been necessary if letters had existed in those times;" p. 9. That is, the erection of Bunker Hill Monument is proof that letters were not in use in New England at that time, and the oration of Webster, said to have been pronounced at the laying of its corner-stone, was the composition of some allegorist in a later age.

In all this ignoring of great facts in profane history, and in the blunt denial, or special pleading against those in sacred history, we see in our author the victim of a theory and a purpose. He uses vast assumption and but little proof. Three great facts stand in his way, yet he hardly recognizes them. (1.) The books within themselves give evidence that letters were in use in the times of Moses. He wrote all the words of the law," and he wrote "in a book" the overthrow of Amalek. He "wrote the goings out of the people of Israel according to their journeys." He "took the book of the covenant, and read it in the audience of the people." He commanded the Levites to "take that book of the law and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord." The charge of allegory and fiction by recorders of later ages will not avail against such primâ facie evidence of the use of letters in those times. (2.) Unanimous tradition, and the biblical worthies of twenty-five centuries, have assigned to Moses the authorship of the Pentateuch, and it is neither scholarly nor conclusive to meet it all with a simple denial. It is true De Wette and Gesenius maintained, at one time, that the Hebrews knew nothing of letters before the times of the Judges, but they afterwards found reason for changing their opinion, and did change it. (3.) Ancient history and monuments attest the existence of writings in the times and country of Moses. Modern discoveries show that hieroglyphical writing on stone was known in Egypt as early as the fourth dynasty, that is B. c. 2450.

"The period when hieroglyphics, the oldest Egyptian characters, were first used, is uncertain. They are found in the great pyramid, of the time of the fourth dynasty, and had evidently been invented long before, having already assumed a cursive form. . . . Hieroglyphics and the use of the papyrus, with the usual reed pen, are shown to have been common when the pyramids were built; and their style in the sculptures proves that they were then a very old invention.” Rawlinson's Herodotus, London edition, 1858, Vol. II. p. 311.

This was a thousand years before the death of Moses, and writing on Babylonian bricks was common eight hundred years before Moses died.

Among the earliest, if not actually the earliest of the royal line of Chaldæa, are two kings, father and son, whose names are doubtfully read as Urukh and Ilgi. The former would seem to have been the founder of several of the great Chaldæan capitals; for the basement platforms of all the most ancient buildings at Mugheir, at Warka, at Senkereh and at Niffer, are composed of bricks stamped with his name, while the upper stories, built or repaired in later times, exhibit for the most part legends of other monarchs.". Id. Vol. I. pp. 435, 440.

But Urukh and Ilgi reigned about B. c. 2200.

And writing in both the hieroglyphic and sacred characters was common in Egypt in the days of Moses. For the Madame d' Orbiney papyrus, recently purchased by the British Museum, contains a romance of the Nineteenth Dynasty, about B. c. 1300. The Museum has also a collection of thirteen papyri comprising the following matter:

"A portion of an historical poem of which the subject is an exploit of Ramases Second; a small fragment of history relating to the Hyksos period; several collections of the miscellaneous correspondence of the Pharaonic scribes; a kind of biographical memoir of a scribe; the advice of King Amenem-ha to his son; the precepts of a certain high functionary addressed to his son; a hymn to the Nile; and a calendar of lucky and unlucky days and festivals throughout the year. The whole of these compositions belong to the Nineteenth Dynasty," B. c. 1300. — Cambridge Essays, 1858, pp. 229–30.

Here we find a familiar use of writing in Egypt on various topics only about a century and a half after the death of Moses. From the use of the sacred characters in writing many centuries before, we may fairly presume that in the times of Moses, letters were common in Egypt. And as Stephen informs us that "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,' we may safely conclude that he was able to write, and did write as much as the Pentateuch ascribes to him. So the statement will seem strong and conclusive when we consider who makes it, that "there is every reason to suppose that writing was familiar to the Jews when they quitted Egypt." - Rawlinson's Bampton Lectures, American edition, p. 53.

Having thus ruled out Moses as incompetent to write, and having shown that the ascription of the Pentateuch to him is "a Jewish fiction," Mr. Sawyer is left to a wide range, in fixing the authorship and date of the earlier books of the Bible. This liberty he uses quite freely.

"Abraham seems to have had these early traditions, and to have given them to Isaac, his favorite son; Isaac to Jacob; Jacob to all his sons. ... But like other streams, the stream of tradition enlarged with the ages down whose slopes it came. To the previous traditions were added, after Abraham, the Abrahamic; after Isaac and Jacob, the Isaachic and Jacobic; after Moses, the Mosaic; and so on, till we come to the times of Samuel. . . . In Samuel and David's time we are allowed to suppose they may have been first committed to such imperfect writing as the period immediately succeeding the Aramæan invention of letters allowed. Of this, however, we have no certain evidence, nor is it necessary we should have."— p. 27.

"Imperfect writing" in the days of "David the sweet Psalmist of Israel!" And how can the beautiful composition of the psalms of David accord with this declaration! "The language of these books gives the lie to the traditionary doctrine of their early antiquity, and needs only be heard to show that none of them can date back beyond the Babylonian exile." "The earliest psalms belong to an indefinite past, and the latest to the time of the Asmonean princes, which commences 166 B. c.” — Sawyer's Hebrew Poets, pp. 295, 6.

Denying the early origin and use of letters among the Hebrews, our author is compelled to slide the authorships and dates of the sacred writings far down the ages, leaving both authors and times of writing in uncertainty. As thus: "All the books of the Hebrew Bible are anonymous, not excepting the later prophets, which are memoirs or memorials of the prophets, professing to represent their labors, and not authentic documents given under their hands, and certified from their pens." Id. p. 293.

And so David never wrote one of "the psalms of David," and no prophet, so far as we know, wrote a chapter in the book bearing his name! We follow on in the scholarly line of our author:

"Probably long before the invention of letters the Hebrews had lost the true interpretation of some of their most ancient traditions. But it was no matter if they had. Their traditions were for ages to come, when the race should attain a maturity and intellectuality sufficient to enable it to profit by them;" p. 28. "The first part of the Bible, from Genesis to the end of second Kings, is a single work of the time of Ezra, and perhaps from his pen, but transcribes portions of many earlier works, all of which have perished."— p. 19.

So it seems that no part of the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, first and second Samuel, and first and second Kings, was written in its present form till about the year B. c. 500. This defers the writing of the books of Moses, so called, till he who "wrote the goings-out of the people of Israel according to their journeys, by the commandment of the Lord," and "made an end of writing the words of the law in a book, until they were finished," had been dead about one thousand years.

Three hundred and fifty years after the Pentateuch had been completed, according to the common opinion, Mr. Sawyer concedes that in a rough, apprentice way, its materials, and the six books following, began to assume a written form. These rude efforts at composition were pruned and polished and recast by the scholars of successive generations, till Ezra or some one else wrote out the whole in their present form. Hence the significance of his remark concerning the first record of the creation, as it now stands: "It has a perfection and finish which indicate that successive ages did their work upon it, and is the monument of considerable study."- p. 31. There is no intimation that this unknown compiler had the aids of inspiration in his difficult and important work. The word inspiration, or its equivalent, or common import is, we think, nowhere used in this volume. The compiler acted on his own discretion, "selecting from the then existing literature of the Hebrews whatever was deemed valuable, either in history or allegory. Its author is the Jewish Herodotus." P. 19.

All these positions are presented as mere assumptions, dicta,. of the author. No authority of biblicists is cited for them, if we except Bunsen on a single point in chronology, and there is but the faintest show of fragmentary argument. The records

of those holy men of old, who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, being thus denied to papyrus, parchment or stone, and left lying about loose for one, two, or three thousand years for the fancy of any one to embellish, enlarge, or alter, and "whatever was deemed valuable," being at length by an uninspired and unknown man collected, there is of course a good foundation laid for the "reconstruction of biblical theories." In view of what our author has done, as thus far examined, we are profoundly impressed with these, his remarks:

"To interpret the Bible correctly, its different works and documents must be carefully discriminated, and their age and character determined. Any negligence or inadvertence in this department of our inquiries is sure to vitiate our conclusions, and lead to interminable errors.; p. 20. "We do not receive the Hebrew sacred books from the authors, but from the Jewish sacred scribes. Whence they obtained them we are not informed. Their works are sent forth like those of a tract or book publication society, which adopts everything it publishes as its own. Such societies, however, generally give their own names, and the dates, to their publications; but the Jewish scribes carefully withheld these. It would be something to know under whose supervision each work passed, what body decided on the question of its adoption or rejection, and whether the books were adopted with revision or without change. But no document is allowed to bear a mark which shall tell any tales on these subjects. Profound mystery covers all with her ebon wing, and makes them a sanctuary into which curious eyes may never gaze."— Hebrew Poets, p. 293.

With such views of their origin and composition, what character can Mr. Sawyer give to these elder oracles of the Christian world? Can they speak to him with a divine authority? Can they bind his conscience? Has he not a right, on his theories, to become a second Ezra, and recompile them, 'selecting from them whatever he may deem valuable in their history or allegory?' So far as the binding of his religious faith and life is concerned, may he not look on them as he does on the myths, allegories, fables, and semi-historic documents, that lie in the nebulous beginnings of Grecian, and Roman, and Scandinavian history? But he shall answer for himself.

Of the first narrative of the creation he makes these declarations: