world. Here is abundance for the needs of man; but if he slights it, if he casts the truth away from him carelessly, presently his supply has ceased, and, like the prodigal, he hungers and is in want.-ADDISON P. FOSTER.

CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE.

JOHN vi. 25-35.

JESUS fed the multitude with the five loaves and the two fishes, and crossed the Sea of Galilee that night to Capernaum. The next day the people also took shipping and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. And when they met Him on His way to the synagogue, He said to them sadly, "Ye seek Me, not because ye saw signs, but because ye ate of the loaves." What were the signs? The loaves were the signs. The loaf was not an end, but a sign pointing to something beyond itself, directing people on and up. Christ seeks to quicken their spiritual vision, that they may see the sign within the loaf. Through this whole passage Christ warns His hearers against entering physical satisfaction by one door, and resting in it. He opens a door on the other side, looking heavenward, that they may pass on through to the spiritual blessings. So this whole passage urges upon us the duty of spiritually interpreting God's bounty. In making the loaf a sign, Christ also points to the truth that bread transmits life. Bread is the fruit and result of life. The life of the wheat is stored up in the bread. And when bread is eaten, it hands that life on-it gives the stored-up life to the world. The life of God is the life of the world; all energy is of Him. But He gives that life through some medium. While these gracious words, promising such enduring satisfaction, fell on the ears of the Jews, they said, "Lord, evermore give us this bread." And they were thinking of something strange and far away. But Christ answered, "I am the Bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger." The intensely personal method of the Christian religion appears here as everywhere in the Gospels. "I am the Bread of life." Not some laws, or rules, or rites prescribed, but I, the personal Christ. Spiritual truth must come to us incarnate if we are to live and grow thereby. In that expression Christ seems to see the fundamental needs of men -hunger, weakness, emptiness—and He speaks to them all, saying, "I am the Bread of life. I stand over against the fundamental, universal needs of men, to satisfy them." No single term could cover and confront so much human want as the word "bread." His Word is exceeding broad. Christ offering Himself as the Bread of life points to the truth that His religion is a necessity.

66

I. BREAD SATISFIES. Not once for all; but, used daily, continuously, it satisfies. And being a plain staple, it never wears out as an article of food. Christ satisfies. Not once for all, as He gives Himself to the faith, just accepting Him as Saviour, but as He daily and continuously gives Himself to us He satisfies. A guilty man comes to Christ hungry for pardon; opens his mouth in confession; believes, and is filled with Christ has satisfied his need. peace But a forgiven man hungers for positive righteousness, for usefulness. As he hungers, he is filled; Christ is satisfying his need. As he grows into a spiritual man, he hungers for still more; he needs more than when he was a spiritual child. And this process, in which Christ continually meets the enlarging needs of a believing soul, we call salvation. Every natural healthy man hungers for food. If any man does not feel the promptings of a keen appetite, we know he is diseased and unnatural.

II. BREAD STRENGTHENS. A starving man is weak and tottering. He demands bread, that his vital force may be renewed. That pictures Christ's work. He comes

to add to the vigour, intensity, and endurance of men. Lowered vitality gives disease its chance. Being saved is a vital process. It is the vigorous appropriation by the life of what it needs to make it healthy and strong. Our bodies grow plump, full of colour and energy, because of the rich and active process of vitalization within. And we grow spiritually strong, full of force and fire, as we vitally appropriate Christ. Christian truth is curative indeed, but Christ never narrows Himself by calling Himself the Medicine of life. He is Bread. This vital process of salvation strengthens men in the right way. A starved man who totters does not want canes and crutches; he wants food. The method of Jesus is not to prop men from without with fictions of imputed righteousness, but to make them stand erect, because they are alive. The strengthening of the life by Christ is a process subtle, unseen, mysterious as the building up of the body by food.

III. BREAD ENLARGES. There is more of you bodily than when you were a year old. In eating food you have gathered and retained your increased size. Christ enlarges the life. He pardoned you. He blessed you here, He helped you there. He has spoken to you by the way. It has been a long experience. But gradually out of your experience with Christ you have gathered to yourself a richer personality, a fuller life. There is more of you now than when you first accepted Christ. The grace Christ gives us is not stored in us as in a warehouse; it is food, and is taken up into the circulation, and becomes a part of the life.-CHARLES R. BROWN.

THE GREAT CONFESSION.

MATT. xvi. 13-23.

THUS, near Cæsarea Philippi, amid the perishing monuments of a Roman Cæsar, the loyal heart of Peter raised an immortal memorial to the Kingship of the Christ. Well has this exclamation of his been styled

I. THE GREAT CONFESSION. 1. It is great in what it claims for Christ. Once, on the mount of His glory, loving hands would have builded Him an altar. But here, by the city bearing the Cæsar's name, Peter gave Him a Name that is above every name, and enthroned Him above all kings and all principalities: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." These words claim for Christ the supreme adoration of men on the ground of His Divine Sonship. The manger, the carpenter's bench, Gethsemane, the cross, the grave, are incidents, not of a struggling, helpless human soul, but expressions of a Divine love and a Divine life. Peter sets Jesus apart from and above the world. Among men, He is not one of them. He is God walking the paths of His children. 2. This confession is great as an expression of human faith. It is the last and fullest expression of man's homage to the Christ, the highest tribute of the human child to the Divine Father. It is one of the shortest Creeds in the Bible or outside it. It is the source of all other confessions. It is the grandest Creed ever framed by the lips of men. As falling from Peter's lips, it is the confession of his surrender to the Being he sees in Christ. 3. It is great in contrast to the general expectation of the Messiah, and the popular feeling regarding Him. Men were looking for a Messiah, but not in the form of a peasant from Nazareth. Peter mounts above his day and generation. What they do not see, he beholds.

II. We are to regard the confession not as great alone, but as THE CORNER-STONE OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. Such Jesus regards it. "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God." Around this confession the witnesses of the New Testament gather. In their personal faith it is the cornerstone. In their preaching it is the central theme. In their personal experiences it

is the anchor of their hope. Without it there could be neither a gospel nor an evangelist. It was the heart in this confession which made it acceptable to Christ. This was its rock-element. Otherwise it could have been no better than the sand foundation on which the Pharisee, clean without and foul within, was building the temple of God.

III. We must not forget that WE REACH OUR HIGHEST SELVES IN THIS CONFESSION. This was one of the grandest moments in Peter's life. All the manhood in him swept up to his lips, and broke forth in this magnificent confession. We feel instinctively that here he was true to himself. This was one of his transfiguration moments, when he mounted at one bound to the summit of his Christian manhood. We climb to our highest levels in no other way. We give nothing else that is the equal of this. The honours we win for ourselves can never so dignify and ennoble us as this honour which we give to Him. Life finds itself in owning and adoring life.

IV. We are to remember, also, HOW MARVELLOUSLY GOD USES US THROUGH THIS CONFESSION FOR HIS GLORY. The confession of John the Baptist preceded the glorifying of Christ in the witness of God at His baptism. This confession of Peter preceded the glorifying of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. The connexion between the human confession and the glorifying of God is too apparent to need demonstration. Every human confession of Christ is a gateway by which God enters life to honour His Son in the eyes of men. Christ moves through man to men. By what men say of Him, by what men do for Him, He finds His way to other hearts. J. E. TUTTLE.

THE BOOK CRITIC.

THE MEETING-PLACE OF GEOLOGY AND HISTORY. By Sir J. W. DAWSON. Religious Tract Society.

THIS work covers much the same ground as portions of Modern Science of Bible Lands, by the same writer, a second edition of which appeared two years ago. The object of the new book is "to give a clear and accurate statement of facts bearing on the character of the debatable ground intervening between the latter part of the geological record and the beginnings of sacred and secular history." The conclusions are substantially identical with those stated in the earlier work. Sir J. W. Dawson still finds strong geological evidence in favour of the historical character of the early chapters of Genesis. The argument is cogently presented, and the geological reasoning is supported by the results of Eastern research. In the application of the latter, however, a little more care is desirable. Although Assyriologists and Egyptologists have undoubtedly discovered much which may be safely accepted as solid fact, many of their suggestions are merely clever conjectures, which may or may not prove to be correct. Our author is too ready to adopt some of these. It is surely premature to regard Hommel's proposal to identify the ten patriarchs of Berosus with the Sethites of Genesis as proved, or to find the solution of "the mystery surrounding the Hyksos" in the discovery, by means of the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, of the non-Semitic character of the inhabitants of Mitanni. It is also regrettable that Zimmern's identification of the "chabiri" of the tablets with the Hebrews is not accompanied by a reference to the very different explanation of Professor Sayce. There is an awkward misprint in this paragraph (p. 179), "Zimmel" for "Zimmern." The book is well illustrated and neatly printed.

W. TAYLOR SMITH.

OUR INHERITANCE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. By W. BELLAIRS. Swan Sonnenschein and Co. 1894.

In this little volume, made up of eight sermons preached at the parish church, Margate, the author has made it his aim to set forth simply "what it is that we are called upon to believe, as Christians, with regard to the Old Testament, and what are the grounds of the reverence which we feel for it." And there can be little doubt that he has done a useful work in publishing these. discourses. They are written so that any plain man may understand them, and yet they are not "popular" in the sense that they are inaccurate, as "popular" treatises so often are. The marks of wide reading and careful and reverent thinking are apparent throughout.

66

Into the details of criticism the author does not enter. He takes the Old Testament as containing a Divine message to mankind; as overruled in its growth by a Divine providence which determined the result in which it issued; but at the same time, he frankly recognizes the imperfections, moral and intellectual, of the men with whose names its various volumes are associated. "The books of the Old Testament were written and were preserved-to some extent, at least-in the same way that other books have been produced and handed down" (p. 13). But at the same time, they can only be rightly understood when it is recognized that they heralded the coming of the Christ, in whom they received at once their perfect explanation, their fulfilment, their sanction. We hope the book will have a large sale; it is just the book that was wanted. J. H. BERNARD.

MOSES THE SERVANT OF GOD. By F. B. MEYER, B.A. Morgan and Scott. MR. MEYER gives us in this volume a series of expositions rather than a biography. His method is to take the events of Moses' life in order, and to draw spiritual lessons from them. No critical estimate of the history is attempted; for the author makes no pretensions to such careful scholarship as constitutes the value of Canon Driver's monograph on Isaiah. The object here is entirely expository, and excludes all questions of a controversial character relating to the structure of the Pentateuch or the origin of the Law. Within these limits, Mr. Meyer has produced a book which will be found useful by Bible-class teachers and others. Preachers, who occasionally undertake a series of popular discourses on Biblical characters, will also find here helpful suggestions as to method and matter. The style is bright and fluent, while the touches of rhetoric in the descriptive passages do not render the general effect unpleasing. The illustrations-which are placed at intervals through the volumedepicting some of the striking incidents of the history, are poor, and, for the class of readers contemplated by the writer, unnecessary. If anything of this sort was required, we might have been given a photograph of Michael Angelo's statue, from which Mr. Meyer tells us he elaborated his conception of Moses. The book deserves a more tasteful binding. R. MARTIN POPE.

CHRIST IS ALL. By H. G. C. MOULE, M.A. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. No one can doubt the fitness of the title chosen by Mr. Moule to designate his latest volume of sermons. His preaching, as well as his theology, is Christocentric. And though all these discourses do not directly deal with aspects of the Person and work of Christ, there is not one which is not a "tutor to bring us unto Christ." This feature alone renders the book noticeable. Those who are specially interested in the

best type of evangelical teaching within the Church of England will regard Mr. Moule as a wise and earnest teacher. While always devout and spiritual in tone, he can speak with straightforwardness and strength when occasion demands. There is an effective appeal to young men in the sermon entitled "Christ the Liberator," and there are not a few discourses in the volume which enable us to understand the causes of Mr. Moule's influence among a large section of the youth of his university. "Heavenly Reasons for Liberal Giving '-a happy title-may be mentioned as a good example of Mr. Moule's more practical teaching, while "Justification" is a fairminded study in Pauline theology, and a capital specimen of the way in which he modernizes theological truths which are not popular as pulpit themes to-day. He vindicates a forensic gospel on the ground that "a gospel from the region of eternal right must, if it is genuine, be a gospel in whose very life is law; a gospel in which infallibly, from one side at least, the Divine welcome must be expressed in terms of justification." R. MARTIN POPE.

VILLAGE SERMONS. By Dean CHURCH. Second Series. Macmillan. 1894. A VOLUME of Dean Church's sermons needs no recommendation. Few preachers of our time have been listened to with such respectful attention by those who have themselves to preach. His deep insight into human nature, his wide knowledge, his chastened eloquence, his beautiful character, all contributed to the peculiar charm of those cathedral sermons which have found a home in so many clerical libraries. As Spenser was 'the poet's poet," so, it has been said, was Dean Church "the preacher's preacher." In the Village Sermons, of which a second series has now appeared, we hear him addressing, not the vast congregation at St. Paul's, but plain country-folk, and the charm is as great as ever. It is borne in upon one, as one reads them, how intensely the preacher felt the seriousness of life, and the reality and closeness of the spiritual world. It has been given to few men to think so profoundly, and to speak so simply, on the greatest of all topics. J. H. BERNARD.

66

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HEBREW: CONTAINING GRAMMAR, EXERCISES, AND READING LESSONS. By J. L. T. MAGGS, B.A., Prizeman in Hebrew and New Testament Greek, London University. London : Charles H. Kelly. 1894.

THIS is a little volume intended especially for the benefit of those students who are compelled to commence the study of Hebrew without a master at hand to explain the difficulties met with in the beginning. It is, however, not solely intended for such persons, but for junior classes in Hebrew. And for both classes of students it will be helpful. The book is beautifully printed; the printing is clear, distinct, and accurate. The paradigms are so arranged that they can be drawn out at full length, and kept out while the student is engaged in the study of the sections which explain them. This is a feature which shows how carefully the author has kept in view the minor difficulties which beset the learner, especially those who have but little time available for the more or less irksome task of mastering the grammar of a language. On the whole, this little volume is sure to be a boon to junior students. But, however useful such books may be in the commencement of their studies, we cannot too earnestly impress upon those who really desire a knowledge of Hebrew, that they must not fancy they can do without the careful study of a larger grammar, such as that of Gesenius,