nature. Religion asserts the divinity of this intelligence, the divine power in the activities of nature. Such a Deity science can recognize and accept, while it only sneers at the far-distant God enthroned in the heavens as the creation of religious phantasy.

With this true religious view of the relations of God to nature the long-mooted question of teleology is adjusted. The "formative impulse" in nature, of which Huxley speaks, working out "purposive" results, which he also affirms, must be a power of intelligence comprehensive of all the relations and processes of nature. As "purposive" it must work for an end. The power that creates and modifies the germ, differentiating parts and organs producing varieties, is the same power that environs and adapts. All are results of the same divine purpose and action. The organific, as the adaptive power, is equally divine. In both cases the mechanical agency works within. The cause must be adequate not only to the immediate, but to the ultimate effect, and must continue active and operative to the end. Wherever nature works He works. There is no point in the universe, there is no moment of time, without the presence of "that infinite and eternal Energy from which all things proceed."

Our conclusion is that the scientific element in religion furnishes to science its true basis in its revelation of the real, creative, efficient, first, final, and eternal Cause, omnipotent, omnipresent, producing all the phenomena of the universe. Religion reveals also the nature of that Cause as spirit--intelligence, mind, and will, in which consists true spiritual personality. And, finally, it is religion that furnishes the solution in harmony with science and philosophy to that most perplexing riddle of the ages, the relations of matter to the creative power, or of the material universe to God, "who is over all, and through all, and in all." Eph. iv, 6, R. V.

James Douglas

ART. VI.

- BENNETT'S "CHRISTIAN ARCHEOLOGY.”* IT has been said that the best of commentators is the spade. The archæological explorations at Rome and Naples; in Sicily, Greece, and Asia Minor; in Egypt, Syria, and on the sites of Babylon and Nineveh, are demonstrations of the value of the exhumed relics of the distant past as interpreting the thought and belief of ancient times. A visit to the Museo Nazionale, at Naples, or to the Vatican or Lateran Museums, at Rome, brings one nearer the heart of pagan or Christian antiquity than the reading of many volumes of history. The learned antiquarian, Piper, remarks that:

Christian archæology reveals a source of information which supplies a serious lack in our knowledge of Christian antiquity; for the nearer we approach the beginnings of the Church, the more meager are the literary sources of evidence. Here, accordingly, the contemporary monuments in stone, metal, and color, found by thousands in all parts of the world, especially in the countries around the Mediterranean, are of immense assistance.

In like spirit, Dean Stanley remarks:

He who is steeped in the imagery of the Catacombs will be nearer to the thought of the early Church than he who has learned by heart the most elaborate treatise of Tertullian or of Origen.

We therefore hail with great delight Professor Bennett's admirable volume on Christian archæology. He has laid the whole Church under obligation by his exhaustive researches and lucid expositions. There are many books which treat parts of the broad subject which he here discusses: but we know of none in the English language which treats the whole subject so comprehensively, so succinctly, yet so adequately. The book that most nearly resembles it in breadth of scope and amplitude of learning is Bingham's famous Origines Ecclesiastica. But that great work was completed one hundred and sixty years ago, whereas many of the most important archæological discoveries, of which Professor Bennett has

* Christian Archeology. By Charles W. Bennett, D.D., Professor of Historical Theology in Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Illinois. With an Introductory Notice by Dr. Ferdinand Piper, Professor of Church History and Christian Archæology in the University of Berlin. 8vo, pp. xvi, 558. New York: Hunt & Eaton. Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe.

fully availed himself, have been made within the last ten or fifteen years.

There is a special value attaching to the contemporary artistic or epigraphic expression of primitive faith and practice above the written record, and that is what Professor Piper calls the frank unconsciousness that is often obscured by words." Into the humble memorials of love and sorrow in the Catacombs, or the rude paintings on the walls, no acrid controversy found its way. They form the best of evidence on the subjects of which they treat, because inscribed with unstudied simplicity and unbiased by theological strife.

Professor Bennett has divided the vast subject which he here treats into four appropriate sections: "The Archæology of Christian Art;" "The Archæology of the Constitution and Government of the Early Christian Church;" "The Sacraments and Worship of the Early Church," and "The Archæology of Christian Life." The first section comprehends not only graphic and plastic art, but also architecture, epigraphy, poetry, and . hymnology and music. It is not true, as has been sometimes asserted, that even in its narrower sense of painting and sculpture the early Christians entirely abjured art on account of its idolatrous use by the pagans. They rather baptized it into the service of Christianity, and employed it in a high and holy ministry. Indeed, the very intensity of that old Christian life, under repression and persecution, created a more imperious necessity for a religious symbolism as an expression of its deepest feelings and as a common sign of the faith. Early Christian art was, therefore, a mighty spiritual force, "seeking," as Kugler well remarks, * "to typify in the earthly and perishing the abiding and eternal.”

Professor Bennett shows (p. 55), that just as the heathen philosophical thought was used by the Church fathers to give concise expression to Christian doctrine, so were the forms of pagan art and its principles of expression pressed into the service of the Christian religion. Early Christian art thus sprang out of that which was pre-existing, selecting and adapting what was consistent with its spirit and rigorously rejecting whatever savored of idolatry, or of the sensual character of ancient heathen life. It stripped off, to use the figure of *Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte, p. 12.

Dr. Lübke, what was unsuitable to the new ideas, and retained the healthy germ from which the tree of Christian art was to unfold in grand magnificence. Pagan art, to change the figure, a genius with drooping wing and torch reversed, stood at the door of Death, but cast no light upon the future. Christian art, inspired with lofty faith, pierced through the veil of sense and realized the world to come-a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Christian art, at first purely decorative, soon became the expression of a religious symbolism which concealed from the profane gaze of the heathen the mysteries of the faith, and yet revealed their profoundest truths to the hearts of the initiated. To those who possessed the key to those "Christian hieroglyphs," as Raoul-Rochette has called them, they spoke a language that the most unlettered, as well as the learned, could understand. Although occasionally fantastic and far-fetched, this symbolism is generally of profound spiritual significance, and often of extreme poetic beauty.

Dr. Bennett calls attention to the fact that great care must be observed, in the interpretation of religious symbolism, not to strain it beyond its capacity or intention. It should be withdrawn from the sphere of theological controversy, too often the battle-ground of religious rancor and bitterness, and relegated to that of scientific archæology and dispassionate criticism. An allegorizing mind, if it has any theological dogma to maintain, will discover symbolical evidence in its support where it can be detected by no one else.

Professor Bennett minutely traces, with copious pictorial illustration and with judicious comment, the change of character in the art representations of our Lord from the tender grace of the frescoes of the Catacombs to the somber sternness of the Byzantine mosaics. With the decline of art and the corruption of doctrine, the beautiful type of the Catacombs disappeared, and a more austere character was given to the pictures of Christ. Although the rendering of form became more and more incorrect, and the intractability of material rendered the aspect of the mosaics stiff and harsh, yet for powerful effect, strength of character, and depth of feeling Christian art exhibited vast resources. In the noble interiors of the stately basilicas every-where rising, the figure of Christ,

surrounded by saints and angels, looked down upon the worshipers with awe-inspiring aspect, holding in his left hand the book of life and raising his right hand in solemn benediction.

This type became more and more rigid and austere as the gathering shadows of the Dark Ages mantled on the minds of men. The benign aspect of the Good Shepherd of the Catacombs gave place to the stern, inexorable Judge, blasting the wicked with a glance and treading down the nations in his wrath. Christ was no longer the divine Orpheus, charming with the music of his lyre the souls of men, and breathing peace and benediction from his lips, but the "rex tremenda majestatis," a stern avenger, striking the imagination with awe and awakening alarm and remorse in the soul.

A chapter full of interest, on which we may not linger, is devoted to early Christian sculpture, founded largely upon a careful study of the Christian sarcophagi in the Museum of Saint John Lateran, in Rome, and of the ivory diptychs so common in the sacristies of the continental churches. It is remarkable that both in early Christian painting and sculpture the solemn scenes of the crucifixion, the realistic treatment of which in Roman Catholic art so often shocks the sensibilities and harrows the soul, are sedulously avoided. This awful tragedy was felt to be the theme of devout and prayerful meditation rather than of pictorial representation. On page 152 Professor Bennett gives an engraving of an ivory carving of the crucifixion, which he attributes "probably to the fifth century." We confess that we have hitherto thought that the earliest extant representation of the crucifixion was a miniature in a Syrian Evangelarium, of date A. D. 586, now in the Laurentian Library at Florence. We are, however, disposed to accept, on Dr. Bennett's authority, the earlier date of the ivory carving above referred to.

The wide subject of early Christian architecture our author discusses at ample length, and with much judicious learning and research. He examines the different theories of the derivation of the Christian church from the Roman basilica, from the triclinium, from the private dwelling, from the pagan schola, and adopts the eclectic view that each theory contains a partial truth, and that the early churches were a development of elements common to these various structures.