contemplate those signs in conscience and religious instinctthose questions of the origin and guidance of the universe-which point to a power beyond.

Just so it is in the study of the rise of Christianity and of the Gospels. Criticism is the science which deals with the earthly side of this study. And it has much to teach us, as science everywhere has. But sooner or later we come to the question whether the supernatural is in the story at all or not. It is false dealing with ourselves and with it to escape from this question into the lower regions of material history, which, to be sure, exist in abundance for those who are satisfied to confine their thoughts to them. And it is peculiarly wrong for those who in a general way believe that the supernatural is in the story, to treat this momentous admission as if it had no reality in any particular case.

We have no doubt that Mr. Carpenter, in dwelling purely upon the critical side of the Gospels, conceives himself to be taking the truthful part; just as Hæckel or Clifford conceive themselves to be bound in honesty not to disturb their natural history with the idea of the supernatural. But in our belief he has passed the point at which such treatment is appropriate; and, unless he is prepared to follow the example which these authors set him in their own sphere, and deny the presence of the supernatural in the origin of Christianity, he must allow it a place, or show reason why he excludes it with a completeness which is scarcely matched by Renan or Strauss.

To our minds the conclusion of the whole matter is that it is impossible to treat completely of the origins of any essential element of Christianity without settling first the question whether God works in the world; and that this question is one which a man works out chiefly by the experiences of his own soul.

Mr. Wright's book upon the composition of the Gospels was briefly noticed in our last number; we need not repeat here the strictures which we made upon some incidental opinions expressed in it, nor our praises of its suggestive thoughtfulness. In truth, though small in size and moderate in price, it contains more matter, and that more important, than many a portly octavo. Had our differences with it been greater than they are, we should still have felt extreme gratitude to the author for representing to us the Apostolic Church as a living body, active in work and in thought, instead of a mysterious community ready to accept anything suggested to them in the way of the marvellous, and at the mercy of

teachers of whom you can scarcely say whether they rise to heights above or fall to depths below our modern notions of religion and truth. Here we do not find the Gospel tradition treated as the fruitful parent of any additions to the life of Christ which it may be thought desirable to suppose, while of its own origin it is thought unnecessary to treat. The deepest spiritual movement which the world has ever seen is not here presented to us as springing up without order or method, without reasons or principles. The Apostles, the Presbyters, the Evangelists and Catechists are displayed to us, not as abstractions of whose minds and ways we can have no understanding, but as living people consciously set upon doing something, and possessed of minds and methods which enable us to comprehend the results they obtained. Mr. Wright's work forms no bad supplement to that of Mr. Carpenter, and the two together will place the question of the Gospels well before the mind of the reader; the first stating the phenomena and the second showing how, in a living Church inspired by a living Spirit, the phenomena may have been brought about.

The name of Dr. Dale is sufficient guarantee that his book will be both able and effective. He is spokesman as well as teacher of a large and important class which is not so well represented in the Church, and we are therefore the more eager to see how he treats the great subject, and the more glad to welcome his aid. We rejoice to note the conclusion of so competent an observer that the confidence of the assailants of Christianity is not as firm as it was ten or fifteen years ago; for they are beginning to discover that renewed and prolonged assaults on the Christian faithassaults from various quarters, and sustained with great intellectual vigour and with all the resources both of the older learning and the newer sciences-have produced very little effect.' This is precisely our own impression. The assault upon Christianity in the monthly Reviews seems to have fallen wholly into the hands of Professor Huxley; and he impresses us as caring a great deal more about displaying the metaphysical and critical studies for which he has found time in his scientific life, than about finding the truth concerning Christ. His style is no doubt very powerful in sarcasm not the best humoured; but it produces on us an unpleasant moral impression. And his efforts are generally directed to some unessential incident, such as the fate of the swine of Gadara, which he thinks it important to call pigs.. Who can fail to

see that many explanations of such a point are possible, and that almost any explanation of it might be accepted without touching the faith? If we hear that very late in a campaign the best general of an army is directing his forces against an outpost, leaving the fortresses and the field to his enemies, we do not forebode victory for his side.

But we have digressed from Dr. Dale. The method of his excellent book is this. He begins with the spiritual experience of the devout soul. We feel and know that Christ gives peace and power. His name, through faith in His name, strengthens all that is good in us, and delivers us from evil. And when we open the Gospels we feel that the historic Christ there depicted is the same with whom our spiritual experience has brought us in contact.

Let us put it in this way: it is conceivable that we should have been brought to believe in the saving power of the Lord by preaching such as that by which St. Paul commenced his work among the unconverted, in which Christ's death for our sins and His resurrection to life for our salvation should have been the only historical facts relied on. How wondrously in harmony with such a faith should we have found the Gospel histories of the Lord's previous life when we afterwards came to hear of them! How impossible should we think it that so inimitable a character and story was the work of imagination or deceit! The highest literary power ever known might be challenged to prefix to the Pauline Gospel of the Death and Resurrection a fitting account of the Life. Yet the Evangelists have performed the feat. The Christ who lives and speaks in their pages is He who, now that He has passed beyond this world, forms the centre of Christian theology and the source of Christian feeling and thought. Therefore our own spiritual experience verifies the Gospel histories. Thus prepared, we come to consider the records of their acceptance in the Church, and the historical proofs of their authenticity.

All the doubts which have been raised about the Gospels have, as Dr. Dale well shows, failed to touch the practical certainty of the Christian faith for those who have received it. It will never be displaced in such persons, save by a substitute competent to perform the same spiritual services for their souls. But these doubts are capable of inflicting intense pain and of hindering the spread of the Gospel among those who have not yet experienced its power. Therefore Dr. Dale proceeds to state the evidence for the Gospels with much freshness, upon the plan which has approved itself to so many, both apologists and assailants, of beginning with

the period when they were universally acknowledged in the Church, and tracing the tradition back to its first appearance. We need not traverse the well-worn path. The reader may be assured that, though the gleaner after Lightfoot and Westcott, Salmon and Sanday, cannot hope to tell very much that is new, Dr. Dale has made the old story his own, and stated it with great power. His book will help to spread the true knowledge of the facts, and many whose patience would not carry them through a more systematic treatise will learn what needs to be known from these bright and interesting discourses.

There is one step in the argument—and, we think, only one-which would be stated with greater power by a Churchman. The first part of the book, in which the present claims of Christianity are stated, would be far stronger if the title of present possession were pleaded, not merely in the name of the individual experiences of religious men, but in that of the Catholic Church. Dr. Dale does not, indeed, suppose Christians to learn or hold their faith in mere isolation: he is too thoughtful to forget how brother clasps the hand of brother. But from the very first beginnings of the religion it has been the case that, in giving themselves to Christ, men have given themselves to the Church, which is His body. We believe that the earliest Christian converts felt the inevitable influence of the spirit of community, and said, 'We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.' The power of fellowship has ever been an essential element of conversion. And the authority of the community, sanctioned both by nature and by Christ, maintained the faith before the Gospels were written, presided at their composition, recommended them to the faithful, and imposed their use through all the ages in which they have existed. The Church of the First Days, as well as the Church of the Present, speaks to us in them, tells us what was the knowledge of her Lord which she derived from His own lips and His inspiring influence, and invites us to come with her to Him. Many a man whose personal feeling of Christian truth may not be so deep as to form that strong foundation for the Christian argument which Dr. Dale expects him to provide, may yet feel, in the glorious history and present life of the Church, that the story of Jesus has a hold upon the world which cannot be challenged without better cause shown than its critics have ever yet marshalled.

ART. III.-BISHOP LIGHTFOOT'S ST. CLEMENT OF ROME.

1. The Apostolic Fathers. Part I. St. Clement of Rome. A Revised Text, with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and Translations. By the late J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Lord Bishop of Durham.

(London, 1890.)

2

vols.

2. Clementis Romani quæ dicuntur Epistula. Recensuerunt et illustraverunt OSCAR DE GEBHARDT, ADOLFUS HARNACK. (Lipsiæ, 1876.)

3. Clementis Romani Epistule. Iterum edidit ADOLPHUS HILGENFELD. (Lipsia, 1876.)

It will be long before the Church of England shall have completed the proud, sad task of gathering in the works of those noble sons whom one fatal year has taken from her. None of them surely will be of greater value than this grand and enduring monument of the labour which one great Bishop and doctor could add to the assiduous performance of the duties of a vast diocese-at the cost, we fear, of his own life.

To say that this great work, together with the Ignatius and Polycarp, completes an edition of the Apostolic Fathers, is to expel from that circle the well-known names of Barnabas and Hermas. Dr. Lightfoot offers decisive arguments for drawing a clear distinction between the position of these authors and the genuine Apostolic Fathers whose works he has so elaborately illustrated. The Shepherd of Hermas derives its supposed apostolicity only from the erroneous identification of him with the Christian whom St. Paul names in Rom. xvi. 14; and the Epistle of Barnabas, if written by the saint whose name it bears, deserves to be called the work of an Apostle rather than an Apostolic Father, while if it was not his work we have no proof of any connexion between its author and the Apostles.

But it may be doubted whether the grouping of the books which have borne the title Apostolic Fathers has really depended upon the question whether their authors had held intercourse with the Apostles or not. It was a convenient thing to possess in one or two volumes the whole genuine literature of the times between the New Testament and Justin Martyr. And on this principle we should think it more likely that the collection of so-called Apostolic Fathers VOL. XXXII.-NO. LXIII.

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