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its thesis is very striking, and because the volume itself, probably, not being likely to be reprinted, will fall into very few hands in this country. Of course any criticism from us would be useless; in fact, it would be impossible. We have no basis for any criticism. To be capable of that, a man must not only be well versed in Greek, but thoroughly familiar with Sanscrit, so that he may judge for himself whether Mr. Pococke has dealt unfairly with that language, and put it to any torture in bringing out those verbal resemblances between Greek and Sanscrit topography, on which his arguments mainly rest. A competent critic must also be so conversant with the earliest records of the two people, with the myths, the institutions, and the genius of the two races, with the differences, as well as the resemblances of the two stocks, in their historical developement, as to be able to weigh with proper nicety the problem, whether the one could have been an offshoot, by direct colonization, of the other, and whether climate could account for such broad distinctions between them as history shows.

We ought to say, too, that the region of comparative etymologies is the most slippery ground in the domain of letters. A man must be on his guard there against "the juggling fiends that palter with us in a double sense; for in no department is an author, who is devoted to a theory, so likely to be imposed upon by superficial resemblances, that merely "keep the word of promise to the ear," or so easily seduced into tampering with the integ rity of truth, by straining the delicate structure of language to meet the exigences of an argument. What we want to know is, whether Mr. Pococke has picked certain words from the dictionary of Greek Geography, and then, having searched the Hindoo map and found some names that have a similar sound, has jumped from that similarity, to the certainty and necessity of an early colonization from one district to the other. Even in that case the argument would have some weight. In the absence of all other evidence, the similarity in the names of counties, cities, and villages in New England, to those of the British island, would go far towards supporting the hypothesis of an early settlement by colonists from England. But, if the strength of Mr. Pococke's view lies merely in

verbal resemblances,-if there is nothing in the Hindoo literature to assist it, of course the proof will be open to skeptical assault and cavil. Mr. Pococke often speaks with the greatest assurance upon some points, as though abundant testimony from the literature of Hindostan was ready to favor his argument, but he seldom gives us any of this independent evidence. He is an unskilful advocate of such a cause as he has undertaken. The arrangement of his book is bad; his transitions are too abrupt; he presupposes too large an acquaintance in his readers, of the field from which his evidence is drawn; in fact, he seems to have no proper idea of the form and methods in which such views should be presented to minds entirely ignorant of Sanscrit, and also of the hypothesis which he defends.

In favor of the theory we have been considering, are the known similarities of structure and of words between the Greek and the Sanscrit language, and the pointings of many lines of evidence, drawn from a careful study of the earliest Greek and Egyptian literature, to a more Eastern origin. What other country presents such claims to a very ancient culture, or to the patriarchal honor in the lineage of civilization, as India? It is a most singular fact, too, that the Greek geographical names are not capable of being simplified and solved in the Grecian tongue. Some persons, indeed, may be ready to object, that the Greeks could not have forgotten their history so completely, as not to know that their ancestors came from India, and that their geographical names held the story of their origin. This objection deserves no weight, for whether Mr. Pococke's theory be true or not, the simple fact is, that the Greeks had forgotten their origin. They had no traditions which told who the Pelasgi were, whence they came into Greece, what language they spoke, what degree of civilization they brought, what people they found in Hellas, nor in what relations the colonizers stood to the Aborigines. They had lost the memory and the records of the primitive form of their language, the early stages of their developement in civilization, and the gradual growth of their religion to its latest stage. Their myths rolled together history and invention, so that they fascinate the imagination, and continually

tempt the scholar to inquiries as to their basis, which leave no satisfactory result. Any theory we may adopt cannot alter the settled fact, that the later Greeks were as ignorant as babes of their ancestry.

If Mr. Pococke's theory can be established, there will be something charming in the consciousness that the scholarship of the twenty-second century after Plato, has been able to correct Athenian ignorance of the origin of the Greeks, and to explain symbols whose meaning they had lost in the beautiful vesture of fable. It will be a worthy achievement of an age whose sentiment recognizes so warmly the fact of human brotherhood, to illustrate it in literature, by deciphering historical mysteries, by means of a parent dialect, and thus to contribute a proof as fascinating as it is valuable, of the unity of races. It will be a fitting trophy of a century that has deciphered the hieroglyphics, and erected the telegraph, to throw this new light upon the passage, which, in other ways, we have done so much to fulfil, "there is nothing secret which shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, which shall not be known and come abroad."

T. S. K.

ART. XVII.

Law and Sin.

The Law and the Offence: a Lecture on the subject of Prohibitory Laws in regard to the use of Intoxicating drinks, by Rev. J. C. Lovejoy, Cambridgeport. Boston: C. C. P. Moody. 8vo. pp. 16.

WITH the object of this sermon we have no further concern, at present, than merely to say, it was designed to prevent the passage of the Massachusetts law for the suppression of drinking-houses and tippling-shops; and to add, that it is as good an essay as has been published against the law. But the theology and the philosophy of the sermon come directly within our province; and on these we propose to offer a few remarks.

The sermon begins with what seems to us an utter perversion of the text; and by this term we mean not merely the use of a text in accommodation to the subject, though in a sense foreign to its original purport, but an actual wresting of the scripture away from its true meaning, into one which is absolutely false.

The text chosen is, "Moreover the law entered that the offence might abound." Rom. v. 20. And the first words of the sermon are, "This is the invariable effect of law upon a corrupt mind. It makes the offence abound. Restrictions upon the manifestations of an inward desire, inflame that desire." And as the author afterward speaks of "the depraved heart of man" in general terms, he evidently means that the effect of law on all minds and lives, (except the few who in his view are regenerate,) is absolutely and only evil; or, in other words, that the effect of law, and even its intent, is to create or increase sin.

Before proceeding to examine and expose this perversion, we may properly state that it is a modern phase of Orthodoxy. To go no farther back than the days of Henry's Commentary, not quite an hundred and forty years, we find this note: "The law entered that sin might abound. Not to make sin abound more in itself, but to discover the abounding sinfulness of it. The glass discovers the spots, but does not cause them. When the commandment came into the world, sin revived; as the letting in of a clearer light into a room, discovers the dust and filth which were there before, but were not seen. It was like the searching of a wound, which is necessary to the cure."

More modern commentators, such as Scott and Barnes, for some reason or other not clearly apprehended by us, interpret the passage in the same manner as Mr. Lovejoy does in the sermon before us-which interpretation seems to us a manifest perversion of the apostle's meaning; a perversion indeed so manifest, that the good sense of such men would revolt from it, were it not that they receive it as part of a system.

But it should be borne in mind, that the truth or falsity of this statement, or of any statement of a doctrine, does not depend upon any system with which it may be sup

posed to be connected. In other words, either it is true that law creates and increases sin, or else it is not true. We maintain that it is not true; and especially that Paul does not mean to be so understood in the text. To make the matter plainer, we will go back to the day when the law was given in an audible voice from mount Sinai. The first and second commands in that law forbid the worship of false gods and idols. Will any man in his senses pretend that more idols and false gods were worshipped by the Jews afterwards, than by generations before; or that more idols were worshipped in consequence of the promulgation of that law, than would have been worshipped without it? If any one does so contend, he must do it without the shadow of evidence to uphold his assumption. Nay, he must do it against some force of evidence in another direction; for it is said, "your fathers served other gods," and the theft of Laban's images by Rachel, is plain matter of history; while the idolatry and superstition of Egypt, whence Israel had just emerged, was too notorious to need any thing beyond a bare mention.

Take some other commands in the same code of law, which forbid murder, adultery and theft. It will not do to say that these three commands of God created or produced hatred, or lust, or dishonesty in any man's bosom. The author of the sermon himself would hardly dare to assert this sentiment in these words; and yet he does assert it in his too literal, narrow interpretation of the text. But he qualifies it by saying that law works this effect on a corrupt mind; and as he begs at least one question when he says this, he would doubtless beg another, if we ask him whether God's laws, or those of men, caused the Antediluvians to sin so outrageously, as to fill the earth with violence, cause the Creator to repent that he had made men on the earth, and grieve him at his heart. He will hardly say human law made this, nor will he dare to say that God himself, by his laws, made these sins to abound-only, as he adds, by its operations on their corrupt hearts, which they inherited from Adam.

Well, then, we will go back to Adam himself, and ask the author of the sermon, if God gave his law to Adam for the purpose of making him to abound in sin? It will

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