shall become a thousand, a small one a strong nation; I Jehovah will hasten it in its time," v. 21, 22. The whole Israelitish people, whether residing in Jerusalem, or in other parts of the holy land, are to be righteous-that is, not merely converted, but raised to perfect holiness, according to the covenant that the Redeemer, when he comes, will turn away transgression from Israel; pouring his Spirit on them continually, giving them a new heart, and putting a new spirit within them, and causing them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments," Jeremiah xxxi. 33, 34; Ezekiel xxxvi. 25-28. They will be raised to an intelligence, spotlessness, and delight in God, that will make it suitable that he should reveal himself to them in his glory, and give them to dwell in the intimate relations to him which this prophecy represents. They are to inhabit and dwell in the land given to them as his chosen people to eternity: and as a branch of his planting-as a part of the human family-he established there as his own elect people; and enriched with all the eminent favors with which they are distinguished from other nations; not because of any merit of theirs, but in order to his own glory. And there they are to multiply in an unexampled manner, and become a vast nation. The verification of this great prophecy will be the work of Jehovah; but he will hasten it in its time.

It is thus certain that the predictive sense of this prophecy, is its literal grammatical sense, and no other: and that it foreshows Jehovah's visible manifestation of himself in his glory to the returned Israelites at Jerusalem, the restoration of all the other Israelites from exile with the aid of the Gentiles, the rebuilding of the temple and the city in beauty, the recognition of the restored Israelites as God's chosen people by the Gentiles who had oppressed them, the recognition and acknowledgment of them by Jehovah as his redeemed people by perpetually shedding the splendors of his glory on them, their universal and perfect sanctification, and their everlasting inheritance of the land and prosperity there as his elect people. That this is the grammatical sense, and the only sense of the words, no one denies. It is the meaning, all expositors admit, of the language taken in its usual natural sense. The hypothesis that its grammatical is not its prophetic meaning, but that that which it literally

foreshows, is but the representative, on the principle of the allegory or parable, of that which is prophetically meant, is not only groundless and arbitrary, but is utterly subversive of the truth, and converts the prediction into a jumble of senseless incongruities, contradictions, and impossibilities. It makes what it assumes is an apostate and rejected people, the representative of an obedient and accepted one. It makes a city which it exhibits as for ever rejected and desecrated, because of the sins of its inhabitants, the symbol of the pure Christian church, or the place in which that church is to offer a pure worship. It makes what it maintains will be prohibited and offending acts of worship at the time the prophecy is to be fulfilled, representative of a commanded and acceptable worship. It makes the return of apostates from exile to Jerusalem and claim to be received as God's elect people, the representative of the accession of true converts to the Christian church. Its advocates hold that the reception by God of those who they affirm are reprobates, is a representative of his reception of those who are his genuine children. In short they assume that what they hold to be a fallen and rejected church, offering an abrogated worship, is the symbol throughout the prophecy of a pure church, offering a pure and acceptable worship; and thus put bitter for sweet, and darkness for light, through their whole construction. They seem totally to have forgotten that, in their view, the Jewish people are not to be God's chosen people at the time when the prophecy is to be fulfilled; neither is their worship to be a lawful worship; nor their capital to be the scene of God's manifestation of himself. Their return, therefore, from exile to Jerusalem-as though his people-would not be an act of obedience, but of rebellion; inasmuch as it would proceed on the assumption that they had not been rejected, but were still his elect people. The offering of their worship-in like manner-would not be an acceptable offering, but an offence, inasmuch as it would proceed on the assumption that it was not abrogated, but is still the true worship: and thus throughout they make what they maintain is an abolished service, the symbol of a living one; and persistence in apostasy and rebellion, the representative of conversion to obedience. And all this to escape the doctrine written in characters of light on every page of

the prophecy, that the Redeemer is to come in person and glory, to our world, recall his ancient people from their rebellion and their exile, redeem all other nations also from sin and its curse, new create the earth in beauty, and reign over the race thus raised to knowledge, holiness, and blessedness, in their generations, through eternal years! How long will learned and critical expositors continue, for such an end, thus to pervert the divine word?

ART. VIL-LITERARY AND CRITICAL NOTICES.

1. FORTY YEARS' FAMILIAR LETTERS of James W. Alexander, D.D., constituting, with the Notes, a Memoir of his Life. Edited by the surviving Correspondent, John Hall, D.D. In two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner. London: Sampson Low, Son & Co. 1860.

THESE Letters were not designed to exemplify the vivacity and refinement of thought and grace of expression that should mark a correspondence of a high character between persons of elegant cultivation; neither were they intended to be the vehicle of a studied display of learning and wit; nor was it their aim to discuss at large and determine the great questions of theology, natural science, or religious and political policy, that occupied the public mind in a large degree during the period in which they were written. They are strictly familiar letters, the whole office of which was to apprise his correspondent of the chief events of his daily life, the studies in which he was engaged, the books he read, the impressions they produced, the persons he met, the preachers and orators he heard, the plans he was projecting for the future, the books or essays he was writing, the toils and disquiets, the enjoyments and successes of his professional life, his trials and sorrows, and the many-shaped and many-hued impressions made on him by the great tragedy of toil, sin, suffering, and sorrow that was enacting in the world around him; and they must be contemplated as designed for this purpose alone, in order to a just judgment of them. They are offhand sketches of the various scenes, objects, and occurrences that passed under his notice, and expressions of all

thoughts and feelings to which he would have given utterance in free unstudied conversation. And that is their whole aim. They contribute nothing towards the settlement of any great question. They throw no new light on any important theme. They owe their interest to the exhibition they present of his fine endowments, his large literary and professional attainments, his extraordinary activity in the sphere he was called to occupy, and the proofs they reveal of a high religious experience, and an earnest and joyous devotion, in larger and larger degrees, as he advanced in life, to the great interests of the Redeemer's kingdom. He had great quickness of mind, acquired knowledge with extraordinary ease and rapidity, retained at the readiest command whatever he had learned, and had ingenuity, fancy, and taste to make a pertinent, graceful, and effective use of his acquirements. Near half his active life was spent at Princeton, first as tutor, subsequently as Professor in Nassau Hall, and after the lapse of a few years, as Professor in the Theological Seminary; and about the same number of years in the ministry, first at Charlotte, Virginia, next at Trenton, New Jersey, and last, at two periods, in the Duane street, and after its removal, the Nineteenth street and Fifth Avenue church in this city. These positions brought him into contact with a great variety of conspicuous and influential persons, gave him access to large libraries and opportunity for culture, and furnished him with ample themes for a vivacious correspondence; and though many subjects are dispatched with a single dash of his pen, here and there one is treated at some length and with great sprightliness. If no indications appear of more than an ordinary knowledge of men, no piercing intuitions of character, no keen glances into the operation of principles and passions, he had a quick eye for the exterior, and painted with tact and spirit the spectacles that passed before him. Far the most interesting of his letters are those in which he gives the sadder phases of his life, depicts his own religious experience, and traces the higher forms of faith, submission, hope, peace, and joy, which he witnessed in the eminently pious to whom he was called to minister. He was in his true sphere when engaged in the duties of the sacred office. There his varied gifts found their largest and most appropriate scope. There his facility of thought and speech, his ready command of his knowledge, his practical sense, his taste, his strong affections, his independence and fidelity, appeared in their most attractive forms. His sermons were distinguished for simplicity, naturalness, ease, and point of thought and plainness and appro

priateness of diction. He avoided abstruse subjects, and even in a great degree the formal discussion of doctrines, and confined himself to the great facts of Christianity and its most essential requirements, and presented them in their most simple and natural attitudes. He dealt in no metaphysical subtleties, he indulged in no long trains of intricate argument. Every subject was presented with clearness; doctrines were sustained by arguments which all could comprehend; and duties enforced by appeals couched in plain and pointed language and urged with earnestness, that found their way to the heart. Among the many theological subjects on which he expresses opinions in the Letters, are the principles on which the prophetic Scriptures are to be interpreted, the second coming of Christ, the millennium; and he seems for a period to have inclined strongly to the general views entertained by Millenarians. That he entered into no thorough investigation of the subject, however, is seen from the fact that while he assented to the laws of interpretation propounded in the Journal, he rejected the results we deduce from them, and subsequently embraced the uncritical theory of Mr. Waldegrave, that the prophecies are not to be interpreted by the laws of the language or symbols through which they are expressed, but by what is taught in the historic and didactic Scriptures that treat of wholly different subjects.

His memory will long be cherished by his professional associates and those who enjoyed his ministry, and the seed sown by him continue to spring up, we trust, and bring forth fruit unto eternal life.*

2. THE BIBLE AND SOCIAL REFORM, or the Scriptures as a Means of Civilization, by R. H. Tyler, A. M., of Fulton, New York. Philadelphia: James Challen & Son; Lindsay and Blakiston. New York: Sheldon & Co. Boston: Brown and Taggard. Cincinnati: Rickey, Mallory & Co. 1860. CHRISTIANITY has hitherto been confined almost absolutely to the white races. The black and tawny tribes, comprising nearly three quarters of the human family, have continued to live in utter alienation from Jehovah, paying their homage to idols

* Dr. Alexander was mistaken in supposing that the premium for Essays on the Laws of Symbols was proposed by us. It was neither offered by us, nor at our suggestion. We at first doubted indeed the expediency of the measure. It issued, however, well. The Essay published has met a very general assent from the most competent judges, has had a large circulation, and has been the means of important results.