor is one and the same person. We know not how, in any other way, to account for the little enthusiasm he expresses about these remains of his friend. As there is no preface to inform us of the circumstances which led him to publish them, we can only suppose he has done so in the conviction that they are eminently worthy of being laid before the public eye-a judgment in which we fully concur; but if there were

no such identity as we presume between editor and author, it is impossible to think he would pass over so many splendid passages without some loving utterance of the admiration he felt for the genius they unquestionably display. The title-page we therefore regard as an innocent artifice to turn aside attention from the real writer. In the diffidence of maiden authorship, he has been induced to make his first venture from the press as if simply the editor of the writings of another. The form of the book seems borrowed from Jean Paul Richter's Firmian Stanislaus Siebenkäs.' In no other respect does it resemble that singular biography. It is full of the moral and religious musings of a spirit touched to fine issues; and happy would it be if the views of life and duty it enforces were adopted and acted upon by all. A carping critic might easily find a phrase, or an image, a paragraph, or even a page, on which to attempt his work of ridicule and detraction; but no competent reader can lay down the work without feeling that a deep debt of gratitude is due to the writer, for the service he has done his intellect, and for the beautiful lessons he has addressed to his heart. It is of the prose portion we more particularly speak. The poems are much less to our taste: there are, indeed, grand single lines, and some noble stanzas in most of them; and those we liked least on a first perusal became favourites on a second for the thoughts they enshrined. A citation or two, taken almost at random, will show the author's manner of thinking and writing, and we have no doubt they will impress other minds as they did our own.

Who does not stand in need of the admonition contained in our first extract, and where has it ever been better expressed?

In practicalness, we require honesty to do something; wisdom to do the thing possible, and next us; courage to do poorly, and as at our worst, when we must do this or nothing. We can only, then, satisfactorily affirm to ourselves the dominance of a spiritual affection, when conscious of an answering practical tendency. There must be a confidential friendliness between our moral meditation and our common conduct, else we despise self, and others will despise us; we become moralizing liars to ourselves, and our resolution neither to self nor others vouches for a deed. Often we will not plant our acorn, because it springs not up at once before our eyes an oak. We feel that in a manner we have the grown oak within us; can see it, but cannot show it. Our vision deceives us not, if as a vision we regard it; it is a true dream of prophecy. A stout oak for timber and for shelter there may rise; but, as yet, it is not except in vision. We must plant our germ in the soil Fact, and be patient, for the first shoots will be feeble, and the growth slow. The thinking man has wings; the acting man has only feet and hands. It is what the hand findeth to do that must be done with might; and what the hand findeth, must be at hand-reachable. The eye pierces into infinite space; so is it with

man's thought and hope. The hand reaches forward but a yard; so is it with man's work: it is where he is that man must labour. In our deed, we must not so much be afraid of bungling and inadequacy, as beware of insincerity. He who persists in genuineness will increase in adequacy. Pride frustrates its own desire; it will not mount the steps of the throne, because it has not yet the crown on. But till first throned we may not be crowned. Pride would be acknowledged victor before it has won the battle. It will not act, unless it be allowed that it can succeed; and it will do nothing, rather than not do brilliantly. It is well sometimes to fall below self-semetimes to fail. Not only thus are we goaded and stirred, and our resolve braced; but the effort being one that conscience demanded, saying, Do what you can, we get assurance that we love excellence, and not alone have complacency in our own manifestations of ability. A divine blessing is on industry according to forethought-on a step-by-step advance according to tentative, approximative method. It is thus we gain success, inward and in the world; it is thus that we come to the heights and hidden places where truth has inscribed words, erected memorials of things done, or prepared stations for outlook upon extensive prospects; it is thus that we obtain place and influence amongst men, clear some little space in the wilderness of the world, and leave behind us timber-trees and fruit-trees in its forests and orchards.'Pp. 55-57.

This, in another way, is equally beautiful, and as evidently the offspring of a fine and pure imagination:

It

'Oh, lift your eyes unto the evermore silent heaven, that great deep, upon the breadth of whose glory may be written, "not in word but in mighty power!" When the curtain of the day is removed, then is unveiled this hieroglyph of eternity. There is not an evil eye among all these firmamental thousands. Sublime is the great world's azure dwelling-tent, and who is he that may tie a thread round that blue heaven, and contract it into a covering for him, and for his only? is for all the peoples of the earth. But sublimer than the day is the night, for it is the encampment of the great travelling company of worlds. The blue of day shall image for us the amplitude of the divine charity; the night with its depth of depths shall image the vastness of the divine wisdom. Every star mocks us if we be not immortal-but immortal we are; stars do but shame us, as with the kind look of the wise, if we regard not our immortality. But we have greater witness of immortality than that of stars-we have "that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." He spake not of stars, though heralded by one, and himself called the Morning Star. The deeps of the heart and not of the heavens he unveiled; was of the earth, though not earthy; brought to us for our home human life, the divine gift and command; came to emmanuelize all our life; and was and remains a golden sunlight for the present, and not alone a starry glimpse of the wonderful future. Yet it is he who speaks of the Father's house of many mansions. In him is the double promise of the life that is, and that will be. And how has the

"word of the truth of the Gospel" taken as living seed such deep root, and become a tree of such a mighty shadowing shroud; but be cause it brings forth leaves and fruit both for health and for immortality? Slowly through vicissitude the improving course of the world advances. Each generation may take up the word, "We see not yet all things put under him;" but each also the word, "He abideth for ever." What voice but that of Christianity proclaims immortality with a great and calm assurance? Many voices affirm it, or hint it, but Christianity illustriously exhibits it. In the name of the risen Christ, it proclaims the rising of men, showing the golden key in its hand with which it has itself opened the gates of the grave. We have not then "infinite faculty," and a finite life; are not to look forth with keen eye into the illimitable firmament, and long to traverse it selfpoised with strong wing, and our desire be vain. The God of stars is the God of souls.'-Pp. 138-140.

There are many sentences of blended quaintness and strength that remind us of Luther's Table Talk;' and who would not wish for more of a diary containing such a passage as the following? To our feeling, there is nothing to alter in it, or that we could wish altered. A man of genius would be content to go the whole day under its impression, taking the thoughts originated and coloured by its grandeur for his soul's exercise. It would give him a sublime preparation for reading at night some of the divine teachings of that Saviour it so tenderly and awfully represents :

To-night I sat an hour at the western window-my prospect over cornfields and woods to a broken range of hills beyond. I watched the grand and comforting sunset, and enjoyed, as I could not but phrase it to myself," the music of the stillness." Then I fell into thoughts of death as the great consecrator. When our friend is gone, his last days spread a mellow brightness over his life-it becomes a country covered with the evening sunshine. The death on the cross was an awful sunset-the great light of the world went down amidst dark clouds, which it touched with fiery grandeur. And now the whole earthly life of the Redeemer is a rich land of fields and hills, overspread with a light, full, still, and soft. In such a light waves for the generations the gospel bread-corn, ever newly sown for new harvests; and on the great mountains of thought there abides a deep and solemn flush.'-Pp. 222, 223.

One more specimen, and we must have done:

'An individual of illustrious virtue manifests some general quality of life in a specific form of beauty. He breathes into us his life, that we may exhibit new, though related forms of fair behaviour. Thus the fathers speaking to us no more, yet breathe on us away from us, they are yet among us as beneficent and aidful spirits. In the highest nner is the Christ thus with us. It is not so much we, that with