enthusiasm and interest are everything in a professional school; and nothing tends so strongly to awaken these as the knowledge, on the part of the student, that every suggestion or question from him will be received with willingness and with consideration. If the student is obliged to write what he wishes to inquire about, and to wait till another day for an answer, the spontaneity of the thing vanishes. The result will be that he will keep his inquiries to himself, and gradually will cease to find them rising in his own mind. He will become a mere receptive hearer, and meet the daily lecture as a necessary but wearisome task. Dr. Alexander himself seems to have felt this, at times, and to have adopted the better plan for a season. But in this, and in other respects, he was too much the professor, and too little the elder and more advanced friend, guiding scholars whom he felt to be his associates, though they were a little way behind him in the course. can hardly blame him for this, for our colleges and seminaries have such an inheritance of old ideas and customs in this regard, that it is almost impossible for most teachers to break away from their influence. The better day is coming, as we believe, but it has not yet arrived. There are signs of promise, and they are increasing in number. When they are fulfilled, we may look for a higher scholarly life among our students, and for a more ennobling and inspiring influence from our instructors. And it is a pleasant thing to think of, that they will be fulfilled, first of all, in the schools for professional training.

We

The second point of view, in which we may contemplate the results of Dr. Alexander's life-studies, has reference to the works which he published. He was a Biblical scholar for twenty-five years. What did he accomplish in the department of Biblical Literature? The chief results which he has left behind him are his commentaries, on Isaiah and the Psalms in the Old Testament, and on the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of Mark, and the earlier portion of the Gospel of Matthew, in the New Testament. So little has been done in our country in the way of preparing original commentaries, that there are but few American works with which to compare these volumes of Dr. Alexander's. His biographer, and cer

tain persons from whose letters he makes quotations, seem to regard them as deservedly holding the same rank with the best foreign works in the same department. This is the judgment, as we are persuaded, of those only who are unfamiliar with the writings of the great scholars of Germany. Such persons may speak with great confidence, and what they say may have great weight with Christian people generally, but the real value of their opinions is small. Reverend Doctors of Divinity, it must be confessed, are, oftentimes, as little capable of pronouncing upon a question of this kind, as they are upon chemistry; for their use of commentaries has been limited to those in the English language, and even to the inferior class of these. And it is useless to present to the public their declarations on the subject as if they were of any considerable consequence. What is the opinion of scholars in the department, and of those who have the knowledge necessary to a decision, is the question which we ought to ask. The answer to this question is final, so far as any judgment can be. We give all honor to Dr. Alexander for what he did. We remember how little others anong his contemporaries in this work have done. But it is idle to attempt to place his writings on an equality with commentaries of the first rank, for they are not of that order at all. Nobody who understands the enbject thinks they are, and their author himself, in all probability, did not think so. We have no doubt that they are the best works of the kind to be found in the libraries of many of the clergymen who are referred to in this biography, and very possibly they may be the best which the writer of the biography himself' possesses. But, if so, there are others who have better ones, and a great many who, though they may not have them at command, know very well that there are better ones. This honored professor and scholar helped onward, in his day, the cause of Biblical learning. He rendered a service to our part of the world by publishing what he did. But his writings will not be very permanent in their value or their influence. They will not be very widely known a few years hence. We say this, having reference to the extravagant praises of his nephew and his immediate friends. They do injustice to his memory, in this regard, by greatly over-esti

mating him, and provoke an unfavorable judgment by their very excess of commendation. He who was so intolerant of adulation while he lived-more intolerant of it, even, than of anything else would be the last person, we are sure, to wish for such unmeasured praise. What was he, then, as a cominentator? He was better qualified for the work which he undertook than any other person in his section of the Presbyterian body. He was one of the best who has at yet appeared in our country. But he was, nevertheless, in the second rank rather than the first, as reckoned among those of all nations; and we think we may justly say that his commentaries do not fully equal his powers and his fame.

It is a remarkable fact-which is pressed upon our notice in these biographical volumes-that he confined himself almost entirely to the earlier portion of the New Testament. There is scarcely any evidence, in his diary or correspondence, that the Epistles of Paul occupied his attention. The great Biblical scholar did not give his thoughts upon these epistles to the world—nor, so far as we can judge from the arrangements of the seminary with which he was connected, did he have any opportunity of discussing them before his classes. They were reserved for another department-that of Dogmatic Theology-and for the investigations of another professor whose knowledge of Greek could scarcely be expected to be as thorough as his own. It is significant that, in this great stronghold of a particular theological system, the instructor in New Testament Greek and Sacred Literature is not allowed to interpret Paul's writings. The approach to these writings from the linguistic side is closed as much as possiblebut the approach from the dogmatic side is thrown wide open. Exegesis is made subordinate and subservient to doctrinal theology, and the man who is most likely to interpret from the standpoint of the system which he is elected to his office to defend, is the one into whose charge is committed the whole exposition of what the great Apostle to the Gentiles has given to the church. This is a fundamentally wrong plan, as we are sure that all unprejudiced persons will agree. It is but the natural result of such a plan, that the theology of the seminary becomes dogmatic and polemical rather than exegetical and Biblical.

As a preacher, Dr. Alexander occupied a very prominent place in the Presbyterian Church. The uniform testimony of those who heard him is that his sermons were very impressive, very suggestive, very thoroughly the product of his own mind and feelings, and very earnest in their presentation of the truths of the gospel. Like most other men, he did not always reach the level of his own highest efforts. Like most others, also, he was more admired in some places than in others. He never awakened the same enthusiasm in New York as in Phil adelphia, and his biographer points to one particular period, of only a few months' duration, when his reception in the latter city was more favorable than at any other time. He was, moreover, a preacher of quite a different order, according to the representation, when in the seminary pulpit at Princeton, from what he was in other towns, or even in other pulpits in the same town. This, indeed, was quite natural, for in the seminary chapel he had an audience composed of students in theology, and a preacher can scarcely lay aside the scholastic and theological style when addressing such a body. In such a place, too, the manner would almost necessarily be as peculiar as the matter. But everywhere there was something to interest and stimulate the minds of educated men. A picture of his appearance and manner in the lecture-room and chapel of the Seminary, and, again, on other occasions in the larger cities, will be conveyed to the reader's mind by the following extract, a portion of which is in the language of one of his old pupils, and the rest in that of his nephew. Some allowance will, of course, be made for the "extreme" style of the latter:

"Often his manner, in entering the room, delivering his lecture, and going out, was automatic, and would not suggest the presence of an audience. He seemed to see no one. His call to prayer, as soon as he reached the desk, waited for no one. He lectured looking on a book and turning the leaves without reading; with rapid, monotonous utterance, regardless of hurrying pens and aching fingers and half-caught sentences below. And he stopped so short at the end of the chapter or the hour, and so unceremoniously left, that we sometimes did not know that he was done till we raised our heads from our greedy notes, and saw him already out of the door."

"This picture." says his nephew, "is as true as it is graphic. The impression nade upon this intelligent hearer and fastidious critic, by his preaching, and which is conveyed to the reader in the paragraph now about to be given, one should say, was derived principally from his efforts in the Seminary chapel."

The paragraph alluded to is as follows:

"Even in the pulpit the same singular combination appeared. His body was stationary, his voice was hardly modulated, his gesture not much more than a sea-saw of the right arm, his features were without play; yet body, voice, arm, and face were so full of fl wing, impetuous life and real unction, that he was always as captivating and eloquent in his manner of preaching as he was fertile, discerning, and brilliant in matter and style."

The biographer adds:

"Sometimes he spoke exactly in the way here described. At other times there was less, indeed scarcely any, animation or visible unction. But there were times when the whole force of his genius and fiery emotion broke upon his selectest auditories like a whirlwind, and drove them before him like chaff upon a thresh. ing floor. His grandest exhibitions of this character were in Philadelphia. There he often bound men hand and foot, and carried them whither they would not."

Certainly he was no ordinary man. But in his preaching, as well as in every other departinent of his life, he seemed very unwilling to become “famous," and shrank from public notice the more as he was led to realize that the world was applanding him. Instances are mentioned where he even rudely rejected the praise that was offered him. He was a genuine lover of truth and learning, who sought retirement more earnestly than anything else, and asked nothing from mankind but to be left alone with his pursuits. We can hardly help admiring his freedom from ambition and the vain desire of applanse. This was one of the nobler elements in his nature, as it is in any inan's. We do not wonder that his friends cherish him in remembrance for such an uncommon virtue.

We are interested, in comparing his life with that of Dr. Miller so lately published, to observe how little he was involved or interested in the controversies of thirty years ago. Like all the Princeton gentlemen of that time, he finally took the Old School side, and was gratified with their triumph over their opponents of the New School. But from the quietness of his study he looked more calmly on the contending parties. His enthusiasm was for other matters. It is a happy thing in the life of such a man, that his very pursuits have a tendency to draw him away from the turmoil of such strifes. If we may judge from his diary and letters, as given in these volumes, the biographer of Dr. Alexander could not, had he desired to do so, have made a controver