fellow-men in this life and in the next an eternity of damnation?"

A choking cry broke from Mir Akhbar, and he smote his breast mercilessly. Then words came to him, broken and incoherent.

"I can do nought, nought, nought!" he moaned, wringing his hands.

...

"Had

I been... there! . . . Had I seen. Willingly would I have flung away the life I hate . . . but now? I am impotent, impotent! . . . The men who slew . . . tortured. ..... defiled . . . him! They have passed away. . . . I have eaten the salt of the Sirkar! I will eat it no longer, but . . . what can I do? Allah, Allah, Allah, what can I do, what can I do?"

He dropped his face upon his folded arms, and rocked his body to and fro, agonized by a sense of his impotence. He could not direct his vengeance against all white men indiscriminately, and no victim lay ready to his hand.

"The name of the Sahib who condemned thy father to the double death, the death of body and soul, hath not yet been told to thee," whispered the fanatic. "It was Bari Sahib, a general who led their armies in the Terrible Year. He, truly, hath passed away to his own country beyond the black waters, but his son, his only son, is here, here in this camp. Nay, he is an officer in thy regiment. So much did I discover ere ever I came to this place. Mir Akhbar, vengeance upon the man The Pilot.

who slew thy sire may best fall through his son who is known to thee!"

In the silence that followed Mir Akhbar raised a face in which the eyes were wild with horror, and looked upon the fakir with the glare of a maniac. "Bari Sahib," he panted. "It was Bari Sahib who saved my life when I lay helpless at the mercy of the wounded bull!"

"Therein, my son, is made plain the finger of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate!" hissed the fakir. “He hath watched over thee, He hath preserved thy life during the days of thine infancy, and through the perils of manhood, to the end that thou mightest accomplish the task allotted to thee even from the beginning! Behold, how surely all things are ordered by the will of the Most High God! In the past thou hast profited by His mercies, wilt thou now decline to perform the duty for which He quickened thy clay, and ordained thy being? Choose now 'twixt thy love of this Infidel, and all that is due by thee to the poor lost soul who was thy father-he whose cries reach thee from the Pit!"

Mir Akhbar leaped to his feet, tearing his garments, flogging his breast, his face distorted by spasms, and hideous to look upon. Then, with a terrible cry, he darted from the veranda, and plunged headlong into the night. It seemed to the wretched man that all the devils in Hell were abroad, bearing him company.

Hugh Clifford.

1. RECENT BIBLICAL STUDIES IN

FRANCE.

The condemnation of the Abbé Loisy by the Holy Office, recently announced, marks a stage in a movement which has for some years been agitating the more educated section of members of the Roman Church, especially in France. The question of the Higher Criticism, which was brought so prominently before the Presbyterian communities by the condemnation of Professor Robertson Smith, and the Anglican Church by the publication of "Lux Mundi," has, during recent years, been the subject of vigorous discussion in France. Many of the leading French clergy have, as was inevitable, felt the same necessity as English and Scottish divines of changing their attitude. As might be expected, the countrymen of Renan have brought to the debate lucidity in argument and distinction in style, and, as was also to be expected, they have met with an opposition from the more conservative members of their Church no less determined than that which turned the Scottish Professor out of his chair. The history of "La Question Biblique" in France during the nineteenth century has been written by the Abbé Houtin in a work of considerable brilliance' which has recently been placed on the Index together with the writings of M. Loisy. and we propose to make use of his assistance in the following article. We must confess that we cannot wonder at the condemnation, for M. Houtin exposes the inconsistencies of the more orthodox or conservative theologians in a merciless and, we may add, not altogether fair

1 "La Question Biblique chez les Catholiques de France au XIXe Siecle." Par Albert Houtin. (Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils. 1902.)

manner.

No doubt, he is writing under the stress of an acute controversy and is inspired by a feeling of natural resentment against those who not only criticize his opinions but fight against him with the weapons of authority; but the fact that there have been great variations in the form that Christian apologetic has taken does not condemn it any more than the continued variations and inconsistencies which an unfair historian might find in the progress of science. When new ideas are being introduced, there must be constant change of opinion before they are harmonized with older ideas. What his book does make apparent is the disastrous policy of meeting argument with the weapon of authority, for the argument is often found to be right, and the prestige of the authority suffers. As M. Loisy has put it:-"Il s'est trouvé que celui qu'on voulait surtout abattre était un exégète fantôme, qui avait derrière lui une idée. Chaque fois qu'il a mordu la poussière, l'Idée s'est relevée l'instant d'après, souriante et forte, et l'ombre d'exégète a continué ses périlleux exercices. On ne tue pas les idées à coups de baton." Such sentiments are not pleasing to authority, but it would be wise for authority to take them to heart. Another danger to apologetics, it is made clear, is the arrogant refutation of science or of criticism by the self-confident rhetorician. How often have we not been told, since the day that Wilberforce demolished Darwinism by an epigram and Burgon the Revised Version by a jest, that someone has conclusively demonstrated the futility of new theories, and how soon the demolition has been forgotten. These things do injure the cause of religion and truth, but the inconsistencies of an honest apologetic

are no more injurious than the inconsistencies of honest science. In both cases an imperfect grasp of truth is the necessary step to a fuller and more complete knowledge.

We must begin our survey with the name of Renan. In 1845 he renounced his orders and gave up all hope of what might seem to be a distinguished career. The cause, as he described it at the time, was the incompatibility of Catholicism and criticism. "Catholicism suffices for all my faculties except the critical power of my reason: I never hope in the future to find more complete satisfaction. I must, then, either renounce Catholicism, or amputate this faculty. The latter is an operation difficult and painful, but, believe me, I would perform it if my conscience were not opposed to it, if God were to come this evening and tell me that it was agreeable to Him." He did not perform the painful operation, but he never lost his sentimental respect for the Church which he had left. The name of Renan "the apostate" did not cease to be an object of execration to the bulk of the French clergy, but there were a certain number among whom it aroused other sentiments. Was it, after all, necessary to have lost him? Could not all his learning and literary power have been retained on the side of the Church to which he had been devoted? And those others who had followed him, and all those laity who became quite unnecessarily, as it seemed, non pratiquants? Was there really such a complete antithesis between criticism and Catholicism? And was it, to say the least, prudent to teach children, as the catechism of the diocese of Paris does, the exact date, some six thousand years ago, when the world was created, when the same children were being taught in their schools the chief conclusions of geology? Would this be likely to increase their respect for the authority which told

Не

them definitely what they knew to be false? Many of these younger clergy had been educated in secular studies on sound critical methods. Some of them had obtained high academic distinction, and they could not help bringing to their theological studies the habits of mind which they had learnt in their schools. In 1878 the course of theology at the Institut Catholique in Paris were founded, and the Abbé Duchesne was appointed Professor of Ecclesiastical History. He soon became conspicuous for bringing into ecclesiastical history critical methods to which it had long been a stranger in the Roman Church. His work has been to expose the fables which have disfigured Church history, and he has done it unflinchingly. felt, as others of his religion have felt, that it was no longer wise to burden the faith of a Christian with a number of legends which to any educated reader must be obviously false, and that an apologetic which was certainly untrue was no great defence of the Church. He has had to endure a great deal of venomous criticism, but he has succeeded in showing that it is possible for a member of the French Church in the nineteenth century to write history, as Tillemont did in the seventeenth century, so as to obtain the respect of scholars. After some slight indiscretions in his earlier years, he has been: resolutely prudent on Biblical questions, but it was inevitable that the principles which he had applied to ecclesiastical history would be found equally sound in other spheres. In 1886 the students of Saint Sulpice were forbidden to attend his lectures. Sincethen he has become a scholar with a European reputation and a Monseigneur. His name is associated with an-other movement which was intimately connected with our subject. The attempt made by the younger divines of the French school to obtain the recognition of Anglican orders was in more.

than one direction a homage rendered to historical truth. There is no need now to re-discuss a question which is, for the present at any rate, closed; but it is important to remember that one of the chief motives which inspired many of those which took part in the movement was that they might be associated with the reverent and wise criticism of the English Church in the attempt to reconcile Christianity with modern science and criticism. If Lord Halifax was the English leader, it was not the ritualists of the English Church that the French clergy wished to welcome as colleagues, but the sober and learned theologians who have done so much to enable educated men to preserve their faith in Christ. It was the Church represented by the Bishop of Worcester and Professors Sanday and Driver that they wished to approach.

SO

In 1890 the Père Lagrange, a Dominican monk, undertook a novel and interesting enterprise. Inspired with a desire to promote the study of the Bible and of Biblical archæology, anxious, as the many others were, to have weight of learning and the authority of criticism in support of his own Church, he proceeded to form an "école pratique d'études Bibliques" at Jerusalem. A site was procured, that of the old church of St. Stephen and the traditional place of his martyrdom. Interesting archæological discoveries assisted the enterprise. The Monastery of St. Stephen was built and the school founded. Some few years ago the lectures and discussions inaugurated by the Dominicans were the only intellectual efforts made in the Holy City which showed in the slightest degree either knowledge or critical capacity. In 1891 the Revue Biblique Internationale was founded, and has since then played an honorable, if prudent, part in the dissemination of Biblical knowledge, and of sound methods of criticism, while in some directions its contributors have VOL. XXII. 1182

LIVING AGE.

taken the lead in archæological discovery; nor can we altogether condemn it if it has not always come up to the standard demanded by the more vigorous minds. Certainly it is a great credit to the Père Lagrange that he has done more than any one else to obtain a recognition of the Higher Criticism of the Old Testament in the Roman Church. He did not lead the way. That was the work of the Abbé Loisy in one of his numerous periods of indiscretion, and he was condemned. But a monk can do what a simple priest cannot, and Lagrange has unction as well as eloquence. At the Congrès internationale des Catholiques," at Fribourg, held in 1897, his speech in favor of the Higher Criticism was received with great applause, it was published in the Revue Biblique, and escaped condemnation, although any continuation was apparently checked. Since then he has published six lectures delivered at the Institut Catholique, at Toulouse, on "La Méthode Historique surtout à propos de l'Ancien Testament," in which he accepts the Higher Criticism but dissociates himself from M. Loisy. Pope Leo XIII. made him a member of the Biblical Commission. In the January number of the Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique he has published a vigorous criticism of M. Loisy's recent works; but it is significant that it shows that his methods are fundamentally the same his differences are really only as to results.

The Abbé Loisy became Professor of Hebrew at the Institut Catholique at Paris in 1881. Born in 1857 at the little village of Ambriéres in the department of Marne, he was educated in the seminary of Châlons-sur-Marne, and was for two years a village priest in the diocese of Châlons. In his seminary days, he tells us, he was discovered with a paper before him bearing the title of a book "Autorité et Liberté, par A. L.," a sign, he suggests, both of

Once for all let it be stated, the lot of a priest 15 or 20 years ago called to study and to practise Biblical exegesis in a scientific manner was a terrible one, if that priest was open-minded and sincere. An immense field of studies opened before him, one which the education which he had received had hardly.enabled him to divine-the work, incomplete indeed, but for all that enormous in its extent, which has already been accomplished by Protestant and rationalist exegesis; it was the .resurrection, still confused, but always becoming more and more clear, of a wonderful history-that of the origins of Christianity-a history that past centuries did not know or understand any better, as history, than they did the more remote periods of Oriental, Greek and Roman antiquity; it was the necessity for Catholics to contribute to this resurrection, as to every other development of human knowledge, under penalty of excommunicating themselves from intellectual society and of preparing for the immediate future a crisis far more formidable than any which the Christian faith has passed through since it came into existence.-("Autour d'un petit Livre," pp. xv.-xvii.)

In 1890 he published his Doctor's thesis on the Canon of the Old Testament; in 1891, the history of the Canon of the New Testament; in 1892 a work on the book of Job; and in 1892-1893 a critical history of the text and verIn 1892 sions of the Old Testament. he began the publication of a review, the Enseignement Biblique, in the pregramme of which he laid down the

principles which should guide the study of the Bible, principles which he has adhered to ever since:

as

No one, assuredly, will be astonished at seeing us apply the historical and critical method to Biblical science, It does not mean forgetting the supernatural character of the sacred books, nor the dogmatic principles which are the infallible rule of exegesis; we are only conforming to the necessities of the present time. "There is one thing," writes M. Renan, "a theologian can never be-an historian. History is History has essentially disinterested. but one care-art and truth. The theoone interest-it is his logian has Reduce dogma. that dogma much as you like, it is still an intolerable weight for the artist and the critic. The orthodox theologian can be compared to a bird in a cage; all proper movement is forbidden it. The liberal theologian is a bird out of whose wing some feathers have been plucked. You think it master of itself, and it really is so until the moment when it wishes to take its flight. Then you see that it is not completely the child of the air." This passage of the "Vie de Jésus" contains many errors; but they are errors widely spread and such as cannot be refuted with syllogisms. It is assumed that a theologian cannot be an historian in the complete sense of the word when it is a question of Biblical history. It is for us theologians to prove the contrary by facts-to show that we are capable, as much as any others, of criticism-of sincere criticism -and, even in quite a true sense, of free criticism, because in the sphere of Biblical history, as in every other subject, faith directs without hampering the investigations of science, and the certain conclusions of criticism cannot be in opposition with the certain assumptions of faith.-(Enseignement Biblique, Jan.Feb., 1892; "Etudes Bibliques," 1st edition, 1894, pp. 19, 20.)

The publication of this programme, the other works of M. Loisy to which we paper have referred, and a on the "Mythes Chaldéens de la Création et du