thus accustomed to express conceptions in figured forms to the eye, as even in our modern West we have our coat of arms, and in our America our stars and stripes. An ingenious, reflective Oriental people, before books were ever printed, were inclined to shape a momentous thought into an impressive mnemonic form. Thereby we get coin stamps, monograms, signet-rings, abraxases, symbols pregnant with impressive import. There is certainly. presented here a curious combination of agreements. They are a numerical name, Lateinos, that points to Rome; a trine number 666 that suggests the pseudo-divine; and a monogrammic triplet of letters xs that imports a Satanic Christ. It has taken centuries of thought to unriddle this combination, indicating that vous has been exerted here in large amount. The reader can decide for himself whether the combination was really planned: by the vouç of John.

The Atonement in Christ. By JOHN MILEY, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology in Drew Theological Seminary. mo., pp. 351. New York: Phillips & Hunt. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. 1879.

It is the opinion of Dr. Miley that Arminianism has furnished much less discussion of the atonement than Calvinism. We think it is true that Arminianism has furnished, in proportion to its magnitude in the Christian Church, much less theological discussion generally than Calvinism. The contradictions of Calvinism, contradictions between its different dogmas and contradictions between its dogmas and "the universal common sense of mankind," have kept the Calvinistic mind ever restless and on the stretch for reconciliation. The whole system is like the Irishman's cane, so crooked that it cannot lie still." Meanwhile we Methodists have held firmly and deeply to the atonement; have sung it in our most favorite hymns, have prayed it in our most fervent intercessions, have firmly preached its reality, and boldly claimed its universality and all-embracing mercy, without a great amount of critical analysis of its precise terms. There was room, therefore, for Dr. Miley's monograph, and that room he has well filled. His work is the result of an extended and searching analysis, crystallized into a very clear and symmetrical synthesis. The language is lucid; its brief and pointed sentences seldom or never obscure, generally even and level, yet now and then rising into a glow, and sometimes becoming eloquent. Our young ministry especially will, we think, find in its transparent pages a great aid in clearing their views and symmetrizing their conception of the whole subject. We recommend Dr. Miley's manual

as a clear and conclusive exhibit of the Wesleyan-Arminian view of the atonement.

Upon the old oppressive doctrine of "Satisfaction," according to which the atonement covered the elect alone with a completed and perfect righteousness, by which they were justified and truly sanctified and saved, Dr. Miley is full and very conclusive. The doctrine usually embraces the absolute absurdity that by intrinsic justice one man can be righteously punished for another man's sin. If there be such a thing as a moral axiom, it is that, guilt and penalty are untransferable. The clumsy evasion introduced by some thinkers, that the word guilt has two meanings, is here untrue. For what we are talking about is absolute justice and literal guilt, as seen by the intuitive faculty. Such guilt is one and sole; and it inheres solely in the personality of the agent in the guilty fact. To foist in here a secondary meaning of the word guilt is simply to introduce a gratuitous muddle into a discussion where clearness is an all-important desideratum. That second sort of guilt has no real existence.

And when the universal character of guilt is fully seen, and due perception is secured that Christ endured not literal punishment, but only took upon himself suffering for others, the atonement is brought into clear analogy with the course of things in the Providential system. When men are told that Christ was guilty of and punished for another's sins, the intuitive feeling is that it is absurd, impossible, out of the nature of things; but when they are told that he assumed suffering that another man might be relieved from the consequences of his guilty doings, it becomes one of an immensely large class of facts. Indeed, without the possibility of suffering for others the profoundest exhibitions of benevolence would be impossible in the world. Our skeptical friends are proud of Socrates. His death as a classic martyr is a thousand times rehearsed. But, with all his goodness and wisdom, to how much less he would amount were it not for his dose of hemlock. He died for others. Without that possibility he would sink nine tenths in the scale. Leonidas died to save his country, and oratory and song have for ages grown rapturous over the deed. But surely the highest ideal would have been wanting had it not been possible for One higher than all to have died; died not for the good, but for the criminal and condemned; died for those who inflicted his death; died not for somebody else, but for us! That is, indeed, for us, theme for eloquence and anthem.

A Compendious and Complete Hebrew Lexicon to the Old Testament, with an English-Hebrew Index. By BENJAMIN DAVIES, Ph.D., LL.D. Carefully revised. With a Concise Statement of the Principles of Hebrew Grammar, by EDWARD C. MITCHELL, D.D. 8vo., pp. 752. Andover: Warren F. Draper. 1879.

This Lexicon is founded upon those of Gesenius and Fürst, but is essentially a new work. Though the product of authoritative scholarship, it is adjusted to the wants of beginners. It claims to be at once "compendious and complete," having " over a thousand more Hebrew words or forms than appear in Tregelles' or Robinson's Gesenius, besides incorporating into the body of the work all the grammatical forms contained in Robinson's Analytical Appendix." The "Concise Statement of Principles of Hebrew Grammar" is placed in the beginning, under the persuasion that the better way for the beginner is to forego all intermediate "lesson books," and take to Bible and Lexicon at once, grammar coming in as a felt want to be directly applied. The "English-Hebrew Lexicon " is brought in at the end, embracing about forty-five pages, and contains the English word with a numeral reference to the page and place where the correspondent Hebrew word stands. It thus forms an aid for Hebrew composition. Both pupil and master will, doubtless, find the work a valuable part of the "apparatus."

History, Biography, and Topography.

The North Americans of Antiquity: Their Origin, Migrations, and Type of Civilization Considered. By JOHN T. SHORT. 8vo., pp. 544. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880.

Though possessing little interest, either as history or romance, the antiquities of our more Northern America have awakened much enthusiasm of late as matter of science. Even as science their investigation scarcely crosses the path of the biblical scholar or theologian, and scarce passes out of the limits of archæology and anthropology. Yet every liberal inquirer must feel an interest in the question, Who and what were our ancestors on this continent? and must feel obliged for this thorough and convenient summary of the whole subject by Mr. Short.

Our Red Indian, whosesoever fault it is, persists in being a very uninteresting specimen. His predecessors, the Mound Builders, were better, but not very much. The Cliff Dwellers of the South-west had a slight touch of romance and a very faint hue of poetry to them. As to the question, How came they here?

there can be little doubt that the true answer is, By the way of Behring's Straits. Mr. Short critically examines all the theories, especially the indigenous theory, and leaves this a well-settled question. As to the question of the time of their occupancy of American soil, beyond a few centuries it is all a matter of sheer guess. The trees growing on the mounds are some six hundred years old. Let us then give the Red Indian six hundred years and the Mound Builder six hundred more, and fling in six or seven hundred more ex gratia, and we arrive at the Christian era. Fling in a thousand or two years more, and we arrive at the time of Abraham. Sir John Lubbock limits his demand to three thousand years for the whole, and that is quite as much as any known data justify. American chronology, has, therefore, no significance for the biblicist.

Our paleontological friends have had hard grubbing in American soil. From the Floridian jawbone down to Dr. Abbott's drift flints in New Jersey, the geological man turns up a phantasm. They just get finger on his tail, and lo! non est. And even had they caught him, how would they show any historical connection between him and any living race? Scientists should not guess. Boasting of their grounds of certainty, they must give us demonstration, not conjecture nor prophecy. Dr. Dawson, in his “Archaia," twenty years ago stated the probability that anthropoids might be exhumed from the depths of our American soil; but anthropoids are not, of course, men. The fox-sized predecessor of our horse was not a horse. Far less are anthropoid apes real men. Man is not only body and life and intellect; he is also spirit. The power to chip a flint does not prove a man. But, as an eloquent negro bishop once said, “Whoever can lift his hands to heaven and say 'Our Father' is a man.' The Adamic man was not only developed from the "dust" below, but endued with the divine "breath" from above, and no development from below, no genetic descent, could have made him an immortal man without the endowment from above. anthropoids described by General Thomas as exhumed near the line of the North Pacific Railroad, with their receding frontals and long dog-like, or bird-like, aquiline snouts, may have been predecessors of man, genetic or typical, without being man. There may be missing logical links, as well as missing generative links, in the process of proving pre-Adamic man.

The

Our southward advance into the isthmus brings us to a region where archæology rises into something like a glimmer of history.

Chiapa, Guatemala, and Honduras were the home of the ancient Maya race, whose architecture, especially at the ancient capital, Palenque, inspires us with wonder. We are also told, with solemn face, that its antiquity is "very remote;" that its growth is plainly "indigenous," and that traces of "development" are very evident. But its proofs of antiquity are not very frightful. Several very splendid architectures have come into existence and "developed" to perfection in Europe since the Christian era. Christianity created several new forms and styles. There is the Byzantine, which took its rise in Constantinople and attained perfection in the Church of St. Sophia. The Gothic arose some seven hundred years ago, and came to perfection in less than three centuries. The Saracenic sprang from the Byzantine, and produced the Alhambra in Spain. What proof that Palenque is older than Solomon's temple, or Herod's temple reconstruction, or than Diocletian's palace, or than the Moorish Alhambra? Whatever evidences of pre-Adamic, or pre-Mosaic, or pre-Christian antiquity the Maya civilization may present, we do not find them in the architectural remains.

The traditional testimony of the Mayas affirms that they are not an indigenous race, but that they came, as more usually said, from beyond sea and from the East. Mr. Short amply shows how they may have immigrated from the other hemisphere either by an eastern or western route. Especially interesting is his treatment of the Atlantis tradition. Plato tells us that the Egyptian priests declared that there was once a great island on the western coast of Africa connecting with a great western continent, which was submerged in the sea. A similar tradition exists among the Mayas. These concurrent traditions (as we infer) are quite a demonstration, not only of the fact of the submersion, but that the fact took place, partially at least, within the reach of human recollection. Strange to say, the modern sea-depth ex plorations have confirmed the truth of the tradition. A high submarine plateau runs from the north coast of Africa to America. But, apart from this lost natural bridge, the concurrent trade-winds and equatorial currents are powerful enough to precipitate the mariners' barks from the eastern to the western hemisphere with great ease. In the year 1500 Cabral started from Portugal with a small fleet for the Cape of Good Hope; but, passing the Cape de Verd Islands, he bore westward to avoid being becalmed on the Guinea coast, and in a few weeks found himself on the coast of Brazil. The distance from Africa to Bra