ings.' And its underlying principle is that a clear grasp of the outer literary form is an essential guide to the inner matter and spirit.

It is the more necessary to insist upon a distinctively literary study of the Bible from the fact that the type of Bible study which at the present moment is most prominent, and which from the magnitude even of its undisputed results has a claim to that prominence, is of a different character. The Higher Criticism'so it is called in popular phraseology — seems to me in the main an historical analysis. Its allegiance is not to literature, but to Semitic Studies, in which literary questions are inextricably interwoven with questions of language and history. It goes beyond the text of Scripture to a further inquiry into the authority of the existing text, its mode of composition, the dates and surrounding conditions of its authorship. Historic questions of this kind the Higher Criticism examines by historic methods. In the inquiry here undertaken topics like these will have scarcely any place. Literary investigation stops short at the question what we have in the text of the Bible, without examining how it has come to us. Whoever may be responsible for the Sacred Scriptures as they stand, these are worthy of examination for their own sake; and the literary study of the Bible brings to bear on these writings the light that comes from ascertaining the exact form they are found to present.

Among the chief difficulties of what is here attempted must be reckoned the large number of readers permeated with the exclusive historic spirit, to such an extent that they can recognise no other element in literary study. They would assume for the whole of literature what is true only for particular works; seeing how Dryden's Satires are without point for those who are unversed in Restoration politics, they fail to see that Shakespeare's plays may produce their full effect even upon a reader who is unaware that the historical Macbeth was a good king. Such a spirit prevails largely among Bible scholars. Yet their own studies might have taught them differently. What is to be said about the question

of Joel? No portion of the Bible is more captivating to the literary instinct but how is literature to be helped here by history? A few years ago the historians were in practical agreement that this prophecy was to be referred to the age of Joash; now our critical orthodoxy depends upon our recognising for it a post-exilic date. Between the two periods is an interval of some five centuries, and the variety of surrounding conditions is such that, as a distinguished Hebraist has said, the question of Joel is like the discussion whether a particular work was produced under William the Conqueror or under Cromwell. No discredit whatever attaches to historic studies on the ground of this difference of opinions, for the simple truth is that the Book of Joel does not contain sufficient evidence for settling its date; the case is like that of an indeterminate equation, to which there may be half a dozen equally accurate solutions. But in this case what becomes of the contention that literature can be appreciated only in the light of its historic surroundings?

If we go outside the polemic atmosphere of Biblical Criticism it is easier to obtain recognition for the distinction between historic and purely literary treatment. Shakespeare has given us certain historical plays there arise in reference to these just the questions that are agitated in regard to the Sacred Scriptures. One critic thinks the plays the work of William Shakespeare; another thinks they were written by Bacon; another laughs at both opinions and believes the author unknown. Yet another discriminates, and by internal evidence discovers that the plays were composed by Shakespeare and certain coadjutors: he is ready, when called upon, to produce a polychrome edition in which the Shakespeare, the Marlowe, and the Fletcher elements will be distinguished to the eye. One commentator, like Coleridge, takes his history of England from the plays; another contends that they are on this subject utterly misleading, the dramatist having first used untrustworthy materials, and then altered freely with a view to other than historic effects. Yet it is clear that six persons representing these different historical views might unite amicably in a box at a theatre

to witness the performance of one of these plays; they might, not improbably, find themselves in entire agreement as to the literary force and significance of every passage. It would seem absurd, on the other hand, if one of these critics were to interrupt in order to protest that the passage just commenced by the actor was not Shakespeare's, or that recent discoveries in Spanish state papers had shown the motive assigned in the play to Henry's foreign policy to be incorrect, and if actors and audience, in the interests of accuracy, agreed to suspend the performance until these questions could be settled. To state these obvious facts is, of course, not to depreciate the historic analysis of Shakespeare in the interests of literary appreciation, but merely to claim that the two studies are entirely different.

Some, indeed, will admit that the historic and the literary studies are theoretically distinct; but why, they ask, should the two not be united in practice? They ought to be united, in the sense that the complete student will undertake both. But they must not be undertaken together; for the whole method and spirit of the two are in opposition. Historic analysis must sceptically question the very details which literary appreciation must rapidly combine into a common impression. The perspective, moreover, of the two studies is different. Deuteronomy is of equal importance in history and in literature. But if a modern critical work treats Deuteronomy it will be found that perhaps nine-tenths of the discussion is concentrated on the Book of the Covenant,' and the perplexing questions arising out of it: a paragraph or two is deemed sufficient for the 'hortatory matter' of the rest of the book. In the other treatment it appears that it is just this 'hortatory matter' which raises Deuteronomy to a foremost rank as one of the world's greatest collections of orations; while the fifteen chapters containing the Book of the Covenant here sink to the subordinate place of a document cited in an oration. It is for the interest of accuracy in both studies that their procedures be kept distinct.

It is necessary, however, to go a step further than this. His

toric and literary study are equal in importance: but for priority in order of time the literary treatment has the first claim. The reason of this is that the starting point of historic analysis must be that very existing text, which is the sole concern of the morphological study. The historic inquirer will no doubt add to his examination of the text light drawn from other sources; he may be led in his investigation to alter or rearrange the text; but he will admit that the most important single element on which he has to work is the text as it has come down to us. But, if the foundation principle of literary study be true, this existing text cannot be truly interpreted until it has been read in the light of its exact literary structure. In actual fact, it appears to me, Biblical criticism at the present time is, not unfrequently, vitiated in its historical contentions by tacit assumptions as to the form of the text such as literary examination might have corrected.

I will take a typical example. In the latter part of our Book of Micah a group of verses (vii. 7-10) must strike even a casual reader by their buoyancy of tone, so sharply contrasting with what has gone before. Accordingly Wellhausen sees in this changed tone evidence of a new composition, product of an age different in spirit from the age of the prophet: "between v. 6 and v. 7 there yawns a century." What really yawns between the verses is simply a change of speakers. The latter part of Micah is dramatic, and a reader attentive to literary form cannot fail to note a distinct dramatic composition introduced by the title-verse (vi. 9): "The voice of the LORD crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom will see thy name." The latter part of this title "and the man of wisdom will see thy name prepares us to expect an addition in the 'Man of Wisdom' to the usual dramatis persona of prophetic dramas, which include such as God, the Prophet, the Guilty Nation. All that follows the title-verse bears out what it suggests. Verses 10-16 are the words of God crying denunciation and threatening. Then the first six verses of chapter seven voice the woe of the Guilty City. At this point the Man of Wisdom speaks, and the disputed verses change the tone to convey the

happy confidence of one on whose side the divine intervention is

to take place:

But as for me, I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise. etc.

I submit that in this case a mistaken historical judgment has been formed by a distinguished historian for want of that preliminary literary analysis of the text for which I am contending.

Historic errors based on the ignoring of literary structure may similarly be instanced from the popular opponents of modern criticism. There is hardly any point on which formal criticism is more unanimous than on the late date of Ecclesiastes: here all kinds of internal evidence by which such questions are examined combine in pointing to a date centuries later than that of the historical Solomon. Notwithstanding this, intelligent lay readers are slow to surrender the old tradition, and for a reason which must be received with respect the book, they say, in unequivocal terms claims the historical Solomon for its author, and it seems to them preferable to suppose that circumstantial evidence may sometimes be misleading, rather than that a work of the solemnity of Ecclesiastes should put itself forward under false pretences. This critical deadlock rests simply on the circumstance that both parties have neglected the preliminary step of literary analysis, and have tacitly assumed that the true form of the book was that unbroken continuity in which nearly all Hebrew literature has been left by the unliterary tradition through which it has come down to us. When the structure of Ecclesiastes is strictly examined it is found to be a series of five independent Essays, separated (according to a regular practice in Wisdom writings) by strings of disconnected brevities, and further bound into a unity by a prologue and epilogue. The book being before us in its true literary form we are now in a position to ask, Does it claim the authorship of King Solomon? We look at the prologue and epilogue - the most natural places in which to find indications of authorship: and here there is not a