My third observation is, that in this way the ethical tendency exhibits a theory which glitters indeed very temptingly, but fails of the explanation which it is bound to give.

Rothe himself acknowledges that the apostles of the Lord, and we add the Lord himself, have subscribed, not to the inspiration of the ethicals, but to that one which we defend. He acknowledges that the church of all ages, under the Old and New Covenant, have taught not a looming up of the truth from out the unconscious ethical life, but very truly a communication of conscious truth; also, that what the believing Christian feels in this pious reading of the Scripture, is not covered by his, but only by the orthodox theory. He grants, indeed, that the Scripture does not come with this theory to the ethicals, but that the ethicals introduce this theory into the vestibules of the Scripture. And every one perceives that this explains nothing, and simply posits a new imaginary something by the side of the object to be explained. When, for instance, and this is one out of a hundred, Isaiah foretells that Hezekiah is to have another fifteen years added to his life, it is plain that this number fifteen could not have loomed up from the depths of ethical life; so that already, by this single fact, the ethicals are brought to face the painful choice, either to declare that their theory is insufficient, or, worse yet, to minimize Israel, one of the noblest organs of revelation, to a very unethical fortune-teller or an imposter of a low spiritual level.

My last observation is, that to draw a usable conclusion from such imperfect premises, the ethicals themselves appear at length as the judges of their own theory.

What does Rothe assert? This, that the prophets and apostles could not have possessed an "errorless" knowledge of the truth, since they were ethically imperfect; nevertheless, he himself dares to maintain that (risum teneatis amici) he, Vol. LXI. No. 243. 3

Rothe, and his ethical friends (who ethically may stand beneath the apostles), are perfectly well capable, with these imperfect pieces in hand, to attain unto "an errorless knowledge of the truth." Thus Rothe readily turns his back upon the theory which rendered it necessary to abandon the infallibility of the apostles, as soon as it touched himself and his congenial allies. In this way thelematic imperfection and noetic accuracy are taken to be compatible with each other, and the common methods of speech of the less "unconscious" people resumes with the ethical scholars again its original right.

Hence, however much we appreciate in the ethical theologians that struggling with both hands to oppose the irresistible impulsive force of the principle, which, as a serpent fostered in their bosom, attacks their faith at the very heart; yet with reference to this question of the theopneusty, their system may not be characterized less harshly than as a cloudy mingling of philosophical theories with gnostic aspirations, covered by the content of a faith-consciousness which belongs to Rome, and not to us; and that complaint must be entered against it, that by this threefold motive it leads to the absolute destruction of the inspiration of the Holy Scripture. Of the Scripture-inspiration, Rothe himself has said: "Sit ut sit aut non sit," and the modern Lipsius expressed it still more clearly, that all effort to save inspiration by the abandonment of the old dogma could result in nothing but self-deception and misguidance of others. And therefore, however much they may classify us in the corpus virorum obscurorum, and try to make the church dogma ridiculous by the "automaten-parodie,” we hold fast inexorably to the ancient and unweakened theopneusty; in our historical simplicity, or, if you will, in our educational backwardness, still believing that, even though he remain ethically imperfect, an embassador is capable of transmitting without error what his sovereign inspires him with.

[TO BE CONCLUDED.]

ARTICLE II.

THE MODERN JEW: HIS WHENCE AND WHITHER.

BY PROFESSOR HUGH MACDONALD SCOTT, D.D.

THIS is a subject of perennial interest. The Jew, like the poor, is always with us, and we cannot leave him alone. He does not dwell in heathen lands, in China, India, Japan, Africa. Half of Israel live in Russia, and most of the other half in Austria, Germany, America. His lot is cast with the Christian, and his future is inseparable from ours. "What advantage then hath the Jew?" Paul inquired, and answered, "Much every way." He so spoke in view of the revelation given unto Israel, while the Gentiles sat in the region and shadow of death. He also spoke as a prophet, for the way of the weary-footed Jew finally leads to the glory of Israel. The Hebrew, more than any other, must

"so forecast the years,

And first in loss a gain to match,

And reach a hand through time to catch

The far-off interest of tears."

But, for the present, the advantage of the Jew is hard to find and difficult to determine. Heine called it a "misfortune' to belong to Israel; and the anti-Semitic movement is as old as Abraham and Darius, and the Maccabees and Vespasian, and Richard the Lion-hearted of England. Every student of history or politics, of commerce, society, race, and religion, must consider the Jewish factor in his theme; and the consideration of it he finds to be like a two-edged sword.

The Israelite is everywhere present with the inexorableness

of law and destiny. The Talmud says that one of the horns of the ram offered by Abram in place of Isaac, was blown at the giving of the law on Sinai, and that the other will be sounded at the Day of Judgment. Between these blasts of Jewish horns, horns of law and judgment, moves the history of Israel as part of the history of mankind. For weal or woe they go together. The heredity of the Hebrew and the environment of the Gentile are in some way, under God, to shape the humanity that is to be. Until the last Jew is dead or converted to his Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, there will never be perfect peace on earth; for the Jewish question is at heart a Messianic question, and this, like all religious problems, can be solved only at the foot of the cross. Past and future of Israel and the Gentiles circle about Calvary. Here, and here alone, can Hebrew and Greek and Roman and American alike seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and here alone can all other things-the good things of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-be added thereto.

We are to consider the past and the present of Israel, not in the expectation of solving a problem,-for the question concerning Israel will be answered only in the revelation of the Lord in the latter days,-but with a desire to set some elements of the subject before us, that we may pray more intelligently for the peace of Jerusalem, and labor more earnestly for the ingathering of the lost sheep of the House of Israel.

The origin and history of the Jew cannot be understood without an investigation into the tenacity of his social peculiarities, as well as a study of the continuity of his religious beliefs.

1.

In the chaos of the Græco-Roman world which pre

ceded and followed the birth of Christ, the Jews rose alone as a race. Civil wars, the fall of the Greek republics, the collapse of the Empire of Alexander, the fall of Carthage before Rome, the end of the Roman Republic and the coming of the Cæsars, destroyed the aristocracy of the ancient world. The racial types of Greece and Rome-kings, oligarchs, patricians disappeared. The men of birth and culture, of ancient family and inherited genius, passed away, and the barbarous, undeveloped peoples flooded the Empire with confusion, ignorance, and loss of race bearers of culture and religion. The thoroughbred, highly civilized man, like the delicate, thoroughbred animal, quickly disappears when his race leaders fall, and he must share the lot of merely animal existence. It was not till the Germanic peoples reached maturity, in the twelfth century, that Christendom appeared, and European unity and culture were once more borne by a fully developed race.

Through the chaos of racial overthrow which marked the Middle Ages, the Jews remained, a thread of continuity, a link uniting with the past, the one small people that kept its racial type pure, and preserved through the centuries its physiognomy and character unchanged. The Jew was narrow; but, by his law, his synagogue, his guarded family, his Ghetto even, he saved himself, when all other civilized nations crumbled into ruin. He stood as no other for pure blood, for the sanctity of the race, for the unmixed household; and, as a result of such a stand, his position in the whole history of Western Europe has been most important.

2. This race unity, covering thousands of years, is closely connected with the Jew's devotion to the history of his people. It is true his conception of history is very narrow and materialistic. Nevertheless, it is true that he, as no other man on