dispersion of men, and for maritime intercourse. So in the patriarchal record we find the promise to Noah that man will no more be destroyed by a diluvial catastrophe, the cursing of the ground shall in some degree be removed, and that seedtime and harvest will not fail. These improved conditions however fell far short of restoring the Edenic happiness, and left untouched all that part of the curse of nature which depends on the tyranny and misconduct of man himself. This, I apprehend, is implied in the singular reason that the alleviation is not given because the survivors of the Deluge bave returned to Edenic innocence, but, on the contrary, because the taint of the fall still clings to them, because "the heart of man is evil from his youth," and therefore they cannot help being out of harmony with nature, but they are allowed to enter on the new age with improved conditions.1

It results from this, however, that the most important part of the remaining curse is that which arises from the voluntary action of man himself. He continues to be the antagonist and destroyer of the lower animals, the deformer of the fair face of nature. He pursues to extinction the animals which he hunts for his profit or his pleasure. He takes away the food and shelter of other creatures and so causes them to perish. He disfigures with his so-called improvements great spaces of the surface of the earth. He interferes with the nice balance of animated nature established of old, and has introduced struggle, anarchy, violence and misrule. Farther, by his exhaustive cropping he has reduced vast areas of the earth's surface to barrenThese destructive changes have already spread over much of the habitable land and are rapidly extending themselves; and when he carries his innovations to the extreme we find a "Black-country," a pandemonium of fire and machinery overhung with a canopy of smoke, under which

ness.

1 See Genesis viii. 20, etc.

thousands toil, deprived of the most ordinary requirements of health and happiness, and whence all creatures save man and the beasts he has enslaved are excluded. Finally, we already hear the prediction that the culmination of applied science will be the discovery of means to provide artificially from their elements the food-substances necessary for human subsistence; and then the whole world might be converted into a great congeries of factories without a tree or a green field, or any of the higher forms of animal life, and in which toiling millions of men might grind out painfully the means of supporting a life deprived of the charm of everything that God has made for human enjoyment. This travesty of the New Jerusalem is that to which many eager minds are bending all their energies, and hoping some day to accomplish. It remains to enquire if God has not provided some better way to remedy the Fall of Man.

[NOTE.-Much is said at present of the "Babylonian element in Genesis," as if in some way the Bible history of primitive man had been derived from the Chaldean accounts of creation and the deluge; whereas it is evident that the Chaldean myths are related to the Bible in the same manner in which a historical novel is related to sober history. Maspero, in his recent work, The Dawn of Civilization (Les Origines, English translation, edited by Sayce), attempts to summarize the Chaldean documents; and it must be obvious to every intelligent reader of his pages, that whatever the original basis of these legends, they have been amplified in a wildly imaginative manner which would render quite impossible the construction from them of the sober prosaic narrative of Genesis. They are deserving of study as showing that the early Chaldeans had access to some of the sources of information possessed by the author of Genesis, and as illustrating the difference between popular legends or poetical myths and inspired history, but nothing more.] J. WILLIAM DAWSON.

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CHRIST AND POPULARITY.

A STUDY OF ST. LUKE II. 52.

It has been often observed how silent the Gospel narrative is regarding the early years of our Lord's life. The silence is, strictly speaking, only broken by one incident, striking in itself, the more striking because it stands by itself. In contrast with this silence then is to be found, as every student knows, in the Apocryphal Gospels a mass of matter relating to the boyhood of Jesus. The most that can be said of these legends is that some of them are picturesque. He is presented in them as a youthful miracle-worker. The narrative is full of wonders and portents; it appears not only as utterly unworthy of His awful after life, but as wholly inappropriate in the delineation of the type of any good and gracious childhood. Who can doubt that the silence of the canonical Gospels is in correspondence with facts, and as such truly significant? Enough for devout students if the veil is only once lifted, so that they may see the Holy Child standing confessed in the tenderness of his filial loyalty and the sweetness of his willing subjection; better still for them if they may appropriate the eternal lessons so conveyed. That these lessons are neither easily nor generally learnt from the narrative may be gathered from the popular phrase which stands as descriptive of the incident. Christ" disputing with the doctors, Christ "disputing" in the Temple. Such a description is wholly beside the point of the narrative, and that it should have passed so long current argues a melancholy want of appreciation of this unique record. St. Luke speaks of the Holy Child as an apt and earnest scholar among teachers.1 That He was so good a listener implied and justified his asking of questions. It was not that He and they exchanged places. Every competent teacher is delighted with that favourable

1 St. Luke chap. ii. 46 : ἀκούοντα αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐπερωτῶντα αὐτοὺς.

It

sign in his pupils which prompts them to questioning. is a welcome recognition that his teaching is beginning to interest, to inspire, to tell. Without this interchange of question and answer instruction is reduced to the level of a lecture. Answering, however, remains largely the scholar's part, and the youthful Jesus was mainly an answerer, for the wonder which his conduct called forth was not at his questions, which were an accident of the incident, but at His replies and their wisdom.1

The narrative as it stands thus presents us with an incident in the regular equable development of Christ's life upon earth. And it is shown and described in two aspects, according to certain remarkable expressions of St. Luke. That evangelist declares that Jesus increased (or advanced) in wisdom and stature (or age) and in favour (or grace) with God and men.

Students of the Gospel do not need to be reminded how commentators have busied themselves with this text. Is it too much to say that they have occupied themselves so with word-studies as to lose the interpretation of its thought? And even in this lesser essay few of them appear to have discovered that the key to the phraseology is already to their hands. For this verse (ii. 52) has only to be duly compared with i. 80, and with ii. 40 for its language to become perfectly luminous. The verses severally run thus, for our comparison :

i. 80: τὸ δὲ παιδίον ηὔξανε, καὶ ἐκρατιοῦτο πνεύματι

said of the Baptist.

ii. 40: τὸ δὲ παιδίον ηὔξανε, καὶ ἐκρατιοῦτο πληρούμενον σοφίᾳ καὶ χάρις θεοῦ ἦν επ ̓ αὐτό

said of Christ.

ii. 52: Καὶ Ἰησοῦς προέκοπτε τῇ σοφίᾳ, καὶ ἡλικίᾳ, καὶ χάριτι παρὰ θεῷ καὶ ἀνθρώποις—

said of Christ.

1 St. Luke chap. ii. 47: ἐπὶ τῇ συνέσει καὶ ταῖς ἀποκρίσεσιν αὐτοῦ.

Passing by the suggestive consideration that the evangelist perceived so exact a parallel in the youthful development of Christ and His forerunner; passing by also the consideration that a like verdict had been pronounced upon the childhood of Samuel, a close comparison of these passages indicates the clue to the precise significance of the one last quoted. It will there be noted that προέκοπτε τῇ ἡλικίᾳ stands as equivalent to nu§avev, and thus it is clearly indifferent whether we render nikia age" or stature." Again, προέκοπτε τῇ σοφίᾳ must stand as a shortened phrase for the combined expressions ἐκρατιοῦτο πνεύματι πληρούμενον σοφίᾳ used both of the Baptist and of Christ. Lastly, the collocation of xúápis in the two latter verses point to the conclusion that it is capable of a double rendering; with reference to God it signifies grace"; with reference to man it signifies "favour."

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Thus taking the Evangelist as his own interpreter, the general meaning of the passage may be boldly inferred. There was noticeable in the Holy Child Jesus, as in a measure in the Baptist, an equal development both on the physical and spiritual side.

Let no one regard an emphasis upon the former as superfluous. It is an interesting and unexpected contribution to that group of after references which lays stress upon our Lord's perfect humanity. It helps to explain His "favour with men," with which perhaps it stands in parallel. No time of life has such a fascination about it for the student of mankind as youth. But given a childhood winning, gracious, and modest, and the attraction to all but dead natures is supreme. What tremendous possibilities lie within and before it! What fearful responsibilities await its culture and training! Yet the physical form, however fair, is but the casket which contains the rich spiritual endowments, and while the one may compel a passing admiration, the other, at once the secret and pledge of eternal capacities,