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and to demons, and exemplifying in the most awful forms the malignity, debasement, and misery to which fallen beings, deserted of God, sink. Not a solitary nation among them has risen to such a measure of intelligence, virtue, and refinement under the impulse of their religion, or by means of self-culture, as belongs to a civilized people. Not a single tribe has emerged out of a coarse, brutified, and bloody barbarism. Is there any power except Christianity that can ever elevate these numerous millions from the abyss of darkness, depravation, and misery in which they have weltered through so many ages? Is not the knowledge of God, of immortality, of redemption, as it is presented in the Scriptures, the only means by which a savage tribe has ever been brought out of barbarism? Have not the Scriptures the power to work that effect; and have they not uniformly wrought it when communicated to, and freely received by a people? And does not the gift of the divine word to the nations that are still under the dominion of paganism, present the only hope of their extrication from their darkness, degradation, wretchedness, and elevation to the blessings of civilization? These are themes discussed by our author, and they are treated with earnestness, good sense, and power. He shows that except where Christianity prevails, not only is there no religion besides what is false and depraving, but there is no civilization. Gross ignorance, ferocious passion, cruel tyranny, abject misery reign. Where Christianity is known and exerts its power, there not only the useful arts and beneficial branches of knowledge flourish, and freedom and safety are enjoyed, but purity, rectitude, benignity, love, piety, appear in exalted forms, and become in a measure characteristics of the community, spreading their light through all ranks, and giving their hue to the general principles and manners.

3. THE GREAT TRIBULATION; or, Things Coming on the Earth. By the Rev. John Cumming, D.D. Second Series. New York: Rudd and Carlton. 1860.

THESE Lectures, which complete the work, are of the same general cast as those of the volume before noticed in the Journal. His aim, in the first lecture, is to show that the twenty-three hundred days of Daniel, and the twelve hundred and sixty of John, terminate in 1867. The assumptions, however, on which his calculations proceed, are, as we showed in an article on the Prophetic Periods, mistaken. There is no probable ground for the supposition that the twelve hundred and

sixty years will terminate in 1867. What the events are that are to follow the close of that period, Dr. Cumming does not very clearly indicate, except that they are to be calamities, and are to issue speedily in the overthrow of the Romish church, and the civil powers leagued with her. Many of his views are superficial, many of his arguments undemonstrative, and his style often declamatory and flashy. It is to be regretted that, from want of taste and discretion, he fails of the high influence he might exert. His works have had a large circulation in this country. It is far from being certain, however, that their general effect has not been injurious rather than beneficial. His superficiality, his gross mistakes, his fanaticism, his slap-dash manner, it is well known, have made an unfavorable impression on many, augmenting doubt instead of relieving it, and in place of checking, giving a fresh impulse to prejudice.

4. LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. By George P. Marsh. New York: Charles Scribner. London: Sampson Low, Son & Co. 1860.

THESE Lectures, delivered by appointment of the Trustees of Columbia College, are a very acceptable contribution to our critical literature. The chief topics of which they treat are the origin of our language; helps to the knowledge of it; its sources, composition, and etymological proportions; its vocabulary, its principal classes of words-nouns, adjectives, verbs; its grammatical inflections, the effects on it of the art of printing, its orthoepical changes, and its poetic forms, synonyms, corruptions, etc.; and they are discussed with rare learning, judgment, and spirit. We have met with nothing comparable to them in these high qualities. The opinions expressed are not ventures on subjects glanced at for the first time as the lectures were written, but the result of critical and long-continued study; and are marked by large research, accurate discrimination, and just taste. The volume is suited to interest not only such as are devoted to literary pursuits, but the cultivated of all classes. Instead of dry matter-of-fact disquisitions, the least attractive of his topics are handled with ease and vivacity, and attention kept on the alert by the freshness and transparency of his thoughts, the ingenuity and point of his arguments, the novelty, force, and beauty of his illustrations, the truth, keenness, and elegance of his criticisms, and the charm of his exact, vivacious, and elegant style.

5. HOW TO ENJOY LIFE; OR, PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HYGIENE. By William M. Cornell, M.D. Philadelphia: James Challen & Son. New York: Sheldon & Co. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee & Co. 1860.

THE author, holding that health depends mainly on the general habits of life, employs himself in pointing out those that are to be avoided on the one side, and those that are to be cherished on the other, in order to its preservation, or its recovery, if lost. He traces a large part of the diseases of sedentary persons especially, to a want of proper care, inadequate exercise, and overtasking the brain; and urges cleanliness, labor and amusement in the open air, the avoidance of violent stimulants, high mental excitements, and exhausting study, etc. His counsels are judicious, and though designed chiefly for clergymen and other professional men, may be consulted with advantage by all classes.

6. MEMOIR OF THE LIFE, CHARACTER, AND WRITINGS OF PHILIP DODDRIDGE, D.D., with a Selection from his Correspondence. Compiled by Rev. James R. Boyd, A.M. Published by the American Tract Society, New York. 1860.

THIS memoir consists chiefly of Letters addressed by Dr. Doddridge to his family, his clerical friends, and his literary acquaintances, that present his cast of intellect, his religious views and affections, his learning, his labors, and the incidents of his life, in bolder forms and more vivid colors, than they could be drawn by a biographer. The narrative and illustrative parts furnished by Mr. Boyd are brief and judicious, and together they form a highly attractive portraiture of one of the few eminent men of the past whose influence does not diminish with the lapse of time, but augments, and reaches in some measure a large share of those in Protestant countries who receive a religious education.

7. ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE, suggested by a Tour through the Holy Land. By Horatio B. Hackett, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature in Newton Theological Institution. New and revised edition. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1860.

THESE are brief sketches of scenes, objects, persons, manners, and occurrences, that fell under the notice of Professor Hackett during a visit to Palestine, that exemplify or illustrate descrip

tions and narratives of the Scriptures. They relate to the aspect generally, climate and productions of Palestine, its waters, its mountains, its plains, its cities, its population, its history, are written with ease and neatness, and bespeak sharp curiosity, keen observation, and excellent judgment. All classes of readers will find them unusually interesting and instructive.

8. A HISTORICAL COMMENTARY ON THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER OF DANIEL: Extending from the days of Cyrus to the Crimean War, receiving its ultimate Accomplishment in the Fall of the Turkish Empire: in three Parts. By Rev. Samuel Sparkes, Binghampton. Adams & Lawyer, Printers. 1858.

MR. SPARKES Concurs mainly in his view of the first thirty-five verses with Bishop Newton, and presents a brief and clear statement of the events in which the prophecy, as explained by the best commentators, had its fulfilment. The power, vs. 30, that was to interpose and arrest Antiochus Epiphanes in his designs, he holds was the Roman; the pollution of the sanctuary by that power, and taking away the daily sacrifice foretold in vs. 31, he regards as having taken place at the destruction of the temple and discontinuance of the ritual worship by the Romans under Titus; and the predictions, vs. 32-35, as having been accomplished in the promulgation of the gospel and persecution of believers under the pagan and Christian emperors, and the powers of western Europe in later ages.

The 36th vs., with most writers, he refers to the papacy; but erroneously, as we think, as we showed in the article in the last number of the Journal, on the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition, 2 Thess. ii. 3-10. The arrogations and pretexts here ascribed to the king who is to do according to his will, are the same as are to characterize the Man of Sin; and they are quite unlike the assumptions of the popes. They do not directly claim a superiority to Jehovah, and assert that they have an exclusive title to worship. They profess to be his vicegerents, and to pay him an acceptable homage. Nor has any power or person hitherto risen, whose pretensions and conduct answer to this prediction. This open rival of Jehovah is yet future.

The king of the south of the 40th vs. he regards as Mahomet and his successors, and the king of the north, who comes against him, Togrul Beg and his Turkish successors. But this is also undoubtedly mistaken. As the king who is to exalt himself above Jehovah and all gods is yet future, it was not against

him that Mahomet and his Saracen successors pushed; nor did he and they push against the popes of their period. They directed their arms exclusively against the eastern Roman empire, over which the popes had no jurisdiction. As Mahomet and his successors were not the power denoted by the king of the south, the Turkish conquerors who overran the Saracen empire in the eleventh, twelfth, and following centuries, cannot have been the king of the north. It is not against the king of the south that the king of the north is to go, but against the king who exalts himself above Jehovah; and they are all still future.

He interprets the remainder of the chapter, also, of the Turks, and holds that the 44th and 45th verses, with the exception of the last clause, had their accomplishment in the late Crimean war; and the establishment of this construction is the main aim of his volume. That he cannot have succeeded is apparent from the errors we have already pointed out. It is the king who claims to be superior to Jehovah, who is to be troubled by tidings from the east and north, and is to go forth to destroy many-not the king of the south, vs. 40, whom Mr. Sparkes interprets of the Saracen chiefs; nor the king of the north, vs. 40, who he holds denotes the Turkish Sultans. This unfortunate mistake of one of his antagonists for the king who arrogates superiority to Jehovah, vitiates his whole construction. It fails also on every other ground. The war of the Turks with the Russians in 1853-1855, was a war of defence, not of aggression, like that foreshown, vs. 44. The war in the Crimea can scarcely be said to have been a war between the Turks and the Russians. The Turkish force there was small, and took no important part in the battles. The Turkish Sultan cannot be said to have planted the tabernacles of his palace there. He did not transfer his court to the Crimea, nor visit it himself during the war. The Crimea has no title whatever to the appellative, "the glorious holy mountain between the seas." That title is expressly appropriated in the Scriptures to Jerusalem, and to no other place, Zech. viii. 2, 3; Ps. xlviii. 2, 3; Isaiah ii. 3. The aim and effect of the Crimean war, moreover, was, not to put an end to the Turkish empire, but to prolong its existence. It still subsists, and is still, as recent events show-a woe to the Christian population under its jurisdiction; and it is to continue, as is foreshown, Rev. xi. 14, till the slaughter and resurrection of the witnesses have taken place. And finally, Antichrist, the king who exalts himself above God, is to be destroyed by the direct intervention of the Almighty Redeemer, not by the

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