On reading the account of the farewell meeting to the Chinese missionaries at Surrey Chapel, March 2, 1847. "BLOW ye the trumpet, blow," Hear how the Saviour calls! "A door I open wide A door which none shall close; "All power in heaven is mine, Go forth-nor fear the wrath of man, "What though the mountain rise "The idols stoop and bow, The priests of Buddha soon shall scorn "In Sinim is my throne, To all her myriads now make known The glories of my name. The time of conflict 's come, The time of conquest too, And soon I'll show to China's race What wonders I can do. "The land is all your own, Behold it outstretch'd far, The year of my redeem'd is come, China's salvation's near. My purposes are ripe, Great Captain of thy host, To China's distant land Be China all thy own, To sparkle in thy blood-bought crown Before thy glorious throne Let all her millions bend, Till heaven shall hear from Sinim's land Immanuel's praise ascend. Stratford-on-Avon. M. C. stituency of the Society. Had Dr. Reed's case been as solid and substantial, as it was flimsy and querulous, his mode of urging it was unjustifiable in the highest degree. He allowed himself, in an evil hour, to forget what was due to his brethren and to the cause; and pursued a line of conduct which has filled many hearts with deep sorrow and regret. As Dr. R.'s original attack on the Directors, in the case of Tahiti, did not, as it now appears, contain all that was in his heart against them, we are not sorry that their temperate and business-like defence of themselves has led him to pour forth all the vials of his wrath. As matters now stand, it is better that the public should know his whole case-all his secret grudges-all his misconceptions of facts all his overwrought notions of matchless wisdom and self-importance. And now that all is outunless he is bent on further evil-it needs very little sagacity to perceive that there must be unavowed reasons for the unhappy course which he has pursued. So far, however, as his printed statement is concerned, we pronounce it to be an utter failure-a tissue of dexterous evasions, and of futile and illogical reasonings. We bless God that the Society he has assailed needs not to shrink from honest and candid investigation of its position. It can look with confidence to its friends and foes, and say, "Examine, course which he has pursued, it will not be owing to any delicacy or forbearance on his part; but to the overruling goodness of God, and to the sound sense and warm attachment of its friends. We have a lively confidence that the society will not be vitally injured; but should it still retain its hold of the public mind, and rise even to a higher standing than it has hitherto occupied, (which we pray God it may do,) it will remain a permanent fact, that the tendency of Dr. Reed's movement, from first to last, has been to lower its reputation, and to blight its usefulness. Had the Board of Directors been guilty of all the nondoing, and all the wrong-doing, which Dr. Reed has laid to their charge, few men of sober judgment, and correct feeling, will be of opinion that his mode of rectification bas been in accordance with the golden rule. It is not for any man, whatever may be his ability or standing, to put himself above the rules of the gospel, and the courtesies which regulate honourable minds. Dr. Reed, we are bold to say, has done both. He attacked his fellow-directors, in the columns of a public newspaper, without a single previous remonstrance, and by this act he puts himself above the rules of the gospel; and by thus openly assailing the conduct of his associates in office, men of honour and integrity, without in any way apprising them of the course he intended to pursue, he puts himself above the rules which every well-investigate, inquire; but do not misrepreconducted worldly man would be compelied to observe in any secular Board upon which he might happen to sit. Whatever amount of sagacity Dr. R. might imagine that he possessed beyond the modicum which had fallen to the lot of his brethren, they had an indubitable moral and social right to expect from him that, before he condemned them publicly, they would have had the advantage of his friendly counsel and earnest remonstrance; and, moreover, that he would bave listened with brotherly candour to the views and convictions upon which their public conduct had been based. From this view of Dr. Reed's position, we can never suffer ourselves to be dislodged by any of the special pleadings which have been resorted to in this most unhappy controversy. The Directors are, to say the least, honest men, anxious to discharge their duties according to the best judgments they are able to form; and before Dr. Reed, as a member of the Board, took upon him the responsibility of vituperating their proceedings in a public print, he owed it to common justice, to say nothing of Christian love, to have made them acquainted with his dissatisfied or hostile state of feeling. For the first time, however, they learnt that he differed from them, in a vehement appeal from their decisions, in the case of Tahiti, to the con But sent, do not stultify truth, do not mistake We say to the whole Christian world, Read Dr. Reed's strictures and the Directors' answer. We ask for no favour for the Directors, but simple, even-handed justice. In our times no attack upon any public body has been so wanting in equity and fair manly dealing. Let the following quotation from the Directors' " Reply,' &c., demonstrate this fact: "Dr. Reed deems it irrelevant, as well he may, to refer to any topics affecting his own conduct as a Director of the Society. what may "It matters little,' he says, have been my attendance, opinions, and negligence.' But the Directors cannot but conclude that, in the judgment of their constituents, and of all reflecting men, it will matter much. Behold, thou art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that sit in darkness-thou, therefore, which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?' The man who stands as the accuser of his brethren at the bar of enlightened Christian opinion, should come with clean hands. "Throughout both Dr. Reed's letters, and on every page of the Appeal, the uninformed reader is led to the conclusion that the writer, in all things pertaining to the cause of missions, has been a leader, both in counsel and enterprise; that objects in the distance unseen, or dimly seen by others, were clear to his vision; that, in arduous labours and perilous deeds, he was not only heard exhorting the timid to go forward, but seen-an example far in advance. "But what tale will be told by the records of the Society? Take the last ten years. During the whole of that period, many members of the Board have, by regular attendance and the diligent discharge of duty, retained their seats in the Direction. "In the year 1838, Dr. Reed was elected; in 1840, he went out for insufficient attend ance. "In 1841, he was re-elected; in 1842, he went out for insufficient attendance. "In 1843, he was, for a third time, chosen; in 1844, he went out for insufficient attendance. "In 1845, notwithstanding former deficiencies, he was re-chosen: and thus the Directors have constantly evinced their wish for his co-operation, while he as constantly has failed in discharging the duties of his office. "A surer test of a good Director than even his attendance at the Board is found in the less attractive, but not less important duties of the several committees; and, in these labours, many members, at a great expense, both of time and money, render their willing assistance. But for Dr. Reed to have been found at a committee, would have awakened astonishment; and once in a year, instead of thrice in a month, would have been, for him, frequent attendance. "And this is the Director who tells the constituents of the institution, with all gravity and earnestness, You must see that you have not only names, but services, from a fair average of the appointments, or you will have one or two doing the work of forty.' "Dr. Reed most properly states the importance of prayer in connection with difficult missionary undertakings; as for instance, China and Tahiti: such meetings have been repeatedly held in the Mission House, but he has not been there. To similar meetings, both at the Poultry and at Surrey Chapels, the Directors have in vited their brethren and friends; but he has not responded to the call. "He complains that the public meetings on behalf of Tahiti were feebly sustained; but he was not once seen upon the platform. "He maintains that the power of public opinion should have been invoked, and that Parliament and the throne should have been besieged by importunate and irresistible | petitioners; but he has never awakened the zeal of his friends, or put forth one public testimony on behalf of the oppressed. "He breathes the most impassioned attachment to the interests of China; but neither his name, nor that of the Association of which he is the president and the guide, appear on the list of those who, in addition to their ordinary liberality, freely subscribed 10,000. "He pleads against his brethren that, in consequence of this palpable weakness and inefficiency,' the Jubilee fund was unworthy of the occasion; but to that fund neither himself nor his congregation, though more than once entreated, contributed a fraction. "He cries aloud, Tahiti has failed-China has failed-the Jubilee has failed! For Tahiti he did NOTHING-for China, NOTHING for the Jubilee, NOTHING." A TREATISE on the PHYSICAL CAUSE of the DEATH of CHRIST, and its Relation to the Principles and Practice of Christianity. By WILLIAM STROUD, M.D. London: Hamilton and Adams. In the preface to this volume, Dr. Stroud observes, that "whatever faults may be attributed to his treatise, crudeness and precipitation will scarcely be among their number; for since its original conception first occurred to him, more than a quarter of a century has elapsed, during which period it has often been the subject of his thoughts, and not unfrequently of his conversation and correspondence." The work, indeed, bears evident marks of the care and research which have been employed in its preparation. It is in every respect highly creditable to the author. We do not exactly praise him for refraining for such a length of time from giving this extended and permanent expression of his views; but we could wish that book-writers in general had some portion of his caution. If their conceptions were upon the stocks in their minds for half, or even a quarter of five and twenty years, how much more pleasant would our business of reviewing be, for we should be spared the many volumes of trashy literature into which we are compelled to look, before we can consign them to the dust. The book before us consists, as the title indicates, of two parts; the first being on the physical or immediate cause of the death of the Saviour. We cordially thank Dr. Stroud for his full and masterly discussion of this subject. His argument is conducted on the sound principles of inductive reasoning. He first reviews all the facts of the case, and having thus set forth the effect to be accounted for, he proceeds to seek for its cause, which must be "some known power in nature, possessing the requisite efficacy, agreeing with all the circumstances of the case, and by suitable tests proved to have been present without counteraction." This power he finds in "Agony of mind, producing rupture of the heart." We consider the circumstance mentioned with such solemnity of attestation by the evangelist John,-that "one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side; and forthwith came thereout blood and water," in the light of an experimentum crucis, by which the validity of this explanation is established. The second part of the volume is an attempt to apply the conclusion arrived at in the first, in order to elucidate various parts of scriptural truth, and then the whole is exhibited as affording a peculiar evidence of the truth of Christianity. Here we have not been able at times to suppress an apprehension that the author is in danger, from a very natural infirmity, of making too much of the explanation-the just explanation, as we believe,-which he has given of the death of Christ, in its relation to the great doctrine of atonement. We have carefully read the chapter on the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, as well as that upon the narratives and symbols of the New, and could wish that some sentences had been excluded from them both. The quotation, for instance, from Rambach, (p. 266,) and Dr. Stroud's own remarks, that "the scanty drainings of blood from the transfixed extremities could not satisfy the demands of the Levitical law, and if under that dispensation one of the inferior animals had been thus slain, it could not have been accepted as a victim at the altar;" and, shortly after, "The fatal hemorrhage foretold in Scripture, moreover, is represented as the result not of external violence, but of internal grief, and, in a certain sense, as his own act,-' He poured out his life's blood unto death!'" We would by no means overlook the circumstances of Christ's death, dwelt upon by the writer,-the effusion of blood from his broken heart,-but it is far too strong, unjustifiable language even, to say, "The two essential circumstances in the death of Christ which rendered it effectual as an atoning sacrifice were the rupture of his heart, and the effusion of his life's blood." The essential validity of an atoning sacrifice depends on the personal substitution of himself to the death by the expiator, and VOL. XXV. the acceptance of his substitution by the governor. The manner of the death does not necessarily affect the transaction. Where the event has been predicted, and been the subject of types and ritual indications, if a certain mode of death has been clearly intimated in these, it may be said that that must be exhibited on the occasion of their fulfilment. Many circumstances in the last hours of our Saviour were minutely prefigured, and the prefiguration and verification are distinctly, minutely, mentioned by the sacred writers; but the mode of his death is not among these. Dr. Stroud, indeed, appears to us substantially to allow that his argument on this head is little more than an accommodation, in a sentence or two, (p. 294): "It was expedient that Christ's sacrificial death should be represented by that of animals. The rupture of his heart owing to mental agony could not indeed be thus expressed; but the effusion of his life's blood was plainly foreshown by the manner in which victims were slain, namely, by the rapid division of the large vessels of the neck, which necessarily occasioned a copious and fatal discharge of blood, derived almost directly from the heart." There is, we think, a straining, in such passages as this, of the types and ceremonies of the Old Testament; and not less of the symbols-of one of them, at least-in the New, when the writer says, that "the rupture of the heart, and the effusion of the life's blood, were precisely the circumstances which Christ commanded his disciples symbolically to represent, when occasionally commemorating that sacrifice by a sacred and social repast, consisting of bread broken and of wine poured out." The ordinance of the supper does, indeed, show forth the Lord's death, but that when he said, "Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you," he was intending to direct the thoughts of the apostles to the rupture of his hearta circumstance of which we doubt whether any of them were ever cognizant-we should feel sorry and pained to believe. From these remarks it will be seen that we account the chief value of this work to lie in the first part, where so satisfactory a demonstration is given of the physical cause of the Redeemer's death. The author has here applied his professional knowledge and reading to a noble purpose. Our first reflection upon it was,-Christ, then, did really die. We do not believe any cunningly devised fable. We do not put our trust for salvation in any phantom mockery, or deception of the senses. Thus is science rightly employed in throwing new light upon the great truths of revelation. The heresy of the Docetæ and other Gnostic sects could not have lived before Dr. Stroud's inquiry, P and equally fatal is it to the really infidel views of some German rationalistic speculators, and their pitiful followers in this country, at the present day. Our second reflection was,-Christ died, then, overwhelmed rather by the curse of sin than by the sufferings to which his enemies subjected him. It was his mental torture that drew from him the exclamation, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Well may Dr. Russell remark, as quoted by our author, "Mysterious dereliction only to be accounted for by the nature of his death. That sorrow, which is the very soul of the curse, terminated his life, and thus discovered the nature of his sufferings, together with their great and glorious design." Never was there, never can there be, such a commentary on the words of Solomon, "Fools make a mock of sin." In conclusion, we again express our obligations to Dr. Stroud, for the volume before us. He will not take our strictures amiss where we have been unable to follow him in his conclusions. We have only further to point out and express our gratification with the pious and reverential spirit by which the whole composition is characterised. The WORKS of JOSEPHUS. A New Translation. By the Rev. ROBERT TRAILL, D.D., M.R.I.A., &c. With Notes, Explanatory Essays, and Pictorial Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo. Parts I., II., III. Houlston and Stoneman. The first edition of the works of Josephus, in the original Greek, was published at Basil, in folio, in 1544. Harwood pro nounces this to be one of the most venerable old books he had ever looked upon. Another edition, in Greek and Latin, was published by Gelenius, in 1611; and a third, by Ittigius, in 1691. But the best editions, in Greek and Latin, are those published by Hudson, at Oxford, in 1720, two vols. folio; and by Oberthur, at Leipzig, in 1782-1785, three vols. 8vo. The first English translation of the work was executed by Thomas Lodge, of which, from 1602 to 1670, seven editions made their appearance. It was again translated by Sir Roger L'Estrange, in 1702, and went through three or four editions. But the translation of the learned Whiston, in 1737, superseded all former efforts, and, from that time to the present, it has retained its standing as, upon the whole, the best rendering of Josephus. A new translation, then, of the works of this celebrated Jew, may be regarded by some as a super | fluous undertaking. We have no sympathy with this opinion; and, from what we know of the literary qualifications of those who are engaged on the version which we now earnestly commend to the favourable notice of our readers, we have reason to believe that it will very far excel all preceding efforts. With an adherence, as strict as that of Whiston, to the tone and feeling of Josephus, there is a smoothness and grace in the translation before us far in advance of the learned professor. But the Notes and Illustrations which accompany this new rendering, from the samples which have already appeared, are of standard value. They bespeak an amount of research capable only of being exerted by one who is thoroughly versed in the history of the transmission of ancient books. To the biblical student they will be invaluable; while the pictorial illustrations, executed with singular taste and beauty, are not so much embellishments of the work, as real comments on the historical facts narrated. This new translation will be divided into two parts. The first, which will be completed in twelve monthly numbers, at five shillings each, will contain the Life of Josephus, by himself; the Jewish War; and the two Books against Apion. The second will comprise the "Antiquities," and probably some of those apocryphal documents, which have been attributed to Josephus. Each part contains five sheets of letterpress, and with six or more engravings. In the twelve numbers, which make the first part, there will be one hundred engravings, most of which are views of the scenes described by Josephus, taken on the spot, expressly for this work, by William Tapping, Esq.; and executed on steel, in a highly-finished style, or in imitation of the original sketches. The other plates consist of exquisite medallion heads of the Grecian and Roman persons of note referred to by Josephus, and of outline representations of bas-reliefs, coins, plans and elevations of architectural remains, maps, &c. On the whole, we regard this new translation, with its critical notes and pictorial illustrations, as one of the best contributions of modern times in aid of biblical science. We cannot close our notice, without expressing our satisfaction that the "Jewish Wars" are to appear in the first part of the translation. They are far more interesting than the Jewish Antiquities; inasmuch as they supply information nowhere else to be found; while the latter are filled with fables, except where they adhere to the Holy Scriptures. |