According to the table in the supplementary volume above mentioned there is not a scrap of Hebrew literature, of any kind whatever, which dates back to the Exodus. The uninitiated reader will be surprised to learn that the song of Deborah, in the fifth chapter of Judges, written about B. C. 1250, is the earliest thing we possess from a Hebrew pen. Not many years later appeared the fable of Jotham (Judg. ix, 7, f.). For some inexplicable reason, a deep silence falls once more upon the land, and it was fully two hundred years before another line was written, at least as far as we have any proof of it. David broke this silence. He, however, was not the sweet singer to whom so many of the psalms are attributed, but a semibarbarous chieftain, capable of but little religious fervor. If our critics are to be trusted there are only two short poems which bear unmistakable evidence of Davidic authorship—the elegy to Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. i, 19, ƒƒ.) and the one to Abner (2 Sam. iii, 33, f.). Some time between B. C. 970-933 Solomon wrote his dedicatory prayer (1 Kings viii, 12, f). This period was comparatively productive, for it is quite probable that during this time were written Jacob's blessing (Gen. xlix), the Book of the Wars of Jehovah, mentioned in Num. xxi, 14, the Book of the Just, referred to in Josh. x, 13, and the predictions of Balaam. The next in chronological order is what the critics are pleased to call the "hero stories" (Heldengeschichten), marked H and H1 in the margin of the Book of Judges, and written by some Ephraimite. A century later, or toward B. C. 877, appeared the Book of the Covenant (see Exod. xxixxiii). The Jalivist portion of the Hexateuch was produced during the reign of Joram, son of Ahab, between B. C. 853-842; while the Elohistic portion was a product of the reign of Jeroboam II, about B. C. 775. These two documents were joined into one more than one hundred years later, or, more exactly, in B. C. 643. The Pentateuch in its present form did not appear till the latter half of the sixth century before Christ. Though the critics cannot agree as to the exact date of the fragments of poems, such as the song of Lamech (Gen. iv, 23, 24) and others mentioned in the Pentateuch, they are practically united in assigning to them a comparatively recent origin.

It will be difficult for many people to see why songs attributed to Moses, Miriam, or Balaam should be later than that of Deborah, or why the former songs could not have been contemporaneous with the events described, as the song of Deborah is acknowledged to have been. After the archæological discoveries, not only along the valleys of the Nile and Euphrates, but in Palestine itself, it will be no longer urged, as was the manner of Wellhausen, that Moses must have been ignorant of the art of writing. And it would be purely gratuitous to assume that he had no taste or time for literary work, that he had no capacity for writing an extended code of laws, or that there were not events in abundance sufficiently soul-stirring to claim his mighty intellect and ready pen. If Egyptian monuments have been correctly deciphered Egypt was highly civilized centuries before the Exodus. To say nothing of special divine guidance, to leave inspiration entirely out of the question, surely there is

nothing unreasonable in supposing that the Pentateuch, in the main, is the work of the great Jewish lawgiver. Equally baseless is the assumption that David left no traces of his poetic genius except what we find in the two elegies above mentioned. Surely, if the son of Jesse could write poetry at all, and no one denies that, if he was able to compose two funeral songs the poetic merit of which is conceded by all schools of critics, he might have written other poems. How arrogant to assume with oracular cer tainty that David could write elegies, but could not have been the author of the nineteenth, twenty-third, or a score of other psalms bearing his name! The passion for reconstructing the Hebrew Scriptures has run wild. The old orthodox or traditional view has been coolly laid on the shelf. The early books of the Bible have been brought to the level of the early legends of Greece and Rome. The critics are no longer satisfied with denying the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch or the Davidic authorship of any of the psalms, but they also depress the date of these and other books by centuries. Possibly, as they claim, not a single book of the Old Testament, be it ever so small, is from one single pen. Even the prophecy of Obadiah, comprising only one chapter of twenty-one verses, bears, they say, the unmistakable stamp of composite authorship. In this, the shortest of all prophecies, three, possibly four, fragments have been united into one whole. One section (1-9) belongs to the ninth century before our era; the second (10-14) could not have been written till after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans; verse 15 is of the time of Joel; while the last section as a whole (15-21), though showing some traces of an ancient oracle, yet bears evident marks of a very late revision. And so with all the prophets, poets, and other sacred writers.

Critics who can analyze with such scientific precision and who can furnish such details in chronology and history should produce incontrovertible evidence of their position. Have these learned men any of the original documents which were used in the composition of the several books of the Bible? Not a line. Have they any reference to them in the books themselves? Nothing that is positive and definite. If, however, they had discovered some ancient papyri or tablets, like those at Tel-el-Amarna, containing the original documents, the analysis of some of these critics could not have been more perfect. Upon what, then, do these men base their arguments and conclusions, which are no longer presented to us as hypotheses and possible solutions, but as scientific facts established beyond controversy, which none but the uncritical would think of doubting? Mainly, upon arguments purely subjective. Their conclusions, for the most part, are evolved from fertile imaginations, and chiefly from critics who openly discard the elements of prophecy and inspiration and reject every trace of the supernatural. We do not doubt the sincerity or the learning of those who hold the views presented in this volume; but where is the mediating critic who can harmonize such views with the doctrine of inspiration, as commonly held in the Methodist Episcopal Church and the other evangelical Churches of the United States?

MISSIONARY REVIEW.

THE MARTYRED MISSIONARY OF MANCHURIA.

REV. WILLIAM CHALMERS BURNS was the father of missions in Manchuria. Leaving Peking, he landed at Ying-tsu, the port of Newchwang, August, 1867. He suffered a chill soon after and died preaching to the people and urging his native helper Wang Whan to remain in Manchuria till other missionaries should arrive. Rev. John Ross, of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, arrived in Manchuria in 1872. The Irish Presbyterians joined the Scotch, forming one presbytery in 1891. The work has been singularly successful. Many Koreans came over the boundary into Manchuria, and through these the mission sent the Gospel into northwest Korea long before "the hermit nation" was open to civilization or to Christian influences from the coast.

Among the missionaries of the Presbyterians in Manchuria was a young man nearly thirty years of age, who entered this work in 1888. A famine, following flood, desolated a part of the country last year in May, and this young missionary, Rev. James Allen Wylie, was active in the distribution of relief, thereby winning the gratitude of the people and securing new openings for the Gospel and a new mission station, Fang Kang Pu, eight miles from Leao-yang, where Mr. Wylie resided with several other missionaries. Another interesting event was the opening of a new church in Leao-yang itself, presented to the mission by men who were yet unbelievers in the Gospel. It happened in this way: Some of the literati in the town resolved to oppose the preaching with discourses to the common people on the sacred edicts. They endeavored to get the dispenser at the mission hospital, one Chang, to deliver these discourses, and offered far larger pay for this service than he was getting in the hospital. Chang declined the undertaking. They took a large hall and fitted it up, but failed to get permission from the magistrate for these public deliverances. Those most active in the antagonism then retired from the opposition, and after consultation the more moderate ones, having the hall on their hands, offered it with its furniture to the mission for preaching purposes; and on the 13th of June, 1894, Mr. Wylie and others opened the hall for preaching, explaining to the people the full purpose and plan of their mission work.

In the height of his local favor the Chinese soldiers passed through Manchuria on their way to Korea. As a company of soldiers were passing through the main street of Leao-yang they met Mr. Wylie, who, seeing them approaching, stood aside to let them pass. The soldiers began to jeer at him and abuse him. He tried to move away, when one of the soldiers struck him. This was taken as a signal by the others, who attacked him with fury. Mr. Wylie was thrown to the ground, was stabbed with knives, beaten with musket stocks, and cruelly kicked, the officers

making no attempt to restrain the men, who, supposing they had killed him, marched off. Mr. Wylie was not actually dead, and was carried to a house and tenderly cared for; but in a few hours he died, thus giving to Manchuria that fertile "seed of the Church," the blood of a martyr. It is a dear price to pay, this of a young, educated, and devoted man; but we do not recall any instance in the history of modern missions where the Church has receded from the blood-line of its murdered missionaries. The ground is permanently occupied up to that geographical line. So will it be with Manchuria, whatever becomes of the Manchu dynasty at Peking or its vassal Korea. It is among the remarkable things to be accounted for that during the progress of the Chino-Japanese war so few missionaries have experienced any interruption of their work. Whether on the coast or in the far interior, except at the front of active war operations, missionaries have been secure as in times of peace.

PROVERBS AND THE ETHICAL UNITY OF MANKIND.

MISSIONARIES in West Africa are credited by M. Jean Hess, in an article in the Figaro, of Paris, with alone holding the idea that the Africans are to be reckoned with on the plane of human beings. All white men whom he met in long journeys in Africa, except missionaries, said, "The negro is not a man; he is a brute, only fit to be a slave and to be governed by the stick." This widely experienced traveler undertakes to show that the popular proverbs of the Africans furnish a sufficient refutation of this view, and, moreover, show that the same moral ideas are to be found in the savage of the Congo and the highly civilized citizen of Paris. There are abundant parallels between the proverbs of the Yorubas and those of more polished races. They are witty and wise, and reveal the existence of an innate faith in truth and justice; and, what is more impressive still, they substantially recognize the standards and principles of the second table of the Mosaic law. M. Hess is perfectly safe in saying that these maxims are not the invention of people without considerable power of observation and expression. They have the same sententiousness which characterizes the proverbs of Asiatic and European nations. Ethical distinctions exhibit such uniformity in all parts of China, Japan, India, Persia, and now among these rudest African tribes, as marks the unity of the race and the universality of the moral conditions to which the Gospel is applicable; for neither the man on the Congo nor he of the Thames meets the ethical standards which his own proverbial wisdom

announces.

The Yoruba recognizes a universal conscience when he says, "When we have committed a fault the punishment is not far away or does not linger; it is called remorse." That a knowledge of wrong is essential to blameworthiness he recognizes in the saying, "He should not be killed who has acted from ignorance." There is some knowledge of human nature in the adage, “We know whom we love, but we do not know by whom we are beloved." The Yoruba places a high estimate on the

results of general experience which have crystallized into proverbs: "When a truth is lost it is found again by proverbs." He does not think that cleverness in wrongdoing will exempt from the consequences thereof: "No more than the careless rat does the cleverest rat escape the trap." Contentment and the thought that happiness does not inhere in external conditions he expresses in the following: "It is better to be a happy slave than an unhappy son." Here are a few general ones: "Hunger prevents the admission of any other sentiment where it is; " "We cannot call the same thing a burden and a delight;' ""The free man may appear timid, but he is never afraid."

M. Hess's point is that the same ethical base underlies the nature of the negro and the white, the savage and the cultured races. Our point is, that these negro and savage races not only have the same need of the Gospel, but are just as susceptible of high ethical development under the Gospel as any races known to history.

COMPARATIVE EDUCATION OF ADHERENTS OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS.

It is with some curiosity, at least, that we note the lessons of the census of India in the matter of the relative intelligence of the several religious communities in that vast continent. The small community--consisting of less than ninety thousand in all-of the Parsees shows the highest per cent of persons able to read and write. The average is heightened by the remarkable extent of education among Parsee women, one half of whom are educated, at least to the point of being able to read and write. The Jews, numbering seventeen thousand, come next to the Parsees, but the smallness of their number again renders it easier to reach a good average. The same holds of the small Jain and Buddhist communities, about half of the men being able to read and write, though the women are illiterate. The Brahmans and Mohammedans show the low average of less than ten per cent of the men, and less than one per cent of the women, as being in any degree literate. The hill and forest tribes are still much lower, none of the women and few of the men being at all educated.

The relative position of the Christian community is not what it should be, only thirty-three per cent of the men, and thirteen per cent of the women, being able to read and write. Two things must be taken into consideration, however, in weighing this item. The Christian statistics include the Roman Catholic communities, where education is not accentuated. The Protestants alone would show a much higher average. But even these Protestants have been largely recruited from the lower classes, among whom education is nearly nil. They have raised the ratio to an amazing degree when it is borne in mind that the rudest and least cultured people have turned frequently en bloc to Christianity. This has been true of the large accessions in Mysore and among the Telugus, as, also, among the Karens in Burma and, later, among the races reached by American Methodists in the Nerbudda valley and north of the Ganges. In truth, the educational improvement among these depressed classes has