prejudices, attempts a good work and is justifiable before criticism, exactly as much as a book which attempts to enlighten on these matters the much-instructed. No doubt, to say this is to say what seems quite in accordance with modern notions; the Times tells us day after day how the general public is the organ of all truth, and individual genius the organ of all error; nay, we have got so far, it says, that the superior men of former days, if they could live again now, would abandon the futile business of running counter to the opinions of the many, of persisting in opinions of their own: they would sit at the feet of the general public, and learn from its lips what they ought to say. And, no doubt, this doctrine holds out, both for the superior man and the general public, a prospect in a high degree tempting; the former is to get more pudding than formerly, and the latter more praise. But it is a doctrine which no criticism that has not a direct interest in promulgating it can ever seriously entertain. The highly-instructed few, and not the scantily-instructed many, will ever be the organ to the human race of knowledge and truth. Knowledge and truth, in the full sense of the words, are not attainable by the great mass of the human race at all. The great mass of the human race have to be softened and humanised through their heart and imagination, before any soil can be found in them where knowledge may strike living roots. Until the softening and humanising process is very far advanced, intellectual demonstrations are uninforming for them; and, if they impede the working of influences which advance this softening and humanising process, they are even noxious; they retard their development, they impair the culture of the world. All the great teachers, divine and human, who have ever appeared, have united in proclaiming this.

"Remember the covenant of the Highest, and wink at ignorance," says the Son of Sirach. "Unto you," said Christ to a few disciples, "it is

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given to know the mysteries of the "kingdom of heaven, but to them (the

"My

"multitude) it is not given." words," said Pindar, "have a sound only for the wise." Plato interdicted the entry of his school of philosophy to all who had not first undergone the discipline of a severe science. "The "vast majority," said Spinoza, "have "neither capacity nor leisure to follow "speculations." "The few (those who

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can have a saving knowledge) can never mean the many," says, in one of his noblest sermons, Dr. Newman. Old moral ideas leaven and humanise the multitude: new intellectual ideas filter slowly down to them from the thinking few; and only when they reach them in this manner do they adjust themselves to their practice without convulsing it. It was not by the intellectual truth of its propositions concerning purgatory, or prayer for the dead, or the human nature of the Virgin Mary, that the Reformation touched and advanced the multitude: it was by the moral truth of its protest against the sale of indulgences, and the scandalous lives of many of the clergy.

He

Human culture is not, therefore, advanced by a religious book conveying intellectual demonstrations to the many, unless they be conveyed in such a way as to edify them. Now, that the intellectual demonstrations of the Bishop of Natal's book are not in themselves of a nature to edify the general reader, that is, to serve his religious feeling, the Bishop himself seems well aware. expresses alarm and misgivings at what he is about, for this very reason, that he is conscious how, by shaking the belief of the many in the Inspiration of Scripture, he may be shaking their religious lifeworking, that is, not to their edification. He talks of "the sharp pang of that "decisive stroke which is to sever their "connexion with the ordinary view of "the Mosaic story for ever." Again: "I tremble," he says, "at the results "of my own inquiry-the momentous "results" (he elsewhere calls them) "to "which it leads." And again: "I "cannot but feel, that having thus been "impelled to take an active part in

verse of the Bible, every word of it, 66 every syllable of it, every letter of it, "is the direct utterance of the Most "High." And so, too, since the publication of the Bishop of Natal's book, a preacher in the Oxford University pulpit has declared, that if the historical credit of a single verse of the Bible be shaken, all belief in the Bible is gone.

But indeed, without looking at all to these momentous results of his demonstrations, the Bishop would probably have no difficulty in admitting that these demonstrations can have in themselves nothing edifying. He is an excellent arithmetician, and has published an admirable Manual of Arithmetic; and his book is really nothing but a series of problems in this his favourite science, the solution to each of which is to be the reductio ad absurdum of that Book of the Pentateuch which supplied its terms. The Bishop talks of the "multitude of operatives" whose spiritual condition we must care for: he allows that to the pious operative his proceedings must give a terrible shock; but will the impious operative be softened or converted by them? He cannot seriously think so; for softening and converting

are positive processes, and his arithmetical process is a purely negative one. It is even ruthlessly negative; for it delights in nothing so much as in triumphing over attempts which may be made to explain or attenuate the difficulties of the Bible narrative. Such an attempt Dr. Stanley has made with respect to the history of the sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness; the quotations on this matter from Dr. Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine" are the refreshing spots of the Bishop of Natal's volume, but he cites them only to refute them. In a similar spirit he deals with M. Hengstenberg. M. Hengstenberg is, in general, only too well contented to remain with his head under water, raking about in the sand and mud of the letter for the pearl which will never be found there; but occasionally a mortal commentator must come up to breathe. M. Hengstenberg has hardly time to gasp out a rational explanation of any passage, before the remorseless Bishop pushes him under water again.

So we must look for the edifying part of the Bishop of Natal's work elsewhere than in his arithmetical demonstrations. And I am bound to say, that such a part the Bishop does attempt to supply. He feels, as I have said, that the work he has been accomplishing is not in itself edifying to the common English reader, that it will leave such a reader with an "aching void" in his bosom; and this void he undoubtedly attempts to fill. And how does he fill it? "I would "venture to refer him," he says, "to

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my lately published Commentary on "the Epistle to the Romans . . . which "I would humbly hope by God's mercy

may minister in some measure to the "comfort and support of troubled minds "under present circumstances." candidly adds, however, that this Commentary was written "when I had no "idea whatever of holding my present "views." So as a further support he offers "the third and sixth chapters of Exodus" (that Exodus on which he has just been inflicting such severe blows "the noble words of Cicero preserved by Lactantius" in the eighth section of

the sixth book of his "Divine Institutions,"" the great truths revealed to the Sikh Gooroos," as these truths are set forth in Cunningham's "History of the Sikhs," pp. 355, 356, and lastly a Hindoo prayer, to be found in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. vi. pp. 487, 750, 756, beginning "Whatever Rám willeth." And this is positively all. He finds the simple. everyday Englishman going into church, he buries him and the sacred fabric under an avalanche of rule-of-three sums; and when the poor man crawls from under the ruins, bruised, bleeding, and bewildered, and begs for a little spiritual consolation, the Bishop "refers him" to his own Commentary on the Romans, two chapters of Exodus, a fragment of Cicero, a revelation to the Sikh Gooroos, and an invocation of Rám. This good Samaritan sets his battered brother on his own beast (the Commentary), and for oil and wine pours into his wounds the Hindoo prayer, the passage of Cicero, and the rest of it.

Literary criticism cannot accept this edification as sufficient. The Bishop of Natal must be considered to have failed to edify the little-instructed, to advance the lower culture of his nation. It is demanded of him, therefore, that he shall have informed the much-instructed, that he shall have advanced the higher culture of his nation or of Europe.

Literary criticism does not require him to edify this; it is enough if he informs it. We may dismiss the Commentary on the Romans and the truths revealed to the Sikh Gooroos from our consideration, for the Bishop himself has told us that it is the weak vessel, the little-instructed, whom he refers to these. There remain his arithmetical demonstrations. And, indeed, he himself seems to rely for his justification upon the informing influence which these are calculated to exercise upon the higher culture of his nation; for he speaks of the "more highly educated classes of society," and of the "intelligent operative" (that favourite character of modern disquisition)-those, that is, who have either read much or thought

much as the special objects of his solicitude. Now, on the higher culture of his nation, what informing influence can the Bishop of Natal's arithmetical demonstrations exercise? I have already said what these are they are a series of problems, the solution of each of which is meant to be the reductio ad absurdum of that Book of the Pentateuch which supplied its terms. This being so, it must be said that the Bishop of Natal gives us a great deal too many of them. For his purpose a smaller number of problems and a more stringent method of stating them would have sufficed. It would then have been possible within the compass of a single page to put all the information which the Bishop's book aspires to convey to the mind of Europe. For example: if we take the Book of Genesis, and the account of the family of Judah there related-"Allowing 20 as the marriage"able age, how many years are required "for the production of 3 generations?" The answer to that sum disposes (on the Bishop's plan) of the Book of Genesis. Again, as to the account in the Book of Exodus of the Israelites dwelling in tents-"Allowing 10 persons for each "tent (and a Zulu hut in Natal contains

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on an average only 31), how many tents "would 2,000,000 persons require?" The parenthesis in that problem is hardly worthy of such a master of arithmetical statement as Dr. Colenso; but, with or without the parenthesis, the problem, when answered, disposes of the Book of Exodus. Again, as to the account in Leviticus of the provision made for the priests: "If three priests have to eat 264 pigeons a day, how many must each

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priest eat?" That disposes of Leviticus. Take Numbers, and the total of firstborns there given, as compared with the number of male adults: "If, of 900,000 "males, 22,273 are firstborns, how many "boys must there be in each family?" That disposes of Numbers. For Deuteronomy, take the number of lambs slain at the Sanctuary, as compared with the space for slaying them: "In an area of 1,692 square yards, how many lambs minute can 150,000 persons kill in

per

"two hours?" Certainly not 1,250, the number required; and the Book of Deuteronomy, therefore, shares the fate of its predecessors. Omnes eodem cogimur.

Even a giant need not waste his strength. The Bishop of Natal has, indeed, other resources in his conflict with the Pentateuch, if these are insufficient; he has the overcrowding of the Tabernacle doorway, and the little difficulty about the Danites; but he need not have troubled himself to produce them. All he designed to do for the higher culture of his nation has been done without them. It is useless to slay the slain.

Such are the Bishop of Natal's exploits in the field of biblical criticism. The theological critic will regard them from his own point of view; the literary critic asks only in what way can they be informing to the higher culture of England or Europe? This higher culture knew very well already that contradictions were pointed out in the Pentateuch narrative; it had heard already all that the Bishop of Natal tells us as to the "impossibility of regarding the Mosaic "story as a true narrative of actual his"torical matters of fact;" of this impossibility, of which the Bishop of Natal "had not the most distant idea" two years ago, it had long since read expositions, if not so'elaborate as his, at least as convincing. That which the higher culture of Europe wanted to know is,— What then? What follows from all this? What change is it, if true, to produce in the relations of mankind to the Christian religion? If the old theory of Scripture Inspiration is to be abandoned, what place is the Bible henceforth to hold among books? What is the new Christianity to be like? How are Governments to deal with national Churches founded to maintain a very different conception of Christianity? It is these questions which the higher culture of Europe now addresses to those who profess to enlighten it in the field of free religious speculation, and it is intellectually informed only so far as these questions are answered. It is these questions which freethinkers who really speak to

the higher culture of their nation or of Europe-men such as Hegel was in Germany, such as M. Rénan now is in France-attempt to answer; and therefore, unorthodox though such writers may be, literary criticism listens to them with respectful interest. And it is these questions which the Bishop of Natal never touches with one of his fingers.

I will make what I mean yet clearer by a contrast. At this very moment is announced the first English translation of a foreign work which treats of the same matter as the Bishop of Natal's work-the interpretation of Scriptureand, like the Bishop of Natal's work, treats of it in an unorthodox way. I mean a work signed by a great name— to most English readers the name of a great heretic, and nothing more-the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus of Spinoza. It is not so easy to give a summary this book as of the book of the Bishop of Natal. Still, with the aim of showing how free religious speculation may be conducted so as to be informing to the much-instructed, even though it be not edifying to the little-instructed, I will attempt the task.

of

The little-instructed Spinoza's work could not unsettle, for it was inaccessible to them. It was written in Latin, the language of the instructed few-the language in which Coleridge desired that all novel speculations about religion should be written. Spinoza even expressly declares that he writes for the instructed few only, and that his book is not designed for the many-reliquis hunc tractatum commendare non studeo. Not only the multitude, but all of a higher culture than the multitude who yet share the passions of the multitude, he intreats not to read his book they will only, he says, do harm to others, and no good to themselves. So sincere was this author's desire to be simply useful, his indiffer ence to mere notoriety, that when it was proposed to publish a Dutch translation of his work, and thus bring it within the reach of a wider public, he requested that the project might be abandoned. Such a publication could effect no bene1 The book has since been published.

fit, he said, and it might injure the cause which he had at heart.

He was moved to write, not by admiration at the magnitude of his own sudden discoveries, not by desire for notoriety, not by a transport of excitement, not because he "had launched "his bark on the flood and was carried "along by the waters;" but because, grave as was the task to be attempted, and slight as was the hope of succeeding, the end seemed to him worth all the labour and all the risk. "I fear "that I have taken this work in hand "too late in the day; for matters are "nearly come to that pass that men are "incapable, on these subjects, of having "their errors cleared away, so saturated "with prejudices are their minds. Still,

I will persevere, and continue to make "what effort I can; for the case, after "all, is not quite hopeless." For the instructed few he was convinced that his work mght prove truly informing—his hoc opus perquam utile fore confido.

He

Addressing these, he tells them how, struck with the contrast between the precepts of Christianity and the common practice of Christians, he had sought the cause of this contrast and found it in their erroneous conception of their own religion. The comments of men had been foisted into the Christian religion; the pure teaching of God had been lost sight of. He had determined to go again to the Bible, to read it over and over with a perfectly unprejudiced mind, and to accept nothing as its teaching which it did not clearly teach. began by constructing a method, or set of conditions indispensable for the adequate interpretation of Scripture. These conditions are such, he points out, that a perfectly adequate interpretation of Scripture is now impossible: for example, to understand any Prophet thoroughly, we ought to know the life, character, and pursuits of that Prophet, under what circumstances his book was composed, and in what state and through what hands it has come down to us; and, in general, most of this we cannot now know. Still, the main sense of the Books of Scripture may be clearly

seized by us. Himself a Jew with all the learning of his nation, and a man of the highest natural powers, he had in the difficult task of seizing this sense every aid which special knowledge or preeminent faculties could supply.

In what then, he asks, does Scripture, interpreted by its own aid, and not by the aid of Rabbinical traditions or Greek philosophy, allege its own divinity to consist? In a revelation given by God to the Prophets. Now all knowledge is a Divine revelation; but prophecy, as represented in Scripture, is one of which the laws of human nature, considered in themselves alone, cannot be the cause. Therefore nothing must be asserted about it, except what is clearly declared by the Prophets themselves; for they are our only source of knowledge on a matter which does not fall within the scope of our ordinary knowing faculties. But ignorant people, not knowing the Hebrew genius and phraseology, and not attending to the circumstances of the speaker, often imagine the Prophets to assert things which they do not.

The Prophets clearly declare themselves to have received the revelation of God through the means of words and images-not, as Christ, through immediate communication of the mind with the mind of God. Therefore the Prophets excelled other men by the power and vividness of their representing and imagining faculty, not by the perfection of their mind. This is why they perceived almost everything through figures, and express themselves so variously, and so improperly, concerning the nature of God. Moses imagined that God could be seen, and attributed to Him the passions of anger and jealousy; Micaiah imagined Him sitting on a throne, with the host of heaven on his right and left hand; Daniel as an old man, with a white garment and white hair; Ezekiel as a fire; the disciples of Christ thought they saw the Spirit of God in the form of a dove; the Apostles, in the form of fiery tongues.

Whence, then, could the Prophets be certain of the truth of a revelation which they received through the imagination,