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their successors, for the species do not mix. On some parts of the Orinoco the air is one dense cloud of poisonous insects to the height of twenty feet. It is singular that they do not infest rivers that have black water, and each white stream is peopled with its own kinds; though ravenous for blood, they can live without it, as they are found where no animals exist.

"In Brazil the quantity of insects is so great in the woods, that their noise is heard in a ship at anchor some distance from the shore." pp. 290, 291.

"Ants are universally distributed, but of different kinds they are so destructive in South America, that Baron Humboldt says there is not a manuscript in that country a hundred years old. Near great rivers they build their nests above the line of the annual inundations." - p. 292.

"The migration of insects is one of the most curious circumstances relating to them: they sometimes appear in great flights in places where they never were seen before, and they continue their course with a perseverance which nothing can check. This has been observed in the migration of crawling insects: caterpillars have attempted to cross a stream. Countries near deserts are most exposed to the invasion of locusts, which deposit their eggs in the sand, and when the young are hatched by the sun's heat they emerge from the ground without wings; but as soon as they attain maturity, they obey the impulse of the first wind and fly, under the guidance of a leader, in a mass, whose front keeps a straight line, so dense that it forms a cloud in the air, and the sound of their wings is like the murmur of the distant sea. They take immense flights, crossing the Mozambique Channel from Africa to Madagascar, which is 120 miles broad; they come from Barbary to Italy, and a few have been seen in Scotland." p. 292.

The remaining chapters on animal life will be read with great interest and profit; the more so, perhaps, that attention has been called so strongly to the subject by the popular and yet eminently scientific statement of the principles of zoology by Agassiz and Gould.

Mrs. Somerville's work closes with a chapter on the distribution, condition, and future prospects of the human race,a race which now exceeds eight hundred and sixty millions, and is to be renewed generation after generation. Her range of remark and illustration is so wide and various here, that we will not attempt an analysis, but conclude our notice with a few thoughts suggested by the subject.

If we may judge by the interval between the introduction

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of other species, even the lowest, upon our planet, and their extinction, the human race has only begun its career. Those best able to interpret the silent teachings of nature assure us, that the creation and organization of matter upon our globe have been expanded over enormous periods of time, that they have been conducted according to a high plan, and that this plan has been ever looking and pointing to man as the crowning head of the animal kingdom. This note of preparation which has been sounding in so many strata and through so many epochs, the convulsions that were needed, the destruction of so many species of animals and plants, before the forests, the rocks, the atmosphere, and living things were attuned to the finely tempered nature of man, all indicate that his future career upon this planet cannot be a brief or an unimportant one.

The human race has a destiny to accomplish, as well as each individual who is born into it. The plan which God conceived at the beginning must be a grand one; and it will surely be accomplished. Man cannot perfectly understand it; he is not responsible for it; he cannot thwart it, or hasten it. By the fulfilment of his duty he may put himself in harmony with it, and enjoy the satisfaction of being a co-worker with God for a great purpose. If he hold back or loiter, other agents will be selected, so that the Divine plan will not be defeated. That the whole human family, separated as its members now are by two thousand different languages, by impassable mountains, by extremes of heat and cold, by barren wastes through which no river runs, should ever be reunited and enjoy to the full extent the blessings of liberty, education, and Christianity, may not be essential to God's designs for the human race. But if it be, who shall say that so much as this, even to human conception, is hopeless? Suppose every meridian on the earth's surface to be marked by the iron bands of the railroad or the smoke of the steamship, -suppose each of its parallels of latitude to be made. visible by the fine wires of the telegraph, so that every degree of its area should be bounded, north and south, east and west, by the lines of intelligence, and suppose the Christian spirit to have taken possession of only two or three of the more powerful nations of the earth, and what ignorance or vice could stand up against the intolerable blaze which would be kindled round every hearth-stone?

It is not easy to keep up our interest in those whom we

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have never seen and from whom we seldom hear. Even the hearts which have been knit the closest by the memories of childhood and the daily sympathies of life are more or less weaned by a long and silent separation, and instinctively reach out to the nearer objects by which Providence has surrounded them. Can we wonder, then, that whole races of men, squalid and degraded, with whom only a Christian benevolence can sympathize, who promise us no intellectual or commercial advantages, and with whom we can rarely communicate, are forgotten and left to themselves? Man has not yet gained more than half possession of this fair earth. At first, civilization clustered around the inland seas and double water systems: within a few centuries, emboldened by science, it has taken possession of the ocean, and ventured to circumnavigate the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. But man's impatience will not brook much longer the danger or the delay of these cape passages. Only eighteen miles of land separate the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the Isthmus of Darien about seventy-five more stand between the waters of the Mediterranean and Red Seas. These are not insurmountable obstacles. Whenever a course shall be opened through them for the water, the passage round the earth will be shortened by many thousand miles.

When we consider the beautiful proportion which marks all the works of God, we are constrained to believe that there is some relation between the size of our planet and man's ability to subjugate and enjoy it. Nature has other forces in store, which he will hereafter discover and apply as dexterously as he now uses steam, wind, or electricity. The Divine plan in regard to the human race, be it what it may, will be accomplished; and man, too, will be the agent in his own redemption. Christian culture will give the disposition, science will suggest the means, and God, who rules in the hearts of men and over the forces of nature, will allow the longest duration that can be needed by our race to accomplish its destiny upon this planet.

J. L.

ART. VI. NEANDER'S LIFE OF CHRIST.*

WE read this book, we must say, with a good deal of disappointment, nor, on perusing it more carefully a second time, have our first impressions been entirely removed. It does, however, improve greatly on acquaintance. The spirit throughout is a Christian one. The doctrinal views do not offend us; we are not quite sure that we understand them. The attitude of the writer towards Jesus harmonizes with our own, though, possibly, it may not proceed from the same doctrinal basis. The author attempts to explain the gradual development of the consciousness of Jesus, "in perfect accordance with the laws of human life, from that mysterious union [with the Divine Word] which formed its ground," but we think the attempt more bold than successful, nor do we see how a genuine Trinitarian would dare undertake to speak of the opening consciousness of the Divine mind in its sojourn upon the earth. Even from our point of view, we believe so fully in a peculiar influence exercised by God over his Son from the first miraculous inception of his being, that we know not how to form from the development of other minds any theory of spiritual growth applicable to him. We have no doubt that it was all in accordance with a divine law, but we believe that it was subjected to influences in kind or degree wholly beyond what is usual in our human experience.

Neander deals freely, we should say too freely, with the text of the Gospels. For example, he says:

"Matthew (iii. 7) states expressly, that many Pharisees and Sadducees came to John's baptism,' and the form of the statement distinguishes these from the ordinary throng. It seems somewhat unhistorical that these sects, so opposite to each other, should be named together here, as well as in some other places in the Gospels; but an explanation is perhaps to be found in the fact, that it was customary to name them together on the ground of their common hatred to Christianity. It appears improbable that men of the peculiar religious opinions of the Sadducees should have been attracted by the preacher of repentance, the forerunner

The Life of Jesus Christ in its Historical Connection and Historical Development. By AUGUSTUS NEANDER. Translated from the Fourth German Edition, by JOHN M'CLINTOCK and CHARLES E. BLUMENTHAL, Professors in Dickinson College. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1848. 8vo. pp. xlvii, 450.

† p. 32.

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of the Messiah; nor does John, in his severe sermon, make any special reference to that sect, an omission which could hardly have occurred, had any of the sect so far departed from their ordinary habits as to listen to his preaching. It does not follow, however, that the mention of the Pharisees is in the same predica ment; on the contrary, the historical citation of the latter may have given rise to the unhistorical mention of the Sadducees." pp. 50, 51.

If, on grounds so slight as these, we are permitted to question the accuracy of an historical account, and set it aside, we see not how any confidence can be placed in the narrative. When we consider how strong a principle curiosity is in all sects, and how many different motives might induce men to go to hear so remarkable a reformer as John the Baptist, we certainly can see no good reason why St. Matthew's statement in this case should be called in question; nor do we think it consistent with just principles of criticism to doubt any one particular of what we receive generally as an authentic account, unless we have some reason for it stronger than so fanciful an improbability as this.

It

Neander's Life of Christ was called out by the peculiar state of theological opinion in Germany, and has constant reference to it. This circumstance, while it adds to the interest and value of the book there, must of course make it less generally interesting and valuable here. For, though the general subject has awakened much attention, the minute points of critical and historical inquiry which have so engaged the German mind have here been little regarded. But, however we may feel obliged to qualify our opinion, we still regard the Life of Christ as a useful and instructive book. does not seem to us the work of a very commanding mind, but it shows marks of great diligence and candor, and evidently comes from one who understands the spirit of Christianity, and who is therefore well fitted to explain the letter. În some cases, much light is thrown on particular passages of Scripture. The translation seems to us a good one; but scholars familiar with the German may feel the want of those idiomatic touches which give a peculiar raciness and flavor to the very words of an original writer. We particularly rejoice that a work of so liberal a character, from a source confessedly Orthodox, should be circulated among our Orthodox brethren in this country. It must do something towards making the theological scholarship of the country more gener