In this incident we have described very graphically the feelings with which worldly people regard self-sacrifice for the sake of Jesus Christ; more especially if that self-sacrifice is based on an interest felt in the spiritual well-being of mankind. Of course, in a professedly Christian land, such persons are not likely to ignore altogether the respect that is due to the Lord; they will not leave Him altogether out of their calculations, but they betray their real dislike of any honour shown to the person of Christ by exalting the temporal at the expense of the spiritual. “What is the meaning," they cry, “ of all this machinery for the evangelisation of the masses, and for carrying the gospel into heathen lands? Why this lavish expenditure of strength and money, in clergy, and catechists, and missionaries; this preaching of sermons, this collecting of money, this general hurry and bustle about what men call their 'immortal souls'? Why is this waste of the ointment made ? Far more useful, far more sensible, and far more Christian too, would it be to expend the money upon the temporal necessities of the poor-upon feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, and giving the houseless and homeless a shelter in which to lay their head.” And with such a cry as this (just as it was with Judas and the apostles), they sometimes continue to influence too greatly those who are true genuine disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now let us make ourselves distinctly understood. We most fully believe, and most firmly maintain, that Christianity has to do with the present life as well as with the life that is to come. We hold that Christianity concerns herself, and concerns herself most intimately, with the amelioration of the temporal condition of our fellow-men. Improved sanitary measures, better drainage, better supply of food and air and water, better house accommodation ; advancing legislation, the introduction of sounder principles and greater enlightenment into family, commercial, social, political life—these things form, indirectly but most really, a part of the province of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the observable thing is—the thing well known to all who have examined the matterthat the very persons who are foremost in endeavours to disseminate true spiritual religion, are foremost also in all philanthropic attempts for the amelioration of the temporal wellbeing of their fellow-creatures; and that the names of those who are ready to denounce all spiritual movements as interfering with philanthropic enterprise, are, as a rule, conspicuous by their absence from the lists of charitable and benevolent institutions. But what we mean, and what we hesitate not to affirm, is this,—that in a matter like this, in which love to the person of Christ, and zeal for the extension

of His kingdom, are concerned, the evidence of the unspiritual man, of the man who does not love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, must not be too readily accepted. The man is really out of court; he is not qualified, under existing circumstances, to pronounce an opinion; he has not that feeling towards the Saviour which will put him in a position for forming a fair esti. mate of what is done for the Saviour. And in too many cases we may say that his zeal for the poor is simply a pretext, to cover his want of love for Christ.

With regard to those Christian people who may be influenced by the arguments of the worldly, and induced to look with some degree of suspicion upon certain spiritual efforts, as if they were enthusiastic, impulsive, irregular, and probably unproductive of sound practical results, let the narrative supply them with needed instruction and warning. One thing we learn from it, to be cautious in our estimate of those who may have a truer and deeper love to the Lord Jesus Christ than we have ourselves. They move in a higher region of thought and feeling than we do, and inasmuch as it is hard to estimate by looking up, we must beware of judging them. Intense love to Christ is its own justification of its own acts, strange and unusual as they may seem to others to be. And the Lord Jesus, in His majestic condescending tenderness, looks with approval on the love which, without calculating how much, or thinking what others will say, but with gaze intently fixed upon Himself, as if it were conscious of no object beside, comes forward to pour the treasures of its being-its life, its soul, its all-in lavish profusion at His sacred feet.

om with pe sound pica impulsiv

The Descent of Man in Connexion with the Hypothesis of Development. A Lecture delivered at the Dalhousie Institute, Calcutta, July 28th, 1871, by John H. Pratt, M.A., F.R.S., Archdeacon of Calcutta. Hatchards. 1871.

This is a Lecture which will amply repay a careful perusal. It is worthy of the subject with which it deals, and of the high reputation of Archdeacon Pratt. We entirely agree with the lecturer's views on the importance of keeping the lines of argument on the scientific and the theological sides well apart. We have no fear as to the final result when the evidence on both sides is fairly weighed; whilst we entertain a very strong sense of the injury which is done by forced attempts at reconciliation between revelation and science on the one hand, as well as by hasty conclusions respecting their incongruity on the other.

The value of Archdeacon Pratt's Lecture consists in this, that he meets the advocates of the development theory on their own ground, and succeeds, unless we are greatly mistaken, in showing that not only are Mr. Darwin's conclusions based on hypotheses, not on facts, but further that those hypo. theses are in the very highest degree improbable, and inconsistent with known facts.

Whilst according to Mr. Darwin his full meed of praise for his unwearied assiduity in the collection and classification of facts and statements from all quarters, which are calculated, in his judgment, to confirm or illustrate his theory, Archdeacon Pratt points out some difficulties in the way of its reception which seem to us entitled to the grave consideration of its advocates.

The term “natural selection” involves, as the Archdeacon observes, a lurking fallacy. Selection implies the agency of a selector. It would have been better therefore to designate this development theory by the name of chance selection rather than of natural selection. Nor is the term “survival of the fittest” at all more appropriate, inasmuch as it leaves us in doubt whether certain varieties survived because they were the fittest, or whether we are to conclude that they were the fittest simply from the fact that they survived the extinction of others.

Again, Archdeacon Pratt illustrates in a somewhat humorous, but at the same time, as it appears to us, unanswerablo manner, the absurdity of the theory of the development of new species from a long-continued accumulation of infinitesimal changes. Having first remarked on the absence of specimens of these supposed changes in the natural world, and the existence only of the starting-points and the creatures supposed to be ultimately produced as the result of this progressive development, without any intermediate stepping-stones, the Archdeacon proceeds to expose the fallacy of the theory which he is examining in the case of the giraffe :

“Thus the giraffe is supposed by this theory to have sprung from some animal which had a neck of a moderate length, that it may be included in the great family to which we are all imagined to belong; and that it acquired its long neck, in æons of ages, by herds of them being driven into regions where food could be procured only by lifting high its head and stretching its neck. But it is very curious that age after age trees should have got higher and higher, so as to carry on the stretching habit, and that at such a steady rate too, so that they might be high enough still to demand a stretch that food might be got, and yet not too high lest the whole race should perish of starvation.” (p. 11.)

Once more; Archdeacon Pratt urges with irresistible force the consideration that Mr. Darwin's ingenious attempts to Vol. 70.--No. 408.

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prove the mutability of species fall infinitely short of his deduction that “therefore all things have descended from one common origin” (p. 14), or, to speak more correctly, that therefore man has ascended from some remote ape-kind progenitor to the high moral and intellectual position which he now occupies.

The lecturer remarks with becoming severity upon the adoption of phrases such as “there can be little doubt,” “if we may assume,” and the like, as denoting the unsatisfactory character, even upon Mr. Darwin's own showing, of the grounds upon which he arrives at conclusions which, in our judgment equally with that of the Archdeacon, are even more doubtful than the premises from which they are derived; those premises being, in very many cases, nothing more than the results of pure conjecture, or of thoughts which have no other parentage than the wish of their writer that they might find some foundation in facts.

In the concluding portion of this admirable lecture, Archdeacon Pratt very forcibly exposes the inconsistency of the unfounded assumptions and the wild speculations of Mr. Darwin and his adherents with the fundamental principles of true philosophy, as illustrated by the resolute adherence of Sir Isaac Newton to facts, and to the immediate deductions from facts, under circumstances in which, as proved by his great discovery of gravitation, he had the strongest possible temptation to substitute his anticipations of what ought to be for the results of his, at first, imperfect and therefore erroneous investigation of what actually was.

To those who are unable or unwilling to devote much time and attention to that fanciful theory of evolution which, as Archdeacon Pratt anticipates, is likely speedily to be numbered with the many scientific theories of modern times which have been eagerly espoused and as speedily abandoned, we commend this lecture as enabling them to form a just estimate of its true value.

Whether its advocates are destined to be few or many, whether it is destined to exercise a permanent or only an ephemeral influence on the minds and opinions of the rising generation, we agree with the Archdeacon in the belief that, long after the very name of Mr. Darwin's book, “On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection," shall have been obliterated from memory, “the old truths, that God created man in His own likeness of righteousness and holiness, that man fell from that glory by transgression, and is now being recovered only by the mercy and grace of his Sovereign Creator, will be found still erect amidst the wreck of man's inventions and ingenious speculations.” (p. 32.)

TAINE ON INTELLIGENCE. On Intelligence. By H. Taine, D.O.L. Oxon. Translated from

the French by T. D. Huye. Reeve & Co. 1871. This is an exceedingly vigorous and lively treatise upon a system of Mental Philosophy which has been for some time rising in importance in England, and which seems destined to acquire, at any rate, a temporary predominance here. Hitherto it does not appear that this system has had much vogue in France; it was opposed, in various ways, to the national taste and mode of thought. But if the work before us is a fair indication of any deep change of taste, this will soon cease to be the case; for we know no English writer who has shown a more hearty acceptance of the system in question, or is more disposed to promulgate it to others.

It cannot be denied that this system of Psychology, of some of the main principles of which we will give an outline presently, has a bad name in many quarters. It is charged with materialism, and consequently with antagonism to religion. But we believe this impression to have originated in the accidental fact that the study has been taken up mainly by persons hostile or indifferent to religion. There is nothing in the principles of the science opposed to revealed Truth.

We propose to take the opportunity of a review of this work of M. Taine, to give some account of this philosophy. However we may be inclined to reject it as a completo exposition of the truth, it undoubtedly contains many elements of value, and has directed attention to many points, the ignorance or neglect of which would be a great loss. It therefore deserves attention on this ground; it is also most important that those whose function is to teach or lead others, should be competently acquainted with every current system of thought. The clergy, indeed, are professionally bound to do this; for how could they banish and drive away strange doctrines unless they had first made themselves acquainted with their principles ?

If any one had commenced, a generation or two ago, the study of Moral Philosophy, as it was commonly called, the sort of works with which he would have commenced were Dugald Stewart's Lectures, and one or two treatises by Dr, Abercrombie. Now what were the principal characteristics of these works ? Briefly speaking, they were of the following kind. In the first place, all reference to physiology was excluded. The authors were treating of mind, not of body, and would consider it a digression to make more than the slightest