away the philosophical alloy from the pure gold which still hides in the kernel of your faith. Be done with that limping on two mutually excluding principles. Choose once more a form that will suit the glorious life in which you also desire to lave and satisfy your soul. Above all, have pity, have mercy, upon those who are deeply hurt, because they are the church of the living God." And if the younger among them were to ask, if then they must violate their insight and do violence to their scientific conscience, I would answer, "No; never do that. It is never safe to do anything against the conscience, and no difficulties of conscience may ever be called conquered before they are conquered indeed. But if you would do violence, if you would try your strength against something, oh, then, in the name of the Lord, let me urge you to do violence indeed against the highness of our human thinking, cast your biblical criticism, and not the Bible, into the meltingpot, and, as theologians, and as shepherds of the flocks, cease from aspiring to be anything else, or anything higher than small in your own wisdom and correspondingly more richly endued instruments of the Holy Ghost."

ARTICLE V.

NEW LIGHT ON THE PSALMS.

BY THE REVEREND ROBERT CAMERON, D.D.

1

THE writer has just read an advance copy of one of the most remarkable books 1 that have come from the press during the past hundred years. Unless one is laboring under a misconception of its importance, this book will create a greater sensation amongst the scholars of Christendom, and will become a greater factor in securing a return to sane thinking, than any event since the modern methods of the destructive critics have "had the floor," and have secured the ear of the Christian public. And yet, the fundamental facts upon which the book is based, are so simple, so self-evident, and in such harmony with every phenomenon in the Psalter, that one can only wonder why the discovery had not been made by others during the past two thousand years. The achievement of the author illustrates what a small amount of careful research and independent thinking there is amongst men of reputed learning, after all the boasting made in behalf of modern scholarship.

It is well known amongst all students of the Scriptures, that the titles of the Psalms-that is, their superscriptions and subscriptions have been a source of great perplexity to the commentators and expositors. This is true amongst the Jewish scholars as well as amongst those of the Christian faith. In fact, one part of the titles has been given up in despair. In

1The Titles of the Psalms. By Joseph William Thirtle. London and New York: Frowde.

general terms these titles may be ranged under three heads: (1) the authorship and character of the psalm; (2) the historical circumstances out of which the psalm had its growth; (3) the place of the psalm in the service of the temple as indicated by such words as "To the Chief Musician." As to the first two classes of psalms, the only difficulties that have arisen have had their origin in the prejudices and preconceived notions of the expositors; but, when we come to the last class of titles, the case is entirely different. Everything is inconsistent, contradictory, and confusing. Neither Jew nor Christian, neither narrow evangelical nor broad latitudinarian nor spiritualizing mystic, has been able to thread his way through the jungle. Neither the reverent student who believes in the consistent unity of the Bible as a whole, and of the Psalms as a part of that whole, nor the flippant sciolist who talks about sources" for which he had no evidence, and scraps and redactors and editors that never had an existence outside of his mental conceptions, could solve the problem. The difficulties have existed for more than two thousand years-they defied the ingenuity of the greatest scholars two hundred years before the days of our Lord. Dr. Delitzsch, speaking of these titles, says: "The LXX. found them already in existence, and did not understand them. The key to their comprehension must have been lost very early." By common consent, then, the key to an understanding of the musical titles of the Psalter has been hopelessly lost for more than two thousand years. How was it lost, and how was it found? The answer to these two questions, together with a few consequences that follow, is the essence of what we have in hand.

It is of importance that we take into consideration the condition of the ancient writing. It is conceded, that neither in prose nor in poetry were there any paragraph divisions, such

as we use at the present day with good results, to assist the eye in reading and the mind in understanding. The material was run along on papyrus or parchment or vellum without any break, and without any system of punctuation. In legal circles, where they draw up documents involving millions, it is the mark of good form to-day to affect this ancient custom -only, it is the custom to use capital letters at the beginning of the sentences. But even this feature did not characterize ancient writing. Hence it was often difficult, because the documents followed each other in such close proximity, to distinguish the one from the other.

Now the book of Psalms presented just that problem when the LXX. undertook their work of translating the Hebrew into Greek. Psalm followed psalm in the Hebrew text, and psalm follows psalm in the Greek translation. The only indications that one psalm ended, and another had begun, were the terms "Michtam," "Maschil," "by David," "by Asaph," "by Solomon," "a Psalm," "a Song." Where these were found, the material was broken up and separated. But where none of these terms were found, and the psalms were what the rabbis called "orphans," it was the custom to combine one or more of them together, both in the Hebrew manuscripts and in the early codices of Christian writings. The Psalter was in this compact form when the LXX. completed their work.

It is self-evident that if the psalms were originally written with one title at the beginning, giving its authorship and origin, and another title at the end, designating its musical use in the temple service, then the ending of one psalm might easily be bracketed by mistake with the beginning of another psalm following. In other words, the dividing line could easily be drawn in the wrong place. In this way, the psalm that had a title showing its nature, its authorship, and the

circumstances out of which it was born, would have a musical setting for a place or occasion in the temple altogether out of keeping with its contents. In modern times it would be like singing a funeral hymn at a wedding feast, or, having a hymn written for private devotion, chanted at a public thanksgiving, or a day of national humiliation. And this is exactly what has happened to many psalms at the hands of the LXX., and the whole of Christendom has followed, like "Israel following the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, wherewith he made Israel to sin-they have not departed therefrom."

This disorder continues until to-day. It is in the King James's version and it is in the standard American version. Indeed, it is in all versions of the psalms-Jewish, Roman, or Protestant. The musical title that belongs to the end of the psalm that precedes, is linked to the literary title which stands at the beginning of the psalm which follows. Hence, being out of their true places, they give no intelligent account of themselves-they are as much out of place as the sword of a king in the hands of a preacher; they throw a cloud over the psalm that they ought to illuminate; they baffle the ingenuity of expositors; and lexicographers, being "off the scent,” have made guesses and suggestions that are neither creditable to scholarship nor helpful to devotion. For two and a half millenniums these musical titles have either been buried or silenced by learned lumber, or, when allowed to speak, their voice has confused and bewildered those who have lent attentive ears.

But, granting this, how could a knowledge of such a simple fact drop out of sight and out of mind? how, especially out of the Jewish mind? This is too large a question for the limits of this article. But, when one calls to mind the vicissitudes of the Jewish people from the days of the destruction of