force upon those who utter them. They prove nothing, unless naked assertion is proof. But why, on the immolation hypothesis, did Jephthah's daughter request a respite of "two months, that she might go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail her virginity with her fellows?" Who can help inquiring, Why not much rather bewail her death? Her own allusion to her virginity-rather, her celibacy-with the reference to it in the next two verses, admitting her immolation, makes a mere circumstance more deplorable than the loss of life itself! If this would not be to magnify "the weaker into the stronger reason," it is inconceivable what should be so regarded.

"Reluctance to receive the text in its obvious meaning," may be retorted with double stringency upon the advocates of immolation. Why evince so much "reluctance" to relinquish an interpretation of a dark and difficult passage in an isolated and brief narrative, especially when such interpretation, called the "obvious meaning," so manifestly neutralizes and outrages all just claims to piety on Jephthah's part; substituting for it the grossest superstition of the most blind and reckless worshipper of Moloch, thus coming in direct and open conflict with all the purest and deepest sentiments of the paternal heart: and this allowed to pass, not only without a word of reprobation, or even so much as one allusive censure by the inspired writers, but the faith of this judge of Israel receiving in the meantime the highest commendation! If difficulties like these rank not among the "insuperable," we cannot imagine what should be so considered. And all, let it be remembered, is based upon the interpretation of a solitary Hebrew text which some of the most celebrated Biblical critics and commentators maintain is susceptible of a translation more literal, involving no such consequences: for it is obvious that all that is said in allusion to this vow, after the statement of the utterance of the vow itself, accords quite as well with the consecration exposition, to say the least, as with the immolation hypothesis. It is passing strange, though true, that a seeming predilection for the marvellous and the tragical should maintain such a dominion over the popular mind; a propensity which is greatly cherished by giving this Scripture narrative what is claimed to be the "obvious meaning." Could it be shown that the view which strikes the great mass of ordinary readers really favours immolation-which we are not prepared to concedethis should still go for nothing, yea, less than nothing, in opposition to a sober, intelligent, critical investigation of the law and the facts in the case because to substitute the obvious" for the critical import of a passage of Scripture, would be at once to repudiate all

research and intelligent Biblical exegesis; to transfer our confidence for the needful guidance on all questions of intricacy, doubt, or difficulty, from the learned, laborious, and scrutinizing, to the mass of unscrupulous and superficial readers; persons who are wont to take up first impressions instead of tracing out ultimate truths, or comparing separate acts or principles with the analogy of faith or consistency of character; seldom searching below the surface for a solid foundation for the superstructure of their opinions. It would be to adopt a maxim in Biblical exposition fatal to truth on all great questions relative to religion, politics, the arts and sciences-questions involving the most vital interests of mankind; a doctrine to which, when placed in a clear light, Dr. K. would be the last to subscribe. Hence we are compelled to dissent from his position, both as respects the conclusion he arrives at, and the reasoning by which it is reached. "But," he adds, "the more the plain rules of common sense have been exercised in our views of Biblical transactions; and the better we succeed in realizing a distinct idea of the times in which Jephthah lived, and of the position he occupied, the less reluctance there has been to admit the interpretation which the first view of the passage suggests to every reader, which is, that he really did offer her in sacrifice."

On this we remark, finally, that while we go for the adoption of the "plain rules of common sense" in ascertaining correct "views in Biblical transactions," and for "realizing a distinct idea of the times and position of Jephthah," we have more instead of "less reluctance" to admit an interpretation of his vow which involves the morality of an act of one so highly commended by an inspired writer, and thus confirming the captious sceptic in his cavil against the morality of the Bible, whatever may chance to have been our "first" view of the matter; especially when a more comprehensive critical investigation of the whole subject compels us to exonerate this honoured parent from so vile an imputation. With us vastly more reliance should be placed upon sober, intelligent, patient, sacred thought, in such examples of obscurity and difficulty, than upon mere first views; not, however, because we esteem the "plain, common sense first views of ordinary readers" less, but because we appreciate the diligent research, the rigid and enlightened scrutiny of the pious, intelligent, critical Biblical student more. On this ground we cheerfully place the two theories, leaving the reader to decide the issue.

ART. V.-THE GEOLOGY OF WORDS.

1. Trench on the Study of Words. New-York: 12mo., pp. 236.

2. Epea Pteroenta, or the Diversions of Purley. By JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 3. Fowler on the English Language. New-York: Harper & Brothers; 8vo., pp. 675. 4. Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms. New-York: Svo.

5. Richardson's English Dictionary. London: 4to.

WHEN an ordinary workman digs out from the quarry a block of sand-stone, it may seem to him but so many square feet of rock that may be used in building a wall. If his attention should be attracted to the curious marks that appear on its surface, they will do little more than excite a momentary curiosity. But let the keen eyes of a Hugh Miller or an Agassiz rest upon this rock, and it becomes instantly a record of the deepest significance. These mysterious marks become hieroglyphics instinct with meaning; and in tracing them out there is revealed the history of an undated past. In the curling surface of the rock the geologist detects the ripple-marks that tell the story of an ancient sea that rolled its peaceful waves along the beach during the long, still summer night, and of the morning breeze that covered gently with the sifted sand the traces of this rippling tide, and sealed them up in perpetual remembrance. In the dotted marks that indent it, he sees the trace of the pattering rain-drops that came suddenly down from the summer sky upon the smooth, dry strand, and passing quickly away, left braided on the retiring cloud that beautiful bow that was afterward selected by God as the symbol of hope to man. And as he looks yet closer, he finds the footprints of living things that have here daguerreotyped themselves to distant generations. A yet further examination reveals to him the very forms of the ancient dwellers in these waters; entombed in this enduring sarcophagus, and presenting in strong hieroglyphics at once their biography and their epitaph. In the structure of their jaws, and the contents of their stomachs, they betray the nature of their food; in the forms of their fins and skeletons, they evince their habits; and in the attitude of terror, resistance and struggle that they bear, they tell the story of a sudden and violent death. There rises thus to the reading eye the picture of this ancient world, with its swarming tribes of life; now gambolling in the sunshine; now fleeing in terror before the tempest and the earthquake, and now lashing the waves into foam in the fury of their deadly and terrible contests. Other

fossils will tell him the story of a more advanced period in the earth's history. In the stomachs of the huge saurians that he finds, are yet preserved the undigested remains of the enormous reptile, the capture of which demanded that terrible combat, which in the end may have cost the victor his life, by a fit of saurian dyspepsia. In others he finds the remains of the very vegetables and trees whose enormous fossils are built into the coal measures, or deposited beside the unwieldy frame that once devoured them. As the geologist gazes on these stony pictures, there rise to his eye those ancient forests and marshes, with their towering tree ferns waving like queenly palms in the hot and mephitic atmosphere; reeds that stand like the mast of "some tall admiral;" and huge club-mosses shooting fifty feet in the air; while rolling their ponderous bulk in the tepid waters, or browsing lazily amid this gigantic herbage, are reptiles to which the crocodile of the Nile is but a whisking lizard, and forms of mylodon, megatherium and dinotherium, that seem but the horrid creations of the sick man's dream.

All this history, and much more, is written in these stony annals of the past; and yet generation after generation might quarry, and hew, and build these rocky registers, in utter ignorance of their wonderful contents. Hugh Miller, the mason, might have used these rocks as building stone just as well, if Hugh Miller, the geologist, had never discovered them to be the archives where God had deposited the history of a world.

Now precisely the same state of facts exists in regard to the words that we use in daily life. They have been formed in the remote past. They have lived in other elements of thought, and served other uses of action than the present. They have mingled with the changes of human history, and contain imbedded in their structure a record of these changes, which a careful inspection will enable us to trace with great distinctness. Words are in truth the fossils of history; embalming in their very structure the record of facts that have found no other memorials. Their value in this respect has only been fully known in our own day, that has given birth to the science of comparative philology. This science, by comparing the various languages of the earth, is detecting facts of history and ethnology that have found no other record. It is yet in its infancy; but the results already reaped give promise of a rich harvest when more abundant materials for its use shall have been collected.

It is not our purpose to attempt a sketch of this young science, nor is it needful for our present design. They who are ignorant of all languages but their own may find much to interest and instruct

in studying that, even though they never venture into the tangled thicket of comparative philology. Indeed, it has been well said that "the discovery that words are living powers has been to many a man like the dropping of scales from his eyes; like the acquiring of another sense, or the introduction to a new world.”

Our object is rather to induce those who have turned but little attention to this subject, to devote more careful study to it, by giving some insight into the treasures contained in words. Could we be assured that Trench's little volume on "the Study of Words" was known generally to our readers we should deem a further prosecution of this subject comparatively needless, for some of our best illustrations have been taken from its pages. But as the study of words has usually been esteemed a very dry topic, this most entertaining and instructive volume has probably been but little read by the masses; while the Diversities of Purley is a book of which even literary men often know but little beyond the title. It is our purpose to endeavour to show that dry as this subject seems generally, it may, like the dry carcass of the lion that Samson slew, contain a hidden treasure of sweetness; that very valuable uses may be made of words beyond their use in speaking and writing; and for these ends, to select from any source facts suitable for our purpose without giving in each case a formal acknowledgment of the author or the book. If the profound philologist shall consider some of our illustrations common-place, and some of our etymologies questionable, we hope that he will remember that the commonest things are those that most men overlook; and that there exists the widest room for difference of opinion as to the etymologies of words, and that even a doubtful etymology may illustrate a true principle.

To give a notion of the subject in hand, let us select a simple illustration. Take, for example, an every-day transaction, the dating and signing of a letter. The words "dating," "signing," and "letter," have wrapped up in them certain historical facts. We have derived the word "date" from the Roman custom of inscribing a letter as “datum," "given" on a certain day; though the custom has been long laid aside; the word "signing," from the ancient use of the signet-ring, and the later custom of our illiterate ancestors in making the sign of the cross in place of their names, which they were unable to write; and the word "letter," from the Latin litera, which again is from lino, in allusion to the use of waxen tablets in writing. All these words indicate our connexion with old Rome, through a rude and uncultivated ancestry. But the same fact is yet further embodied in the date. The amazing power of Rome in impressing her practical organizations on the world, and her mission