writing the words of this Law in a book until they were finished," he commanded the Levites that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord to take this book of the Law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant that it might be there for a witness against the people. It has sometimes been contended that the expressions "this Law," "all the words of this Law," embrace the whole Pentateuch, but according to the most ancient Jewish tradition they refer primarily to the Book of Deuteronomy. In any case Deuteronomy claims for itself not only a Mosaic origin, but so far as the legislation at least is concerned, a direct Mosaic authorship: "Moses wrote this Law."

The general character of the book is entirely in accordance with this statement. If a later author has embodied the discourses of Moses, giving them a setting of his own, and perhaps clothing the legislation in its present rhetorical form, there is no reason to doubt that we have a faithful record, at least of the substance of those discourses. The situation is carefully preserved throughout. The laws are issued in the wilderness, the people have not yet entered Canaan. Canaan is always "the land which Jehovah giveth thee to possess it " (Deut. xv. 4-7; xxi. 1-23). The laws are framed with a view to the time when the people are come into the land" and shall possess it (xvii. 14), or, when Jehovah hath "cut off these nations, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their cities" (xix. 1); then and not till then will the laws come into operation (xii. 1, 8, 9). The central place of worship and sacrifice is not one which Jehovah has already chosen, but one which He shall choose to put His name there (xii. 5, 10). If Deuteronomy was composed about the time when it was said to have been discovered in the temple, the writer must have been possessed of no small amount of literary skill to transport himself so entirely into the age of Moses.

But again, all legislation bears traces of the time when it is framed, and must be adapted to the circumstances and requirements of that time. This is rightly insisted upon by the critics. But if Deuteronomy belongs to the reign of Josiah or Manasseh, what are we to make of the injunction to exterminate the Canaanites (xx. 16–18), and the Amalekites (xxv. 17-19) who had long since disappeared ?— an injunction which, as Prof. Green says, "would have been as utterly out of date as a law in New Jersey at the present time offering a bounty for killing wolves, or a royal proclamation in Great Britain ordering the expulsion of the Danes." *

"A law," he continues, "contemplating foreign conquests (xx. 10-15) would have been absurd, when the urgent question was whether Judah could maintain its own existence against the encroachments of Babylon and Egypt. A law discriminating against Ammon and Moab (xxiii. 3, 4), in favour of Edom (ver. 7, 8), had its warrant in the Mosaic period, but not in the time of the later kings. Jeremiah discriminates precisely the other way, promising a future restoration to Moab (xlviii. 47) and Ammon (xlix. 6), which he denies

* "Moses and the Prophets," p. 63.

to Edom (xlix. 17, 18), who is also to Joel (iii. 19), Obadiah, and Isaiah (lxiii. 1-6) the representative foe of the people of God. The special injunction to show no unfriendliness to Egyptians (Deut. xxiii. 7) is insupportable in a code issued under prophetic influence at a time when the prophets were doing everything in their power to dissuade the people from alliance or association with them (Isa. xxx. 1, &c.; xxxi. 1; Jer. ii. 18, 36). The allusions to Egypt imply familiarity with and recent residence in that land; an impressive argument for obedience is drawn from the memory of bondage in Egypt (Deut. xiii. 5, 10; xx. 1); warnings are pointed by a reference to the diseases of Egypt (Deut. vii. 15; xxviii. 60). And how can a code belong to the times of Josiah which, while it contemplated the possible selection of a king in the future (Deut. xvii. 14, &c.), nowhere implies an actual regal government, but vests the supreme central authority in a judge and the priesthood (xvii. 8-12; xix. 17), which lays special stress on the requirements that the king must be a native and not a foreigner (xvii. 15) when the undisputed line of succession had for ages been fixed in the family of David, and that he must not 'cause the people to return to Egypt' (ver. 16), as they seemed ready to do on every grievance in the days of Moses (Num. xiv. 4), but which no one ever dreamed of doing, after they were fairly established in Canaan ?”

What are we to set against all this?

1. First of all, that the phrase "beyond Jordan" in chapter i. shows plainly enough it is said, that the writer was on the west side of the Jordan. The book therefore is written in Palestine. It has been replied to this that the phrase "beyond Jordan" is used as a current description of the Eastern territory, irrespective of the position of the speaker or the writer, just as Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul did not "change their names to the old Roman Generals as often as they crossed the Alps." But the cases are not parallel. 'Beyond Jordan" does denote not one side only but both sides of the river, according to the place of the writer or speaker. Thus in Deut. iii. 25, Moses, who is on the Eastern side of Jordan, says to God, "Let me go over, I pray thee, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan," meaning of course Western Palestine; whereas in the eighth verse of the same chapter "the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond Jordan," the phrase denotes the Eastern side of the river. So again in Numbers xxxii. 19, the Reubenites and Gadites, speaking from their position on the East side, say: "We will not inherit with them beyond Jordan (on the other side) and forward; because our inheritance is fallen to us beyond Jordan (on this side) eastward." Indeed the frequent addition of "westward" or "eastward" to the phrase "beyond Jordan" (comp. Joshua v. 1, xii. 7, xxii. 7, with xiii. 32, xx. 8, 1 Chron. vi. 63) is indisputable proof that "beyond Jordan" was not a standing designation of Eastern Palestine, as Transalpine Gaul was of the Roman Province beyond the Alps.* It seems then but

Dr. Douglas indeed says: "I suppose the phrase means simply across the Jordan,' and it was used by Moses sometimes of the eastern and sometimes of the western side, according to circumstances easily intelligible by his readers or hearers, according as he had in his mind their physical position to the east of Jordan, or their ideal position in

reasonable to conclude that a writer who tells us that Moses spake certain words "beyond Jordan" was himself living in Western Palestine. This, however, is no proof that he does not faithfully record the discourses of Moses, or that when he says, "Moses wrote the law," he is putting his own words into the mouth of Moses.

2. The Book is in style quite unlike the other Books of the Hexateuch it stands absolutely alone. If it is the work of Moses, the other Books cannot claim his authorship. It is not enough to say in reply that Exodus and Leviticus for instance are either formal narrative or legislative enactment, whereas Deuteronomy consists chiefly of rhetorical discourses; for Deuteronomy is in its main portion a code. But we may maintain that the substance of the code is Mosaic and yet grant that a later writer has made free use of his materials, and set them forth in his own diction. Indeed, we have only to read the later chapters of the Book of Numbers, from the 28th onwards, to be convinced that the writer who gives us there "the commandments and the judgments which the Lord commended by the hand of Moses unto the children of Israel," is not the writer of Deuteronomy. The situation is the same. The people are "in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho " (Num. xxxvi. 13; Deut. i. 1, 5), but the Moses of Numbers and the Moses of Deuteronomy are not the same. The difference between Deuteronomy and the other Books, it has often been remarked, is like the difference between St. John's Gospel and the other Evangelists. The colouring of St. John's language extends even to his record of our Lord's discourses. But the record is not the less faithful on that account. The manner is different, but the Divine character is exhibited as clearly in the discourse in the Synagogue at Capernaum as in the Sermon on the Mount; in the last words in the Upper Chamber as in the Great Prophecy on the Mount of Olives. Deuteronomy may be in the strict sense Mosaic, though we may be compelled to admit that in its present form it was not written. by Moses.

J. J. STEWART PEROWNE.

the proper land of Canaan to the west of it, the land in which their forefathers lived, and to which all their thoughts and aspirations turned, as that which was now to be their home-Why I still believe that Moses wrote Deuteronomy, p. 30. But such a loose mode of expression must have been infinitely perplexing, and we have seen, as a matter of fact, that when the Reubenites and Gadites speak of their own territory as "beyond Jordan," they add "eastward" to make it clear. If a reporter, writing from Lambeth, were to say: "These words spake the Archbishop of Canterbury on the other side of the Thames," no one would for a moment suppose that he was reporting what the Archbishop had said at Lambeth, though to the majority of Londoners Lambeth is "on the other side of the Thames."

(To be continued.)

THE LIBERAL PARTY AND ITS

PROSPECTS.

THE

HE old order is rapidly passing away, and a new order is as rapidly taking its place. This is one of the few things which it is possible to say with something like certainty of the situation in this country. In politics the unexpected so frequently happens that the task of trying to look ahead is always a difficult and often an unprofitable one. Still, it must be undertaken on those occasions when the alternative is resignation to opportunism in the face of impending difficulties which require a definite policy. The present appears to be one of such occasions. The leaders of the Liberal party do not seem to be occupying themselves with any other question than that of Irish Government. And yet, with an extended franchise, not one but many more difficult questions are impending. The relations of labour and capital are apparently about to be forced on our attention with practical and formulated demands. What is to be the attitude of the party towards them? The answer to this question may prove to be of profound moment as regards the future of Liberalism.

About the future constitution of the Conservative party there is room for but little doubt. Lord Randolph Churchill, like other men who have been remarkable, is but an expression of the tendencies of his time. The Tories are no longer the party of the landlords. The landlords still rally and will continue to rally round their standards, but only as one of a multitude of special interests which do the same from an instinct, not of satisfaction or sympathy, but of self-preservation. The Liberal party has been enunciating with daily increasing distinctness the proposition that the special privileges of many of these special interests ought not to continue to exist. It is hardly to be wondered at that the Tory party has gained them. For example, in great cities the publican is probably, from his constant association

with working people, a Radical in his sympathies. But his trade is threatened by the Liberals, and he therefore votes Tory. Again, to take an example which is likely to appear with more distinctness in the future than it does at the present time, the employer of labour who dreads damaging restriction in the terms on which he can purchase labour power for use in his factories or mines, naturally tends towards the new Conservatism. Now the special interests are very numerous, and are to be found in every rank of life. There are special interests in large numbers even among the newly enfranchised. The small mining contractor, himself a workman, is one example. The skilled workman who requires to hire unskilled labour, adult or otherwise, is another. Again, between skilled and unskilled workmen there is recognized a distinction, not merely in wages but in status, which gives rise to another kind of illustration of the same thing. The consequence is that there is a much larger material upon which it is possible for the modern Tory party to draw than is popularly supposed. I have always thought the assumption a rash one that the working men would continue to vote solidly or even substantially solidly with us. after the feeling of gratitude for that extension of the franchise which the Liberal party procured for them had been forgotten. A large majority of these voters we shall probably continue to have with us for many a day. But the middle-class vote, which since 1885 has, in England at all events, been to a very great extent indeed Conservative, is so enormous and so constantly increasing, that any considerable secession of new special interests from the working classes would almost neutralize the power of the latter. And universal suffrage, while it would of course add largely to the working-class vote, would also tend to promote such a secession on the part of those who were best off. The truth is that the names Tory and Liberal are rapidly ceasing to possess definite connotations, and are coming to have purely relative meanings. To which party a particular person belongs depends on how far his desire for equality extends. As we progress further, the necessity for progress becomes less and less glaring to persons familiar with the old order of things, and it becomes more and more difficult to predict from what quarter the party of resistance to change will not find recruits. This party is rapidly coming to include every species of voter. The country squire, whose watchwords are Church and State, the shopkeeper who hates what he calls mob rule, the farmer who wants a protective duty on corn, the manufacturer who wants Fair Trade, the miscellaneous multitude who want to do what is genteel, the workman who wants a duty imposed on imported sugar to countervail the foreign bounties, the man who is dependent for a job on the great house, the skilled artificer who objects to political power getting into the hands of the mere labourer, and many others of similar classes, all cast their suffrages with the Tories. Extend the franchise still further, and you