his own name, to a particular Church, but published an anonymous manifesto, really suitable for converted Gentiles as well as Jews, to console them for the loss of their old temples and rituals, by showing them that they had a far better substitute. There are two points in behalf of Paul's authorship of Hebrews brought out by Dr. Biesenthal with great beauty. The first is the remarkable fact that Clement of Rome, in the first century, in his Epistle largely quoted the words of Hebrews as highest authority, yet never mentions the author's name. At Rome, then, where this Epistle was long unknown and unacknowledged, there was one man, the personal friend of Paul, who knew it, venerated it, and spread abroad large paragraphs from its pages! Why did he omit the author's name? Dr. B. furnishes the only plausible reply: Clement could not reveal the secret of his friend Paul; the sacred secret of his authorship of Hebrews. And we carry this argument a little further than our learned author. facts indicate that the Epistle was written by Paul at or near Rome, with the knowledge of a confidential few, whose salutation is given to the confidential receivers of the Epistle in xii, 24, so that Hebrews is not merely a general hortation, but also a letter. The The second point is Paul's remarkable use of the apologetic some, Tivés, in his various epistles. The peculiarity is that where an imputation really lies heavy upon many, or a majority, or even the whole of a body of men, Paul's tenderness understates the fault with an extenuating some. The great body of Israel disbelieved; but Paul designates the unbelievers as merely a some. Rom. iii, 2. So Rom. iii, 8, the broken of branches were only some. And Rom. iii, 8, his blasphemers are merely a some. So 1 Cor. vi, 11, the once pagan believers are only some. Compare 1 Cor. viii, 7; x, 7, 8, 9, 10; xv, 12; 2 Cor. iii, 1; Gal. i, 7. Now this very peculiarly reappears in Hebrews, at iii, 16; x, 25. And this argument too tends to prove our Hebrews to be Paul's own Greek, and not a translator's. We do not clearly see that any thing is gained by denying Hebrews to be a letter addressed to the mother Church of Judaism, The closing chapter is unmistakably epistolatory. We still think that we have rightly characterized the book in our notes; it begins as an oration, continues as an essay, and ends as a letter. Dr. Biesenthal's notes are very rich with oriental erudition, and we trust our scholars will closely study them with an eye to the question how far they prove the work of a translator of Paul's original Hebrew. Theologische Ethik. Von Professor Dr. J. CHR. VON HOFMANN. Nördlingen: C. H. Beck. 1878. Dr. Hofmann is widely known as a very original and devout scholar, and as the propounder of a very striking view of the atonement. His most extensive work is his " Commentary on the New Testament." The work before us is printed from notes on his lectures on ethics. Though quite brief-350 pages-it contains the very cream of his whole theological system. It is not "moral science" in our sense of the term; but it is a profound Biblico-speculative presentation of the question, What is the nature of the Christian relation of man to God? It is accordingly a thorough discussion, from a single stand-point, of the whole range of primary questions in theology-God, creation, man, sin, heathenism, incarnation, atonement, regeneration, Church, the sacraments, and the Christian state. We subjoin a few disconnected thoughts from Hofmann. Thus: The Protestant theologians of last century blundered when they divorced ethics from dogmatics. The separation was complete in Baumgarten, (1738.) Thenceforth, for a century, ethics was based not upon Christian truth, but upon each successive philosophy of the day. Thus, Baumgarten was dependent upon Wolf; Stäudlin, upon Kant; Marheineke, upon Hegel. The emancipation of ethics from this dependence began in Schwarz, in 1821, by the recognition of the fact that man as regenerated is the true subject of ethics. From this point onward dates the new ethics. The great champions of the new science are Schleiermacher, Harless, Rothe, Vilmar, Böhmer, Culmann, Palmer, Wuttke, Martensen, Oettingen, and, on the Catholic side, Hirscher, Werner, Kaulich. Again: The primitive state of man was not that of a mere moral blank, and of a purely formal freedom of will. On the contrary, man found himself at the very opening of self-consciousness under the influence of a positive bent of will. Hence if he had avoided doing violence to himself, he would have persisted in the normal life-drift in which he first found himself. This was not as yet a state of positive, essential freedom; but still it was more than mere formal freedom. It was the germ, the incipiency, of essential freedom. The bent of will in which man found himself at creation included also love to the Creator. But it was love at the stage of instinct. In regard to sin: Satanic sin and human sin are radically different. Satanic sin arose, unsolicited, in the bosom of Satan himself; man's sin had only its secondary origin in man himself. It was not an intended breaking up of his normal relation to God. It was not a conscious and direct casting off of God. It was only indirectly so. And as man did not absolutely cast off God by his sin, so God did not absolutely cast off man for his sin. But what is sin? It is any action or feeling of a created spirit which is not a virtualization of communion with God. Satan and man feel evil in very different manners. Satan feels it merely as a barrier to his hatred to God. Man, so long as redeemable, feels it as evil, as the fruits of sin; and he can wish to eschew it and turn from it. In regard to conscience: Satanic beings have no conscience: it has become extinct in them. In man conscience is a vital bond between the soul and God. Conscience is not an instructor: it is a judge. It does not teach us what we ought to do: it simply judges and sentences us in regard to what we do. A so-called erring conscience is simply man's mistaking inferences in regard to his duties. The true idea of the ethical life is that it is a virtualization of the relation of man to God, as established by Christ. All of the heresies sprang from perverting this relation. Ebionism destroyed the freedom of this relation, and re-introduced the bondage of legalism. Montanism invented hyper-Christian precepts and made them equivalent to a new revelation, thus imposing on Christian freedom impracticable demands. Gnosticism debased man's relation to God from a spiritual to a merely psychic or physical character. Manichaeism reduced it still lower-to a gross material one. Pelagianism reduced the ethical life to a purely self-generated one, thus making Christ superfluous. Predestinationism shut out the subject from all participation in his own ethical life, thus robbing the ethical requirements of the Bible of all rational significance. All these heresies the healthy instinct of orthodoxy has at once recognized as such. What is the relative position which prayer holds in the ethical life? and what is its true place in the organism of an ethical system? Daub places it last. Hirscher (the Catholic) places it first. Either is better than when Von Oettingen can find no proper place for it at all, but only gives it casual mention. And it is almost as bad when Rothe makes of it simply a means of virtue. But also Harless treats it in the same manner as Rothe. This is not the place which belongs to prayer. Wuttke describes prayer as embracing our entire ethical action toward God, so that it underlies our whole Christian ethical life; and with this view we (Hofmann) fully coincide. Among the eccentricities of Hofmann we cite simply this one: The relations of the persons of the holy Trinity to the Christian are such that we may and do pray either to the whole trinity as one God, or to the Father specifically, as also to Christ, but not to the Holy Ghost. To the latter we pray only as embraced in the collective Trinity. Erinnerungen an Amalie von LASAULX, SCHWESTER AUGUSTINE, Oberin der Barmherzigen Schwestern am St. Johannis Hospital zu Bonn, Gotha: Perthes, 1878. One of the most curious works sprung of the Old Catholic agitation. The scene lies just after the Vatican Council. It is the story of a noble woman, who, after a life of devoted service to the Romish Church, would not how to the new decree of infallibility. And the woman was noble in all senses of the word. The favorite daughter of an aristocratic and gifted family of Southern Germany, the sight of the sufferings of the lower ranks of society led her to devote all her energies to the work of consolation and alleviation. While caring for the sick and dying in the hospital at Coblenz, she felt the need of being able to administer to them also spiritual consolation. This led to her own spiritual regeneration as a preparation thereto. Her life fills the space from 1815 to 1872. From her entrance into the cloister, in 1840, to the end, the story of her life is that of uninterrupted love to the bodies and souls of men. And for many years she was "mother superior," and thus she was enabled to infuse her own spirit into the labors of a numerous body of subordinates. Her high social position brought her into close relations to eminent artists, poets, and statesmen; while her deep piety and devotion to the Church made her the intimate friend of a whole generation of bishops, archbishops and other high prelates. Her life would then have been far from an ordinary one even had she lived on quietly in submission to her spiritual superiors, and departed in the odor of sanctity. But it receives an additional and almost tragic interest from the heroism with which she persistently refused to belie herself by submission to the new dogma of Papal infallibility. Rarely have we'read more thrilling pages than the long closing chapter in which are reported the many, the persistent, the incessant endeavors of gifted priests and bishops to persuade her to at least passive acquiescence in the new decree. She would not, and did not, yield. And for this she was stripped, in her old age, of the garb of her order; and on her dying bed was refused the consolation of the sacraments; and, when dead, was denied a resting place in consecrated ground. The book of 372 large pages is deserving of a wide reading. Erklärung der Glaubensartikel und Hauptlehren der Methodistenkirche. Von Dr. A. SULZBERGER. Bremen: C. H. Doering. Dr. Sulzberger is not a new name to either German or American Methodism. His "Systematic Theology" has already taken its place of honor in our literature, and is now in the course of study for our German preachers on both sides of the Atlantic. The present work is a very successful attempt to state and prove our articles of faith. It is not a catechism, but a brief treatment of our doctrinal basis. He unfurls the Methodist flag to the German critics without any hesitation. So he begins his work by giving a summary of the history of Methodism, and then proceeds to the treatment of our articles of faith. After a general statement of the doctrines, which our Church accepts in common with all evangelical Churches, he proceeds to prove the absurdity of purgatory and other discarded tenets, and closes with a strong defense of those doctrines which distinguish our Church from some other Protestant confessions, namely, the universal atonement, the new birth, the certainty of our acceptance with God, the witness of the Spirit, and Christain perfection. We rejoice at the appearance of this little work of two hundred pages. It will do vast good to our German and Swiss Church. Dr. Sulzberger excels in his power of definition and statement, and nowhere has he given better evidence of this rare quality than here. Miscellaneous. My College Days. By ROBERT TOMES. 16mo., pp. 211. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880. Mr. Tomes is a gentleman of sharp eye and nimble tongue. He draws portraits of folks which the same folks would not like to see. We do not say that he is a satirist; but he selects points in his victims' characters, the clear merry telling of which is very keen satire. He was pupil in Columbia Grammar School, and what an exhibit have we of Professor Anthon! He goes to Washington College, (now Trinity,) Hartford, and what a set of unanimous shams, college professors, real and titular, were not the whole lot! He goes to the Philadelphia Medical College, and finds that Professor Hare plays pyrotechnics, but imparts little chemistry to his class, and Gibson, the anatomist, is delighted to be "up to his elbows in blood." He goes to Edinburgh, and the real greatness of the men there is too real to allow any satire in truth-telling. On the whole, the book is more readable than commendable. Biography of Rev. Leonidas L. Hamline, D.D., late one of the Bishops of the |