yond the limits which are necessarily prescribed for such a book -these and similar questions must present themselves constantly, and, as every one who has had any experience in this field will realize, must often be very hard to decide. The problem is to do as much as possible for intelligent minds, which yet cannot reach the inmost part of the discussions, because this is within the domain of the Greek language, and to compress as large an amount of valuable material as may be practicable into a small space. It seems to us that the plan, on which Dr. Schaff is apparently working, is one which quite successfully accomplishes these results. The notes are, sometimes, too brief; sometimes, perhaps, they might be made shorter, where they tend towards moral reflection, rather than explanation of the meaning. But, on the whole, the happy mean is attained, and the statements are clear, and brief, and suggestive, and calculated to give the reader what he needs. The pages on which the English text, according to the Authorized Version is given, contain in foot-notes very numerous hints as to improvements in translation, and changes of reading in the original Greek text. Those who use the book, and have never given attention to the subject, will find their minds awakened to the importance of a new revision, and to the good results which can be effected by means of it. The Commentary is to be completed in four volumes, of which this first one contains the three earlier gospels. The present volume has been prepared by the Editor-in-chief, Dr. Schaff, and Professor Riddle, of Hartford. The other writers, who are to participate in the work, are, all of them, gentlemen living in England and Scotland. The maps and illustrations, which have been prepared under the superintendence of Professor Guyot and Drs. W. M. and W. H. Thomson, will add to the interest and value of the book to most of those who may use it. The division of the text into sections, and the brief paragraphs tracing out the contents of each, will aid the ordinary reader. So much has been done, of late years, to unfold the meaning of the New Testament, and to afford guidance in the study of it, for those who are to be scholars in this department and are to teach the churches, that we cannot but give a welcome to every wise effort to bring the results of the best learning before the common church members. Dr. Schaff has undertaken to do in this country this imporant work, which Bishop Ellicott has recently attempted in England. The examination of both of these works will happily widen the sphere of

vision for those who have been limited to the volumes written by Albert Barnes, and the writers who have followed him and imitated his plan.

DR. HOLMES'S MEMOIR OF THE HISTORIAN MOTLEY.*—Apart from the interest which attaches itself to this book as a memoir of one whose career was so conspicuous and so honorable, it calls out an interest of another kind, as a work of art. It gives a carefully drawn portrait, in miniature, of a man of rare gifts and of conspicuous career, by one who is acknowledged to be a master not only in the graceful use of his pen, but in his ability to analyze character. It bears the marks also of being no perfunctory work which has come to him in the routine of professional duty, but rather of being a loving tribute to a friend whom he would present to his countrymen to be honored and admired. When we remember how many really great men have been carricatured by those who have attempted to write their memoirs, or have been dwarfed forever in the eyes of posterity to the narrow conceptions of their biographers, we have reason to be thankful that Mr. Motley has had so competent an interpreter of his life and character, and so able a defender of his fame. Still, after all, the very success of Dr. Holmes in the psychological analysis which he has presented of the mental characteristics of his friend, will without doubt awaken a desire of having other portraits of Mr. Motley by other hands. Dr. Holmes himself says (page 11): "We who live in the days of photographs know how many faces belong to every individual. We know too under what different aspects the same character appears to those who study it from different points of view and with different prepossessions." So the very attractiveness of the "aspect" under which he has presented this portrait of Mr. Motley incites the desire to know how he appeared to others who met him in other relations than those of intimate friendship.

The youth of Mr. Motley was passed in Boston, and his two principal play-fellows were Thomas Gold Appleton, and Wendell Phillips, each of whom furnished Dr. Holmes with their recollections of this period of his life. Mr. Phillips speaks particularly of his physical beauty. The gracefulness of his movements and gestures, and "the admirable set of his head on his shoulders." Lady Byron afterwards said of him that he was more like her

* John Lothrop Motley. A Memoir. By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. 1879. 12mo, 278 pp.

husband in appearance than any other person she had met; but Mr. Phillips thinks that, as he recollects him in his early years, "he was handsomer than any portrait of Byron represents the poet." At the various schools to which the boy was sent, and at college, where he went at the immature age of thirteen, he seems to have been as distinguished for his abilities as for his beauty. "He displayed a remarkable facility for acquiring languages, excelled as a reader and as a writer, and was the object of general admiration for his many gifts." But the flattery which he received, which is often the case with young men of special ability, proved a hindrance to his progress and to the development of his character. He obtained praise too early, and learned to trust too much to his genius. "He had everything to spoil him-beauty, precocious intelligence, and a personal charm, which might have made him a favorite." Yet he was not "generally popular." He was willful, impetuous, sometimes supercilious, and always fastidious." He was one of those boys in whose "possibilities" school-mates and college-mates have great confidence; but who from knowing that they are credited with great abilities are kept from really trying to do their best for fear that their success may not equal the expectations of those who have expressed their admiration. After graduating at Harvard at seventeen, he went to Europe and studied at Berlin and Göttingen, where he became the friend of Bismarck. The two lived as the great Chancellor has recently said-"in the closest intimacy; sharing meals and outdoor exercise." On his return home, as might be expected, it was some years before he found a field of labor in which he could enter with real satisfaction to himself. He studied law; published a poor novel; tried the diplomatic service as secretary of legation at St. Petersburg; tried politics, and served one term as representative in the Massachusetts legislature; published a second novel, no better than the first; and down to 1845, when he was thirty, had found no congenial field of work. Dr. Holmes presents an admirable analysis of the mental qualities of his friend during these early years; and the reader cannot fail to have his interest aroused in the psychological explanations which are given of the reasons of the numerous unsuccessful attempts which Mr. Motley made as a young man, for they serve to illustrate the path by which at last the distinguished historian overcame that want of persistence which seemed natural to him, and attained his brilliant success. The story of this success is

told with more conciseness, for the time has not yet come when that can be given in detail. One of the most important parts of the book, and that which has been most carefully prepared, is the account of the diplomatic career of Mr. Motley, which is a complete vindication of his fame. In the conduct of the correspondence with him when at Vienna and London, neither Mr. Seward nor Mr. Fish added to their laurels.

PHILIPPI'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.*-The translation of this work adds to the number of the most valuable expositions of the Epistle to the Romans. Its author, though a strict Lutheran in theology, is a scholar of so great attainments and so thoroughly versed in the subject of which he treats, that he rises into the freedom of exegesis. He discusses the meaning of passages, both in the region of mere interpretation and in that of doctrine, with much ability. His book, thus, becomes an excellent one for the student who desires what a strong man of that school of thinking understands the Apostle to teach in this chief Epistle. At the same time, it gives the student the views of such a man on points of language, and the construction of sentences, and the legitimate meaning of words and phrases. The use of such books is always helpful, for they bring the mind into contact with the best thought. The first volume of the Commentary only has now been published, but the remaining one is promised at an early date. This first volume covers the first seven chapters of the Epistle and seventeen verses of the eighth chapter. It thus extends nearly to the end of the doctrinal section, strictly so called. This writer, however, differs from most others, in regarding the three following chapters as not an appended section, more loosely attached to the doctrinal parts, but an "essential, integral element" in it. "The absorption and elevation as well of heathenism, which had no sanction of law, as of Judaism, which had such sanction, as inadequate manifestations of the religious life, into the gospel which brings justification and holiness, into Christianity as the absolute and all-sufficient form of religion-this," he says, "is the theme which the Apostle expounds under every aspect." The destiny of Christianity, however, being "not

* Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. By FRIEDRICH ADOLPH PHILIPPI, Doctor and Ordinary Professor at Rostock. Translated from the Third Improved and Enlarged Edition. By the Rev. J. S. BANKS, Manchester. In two volumes. Vol. I. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, New York: C. Scribner's Sons. 1878. Price $3.00.

merely to absorb into itself the Jewish and Gentile faiths, but also to draw to itself the Jewish and Gentile worlds," the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters become the consummation and completion of the author's plan. The development of the thought and plan, as the interpretation is carried forward, is of course conformed to this governing idea. The author's discussion of important passages, such as the celebrated one in the fifth chapter, verses twelve to nineteen, and the seventh and eighth chapters, as to their relation to the regenerate or unregenerate man, is full and able. He defends his opinions with energy, and even where a candid person of another way of thinking may not agree with him, he will be glad to see the forcible and scholarly presentation, which the author gives him of the Apostle's thought as it appears to his own mind.

IMMER'S HERMENEUTICS.*-A good book on New Testament Hermeneutics is a thing to be welcomed at all times, and especially at present. The energy of scholars, in the line of Biblical study and interpretation, has, for a good many years past, been largely devoted to commentaries. Many of these have been published by English and American authors, and many of the prominent works of foreign writers have been translated into our language. In this way the means at command for the investigation of the New Testament books have been greatly increased, and students in this department have been enabled to enter upon their work under peculiar advantages, as compared with those of a former generation. But, while so much has thus been accomplished, we have had little in our language in the way of treatises on the science of Hermeneutics. The volume of Immer, which is now translated, is therefore timely, and the announcement of its publication will awaken interest in all who are devoted to such studies. The author is a Professor of Theology in Switzerland, and is characterized by the thoroughness and independence of the German scholars. He gives a somewhat extended review of the history of Scripture interpretation, pointing out and criticising the positions and opinions of successive authors in the past. From the truths and errors thus discovered he draws conclusions which confirm the view, which is advanced at the outset as the right one— that the interpreter must approach the New Testament as he *Hermeneutics of the New Testament. By Dr. A. IMMER, Professor of Theology in the University of Berne. Translated from the German by ALBERT NEWMAN. Andover: Warren F. Draper. 8vo. 1877.