During the ascendency of Roman Catholicism, during the tramp of nations westward, during the rise and decline of different civil administrations, and during the development of the Italian, Spanish, French, Anglo-Saxon, and English languages, there were reposing, in the death-grip of two dead languages, the Old and New Testament Scriptures. No einbalming, seemingly, could have been more perfect, and no seclusion could have been safer.

The Reformation broke upon the world! The monasteries were unlocked! The stately Hebrew and the Hellenistic Greek Scriptures were brought forth, and were found to be without harm. Untiring researches in all countries containing different versions subsequently were made by devout Christians, and also by skeptical critics. The New Testament edition of Griesbach, published in 1775-77, ushered in the golden age of modern criticism. With unexampled research, untiring study, and critical examination such men as Wetstein, Lachmann, Tregelles, and especially Tischendorf, have brought the Bible text to a degree of perfection such as belongs to no other body of ancient literature.

So wonderfully has this book been preserved that though scores of authors were engaged in its construction, though centuries have intervened since its completion, and though a large number of manuscripts have been consulted, still, as we have seen, nothing in the field of literature is more surprising than the insignificance of the alleged discrepancies and various readings which have been discovered. The opinion of Professor Norton, already referred to, is concurred in by Kitto, Dr. Adam Clarke, Professor Tischendorf, Dean Alford, Dr. Tregelles, and Professor Immer, that all the variations of the ancient manuscripts put together would not change a single doctrine or a single important truth found in the Bible.

Throughout the history of this wonderful book it has made seemingly no difference whether men have stabbed or embraced it; all the same it has advanced, and is advancing, to the conquest of this world. Singularly enough, it has shared, in part at least, the trials and the triumphs of the Messiah. The history of the word inspired has been, in more than one respect, like the Word incarnate!

Our Lord had a true humanity. He was tired, he was

hungry, he wept, he felt like a man; and men, looking at these manifestations of true humanity, said to themselves, "Is he not the carpenter's son? Do not we know his mother and his sisters?" It is so with this book; it has a true humanity. "The words are printed upon common paper, with common lettersyou put the same in your newspaper; it is printed with common type-other books are so printed; it is printed with common ink -other books are so printed;" the spelling of it is governed by the same rules as govern the spelling in other books, and men say-some few men say "O, this is only a book among the multitude of books! Are not its brothers and sisters in our libraries?" But the devout student never fails to find underneath this thin vesture of speech, dialect, type, ink, and paper pulsations that are more than human! The Messiah lives; this book lives; and Providence has seemed to repeat again and again the saying, "My word shall not return unto me void."

The distribution of the Scriptures over the world in recent times has also been a marvel. With the rise of modern civilization and the development of various philanthropic movements among the nations the Bible commenced a journey characterized by sublime earnestness. It commenced its modern career in the secret closet of a solitary translator and in the obscurity of an unimportant town. Emerging from the monasteries where it had been shut up, and from stone walls to which it had been chained, breaking the fetters of dead languages in which it had been written, it passed at length into the open chamber of a congress of eminent scholars, in the heart of the English metropolis, where it was translated. Since that date nothing in literature matches its progress.

The Bible and its history have become a grand standing miracle among men. After having passed through persecutions and exiles almost without number-after having been trampled under the feet of kings and tyrants after having been handled by hypercritical Jewish scribes and cunning Romanish priests and learned critics of every class, early and late-it still lives, and lives essentially in all its original purity and integrity! It has gone into the courts of princes and rulers. It has gone into the libraries of colleges and universities. It has gone into the humble homes of the millions. It has gone down into cellars and up into attics. It has stood in the presence of publicans

and sinners, refusing to leave or forsake them. It is found on land and on sea, in railway stations and in houses of public entertainment. It appears in every page of modern history. It is to-day speaking in more than two hundred different languages to the widely scattered children of men. Never before since it was written has it had such numbers of devout and critical readers. The sun never sets on its closed pages; not a moment, day or night, but some of earth's inhabitants, in health or sickness or by the bed of death, are reading its sacred pages.

In view of the origin of these Old and New Testament Scriptures-in view of their eventful history and of their present exaltation among men-may we not now claim for them without fear of contradiction every thing that was suggested at the outset in our working hypothesis? Surely the Christian Church has made no mistake in calling this Bible the word of God. Men chosen and inspired settled long ago the canon of the Old Testament; Christ and his apostles in their day received that canon as divinely authoritative-the New Testament, quoting from the Old nearly six hundred times; the apostle John and his colaborers in their day decided what should be the constitution of the New Testament; ancient existing manuscripts have secured to the world an essentially uncorrupted text. Friends of the Bible may be pardoned if they shout for joy.

Our last word is, that in proportion as men have believed this "word of God" and have obeyed its precepts they have found peace and prosperity; in proportion as they have lightly esteemed it and departed from its precepts they have found distress. And he that follows its counsels will be led to heaven as surely as by following a sunbeam one will reach its source in the sun.*

* A mistake occurs on page 862 in the November number. The sentence relating to the "Muratorian Catalogue" should read: This Catalogue is incomplete, but gives nearly the same books, etc. We would like to add this statement, that the omission of the Gospel according to Matthew and of the Epistle to the Hebrews and those of James and Peter from the "Muratorian Catalogue" is easily accounted for, and that there are abundant reasons for the supposition that they are entitled to a place in that Catalogue. See Westcott on the Canon of the New Testament, page 190, etc., and Harman's Introduction, etc., page 430, etc.

Luther I. Foronsend.

ART. III. THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.

THE men who founded the New England colonies believed in schools for all the people. They not only established universities and colleges for higher education, but they provided schools for the masses. The true democratic idea, that governments are for the benefit of the individual citizen rather than for any favored class, found expression in systems of free public schools for the children of all-rich and poor alike. The other northern colonies partook of the same spirit touching the education of the masses, and when the great North-west Territory was opened up the same purpose, born of philanthropic patriotism, insured provision for the education of the masses at the public expense. It was not without a struggle that the victory was won ; but at last in every State and Territory throughout the northern section of our country the idea became crystallized in constitutions and legal enactments that it is the duty of the State to provide at least primary and secondary educational facilities for all its youth at public expense. The slave-pen and the public free school-house have never yet, and never can, flourish side by side. The permanent establishment of public school systems made the further extension or permanency of slavery impossible in the North.

What the New England colonies in the matter of education were to the northern colonies and the widening westward territory, where their ideas and methods prevailed, Virginia was to the southern colonies and to the territory westward to the Rio Grande. Virginia not only did not want free public schools for the masses, but condemned them. Class ideas prevailed, Government was for the favored few rather than for individuals irrespective of social standing. In the provisions for education there was no plan to reach all the people. Later on the English parochial system prevailed. As the South grew in territory and population some universities and a fair proportion of colleges were founded, and in later years some of the Southern States made attempts at the establishment of public school systems for the whites; but the success was very meager. The stigma of pauperism rested on them, and in some cases.

Georgia, for example, pupils had to acknowledge themselves paupers before they could attend. If the institution of slavery had not flourished in the South, and its development and protection grown to be the supreme thought of her leaders, time and the incoming of more diverse populations and industries would, no doubt, have overcome these class ideas as affecting education.

Slavery not only widened the breach between the aristocratic leaders and the poorer whites, but brought in a third class, namely, Negro slaves, whose education, in the judgment of the slave-holding class, could not be permitted. Many even doubted the possibility of their education. So it came to pass that opposition to popular education at the public expense, and the development of the institution of slavery, made efficient public school systems in the Southern States well-nigh impossible. The South had its universities and colleges and parochial schools for the whites. It is claimed that in proportion to the white population-and it must always be remembered that when a Southern man speaks of "our people" he means only white people who sympathize with Southern institutions-there were more in Southern colleges than in the North. But beyond these special schools but little provision was made for the education of the white people. As to the Negroes, for many years before the war it was a penitentiary offense to educate them. The theory was that to educate a Negro was to spoil him for a slave, and also make it possible for him to be influenced by outside literature, and thereby endanger the institution of slavery. It seems strange that to insure his enslavement it should be made a penitentiary offense to educate the Negro, and that, after his freedom came, so large a proportion of the Southern white people believed he could not be educated at all.

Sections 28 and 29 of the Louisiana Black Code read as follows:

Whoever shall, with intent to produce discontent among the free colored population or insubordination among the slaves, write, print, or distribute any thing having a tendency to produce discontent among the free colored population or insubordination among the slaves therein, shall, on conviction, be sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor, or suffer death, at the discretion of the Court.

Whoever, with the intent aforesaid, shall make use of language