The Press. — London, England, 1856-03-01 00:00:00

MARCH 1, 1856. 4 move or think, their work was done with the force and violence of giants." In his general view of Palestine Mr. Stanley brings before us, among many others, three prominent points—first, the complete seelu sion of the territory of " the peculiar people " ; .(q)ndly, the central situation of a race des t ned to influence the world to the end of time; and, thirdly, the universality of the sc.uery and climate in which was fostered the poetry and associations of a universal religion. We select his observations on this latter to ''c as a fair specimen of his style and method :-- The sacred poetry, which was to be the delight and sup. port of the human mind and the human soul in all regions of we world, embraced within its range the natural features of almost every country. The venerable pet of our own mountain regions used to dwell with genuine emo tim on the pleasure he felt in the reflection that the Psalmists and Prophets dwelt in a mountainous country. and enjoyed its beauty as truly its himself. The devotions of our great maritime min ire find a natural expression in the numerous allusions, which no inland situation could have permitted, to the roar of the Mediterranean Sea, breaking over the rocks of Acre and Tyre—" the goods lift up their voice, the floods lift up their waves," —ll a "great and wide sea," whose blue waters could beLsee i from the top of almost every mountain, " wherein are things creeping innuineraLle."lttele go the Phoe nician " ships " with their white sails, and " there is that Leviathan," the monster of the deep. which both Jewish and Grecian fancy wilt wont to place in the inland ocean, which efts to them all, and more than all, that the Atlantic is to us. Thither •• ti ey went down " from their mountain:, and "did their business in ships," in the "great waters," and saw the " wonders " of the " deep and along those shores were the " havens," few and far between ' " where they would he " when " the storm became calm, and the waves thereof were still." And with these milder, and to us more familiar images, were blended the more terrible, as well as the more beautiful forms, of tropical and eastern life There was the earthquake and possibly the volcano. "He looketh on the earth and it trembleth—He toucheth the mountains and they smoke." " The mountains shall be molten under Him, and the valleys shall be cleft as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place." There was the hurricane, with its thick darkness, and the long con tinuous roll of the Oriental thunderstorm. "He bowed the heavens and came down, and there was darkness under his feet. . . . Ho rode upon the wings of the wind. . . . The Lord thundered out co heaven, and the Highest gave His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. . . The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire." Hermon, with his snowy summit always in sight, fur• nished the images which else could hardly have been looked for—" snow and vapours "—" snow like wool " " hoarfrost like ashes "—" ice like morsels." From the jungle of the Jordan valley and the wild mountains of Judah came the " lions roaring after their prey." And then again, the upland hills experienced all the usual alternations of the seasons • the " rain descending on the mown grass," the "ear ly and the latter rain," the mountains " watered from His chambers, the earth satin• tied with the fruit of His works "; which, though not the same as the ordinary returns of a European climate, were yet far more like it than could be found in Egypt, Arabia, or Assyria The following passage on the chosen locality of our Saviour's ministrations seems original and truthful It was to these scenes that He, whom His fellows townsmen at Nazareth rejected, came. He " came down " from the high country of Galilee, where he had hitherto dwelt; and from henceforth made his permanent home in the deep retreat of the Sea of Galilee. What has been already said at once gives the reason. It was no retired mountaindake by whose shore he took up his Rhode, such as might have attracted the Eastern sage or Western hermit. It was to the Roman Palestine almost what the manufacturing districts are to England. No where, except in the capital itself, could He have found such a sphere for His works and words of mercy ; from nu other centre could " His fame " have so gone through out all Syria ; no where else could He have so drawn round Him the vast multitudes who hung on His lips " from Galilee, from Decapolis, from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan," and ran " through that whole region round About," "carrying about in beds" through its nurrow but crowded plain " those that were sick, wherever they heard He was"; and " whithersoever He entered," into any of the numerous " villages or cities," there " they laid the sick in the market-places," . . . . " many coming and going, so that He had not time so much as to eat." In that busy stir of life were the natural elements nut of which His future disciples were to be formed. Far removed from the capital, mingled, as we have seen, with the Gentile races of Lebanon and Arabia—the dwellers by the Sea of Galilee were free from most of the strong prejudices which in the south of Palestine raised a bar to His reception. "The people" in " the land of Zebulun and Nephihalim, by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles," had " sat in darkness," but from that very cause " they saw " more clearly " the great light " when it came "to them which sat in the region and the shadow of death," for that very reason "light sprang up " the more readily. He came to preach the. Gospel to the poor," to " the weary and heavy laden "—to " seek and to save that which watt 1 ° 8 1" Where could He find work eo readily as in the ceaseless toil and turmoil uf these teeming villages and 1 ) 1 1-y wst , T 6 ? The heathen or half-heathen " publicans" THE PRESS. or tax-gatherers would be there, sitting by the lake side "at the receipt of custom." The " women who were sinners" would there have come, either from the neigh bouring Gentile cities, or corrupted by the license of Gentile manners. The Homan soldiers would there be found (revered with their slaves, to be near the palaces of the Herodian princes, or to repress the turbulence of the tialilean peasantry. And the hardy boatmen, filled with the faithful and grateful spirit by which that peasan try was always distinguished, would supply the energy and docility which He needed for His followers. The copious fisheries cf the lake now assumed a new interest. The two boats by the beach—Simon and Andrew casting their nets into the water—James and John on the shore washing and mending their nets—the " toiling all the night and catching nothing"—" the great multitude of fishes so that the net brake "—Philip, Andrew, and Simon from " Itethaaida " the " House of Fisheries " the " casting a hook fur the first fish tnat cometh up " the " net east into the sea, and gathering of every kind " all these are images which could occur nowhere else in Palestine hut on this one spot, and which from that one spot have now passed into the religious language of the civilised world, and in their remotest applications, or even misapplications, have converted the nations and shaken the thrones if Europe. In Mr. Stanley's descriptions of nature, both animate and inanimate, there are, however, ter taro omissions at which, though trifling in them selves, we have been a little disappointed All must remember the lines of Moore which speak of the hum of the wild bees of Palestine, and th e song of the nightingales in the Valley of the Jordan. The latter are mentioned also by many Oriental travellers, and Clarke supposes that " the singing of birds" in the canticles refers to them. But on both these points Mr Stanley is silent. The wild honey eaten by John the Baptist he considers to be the manna which drops from the tamarisk, and not the product of bees, thereby eliminating a picturesque feature from the narrative: and the nightingale he does not even allude to. We are curious to know the truth. more especially as Tennyson, in his splendid de scription of the Jordan valley by night, says nothing about them either. We are rather surprised that Mr. Stanley, who seems fond of illustrating his own remarks from the poets, should have omitted to notice this fine passage, which tallies so exactly with his own account of the spot : The torrent brooks of hallowed Israel, From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon, Sound all night long in falling through the dell, Far heard beneath the moon. The balmy moon of blessed Israel Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine; All night the splintered crags that, wall the dell With spires of silver shine. The terraces, sloping down to the river, planted with the vine and the olive—the lion roaring from his den of reeds and willows — and the " light white cloud" and " large white stars " above, form a picture, according to Mr. Stanley's own showing, as perfectly truthful as it must be confessed to be perfectly beautiful. In the present work there is little or nothing that is doctrinal ; and we are glad of it. Mr. Stanley's reverential doubtings are indeed far removed from that conceited petulance which distinguishes vulgar scepticism; but their in fluence is not on that account less fatal. But though there is nothing in this 1 ook directly theological, there does nevertheless lurk a certain undefinable and untangible difference, felt but not seen, leading us to a point from which the whole question of the Scriptures assumes a kind of hazy aspect. In one or two cases Mr. Stanley is less cautious. In his treatment of " natural causes " his bias is perceptible ; as, for instance, where he tells us that if we believe the thunder on Mount Sinai to have proceeded from certain physical sources which he describes, " they " furnish an additional illustration, not to say " Additional proof, of the historical truth of " the narrative." That is to say, the less any event is like a miracle, the more likely it is to have occurred. But what, we would ask. is the historical vane of the Bible dissevered from its records of supernatural occurrences? What avails it to prove the veracity of a narrative by disproving all that renders its veracity im portant? This is an exact illustration of Juvenal's expression,— Et pmpter vitam vivendi perdere calms. For the sake of truth to destroy the end of truth. It is with coniiidcrable diffidence that we venture thus to criticise a writer of such learning, ability, and zeal as Mr. Stanley. But 77 1rmr-,..... 209 we cannot bring ourselves to regard his method in these matters from any other p )int of view than as injurious to the humble faith and hallowed traditions of Christendom. After Dark. By Wilkie Collins. Two WI.. London : Smith and Elder. THE work of Mr. Collins consists mainly of tales. whieh have with one exception been published in Household Words. He has given to them a new framework, in " The Diary of a Physician " style. The device is as old as fiction itself, and the only novelty of treatment in this case is, that the narrator is represented as a travelling portrait-painter, who, being compelled to rest his eye, and being sorely per plexed as to ways and means, is persuaded by his wife to relate the tales he has heard during his ex perience, which are faithfully written down by her and sent off for publication. This part of the book will probably be judged " nicely " written. But it is very artificial, and as unlike anything that ever has occurred, or is likely to occur, as can well be imagined. No one can mistake the care with which effect is sought for, and elaborated. Mr. Collins has considerable constructive skill,—the most available, though not the highest, talent in fiction. He follows the French school, in which the art of effect in combining and dressing up incident is carried to perfection. He seems to have no idea of character, no feeling for the realities of life, no power of original thought—but he can work up a story ; and it is tb• constructive art he displays which has doubtless sug gested the notion that his tales are of foreign origin. It is probable that Mr. Collins works on a principle, and that he thinks skill and training have more to do with the production of readable fiction than native ability. His success may have good results, as care lessness of literary art has been carried too far. His plan will always secure for him an audience. He is real storyteller, though not of a high class. His style, like his plan, seems to have been well studied, but in this respect also the art is too apparent. The simplicity, to a critical eye at least, is overdone. The book consistently closes with a "tag." Th• first sentence of the preface, in which ➢tr. Collins speaks himself, and the last sentence of the aook, spoken by the painter's wife, will sufficiently show the art exercised : The PRZ7ACZ : I have taken some pains to string together the various stories contained in these volumes on a single thread of interest which, as far as I know, has at least the merit of not having been used before. The Tao : Oh, Public, Public! it all depends now upon you ! The children are to have new clothes from top to toe ; I am to have a black-silk gown ; William is to have a beautiful travelling colour-box ; the rent is to be paid ; all our kind frien la at the farmhouse ate to have little presents, and our future way in this hard world is to be smoothed for us at the outset, if you will only accept a poor painter's stories which his wife has written down for him,—ArrEß DARK. Mr. Collins's "pains "—his own word—and inge nuity are sure to be recognised Probably he will, as he advances in his painstaking career, gain elimpses of the higher skill—if indeed it be not an instinct beyond the power of mere pains to attain— which consists in "Ars celare artem." Diary of Travels in Three Quarters of the Globe. By an Australian Settler. Two Vols. London : Saunders and Otley. THE author left his "bush-home in the picturesque "valley of the broad Clarence river "in the month of July, 1854, for England. In his cottage, with its modest roof of thatch, and shaded by the foliage of the beautiful white cedar, be had passed fourteen yews of successful enterprise and requited toil. Spreading cedars, planted by the author's own hand, marked the lonely grave of his brother. The place was endeared to him by many recollections, but the thought of home was stronger; so he jcurneyed to Sydney, and embarked in the steamer Madras to proceed by the overland route to Europe. These volumes contain a record of his voyage. They are intelligently written, but we would far sooner have had a literal record of the fourteen years' residence in the valley of the Clarence. The most noticeable part of the book is that describing what be saw in Constantinople and the Crimea in the winter of 1854.5, when our army was in its worst plight. At Scutari, under date of December 19th, he notes how the hospital accommodation had so fallen in arrear, that, with a thousand sick detained afloat, many of those who had been landed in the morning were, when the day was nearly spent, still sitting or lying upon the wet ground near the entrance gates : As glaziers and plasterers are harried from a ward, a number of the bags of straw are hastily dragged in and disposed round the damp walls upon the dirty floor. The poor wasted sufferers, half dead with cold, and exhausted by long waiting, are then admitted, and appear thankful to be stretched even upon this apology for a bed, the first, as some told me, they had lain upon since they glutted England.