little hope of revival. Look at those cold, burnt-out cinders. Will they ever glow again?'

He was apparently speaking rather to himself than to me; but his words suggested to me a new reason, and a moral one, for answering his thoughts by deeds rather than words. I soon had the scarcely perceptible sparks into a Lame. And as the hearth grew bright and cheery again, and the red fire was reflected on his pale, wan, wasted countenence, I asked him if he would accept the omen. The question brought a faint smile to a part of the lower portion of the face. To a part only. And a most transient smile it was, if it might even be called one at all. Most transient, and most melancholy.

And now I could observe my guest at leisure. He had sunk into a low chair, and sat gazing at the fire, or rather into it, as if intently watching some process, or procession, of intense interest. The brow was delicately carved; there was a grace and beauty about it rarely seen in men. I have sometimes read of a forehead of dazzling whiteness,' but do not remember ever to have seen so pure a one; and as clusters of fine dark hair fell upon it, and round the temples, one was reminded of beautiful sculpture. The eyes were large. Grey, I thought them then, but subsequently fancied they were blue, while others have called them hazel; perhaps the hue somewhat varied. A sadly significant darkness all about them told a melancholy tale. He could not have seen more than eight or nine-and-twenty summers (winters, he would have said), yet the deep lines of the face, telling of a long acquaintance with suffering of some kind, showed how fallacious may sometimes be the computation of life by years.

And so we sat for some time; he gazing at the fire-I at him, reading, or trying to read, that living hieroglyphic scroll, the written face. At length, as if aware of my thoughts, he somewhat suddenly turned his full melancholy, yet genial, eyes upon me, and rising, said,

'My story, if indeed there is one, is too long for to-night; after I have seen the green turf laid carefully over all that remains of her, I must return to this place, if only for a time, and then you shall know by what inevitable steps I have come to my present point. If I mistake not, your hour of family prayer (my father was a clergyman, but he has been dead-ah, DEAD!' said he, relapsing into a reverie, this many a year). Yes, I heard the evening hymn but now, and sweet young voices sung it, God bl- I mean, may they be happy; was it yourself that played the organ in the room below? But you are ready to retire for the night.'

The clock had, in truth, struck the midnight hour some time before, and the dial on the mantel-shelf showed that it was now much later, but he took little note of time. As he would leave by the early train in the morning, before it would be light, he insisted on bidding me farewell then. But he had one request. Would I proceed to his lodgings, and bring away to my own house a small picture which he shrunk from the thought of having seen by any other eyes? He described its situation in his temporary studio; itself, he said, perhaps he need not describe. Begging me to excuse him for not giving me

his address while absent, he promised to write ere long, and to return at no distant day. Nor did he reject the blessing I ejaculated with the fervent Good night, but grasped my hand, and seemed as if he would have carried it to his lips. And still he held it, as if he would fain say something more; and as he detained it, the character of his own revealed itself. I say the character, for how much there is in the hand. If the whole repeat itself in the part, as some thinkers have said, the language of this organ may be as significant as that of any; and the reader will, perhaps, be able to recall the memory of some hand that it was pleasant to detain, to touch even. And one could hardly think of a hand like his being ever grasped in friendship or in love, and afterwards forgotten.

And so we parted; I to muse and think of the strange incidents of the day-he, to pass the night as bereaved hearts only know how, and to proceed on the morrow, before the dawn, on his long and dismal journey-graveward! May the unknown God preserve him!

Dr. Davidson on Inspiration.*

OUR readers are long since aware, that in some parts of England, and especially in Lancashire, a rather vehement controversy has been and is now going on-the vexed question of Inspiration being the unfortunate occasion. So much misrepresentation, and consequent misapprehension, of the locus standi of the chief parties in this passage at arms prevails, that we hope we shall not be performing an unnecessary duty if we attempt to place the question fairly before our readers. The genesis of this matter is to be traced to a new edition of Horne's Introduction to the Scriptures,' the second, and by far the most important volume, of which, has been wholly re-written by Dr. Davidson, Professor of Biblical Literature in the Lancashire Independent College. Certain statements in that volume on the subject of inspiration are alleged to be 'heterodox,' that is, we presume, opposed to the vague faiths and professional technicalities of one section of modern Christendom; and therefore most pernicious in their probable tendencies upon that portion of the rising ministry,' who, as we have been given to understand, love and reverence their professor, for his large heartedness and genial sympathy with the difficulties of student life. It has also been insinuated that the trust deed of the college is violated by Dr. Davidson's published sentiments on this doctrine, and it has become a serious and anxiously discussed

* Audi alteram partem. Dr. Davidson and the Inspiration of the Scriptures; especially addressed to the Subscribers to the Lancashire Independent College.' Manchester, 1856.

The Doctrine of Inspiration. British Quarterly,' Jan., 1857.

question in Lancashire, whether, holding such views, certainly not popular, and usually accounted heretical, Dr. Davidson can be allowed to retain his professorship. Our readers will observe that here is a twofold indictment against Dr. Davidson, the one resting on his alleged departure from the recognised traditions or faiths of the Christian Church; the other, his want of fidelity to some condition of a trust deed under which he accepted office. This latter and special count in the indictment we dispose of at once and finally, by saying that the trust deed of the Lancashire College does not contain any clause that has reference to the doctrine of inspiration-so that this objection falls to the ground.

The other, and general objection to Dr. Davidson's views on inspiration is of far greater importance, and demands a calm investigation. Because Dr. Davidson is not the man, so far as we can judge of him by his works, to stand upon any legal technicalities touching trust deeds; if in honour and truth he could not retain his present professional chair he would at once resign it, all trust deeds to the contrary notwithstanding.

And, therefore, we come to examine this controversy on its broad and generally recognisable terms; our object being to place on record matters of fact that will necessarily be materials for the future history of opinion, and at the same time, as Christian journalists, to give expression to certain convictions that have been awakened in us by the present angry attitudes of many who have involved themselves, and are sedulously striving to involve others, in a controversy which now threatens to become painfully personal.

This controversy does not concern us merely as Nonconformists. We have good reason for saying that outside of the circle of our denomination' this matter is debated with eager interest. The venerable Mr. Horne, in the forgetfulness or feebleness of intellect incident to extreme age, has written to the 'Literary Churchman' a singularly vehement letter about his private and repeated remonstrances' with Dr. Davidson, the simple fact being, as is proved by examination of the correspondence, that there were just two things, and only two things, in which Mr. Horne wrote to Dr. Davidson, respecting some things he wished to be altered.' The Record,' also, with its own peculiar facility of detecting heresy in every man who prefers pure morals to the Thirty-nine Articles, has denounced Dr. Davidson as 'prostituting a standard book to the service of German rationalism.' The Athenæum,' in its own heartless, but too frequently partizan spirit, has pretended to insinuate that Dr. Davidson has been a dishonest borrower, without acknowledgment, of the ipsissima verba of Lowth, and by a poorly concealed spirit of cliquism has endeavoured, also, to damage Dr. Davidson's wellearned reputation as a scholar. The Journal of Sacred Literature,' in referring to Mr. Macnaught's book, has said, that it can hardly be beat by any passages that can be culled from professed infidels, and yet the book is introduced to American readers by the imprimature of Dr. S. Davidson, of the Manchester Independent College,

and English editor of the "Bibliotheca Sacra." Lastly, in other journals connected with sacred literature has this question of inspiration, and the second volume of Horne's Introduction, been discussed, and so far as present appearances go, the whole matter seems likely to prove a vexata question, both within and without the more immediate circles of Nonconformity.

So much then in outline of generalities. And now we have the 'British Quarterly' complicating the whole matter by a new article on inspiration. Of course our readers know that Dr. Vaughan is the writer of this article; this is no secret; the 'Nonconformist,' in its review of Dr. Davidson's book, largely quoted from the British Quarterly' of 1851, to show that the views held by one professor of the Lancashire College, on the subject of inspiration, were very nearly, if not precisely, similar to those held by the other professor. Hereupon the world receives this last article on inspiration, in which Dr. Vaughan avows his authorship of both, and thus fulfils a rather unseemly threat contained in a letter to the Nonconformist' of December 10, 1856, in which are these hard words; if I am to be forced into it (the "dispute ") after this manner, I shall be prepared to speak in this controversy, as I have spoken in some others, that is, as my sense of truth and duty shall dictate.' Well, we hope, that is how every man speaks in all matters of dispute,' but it is painful to find Dr. Vaughan writing as if he had monopolized those precious things called truth and duty,' and thereby allowing judgment to go by default of honesty, on the part of those who, with much respect and admiration, are compelled to dissent from some of Dr. Vaughan's premises and conclusions.

The head and front of Dr. Davidson's offending appears to be the seventeenth chapter of the volume already referred to; a very short chapter, extending only from pp. 371 to 376, in which, we believe, it is generally assumed, at least we know to a great extent that it is assumed, that Dr. Davidson's views are novel, unscriptural, and therefore 'unsound.' With much care, and with a real desire to arrive at the truth, we have sat down to the study of this volume, availing ourselves of all the helps within our reach, and we are compelled to say that we arrive at perfectly opposite conclusions.

Dr. Davidson's views on inspiration are not novel. He is no breaker up of untrodden ground. He merely says in his own method what others, even Dr. Vaughan in the article indicated at the commencement of our paper, have said in theirs. We greatly regret that any theologians should attempt to frame a theory to account for the fact of inspiration. The fact admitted, that the Bible is an inspired book in all matters touching the religious life of man, or the development of the kingdom of God upon earth; that is to say, that where moral and religious truth are concerned, there the Bible is an inspired, and therefore infallible guide; this being admitted, we not only think it altogether idle to discuss the nature of the Spirit's operation on the mind of the sacred penman, but we think it wicked to denounce a man as a 'heretic' because he thinks that Moses was

not the sole author of the Pentateuch, or that 'an honest mind, calmly seeking after God's truth in the spirit he approves, will not be at a loss to make sufficient distinction between religious or ethical truth, and departments that belong to the natural and human.' We do not commit ourselves to Dr. Davidson's theory of inspiration; we confess to a perfect inability, also, to comprehend Dr. Vaughan's elaborated scheme of the nature of, and extent to which, this inspiration extended. It is very easy for us to frame a theory, under which the phases of inspiration may seem to arrange themselves satisfactorily, but it is a vastly different matter to make this theory fit all the phenomena, psychological and moral, that intertwine themselves with the difficult facts of divine inspiration and human agency. So far as we conceive of the matter at all, we believe that no human theory can cover the fact of inspiration; the ordinary operations of the Spirit are unexplained to, and therefore inexplicable by, us; how much more must be those extraordinary communications, concerning which it is said that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;' and yet that such was the abnormal state of the inspired minds of these writers, that they had to search what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.'

6

As a book of religious truth, that is, conveying God's will in all cases where man's relationship to God and future destiny are concerned, we hold the Bible to be a plenarily inspired, and therefore infallible book. The mission and office of the sacred writers was a religious one. They were the media employed of God to make known his will to men respecting his nature; his modes of dealing with his responsible creatures on this earth; their condition, duties, and hopes as immortal beings. They wrote to show, in various ways, what the history of the human race has been in relation to God, the Creator, Ruler, and loving Parent. All their communications bore upon Messiah and his salvation, the only-begotten Son of the Father, in his humiliation, functions, and exaltation.' (Davidson, p. 373.) The doctor admits that this is 'delicate ground;' that the 'conscientious, but timid theologian may ask, How can you draw a line between the region of religious and moral truth, and the lower region you are now referring to?

It has pleased Dr. Vaughan to speak of Dr. Pye Smith as a mere child in practical judgment, and in that knowledge of human nature, without which no man can judge wisely concerning such a doctrine' (inspiration) as we have now under consideration. Apart from the truth or otherwise of this rather dogmatic assertion, we humbly submit that this doctrine of inspiration lies altogether out of the range of those subjects which are settled by practical judgment,' and knowledge of human nature.' But if Dr. Pye Smith was a 'mere child,' he has said that about inspiration which, had they but adhered to its wise silence, would have saved both Dr. Davidson and Dr. Vaughan a world of unnecessary trouble and

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