the country in open debate on the interests of all. Although the present Emperor has inaugurated many reforms, it must yet be confessed, that, like the rulers of old France, the Russian Government have arrayed all the intellect of the country against them. As in France, everything has been for the governors and nothing for the governed. There is neither free press, nor free Parliament, nor free debates. There have been no public meetings, no popular suffrage. At the last hour there has been conceded a kind of Habeas Corpus Act and trial by jury. As in France, the Government have yielded many points of real importance, called in new counsellors, repealed some obnoxious laws; in fact, kept the ship of State well before the storm of popular discontent. The people will now insist on having a part in the preparation of the laws by which they are to be governed, and the first administrative miscarriage of any importance may be the signal for outbreak. Such outbreaks have frequently occurred before, and we do not see why the same causes should not produce similar effects, or why public opinion in Russia should be less powerful now than in darker ages. As far back as 1636, Olearius, Secretary to the Duke of Holstein's Embassy to Muscovy, stated, in reviewing the past history of Russia, that 'the Muscovites, how submissive and slavish soever they may be, will endeavour the recovery of their freedom, when the Government becomes insupportable to them and casts them into despair.' Crowds of Russians have, like the earliest promoters of the French Revolution, come over and admired our liberty and institutions. Our Blue-Books on education, finance, and reforms of every kind, are well known. We have seen that the greatest reform after the Emancipation is a bodily reproduction of our own legal procedure. There is scarcely a serious book of our language that has not been translated into Russian; and even Buckle's History of Civilisation' is read with the greatest avidity by hundreds of Russians in their own language. Indeed, the great linguistic training of the Russian educated classes enables them to be acted upon by the teachings of every European philosopher, past and present. The intellectual force of the country strongly demands, as in France, the assembly of the States-General. In France this concession came too late;' but in Russia, we have every reason to believe, it will be yielded in time. May the parallel of France end here, and the new Assembly be guided by the same practical good sense which their ancestors habitually evinced when consulted by the Crown! - This brings us to the last consideration :the form of representative government best adapted to the country and the age. Prince Dolgorukof is the only malcontent who, from his secure position abroad, is able to sketch the draft of a future constitution for Russia. The Assemblies of the Nobility were forced to ask for the reform in ambiguous terms. They could not openly state their wishes to limit the power of the Sovereign; they could only give the public a dim outline of a Chamber, reinforced by the admission of all landed proprietors without distinction of birth. M. Platonoff, whom we have already cited, asked, as Marshal of the Nobility of the district of Tsarskoé Selo, near St. Petersburg, for the convocation of the StatesGeneral and the retention of the Assemblies of the Nobility in districts and provinces. The nobles of Ivér, 'convinced that all the present reforms are unsuccessful because they have been undertaken without the advice or knowledge of the people,' tell His Majesty that the assembling of deputies elected by the whole of Russia affords the only means of solving satisfactorily the questions raised, but not settled, by the Emancipation Act.' The tendency of the press in Russia is in favour of the re-establishment of the ancient Assemblies on the broadest basis of popular suffrage, with a considerable bias in favour of fancy franchises.' But the more conservative section are little inclined to bestow electoral rights on a peasantry uneducated and degraded by serfdom. They fear the contact of brute force with intellect, and the extinction of the latter. Unfortunately, Socialism has taken deep root in the country, and, taking its stand on historical precedent, demands the gift of universal suffrage. The House of Commons suggested by Prince Dolgorukof is to be composed of members elected by district assemblies in the proportion of one deputy to 110,000 or 120,000 inhabitants. Each province is moreover to have its own Diet, elected by the district assemblies, and invested with the power of preparing drafts of laws for the consideration of the House of Commons. The Prince finds no difficulty in copying our House of Commons, but the House of Lords or Chamber of Boyars which he considers necessary is not so easily constituted on the model of our own. In the absence of a law of primogeniture and of an hereditary peerage, in a country where princes and nobles are increasing at a most rapid rate, and where every Government clerk enjoys the privileges of nobility, it is evident that the creation of a permanent House of Lords is surrounded with considerable difficulties. In creating a hereditary peerage the Go vernment would have to draw from two class- | country. The abolition of serfage has made es of nobles-both, says the Prince, equally the general introduction of a property-qualicontemptible--the bearers of historical names, fication very easy. The merchant and the who have passed their lives in doing the burgher will have every facility for qualifying work of valets, or the members of the valeto- themselves for a vote in the District Assemcracy itself, whom the Prince considers in- blies which would meet to discuss local recapable, bornés, ignorant, and presumptuous.' quirements, and to elect deputies to a ParliaAn ante-chamber, the Prince says, cannot be ment held either at St. Petersburg or Mosconverted into a Chamber of Peers. While cow. A Zemski Sobor' (States General) acknowledging the difficulties that must at- thus constituted would afford a judicious tend the creation of an English House of combination of the aristocratic and popular Lords, not to be successfully imitated even in elements, giving the preponderance to the countries possessing institutions more nearly former until the latter became sufficiently analogous, we, must beware of adopting the strong, experienced, and enlightened, to bear prejudices of the embittered Prince. The separation. In the mean while a remodelled courtiers of St. Petersburg form but a small Senate would exercise the functions of a high section of the landed nobility and gentry of legislative and judicial Chamber. the Russian empire. The Assemblies of the nobility of Tver, Tula, Moscow, and even St. Petersburg, have on several occasions produced men fearless enough to attack autocracy. The nobility of Russia have been, as a class, abject and servile, because everything in the country depended on servility. Serf dom has been abolished below, and servility must disappear in the ranks above. Honour and honesty must prevail when society is placed on a more moral basis. The brutal condition of the serf exercised a most powerful influence on society: it blunted the feelings of those who came in contact with it, and these, again, spread the contagion of barbarity and immorality. But the landed nobility and gentry are not the only classes in which patrician attributes can be found. The Prince takes no notice of the great intellectual party in Russia, comprising persons of every condition; and who, through the medium of a masked press, are driving the Government from one reform to another. Surely these are not all valets, although they may differ with the Prince, and especially with the revolutionary press in London, as to the form of government and, institutions best adapted to Russia. The simplicity of this reform would appear to commend it to the attention of the Russian Government. It disturbs but little the present privileges of the nobility; it gives all classes a fair share in the election of deputies and in local administration; it simplifies the government of the country under a limited monarch and a cabinet of responsible ministers; and it prevents the growth of the principle most dangerous to Russian unity the Panslavist and Republican spirit of Federation. But whatever is the ultimate choice of a constitution for Russia, we have seen that page after page in Russian history shows how closely serfdom has been interwoven with the fate of political franchises: and as freedom was brought within the grasp of despotism by the introduction and development of serfdom, so, now that the chain which bound the people of Russia in political slavery has been. broken, a return to constitutional government is as logical, just, and necessary, as it seems urgent for the preservation of the Romanof dynasty and the unity of Russia. ART. IV.-1. The New Testament in the Original Greek; with Notes and Introductions. By Chr. Wordsworth, D.D., Canon of Westminster. New Edition, revised and enlarged. 1861. 2. The Greek Testament; with Critical Revised Text. By Henry Alford, Dean of Canterbury. 4th Edition. 1859. 3. The more moderate reformers of Russia only ask for a Chamber of representatives of the people. The Assemblies of the nobility now represent the noble classes or all those above the station of merchants and burghers. Several of these Assemblies have pointed out the necessity of admitting into their body all holders of landed property, or their representatives, ennobled or not. Might not these views be made to coincide with the general demand of all classes for a Parliament of Deputies? The Provincial Assemblies of the Nobility might be annulled by the institution of a central Parliament. The subordinate District Assemblies of the Nobility might be retained and enlarged by the admission of all qualified landholders both in town and We have placed at the head of this article 4. A Critical and Grammatical Commentary St. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians, that of St. Mark (and the proportion is the same throughout), will give some idea of the increased light which is thrown upon the interpretation of the New Testament by referring to the original Greek. But this reference will only bring out more clearly and prominently the great truths and doctrines which at present are expressed perhaps less clearly in the Authorised Version. It will disturb no existing belief, conjure up no fresh difficulties, only tend to deepen lines already engraved, to remove doubts, and to strengthen confidence. And it is perfectly true that Providence has not been pleased to give to us an infallible original text. As in every other analogous instance, the knowledge which He communicates to us is open to dubiousness. It is doubtful, but not from vagueness; it is uncertain, but not obscure. The distinction is vital. An illegible MS. is a very different medium for information from two legible MSS. with two different readings. An unintelligible jargon is not the same with a grammatical sentence capable by the laws of grammar of two meanings. The blank ignorance with which we regard the Sinaitic Inscriptions is not to be confounded with the balance of doubt between two possible interpretations of a Greek tense. It is the will of Providence, for purposes into which we need not enter, to place us constantly under the necessity of choosing between two alternatives three most valuable contributions of English scholarship to the study of the New Testament at this day. We have done so in the hope of suggesting, to others besides the clergy, a practice which has always been contemplated by our English course of Education as an essential duty and privilege of an English gentleman-the careful perusal and study of at least the New Testament in the original language. Whatever other reasons exist (and they are many and grave) for insisting on some knowledge of Greek as a necessary part of education in our public schools and universities, this one predominates over all, that every English gentleman should be able to read that portion of his Bible in the language especially selected by Providence for the communication of His last_ Revelation to man. We do believe that the daily reading of some portion of the Scripture in private is infinitely more common than is ordinarily supposed. And we would now urge upon those who thus employ themselves, not to remain content with our Authorised Version of the New Testament, admirable, wonderful as it is, and invaluable as an aid; but to transfer their regular perusal of it to the original Greek. Scripture itself attaches peculiar power to the very words of Inspiration. Translations must be clouded with many shades of human imperfection. But we are thinking of the study of the Greek chiefly with reference to the uneasiness, the suspicions, the unsettle--deliberating, and weighing, and deciding ment of mind, which recent avowals of religious scepticism have so widely spread. Few remedies can be found for this more efficacious than recurring at once to the fountainhead of truth. The Biblical Criticism of the Dubiousness is one thing, indistinctness day (if criticism that can be called which too another; and the great result of Biblical crioften sins against the first principles of judi- ticism is, indeed, to increase the dubiousness cial and equitable inquiry) cannot be stifled of Scripture in many unimportant points, but or suspended. It must open questions, and also to multiply our views of possible meanprovoke doubts, which, to minds hitherto ings, and above all, to increase our responsicontent with accepting our Authorised Ver- bility, test our honesty, stimulate our indussion almost as a work of inspiration, will at try, exercise our discrimination, and try our first cause surprise and alarm. And nothing hearts, by opening to us a wider field of comwill so soon dispel this uneasiness as famili-parison between readings, interpretations, and arity with the Greek text, accompanied with such an insight into the real nature and extent of the doubts and difficulties which hang over it, as is offered by the honest, judicious, and really learned commentaries to which they have now access. It is perfectly true that our English Version, admirable and generally correct as it is, is not infallible. We have just risen from marking every place in which it falls short of the original, as any translation must do, in perfect distinctness and precision, and they are to be counted by thousands. 1237 in the single Gospel of St. Matthew, 1089 in amidst conflicting probabilities. It is not His practice to blot, and blur, and cloud over with a fog and mist the knowledge which He purposes to reveal to us. authorities, and requiring of us a more frequent selection and decision between contending arguments. But it does not end in indistinctness. Rather it enriches our knowledge by multiplying points of view. The first effect of this dubiousness upon inferior minds at once reveals their defects. A weak man, incapable of bearing the uneasiness of suspense, and the labour of deliberation, will surrender himself blindly to a Church which discourages the study of Scripture; or choose some guide arbitrarily for himself; or abandon the Scriptures altogether; or relieve all doubt by erecting a despotism in his own opinion, or find an excuse for giving up all religion, because the pursuit of it is not withont its difficulties. But an honest, simple, earnest, and intelligent student will adopt a very different course. He will feel the necessity of arming himself with all those qualities of mind required in a judge-of adhering to all those canons of criticism and interpretation, which are as clearly laid down for the discovery of truth in Biblical inqui ries, as in a court of justice. Some assistance and information he must obtain, and he will take care that it shall be such as will give him honestly an insight into the whole truth. * This information he will find in the three publications which are now before us.' They are the work of three minds of different classes, viewing questions independently, and from different points of view, coming at times in collision with each other, but for that very reason more convincing and authoritative, when they coincide. And they will enable the moderate Greek scholar to read his Greek Testament not only with the profit always to be derived from the study of Scripture, but with safety and satisfaction in regard to the numerous questions now opened by Biblical eriticism. In Dr. Wordsworth the Patristic spirit of interpretation predominates; in Bishop Ellicott (whom we are happy to salute by that high title), the sound old English theology of the seventeenth century; in Dean Alford, the German element. But none of them excludes the others. All of them have entered into that haunted chamber of German theology, which only requires to be unlocked and thrown open to the light, to lose its fascinations and its terrors. All of them face that formidable phantom of textual criticism, with its 120,000 various readings in the New Testament alone, and will enable us to march up to it, and discover that it is empty air; that still we may say with the boldest and acutest of English critics-Bentley-choose' (out of the whole MSS.) as awkwardly as you will-choose the worst by design out of the whole lump of readings, and not one article of faith or moral precept is either perverted or lost in them. Put them into the * We have confined ourselves to these, as being the latest, and bearing most fully on our own immediate object. A Greek Testament by Messrs. Webster and Wilkinson has also been issued recently, which appears to be judiciously and satisfactorily annotated, and which we would by no means disparage by failing to notice it. But the plan of it--useful as it will prove to the general reader-excludes in a great degree the feature which gives the chief value to the editions before us for the purpose which we have peculiarly in view, viz. a full and minute reference to the opinions of other critics. hands of a knave or a fool, and even with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, or so disguise Christianity but that every feature of it will be still the same."' We confess that, rising as we do from the use of these commentaries all together, we can scarcely bring ourselves to sit down and criticise, instead of simply acknowledging our gratitude that three such works have been provided for the Church of England in these days of difficulty. Dr. Wordsworth will lead us back into those old paths, to which the great Bishop Pearson, speaking with the voice of ages, so earnestly calls the student of Scripture. O ye who are devoting yourselves to the Divine science of theology, and whose cheeks ture; above all, ye who either fill the venerable are growing pale over the study of Holy Scripoffice of the priesthood, or intend it, and are hereafter to undertake the awful cure of souls, rid yourselves of that itch of the present agethe love of novelty. Make it your business to inquire for that which was from the beginning; resort for counsel to the fountain-head; have recourse to antiquity; look back to the Primitive Church. In the words of the Prophet, “ask for the old paths." 11 1 His notes take the widest range. At times they will startle and perplex readers accustomed only to the shallow, superficial tone of modern commentaries; bringing as they do a microscope to scrutinise those words, of which we know that not one jot or one tittle shall pass away; tracing out minute lines of organisation, where the common eye sees little but shapelessness and vagueness; calling forth on the colourless surface of human history the great and awful forms of mysteries and prophecies; and bringing home to our own days and our own bosoms, with unflinching faithfulness and sternness, the everlasting lessons and warning voices which were meant to pierce through all generations. But such is the true and rightful spirit of Scriptural interpretation; not, indeed, secure from occasional excess, or to be followed blindly and servilely, but transmitted to us from the earliest ages, and the most revered authorities, and especially sanctioned and enforced to Englishmen by the great lights of our own struction of the text-far bolder than we should dare to be ourselves. But, in the present powerless state of the English Church to exercise anthoritatively its office as a witness and keeper of Holy Writ, the grave and vital question must be discussed most temperately, which is the best and safest method of placing before the students the real facts, which textual criticism lays open, in regard to the variety of readings. There must be no concealment, no suppression, and no alarm. It is part of the providential economy of revelation that the Written Word should come to us through human hands, subject to human errors in transmission, up to a certain extent -an extent sufficient to test our own hearts, but not sufficient to cloud any important truth whatever. But whether it is better that one generally-received text should be circulated undisturbed, and only annotated fully and openly with its various readings, and with their probable comparative value in the eyes of successive editors, or that each editor should construct his own text, and build his exegesis upon it, and circulate both together, may admit of much discussion. New Testament--the sequence of thought as illustrated by accurate grammatical criticism. Separately the sentences of Scripture are of easy application. They are like proverbs for the child; but to link them together, and follow out their construction as a whole, is often an enigma. What law or object regulated the selection and the order of the narratives of the Gospels? What circumstances or features of character in the hearers, or undercurrent of thought, or insight into the human mind, supplies the golden thread which holds together the seemingly unconnected jewels of our Lord's discourses? Where is the artistic unity (for such unity there must be in every work of reason, and how much more of Inspiration!) in the seeming congeries of fragments thrown together in the Acts of the Apostles? What were the circumstances of the churches and of the individuals to whom the Apostolic Epistles were immediately addressed; and what the prospects of those future ages also for which alike they were designed, which circumstances and which prospects supply the clue to their labyrinth of thought? If these secrets could now be laid open, what a flood of light would burst in upon the chief problems of the Scriptures--upon those difficulties which the audacity of so-called modern criticism presumes at once to ride over and trample down as obscurities, inconsequences, illogical argu-viduals, as to Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, and ments, confusion of thought, carelessness of language-carelessness of language in the Revelation of Divine Truth! Against this last presumption Bishop Ellicott's solemn and repeated protest is invaluable. Minds not familiar with the technicalities of modern Greek scholarship (and it is for these that we are writing) may be repelled at first by their recurrence in his notes; but let them read on. More good, as more harm, is done every book by the spirit of the writer than by the facts which he communicates. To feel that we are threading the secret paths of Holy Writ, with a guide on whom we can depend, who sets himself an example of the patience, the modesty, the reverence, the honesty, the Christian charity to those who differ from him, and the scrupulous conscientousness of inquiry which he would encourage in ourselves, is no slight privilege-no little help to the right understanding of the Word of Truth. in But with these two commentaries, the elaborate, learned, and most valuable one of Dean Alford should also be joined, if only as constructed upon a different plan, and in some respects in an opposite spirit, and therefore enabling the student to view questions in additional points of view. Dean Alford has been bold in his recon Is the Church of England at this day sufficiently alive to its duty of guarding the original text of Scripture? What mode, if any, was employed in guarding it by the Church of old? How much was left to indi others in their critical labours? How do our circumstances at present differ from theirs (and they do differ materially), to justify, perhaps, a difference of conduct? How far would it be wise and right in the Church to assume the function of criticism? For instance, would it be wise in Convocation to appoint committees to determine and to publish a new text-say the last text of Tischendorf, or an older text accompanied with the various readings? Is it better to allow individuals at present free and full scope for their inquiries and suggestions, leaving it to time, and experience, and the general assent of some generations of scholars to stereotype the corrected readings? In that case, would it not be desirable to separate, as much as possible, textual criticism from the doctrinal and ethical study of the New Testament? These are very grave questions. How are they to be answered? Once more-supposing that a new Textus Receptus is required to embrace the results of recent inquiries, is the time yet arrived when we can venture to undertake the work? Have sufficient materials been accumulated ? Bring to textual criticism the same logical principles which we apply to physical science. Have we not learnt the peril of setting forth theories of geology, while geology |