DISSERTATIONS TO SECOND EDITION.

I.

MODERN reviewers are the literary Providence of those who possess not the leisure or the inclination to form independent opinions on the merits or demerits of the numerous works daily issuing from the press with the design of amusing, instructing, or reforming mankind. Great, indeed, are the moral responsibilities of the literary arbiters whose veto may consign the labours of a life to the counter of the huxter or the stall of the purveyor, and whose imprimatur may rescue from oblivion pages which glow with the incandescence of genius.

There are, doubtless, many reviewers who conscientiously and efficiently fulfil the important duties of their calling, at whose hands authors receive impartial and comprehensive consideration of their just claims as workers in the domain of literature. But the multiplication of books in our generation has introduced a system of "brief notices" fatal to efficient criticism in the discussion of any important subject, unless written

by the gifted minority who happily combine lucidity with compression. Mediocrity may appropriately notice the plot of a romance, or the rhythm of a poem; but when incomprehensive critics discuss, within the limits of a page or a column, the contents of volumes treating of world-wide interests, their remarks frequently disclose so nebulous an apprehension of the author's meaning that, but for identification by title, he might reasonably assume that, not his, but the work of some other writer of quite different views had been doomed to literary perdition. In illustration of this aspect of modern criticism, I turn to the literary workmanship of The Westminster and Athenæum censors who have pronounced summary judgment on The Evolution of Christianity," and on my edition of "Archbishop Laurence's translation of the Book of Enoch."

If the editor of The Westminster Review had invited his contributors to contend for pre-eminence in the production of a "minor notice" disclosing, in the briefest space, incapacity to understand the author reviewed, and ignorance of the subject discussed, the prize would have been assuredly won by the ingenious critic who misconstrues "The Evolution of Christianity," in The Westminster Review of April, 1883.

In the introductory chapter, I have clearly stated my design of testing the claims of Hebrew Scripture to supernatural authority, through the inquiry-"Are the thoughts, words, and actions of Jehovah consistent with the attributes of infinite Divinity?"-Is this inquiry possible apart from an uncompromising criticism, and a candid admission of the true character of the language and the actions of the men who professed to teach, to

legislate, and to govern in the name of the Hebrew Deity? And yet, for applying this test to Semitic priests and prophets, with general results which the Westminster reviewer admits that he is "compelled to accept," he attributes to me an "illiberal interpretation of past history," and a "one-sided and unphilosophical appreciation of the actors (sic), the motives, the circumstances of struggling, groping, embarrassed humanity in the ancient world." According to the Westminster reviewer, we must not, therefore, test the supernatural claims of medieval Popes by reference to the errors, or even to the crimes, of individual pontiffs; and modern missionaries are debarred from denouncing the rapine and murder conscientiously committed by modern savages in the name of their gods, because this "offensive" candour would disclose a "one-sided and unphilosophical appreciation of the motives and circumstances of struggling, groping, embarrassed humanity," in the medieval and modern, as well as "in the ancient world."

The Westminster censor is especially sensitive on the subject of David. I have shown from the death-bed scene depicted by his own annalists, that the mask of hypocrisy fell from the face of the dying monarch when, in his last moments, he instructed Solomon to murder the man whose offences he had previously condoned with ostentatious magnanimity; and I have inferred that popular impressions of David, as a man after God's own heart, have exercised a disastrous influence on Christian morality, through an example which places professions of piety above the practice of virtue. What, therefore, are the views of my critic? Does he deprecate

freedom of expression, as a faithful believer in the Divine inspiration of David?-or, if he is the mature sceptic which he professes to be, on what grounds can he withdraw the central figures of Semitic legend or history from the searching criticism which, I presume, he is willing to extend to the principal actors in the Aryan drama of Humanity?—a criticism which becomes imperative in the presence of human claims to divine sanction of a morality, a policy, an administration, comparing most unfavourably with the attainments of nations. which flourished before the world had yet heard of Moses and the prophets.

Amos did not graduate in the School of the prophets, and an important prediction of his was unfulfilled; my sensitive critic is, however, wounded by my reference to him as an "irregular practitioner." I might have more appropriately said-uncertified Nâbi. But how could I have foreseen the displeasure of my censor on hearing of Nicodemus as an "eminent" Pharisee? Surely he, in whom primitive Christianity recognised an Evangelist,1 may be advisedly classed among eminent men; and so unconscious am I of any impropriety in the term that, but for his note of warning, I might have magnified my offence by calling my critic an eminent

reviewer.

Let us test, by a brief digression, the value of this criticism. The Westminster Review of last January contains an article on Martin Luther, designed to divest him of all mythical claims to the reverence of posterity. The author says:

"The origin and growth of these myths are, perhaps, The Gospel of Nicodemus.