God save us from another century of such wrong! Harper & Brothers, New York.

CONFERENCES.

We should be glad to have some tidings from time to time of the meetings of our local conferences, which are really the spring of a good deal of life in our churches. And yet the meagre reports which we are obliged to give are a very poor substitute for the life which the speakers put into their subject; and perhaps what we really want is not so much to know exactly what each one said as to get an impression of the warmth, brotherly love, and enthusiasm which are developed, when a company of Christian people get together to "tell what great things the Lord has done. for them," and strive to learn from each other's counsel what work they can do in his service.

The conference which we have recently attended was that of South Middlesex, which took place at Malden, on Wednesday, June 8.

This little society has built for itself a new church, is embarrassed for want of means; and it was thought that, if we could descend upon them in a body, and carry our picnic baskets with us, we might do them good and ourselves.

Unfortunately, the weather was rainy; and, as we started from our various outposts, we felt a little depressed by the weather. But as soon as we got into the magnetism of each other's company, at the railroad station, the clouds were all gone, in our hearts at least; and, although the number was small, we were perhaps all the nearer drawn to each other. Our Malden friends enriched our devotional service by pleasant choral music from some young ladies in the town, who kindly offered their services. The secretary read the report of the last meeting at Charlestown; and Mrs. Lowe gave a report of the work of the Women's Auxiliary Committee, composed of one member from each church in the conference. The conference had raised during the past year $4,778.10 for the Association. They had no treasury separate from the conference; and this money was not all raised by them, but a large part of it was owing to their efforts. They were doing some work for temperance in the churches, with the coöperation of the ministers, in having some able lectures given on Sunday evenings, by Mrs. Emily McLaughlin, an earnest and very agreeable speaker. They also were making an effort to help some of the weak churches in their own conference.

Rev. G. L. Chaney gave a very valuable paper in the morning, on "The Importance of a True Harmony of Mind and Body and Soul in the Formation of a True Character."

The subject was then open for discussion, which took the form at first of a talk about the religious education of children; and, in spite of fears expressed on the part of some that we injure children by trying to teach them religious truths too much and too early, the general sentiment of the conference seemed to be that the amount of time we claim for them, in church and Sundayschool both, is much less than we allow in the public schools, and in no danger of taxing their strength. Some speakers felt so keenly the falling-off of our children from public worship that they wished we might have a meeting, when the ministers should keep silent, and let the fathers and mothers speak, and tell whether it was the ministers' fault or their own that the children young people do not attend the services in the church. After the picnic collation, which was materially reinforced by our Malden hosts, the subject was opened again in the afternoon by Mrs. Bella C. Barrows, of Dorchester, who gave a very valuable paper, speaking first of the necessity of observing the physical laws, in order to save the young and old from a waste of nervous force, and then next of the value of truth implanted early in the child, and that faith which leads it gently up to the highest. The discussion that followed was in harmony with the paper. The talk all blended in the following thoughts: That we must not delay in showing God to the child. The exposures of life might be good for his character, but we should prepare him for them first by religious training: we must lead him through the parent love up to the heavenly love. One said that perhaps we tried to teach too much, quoting Emerson's saying, " Answer a child's question when he asks you"; and the last speaker spoke of the essay and its fine closing thought, that the spiritual nature reached its truest development in middle life and age. It was to him a joyful thought that with nations, as with men, first came that which was natural and afterward the spiritual; and thus we were always going on to higher love and light.

A plea was made for Meadville College before the meeting closed, and so ended this pleasant gathering of the faithful.

MARTHA P. Lowe.

NOTES FROM ENGLAND.

PROF. SMITH ON PROPHETS AND PRIESTS.

Prof. Robertson Smith's lectures on the Bible, delivered in Edinburgh and Glasgow at the request of a very large number of ministers and office-bearers in the Established Church of Scotland, must be regarded as his response to the action of the Church Commission which suspended him from his professorship, and as his defence in anticipation of the great impending struggle in the Assembly. It was my good fortune to hear the tenth lecture of the course, and to study for an hour the man who, whatever may now happen, has and will have a large intellectual stake in the work of reformation now going on in Scotland.

His appearance and manner of speech were, to me, a greater surprise than his conclusions or his mode of stating them. Coming on to the platform with about a dozen gentlemen, clerical and lay, I took him for a secretary with the minute-book under his arm, a rather spare, little, unclerical person, smart-looking, sharp, young, with an alert, business-like air. But the minute-book turned out to be the lecture, and the secretary proved to be the central figure of the group. Mr. Smith has a sharp, shrill Scotch voice, suggestive of combat, and keen, incisive habits of thought and conduct. His pronunciation is very bad, several of his defects in regard to this matter are not excusable on the ground of dialect. But everything is forgotten speedily in the effort to keep pace with the subtile thought, the wary discrimination, and yet the restless rush of suggestion of the teacher. And that word exactly describes him. He is a teacher, a born professor. He does not preach, or moralize, or hold a brief: he teaches. He may not say all he thinks; he may not point out all that follows; he may not announce or drive home all his own conclusions; he may not even argue; but he teaches: he has information to impart, and it is evident that he knows how to impart it.

The lecture to which I listened was on "The Prophets." Such passages as the following will suffice to show why the leaders of

Presbyterianism in Scotland do not like to trust him in the divinity halls of their colleges: "The conception that in Jehovah Israel has a national God and Father, with a special claim on its worship, is not in itself a thing peculiar to revealed religion. Other Semitic tribes had their tribal gods. . . . Jehovah is a living God, a moral and personal being. He speaks to his prophets, not in magical processes or through the visions of poor frenetics, but by a clear, intelligible word addressed to the intellect and the heart. . . . The essence of true prophecy lies in moral converse with Jehovah. . . . The function of the prophet cannot cease till the days of the new covenant, when Jehovah shall write his revelation in the hearts of all his people.... Under this new covenant, the prophetic consecration is extended to all Israel; and the function of the teacher ceases, because all Israel shall then stand in the circle of Jehovah's intimates, and see the King in his beauty as Isaiah saw him in prophetic vision. ... We see, then, that the ideal of the Old Testament is a dispensation in which all are prophets." This "account of prophecy given by the prophets themselves moves," he says, "in an altogether different plane from the Levitical ordinances. . . . The word which in Hebrew means 'priest' is, in old Arabic, the term for a soothsayer; and in this, as in other points, the popular religion of Israel was closely modelled on the forms of Semitic heathenism, as we see from the oracle in the shrine of Micah. . . . The sum of religion, according to the prophets, is to know Jehovah and obey his precepts.... Sacrifice is not necessary to acceptable religion. Amos proves God's indifference to ritual by reminding the people that they offered no sacrifice and offerings to him in the wilderness during those forty years of wandering, which he elsewhere cites as a special proof of Jehovah's covenant grace (Amos ii., 10; v., 25). Micah declares that Jehovah does not require sacrifice: he asks nothing of his people but 'to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with their God' (Micah vi., 8). And Jeremiah vii., 21, seq., says in express words, Put your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh; for I spake not to your fathers, and gave no command in the day that I brought them out of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.'. . . It is impossible to give a flatter contradiction to the traditional theory that the Levitical system was enacted in the wilderness. The theology of the prophets before Ezekiel has no place for the system of priestly sacrifice and ritual." It must be remembered that, while

the Presbyterian (Free Church) Assembly must officially condemn such teachings, they are sustained by a solid body of very intelligent persons, lay and clerical, who may fairly be regarded as representing the men of the future. Mr. Smith's book is a veritable sign of the times.

Since writing the above, the vote in the Free Church Assembly has been taken, the result being that Prof. Smith has, by a very large majority, been deprived of his chair. The case has awakened the greatest excitement; and it is just possible that it may even lead to a disruption, as the points at issue are felt to be vital ones. But liberals in religion are less given to heroic measures than conservatives, and disruption would have been more probable if the vote had gone in favor of Mr. Smith.

THE REVISED VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

The revised version of the New Testament has, at the moment of its publication, at once attracted enormous attention; and it is already apparent that opinions will differ about it. For some, it goes too far; for others, not far enough. The curious thing is that far less is said about accuracy than about old associations and the "music" of the old style. One is constantly tempted to ask, And what, above all things, do you want, beauty or truth, the thing you have been accustomed to or the thing that is? Rational Christians of all churches appear to view with pleasure the departure of the old words "damnation" and "damned." The luxury of swearing will henceforth be denied to preachers who have any care for the revisers; and gradually, it is hoped, a more temperate tone will be the result. The effect of the publication of the new version will, however, be far more felt in the breaking of the spell than in the correction of particular passages or in the change of particular words. Already it is plain here that the Bible will be read and quoted in a far more open, free, and reasonable way. It is a book open to correction; that is, revolutionary, as a suggestion. The more thorough revisionists on this side of the water regret that many of the American suggestions which appear in the appendix did not find their way into the text. It is felt that in some respects the Established Church influence has prevailed in a conservative direction. But a great work has been done; and it is generally felt here that it should be examined and discussed in no narrow spirit, and from no sectarian point of view.