cloud and falls in floods before us; his life and love in the love and life that warm our hearts. Direct, quick, unwa vering, must be the flight of the soul heavenward. Unless we accept it fearlessly we cannot beat this spiritual atmos phere or rise in it.

ARTICLE VI.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF BUNSEN.

BY REV. E. BURGESS, LATE MISSIONARY OF A. B. C. F. M. IN INDIA.

WHEN we read the account of the last hours of Bunsen in the interesting obituary notice of him which was published in our journals soon after his death, we should have entertained from it a far higher idea of his Christian character than we did, had we not previously read his "Egypt's Place in Universal History." But having read that work we were puzzled to understand how one who treats the holy scriptures as he does, should even appear to be an evangelical Christian. It was altogether contrary to our observation, and we thought contrary to the observation and experience of the world, that one who adopts principles of interpretation such as Chevalier Bunsen does in the work above alluded to, should give evidence of such a heartfelt reception of the Saviour as is implied in the language of his obituary notice. And we could remove the difficulty only by the supposition that that language, as coming from his lips, had less than its usual meaning, or his mind had undergone a transforming change between the time of his last great literary work going from his hands and his death. Perhaps either supposition is possible. The latter is more agreeable to entertain, though we have seen no evidence of its being fact. Bunsen professes to regard the holy scriptures as of divine authority, and to treat them as

such; yet no one of their bitterest enemies, it seems to us, has done more to undermine that authority.1

"Egypt's Place in Universal History" is a work of great pretensions; and we confess ourselves inclined to accord to its author greatness of conception, and great industry and labor in execution; but we cannot say great judgment in selecting materials and putting them together, the whole bearing the stamp of the German mind. We think an English mind of equal ability, and with similar opportunities for research and collecting materials, would have done better, even had its views and principles coincided with those of the German author. Horace Hayman Wilson, the late eminent Sanscrit scholar of Oxford, had his studies been turned towards Egypt as they had been towards India, with the opportunities of Bunsen, would, we think, have produced a more valuable work. There is a great deal of lumbering matter in Bunsen's work. But perhaps this feature is not to be too closely

1 We find we are not alone in this dilemma respecting the religious character of Bunsen. Since writing the above we have met with the following from the pen of the celebrated writer, the Rev. James McCosh, LL.D.

"The question will be asked, How was it possible for one entertaining such theoretical views, to love his God and Saviour, as Bunsen seemed to love them, supremely? Having a considerable acquaintance with the Hegelian philosophy, and having only a short time before listened to the lectures of some of the most devoted disciples of that school, I think I can understand the inconsistency, though I would never think of defending it. Bunsen had been trained in the first quarter of this century when Schelling and Hegel (of whom he always spoke with profound admiration), ruled in the universities, and he had so lost himself in ideal distinctions and nomenclature, that his words were not to be interpreted as if the same expresions had been used by another man (The Supernatural in Relation to the Natural, Ap. p. 368).

This is doubtless the true explanation, though we are not sure that we arrive at it by the same conclusion with the learned author who advanced it. For, in the sentence immediately preceding, he thus expresses himself: "I am able to say, what I believe I can say of no other with whom I had so much intercourse, that we never conversed during these five days for ten minutes at a time, without his returning, however far he might be off, to his Bible and his Saviour as the objects that were evidently dearest to him. Some of my British readers will be astonished when I have to add that one evening he told me that he was not sure about allowing that God is a being, and he certainly could not admit that God is a person.' Can such a man be a Christian? Yet does not Dr. McCosh

criticized. We have often found literary lumber-houses very valuable; so much so that we will put up with an author who shows a little vanity in collecting lumber.

We have said the conception of Bunsen's work is a vast one. "Egypt's Place in Universal History!" Egypt! that land of pyramids whose kings are enumerated in history under thirty distinct dynasties; whose monuments antedate the oldest historic records; whose language has consumed the lives of some of the greatest scholars; the source whence the wisest of the ancient Greeks drew their wisdom; whose empire had extended from the Nile to the Indus, before Greece and Rome had even a name! And can Egypt's place in history be determined and described? Bunsen has attempted it. He has placed himself on her ancient monuments and surveyed the immense periods of her historic existence, and, as he thinks, ascertained her " place" in the history of man.

To his own great industry and learning he has joined that of all the learned Egyptologers from Champollion to Lepsius; in short what human learning and industry could do to fix Egypt's place in history, it would seem has been done by Bunsen in these five volumes. He maintains that her language was in the process of formation as early as 14,000 B.C. At that time it had reached the stage of "complete parts of speech beyond the distinction between full, words (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) and formatives." At 13,000 B.C. it had "declensions and conjugations, with affixes, suffixes, and endings." At 12,000 B.C. was the "commencement of symbolical hieroglyphics, i.e. picture-writing"; and primitive syllabications," with some other improvements, at 11,000 B.C. Then at 10,000 B.C., or thereabout, happened Noah's flood (see Synopsis of the Four Ages of the World, below).

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It is not our design to review Bunsen's work as a whole. It is too deep in monumental lore for us to attempt such a task. We only design to set before the readers of the Bibliotheca Sacra his system of Chronology, with a few friendly

criticisms thereon. It will be seen from the above statements that he sets aside entirely the commonly received opinions respecting the creation of man, as derived from the Hebrew sacred scriptures. While he professes great reverence for those scriptures, by a curious principle of philosophical interpretation, he deduces conclusions that destroy their authenticity and value. If plain language can be made to mean what Bunsen makes of it, it can be made to mean anything or nothing, to suit the interpreter's purpose. The Christian geologist can admit, without violence to the principles of interpretation or controverting scripture, that the earth has existed for millions of years, but he cannot in the same manner admit that man has existed on the earth more than six or seven thousand years. And just here is the point of attack on the Bible where infidels are making their most strenuous efforts. During the past few years there have been numerous alleged discoveries of "flint implements, the works of human art," found in such geological formations as prove their existence before the Mosaic date of man's creation on any received system of chronology.

Again, the bones of man are found in connection with those of "extinct species of animals," and in " undisturbed geological formations," where they must have been deposited before the date assigned by Moses to man's creation.2 And

1 Yet still, should conclusive evidence compel us to admit that man has existed on the earth for a longer period than the Mosaic account allows, even according to the Septuagint, it would scarcely affect the general authority and correctness of the Bible. The data on which rests the epoch of man's creation in our received chronology are stated in a comparatively brief space which would be occupied by a few lines in an ordinary volume (Gen. v. 3-32 and xi. 10-13). The data consist of a genealogical record of the patriarchs, from Adam to Abraham, the essential part consisting in numbers. Now should irrefragable evidenceas yet such evidence has not been produced-compel us to admit that this record as we now have it, does not give the true time since the creation of man, the admission does not necessarily affect the divine authenticity of the Bible. The passage may have been corrupted, something may have been left out which was in the original record.

2 It is sufficient to refer the reader to Sir Charles Lyell's recent work on the "Antiquity of Man" for these general statements.

now Bunsen, the great German scholar and antiquarian, and a Christian, comes out with an immense array of learning to show that man existed on the earth 20,000 (perhaps 40,000) years before Christ. It is with Bunsen's system, that of chronology, that we are now concerned. We shall give that system, and the principal facts and reasons on which it rests, as near as we can, in the author's own words. In general, we think, these facts and reasons need only to be stated in order to be discarded as insufficient for the basis of such superstructure.

At the risk of being somewhat tedious to a portion of our readers, we present in full the first part of our author's synopsis of his system.

"SYNOPSIS OF THE FOUR AGES OF THE WORLD.

"FIRST AGE OF THE WORLD.

"Ancient Antediluvian History, from the Creation to the Flood, — Primitive Formation of Language and the Beginning of the Formation of Mythology.

The Historical Primitive World (I. II. III.). (1–10,000 Year of Man; 20,000-10,000 B.C.)

FIRST PERIOD (I.). 15,000 B.C.).

Formation and Deposit of Sinism (20,000–

Primitive language, spoken with rising or falling cadence — elucidated by gesture-accompanied by pure pictorial writing; every syllable a word, every word a full substantive, one representable by a picture.

Deposit of this language in Northern China (Shensi) in the country of the source of the Houngho-Sinism. The earliest polarization of religious consciousness: Kosmos or Universe, and the Soul of Personality. Objective worship, the firmament; subjective worship, the soul of parents, or the manifestation of divine in the family.

SECOND PERIOD OF THE WORLD (II.).—Formation and Deposit of Primitive Turanism: The eastern polarization of Sinism (15,000-14,000 B.C.). Pure agglutinative language: formation of pollysyllabic words by means of unity of accent (word accent).

Origin of particles, words no longer substantive and full, but denoting the mutual relation of persons and things; finally of complete parts of speech.

Deposit of this stage of formation in Thibet (Botya language).

Germ of mythology in substantiation of inanimate things and of properties.