the theologians of Germany have responded with characteristic copiousness of learning and fullness of details; while, contrariwise, those who use the English language have simply touched the subject by rendering into their own tongue the productions of their Teutonic contemporaries. In Germany the subject has been treated systematically by Hagenbach, and Hoffman, and Rothe, and Pelt, and now by Räbiger, and scarcely less fully, though more incidentally, by Lange and a host of others. But our own writers, on both sides of the ocean, have done comparatively little, in the way of the formal statement and discussion of the subject, except to reproduce partial translations or abridgments of the works of their German instructors. Of these the best known is that of Hagenbach, which has recently been issued in this country, by the Methodist Book Concern, ostensibly as a new work, "on the basis of Hagenbach," a claim that, as we intimated in our recent notice of that publication, is scarcely justified by its appearance. Of that work, the translator and redactor of that now under notice remarks, with a freedom that we hesitated to use, that "in all essential respects the American work may be regarded as simply a translation of the German work; the translation being in certain parts somewhat free, but in other sections quite close and literal." The translator also notices, as we also did, the failure of the American editors to even attempt to adapt the work to English-speaking students or to bring down the history and literature to the latest date, an omission the more unaccountable because it is conceded that it was not the result of any lack of ability. Hagenbach's book appeared in 1833, and though revised by the author in the successive editions, yet it is now about as it appeared more than ten years ago, though in the meantime very much has been published on the subject, and, indeed, a new literature called into being.

Räbiger's work (of which only the first of two volumes is before us) is to date; the style is pleasant and easy to read, because less distinctively German than most of its class, for which, perhaps, the translator is especially to be thanked, and its presentation of its subject is luminous and vivacious. But it is thoroughly German in its methods, and in respect to its stand-point, and the consequent presentation of its conclusions; and by so much it is not well adapted to the use of English and American students in theology. It is, however, about the best available hand-book on its subject, and as such it is quite deserving of the attention of all scholars in its broad theme. As such we can heartily recommend it, awaiting, however, in the patience of hope, the appearance of a thoroughly wrought out treatise on the subject from the pen, and the brain and heart, of some American scholar, who shall be, also, a thoroughly evangelical believer.

Ecclesiology. A Treatise on the Church and Kingdom of God on Earth. By EDWARD D. MORRIS, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology in Lane Theological Seminary. 8vo, pp. 187. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

The true title to this volume is given decidedly the more correctly in the head-line at the top of the title-page-"The Christian Doctrine in Outline." The term "Ecclesiology," though it may, in accordance with

its etymology, and in view of the functions of the Church, include all this, has by usage and in its historical scope a more definite and restricted meaning, by which it indicates the outward Church, with its conditions and accidents, rather than either its indwelling spirit or its truth and doctrine. Evidently, however, the title here used has been chosen because it was the writer's purpose to set forth his outline of doctrines as they are held and taught by the Church. This method has its manifest advantages, though it is in some things specially liable to misleading tendencies.

The book is made up from the substance of lectures prepared for and delivered to the classes of the seminary in which the author is a professor of an honorable record, both personally and officially. But the matter has been thoroughly re-written, and cast in the form of consecutive chapters. These are: the Historical Church, its impersonal constituents (doctrines); its personal constituents (members); its government and polity; its social nature (as a "congregation of faithful men"). By this method the author succeeds in reviewing the entire subject contemplated, but not always aiming at the matter in hand the most directly. The special value of the work is its character, as indicated by its chief title, as indicating how God in his grace and Christ in his work uses the Church with the indwelling Spirit as the one great agency for the salvation of men. The idea is a good one, and, although it has been very greatly abused, it is still to be cherished and made much of.

Revelation: Its Nature and Record. By HEINRICH EWALD, Author of "The History of Israel," etc. Translated from the German by the Rev. THOMAS GOODBY, B.A.. President of the Baptist College, Nottingham, England. 8vo, pp. 482. Edinburgh T. and T. Clarke. (Clarke's Foreign Theological Library. New Series. Vol. XIX.) New York: Scribner & Welford.

Ewald occupies a clearly defined position among biblical and theological authorities, which is that of a rationalistic writer, but conservative in his modes of thought and reverent in his spirit toward spiritual and religious truths. He thus occupies a kind of middle ground; the destructive rationalists have carried his first principles much further than he was inclined to do, while the defenders of the supernatural in revelation have objected to them as entirely insufficient, and perhaps logically committed to the uses that have been made of them by the enemies of Christianity. Respecting the ability and learning displayed by him, all are agreed that he has very few equals, and also that he is fair in his statements, and not disposed to overdraw in making his conclusions; the objections of his opponents being not against either his manner or his logic, but against the premises assumed at the beginning, which, if accepted, would sustain all his conclusions-perhaps even more. But apart from these considerations, the work possesses great merits for its learning, and especially for the sug gestions that it makes, unpurposed perhaps, but very forcibly, that the whole subject of which it treats needs to be examined in the light of a broader scholarship than that which gives shape to the popular conceptions of the subject here named.

Critical and Exegetical Hand-book of the Gospel of Matthew. By HEINRICH AUGUST WILHELM MEYER, Th. D. Translated from the sixth edition of the German by Rev. Peter Christie. The Translation Revised and Edited by Frederic Crombie, D. D. (St. Andrews), and William Stewart, D. D. (University of Glasgow). With a Preface and Supplementary Notes to the American Edition by GEORGE R. CROOKS, D.D., Professor in Drow Theological Seminary (Madison, N. J). 8vo, pp. 539. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.

The production of the American edition of Meyer's great commentary on the New Testament is proceeding with assuring steadiness and sufficient rapidity. Nearly one half is already issued, and each succeeding volume more than justifies the promises originally made to the public by the publishers, and the hopes inspired by its predecessors. The last published volume, on Matthew, is especially interesting, both on account of its primacy in the canon, and also because its methods of discussion by the commentator indicate the tone and spirit of the whole work; and it may be added, that in it both the excellences and the objectionable peculiarities of the author are especially conspicuous, and, like all that follows, it is learned and able, with a strange commingling of rationalizing and evangelical supernaturalism, the latter greatly preponderating. In respect to critical exegesis it has few equals. The work has been thoroughly gone over and largely annotated by the American editor, with the design to counterwork some of the author's extreme Germanisms of construction and interpretation, and to re-examine and determine anew some of the many questions-historical, linguistical, and exegetical-with which the work abounds; and as the author's own statements are given, and also the editor's views on the same subjects, the reader has the opportunity to compare the two, and accept either, as may seem most probably correct. The work is designed for students rather than general readers, and the manifest intention is to show what the text declares, rather than to improve" upon it, for either practical or homiletical purposes; and within that purpose the success of its execution is altogether satisfactory. This new edition of Meyer's great work, which hitherto has been known to English readers only by the Edinburgh issue, and so has become a necessity to all critical students of the New Testament, has some decided advantages over that other in its editorial arrangements and enrichments, and it will also be preferred for its more condensed form, and, especially, its much less price.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TOPOGRAPHY.

George Eliot's Life, as Related in her Letters and Journals. Arranged and Edited by her Husband, J. W. CROSS. With Illustrations. In Three Volumes. 12mo, pp. 348, 324, 340. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Some thirty years ago, as we were about to make a journey by rail, we took with us, to read by the way, a new novel, by an unknown author, just issued by the Harpers, "Adam Bede, by George Eliot." The reading coon showed us that here was something decidedly above the usual

order of anonymous story-telling, and very naturally the question began to be asked, Who is George Eliot? and, What about Adam Bede? but satisfactory answers to these queries were not readily forthcoming.

The American publishers could give very little account of the authorship of the book, and so little expectation of any considerable sale had they entertained, that they had not stereotyped it, but after striking off a small edition they had ordered the types to be redistributed. But by degrees the work became better known, and, of course, more highly appreciated; a new edition was called for (and now it was stereotyped), and widely read, and then it became the fashion to talk about, and to praise, "Adam Bede." And from that time onward a new novel "by the author of Adam Bede" was sure of a ready sale and a large reading.

It soon appeared that the British critics knew as little as their American confreres of this newly risen star, and conjectures were freely indulged as to the writer's person, character, and sex (for somehow the latter was suspected), and for a time-but not for very long-the great unknown remained undiscovered. At length it became known that "George Eliot " -a name assumed as a blind by the nameless writer-was indeed Miss Mary Ann Evans, born November, 1819, at Arbury Farm, in Warwickshire, where her father was an "agent," and in the quiet seclusion of that vicinity she herself had passed more than her first twenty years. It also now became known that she had issued one or more earlier productions, especially "Scenes in Clerical Life," which, however, attracted but little notice, and was not much known till it rose to fame with its author's later works. "George Eliot's" reputation as a novelist was won at a single stroke, its recognition was immediate, and though fairly well sustained by later publications, which continued to appear during a quarter of a century, it never grew beyond the altitude attained at that single bound.

The inclination sometimes observed to find in the writings of novelists and poets autobiographical references has a wide field for its exercise in the early history of this remarkable woman. She was, as to her environments, a country child, living among moderately well-to-do, intelligent, and religious country people. Her school education was neither wholly deficient nor yet extensive. She saw but few books, and yet occasionally some stray volume of Scott, or some other popular writer, fell into her hands, and became assimilated into her spiritual being. Her father was a strict Church of England man, and religious after the fashion of his sect; but it is quite evident that there was a decided Methodistic element (probably not of the later Wesleyan type) in her social surroundings, traces of which appear very plainly in her works, especially in "Adam Bede" and in "Silas Marner;" and some who have carefully noted her references to certain spiritual phenomena among some of her characters have suspected that she wrote these things from her own reminiscences of early experiences. The same things also appear more definitely in her letters. But she was a thinker, a dreamy speculator, and very wayward; and if her early experience was as has been suspected, then, evidently, like

another and a greater personage in the spiritual realm, she "abode not in the truth." It is quite certain that she became a negative or skeptical unbeliever, and that in abandoning Christianity as a system of faith she in certain important particulars also cut loose from its ethical restraints.

Her removal from the place and the relations of her childhood, girlhood, and early womanhood was simultaneously the epoch of her mental, spiritual, and social transformation. Going out into the great world, she, by the law of natural selection, became one of the coterie of learned infidels whose names are familiar to all readers of current literature; and, being the peer in intellect and availability of the ablest of them, she was sought for as a contributor to the class of periodicals of which the "Westminster Review" is the recognized and typical leader. About this time, and among her new associates, she met Mr. George Henry Lewes, with whom her future life became intimately associated. Mr. Lewes, for some unexplained reason, was living apart from his family, for whom, however, he made pecuniary provision; it is usually assumed, but not made apparent, that the separation was justifiable on his part. Pretty soon the relations between Mr. Lewes and Miss Evans became more intimate than those of friends; in plain English, she became his mistress, the two living together as though husband and wife, but never having been married, and he having a lawful wife, with a family of children, living elsewhere. This gross scandal was confessed by the parties to it, and the female partner, writing to some of her former intimate friends, earnestly justified her conduct, and assumed in one of her letters, which her surviving husband, Mr. Cross, publishes without comment, that no "unworldly or unsuperstitious person who is sufficiently acquainted with the realities of life can pronounce my [her] relations with Mr. Lewes immoral." Such was the practical outcome of Miss Evans's (popularly known as George Eliot, the ablest female novelist of the age) "emancipation" from the superstition of her early (and better) days. Her genius, in some degree, saved her from the fate that society usually visits upon notoriously unchaste women; but neither she nor her paramour could altogether escape the odium incurred by their unsavory relations.

Mr. Lewes died some two or three years before his quasi-wife, after which she married Mr. J. W. Cross, who is spoken of as an American, formerly on the staff of the "New York Herald," her junior by thirty years, who now becomes her biographer.

Estimated according to its literary merits, the biography here given is deserving of much praise. Agreeable to the modern fashion, it is preraphaelitish, painting the picture true to nature, of which fashion much may be said both for and against it. But it is neither the work of a Boswell nor a Froude; for the selection of matter given to the public seems to have been made conscientiously and with good taste, and, because her one supreme offense against good morals and decency could neither be denied nor palliated, the editor permits her to tell the story of her shame in her own way. Her genius, in the form of cleverness, is nowhere more signally manifest than in her letters, and by arranging these together, nearly 30-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. I.