which we denominate Christianity is analogous, in important respects, to this condition of aroused religious susceptibility. Christianity as to its principles, though not its distinctive historical facts, has become in this way an object of human knowledge.

The Hebrew prophets were men in whom this faculty of moral intuition existed in its highest and purest forms; and their views of moral and religious truth, consequently, were characterized by unusual distinctness and a peculiarly vivid consciousness of moral obligations resting upon them. Their office was one of the strongest influences which shaped alike the intellectual and the religious character of the Hebrews. No literature has had more to do in moulding the religious destiny of the entire race than that of the Hebrews; and this literature, to a very large extent, is the offspring of what may be termed the prophetic mind. And in an age such as that in which the Hebrews lived, and relatively to an end like that for which they were set apart as a peculiar people, this influence of the prophetic mind may justly be affirmed to have been indispensable. It would not have been enough to deposit in certain written documents those historical facts and that doctrine of God which constitute the Hebrew faith, and to leave them to be studied by each successive generation for itself. Religious belief, on this condition, would speedily have died out. What was needed was, that there should be an order of men in every generation who, by means of their quickened religious susceptibilities, the clearness of their own intuitions, should get a knowledge of these truths, and proclaim them with that force and earnestness which can be possessed only by him who has in this way gained a knowledge of them; who can testify to that which he has himself seen and heard; to whom, as it were, the word of God has been directly spoken, and who thus should preach the preaching which God should bid him.

The prophet is one who speaks for God, and not one who merely predicts future events. The words, indeed, which he uses may be, and indeed must be, those in which moral truth is wont to be clothed, and whose significance therefore could be apprehended by the hearer; but the thought must be that which only God could inspire. God talked with Moses as a man talketh with his friend; and there was to be raised up afterwards a prophet like unto Moses. There floated in the mind of the Jewish people, in every period of their history, an expectation, sometimes quite definite and at others more obscure, that this prophet was to appear. The day for the fulfilment of this hope it was the work of John to usher in. There was an unlikeness between the priestly office and the prophetic at which it is worth while to glance. The functions of the priest were formally of a ceremonial character. They could be outwardly discharged by men in whose hearts none of the sentiments of which they were symbolic had a place The prophetic office was of an entirely different character. The prophet had no ritualistic services to go through. He was only to

speak that which his own mind, controlled by the divine energy, prompted him to utter. His ministry was confined to no place, and had no limit of time. Yet one can easily conceive that the functions of both priest and prophet may have been united in one individual; and in the event of such a conjunction, a moral dignity and sacredness must have been given to the priestly office such as would make even its ritualistic services to become a most forcible religious instructor. He must have been a cold-hearted spectator indeed who could have witnessed unmoved the performance of priestly duties by one in whose mind existed at the same time the convictions and feelings peculiar to the prophet. And, on the other hand, the stern tones of denunciation, such as the prophet was commissioned to employ, must have lost somewhat of their repulsive character as they came from the lips of a true priest, of a mediator between God and the sinner. John was, indeed, a prophet, and there had not risen among men a greater than he; but, in order to attain to the full excellence both of prophet and priest, it was needful to enter into sympathy with the spirit of the kingdom of God.

A very prominent trait in the character of the prophet was its independence. He was the mouth-piece of God. He was to utter nothing but what God spake. There was no responsibility to man resting on him. The sorest evil which men could inflict on him because he spoke to them faithfully was utterly unworthy of regard when put in contrast with the fearful woe which unfaithfulness to Jehovah would bring upon him. We can scarcely conceive of a temptation to swerve from the line of duty which could have been effective on the mind of one who like the prophet was an ambassador from God to man. In no prophet that had arisen had this spirit manifested itself more strikingly than in John. It was this which gave him power to speak in such fearless tones of rebuke to the supercilious Pharisees and to the haughty and tyrannical Herod.

We have dwelt in this somewhat desultory manner on certain topics treated by Dr. Reynolds, for the purpose of giving an idea of the matter which his work contains. The work, in our judgment, will repay thorough study, more, perhaps, for its stimulating qualities and for what it may suggest, than for the absolute value of the opinions which it advances. We are happy to see that an American edition of the volume has been published.

ARTICLE XI.

PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER AND HIS AMERICAN CRITICS.

LIKE the mills of the gods spoken of by the heathen poet, the Quarterly Reviews grind slowly much more slowly than the daily and weekly press. Whether or not they grind more surely it would be presumptuous in us to say. At any rate the subject of this Article cannot have passed wholly from the minds of the class of readers who are most interested in our pages; and there are several incidental lessons to be learned from the misunderstanding which has arisen between Professor F. Max Müller and his American critics which are too important to be lost. If, however, some of the reviewers ask concerning this Article, as they have asked of some others that have appeared in the Bibliotheca Sacra, how we stretch the word "Sacra" to cover the subject here treated of, we reply, that justice, charity, and the Christian courtesies of civilized life are to be reckoned among sacred things. The efforts of some of our high-toned political journals to infuse, during this Centennial year, a more judicial and rational spirit into our party politics, can but be greatly hindered by the example of such literary criticism as we are here compelled to notice. If we can render them any aid from our quarter, by rebuking that intemperance of speech which in this case has invaded even the higher critical journals of the land, we will gladly do so.

Furthermore, Professor Müller really seems to us to have received scant justice at the hands of the most of his American critics, and gross injustice from some; and his reputation is so great and of such a nature that he has a special claim to some words of defence on this side of the water and before the theological public. Our readers, we cannot doubt, are of a class to have a peculiar interest in his good name. His missionary addresses, and his wide correspondence with missionaries; his lectures on comparative religion and mythology, and upon Darwinism and language; the philosophical acumen which he has shown in his treatment of the origin and growth of language; and, finally, the prominent position he has occupied in resuscitating Sanscrit, the sacred literature of India; all this, and much more, give him a claim upon the attention of educated Christian teachers. It is not, then, an ordinary case of individual controversy; for nothing which such a man does in the line of his special calling is of private interpretation. We would not, however, set ourselves up as umpires upon all the matters in dispute between him and his American critics. Several of the points in controversy pertain to

Sanscrit literature, and other recondite matters, which must be left to the decision of scholars who have paid special attention to those subjects. In our criticism, in the Bibliotheca Sacra of last July, we carefully limited ourselves to such points as were within the range of ordinary scholars, and upon some matters spoke with so much brevity as, perhaps, to be obscure.

It will be a great gain if those who indulge in writing caustic book reviews, shall be put on their guard and rendered more modest by observing how misunderstanding and ill-feeling have arisen in the case under consideration. The occasion for no small part of Professor Müller's rejoinders, is to be found in Professor Whitney's two volumes, entitled "Oriental and Linguistic Studies," which are mainly collections of book reviews published in the periodical literature of this country. Like too many who do much of that class of labor, Professor Whitney, so it seems to us, had for a long time used words of criticism recklessly, without due consideration as to the full amount of opprobrium which was contained in them; and without sufficient regard to the question whether this style of criticism were called for. Indeed, he confesses, himself, that his form of expression is sometimes too strong. In criticising the sharpness of Professor Müller's reply, we should remember that he is speaking in self-defence, and has much more liberty in that position than would otherwise be proper. We wish that with the rest of the good which may come out of the evil of this personal controversy, it might open the eyes of readers as well as writers, to the dangers which arise when the taste for book reviews is largely cultivated and gratified. As in the case in hand, this class of literature is almost sure to be destructive rather than constructive. The temptation is well-nigh irresistable for the critic to revel in sparkling phrases, which skim the surface of the subject only, and are prized chiefly for the sting they leave behind them. Science will have gained much when there shall be less desire to see adversaries demolished, than to see the truth rising in the grandeur of her own proportions. We find, for instance, one of the critics saying, that Professor Müller charges his American rival with having "stolen1 from his accuser much of the best he had put forth as his own." The same writer represents Professor Müller as accusing Professor Whitney of having "purloined from his own [Müller's] Science of Language," what was most valuable in Professor Whitney's "Language, and the Study of Language." And it is said that Professor Müller has made a "bungling and strained effort" "to prove a flagrant plagiarism" against Professor Whitney. The critic, moreover, regards his review as a defence of the "integrity of our American scholar." Now these offensive words are not found in Professor Müller; and due attention to the general scope of his replies will show that the animus of them has to be read in between the lines. Another

1 Italics our own.

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point elaborated in the aforesaid review gives us opportunity to expand a remark we dropped six months ago; namely, that the questions over which the dispute waxes hottest belong to "metaphysics." For example, Professor Müller classified language among physical sciences. The reviewer in question "marked not less than fifteen passages" in a single lecture, in which Professor Müller seems to hold that "growth, or change [in language], is completely beyond the control or agency of man." We venture to affirm that no one can write intelligently fifteen pages upon the question, whether language is a "physical science or a "historical science" without seeming to speak as many as fifteen times on both sides of it. To our apprehension, Professor Müller and Professor Whitney have both written well upon the subject; and the difference between them is not so profound as the public is led to imagine. In his first series of lectures on the "Science of Language," published fifteen years ago, Professor Müller well remarked, that "the process through which language is settled and unsettled, combines in one the two opposite elements of necessity and free-will." Certainly students of theology should be able to appreciate the difficulties which beset the scientific treatment of such a subject, in which there is individual freedom of the agent who uses language, and, at the same time, a law of development so uniform that these acts of freedom can be studied like any other law of nature. Man has both a free-will and a nature. The question pertaining to the "origin of language," which brought this unfortunate personal controversy to a head, is, like that regarding the "origin of species," largely one of terminology. In either case, evolution is but a method of creation; and resolves itself in the end into a mere question as to how long the steps are through which the progress is attained. Evolutionists may be held to the etymology of the word gradual, which they use so much.

Another critic makes use of the following among other ornamental expressions: "Critical bosh," "he finds a genuine mare's nest." Furthermore, in the case of epithets which, from difference in ideas of propriety, or in national idiom, misunderstanding, if there were any, would not be at all strange, Mr. Müller is said to have had the "hardihood" to regard them as personalities, and three of the instances are called each a "sham." Again, "odious forgery" is applied to a case where Mr. Müller's quotation marks are perhaps wrong, and perhaps not, but where certainly no injustice is done to his antagonist. It is even affirmed, in a certain case, that the "onus" comes on Professor Müller of proving" that he has not sought to deceive" his readers "by false statements," or to coerce them by artful insinuation ..... into false inferences." It is the case of Professor Müller's reference to an exchange of favors between the two scholars, explained towards the close of this Article. Finally the

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1 Italics in this section are from the critic's own armory.