and the authority of Scripture, gives to the laity the cup in the Eucharist; and the Council of Constance, in 1414, deprived them of it. Where is infallibility lodged? In the authority of Revelation, or in the edicts of a Council? Nay, the very circumstances under which the confirmatory vote at the Council of Trent, respecting half-communion, was taken, is of itself enough to disturb the faith of the most implicit believer in Conciliary infallibility; for out of 146 votes, 29 voted for the restoration of the privilege, 38 against it, 14 temporized, 10 urged delegation for investigation, 24 referred the point to the Pontiff, and 31 to the Bishops. In this "concordia discors," where lay infallibility? It were tedious to prosecute the subject further; and to do it, would be only to prove, that with regard to the nature of Ecumenical Councils, their respective claims to be considered authoritative, their acceptance or rejection by different sections of the Church, their mutually conflicting edicts, and their self-contradictory conclusions, no more audacious or impudent demand was ever made on human subserviency, than that which requires the members of the Romish Church to believe in Conciliary infallibility.

We must resist the temptation presented by the Archbishop's Pastoral, to go into several other points open to assault and exposure. The monstrous assumption of the power of priestly magisterial absolution, for which there exists no authority either in Divine ordinance or Apostolic practice; the dogma of the Immaculate Conception-a new article added to the creed of Rome at the mandate of a single man, and a fearful contradiction to the "semper eadem" on which Rome has prided herself; the "guardianship of every jot and every tittle of the sacred books," including, of course, the Apocrypha ―works never admitted into the canon by the Jewish Church, never quoted by Christ or His Apostles, rejected from the canon of inspired Scripture by the most authoritative Fathers, not found in the list of canonical books adopted at Laodicea and endorsed at Chalcedon,-these, and other points, we should gladly investigate, did our limits admit of our doing so. And satisfied are we, that it were no difficult task to prove that they, one and all, rest on no sounder foundation than those we have taken the pains to dissect and expose.

We have no doubt that we may be asked by the Archbishop what we have to show for ourselves in contrast to the boasts of Rome. It is not for us to magnify our Church; but this much we may say that all the power we claim for her, and all the excellencies we affirm her to possess, shall be real, and not fanciful substances and mere chimeras; that, if we claim unity, it shall not be compulsory uniformity, but the religious union of men who own "one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all;" that if we adopt a Rule of Faith, it shall

not rest on shadowy traditions and impossible consents, but on the revealed Word of God; that if we acknowledge the existence of an infallible guide, we shall seek it, not in antagonistic pontiffs and irreconcilable councils, but in Him whose promise it is to "guide His people into all truth." We care not to bolster up our system with high-sounding pretensions and proud assumptions, which crumble into ashes in the handling. We want no varying creed, for we have the Bible; no iron code of dogmas to which we are bound to yield implicit deference, for we have the promise of the enlightenment of the Spirit; no dramatic mass, for we have "the one offering by which Christ hath perfected the sanctified;" no priestly absolution, for we can go direct to Him, who has asked us to come, and "has power on earth to forgive sins;" no indecent or vitiating confessional, when we have the permission of "casting our care on Him, who cares for us." Differences of opinion we may have: it is the result of our liberty of thought and expression; -independence of priestly despotism we may have: it has come with that freedom of nature and action which distinguishes the sturdy Englishman from the timid or too trustful Italian ;a divided hierarchy we may have: it springs from that wide toleration which stands between Dr. Manning and a prosecution. But with all our disadvantages-if such they deserve to be called-it is Protestantism that has made England what she is; and with all the advantages of the Papal system-if such they deserve to be called-it is Romanism that lies at the root of the wretchedness of Ireland, and the decay of Italy and Spain.

ISRAEL IN THE DESERT AND THE HOLY LAND.

1. "Israel in the Wilderness;" or Gleanings from the Scenes of the Wanderings. With an Essay on the True Date of Korah's Rebellion. By Rev. Charles Forster, B.D., Six Preacher of Canterbury, and Rector of Stisted; Author of "Sinai Photographed," &c. &c. London: Richard Bentley, 1865.

2. Physical Geography of the Holy Land. By Edward Robinson, D.D., Author of "Researches in Palestine." John Murray, Albemarle Street, London.

3. Three Months' Residence at Nablous, and an Account of the Modern Samaritans. By Rev. John Mills, F.R.G.S., &c. &c. John Murray, Albemarle Street, London. 1864. 4. The Holy Sepulchre and the Temple at Jerusalem. Being the Substance of Two Lectures delivered in the Royal Insti

tution, Albemarle Street, 1865. By James Fergusson, F.R.S., &c. &c. John Murray, Albemarle Street, London. 1865. 5. Pictorial Journey through the Holy Land: or, Scenes in Palestine. London: Religious Tract Society.

I. We hail with satisfaction Mr. Forster's "Israel in the Wilderness," the first upon our list. Two years ago, we reviewed his "Sinai Photographed ;" and seven years previously, we had given a cordial reception to a former work of his, in which he introduced his theory of the Sinaitic Inscriptions to the world. We could never understand the indifference of the whole critical and periodical literature of England to this profoundly important subject. After a few superficial attempts to answer him, a profound silence has been observed, which, whether it indicates indifference or timidity, is equally discreditable to our public writers. We cannot help suspecting that our periodical literature is deeply infected with the Colenso poison, or the still more subtle delusions of the Bunsen and Stanley school; for if there be any truth whatever in Mr. Forster's theory, he has furnished an answer to all that has been, or ever can be, advanced against the literal truth of what Moses and his inspired successors of the Pentateuch have written, which can never be disturbed. Almost the sole exception is the newspaper The Press. In a short but wellwritten notice of this last work, the editor confirms what we asserted in the two reviews to which we have referred. Instead of repeating our own statements, we will transcribe from The Press the article to which we refer ::

"Mr. Forster is known as the enthusiastic and learned advocate of the Hebrew origin of the inscriptions engraven on the Sinaitic rocks. The chief purpose of this book is to confirm, and substantiate by additional evidence, the certainty of that interpretation. The author traces the encampments of the Israelites in the wilderness to those very localities in which the largest numerical quantity of these inscribed rocks is found. He gives the interpretation of these inscriptions; and, according to his reading of them, they relate to events and incidents in the Mosaic history. He further derives additional corroboration to his statements in the Arabic names of the various valleys and mountains, which in many instances perpetuate traditions connected with the marvels of the Exodus. Two prominent features in this volume are the identification of the precise sites of the passage of the Red Sea, and of Mount Sinai. On both points, the evidence adduced is very satisfactory. The identity of the mount, the true scene of the delivery of the Law, is particularly elaborated by the author. He asserts it to be Mount Serbal, and not Mount Katherin, the Sinai of later monkish tradition. The proof of this theory lies in a threefold corroboration in the correspondency of Mount Serbal with the Mosaic account of Sinai, with the Arabic names of the vicinity (all connected with the events of the tabernacling of the Israelites), and

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with the larger number of inscriptions located in its neighbourhood. Mr. Forster asserts that he can identify, by the intervention of the Arabic name, the very particular hill, which was the scene of the Aaronic worship of the golden calf. It is a singular fact, that Indicopleustes, a traveller in the sixth century, who first records a notice of these inscriptions, attributed them to the Israelites. The very facts and conditions of the circumstances seem to point to them as the authors of these ancient remains. The number of the inscriptions, the care and accuracy with which they are engraven, the hard material of the granite rock on which they are written, imply time and leisure for human labour. Yet the situations in which they are found in the desert are void of all means, under ordinary circumstances, of supporting human life. How, then, can these contradictory requirements be reconciled? How can these laborious engravings in the wilderness be accounted for, unless they be truly the results of the sojourning of that one people, who alone of all peoples can be traced to the wilderness, and can be shown to have resided there under abnormal conditions, and to have had the opportunity at least of perpetuating on those living rocks the memorials of their mercies and deliverances? Mr. Forster substantiates these à priori probabilities by the solution of the inscriptions, all of which refer to transactions recorded in the Pentateuch, and by the re-publication of the Arabic names which contain allusions to the wondrous scenes enacted in this territory. No impartial reader can rise from the perusal of this interesting volume without an increased conviction of the veracity of Moses, and of the reality of the stupendous scenes narrated in the books which bear his name.'

It is strange, after all, that the discoveries--for such we regard them-made at Mount Sinai, which deeply interest men of such minds as Lords Lyndhurst and Harrowby, the Bishops of Winchester and Ely, and many others, should be thus quietly ignored by those who affect to guide, or at least to represent, the intelligence of England. We are happy to learn, however, that the public has broken loose from its leading-strings. We learn from Mr. Forster's intelligent publisher that there is a call for "more of Sinai" from many quarters, and especially from that class which is not rich enough to purchase costly publications. Instead of an expensive folio, Mr. Forster publishes this six shilling volume to meet this demand. tains not only the most interesting of the previous discoveries, but other corroborative proofs down to the present time. We can only wish success to Mr. Forster's new work: it ought to. find its way into every Reading Club, and every good parish library; and as to those who doubt, or affect to doubt, the veracity of Moses, they are utterly unpardonable if they do not read it with close attention.

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II. But let us suppose the Desert crossed, and the chosen people in possession of the land flowing with milk and honey. Now the physical geography of the Holy Land becomes at

once an interesting subject of inquiry. Let us begin with that ancient river, the sacred Jordan. In every winding there lies a history. It has numberless tributaries, and every tributary is consecrated by some wonderful event. For the Land of Promise was a good land; a land of brooks, of waters, of fountains, and depths that spring out of the valleys and hills. The Jordan is formed of several springs, which rise among the hills of Galilee. These expand into the lakes of the Huleh. Then, after rushing down a rocky chasm for several miles, it spreads out into the lake of Tiberias, or sea of Galilee; emerging from this, it pursues a nearly straight course until it is lost in the Dead Sea; its whole length is not far from one hundred and fifteen miles. Although it becomes a considerable stream below the sea of Tiberias, it is remarkable that no boat was ever seen upon its waters until within the last few years. In the Lower Jordan there are several fords. In one of these, where the stream is about forty yards in width, and when the Jordan overfloweth his banks, ten or twelve in depth, John baptized. Two fords dispute the honour of having witnessed that scene of surpassing wonder, when the whole mystery of the Trinity was revealed to the wondering prophet of the desert. Near the ruined convent of St. John is the spot where Latin pilgrims bathe in the Jordan. The Greek pilgrims bathe at the second ford. It is worthy of remark that there has never been a city, town, or village of any note on the immediate banks of the Jordan after it issues from the lake of Tiberias. Nor does it contain any fish except small ones, not worth taking for food; though the lake of Tiberias was celebrated in the New Testament, and still is, for its numerous fine fish of various kinds. It is a peculiar stream in every way. Though below the level of the Mediterranean, it rushes on with a strong current, and has many violent rapids; but even for the passage of the river boats do not seem to have been in use. The English version once mentions a ferry-boat, but this appears to have been nothing more than a raft to carry over the king's household. It was not used by the king himself, nor by his attendants. (2 Sam. xix. 18.) It runs through a shady thicket, which borders it on either side. This was once the abode of lions, which have now disappeared: the thicket still remains. A great number of Wadys, or tributary streams, fall into the Jordan on both sides. Amongst these is the Jabbok. Jacob passed over the ford Jabbok on his way back from Syria. He had crossed the Jordan a weary solitary man, with his staff for his companion: he returned at the head of two bands, the prince of a formidable tribe. Here he wrestled all night with the angel, and the next day met his brother Esau. The Jabbok was the northern border of the children of Ammon, and afterwards of Sihon, king of the Amorites; so closely did these formidable neigh