nature.

far enough from frigidness. His passion is taken up into the intellect and the imagination and sublimated there, but not extinguished. It is extinguished, however, to those who have long received "familiar the fierce heat" of Byron. Mr. Bryant's prevailing tone is undoubtedly mild and contemplative. His is, pre-eminently, the "harvest of a quiet eye." He wins the most from nature when he finds her gentle and placid in her moods. And it is easy with him for the lid to grow heavy with tears while the eye looks out on man or The minor key of sadness, which belongs to all our deepest emotions, and perhaps points to the great tragedy of the race, runs through Bryant's poetry. But he is not always either mild or sad. The Song of the Stars,' the Song of Marion's Men,' the Hurricane,' and some other pieces, are instinct with the authentic lyrical fire. There is not a finer specimen of its kind in the language, than the Hurricane.' Bryant has been charged with monotony in treatment. There is ground for the charge, yet any one who will read in comparison, the Evening Wind,' the Summer Wind,' and the 'Hurricane,' must confess that he was not monotonous for want of a very considerable range of power. The Antiquity of Freedom' has a breadth, a vigor, and a loftiness in it almost Miltonic. Mr. Bryant was not graduated before leaving college, we believe, but he stayed long enough to snatch those nameless graces of culture which no length of stay could impart to anything but genius. His pages accordingly, have the garnish of occasional classicisms, not frequent, but always in exquisite taste. He also practises that incommunicable art-more than anything else perhaps a crucial test of genius-by which words, single words, are impregnated and polarized and made many-sided prisms of multiform suggestion. He has apparently never wrestled with great spiritual doubts and fears. At any rate his verse does not incline at all to "handle spiritual strife." For this reason he will not exercise an important office as teacher. This has been given to poets not a few (we hopė soon to devote a paper to one of the chief of them), but Mr. Bryant is not of the number. He will, however, fulfil a

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mission as beautiful in furnishing language for the gentler emotions and the purer experiences of many a grateful heart. There will never come a time when the good will wish that his mission were ended.

ARTICLE IV.-INTERNAL EVIDENCES THAT THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD.

OUR subject assumes the existence of God, and that we have some knowledge of his character from sources independent of the Bible. With these data we examine the Bible and question it for proof from within that its author is this God, possessing this known character. If it is truly God's Book. the arguments from within ought to be neither few nor trivial, The ease with which we are able to identify the author of any work, whether of literature, science, or art, is mainly proportioned to the peculiarities of that author, his marked excellencies or defects. Thus we would not readily mistake for the classic eloquence of Everett mere pedantic bombast; for a Madonna of Raphael the first effort of a school-girl; for the star-studded dome of heaven some curious art imitation. we should expect, à priori, little difficulty in deciding, from internal evidence, whether the Bible is from man or from God. God's works are not as man's works. They all bear the impress of His own infinite mind. They are all pregnant with evidence of their Divine origin, and the Bible no less than His other works.

So

But just what, and how much can be proved by this kind of evidence? This question ought to be correctly answered before proceeding to the argument, in order to prevent constant misapprehension and disappointment. We think it cannot be thus proved: 1st. That our canon is the whole of God's Word; nor, 2d. That the whole of our canon is God's Word. Evidently the first statement cannot be proved, since we cannot reason from what we have upon what we have not. The second

cannot be proved, since there are many passages of a nature such that it involves no absurdity to suppose them interpolations. External evidence is essential to the satisfactory decision of these points, or rather external evidence combined and harmonizing with internal evidence. We might, however, bring to our aid the à priori argument, that it is not likely that God would allow any of his revelations to man to be lost, and it is likely He would keep his truth free from the admixture of human error. That which can, we think, be proved by our present mode of reasoning is, that the Bible substantially and in the main is from God.

That we may start upon our argument with minds unbiased by the many and plausible objections which have been urged against revealed religion, drawn from internal evidence, it may be well to revert to the argument of Bishop Butler, in which, by showing that the same or similar objections lie against the belief that God is the author of Nature, he has not only rendered the objections futile, but has even made them of efficient service in proving the identity of the Author of Nature with the Author of Revelation. (Butler's Analogy, part 2d.)

Our limits will permit us but briefly to notice the more apparent evidences of the Divine origin of the Bible, which we treat under these three divisions.

I. Its claim.

II. Its manner.

III. Its matter.

I. The Scriptures claim to be the Word of God. The New Testament writers make this claim directly or indirectly, by unequivocal assertion or by implication. They profess to give us not their own gospel but the gospel of the Son of God, who had promised some of them His Spirit "to guide them into all truth," to "bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever He had said unto them," and the power to impart this Holy Spirit to others, their co-laborers, two of whom appear as writers of parts of the New Testament, and are, therefore, to be regarded as making an equal claim with those to whom the promise was first made; while Paul, again and again, directly

and indirectly, professes to teach not his own wisdom but the wisdom of God. The writers of the New Testament also assert that "all Scripture is given by inspiration.' They would thus teach that not only is the New Testament inspired, but the Old as well. They even refer to that as from God, and quote it as infallible. But we have in the Old Testament itself the same claim. Much of it comes with the explicit "thus saith the Lord," while many of the other parts, especially of the Pentateuch, assert the same Divine origin. The Bible as a whole claims, therefore, to be from God. The weight which we are to concede to this claim as evidence must be decided by further investigation. If the writers are proved to be unprincipled men or infatuated, it is worthless, but if they appear to be men of integrity and intelligence, as they do, it is of great weight; of the greatest weight, if the nature of their messages is not inconsistent with such claim.

II. Our second general division, which, for want of a better term, we call the Manner of the Bible, we subdivide as follows:

a. Its Unity.

b. Its Mode of developing its theme.

c. Its Style.

a. It is a connected, consistent, perfect whole. It is a unit. This is an important item of proof in establishing its Divine origin. Were this unity wanting, it would be a strong presumption against such origin; it would prove that there was not present an individual pervading Spirit-the same Spirit speaking through the writers-but rather that the writers spake each his own words. It would also prove false its own claim, for Christ professes to have come, "not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil." If, on the other hand, this unity can be established for the Bible, it will readily be perceived to be well nigh conclusive in proof of the Divinity of its origin. Many centuries intervened between the writing of the first sublime sentence of the sacred Word and the closing amen. Many men of marked peculiarities, differing widely in their general character, and their style of writing, living at distant periods of time from each other, and

treating usually each of a separate subject, had part in penning the record. Such, at least, is its profession, and not only is there nothing to disprove the claim, but everything to confirm it. The language, the style, the whole character of the first books, bespeak their antiquity, while the language, style and character of the New Testament books show as plainly their comparatively modern origin. The variety of matter and peculiarities of style, sufficient to prove plurality of writers, are evident to the most careless reader; yet notwithstanding all this, there is clearly manifest a plan; viz., the plan of Redemption. Every part of the record has its place in the development of that plan. Possessing the whole, we can see the fitness of those parts better even than the earlier writers; for they are represented as anxiously inquiring into the significance of their words. The plan received its completion in the work of Christ. Having the history of that work, it is easy to discover how the recorded history of the Jews, as given in the Old Testament, points to Christ. The same may be said of the old Moral and Ceremonial Law, and of the Prophecies. They were types. They prepared the way for Christ, and received their fulfilment in Him, and can now be seen to be essential to the completeness of the work of Redemption. It is not meant, however, that we can decide the precise significance or importance of each passage in its connection with the plan; or even that we can determine that it has any value. Infinite Wisdom alone is competent to that. But we can discover the general connection and bearing, and that is sufficient for our argument. It is enough if we can discover foundation and superstructure, adapted each for the other, and can see the general fitness of part for part, though we may not be able to determine the exact use of every door and window, beam and rafter, open hall and dark recess; enough if we can trace the links of the golden chain which binds together the history, law, prophecies, poetry and philosophy of the Bible. So regular is this plan in its unfolding, that Dr. Jonathan Edwards has written on Redemption in its historic development, and compares it to a house building, "where the workmen are first sent out, then the materials gathered, then the ground fitted,