this would require long time. Even a possession of twenty centuries' tenure does not establish an indefeasible title. And a general council in the thirtieth century would have just the same power to pronounce the Christian judgment in the premises, and if need be to reverse a previous judgment that a council of the fifth century had to reverse one of the third. There is no prescriptive right in the Kingdom of Christ.

If it be objected that this way of thinking vacates the Holy Scriptures of all divine authority, two answers are forthcoming. The first is that this is the way in which the Church throughout all the centuries and to-day has and does regard them. The only exception in time is the three centuries last past, and in space is a portion of the Protestant world of Great Britain and the United States. The other answer is, it does vacate them of all authority except this intrinsic power to inspire. It rests content with the doctrine of the Apostle that "Every God-breathed writing is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness."

In righteousness: not in science, not in history, not in geography or ethnology. To this, which is essentially the Catholic doctrine of Holy Scripture, what can criticism or scholarship do? What if it should appear that the human race began ages before Eden or that Moses did not write the Pentateuch or that there were two Isaiahs, or that the Gospel which goes by his name was not written by the beloved disciple? Proof of these things would not touch the intrinsic quality by which the books live, any more than would the discovery that the alabaster box had been carved at Babylon and not in Jerusalem affect the fragrance of the precious nard contained therein.

We have come to a time in the history of the Christian world when nothing but realities will be tolerated. Only those things can be accepted as sacred which awake the sense of reverence. Only those things are inspired which can themselves inspire. There need be no fear to submit the Christian Scriptures to this test, nor need any one futilly imagine that they can secure them exemption from the test.

The Old Testament in the Light of Higher

Criticism

Higher Criticism

BY

The Reverend Professor HENRY PRESERVED SMITH, D.D.

THE

'HE nineteenth century has seen a thorough revision of our historical knowledge. This revision has begun with the study of ancient documents, and the science which concerns these documents-criticism we call it has made very distinct advance during the hundred years. Historical criticism has developed along two lines; first, the settlement of the text of ancient documents on the basis of manuscript evidence. This is textual criticism sometimes called the lower criticism because it comes at the basis of all historical study. In distinction from this, the second branch (or higher criticism) concerns itself with the internal characteristics of a document after the text is settled. It asks about date, authorship, mode of composition.

When it was discovered that all historical knowledge is acquired by a critical process it became inevitable that the books of the Old Testament should be subjected to the same process. Both in textual criticism and in the higher branch there was evidently much to do. It is perhaps a misfortune that the textual criticism could not have been finished first, and so have prepared the way for the higher criticism. But one science does not wait for another-all the sciences are advanced simultaneously by a multitude of workers.

It would not be accurate to say that the whole critical study of the Old Testament is bounded by the limits of the nineteenth century. Slight beginnings of it are found as far back as the twelfth century in one or two Jewish scholars. In the period of the Reformation also we find a somewhat freer attitude towards tradition than had existed before. Luther is the most conspicuous example, and his contemporary Carlstadt