LIFE'S PROBLEMS.

Life's Problems. Essays: Moral, Social, and Psychological. London: Bell and Daldy.

TIMES of great political excitement, or commercial enterprise, are not usually considered as favourable to the developement of spiritual life. The distraction of mind consequent on an unsettled state of things, seems hardly compatible with that religion which bids us "take no thought (i.e. anxious concern, as Dean Trench explains the word, according to the meaning it bore in the sixteenth century) for the morrow" but yet it is true that such times have generally produced men of great learning, as well as of great sanctity. We need not refer to the Fathers of the first three centuries, we need only name our own seventeenth century, as producing a school of most learned divines; whose learning and piety were nursed amid bloodshed and persecution.

The truth probably is that extremes on one side provoke extremes on the other great wickedness causes a reaction to great holiness; the excitement in temporal affairs compels to seek rest in devotion it is the dead level of worldliness, that is so dangerous, so fatal to spiritual life; the blind contentedness with a low tone of religion, that is the hardest to rouse. But get up a real tangible opposition, show an actual moving enemy, and the dormant energies are called into play; and there is immediately displayed a progression by antagonism. We shall generally find, too, that it is in exciting and troublous times that books of devotion are most used, and daily services, and frequent celebrations are best attended. The fact is that the soul of a really religious person desires something which the world cannot give, to which even the social intercourse of family life, much less mere amusement, fails to yield satisfaction or repose. The mind, immersed in business, employed in various schemes for the larger part of the day,business perfectly honest, schemes perfectly legitimate, desires some quiet moments for reflection, and devotion. Nay, we believe that in this speculating world, amid all these risks and ventures which perhaps must be entered into to make business prosperous and to keep pace with the age, it is only a very strong religious spirit, a practical exercise of religion, that can make anyone judge accurately between legitimate and reckless commercial speculation. Not only is there the temptation to make large gains at a stroke, there is also the fatal influence of example, when commercial morality is low, as it is at this present day. We know how difficult it is to stand out against this temptation, not only from the force of sympathy, but because it seems to be setting ourselves up, and

condemning others: a self-righteous Pharisee can do this; but a humble-minded honest publican shrinks from it.

We have more than once been surprised at finding deeply devotional books, books apparently written by and for persons who had to a great measure retired from the world, read and prized by some who were to all outward appearance absorbed in worldly pursuit and business. At first sight we should have judged them to be utterly unsuited, not to say incomprehensible, to such a class of persons further reflection, however, qualified this opinion: they were entirely suited, because the mind needed something totally different to the worldly pursuits it was necessarily engaged in; and as the draught could only be small, it was all the more needful that it should be strong and rich to recruit the exhausted spiritual strength. Two classes of books are needed for minds of this kind: the one devotional, the other introspective. The latter class of books is of far more importance than is generally considered for the persons we are speaking of. From the danger we are all in of taking our moral standard from the tone of the common morality of society, we are apt to forget the higher standard of the law of CHRIST. We are every now and then recalled to a sense of the difference of these two standards by some tremendous commercial failure; in which we see that speculation has been carried so far into the region of uncertainty and risk, that trust and confidence has been abused, and the ruin of one man has involved in it that of hundreds, who trusted in him. Now we only see this by reason of the failure of the speculation, not from the speculation itself: had that proved successful instead of disastrous, many would not have seen the immorality at all. Books then which search into the motives of actions, expose the common fallacies of argument which pass current and by which men deceive themselves, which point out the real principles of truth and justice, show how these are evaded or overlooked in everyday business, are of very substantial value, inasmuch as they furnish practical illustrations of everyday life, and warn men imperceptibly of unseen danger. When motives are analysed, sophistries exposed, the false reasonings of the intellect confuted, the inner workings of the soul laid bare, selfreflection is promoted, reason and conscience are restored to their balance, and righteousness and truth are set up again as supreme.

Nothing is so easy as to frame general rules, and lay down great principles, for the guidance of life; nothing so difficult as to apply them. There is ever a debateable land between truth and falsehood, between justice and injustice, right and wrong, in which great principles and general rules seem to blend into their opposites and become confounded. Anyone can distinguish midday from midnight, but who will venture to state the exact moment when day begins and night ceases? Anyone will be able to condemn revenge as unchristian, but two interested parties will have

totally different views on a practical point in which a wronged person seeks justice, whether he seeks for mere just redress, or whether he carries the principles of justice into the region of revenge. It is here, as Butler so well points out, that the great moral trial lies, it is here that we all need the guidance of other minds than our own;-the phases are so various, the conflicting accidents so perplexing. A man must be a very experienced director, who is always ready to give sound advice-in the absence of such a director a very useful place is filled up by such books as we have mentioned above. One such book well written, well studied, and still more, well thought over, will do very much to guide the conduct: yet all this is vain without self-examination, and self-application; anyone with a conscience of ordinary rectitude will judge correctly of another's acts; while he will go most woefully astray in his own: it is one of the last powers that the soul gains to view itself from a point outside itself

"O wad some power the Giftie gie us

To see oursels as ither see us."

For these reasons we rejoice to see such a book as 'Life's Problems.' Though not endorsing all that the writer says, we find much in it that is excellent; it is a book that can be taken up at any time, and in any part, and read for an hour, or for minutes, and something gained from the perusal. Thus, in a chapter on "Influence of religious sentiment on Conduct," we read:

"Who does not perceive that the susceptibility to evil impulses, and the capability of giving effect to such suggestions, and influences are, in a life of trial and progressive existence, inseparable conditions of yirtue, and of the development of man's highest powers? It is accordingly in perfect harmony with these premises, and with such condition of being, that there should be no faith attainable by man, which can withdraw him from the chance of the risk of subjection to other and antagonistic influences :-no faith that can release him from the obligation of perpetual watchfulness and anxious effort to guard against a fall. Influences have too surely and too sadly prevailed in a thousand instances despite continued effort-sometimes plunging into darkest night the soul most open to impression of light and truth-for us to doubt the fact that to such danger all are exposed. Both sacred and profane history furnish startling examples; but it is sufficiently brought home to us by daily observation among living men and women. This fact in the history of mankind has been admirably touched upon in the following passage by a popular writer of the present day :

"The history of David leaves one impression on the mind, deeply and plainly, and that is, that moral principle does not always correspond to devotional sensibility. It may be found in many persons who are weak in right principles, and unstable in right purposes. How fervently could David pray, and how feebly did David practise! What more excellent than his sentiments, or more condemnable than his passions! How sublimely could his spirits mount to Heaven, but how

terribly could he wrong his neighbour! Strange indeed are the inconsistencies of our nature; one part of man's life will seem often the direct reverse of another. Yet David was not really insincere. . . . Hence the merely devotional man is not necessarily a virtuous man, nor a benevolent man. He may fail in rectitude, or he may fail in humanity.'"-Pp. 240, 241.

Again:

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"The religion which hallows all the most trivial, as well as the greatest efforts has no existence, when daily and hourly practice has not built up a rampart of habitual virtues, and obedience to the dictates of an enlightened and sensitive conscience. Habits of self-indulgence are utterly incompatible, for the whole fabric is built up by the spirit of sacrifice under the law which requires a life-not its idle moments, or its refuse, but the whole life,-as a willing and loving offering laid on GOD's altar-steps; the greatest empire in the world, the strongest and most despotic, is the empire of habit.”—P. 250.

We shall be glad to meet this anonymous author again.

HOARE ON THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

The Veracity of the Book of Genesis, with the Life and Character of the inspired Historian. By the Rev. WILLIAM H. HOARE, M.A., late Fellow of S. John's College, Cambridge, &c. London: Longmans. 1860.

THERE is no portion of the Bible which has, in the later ages of the world, been more frequently selected as an object for attack than the Pentateuch. The objectors may be divided into two classes, Moral and Historical: the former being those who direct their attacks more especially against the character of the Mosaic Dispensation, the latter those who consider the facts stated in the history as unworthy of credit, at least, if taken in a literal sense, either as being opposed to the discoveries of natural science, to the testimony of History, or to laws which regulate the universe.

Among the former may be classed those who consider it probable that certain things of peculiar sanctity were delivered by GOD in the law, under the veil of types and symbols, which had already been in use among the wise men of antiquity, and especially among the Egyptians, and that many ceremonies and customs, consecrated by long use, were adopted by Him in order to indulge the superstitious feelings of the Israelites, and because He knew them to be endurable trifles. Those too may be classed on the same side who, like Michaelis, regard Moses as a mere statesman, and do not scruple to say that he was fully aware of this principle, "The end sanctifies the means." By these all deeper meaning is taken away

from the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic dispensation. Religious purifications, they say, were simply ordered because of their sanitary value: blood and fat were not to be eaten, because the Israelites were by their constitutions liable to diseases of the skin : nay, it was not forbidden to seethe a kid in its mother's milk from any motive of humanity, but simply in order that the people might learn more delicate ways of dressing it, as with oil or butter. Objectors, however, of this class belong rather to the past than the present century; those most familiar to us are they of the second class, and it is against these that Mr. Hoare's book is more especially directed. We shall not attempt to give a detailed account of the various subdivisions into which writers of this school may be divided, but will rather notice them from time to time in the order in which Mr. Hoare has taken them in his work. This order we shall best state in his own words :

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"(My) design appears to comprehend the two-fold task

First, of representing plainly and correctly what is really the substance (divested perhaps of some mistaken associations) of the earlier portions of Genesis: and

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Secondly, of proving that there is nothing in it at variance either with reason (in the proper acceptation of the term) as founded on the true relation of things, or with matter of fact as discoverable from other

sources.

"It will not, however, be necessary in the popular and general view of the question which is here proposed, to separate nicely in every instance between these two divisions of the subject; but rather, as each event or doctrine comes under consideration, to endeavour, as far as may be, to substantiate the credibility of the one, or to show the reasonableness of the other. This task will lead naturally to many interesting particulars of the life of Moses, which may serve perhaps, as a general guide and introduction of the study of the Pentateuch and thence to the earliest records of profane history, and especially to the conditions of Egypt at the time of Exodus. This will be followed by a careful collation of the best accounts concerning the Dispersion and final settlement of nations, together with something of their subsequent history. The way will then be prepared for a more attentive study, in the next place, of the clear evidence which will be pointed out, that in the still more remote records of Creation itself, Moses wrote under no ordinary illumination, but that the account in Genesis will stand the test of even the most recent discoveries of modern times."-P. 15 (Preface).

To the work thus sketched out, Mr. Hoare prefixes an introductory chapter in which he briefly reviews the objections made to the Pentateuch as a record of miraculous occurrences, and advances some arguments tending to prove both its genuineness and authenticity.

The shallow doctrine of Voltaire,1 that "no such things (as miracles) have happened in our time, and therefore they never hap

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