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    133 The Leader and Saturdayi Anal yst. [...

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    PALESTINE.* rpHE[ moat hackneyed subject...

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    * Palestine i—JDoaoription Qfographiquoi...

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    Biqoraphy* Tt7hence Is It That So Much M...

    is least known ; and / thus tp the ancient and the foreign . The sons of the fatherland should not be forgotten t but the more illustrious they are , the less is it needful that ought but the outline of their lives should be presented , for it is to be presumed that readers are already acquainted with every incident in their career . From histories of India and from other sources , we have learned the minutest particulars connected with Warren Hastings . But with the doings of Albuquerque we have not had the same means of becoming intimate . It is Albuquerque , therefore , and not Warren Hastings , whose biography should be delineated in detail . Who is ignorant of the parts played by Johnson and Goldsmith in England P How few , even among the intelligent , are aware what Lessing and Herder were to Germany—to mankind ? In the " New General

    Biography , " we have further to condemn an insane exaggeration , whenever Frenchmen whose renown has really pierced beyond France come on the scene . We never speak of the great Milton , or the great Shakspeare , but the declamatory Corneille is to the French the great Corneille . We never speak of the great Marlborough , or the great Wellington , but the French have the great Conde . We have kings superior to Henry IV ., and to Louis XIV . of France : but we have never thought of signalizing theni by the Unfortunate and ill-used adjective employed tp introduce to us Henry t h e Great , aiid Louis the Great . When dealing with Bossuet , the " New General Biography" staggers under the burden of superlatives . Bossuet ; w ^ s a gifted rhetorician : whose rhetoric , howeverwas continually exploding into bombast . Eloquent in any

    , sense , but a French sense he certainly was not . The pliant tool 61 Louis XIV ., a persecutor , and the promoter and defender of persecution , a man with all the wisdom of the serpent , and but little of the harmlessness of the dove , Bossuet is as unsatisfactory to us in his moral as in his intellectual aspects . But here we have ' him depicted as the unrivalled orator , and as the last , and we suppose the loftiest , of the Christian fathers . We detest tins idiotic extravagance , which could impose on no nation but a nation so vain and childish as the French . In the " "New General Biography" , in addition , are inclined to quarrel with the French standard ,, which is applied to everything , A Frenchman makes his own individuality the test of creation ; a

    German , by an instinctive metempsychosis , transfigures himself into everything he communes with , even if it were only the paltriest of iiiorgahic substances . An .: Englishman does neither the one liorthe other , but does something between , the two . This hitting -ofO the happy mean is not instinctively noble . nor sage ; it may be explained in fashion unflattering enough . In any case you are nearer the truth with either a German or an English standard than with a JEYmch standard . A Frenchman cannot read or understand . Richter or Jeremy Taylor , or the magnificent rhapsodist John _ Wilson , or ought that Nature has stupendously endowed . Give him a man of science to describe , or the performances of a man of science to chronicle , and he is unsurpassed . In the lucid , vivid exposition of scientific discoveries , the French are easily and sublimely masters .

    A : Frenchman can render even the scientific facts interesting which you <] o hot distinctly understand—do not , indeed ,. care to learn anytiling about . Frenchmen alone , therefore , can write the biography of a primordial scientific genjius . Perhaps , also , in What relates to war as a science they cannot , as writers , be equalled . Bead " Foy ' s History of the Peninsular War , " you seize with your sharp and sudden brain war as a scienqe . Bead " Napier ' s History of . the Peninsular War , " you seize with the poetry aiid sympathy of your soul war as an art . But how cpn fined is the range of subjects to which the brilliant French mathematical method can be applied ; aud therefore lum defective and deceptive must bo the French

    standard of biography ! Nothing of what precedes have we intended in the way of depreciation . We are grateful to the Didots for their comprehensive vvork , and for the many admirable articles which we find in every one of the volumes . We have simply wished to herald and to help the coming of a similar work in England , which should avoid the faults of its French predecessor ; which eliould be . move fruitful , complete , and perfect . Criticism has ho vvqrth , except as a creative force . Biography ia an essential part pf a nation ' s food ; and the more that a nation excels in biography , the more abundantly it finds a precious and indispensable spiritual nourishment . The best modern histprians tu-e ours j let ours likewise be the best modern biographers .

    133 The Leader And Saturdayi Anal Yst. [...

    133 The Leader and Saturdayi Anal yst . [ Feb . 11 , i 860 .

    Palestine.* Rphe[ Moat Hackneyed Subject...

    PALESTINE . * rpHE [ moat hackneyed subjects are often those which a gifted man X can make the freshest , and for a very simple reason . Having passed from hand to hand till they are no longer recognisable , they atir hie heart to rush baok with a great bound toward their source and essence , Few subjebts are so hackneyed as Palestine ; it seems aa if the thousand books published year after yoav about Palestine were fcut different editions of the same book . M . Munk , a distinguished scholar of Israelitish descent , has contrived to give us a volume with

    the breeze and the odour of life gladdening every page . The work is marked by vast erudition , by a reverent spirit , by a catholic sympathy * by patriotic ardour , by courageous criticism , and by a popular atyje . It perhaps cqu 14 . pnjy have been produced either in France or Germany ; tor hitherto , in England , everything 1 relating to Palestine has been treated with a slavish superstition , as hostile to piety as to tfuth , or with a rabid infidelity intolerably offensive . Vibe superstition and the infidelity are tjhe incessant reactions against

    each other , and both alike remote from the reality . Whatever becomes of creeds j Palestine will ever remain one of the world ' s great central facts . The striking physical features of the land ; the indestructible vitality of the Hebrew race;— -the strange ; destiny of this race , as inwoven with the destiny of so many pther races ; . the peculiarities of the Bible and the influence of its teachings on religious developments , —enthrpne Palestine on a pinnacle which must eternally remain unassailable by scepticism . Bui ; the more conspicuous the position which Palestine has achieved , the more sacred the garment in which it hath enwrapped itself , the bolder , if the devouter , should be our brow as we draw near to this puissant agency , this fruitful memory . Such a-free offspring of the desert , on the verge of the desert , should be approached with freedom , a mechanical faith

    freedom scorning both a cpld rationalism and a . The friends and foes of Palestine and the Bible in England determine tp find nothing in either but their own meagre misconceptions or absurd fore-conceptions . Not what Palestine is , but what they resolve it shall be , —not what the Bible says , but what they compel it to say , this is the Palestine / this the Bible which they offer us . Now M . Munk comes with no pedantic scheme whereto he forces Palestine and the Bible to adapt themselves ; he comes with genial glance to see , with loving heart to interpret . His conclusions do not agree with a rigorous orthodoxyj but they must just be as little to the taste pf those who regard the whole of religion as a priestly imposture . There is a strong presumption against the notions held ,-by many bigoted Chrisr the Biblein the circumstance

    tians respecting Palestine and , that those notions contradict the ideas uniformly held , by the Hebrews on Hebrew things ; Surely we should suppose the Hebrews to be best acquainted with Hebrew institutions and customs , with Hosaism , and with the meaning and design of Hebrew books . But Christian zealots practically maintain that none are so ignorant pf Hebraism as the Hebrews . What meets us on the threshold of all our inquiries , is the question touching the hompgeneousness and unity of the Bible , This is a question which the fanatics of our day refuse to discuss . Till , however , it is discussed as M . Munk , with immense learning , with admirable taste , and with what we may almost call filial tenderness , discusses itreligion , as derived from the Bible , has no more powerful pillars

    , to rest on than the cant of the conveiiticlej the selfishness of the hierarchy , and the fear and credulity of the multitude . It . has first to be ascertained who gathered a inass' of Hebrew and Greek documents into one , and named them the Bible or Book ; secondly , who conferred on such persons the right and authority to do so . If those who fixed the canon , as it is designated , had ao right Pr autbority , except what they in their arrogance , or , ambition , or enthusiasm , assumed , then each boolrpf the Bible must be tried by its own merits . The foremost German theologians pf recent times saw that this was an indispensable process . And how much has religion in Germany gained by the valiant , comprehensive , unbiassed criticism , tp which theologians 'have subjected each portion of the Bible ! A good deal has been said about Bibliolatry by Dr . Arnold fo evil

    and others , but they have shrunk from the only remedy r the . Criticism of the profoundest , of the most honest , but of the most pious kind , must do its work here as in Germany . It is known that after Rationalism had its reign in Germany—then Straussism , far sublimer views of the Bible and of religion began to prevail , and now prevail in that land of mighty thought and marvellous erudition . We are far from thinking that religion is dependant on external evidence , for religion is the eternal revelation ia the human breast , to which every external revelation must be . simply a correspondence . This is the leading principle of mysticism ; ' and it has our cordial concurrence . It was the prpclamiation pf Christ , it is the proclamation of the deepest religious experience that the kingdom of God is within a , man , Bub the timid disciples of Christ ,- — distrusting Christ himself , foolishly . dream - that if criticism , even ion dies if

    the most legitimate , touches the Bible , relig : as religion were not of all human sentiments , of all human influences the most commanding and imperishable . It is overlooked by those who are the champions of " the Bible ' s unity and homogeneousness , and of its plenary , literal inspiration , thatnot only have thuscpuntless cpntradictipns to be reconciled , that what may appear the least noble portions of the Bible drag down to their own level the npblest , and that a painful , unnatural monotony is the result . Such works as Paine's '?* Age of Beason" owe the ^ bal eful empire _ which they have obtained among the mass of the people entirely to the doctrine of the Bible ' s unity and homogeneousnesa . The ribaldry of those works may remain , but their wit and logic go for nothing the moment the common theory pf the Bible is abandoned . For instance , the epicurean p hilosophy taught in the Book of Ecolesidstes does not harmonise—is in fierce cpntrast with the godlike

    self-sacrifice both taught and practised by Christ . Is not the precept of that self-sacrifice invincible P is not the example thereof immortal , whatever may be the weight or the worth of the Book of Ecolesiastes P Again , most fervont worshippers of the Almighty feel that the Book of Jonah , as an exaot nnd faithful historical record , adds not muph to the . dignity -of the Bible . Accept it , however , as a parable , and it may haye its own significance and suggestiveness . If it is to bo read as an exact and faithful historical record , why should Christians marvel that the Hindoos devour such mad and monstrous incredibilities P Again , the ftbloet ana most enlightened theologians confess that at least a third of what passes as the Book of Isaiah , cannot have boon uttered by that most stupendous of all the prophets ; that the whole of the lnttev part is a sort of prophetical anthology . From this confession Isaiah ' s glory is neither diminished nov eclipsed , while prophecy remains the same

    * Palestine I—Jdoaoription Qfographiquoi...

    * Palestine i—JDoaoription Qfographiquoi JXistorlaue et ArohMo ^ uo Far S . Munk , Parifl . JDidofc .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 11, 1860, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11021860/page/14/