LANGE'S LIFE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.*-The Philadelphia publishers have done a good service in giving to the public the entire English edition of this work in a more portable compass and at little more than half the price. It is, in fact, an English book, bearing an American publisher's imprint.

Lange's Life of Christ is one of the most complete and elaborate that has been written. It is composed after the true German method of dealing with every related question. Before reaching the life, two hundred and fifty pages are devoted to discussions of the Fundamental Ideas of the Gospel History, the more General Records of the Life of the Lord Jesus, the Historic Records, Critiicism of the Testimonies, the Authenticity of the Four Gospels, the Origin of the Four Gospels, the Relation of the Four Gospels to the Gospel History, and other topics, including the Relations of Time and Place among which Christ appeared, and the Scene of his Life, the Promised Land. Everything proceeds on this longand-broad scale. Scarcely a related topic of history, interpretation, theology, or criticism, passes unnoticed. In particular, the author endeavors fully and fairly to refute the negative criticism of Germany, in the phases it had assumed at the time of writing, and to establish the truth and consistency of the gospel history.

Though some years have elapsed since the composition of this work, the main forms of assault were nearly as well defined then as now; and nothing has appeared which would supersede or substantially invalidate its discussions. Strauss has indeed changed his base. Some additional efforts have been made to impeach the authenticity of the gospels; counter-balanced, however, by additional defences and means of defence. The criticism of the text has made some progress, but still lacks settlement. These and some other kindred facts do not detract from the value of this as a learned, able, and elaborate treatise on a great theme. If it lacks sprightli ness, it avoids the danger of sacrificing a fact to an epigram or a rhetorical flourish. It makes upon the reader the steady impres sion of a fair-minded writer, fully discerning the strength of his position, and maintaining it by honest methods. The style is for the most part heavy-after the German type-though occasionally, as in the narrative of the anointing and the scenes following the

*The Life of the Lord Jesus Christ: a complete examination of the origin, contents, and connection of the gospels. By J. P. LANGE, D.D. Translated and edited, with notes, by Rev. MARCUS DODS, A.M. Philadelphia: Smith, English & Co. 4 vols. 8vo, pp. 544, 504, 512, 502.

resurrection, rising into life and vigor. The discussions would bear compression and sharpness of statement; but they are full and thoughtful. They introduce the English reader to a mode of viewing many of the topics to which he is unaccustomed, and to which, though the writer is thoroughly reverent in manner and evangelical in spirit, he will sometimes fail to give assent. Lange's conception of the "fulfillment" of an Old Testament quotation, though in advance of that which Barnes and others drew from Kuinoel and Tittmann, is looser than that of Ellicott or Lee. His theory of miracles will seem, perhaps, the most defective portion of the work, an undue desire to attribute to Christ's humanity what properly belongs to his Divinity. Thus, the reference of his walking on the water to "his pure vital courage in the water connected with the vital feeling of his organism which is the crown of all other organisms"; and the still more startling explanation of the miracle at Cana, according to which "the drink they quaff in this state of mind, being blessed to them by the presence of Christ, is to their taste the choicest wine." Even the raising of the dead receives a quasi-explanation of the process. These things indicate too distinctly the atmosphere around him.

On the other hand, there are many unusual interpretations which it is well for us to contemplate. Thus among the theories concerning the mode of the Temptation, not the least ingenious is found here: that the Tempter, Satan, approached him by the agency of the deputation sent by the hierarchy to John (John i, 28, 29), whose return from the Jordan coincided with Christ's return from the wilderness; that these men, being put on the track of the Messiah by John, make their way to his presence in all the eagerness of Messianic expectations, urge him to begin by transforming the wilderness and the world into a scene of creature comfort by his magic power, instead of that transformation of the world which lay within the scope of his ministry; to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, in the sense of entrusting himself and his cause to the priesthood, as the embodiment of their false notions of the Messiah, and so ride on to victory; and finally to lend himself to a grand hierarchical plan for the conquest of the world. We do not mention this to commend or to condemn, but to show the thoughtful character of the book. There are many points to which we would gladly call attention, or on which we might offer criticism, were it within the compass of this notice. The work is comprehensive, learned, and important, a valuable addition to the student's Biblical apparatus.

PRESSENSE'S LIFE OF CHRIST.*-M. de Pressensé has eliminated from his able and learned "Life of Jesus," one of the best of the modern works on this subject, all the scientific and purely controversial matter, and has thus made a brief, clear, interesting biography of the Saviour, in a form adapted to the generality of nontheological readers.

THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE.-The idea of this work, which is fairly described in the title, we do not remember to have seen elsewhere made the subject of a separate treatise, while it has the suggestive interest that merits so full a treatment. From the materials furnished in the Gospels, the writer would show how the Saviour dealt with his chosen attendants, during his brief ministry, so as to fit them for the service they were to render after his departure. And this design he has executed most judiciously and pleasantly. There are thirty one chapters in the course, from the "Beginnings," when some of the apostles were called, to the "Waiting," where they all expected the "power from on high." The chapters are really lectures suitable for delivery in respect to length, occupying no more time than should be given at once either to a sermon or to devotional and instructive reading, and being prepared from the author's addresses to his own congregation. The Scriptures in view are expounded with care in the light of recent criticism, and thoughtfully and candidly applied for the purpose in hand. The writer thinks for himself without affecting originality, and treats of familiar passages so as to give them fresh significance and interest, avoiding pedantry and excess of subtlety, showing moreover a devout spirit, and proposing practical benefit. Hence the book may be cordially recommended both to ministers and laymen. The style is clear and pleasing. We notice the Scotticism "thereanent" (p. 444), and what we ascribe to the same provincial use, the word "take" for draught or haul of fishes (p. 15), and also a supposed Americanism, "their midst " (p. 342).

* Jesus Christ; his Life and Work. By E. DE PRESSENSÉ, D.D. Translated by Annie Harwood. New York: Carlton & Lanahan. 1871.

The Training of the Twelve, or Passages out of the Gospels, exhibiting the Twelve Disciples of Jesus under discipline for the Apostleship. By the Rev. ALEXANDER BALMAIN BRUCE, Broughty Ferry. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 38 George street. 1871. 12mo, pp. 548. C. Scribner & Co., New York.

PARK STREET PULPIT.*-Some little time since a favorable notice was given in this Review of Mr. Murray's "Music Hall Sermons"; we are glad to receive a second volume from the same source, and recognize in it the same characteristics, with a decided improvement in tone and a modification of some outstanding faults. There is more of the practical element shown in this second series of discourses than in the first. The hand is steadier, the aim is clearer, the style is more simple and direct. The preacher has gone fairly to work in his field, and smaller things engage his attention less. The eloquence is less young-mannish, less irregular and wild, while the real vigor remains. There are fewer "purple-patches" and more passages of sustained power. In the sermons on "Divine Justice" and "The Judicial Element in Human Nature and Practice," no fault can be found with the earnest seriousness with which such a truth is treated, while there is much independence and originality in the method of discussion; and it is to Mr. Murray's credit, that with every temptation to swerve from the old moorings, and to shoot off into the side-currents of more attractive doctrine, he keeps steadily to the old truth, however humbling to human nature and painful to a corrupted nature. There is too, no doubt, where Mr. Murray places the central truth, the all-impelling principle of his Christianity, to him who reads the last sermon in the book entitled "Love the Source of Obedience."

"Now, when Christ, the greatest and wisest of all teachers, came, He understood this. He knew the use of passion, for it was His own child. He created man with it. He knew, too, its potency; for when man was begotten, He supplied it to him in due measure and force. When He began to teach, He claimed His child. He did not go to the conscience, and say, ' convict;' He did not go to the reverential faculty, and say, 'adore;' He did not go to the reason, and say, 'argue, speculate.' No: he did not go to these weaker, these outlying, these marginal forces: He went straight and at once to the great central force in nature,—to that enginelike power in man, which has power not merely to propel itself, but to start all the long train of faculties that are behind it, and dependent upon it, into motion. He went directly to this, I say, and said, 'Love.' In all His teachings He never forgot this. It runs through all His words and acts, clinging to them, and making

* Park Street Pulpit: Sermons preached by WILLIAM H. H. MURRAY. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company. 1871.

itself prominent, as a minor chord in music makes itself heard amid the rush of contending sounds by its clear quietness, and, when the crash of the chorus has ceased, still clings to the atmosphere, as if unwilling to leave it; and you feel that that clear, quiet strain has dominated by its very sweetness over all the other parts" (p. 360).

We notice the same bold imagery and word-painting that are noticeable in the other works of this young preacher coming up out of the wilderness to preach repentance to the city. He lives in close intimacy with nature. He has been soaked by her rains and browned by her suns. He has evidently seen a hurricane— a seventy-five-mile-wind-storm-that tears up the roots and rocks. He is used to broad horizons, not limited to patches of blue seen between brick walls only large enough to make a pair of Dutchman's breeches. There is a fresh tone in his illustrations that have not the least musty atmosphere of books about them. But sometimes his prose runs into poetry, not of idea but style—a bad fault-as when he talks about "the white terror of underlying cliffs."

I

His style is, as a general rule, chaste, simple, moderate, and sometimes very compact in its precision of statement where it would be least anticipated, in points of doctrinal theology, as, for example, in the following sentence in the sermon on the "Relation of Sanctification to the Will." "Abstractly considered, God, in his sovereignty, is absolute. There is no bound, no limitation to it. But, relatively considered, it is otherwise. God, as regards man, limits his sovereignty. He withholds it from its ultimate expression. He puts bounds to its exercise. As it relates to man, say, there is a sphere in which it works, and there is a point beyond which it does not go. He does not work irresistibly in us: for, were it so, none could 'resist' him; which we know is possible. He does not carry his efficiency so far as to mar our authorship in our own acts; else would there be no virtue in our own obedience and no guilt in our transgression. When it is said, therefore, that 'God worketh in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure,' it is meant that he gives us that strength, works in us those abilities, requisite to our willing and working. He pushes His 'working' so far as to prepare us and assist us to will and to work. The fact fully stated, as I conceive, is this--that we can do nothing without God, and He will do nothing without us. We need His help; and He will do nothing without the concurrence of