MONASTICISM: Its Ideals and its History. A lecture by Adolf Harnack, D. D., Professor of Church History in the University of Berlin. Translated by Rev. Charles R. Gillett, A. M., Librarian of Union Theological Seminary in New York. With a Preface by Rev. Arthur C. McGiffert, D. D., Professor of Church History in Union Theological Seminary. New York: Christian Literature Co. 1895. (Pp. iii, 87. 518x258.) 50 cents.

In this translation of Mr. Gillett, the reader will find a very clear, concise, and comprehensive view of the various developments of the monastic orders in the Greek and Roman Catholic churches. It will be difficult anywhere else to find so much upon the subject so well said and in so little space.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

THE CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS and CollegeS.

General Editor for the Old Testament: A. F. Kirkpatrick, D. D. New York: Macmillan & Co. The Book of Psalmis. With Introduction and Notes. By A. F. Kirkpatrick, D. D., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Regius Professor of Hebrew. Books II. and III. Psalms xlii.-lxxxix. (Pp. ixxix, 333. 54x3%.) $1.00.

THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. Edited by the Rev. W. Robertson Nicoll, M. A., LL. D., Editor of The Expositor. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son. 1895. $1.50 per volume. The Book of Ezekiel. By the Rev. John Skinner, M.A. (Pp xi, 499. 6x31⁄2.)

THE ESSENTIAL MAN: A Monograph on Personal Immortality in the Light of Reason. By George Croswell Cressey, Ph. D, author of Essays on The Philosophy of Religion," "Mental Evolution," etc. Boston: Geo. H. Ellis. 1895. (Pp. 84. 434 x276.) 75 cents.

QUALIFICATIONS FOR MINISTERIAL POWER. The Carew Lectures for 1895. By Charles Cuthbert Hall, D. D., author of “Into His Marvellous Light," "Does God send Trouble?" etc. Hartford: Hart

ford Seminary Press. 1895. (Pp. 241. 512x32.) $1.50.

THE CHILDREN, THE CHURCH, AND THE COMMUNION. Two Simple Messages to Children from one who loves them and wants them to love the House of God and the Table of Christ. By Charles Cuthbert Hall, minister of the First Presbyterian Church, of Brooklyn, N. Y. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1895. (Pp. 55. 5x234.) 75 cents.

CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.

Essays concerning the Church and the Unification of Christendom. With an Introduction by the Rev. Amory H. Bradford, D. D. New York and Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Co. 1895. (Pp. 321. 6x338.)

THIRTY YEARS' WORK IN THE HOLY LAND: A Record and a Summary. 1865-1895. New and revised edition. New York: Macmillan & Co. 1895. (Pp. 256. 578x338.) $1.50.

THE UNITED CHURCH OF THE UNITED STATES.

By Charles Woodruff Shields, Professor in Princeton Seminary. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1895. (Pp. xi, 285. 62x3%.) $2.50.

THE

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

ARTICLE I.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VALUE OF THE OLD

TESTAMENT.

BY PROFESSOR OWEN H. GATES, PH. D.

A FEW introductory paragraphs may not be out of place. The writer is not anxious that the treatment of the subject should entitle it to constitute a chapter in a "Science" of Sociology. He will be content if he can suggest how men who are intent on the practical salvation of society can gain inspiration and information by the study of the Old Testament. It is not his fortune to have made a scientific study of the subject of Sociology, as will perhaps appear from what follows. He ventures nevertheless to use the word in the title, and a few times otherwise, in its natural, broad meaning.

In searching after that which will be of practical value, the claim is ventured that he approaches nearer the demand of the day than to aim at accurate scientific perspective without regard to the practical. What is it which has set the schools of the country on the qui vive to see which can organize the first or best department of Sociology? Is it the discovery of a new subject for scientific study, like a new element in the sun or a new bug? Not at all. It is the growVOL. LII. NO. 208.

I

ing recognition that society needs improvement, the quickened conscience of men on the subject, and a strengthened purpose to aid in the work. This purpose is the wave on which Sociology has risen to its present importance, and it will not wait for the schools to search through the sub-sciences and elaborate the science of Sociology, or for philosophers to coordinate the various social sciences and enunciate a philosophy of Sociology. Vast improvements have been made in the centuries past in the condition of man, and that by men who would have been really nonplussed if they had been challenged to show the "scientific credentials" of their sys

tems.

Moreover, the world need not wait for new discoveries. Society is not in its present state because men are ignorant how it can be improved and must wait until scientific workers have invented some new methods. The fact is, that the great fundamental truths in regard to society are as old as philosophy. That among the researches of Sociology which is novel, may be important scientifically, but that which is practically important to the understanding and control of society, has formed the basis of all missionary, benevolent, and educational institutions which the world has ever seen. It is now and then occurring that views are tentatively propounded as to the underlying defects of society, which have been the stock in trade of theologians since theology was possible. When the human race was young, so says one old and respected authority, there was a crime committed which involved a large per cent of the world's inhabitants. It was a murder. The murderer was at once subjected to an examination. One question only was asked and that sufficed, not indeed to make him confess his guilt, but to reveal that which rendered the crime possible. "Where is Abel thy brother?" The reply was equally short, " Am I my brother's keeper?" That was all, and enough. Responsibility for the well-being of our neighbor-there is no more fundamental truth than that. Re

pudiation of that responsibility underlies the various crimes. against society. This incident must possess tremendous force for those who believe that it happened, for it was none other than God himself who thus probed to the seat of the trouble. But there is a class of persons, not all irreverent and some of them good scholars, who do not believe that it all happened as is here stated. This fact may disturb the passage in some of its relations, but its sociological importance still remains; for if it is a legend, it only shows the more convincingly what was the thought of those among whom it arose and by whom it was transmitted as to the correct and incorrect relations between men. It then becomes a very old and important theory of society.

That which is still undiscovered, or even uncorrelated, the lack of which keeps Sociology the science from being perfected is not the vital essential part, but the trifles, the odds and ends. Reformers need not wait for these, and need not apologize to the schools for the unscientific character of their methods. This is not saying that the scientific researches of the schools are valueless or that their results may properly be ignored. On the contrary, the childlike spirit of receptivity of truth which is inseparable from Christian activity will insure a proper estimate of them by every worker in the field of the best social reform. But if the worker will do well to learn from the investigator all that he is ready to teach, on the other hand the latter cannot, if he would be scientific, ignore the work of the former. It is quite right that Chicago University, which is perhaps our most elaborately organized school for the scientific study of the subject, should lay great stress in its announcements upon the numerous charitable organizations of Chicago as affording valuable opportunity for observation and study. There is indeed everything to learn from the study of past and present efforts to reform and purify social institutions. To one such program this paper would draw attention.

The unit for consideration in the Old Testament is the people, and not an individual.

In this respect the Old Testament differs much from the New Testament. It will be seen later that the proper control of society involves a very definite consideration of the individual, but this does not cause the main issue to be obscured, and from the beginning onward the community is that which engages the attention of the Old Testament writers. In seeking illustrations of this fact we will confine ourselves to the Pentateuch, leaving the Prophetic writings to be considered later in another connection. In the quotations from the Pentateuch we will endeavor to observe, not simply the truth already stated, but also the adjustment of the legislation to it.

Long before the actual establishment of the nation. whose fortunes are traced in the Old Testament Scriptures, God revealed to Abraham his purpose to make him a great nation. He had called him as an individual, but this call was for the purpose of establishing in the earth a people in which all the nations of the earth would bless themselves. The same promise was continued to Isaac and to Jacob. The nation was established by the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. The difference between Israel after the Exodus and Israel before the Exodus was a difference not primarily in the relation of the individual to Jehovah, but in the community life which then began. The individuals composing the nation existed before, and the fundamental laws of human nature with which all proper legislation must correspond were their possession before as truly as after that time. It was an epoch for them because new relations were entered into, involving new duties, and new possibilities of blessing. The promises were theirs as a nation and they were to be realized, if at all, in the divinely directed development of their common life. The slaves of Egypt were set free in order that they and their successors as a nation might accomplish a work impossible except under these new conditions.