In the same number Dr. H. L. Strack (Berlin) notices Dr. Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. He commends the author's mastery of the material and the wise limitation of his work to a portion of the entire field of "Introduction." Besides giving some corrections of details, he praises especially the "careful" examples of the style of the different authors. "As a rule the Christian of positive faith need not reject any and every result of critical inquiry; but the attitude to miracle and prophecy, especially to the miracle of all miracles, the person of Jesus Christ, forms the dividing-line between right and left, positive and negative. Driver belongs, like myself, to the 'positives'; but Driver's book also shows strikingly that from this standpoint one may go very far in criticism. Kuenen and Wellhausen, so far as the books of the Old Testament may be the subject of literary and historical inquiry, have greatly influenced the author, so that in a new revision there is occasion for re-stating many positions in a way more nearly approaching the traditional conception; but—and this is the significant difference-Kuenen was driven by his Darwinist standpoint to strongly negative results; Driver, on the other hand, is influenced only by literary and historical reasons. Certainly, in the train of Kuenen and the great body of German inquirers and would-be inquirers, he assigns greater force to these reasons than I can do, at least at present; but the difference between us is not vital, and in very many passages the restraint with which the author judges or avoids judgment makes a favourable impression. I gladly acknowledge that I have received much stimulus from Driver's masterly work; that I have been led to modify many views hitherto cherished, and also that I have been gladdened by the agreement of the author's positions with my own University teaching."

CURRENT FRENCH THOUGHT.

THE PREACHING OF JESUS. A. BOUVIER (La Vie Chrétienne).—“The words that I speak unto you," said Jesus, "they are spirit and they are life (John vi. 63); and the description is true of the manner as well as of the substance of His preaching.

"They are spirit." By "spirit" He doubtless meant that which is opposed to mere form, to the letter, to the flesh, to all that is only in appearance, and to all that is rigid, barren, and dead. Spirit is almost synonymous with thought. His preaching is full of thought; you see in every line of it some idea lofty as a mountain-summit, or deep as a great abyss, or opening out before you as an endless perspective. It is preaching which is both abundant and self-restrained, in which there is no padding or amplification-nothing that is meant merely to soothe the mind, or charm the ear. Strange to say, though His words are full of thought we are not fatigued in listening to them; and the explanation is that here thought is presented in a direct, immediate, and transparent guise. There are no elaborate and confused courses of reasoning which we are called upon to follow. We may see the superiority of the Master in this respect over the teaching even of St. Paul. In the case of the Apostle we have fiery zeal, impetuous feeling, abrupt transitions, and arguments which remind us of the Rabbis, in whose school the writer grew up; while in the teaching of Jesus all is clear and luminous with a brightness which is marvellously in proportion to the depth of His thought. The secret of this clearness is that Jesus does not argue, but reveals. He reveals the truth of the things of God, of man, of the future, and of the Divine life, as reflected in His own experience.

He has that clearness which is only four d in lofty regions that are bathed in the light and air of heaven. Add to this that He gives perfect expression to the thought. Jesus expresses the truth with such brevity, firmness, exactness, and point, that His teaching has an inimitable character of its own. And at all times we notice that though His words are often subtle and keen, there is nothing far-fetched or pretentious about them; they do not aim at wit or effect, and thus lack in dignity or fall below the truth.

Sometimes it happens that the expression of His thought takes a paradoxical form and comes into conflict with our prejudices and errors. Paradox is the ideal set in flagrant contrast with the actual; and Jesus is never afraid of presenting truth in all its harshness and of uttering the keenest reproofs.

We may enumerate some of His paradoxes. There are those which consist in exaggerated expression: plucking out an eye; cutting off a hand; hating one's own life in order to be His disciple; hating one's relatives; turning the cheek to the smiter; the left hand ignorant of what the right is doing; the camel passing through the needle's eye; the mountain cast into the sea; pardoning unto seventy times seven; when we give a feast, to summon those who cannot make any return; destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

There are paradoxes which consist in apparent contradictions: those called happy whom the world is accustomed to call miserable; the poor in spirit; the hungry and thirsty; the meek who are habitually down-trodden, but whom He represents as inheriting the earth; the afflicted; those persecuted for righteousness' sake. And again, the kingdom of God as taken by the violent; whosoever would save his life shall lose it; I bring not peace but a sword; seven devils returning to the house that has been swept and garnished; to him that hath shall be given, and he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath.

There are those which are distinguished by strangeness either in thought or expression: the beam and mote in the eye; My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed; let the dead bury their dead; ye must be born again; God compared to an unjust judge; praise given to the unfaithful steward; if these should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out.

Jesus does not limit Himself to thought, He desires to excite others to think, and to sift His hearers-to separate those that were attentive and worthy and spiritual, from the heedless, carnal multitude. This is evident from the explanation which He Himself gave of His use of parables. They were unintelligible to the indifferent, but they delighted and rewarded those who were eager to search out the truth.

Again, "His words are life." There was nothing abstract in them-no philosophical definitions. We are always in the realm of the living and the actual. Every time that Jesus spoke of spiritual and eternal realities, which the eye cannot see, and which escape the notice of the mass of men, He rendered these truths palpable and apparent by vivid figures and comparisons. It is thus, for example, that the various phases of an idea so vast and complex as that of the kingdom of God are made clear, and brought within the grasp of all.

Shall we quote some of His comparisons, sometimes merely simple touches? There are those which are clear and spirited, and marked by a fine and penetrating analysis: such as the parable of the sower, the figures of the salt of the earth, the single eye, the wisdom of serpents, the harmlessness of doves, the leaven hidden in the meal. Others are radiant with poetic beauty: the house built on the rock, the lilies of the field and the glory of Solomon. When Jesus sets forth moral truths,

comparisons give place to narrative-to fiction. The most striking of His parables then present themselves. These are true dramas related in very few words. The figures are so distinctly drawn that they stand out from the background in full relief, and live for ever in the imagination of the world: as e.g., the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Pharisee and the Publican, the Distribution of the Talents, the Ten Virgins.

Thus it is that the preaching of Jesus is full of life. And this is what it ought to be, since religious truth is not a theory, but something that occupies the whole being that descends from the heart of God to enter the heart of man. Religious truth is by turns a virtue, an act, a state, a world restored, a strife, and a victory of good over evil. It should, then, be represented on the stage of the world as it actually appears to be. And the form Jesus chose is the true one. Owing to His teaching being devoid of the abstract, of that which is purely intellectual, it is not rigid and systematic in form. Jesus left those who wished a system to construct it for themselves.

If the distinctive characteristic of His teaching was in His own eyes that it was "spirit and life," the examination we have undertaken leads us to recognize in it two other characteristics which naturally belong to it: the union of the aesthetic and moral elements, and that of realism and idealism.

The aesthetic element of religious teaching cannot be separated from the moral without danger of deterioration. This has taken place only too often in the history of the Christian pulpit, but only in times of declension and apostasy. For it is certain that appeals to conscience, condemnation of sin, and announcement of salvation cannot be cloaked under vague emotions and melting colours. On the other hand, those great truths which affect and move every faculty of the soul would be ill set forth if one could not draw upon all feelings and images-upon all the riches of the imagination and wealth of language.

This necessary combination of the aesthetic and moral shines forth in the teaching of Jesus. The parable, the figure, is a rich and flowing dress, but one always perceives or divines beneath it the body, that is to say, the moral truth. And often it is difficult to say which is the more striking-the beauty or the truth of His utterances.

I have said that the words of the Master present to us the union of realisin and idealism. These are the two great tendencies of life, thought, and art- tendencies which are ordinarily so divergent that certain thinkers, artists, and orators can be classed as following either the one or the other. But those who limit themselves either to the one or to the other are to that extent inferior and incomplete. And to confine ourselves to the art of speech, we say that the realists grovel upon the earth, sink into stupidity and vulgarity, and weary or disgust cultivated minds and sensitive souls. On the other hand, idealists are carried away by speculations and vague mysticism, and lose their hold upon their hearers.

I do not think that any clear-sighted and impartial critic will contradict me when I say that Jesus is at once and in the highest degree a realist and an idealist. Realism is, one may say, everyday life; its manners, enjoyments, charms, miseries, needs, and weaknesses. Idealism is the life of lofty aspirations, disinterested thoughts, and of communion with things that are invisible and eternal. In the subject-matter of His teaching Jesus is an idealist, a realist in its form; or rather, He is at all times an idealist, for God is ever in His thoughts, and on His lips, and at all times a realist, for He never loses sight of the present, of the world, and of His hearers. And as He unites the Divine and the human in His person, so does He in His teaching. Thence results that marked characteristic of His teaching which we may sum up in the word

spiritual (pneumatic), which includes the various elements we have noticed, and which recalls His own description of His words. It is a preaching which has truth, light, sympathy, warmth, and the power specially belonging to the Holy Spirit. It is the office of the Spirit to illumine, to give life, to sanctify, to strengthen, and to bless. These are the purposes to which the preaching of Jesus is directed. Would that all who preach aspired to follow Him in this!

SUNDAY IN CHURCH.

THE MORNING LESSONS.