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Here, then, we have a condensation of two utterances in one, no doubt under the law of association which dominates the memory.

Besides this, Joel has a remarkable testimony to "the meal offering and drink offering," and to the straits to which the priests were reduced by their failure in the great drought, famine, etc., which he depicts. He says of these offerings, "They are cut off from the house of Jehovah," adding that "the priests, his ministers, mourn" (i. 9); and repeats it with greater emphasis (ib. 13; cf. also ii. 14). For these offerings, whether stated or occasional, as required by law, see Ex. xxix. 40-41; Num. vi. 15, 17; xv. 4, 5, 10, 24; and for the priests' right to them for sustenance, Num. xviii. 9.1 Of Joel's trumpet signal to the solemn festival I have already spoken above.

To put briefly the several elements of the foregoing argument, and retrace their mutual relation, I will observe that,

I.

Certain facts, recorded or implied, meet us in the prophets, which accord with facts in the Pentateuchal history.

2. Certain established usages meet us in the prophets, which accord with injunctions or prohibitions in the Pentateuch.

3. The historical facts, and the injunctions, etc., of the Pentateuch as we have it, are mixed up together.

4. The allusions to historical fact and to usage which meet us in the prophets are similarly mixed up. This suggests that they are implicit references to such a mixed record.

5. Whatever presumption arises from facts being known, and usages being in force, which agree with either of 1 The "meal offering" only is mentioned here, but no doubt the libation is to be understood as attending; see Num. xxix. passim, where the two are throughout co-ordinated.

these (historical or legal) parts of the Pentateuch, is heightened by our finding this mixed agreement with both. For,

6. It is unlikely that the agreements under I should be accidental, and, again, that those under 2 should be so. And the combined unlikelihood of these multiplied by each other represents the unlikelihood that both should be so.

7. Some of the agreements under 2 relate to facts of a recondite and technical character; as those of high-place worship, solemn days observed, the use of special sacrificial or ritual items, e. g. incense, leaven, booths, etc.

8. This yields a presumption further increased in proportion to this character in the facts, in favor of a body of particular injunctions, such as we have in the present Pentateuch, being in force in the prophet's age.

9. We meet with a great deal of agreement of phraseology, short phrases which agree with others in the Pentateuch, or have the appearance of being condensed out of them. These agreements are too frequent to be accidental, and imply a documentary knowledge of such a text as that in which we verify them.

10. The result of this 9, taken in conjunction with the gradually increasing presumptions from 1 to 8, seems to establish with moral certainty the existence of a text approximately representing our present Pentateuch in the days of those prophets.

I

And here it seems proper to recur to my opening statement. The proofs adduced do not establish an antiquity necessarily much greater than the prophet's own age. have supposed fifty years backwards from the close of the reign of Uzziah an adequate margin for this. But it seems absolutely impossible for a work at all resembling our Pentateuch to have then originated. For the early reign of Uzziah, in which this reckoning would land us, appears to have been wholly occupied with successful warlike expeditions from Edom, eastward, to Philistia, westward. And we

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are then led backward by successive steps of a probability, which increases as we recede to the age of Moses.

I may observe, in conclusion, that nearly all Exodus after chapter xxiv., as well as many sections of its earlier portion, are disallowed as "priestly additions," by Nöldeke, Wellhausen, and others, whom I understand Professor R. Smith mainly to follow. Also, that all Deuteronomy, except chapters xii. to xxvii. inclusive, are similarly judged to be later accretions by Wellhausen; as of course, with inconsiderable exceptions, are Leviticus and Numbers. It will be seen that the references to passages in the Pentateuch, claimed above as made by the prophets, extend impartially to all parts of it, or, if anything, those to the supposed accretive portions are more frequent than those to the rest.

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BY

ARTICLE II.

SCIENCE AND PRAYER.

WILLIAM W. KINSLEY, WASHINGTON, D. C. AUTHOR OF
VEXED QUESTIONS."

V.

"VIEWS ON

I HAVE thus far endeavored to show

I.

How God may interfere whenever he chooses;

2. That there are incontestable evidences, and multitudes of them along down the centuries, that he has thus actually interfered;

3. That we are warranted in believing that we, each one of us, the humblest and most obscure, are of sufficient consequence to attract his attention and secure this his direct interference; and

4. That he will interfere because we ask him, doing for us what otherwise he would not have done.

There is left for me now but one other general affirmation to make. With its explanation and proof I believe I shall have presented the subject in all its essential phases. It is this: Every reasonable prayer offered in a right spirit is certain of favorable answer. This is the clear import of Christ's comprehensive promise to his disciples, as recorded in Matthew, "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive," or as Mark states it, "Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." shall have them." If we interpret these passages in the light of the context and of the general trend of Christ's teachings, we cannot but conclude that Christ premised in his promise that the prayers should be reasonable

and that they should be offered in the right spirit. No petitioner who complies with these two conditions need ever fear failure.

To have our prayers reasonable, we should, in the first place, guard against asking for anything which we can procure by our own exertions, making use of the resources of physical and mental strength, of social ties and general surroundings already in reach. God is a strict economist. If he has already made ample provisions in his general providence, and if we ourselves can by proper industry discover and utilize this provision, we ought not to expect from him. any further help by special act. We must exhaust our own means first, and ask him simply to supplement our weakness and insufficiency. Otherwise we would be asking not only for what God has really already bestowed, and bestowed in

a way which he thought would do us the greatest and most lasting good,--but for what, if granted again in this more direct manner, would prove to us a positive bane, and not a blessing; and if such a course were continued, all incentive to industry and enterprise would thus be taken away, physical and mental sloth would succeed to healthful, growthpromoting activity, abject timidity and feeling of dependence would take the place of a manly spirit of self-reliance. No wise parent among us, however keen and quick his sympathies, would ever consent thus to shield his child from toil and care and battle test, for he knows he would by dandling him thus in the lap of ease and luxury be sure to unman him, weaken his body and invite disease, dull the edge of his faculties and rob hin of every prospect of progress, of every trace of nobility, of everything that gives zest and incentive and joy to life and gilds the future with its pencillings of glory. Wise teachers refrain from helping their pupils so long as they can help themselves. Their office is not to relieve but to incite, not dwarf but draw out, not convert those under their charge into cowering weaklings but