CURRENT LITERATURE.

GOVERNOR CHAMBERLAIN'S ADMINISTRATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA.*—We have received a copy of this work too late for an extended notice in this number of the REVIEW. It is our purpose to review the book hereafter and we will therefore at the present time merely announce its appearance. Having glanced over its pages we will add however that it gives every indication of containing a full, authentic, and thoroughly interesting account of one of the most important episodes in the history of Southern Reconstruction. The misgovernment that fell upon South Carolina during this period, arose primarily from the obstinate refusal of her leading and better classes to accept the situation, and to second the efforts of the Federal Government to enlist their interest and support in re-establishing the State on a new and better basis. This refusal necessarily left the management of its affairs largely to a less responsible and more ignorant class and the results are well known and clearly set forth in this volume. That a different course of action by the natural leaders of the people would have prevented all the evils for which maledictions are now heaped upon the "blacks and carpet-baggers" alone, is manifest from the fact that Gov. Chamberlain, at first without any assistance whatever from the leading white citizens of South Carolina, was able to accomplish so much in stemming the tide of corruption and folly which had set in previous to his election to the governorship. When his sincerity, courage, ability, and thorough integrity in the performance of his executive duties became so manifest as to extort their reluctant admiration and confidence, some faint encouragement on their part came to his aid, and had he been seconded by them, as they almost universally admitted he deserved to be, an era of security, prosperity, and repose might have been easily established on the basis of a genu. ine political freedom. Unfortunately such a basis was by no means in accordance with the popular desire or purpose. The old

* Governor Chamberlain's Administration in South Carolina.-A Chapter of Reconstruction in the Southern States, by WALTER ALLEN. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 8vo. pp. 544.

elements of race tyranny and local bigotry were too strong to be smothered, and after a brave but constantly losing contest, Gov. Chamberlain, abandoned by President Hayes to the mercy of an organized mob, was driven from South Carolina. From that time forth the cause of democratic liberty in the Cotton States was seen to be hopelessly lost, until that regeneration of their people which will ultimately come shall have been attained, or the Federal Government shall find both the will and the way to maintain the rights of its own citizens within their borders. The book is handsomely printed and bound, and is in every way worthy of the importance of its subject.

Even in so short notice as this, we cannot forbear a reference to the admirable manner in which the editor, Mr. Walter Allen, has accomplished his task. The great mass of documents which are here collected is so skillfully arranged, that, with the copious index which is furnished, the book can be readily consulted for information on any particular subject. In his preface, Mr. Allen says: "From the nature of the work that fell to his lot, the chief actor in this brief passage of history, not to say its hero, has been subjected in some quarters, to much dispraise, blame, and even obloquy. It cannot be doubted that he is a man of such quality as willingly to rest his claims to honorable remembrance on the truth of history,-the whole truth. It will not be disputed that for the period covered by this record he presents an interesting figure; nor will it be denied that he exhibited some high civic virtues and capacities, and did for South Carolina more than was hoped for at the time, and more than seemed within the power of one man. That he brought to his task great force of character, a strong purpose, admirable courage, high culture, and a powerful eloquence, is generally conceded. What he was, what he did, as well as the character of the events with which he was connected, will, however, best appear from a perusal of the record revealed in the following pages, in which no act or utterance that seemed to have importance regarding his aim and work has been willfully suppressed. By such completeness could best be fulfilled in respect of the subject in hand, what Tacitus conceived to be the main office of history: To prevent virtuous acts from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds shall fear an infamous reputation with posterity.

"The whole is submitted with the confidence-such confidence as Carlyle must have had in publishing the Letters of Cromwell

-that the only condition indispensable to a just appreciation of one who bravely and honorably performed a hard duty is that what he did, why he did it, and how he did it, shall be fully and fairly set forth.”

RENAN'S HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL.*-The present volume is, as the author assures us in his preface, a part of a comprehensive work projected forty years ago, "The Origin of Christianity."

M. Renan's plan was to write the History of Israel as an introduction to the history of the first century and a half of Christianity. His reasons for deviating from his original design, and "plunging into the middle of the series," are the uncertainty of life, and chiefly the special attraction he felt toward the two chief persons in the history of Christianity-Jesus and Paul. The work which should have appeared first has been completed after six years of the author's undivided attention, and the first volume is now offered to the public; the two remaining volumes are promised within a limited time, and the entire work will bring the History of Israel down to the definite established Judaism in the time of Esdras. The present volume covers the time from the formation of the distinct people, as a branch of the nomad Semites, to the definite establishment of the kingdom of Israel under King David.

Those acquainted with the writings of Renan scarcely need be told that they will find in the present work the same brilliant and facile author, the same luminous and fascinating method of treating his subject that have always given M. Renan a strong if not dangerous attraction.

But what shall we say of Renan himself, and of the latest fruit of this gifted author's genius? It is by no means easy to do justice by M. Renan; he shocks our religious feelings by his levity of mind and his hard judgments; he tears away with a ruthless hand the veil of mystery where we are most impelled to recognize the presence of God, whose "ways are past finding out." He goes athwart our most cherished and deeply rooted convictions, he evinces a total incapacity for spiritual apprehension, he is Paul's "psychical man," attempting to give an account of things which the "psychical man" cannot know, because they are "spir* History of the People of Israel till the Time of King David. By ERNEST RENAN. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 12mo, pp. 362.

itually discerned," and M. Renan does not appear to possess the organ or sense for the spiritual. We are prone to ask, Does Renan really understand the people of Israel, whose history he has written, he fails so signally to follow that people with sympathy in the profounder and more significant moments of their religious history. He has apparently no recognition of the great moral struggles, the profound religious experiences that constitute the greatness and unique significance of Israel. It is this lack of sympathetic appreciation, the first requisite to any true understanding, that makes us distrust Renan's qualification for such a task as he has proposed to himself.

Renan's general philosophy of the world and of man is one that finds neither occasion nor room for any god who is distinct from or superior to the material universe and the nature of man.

"No signs have been discovered in nature of any intelligent agent superior to man. Nature is inexorable, its laws are blind. Prayers never encounter any being that they can turn from its purpose. No prayer or aspiration has ever healed a disease or won a battle." Indeed, the two expressions which recur in the writings of Renan, "the genius of humanity" and the "Soul of the World," are quite synonymous with God. This philosophy of religion, we will only observe at present, allows no action of God as distinct from the mechanism of nature and the will of man. There is no room in such a philosophy of religion for a selfrevelation of God as the source of man's religious life, much less a self-revelation of God in the form of historical action.

M. Renan belongs to a dominant school of historians which is distinguished by the critical principles it employs in the treat ment of the biblical writings, and by the religious-philosophical assumptions under which it investigates the history of Israel. He starts with essentially the same presuppositions with Wellhausen, Reuss, and Kuenen, is guided by like critical principles, and we should expect him to reach very similar conclusions; but there are, however, two features in his treatment of the religion of Israel which distinguish his position somewhat sharply from the position of these historians. In marked deviation from his associates, Renan places the beginning of Israel's proper religion in a time far back of the beginning of Israel's history as a nation. It is not with the religion of Israel as a nation, the religion of Javeh, the God of Israel, that the development of the religion of Israel properly begins, nor is it to the period of the national existence of Israel

that we have to look, if we would find Israel's religion in its typical form. It is to the age of the Patriarchs, to the nomad-Semites -more precisely to a single branch of the Terachite-Semites, the Beni-Israel that we must turn if we would know what that religion is which it was the unique vocation of Israel to make the possession of humanity. This religion of the Beni-Israel was, Mr. Renan teaches, a simple but spiritual monotheism. It consisted in the recognition of God as Elohim, the generic name for the Divine, the Almighty, the Ruler of all things. Elohim was worshiped by simple rites, free from idolatry and from human sacrifices. This religion of Elohim inculcated the plain virtues of truth, courage, hospitality, kindness, and unselfish regard for others. It is this unhistoric period that has special attraction for Renan. He finds in this religion of Elohim, the type of Israel's religion; it is the ideal to which the better minds-those who best preserved the genius of the people-always looked back and which they sought to restore. Indeed, according to Renan, the whole course of the religious history of Israel may be summed up in the endeavor to restore the religion of the Patriarchs. This estimate of the importance of the pre-Mosaic period for the religious development of Israel is in marked deviation from the significance which all the historians of the school to which Renan belongs, attach to it. With these historians, Israel's proper religion begins with the national life, and the development of Israel's religion goes hand in hand with the national history.

Quite otherwise with Renan; he sees in the nationalism of Israel the decadence from its religion, at the very outset. The adoption of Javeh to be the God of Israel was the sin and apostasy of Israel. Javeh was not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was a tribal deity of obscure origin; originally cruel, fierce, destructive, not better than Chemesh or other tribal gods. Javeh was definitely adopted by the tribes in the wilderness, and he subsequently became the national God. As God of Israel, Javeh was no better than the nation. He was its "alter ego," its "genius or spirit personified." He did not make Israel better. Far from it, he brought to Israel those idolatries, those shocking and abominable rites, that were the great hinderances to the spiritual progress of Israel. "Javeh is not just, being monstrously partial toward Israel, and cruelly severe upon other peoples. He loved Israel and hated the rest of the world. slew, lied, deceived, and robbed, all for the benefit of Israel."

He