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Rh this into perfection? We evidently must not assert for Christianity an exclusive place in the upraising of the world to God.

2. Passing on to the sphere of criticism, we find that the Old Testament has undergone a great change. The successive labors of Ewald, Graf, and Wellhausen, in Germany; of Kuenen, in Holland; of Reuss among French, and Robertson Smith among English critics, have won the general assent of scholars—even of men of such conservative leanings as Delitzsch, in Germany; of Briggs, in America; and of the Oxford Hebraists, Driver and Cheyne. The "Guardian" newspaper, which represents the more educated opinion of the Anglican clergy, published, on the 3d of last November, a cautious article, from which we may infer its readiness to accept the results of this criticism, and its consciousness that Christian doctrine has nothing to fear from it. Let us endeavor to give a succinct account of these results.

The Pentateuch is now held to be of Mosaic origin only in the sense of incorporating historical and legal elements, which a tradition, partly but not wholly trustworthy, had handed down as connected with Moses. In its present state it consists mainly of three elements: 1. The early documents, which combine two sources, one of which uses the name Jehovah, the other Elohim; 2. The Deuteronomic; and, 3. The priestly: these three elements are represented in successive casts of the law by, 1. The Decalogue and the book of laws in Exodus xx-xxiii; 2. The Book of Deuteronomy; 3. The Book of Leviticus; and took shape in writings, the first about 800 ; the second at the time of Manasseh or Josiah; the third during the period between Ezekiel and Ezra. In these three periods the early documents were successively rehandled, so that the first four books bear traces of the later influence, first of the Deuteronomist, and, secondly, of the Levitical writers; the Book of Joshua, also, has been subjected to the same processes, being, in fact, a continuation of the first five books, and forming with them the "Hexateuch." The histories, from Judges to 2 Kings, form a connected work, the various parts of which were composed at various times, some of them being contemporary with the events described, but which took its final shape in the time of Jeremiah. The Books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, form similarly one work, written under priestly influence long after the time of Ezra. The Book of Esther is a very late work, its claims to be placed in the Canon being disputed by the rabbis down to the Christian era. The Psalms are of many ages and authors, the Psalms actually written by David being limited to a very few, possibly to the eighteenth alone. The Proverbs belong to Solomon only in the sense in which the Psalms belong to David. Job is of quite uncertain date and origin, while Ecclesiastes belongs to the later Persian era, and the Song of Songs to the days of the northern kingdom. The Prophets remain as the solid center, their date beginning with the eighth century B.C., and the books being written by those whose names they bear, with the exception of Isaiah xl-xlvi,