necessary to the credibility of those scriptures on which his faith depends. Knowledge is better than prejudice, and therefore the testimony of past ages to the genuineness and integrity of the sacred volume cannot be unimportant to him. To clergymen, particularly, the work of Dr. A. we think will be acceptable. Those whose shelves are loaded with the volumes of the learned, may indeed meet with investigations of the subject, in one form or another, on every hand; but collections of volumes sufficiently extensive to give a full view of the canonical authority of the Old and New Testaments, are, in general, too expensive for the libraries of clergymen. Introductions and Prolegomena can furnish but a barren outline; while more extended and distinct treatises on the subject are either partial in their plan, as is the valuable work of Jones, which embraces only the New Testament, or erroneous in their conclusions, as are the volumes of Du Pin, who showing too much respect to Roman Catholic authorities, allows the greater part of the Old Testament apocrypha a place in the sacred canon. And even Lardner, whose labours are above praise, out of his great candor, and his great caution in the admission of authorities, weakens his readers' confidence in several of the received books of the New Testament, by assigning them a secondary place in the canon, as being of somewhat doubtful authority. In the compilation of a work of this kind therefore it would appear that no ordinary judgment is requisite to discriminate between the precious and the vile. In the materials out of which it is to be formed, much that is fable obtrudes itself as history, and much that is spurious claims to be genuine. Considerable pains also is necessary to digest it into method. The industrious reader may acquire a

L. of C.

mass of things, though he cannot so easily reduce las acquisitions to the form of distinct and useful knowledge. These remarks may show, if necessary, that the labours of Dr. A. were not altogether superfluous in the field of Biblical literature. His work is complete in respect to the comprehensiveness of its plan, and is executed with a good degree of judgment.

The task which is thus performed by him, we do not ourselves propose to repeat; but, since we are on the subject, we may throw together a few of its leading features, following mainly the method of our author.

Every reader of the Bible has perceived that it is composed of distinct books, written by different persons, and at different periods of time. The Old Testament, according to our enumeration, comprises thirty-nine books, though the Jews reckoned them as only twenty-two, according to the letters of their alphabet. To reduce them to this number, they annexed some of the smaller books to some of the larger, as the book of Ruth to the book of Judges, and Lamentations to Jeremiah; Ezra and Nehemiah, also, and the twelve minor prophets, they reckoned respectively as one book. They further reduced their sacred scriptures to three classes, or divisions, which they designated as the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. To this division our Saviour refers, Luke xxiv. 44.

When, and by whom, the writings of the Old Testament were formed into one collection, it does not certainly appear. The five books of Moses, by his own command, Deut. xxxi. 24-26, were deposited in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord. Horne supposes that the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, and the first part of the first book of Samuel, were collected by that prophet. The writings of oth er inspired men were subsequently,

and m doubé successively, added, till the canon was at length completed by Ezra. That Ezra finished the collection of the Hebrew scriptures was the common opinion of the Jews, and in this they have been followed by the most respectable modern authors. There are however some difficulties in the way of this opinion. For it would seem that Malachi, the last of the prophets, lived after the time of Ezra, and consequently his prophecy could not have been included in the canon of the former. This difficulty the Jews obviated by maintaining that Malachi was no other than Ezra himself; affirming that the latter received the name, Malachi, from the circumstance of his having been sent (according to the import of the word) to superintend the religious concerns of the Jews. Several of the Christian fathers adopted the same opinion, but, on very slight grounds. But further difficulties remain. In Nehemiah, xii. 22, mention is made of the high-priest Jaddua, and Darius the Persian, who are supposed to have lived at least a hundred years after the time of Ezra. In the first of Chronicles, also, the genealogy of the posterity of Zerubbabel is brought down to a later period than that in which he lived. Du Pin however endeavours to show that Ezra might have continued to the time of the persons above referred to. But his reasoning does not satisfy himself, and he prefers a different account of the matter; viz. that the passages involving the difficulty were inserted by other hands subsequently to the time of Ezra. And this opinion is adopted in the work before us. "The probable conclusion," says Dr. Alexander, "is, that Ezra collected and arranged all the sacred books which belonged to the canon before his time, and that a succession of pious and learned men continued to pay attention to the canon, until the

whole was completed, about the time of Simon the Just," or not long after the death of Alexander the Great.

But these inquiries are comparatively unimportant. It will be sufficient for our full satisfaction, if it can be ascertained what scriptures were received by Christ and his Apostles. And in this there is no difficulty. We have abundant evidence that the canon of the Old Testament as it now exists was fixed some centuries before the Christian era. The Greek version, called the Septuagint, was made at Alexandria two hundred and eighty-two years before Christ, and this version, which was frequently quoted by the New Testament writers, contains the same books which are now found in our Hebrew and English Bibles. The same books were recognised as constituting the sacred canon, by Josephus, who was contemporary with the apostles, and by the early Christian fathers, as well as by the Jews; which may be seen by reference to their writings. Catalogues of these books are found in Christian writings from Melito and Origen downward; and these catalogues agree with one another and with our received canon. ble which is now received by the protestants therefore was the Bible of the Jews; and these are those SCRIPTURES to which our Saviour and his disciples habitually appealed. To these scriptures they constantly sent their hearers for divine light. Search the scriptures, said the Saviour, for-they are they which testify of me. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable, said Paul; but neither Paul, nor his Master, nor his brethren, ever caution their hearers against any unsoundness in the "living oracles." They do not point out to them, that this is genuine and that apocryphal. On the contrary, they quote freely from

The Bi

the sacred books,* and though they accuse the Jews of wresting the scriptures, and of making them of none effect by their traditions, they never charge them with corrupting or adding to them. In fine, the canonical authority of the books we are considering, has never been disputed, by either Jews or Christians. This cannot be said of the Apocrypha.

The Apocryphal writings attached to the Old Testament must be dismissed in few words. They are not found in the Hebrew scriptures, and were not written in the Hebrew language. They are not acknowledged by Christ and the apostles; the Jews reject them, and even reproach the Christians for receiving them, as they supposed; the Christians disown them, according to their own testimony. They are not found in any of the catalogues before mentioned; and they contain within themselves sufficient evidence that they are not from above. They were written, as is supposed, by Alexandrian Jews, after the spirit of ancient prophecy had ceased. They do not themselves profess to be inspired.-How came they then to be received into the canon? The charge of the Jews against the Christians was not just the apocryphal books were not received by them. It appears however, that in the fourth century a part of them were read in the churches, as Jerome informs us, "for example of life, and instruction of manners, but were not applied to establish any doctrine." Augustine states that they were read by the inferior ecclesiastical officers, and in a lower place, than were the canoni

*All the books of the Jewish canon are cited in the New Testament, according to Du Pin, except seven, viz. Judges,

Ruth, Ecclesiastes, the Canticles, the

Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Others reduce the books not cited to a small

er number,

cal scriptures, which were read by bishops and presbyters from a more conspicuous place. From being thus read in the churches, and associated with the sacred scriptures, it is probable that they became the object of increasing veneration, till the last council of Trent, when, in the plenitude of its authority over things sacred, and more especially as the apocryphal books might seem to favour some of the Romish corruptions, that council "presumed to place them all (excepting the prayer of Manasseh and the third and fourth books of Esdras) in the same rank with the inspired writings of Moses and the prophets."

There are various passages in the Bible, from which it has been supposed that some portions of the ancient canon have been lost. Thus mention is made, in the last chapter of 1 Chronicles, of the book of Samuel the seer, the book of Nathan the prophet, and the book of Gad the seer. The book of the Wars of the Lord is mentioned, in Numbers xxi. 14; also the book of Jasher, the book of Shemaiah, and others, in various places. We are told that Solomon spake "three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five." also spake of trees and plants and animals. Reference is often made to historical records of the acts of the kings of Judah and Israel, which are not found in our books of Kings and Chronicles.

He

We have no such books as are here referred to. But upon examination it would seem to appear, that some of them were merely public records written for civil purposes; and that others, though written by holy men, and even inspired perhaps, were only designed for special occasions, and never belonged to the canon. If they had been intended for the perpetual instruction of the church, no doubt they would have been preserved by

the Jews with the same fidelity as the other scriptures, and especially by the superintending care of their divine author. With regard to several of the books supposed to be lost, however, it has been thought by some, that they are the same as some we have in the Bible, but with different titles. A full examination of this subject may be found in the volume under review. Dr. A. has also a section to show that the oral law of the Jews is without authority. He has likewise discussed the question whether any canonical book of the New Testament has been lost, and whether any part of the Christian revelation has been handed down by unwritten tradition, both which opinions are strenuously contended for by the Romanists. On these points we shall merely refer the reader to him.

In settling the canon of the New Testament the same general method is pursued as in determining that of the Old. Recourse is had to authentic historical testimony. The exact time when this canon was collected does not appear; but it is sufficiently evident that it was done before, or not long after, the death of the apostle John, and an opinion has prevailed among the learned that the canon was formed by him. That it was not determined by the authority of any council, or public body, as some have affirmed,is abundantly shown by Lardner. More satisfactory than such a decision is the general consent of the ancient Christians respecting it. The scriptures of the New Testament have been publicly read in the churches, and quoted by Christian writers, from the apostolic age downwards; and from the fourth century they have transmitted to us ten distinct catalogues of the books which it comprised. Of these catalogues, six agree with the present canon, and the other four are the same, with the omis

sion only of the Revelation. Another important source of evidence is found in the ancient versions of the Christian scriptures. Even in the days of the apostles Christianity was spread beyond the limits of the language in which they wrote; and it is to be supposed that it would carry their writings with it. Hence translations were early necessary; and accordingly, the Latin versions had become old in the days of Jerome. And though those versions have not come down to us, there is good reason to believe that they comprised the same books as are contained in Jerome's version, which we now have in the Vulgate. The oldest existing version known is found in the Syriac language, and this is in favour of the present canon, as far as it goes. It omits the Revelation and several of the smaller epistles, but the omission is a presumptive evidence, perhaps, of the great antiquity of the version, and of the translator's ignorance of the existence, or the genuineness, of the omitted books, rather than of a designed rejection of them.

Besides the various testimony which applies to the canon as such, each book is supported by its own distinct history. And altogether, it is not extravagant to say, that the records of antiquity are full of the canonical authority of the books of the New Testament as received by us.

This cannot be said of the apocryphal writings. The apocryphal writings of the New Testament are very many, and the fact is not dif ficult to be accounted for. In the first century they were not numerous, yet even in the days of the apostles some seem to have made their appearance. If, as Paul tells the Philippians, some preached Christ of envy and strife, and not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to his bonds, there would probably be others who would forge scriptures from the like unchristian motives,

He warns the Galatians against another gospel, (Gal. i. 6-9.) and seems to allude to forged epistles, under his name, in his caution to the Thessalonians, (2 Thes. ii. 2.) and Luke is supposed to refer to unauthorized gospels, in his preface to his own. But the great er part of these pseudographical productions belong to a later age, and are the offspring of heresies. Yet some of them appear to have been invented by well-meaning Christians, who imagined they might edify the church, or convert heathens, by vending fictions under sacred names. The Christian fathers

speak of nearly thirty false gospels not now extant, and half as many acts of the apostles, besides epistles and other spurious writings. Not above twelve or fifteen apocryphal books of the New Testament now exist; and these seem to have been permitted to come down to us as specimens of the rest, and to show, by way of contrast, the simple majesty of the true scriptures. If any one would see how much above fiction the sacred books are, let him go to these forgeries; compared with some of which, even the story of Bel and the Dragon rises to the dignity of sober history.

Scott's Family Bible.-It will be seen by an advertisement on our covers, that this work is stereotyping in New-York.

There have been five quarto editions published in the United States, amounting to twelve or fourteen thousand copies, besides a number of octavo editions. The edition now publishing contains the last revision of the author, with all his marginal references, and many valuable additions and improvements. We have seen a specimen of the edition, and are much pleased with its appearance. The type is large and handsome, and the work is in all respects neatly executed.

Amherst College.-The Trustees and Faculty have published a report exhibiting a detailed plan of improvements contemplated in this Institution. They propose to introduce a new course of studies, distinct from the present one, more modern and national, and to be pursued at the option of the student. They design also to add, when their means will enable them, a "department of Education," of which a prominent object is, the instruction of school-masters.

The Columbian College, following the fashion and philosophy of the

times, has resolved to introduce the gymnastic system without delay. The gymnastic exercises, which were introduced the last autumn on a liberal scale, at Yale College, have been pursued in a systematic and spirited manner by the Students, and have converted their lounging hours into profitable action. We hope these exercises may be introduced at our colleges generally, and save us from beholding so many men in professional life, who have exchanged the briskness of health for the leaden heaviness and nervous languor of dyspepsia.

The Scholarships of the American Education Society, already established, according to the "Brief View" of the Society, amount to fifty.

The following facts show the attention, so far as the Legislature is concerned, to education in Louisiana. In 1811

the Legislature appropriated $39,000 for the establishment of a college, and a school in each county. By the same act, 3000 dollars were appropriated annually for the support of the college, and 500 dollars a year for each school. In 1819, the allowance for the support of schools was increased to 600 dollars, and in 1821 to 800 dollars a year each. Since which,