MIDNIGHT CHIMES. "Soon cometh the end of all the pleasures, pomps, and vanities of the world.... what is the very longest period of life, but a brief moment, a passing wind, a morning brightness that fadeth away ?"-THOMAS A KEMPIS. The Valley of Lilies. DEEP midnight chimes the silence wake, to ring the new year in, Air voices far above the tide of sorrow and of sin; And o'er the darkened earth, amid those sounds, some mourner hears, From out the centuries by-gone, what tune do viols play— All those who journey far along the crowded path of life, The Hand of Mercy weaves a veil, man's espial to deny, Behold there are insensate, who in fluttering downward flight, Then list! when midnight chimes the new year's birth are ringing in, It is time to leave behind olden follies and old sin; And not like foolish moths to dally near the taper's lure, When the dread words, "too late-too late-" destruction must ensure. There is no hope save in those words the Blessed JESUS spake, C. A. M. W. ENGLISH COMMENTARIES ON HOLY SCRIPTURE. THERE is no doubt that the English are essentially a Bible-loving people, and English Churchmen quite as much as their Nonconformist brethren. And yet it is a fact that up to the beginning of the present century there was only one Commentary on the Bible existing in our language,1 and that by a Dissenting minister, Matthew Henry. Sixty or seventy years after this was published Doddridge's "Family Expositor," another Dissenting Commentary; and in the first few years of this century appeared almost simultaneously the Commentaries of Adam Clarke, a learned Wesleyan minister, and Thomas Scott, the Puritan Rector of Aston Sandford, the friend of Newton, and one of the founders of the Calvinistic Evangelical School in the Church. Of these, the work of Matthew Henry is undoubtedly the best, being earnest and practical, and containing a better appreciation of the manifoldness of Holy Scripture than any of those which succeeded it. Following these two original works came the Compilation of D'Oyly and Mant, prepared under the auspices of the S. P. C. K. In this joint production the chief authorities used were Patrick, Lowth, and Horne, for the Old Testament, with illustrations from geography, archæology, and profane history; while for the more doctrinal portions, the works of Hammond and Bull and Thorndike and the other great divines of the seventeenth century were laid under contribution. Thus an orthodox (though dull) and tolerably complete Commentary was made up, equal, we may suppose, to the requirements of the age. This publication, representing what may be called the Established, or High Church, theology, as it is now called, put the Protestant party on their mettle, who after a while brought out a cheaper Commentary made up from the writings of Henry and Doddridge, Scott and Clarke, Wesley and Simeon, and the like. Another thirty years elapsed, and nothing further was done, save that a project was put forward by Dr. Pusey for a Commentary under his editorship. This, however, never got fairly under weigh, and probably his own Notes on the Minor Prophets are all that will ever appear of it. The same may be said of another proposal, which never showed any signs of life. 1 The Commentary of Patrick, Lowth, Whitby, and Arnold is not a work possessing any unity in itself, but was formed by piecing together four independent works. Patrick's part was of course prior to that of Matthew Henry. At length, about fifteen years ago, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, who had already published the Greek Testament, with English Notes, undertook a Commentary on the Old Testament by his own unaided pen, and in five or six years accomplished it, with the exception of the Apocryphal Books. In spite, however, of the vast miscellaneous learning employed in it, the Commentary was scarcely of a nature to satisfy the average class of readers, so large a portion of it being devoted to the mystical interpretation of Scripture, and the whole being flavoured so strongly with the learned author's own personal feelings. Further, the greater part of the Commentary was written before that flood of scientific scepticism had invaded the land. So persons asked for a Commentary whose principal aim should be to examine and test the various theories that had been propounded for the purpose of throwing discredit on the received views of Biblical cosmogony and history. This was the origin of the (so called) "Speaker's Commentary," Mr. Denison, (afterwards Lord Ossington,) who proposed and arranged it, being at that time Speaker of the House of Commons. The Commentary at present has not extended beyond the Gospels, and gives us no assurance how the Epistles (which is of course the most difficult and the most important portion of the Sacred Volume) will be treated. So much, however, may certainly be said, viz., first, that a work written to meet a temporary need is scarcely likely to be destined to a long continuance; and, secondly, that where there are the opinions of such a large body of contributors and patrons to please, it is impossible to avoid a good deal of compromise, and that of course on those very points which constitute the differentia of Church Theology, and where the trumpet is specially required to give a certain sound. We have now to mention a new Commentary, by the S. P. C. K., the several portions of which were published at considerable intervals of time. And what can we say of it, but that it is good, bad, and indifferent. Some portions of the Old Testament, as well as the Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians, and the Pastoral Epistles, are really well (though scantily) annotated; the Gospels, the Epistles to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse, are neither very good nor bad, but the Acts of the Apostles are done worse than we should have thought any Churchman could have done them. The next to try his hand has been the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol; and, remembering his Hulsean Lectures at Cambridge, we hoped good things of his editorship. A really good Commentary of course we could not have, for several of his company are Dissenters, and therefore compromise is the order of the day. But the saddest thing of all is, that as in the Commentary of the S. P. C. K., so also here, some of the very worst work has been done by writers who are nominally High Churchmen. Nothing in the Bishop's second volume is worse than the commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, by Sanday, of Durham, who simply ignores all those questions of scholarship on which the true interpretation of the Epistle depends. It is impossible that Bishop Ellicott should not know this, as even Mr. Matthew Arnold would tell him; and we cannot understand the bona fides of an editor who directs, or at least permits, that all these questions should pass sub silentio. A third volume has yet to appear, in which the Dissenting element seems predominant. Of what has yet appeared, the only satisfactory portion are the notes on S. John, by Mr. Watkins, the new principal of S. Augustine's College, Canterbury, which are very able and original in their character. There does not appear any intention of commenting on the Old Testament. Later than all these, though a long time, we believe, in preparation, we have the first volume of Rivingtons' Commentary, which has been entrusted to Mr. J. H. Blunt, and seems to be almost exclusively his own work. We have already had experience of Mr. Blunt's industry and good sense and orthodoxy, and we have no doubt that this will prove to be the Church Commentary, and one that will stand the test of time. The Notes seem to be a marvel of skilful compression, and by an elaborate system of cross references much more is contained in them than would be at first supposed. We observe that the reviewer in the "National Church" complains that too little attention is given to the mystical interpretation of Scripture, and with this criticism we are disposed ourselves to agree. But the author, we presume, would reply that his space is limited, and that he cannot say all that he would wish. And further, of course, it may be urged that in these days doctrinal theology is of more value than what is mystical and allegorical, and that we specially need a manly treatment of Holy Writ, such as would find favour with those whose faith is weak. Difficulties are not shirked, while at the same time too much is not made of them. In this way faith is strengthened, and the reader is made to feel that there is a firm foundation for him whereon to rest. A second volume, which will include the Apocryphal Books, is promised this month, and the third and concluding volume about Easter. This, of course, will be the great effort of Theology proper, but we quite believe that Mr. Blunt will be found equal to it, and that the reproach will be wiped away from us, that while we profess to love the Bible, we have done so little to enable our people to understand it-nothing, in fact, in comparison either with Roman Catholics, who can boast of the great work of Cornelius à Lapide and many more, or with English Nonconformists, not to mention German and French Protestants. PROMETHEUS. AN OLD GREEK STORY. LET us wander in fancy for a brief space of time among the rugged peaks of Caucasus, far away from the inhabited land. Let us penetrate to the regions of the north where Boreas reigns supreme, where no step of man has ever trod. Let us mount those barriers which fate has reared between the home of civilized man and the frozen region of the Hyperborei, in which the sun never rises or sets, in which the earth is ever covered by the bright mantle of eternal snow, but the gladsome night of day is unknown. There on the confines of the inhabited land, and the regions of perpetual darkness, rock rises above rock, hill is piled upon hill, mountain soars above mountain. On the one side the north wind ever drives a perpetual covering of snow. On the other towards the south the blazing sun scorches the naked granite, and vegetation is unknown. A scene of awful desolation meets the gaze. No green thing relieves the eye from the painful glare reflected from all sides. The sky above is as a brazen vault; the earth beneath as an iron floor. No human foot can tread these rugged trackless rocks. The wild goat of the mountain, and the birds of heaven shun them as the polluted, as the accursed of the gods. No created thing that has life is there to be found; and yet there is life there, but a life not of earth. Riveted to the pointed sides of the hill by chains of more than human strength is a form, as of a man, and yet not of a man. immortal, and the fire of immortality gleams from that eye. is he, and how came he there? He is an But who Awful seems his suffering. His brow is wrung with anguish; his limbs are stretched and strained against the hard flinty rock; chains |