should, however, have rather spoken in the past than the present tense, for since the partial draining of the fens these once-celebrated decoys have yielded a much less abundant supply.

But we may be reminded that our promised catalogue of British wild ducks is yet incomplete. Well, be it so; we must stop somewhere short of the end of the list, this is clear" for the cry is still they come."-Scoters, in velvet plumage; harlequins and golden-eyes; eider ducks, suggestive of down pillows; whistling ducks and king ducks, tufted and long-tailed; and that most exquisitely beautiful of all the genus anser, the summer duck. On they come in vast flights and shoals. Who shall number them? Who describe their peculiar beauties, habits, and qualities; point out their specific differences, relative affinities, distinctive characteristics? Knox may do it in a general, picturesque, and most pleasing manner; Jardine may be learned and scientific; the various contributors to "The Naturalist" may each furnish his quota of information upon some particular species; and Morris may gather up the results of his own and others' observations, and present his lucid arrangement of facts, accompanied by such life-like illustrations of the birds described, that as we sit here, surrounded by them, we can almost fancy we hear the flapping of innumerable wings, and the various cries of the different species, each endowed with a language of its own-oftentimes strange, and wild, and discordant to human ears; but musical and full of meaning to those ears for which it is intended. Hundreds of miles have we sped, in fancy, since we commenced this paper. Strange and varied scenes have we looked upon; and it has been to us a source of inexpressible delight, and of no little instruction to trace out but a few, a very few, and in the faintest outline, of the phases of bird life presented to us in these works. And what are they but transcripts, perfect as human power can make them, of the glorious works of the Almighty Creator. Surely, then, we have not done amiss to occupy so large a space in a periodical devoted to the discussion of grave and religious subjects, in attempting to render more facile and attractive, the study of one branch of natural history. Such has been our aim and intent. Have we failed? Let our readers judge.

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ART. VI.—Hints on the Necessity of a well-grounded Study of Philosophy for Theologians, Ministers of Religion, and Professors of Ethics. By the CHEVALIER DE SCHLER. Translated by the Rev. R. D. HARRIS, M.A., Blackheath. 1855.

IT is with unusual satisfaction that we recommend to the attentive perusal of our readers, and more particularly those to whom it is specially addressed, this little brochure, which, though comprised in the narrow compass of twenty-three pages, contains a rich mine of practical wisdom. The author, though a German, is evidently an earnest believer in Revelation, and no follower of Strauss, or any other of the propounders of the German pseudo-philosophy, that “Yevdwróμos yvos" with which the burschen of their endless universities and hoch schulen have been so crammed of late years. No! the philosophy herein advocated is the true philosophy, the and of the royal sage, whose wisdom was immediately derived from Divine inspiration. The philosophy of a living and operating faith, without which there can be no true belief, but religion, under whatever denomination, degenerates into blind superstition, or unreasoning fanaticism. But we will let the Chevalier speak for himself, and quote his exordium, thus deducing his advocacy of " Divine Philosophy" from the beginning.

"The great mischief which the new Platonic and scholastic teachers had occasioned in theology, makes it easy to understand how, about the time of the Reformation, everything that bore the name of philosophy had fallen into disrepute in the theological world. Luther himself had an unfavourable estimate of philosophy; and this was quite enough to enlist against it, in an equal degree, the greater part of his followers. And even though, at a later period, several very worthy divines, especially those of the Wolfian school, brought philosophy again into some credit by a discreet union of it with theology, yet the circumstance, that all those who in more recent times rejected and ridiculed everything that is sacred to Christianity, and even to humanity;—all, in a word, who mocked at religion and virtue, arrogated to themselves the distinctive appellation of philosophers; this circumstance, I say, had a natural tendency to excite distrust, and even horror, in the minds of that great mass who, from of old, have been accustomed to regard names rather than things. And yet I express it as my conviction, that the ignoble and irreligious lives of a large proportion of the men of this age, including not a few among the clerical

profession, arises out of an absolute neglect of, or, what is even worse, a superficial study of philosophy; and that nothing but a deeper and more thorough study of it, can rectify the position of religion, and of its guardians, the clergy."

Here our author seems to us to grapple with the true question, as to what ought to be the true qualifications for a preacher of the Gospel, in these days of almost universal scepticism. It appears, to our view, that secular education is, in the present day, making rapid strides in advance of theological education, and that men now no longer look up to the clergy as to their superiors in knowledge. And why? Simply because the clergyman is not philosophically educated. He is not, in fact, educated for his peculiar office. It is true that most clergymen are well instructed in the language of the New Testament; but how many are there who are well taught in that of the Old Testament,—the "the holy tongue,”—and its cognate dialects, the Arabic and Aramaic; and yet these half-educated men are looked up to as the authorised expounders of Scripture, relying as they do, like the unlearned, upon a bald, and often erroneous, translation. For a theologian to reason philosophically upon the Scripture, he must be able to read and understand the Scripture. But we return to our author.—

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"But in what way shall the theologian arrive at a fundamental and systematic knowledge of the transcendental truths which constitute his peculiar field of action? Assuredly in no other way than by an intimate acquaintance with that science, which, alone, of all sciences, has simply and solely for its object the searching out, and bringing to view, of the connection between the sensuous and super-sensuous. But (it may be said) the Christian theologian is after all the teacher of a positive religion, and as such he may be supposed to have quite enough to employ him in studying his Bible so as to understand it thoroughly.' I answer that, undoubtedly, all historical, exegetical, and other positive branches of knowledge are indispensable to him, since without them the eternal truths of the reason cannot be brought to bear upon the best interests of humanity, in the appointed way in which this was done by the Divine Founder of Christianity and his disciples,"

And how, we ask, is the exegesis of the Hebrew Scriptures to be philosophically carried out, without a competent knowledge of those languages which immediately bear upon it? All true "Divine" philosophy arose, as the sun rises, in the east (DTP); and it is in those ancient eastern tongues that its exposition is to be sought. Yet to very few indeed of the clergy is Brian Walton's " Polyglott" anything but a

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sealed book; and as for the learned Hebrew commentators on the law and the prophets, they are scarcely known to them, even by name. Yet of incalculable value are the commentaries of Rashi (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac) and Abarbanel, both manifesting a profound knowledge of oriental manners and literature; nor are Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon), and R. David Kimchi, with Abraham Aben Ezra, by any means to be despised as careful exegetical expounders of the Holy-books. Yet how, almost entirely, has this most important, and, indeed, necessary branch of theological learning been neglected by the Church in these latter days. Nevertheless, is not this a Divine command, promulgated by no less a person than the Divine Saviour himself,-" Search the Scriptures?" And is the mere reading over and meditating on a translation, published for the benefit of the unlearned, to be considered as a fulfilment of this command by the ordained instructors of God's people? We cannot think 50, Ερευνᾶτε τὰς γραφάς. This command as delivered by the incarnate God-man to the authorised teachers of the Jewish people, was evidently, from the context, an exhortation to a philosophical exegesis of the most sublime and mysterious portions of Holy Writ, the Hagiographa, or *, not the Law and the Prophets, in which the Pharisees were well versed also, but those books on their knowledge of which they more particularly plumed themselves, and out of which they sought to confute the infidel tenets of the Sadducees; for it is in those books only of the Old Testament that the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul is promulgated. Therefore, said the Saviour, addressing the unbelieving Pharisees, "Search the Scriptures, Tas ypapas' (a literal translation of '), for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testify of me."

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“But,” continues our author, can those positive branches of knowledge supply the lack of philosophical ideas, deeply impressed, carefully tested, and distinctly comprehended, according to their essential and eternal connexion? Oh? never for a moment! What other than this can give solidity and support to all the positive attainments of the minister of religion? What else can lead him into this only right path to the object of his pursuit, and, what

The Hebrew Scriptures are divided by the Jews into three grand divisions: the Law, the Prophets, and the Scriptures. The latter division, known by Christians as the Hagiographa, was no doubt what our Saviour here alluded to; in another text of the New Testament this portion is called the Psalms, Luke xxiv. 44.

is more, uphold him in the same? Without this guidance he will (in spite of all his attainments) be in danger every moment of deviating at one time into superstition and fanaticism, at another into the opposite error of unbelief; and no man is more exposed than he to the ignominious lot of becoming, like a weathercock, a sport to the changeable winds of prejudice, appearance, and novelty. Firm, unchangeable conviction, on the part of the teacher of religion, can exist only in a philosophically educated mind."

With this dictum of the enlightened German we fully coincide, the more so as we have long been convinced that none but a philosophically educated intellect is capable of grapling with those practical and philosophical books of Holy Writ, which are comprised in that portion, which we consider as having been thus emphatically alluded to as the Scriptures, by our Saviour in the text above quoted.* And which from the profound philosophical truths enveloped in their poetical phraseology, are the most imperfectly rendered into the languages of the west, of all the sacred writings; and that in exact proportion to their relative importance, the Psalms, being of all the books of the Bible the worst translated. We do not here mean to impute to the author of the brochure before us, our own ideas on the necessity for a thorough knowledge of the Shemetic branch of the Oriental languages, to a Christian theologian, such a desideratum does not seem to enter into "his philosophy." But however philosophically the mind of the theologian may be educated, we cannot perceive by what process he is to arrive at a philosophical exigesis of Holy Scriptures, unless his mind be prepared by a critical knowledge of the Holy tongue, to eliminate and comprehend the recondite philosophy of those wonderful and mysterious writings. But to return to our author :

"As regards this dogmatic teaching of religion, founded on revelation, it is only on principles of reason that it is possible to give a definite form to the conception either of positive religious doctrine, or of the revelation on which it has to rest; it is only on such principles that it is practicable to investigate the possibility of a revelation, and to assign the conditions of its necessity; in a word, it is only thus that the distinctive marks of it, or the conditions of its justice and truth can be made comprehensible. The philosophic doctrine of religion must of necessity lie at the basis of

* The Ketuvim (1)_or_Hagiographa comprise the following books. The Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Chronicles. With the five Rolls (n) to wit, the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther.