opher. But it lingered in the Occident with a sort of recrudescence; the Francs, Lombards and other Germans made a very disorderly use of it, and the clergy gave themselves up to it without reserve. It required a large portion of the Middle Ages to combat and extirpate it. It was necessary that the spiritual power, strongly centralized, should take possession of the head of society, and that men of an energetic will, such for example as Gregory VII. should employ their genius as well as their influence in that reformatory work.'

Z. HAZARD POTTER.

(TO BE CONTINUED).

'In the appendix to the formulæ of Marculius, we find a formula which proves that among the Gauls the capacity of natural children was still more extensive than Valentinian I. had made it. Their father could bequeath them his entire estate when there were no other children; form. 52. That increase of rights arose, doubtless, from the mixture of the barbarian races, who scarcely distinguished legitimate from natural children. Bignon dans Baluze, t. ii. p. 653.

DuCange gives the text of some councils which tolerated concubinage; (V. Concubina) particularly that of Toledo, i. c. 17. See Cujas Paratit. on the title of the C. de concubinis; Novel. xviii; and in his Observations liv. V. c. vi. Salvien, de Gubernat. Dei lib. iv, p. 73, 74. Edit. of 1663 with the notes of Baluze. Concubinage was entirely prohibited in the Eastern Empire by Leo. The ancient German laws recognized an informal connection of the sexes, in addition to regular marriage and a similar relation called Morganatic marriage became customary during the middle ages. Out of the usage known as Morganatic marriage has sprung a code of matrimonial law by which the union of princes with persons of lower rank, in other than Morganatic forms, involves serious consequences especially toward the lady. The death penalty was actually enforced in the case of the beautiful and unfortunate Agnes Bernauer. The British Royal Marriage Act, 12, Geo. iii. c. ii, reduces every marriage in the royal family not previously approved by the sovereign under the Great Seal, to something resembling a Morganatic union.

THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE TO CHRIST

-THE PROOF OF ITS AUTHORITY.

When one tries to separate himself from the influences of his Christian education, and consults with an impartial mind, the reverence and supremacy that is accorded to our Bible, the question naturally arises. Why should this Book be accepted as a standard of truth, what is there in it to give it its present authority over the belief and lives of men? Running hastily over its contents, it appears to be composed of many lesser books, part of which relate the history of a small and uncultured people, part contain the songs of their poets and the teachings of their prophets, while the whole is supplemented by an account of One who pretended to be, but who was accepted by only a few, as their Messiah and King. The nation among whom this book had its origin, did not belong to the great and civilized peoples of the Old World; the language in which it is written cannot be classed among the finished and polished forms of human speech; the manners which it portrays were those of semi-barbarism. How is it that such a book, springing from such a people, is venerated and obeyed by the foremost nations of the earth, and is held by them to be the very Word of God? It is not because it is the only book that claims to be a revelation from on high; for there are several other volumes which are held by large masses of mankind to be the Sacred Scriptures. It is not because it is the only one which has any internal evidence of its Divine authority; for the more we learn of the ancient

religions of Asia the more do we become convinced that to their prophets also the Lord revealed Himself, though not with the fulness and clearness vouchsafed to the Hebrew seers. Not from Sinai and Horeb alone has the voice of God spoken to men. In China, in India, in Arabia, He left not Himself without witness; and though the Bibles of these people are filled with the false speculations of the human intellect, yet they contain much that is elevating and inspiring, pure and good, and much, therefore, that must have come from the great source of all truth. What right, therefore, have we to exalt our Bible above all His other revelations, or to say that in it alone must the truth of God be searched for, because in it alone can that truth in its fulness be found? To find an answer to this question is the object of the present paper.

We shall seek no other support of the Christian position than such as may be found in the Book itself. A closer examination of the Bible will show us that it is not the heterogeneous collection of historic facts and poetic thoughts, that it might at first sight have appeared; but that through it all there runs a living unity. Its history is not a disconnected record of the acts of Jewish heroes, but a development; its poetry not the vague guesses at truth of Israel's thinkers, but the gradual revelation of a truth that mankind needed to know. All its different parts written at different times, by different men, speak of a common hope that bound their nation together. All its narratives, and exhortations, and instructions point to one Central Figure. The idea of a Messiah occupies each successive book, and makes our Bible a unit. The national chronicle tells us how the people were prepared for His coming, how through degeneracy and captivity they were. taught their own weakness and need of a Saviour. The prophetic portions keep the glorious expectation alive in breasts that else might well grow despondent, and sketch in all its essential outlines the character of Him Who was to deliver Israel. This hope, this idea is one of gradual

development. At first the true nature of the Coming One is known but dimly, but towards the end He is portrayed in unmistakable signs. His work, His humiliation, His glory are all revealed; and it would be no hard task to write almost the whole story of the Gospels in words that were uttered centuries before the Cross was raised on Calvary. In the account of the Fall there is promised to Eve that one of her descendants should bruise the serpent's head. By man had come death; by man was to come Redemption. This promise, given generally to humanity, is at the time of the call of Abraham, narrowed to the nation of his children. From among God's chosen people was His chosen servant to arise. Jacob again limits the ground whence the Messiah is to spring, to a single tribe-that of Judah. And at last when David is placed upon the throne the honor is confined to his family; so that men need not look for the future king outside the royal race, or believe any pretender to the Messiahship, who cannot claim the Son of Jesse as his ancestor. In later prophets the very place of the birth of Christ is pointed out; His mission of sacrifice foretold; His glory as the exalted Son of God is depicted; His ultimate dominion over all the world is promised. The thought that He is to come points every warning, inspires every appeal, that the prophets make to backsliding people. That thought sheds its beams of hope upon the darkest passages of the national history and enables Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel to see beyond the gloom of defeat and exile the flood of glory with which the Messiah's reign is to fill the earth. Christ is the main theme of the old as He is of the New Testament. The making ready the world for Him underlies every stage in the development of Israel's destiny. The convincing of mankind that beside Him there is no Saviour, is the purpose of all God's dealings with His people. It was with reason that Jesus, as He looked back upon those sacred writings and saw how through them all He was described and predicted, took His stand upon them fearlessly, and

called upon His adversaries to search the scriptures, for, He knew, they testified of Him.

This truth of the Bible's witness to Christ is the only ground, we think, on which its authority can be upheld or belief and acceptance from all men be demanded for it. Men have grown accustomed to take it unquestioningly as the Word of God, as indeed it is, but if asked why they claim that it is inspired and revealed from above, are often unprepared with an answer. Few ordinary lay Christians can give valid reasons for a belief which they prize among their dearest possessions. But if they once become firmly possessed of the idea here presented, their faith in the Holy Scriptures will rest upon a rock that cannot be shaken. For whence else than from Christ does the Bible derive its authority? What but the fact that it tells of Him; and that He has stamped the seal of His Divine sanction upon it justifies our allegiance to this collection of Hebrew literature? We cannot support its authority on its own assertions of its truth or its own demands for acceptance. That would be to beg the whole question, for until men have admitted that a book comes from God, they will not acknowledge their obligation to obey it merely because so commanded.

The fact that the Jewish people considered this volume as a revelation, will not convince the Gentile unbeliever, for other nations have books for which they make like high claims; and why should we accept Israel's Bible more than those of India or China? Internal evidence, the proof from the character of its teachings, is not alone sufficient, for adversaries might say that its morality was like in kind, though perhaps higher in degree than that of Confucius or of Buddha; and if that be our main support, we have no means of meeting the objections that arise from the defective state of morals which must be admitted to have the apparent sanction of the Old Testament Scriptures. The only sure position is to take Jesus as the sole source of the authority of the Bible. We accept it as God's Word,