to present our readers with his final proposal in his own words. They are as follows:

“Let us regard the Creed as it was regarded of old, as an exhibition and exposition of our Christian faith, as a profession rather than as a confession, a psalm or hymn rather than a formulary ; and let us, with or without the second clause, chant it wherever we can chant the Te Deum.”*

We sincerely grieve to be constrained to expose the utter worthlessness, and even ludicrousness, of an expedient to which so estimable and so learned a theologian as Dr. Swainson has found himself reduced, through the unconscious desire, as it appears to us, to avoid shocking the prejudices of some, or affording encouragement to the license of others. We would not willingly do violence to the susceptibilities of one who is endeavouring, to the utmost of his ability, to apply a remedy to the wounds of a Church which he so dearly loves. We think, however, that in the face of the solution thus offered, with all gravity and with all sincerity, by one of the accredited instructors of our future clergy, of a difficulty of which they are supposed pre-eminently to feel the magnitude, we need no longer regard as of apocryphal authority the practical solution of the same difficulty which has been ascribed to a learned divine of the last century, whose scholarship was supposed to be inore unquestionable than his orthodoxy. Having been repeatedly admonished by his Ordinary. to comply with the terms of the rubric requiring the stated recitation of the Athanasian Creed, this divine is reported to have discharged his duty at once towards his ecclesiastical superior and his own conscience by reciting the rubric preceding the Creed, so far as the words “shall be sung or said,” and then, looking down upon the parochial functionary, whose duties were commonly supposed to consist in leading the devotions of the congregation, to have startled him out of his sobriety by the following unexpected demand upon his extemporary resources,“ Sing it, clerk.”

In all sober earnestness, we deprecate the proposal which Dr. Swainson recommends, but we trust that his “ Letter" may not be altogether inoperative in accelerating, though in a different form from that which he suggests, a change in our existing practice.

We are of opinion that the immediate practical result of the perusal of the Letter before us, will be to magnify, in the estimation of those who attach importance to the Professor's arguments, the theoretical difficulties involved in the rehearsal of the Athanasian Creed. We do not think that, in the judgment of the majority of candid and unprejudiced minds, those difficulties would be removed by such an alteration of the version of the Creed as Dr. Swainson suggests; whilst the objections to the retention of our own version will have been increased in exact proportion to the weight which may be attached to the force of the Professor's arguments, or to the amount of reputation which his name may have acquired.

On the other hand, we think that the publication of this Letter on the part of one in Dr. Swainson's position will have the more remote effect of promoting the object in favour of which names of greater weight and more enlarged influence have been recorded in the last Report of the Ritual Commission ;* and we confidently anticipate the near approach of the day in which the elements of strife will no longer be kindled by the recital of this formulary in our public worship, and when the Creed itself-despoiled of those “damnatory clauses,” which need, even by Dr. Swainson's showing, an amount of manipulation from which simpler minds recoilwill be consigned to a place in our Prayer Book, in which it will retain no other character than that of an elaborate and, we may say, unrivalled exposition, so far as the finite can aspire to comprehend the infinite, of the sublimest doctrines of our common Faith.

SCENES FROM BIBLE LANDS. Scenes in the East, consisting of Twelve Photographic Views of

Places mentioned in the Bible. With Descriptive Letterpress, by the Rev. H. B. Tristram, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., &c. Sinai and Jerusalem ; or, Scenes from Bible Lands. Consisting

of Coloured Photographic Views of Places mentioned in the Bible. With Descriptive Letter-press, by the Rev. F. W. Holland, M.A., Hon. Sec. to the Palestine Exploration Society.

We cordially recommend these two volumes to the attention of our readers. The views contained in both are so well selected, and so admirably executed, that we refrain from any attempt to assign the superiority to either in this respect. When we pass, however, from the views to the letter-press of these volumes, we are no longer held in suspense in forming an estimate of their respective worth; and it is no disparagement to the labours of Mr. Holland, when we award the palın to the graphic pen of Dr. Tristram.

We will select for observation a few of the descriptions of the views from both volumes, although our remarks will be brief, and we entertain no doubt that we shall sufficiently establish the justice of the verdict which we have pronounced. We will begin with the volume of Mr. Holland.

The sketch of the Brick Pyramids at Dashom enables us to realize, in some degree, the truth of Dean Stanley's remark, that, when the traveller looks upon the great Pyramid, the consciousness is forced upon him “that this is the nearest approach to a mountain that the art of man has produced.” The unlimited command of labour which the ancient Egyptians possessed, and also the extent and perfection of their mechanical appliances, are brought home to us in a very striking manner by the consideration that “the granite blocks which furnished the outside of one of these huge buildings, and the inside of another, must have been brought all the way from the quarries at the first cataract, near the island of Philæ, a distance of more than six bundred miles.” It is difficult to conceive what other end the erection of these monster masses of stone could have served than the gratification of the pride of the Egyptian kings, and the opportunity of employing in servile labour a large number of the inhabitants of the land. “The chambers and sarcophagi found within several, show," as Mr. Holland observes, “that they served for tombs. It has also been supposed that they were intended for astronomical purposes.” Mr. Holland agrees with other modern writers in the opinion that there is no sufficient ground for the belief that they were erected by the children of Israel. He observes, moreover, that “chopped straw, or chaff, is always used in the East to mix with the clay employed in making sun-dried bricks,” and that bence “ we may easily understand how much the labour of the children of Israel was increased when no straw was given them, and “the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt, to gather stubble instead of straw.” (p. 12.)

In his description of the desert of Sinai, Mr. Holland has done well in directing the attention of his readers to the consideration, that there is every reason for supposing that the district was formerly better wooded than at present; that the presence of trees produces rain, and, consequently, that there is every reason for supposing that the vegetation was far more abundant than at the present time. He would have done well, we think, had he reminded his readers that the word commonly rendered “desert” denotes frequently a wilderness rather than what is commonly understood by the word desert ; that it means primarily pasture land, and that with reference to the district of Sinai, we find that it was selected by Jethro for the purpose of pasturing his flock. (Ex. iii. 1.) Had some modern critics given themselves time to consider this subject, instead of urging objections which have no real existence, they would both have avoided the exposure of their own ignorance, and would not have afforded to others occasion for the rejection of the truth of the Mosaic records.

Mr. Holland's remarks as to the existence of turquoise mines in the “desert” are interesting and important, and tend to confirm the correctness of the inferences which have been derived, both from biblical and from other sources, as to the inhabitation of portions of this district at the time of the Exodus.

We entirely agree with Mr. Holland as to the unsatisfactory result of every attempt to identify the manna miraculously supplied to the Israelites in the wilderness with the exudation from the tamarisk tree. The description of the manna given to the Israelites is altogether inconsistent with the medicinal produce of the tamarisk; and to whatever extent the identification of the two has arisen from a desire to avoid having recourse to the supposition of miraculous agency, the attempt is fruitless, inasmuch as the extraordinary multiplication of the manna, its nourishing properties, the time and mode of its bestowal, and the circumstances under which it either putrified or continued fit for use, involve, each and all, the miraculous element which it is desired to eliminate. We agree further with Mr. Holland in following the conclusions at which he has arrived ; viz., (1) that the Sinaitic descriptions which have been hitherto deciphered, cannot be referred to the time of the Exodus, and (2) that notwithstanding the absence of this guide, the route of the Israelites, on their march to Sinai, is sufficiently identified by a comparison of the present landınarks of their supposed route with the records of the Mosaic history.

As one amongst many incidental illustrations of the complete refutation which is given to certain recent objections to the historical character of the Mosaic narrative, we may select the following.

Bishop Colenso, in the first part of his so-called “critical" examination of the Pentateuch, writes thus :

“It is possible that the Ark may have been made of the wood of this acacia, of which the Hebrews may have found a few trees in the desert. But it is certainly a very noticeable fact, that not a single acacia' is now to be seen in the very region where, according to the story, not merely the Ark, with the vessels of the Tabernacle, but the Tabernacle itself, was built.” (Part I., pp. 72, 73.)

The following extract from Mr. Holland's account of " the Desert of Sinai,” derived not from hearsay, but from his own personal experience, will suffice to illustrate the amount of dependence which is to be placed upon Bishop Colenso's “noticeable facts":

“ The acacia," writes Mr. Holland, p. 18, “is supposed to be the shittim tree, which furnished the wood used for the boards of the tabernacle, the table, and the ark. Doubts have been expressed as to whether it ever grew to a sufficient size for such purposes. The Arabs cut off the young shoots every year for feeding their goats, and hence most of the trees are stunted in their growth ; but when they have escaped such ill-usage, they grow to a large size, and I have measured several upwards of nine feet in girth.”

We entirely acquit Bishop Colenso of intentional misrepresentation. We merely adduce one instance out of many, of the lamentable results, if viewed only with reference to the personal reputation of the writer, of the indulgence of a “critical” spirit, not only in defiance of the canons of sound criticism, but in ignorance of those facts which the enquirer after truth should have made it his primary business to ascertain.

Mr. Holland's account of Hebron is somewhat meagre. It adds very little to the bare facts of the Biblical narrative, beyond a passing allusion to the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1862 to the mosque which stands upon the site of the cave of Macpelah, the details of which are so graphically related by Dean Stanley, in the first volume of his Lectures on the Jewish Church.

We must now, as impartial reviewers, notice a few of the defects of this interesting little volume, which we shall hope, alike for the reputation of the writer and of the Society from which the book emanates, to see corrected in any subsequent editions.

1. Mr. Holland's account of the events connected with the return of Jacob from Padan-aram is, if not positively incorrect, at least very confused. He altogether overlooks the years which were spent at Shechem ; represents (p. 30) the arrival at Bethel, and the payment of the vow uttered then, as though it had taken place after an interval of only about twenty years after his first visit to that place; and describes the confirmation of the change of name from Jacob to Israel, which took place on his arrival at Bethel, as if identical with the original bestowal of the name, which had taken place several years previously at Peniel (or Pennel) by the ford Jabbok.

Again, Mr. Holland states (p. 32) that “there is a Jewish tradition that the actual stone which Jacob set up in Bethel was removed to Jerusalem, and served as the pedestal for the Ark in the second Temple.”