readily defer to the professor, but we are astonished to find that he thinks that in the Old Testament there is nothing of "humor." At least the only exception he makes is "the grotesque adventures of Samson among the Philistines." Humor is not a Semitic quality. It is not a quality of any people in their intensest moments; still it is not absent from the Old Testament. The humor may be very grim, but still there is humor in Elijah's challenge to the Priests of Baal. The humor again may be very grim, but there is humor in Isaiah's account of the man who makes a god, who pours gold out of his bag and weighs silver in a balance, and hires a goldsmith: "the smith maketh an axe, and worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with his strong arm; yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth; he drinketh no water, and is faint;" yet he is equal to the making of the god. But most excellent is the humor connected with the carpenter who "taketh an oak and shapeth it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man, to dwell in the house;" but of part of the tree he maketh a fire and warmeth himself at the fire, he baketh bread, and so of the same material he makes a fire and a god. The humor may not be as kindly or genial as that of our modern professor; but it is of a kind keen enough to please a Swift or a Thackeray. He tells us that "Judaism never reached the religious elevation of some chosen spirits among the heathen world, such as Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus." It is a curious choice. If Seneca had been a Christian rather than a Stoic, we should have heard more of the contradictions between his creed and his conduct. If Marcus Aurelius had been a converted rather than a pagan emperor, we should have heard a deal more of the martyrdoms for which he was responsible than of the "meditations" that now deserve our admiration and our praise. We are told that "Scotch Calvinism has in fact ethically in it not a little of the Old Testament." We should have thought

that Stoicism had in it not a little of the Old Testament too; that Marcus Aurelius in particular embodied a morality very cognate to the Puritan. But one thing that ought to be remembered both as regards the Calvinist and the Old Testament is, that persecution does not tend to sweeten men; and when they have for two or three generations had to struggle for their life against a brutal power, it says something for the faith they lived by if they became fanatics for an idea rather than haters of their kind. We were not aware that Paul treated the Fall of Adam in Genesis as historical in the same sense or manner as that in which a too vernacular theology at one time regarded it. The truth is, the Church stands to the Bible very much as the man of science stands to nature. Changes in the manner of conceiving nature mark the life and growth of science; changes in the manner of conceiving religion mark the life and growth of religion.

It would be a poor Church that was as good in the first as in the nineteenth century of its existence. It would be a dead religion that lived through a single century without feeling intellectual change or reflecting the increased knowledge of its time. An analysis of what was once thought of the Old Testament in contrast to what is now thought of it is a cheap sort of argument when used to discredit either the Book or the Society that has done so much for its exposition. The remarkable thing about the criticism of the Old Testament is that it has proceeded so much from the religious mind. It has been practically the work of men who have believed and because of their belief, and these men could not but feel that belief was made more reasonable by the changes they helped to effect. It would be worthier of a great historian to ask whether, if we are to "study humanity as a manifestation of the supreme power," the Scriptures can be excluded from the study. Humanity is not an accident; yet more than any other document the Scriptures have contributed to the richer life, to the

happier progress, to the better living of the race. The incidents of which it is easy to make so much-the intolerance, the bigotries, the oppressions of churches—are not the expression of the religious character, but of their want of it. They belong to the age, not the spirit which is working in and through the society; and amid the forces that have been contributed by the Scriptures to the life of humanity, one of the greatest is a point touched, but not understood, by Professor Goldwin Smith. Has he asked himself what the meaning of moral law as the highest voice of God in religion is? Nothing has contributed more to the growth of humanity than the moralizing of religion; and that was a work which the moral law of the Old Testament first began, and which the law of Christ came in later to carry on to completion. It is time we had done with the niggling criticism that cannot see the wood for the trees, and that we looked broadly yet keenly at the forces that most make for the amelioration of man; and recognize that these stand related to the very books which Professor Goldwin Smith as "a bystander" so caustically criticises in detail, yet fails to see in their concrete and corporate being and work.

From The Spectator. THE DREAM-EMPIRE OF THE BALKANS.

The loyalty of the European Turks to the ruler of the fragment of the Balkan Peninsula still left to the Ottoman Empire is strained as it has never been before. The Ethnikè Hetairia's bands are calling "the children" to arms in Macedonia. Bulgaria is said to be uniting with Servia and Montenegrowhose princes are already members of the Panslavist League-in a minor Triple Alliance. Is it any wonder that visions of a new empire of the Balkans are again floating through the minds of politicians with imagination and an inclination towards "long views"? Surely, one hears it said, the year 1900

will see set up that Balkan Confederation concerning which SO much has been written? A century later, with the beginning of the second thousand years of the Christian era, may not the Dream-Empire of the Balkans itself be ushered in in "the garden of the world made desolate" by four centuries of Ottoman oppression? Certainly the imperial idea is not dead in the Peninsula. Every evening, under the shadow of an old willow in Constantinople, a lamp is lit over the uncut stone which marks the tomb of the heroic Constantine, the last emperor of the Greeks. To the Serbs the name of their Czar Dushan, who, exactly five hundred years before our queen came to the throne, subjugated Macedonia and Albania, is as familiar as that of the Bruce to the Scots peasant. Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria in calling his infant boy Boris paid a tribute to the influence still exerted over his people by the traditions of the ninth century, in which the "Emperor of the Bulgarians and despot of the Greeks" occupied the suburbs of Constantinople and reigned over the whole country. Turning to tiny Montenegro, need one do more than mention the name of Prince Nicholas's drama, "The Empress of the Balkans"? As to the Roumanians, who that is acquainted with the speeches and articles of the politicians and journalists of Bucharest will deny that the Emperor Trajan is a name to conjure with?

"This federation of free States, destined to fill the gap that will be caused by the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire," wrote Lamartine sixty years ago. The Turks might never have gained their footing in Europe had Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks stood shoulder to shoulder in the Middle Ages. Can they be trusted to act together when their next great chance comes? The realization of the Dream-Empire depends less upon the disposition of Russia and Austria than upon the temper and strength of the emancipated peoples themselves. With regard to Greece, the world has had an excellent opportunity of late of judging not only the

readily defer to the professor, but we are astonished to find that he thinks that in the Old Testament there is nothing of "humor." At least the only exception he makes is "the grotesque adventures of Samson among the Philistines." Humor is not a Semitic quality. It is not a quality of any people in their intensest moments; still it is not absent from the Old Testament. The humor may be very grim, but still there is humor in Elijah's challenge to the Priests of Baal. The humor again may be very grim, but there is humor in Isaiah's account of the man who makes a god, who pours gold out of his bag and weighs silver in a balance, and hires a goldsmith: "the smith maketh an axe, and worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with his strong arm; yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth; he drinketh no water, and is faint;" yet he is equal to the making of the god. But most excellent is the humor connected with the carpenter who "taketh an oak and shapeth it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man, to dwell in the house;" but of part of the tree he maketh a fire and warmeth himself at the fire, he baketh bread, and so of the same material he makes a fire and a god. The humor may not be as kindly or genial as that of our modern professor; but it is of a kind keen enough to please a Swift or a Thackeray. He tells us that "Judaism never reached the religious elevation of some chosen spirits among the heathen world, such as Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus." It is a curious choice. If Seneca had been a Christian rather than a Stoic, we should have heard more of the contradictions between his creed and his conduct. If Marcus Aurelius had been a converted rather than a pagan emperor, we should have heard a deal more of the martyrdoms for which he was responsible than of the "meditations" that now deserve our admiration and our praise. We are told that "Scotch Calvinism has in fact ethically in it not a little of the Old Testament." We should have thought

that Stoicism had in it not a little of the Old Testament too; that Marcus Aurelius in particular embodied a morality very cognate to the Puritan. But one thing that ought to be remembered both as regards the Calvinist and the Old Testament is, that persecution does not tend to sweeten men; and when they have for two or three generations had to struggle for their life against a brutal power, it says something for the faith they lived by if they became fanatics for an idea rather than haters of their kind. We were not aware that Paul treated the Fall of Adam in Genesis as historical in the same sense or manner as that in which a too vernacular theology at one time regarded it. The truth is, the Church stands to the Bible very much as the man of science stands to nature. Changes in the manner of conceiving nature mark the life and growth of science; changes in the manner of conceiving religion mark the life and growth of religion.

It would be a poor Church that was as good in the first as in the nineteenth century of its existence. It would be a dead religion that lived through a single century without feeling intellectual change or reflecting the increased knowledge of its time. An analysis of what was once thought of the Old Testament in contrast to what is now thought of it is a cheap sort of argument when used to discredit either the Book or the Society that has done so much for its exposition. The remarkable thing about the criticism of the Old Testament is that it has proceeded so much from the religious mind. It has been practically the work of men who have believed and because of their belief, and these men could not but feel that belief was made more reasonable by the changes they helped to effect. It would be worthier of a great historian to ask whether, if we are to "study humanity as a manifestation of the supreme power," the Scriptures can be excluded from the study. Humanity is not an accident; yet more than any other document the Scriptures have contributed to the richer life, to the

happier progress, to the better living of the race. The incidents of which it is easy to make so much-the intolerance, the bigotries, the oppressions of churches-are not the expression of the religious character, but of their want of it. They belong to the age, not the spirit which is working in and through the society; and amid the forces that have been contributed by the Scriptures to the life of humanity, one of the greatest is a point touched, but not understood, by Professor Goldwin Smith. Has he asked himself what the meaning of moral law as the highest voice of God in religion is? Nothing has contributed more to the growth of humanity than the moralizing of religion; and that was a work which the moral law of the Old Testament first began, and which the law of Christ came in later to carry on to completion. It is time we had done with the niggling criticism that cannot see the wood for the trees, and that we looked broadly yet keenly at the forces that most make for the amelioration of man; and recognize that these stand related to the very books which Professor Goldwin Smith as "a bystander" so caustically criticises in detail, yet fails to see in their concrete and corporate being and work.

From The Spectator. THE DREAM-EMPIRE OF THE BALKANS. The loyalty of the European Turks to the ruler of the fragment of the Balkan Peninsula still left to the Ottoman Empire is strained as it has never been before. The Ethnike Hetairia's bands are calling "the children" to arms in Macedonia. Bulgaria is said to be uniting with Servia and Montenegrowhose princes are already members of the Panslavist League-in a minor Triple Alliance. Is it any wonder that visions of a new empire of the Balkans are again floating through the minds of politicians with imagination and an inclination towards "long views"? Surely, one hears it said, the year 1900

will see set up that Balkan Confederation concerning which SO much has been written? A century later, with the beginning of the second thousand years of the Christian era, may not the Dream-Empire of the Balkans itself be ushered in in "the garden of the world made desolate" by four centuries of Ottoman oppression? Certainly the imperial idea is not dead in the Peninsula. Every evening, under the shadow of an old willow in Constantinople, a lamp is lit over the uncut stone which marks the tomb of the heroic Constantine, the last emperor of the Greeks. To the Serbs the name of their Czar Dushan, who, exactly five hundred years before our queen came to the throne, subjugated Macedonia and Albania, is as familiar as that of the Bruce to the Scots peasant. Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria in calling his infant boy Boris paid a tribute to the influence still exerted over his people by the traditions of the ninth century, in which the "Emperor of the Bulgarians and despot of the Greeks" occupied the suburbs of Constantinople and reigned over the whole country. Turning to tiny Montenegro, need one do more than mention the name of Prince Nicholas's drama, "The Empress of the Balkans"? As to the Roumanians, who that is acquainted with the speeches and articles of the politicians and journalists of Bucharest will deny that the Emperor Trajan is a name to conjure with?

"This federation of free States, destined to fill the gap that will be caused by the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire," wrote Lamartine sixty years ago. The Turks might never have gained their footing in Europe had Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks stood shoulder to shoulder in the Middle Ages. Can they be trusted to act together when their next great chance comes? The realization of the Dream-Empire depends less upon the disposition of Russia and Austria than upon the temper and strength of the emancipated peoples themselves. With regard to Greece, the world has had an excellent opportunity of late of judging not only the

national character but the military, naval, and economic resources of the State. Servia, the only Belkan principality without a seaport, is smaller even than Greece (area, five thousand square miles less than that of Scotland), but lords it in point of area over the Serb Montenegro, which is but half the size of Wales. In spite of heavy taxes Servia is in straits for money. Although possessing, like the brave highlanders of the Black Mountain, a native ruler, the country has found its monarchy burdensome in more ways than one. Great politicians and newspaper readers, the fidgety Servians fail to impress their visitors as favorably as the Bulgarians. As to the Servian army, it has hardly lived down the memory of its humiliating defeat at the hands of Prince Alexander. Bulgaria (area, that of Scotland and Wales), which shares with Roumania and what remains of Turkey in Europe the Black Sea front, has always had friends in this country, and its affairs are well known. It is much less given to show than its northern neighbor; the progress which its young men from Robert College have achieved is real. In regard to the language, a Bulgarian and a Servian understand each other, and an educated Sofiote can read Tolstoi in the original without learning Russian. The largest and the least mountainous of the Balkan States is Roumania, between which and Bulgaria flows the Danube. Alone among the peoples of the most easterly of the Mediterranean peninsulas, two out of three of which are Latin, it uses a Latin dialect; and unlike Bulgaria and Servia, which are peasant States, it is blessed with an aristocracy. In point of fact, absenteeism-along with the Jewish questionis one of the government's greatest difficulties. Agriculturally, Roumania might be one of the richest countries in Europe; M. de Laveleye's judgment"the Roumain is brilliant, intelligent, less given to work than to spend, without foresight, always ready to run into debt to gratify the whim of the moment"-points to the source of weakness. As to the Roumanian army, its

deeds at Plevna and Sir Charles Dilke's declaration that it is not inferior to our own furnish a sufficient indication of its merits.

With regard to unappropriated Turkey, it comprises Albania (or rather three Albanias, the Orthodox, the Catholic, and the Mussulman, which add yet another language to the Balkan Babel), Macedonia, and the Adrianople district, and is probably the finest territory from the point of view of scenery and of agricultural and mineral wealth (still undeveloped, of course) which the Moslems have possessed in Europe. The idea of the Confederationists has been to create more autonomous States (one of them conceivably Turkish), previously perhaps, cutting off certain slices of country for the benefit of Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece. But if "rectification of frontiers" once began, where would it stop? And how could a territory like Macedonia, containing such a mixed population, form itself into a principality? At present the rayahs of that part of Turkey yet to be liberated are a prey to brigands, beys, and Greek ecclesiastics, the two latter working hand in hand. As to those whom Carlyle called "the peaceful Mongol inhabitants" their lot is such compared with that of their fellowMahommedans in Greece, Bulgaria, and elsewhere in the North (in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, which were in a pitiable state eighteen years since, a paternal government even keeps the number of lawyers down to sixteen!) that many of them are now probably inclined to view the southern extension of the Christian States with resignation. To effect a modus vivendi with the local Turks may prove less difficult than to reconcile Greek, Bulgarian and Servian territorial claims, and Russian and Austrian interests. Concerning Constantinople, is its acquisition by Greece, Bulgaria, or Servia really regarded as a serious question in Athens, Sofia, or Belgrade? Is it not to the Ægean, rather than to the Bosphorus, that Servia and Bulgaria, and Greece as well, despite "the great Hellenic idea," direct their eyes? However this