land was barren. It was a spiritual Jericho. He scattered the salt in at the fountain head, and the waters were healed. Many generations of gownsmen have passed through Cambridge since his bones were laid in that most august cemetery on earth, the chapel of King's College; but the work which Simeon began goes on and prospers. We are assured, by one who has the best means of knowing, that there never was a larger body of pious undergraduates than at the present time. The fathers of not a few of these were the fruits of Simeon's ministry; others are the children of those who still hear "the words which are spirit and which are life" from the lips of his converts, or of those who owe their knowledge of Divine things, more or less. directly, to his influence. No one man, in the present century, has done so much as he to raise the standard of piety in the Church of England. The age does not admit of a Wyckliffe or a Luther. One mind cannot now penetrate and remould a nation, The wind that blows upon the slain comes, as aforetime, from the four corners of the earth; for the dry bones whiten on the open plain, and God employs various influences to co-operate at once upon them, and accomplish His gracious purposes-sanctified science, experience gathered from every source, numberless books, as well as the voice of the living preacher. But to Charles Simeon belongs the honour of having, whether from the extent of his usefulness, the depth of his piety, or the Scriptural simplicity of his doctrine, been one of the most distinguished ministers the Church of Christ has been favoured with in England since the days of the Reformation. He was placed by Him, who holdeth the stars in His right hand, in a position which probably no other man could have filled so well; he consecrated all his powers to the service of his Lord, and became a burning and a shining light amongst us. And not to him or to his memory, so much as to his Lord and ours, would we inscribe this passing tribute of his eminent worth and faithful service.

CORRESPONDENCE.

POVERTY OF THE CLERGY.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

SIE,-In your paper on "The Deficient Supply of Clergymen," &c., you noticed, as one obvious cause of the deficiency, the great probability of a prolonged strife with poverty, which a young man has before him when he takes Orders in our Church. As you justly Vol. 62.-No. 302.

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observe, "the money of the clergy covers the poverty of the Church." A "Peel living" of £150. per annum is, for the most part, all that a clergyman can look forward to obtaining with any degree of confidence.

May I beg to notice one cause of increasing poverty, which is often overlooked, but which we "poor clergymen" feel to be pressing upon us with constantly increasing force. I allude to the rapid depreciation of the value of money. This is ascribed, by those who profess to understand the currency, to various causes, but chiefly to the vast importations of gold from Australia, Columbia, California, and other quarters. A little reflection will show that such an increased importation of gold must inevitably tend to such a result. And that it does do so, the increased economy required as the years roll by abundantly proves to the experienced domestic manager. I have for some years past been conscious of the fact, that what is called a "fixed income" is no longer fixed except in name. Wages increase, the price of food and clothing (on the average) increases, and the articles which may be obtained of equal quality at a lower price are few and far between. An able work on the Currency question informs me (I quote from memory, but know that I am approximately correct), that £100. in the year 1850 would go as far as £121. in the year 1860; and I believe this from my own experience to be about the mark. A practical conclusion follows from this,-that it is highly desirable that such moneys as go to the increase of endow ments should, if possible, be invested in the only way in which they can be secure from the downward tendency of which I have spoken, viz., in land, which, to a certain extent, rises in value, in proportion to the depreciation of the circulating medium. I will not say more about the remainder of your excellent paper, excepting that its recommendation of a more faithful observance of the Ember Seasons, must commend itself to the mind of every one who believes in the powerful efficacy of prayer.-I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, A YORKSHIRE INCUMBENT.

January 9th, 1863.

SOME OF DR. COLENSO'S DIFFICULTIES.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

SIR, It may seem, I fear, somewhat presumptuous to anticipate the many answers to Bishop Colenso's work on the Pentateuch which are doubtless in course of preparation, but I venture to submit the following suggestions to the criticism of his readers, since they do not appear amongst those explanations of his difficulty which the Bishop himself offers to them.

The difficulty to which I allude is the first in his book, and, after quoting incorrectly Genesis xlvi. 12, he thus states it, on page 17:"It appears to me to be certain that the writer here means to say that Hezron and Hamul were born in the land of Canaan, and were among the seventy persons (including Jacob himself, and Joseph and his two sons) who came into Egypt with Jacob."

I will first accept this conclusion, and endeavour to show that no difficulty is created by it; secondly, I will inquire whether the con

clusion is an inevitable one or not.

1. The difficulty arises from the general assumption, that Judah was only forty-two years old when Jacob went down to Egypt," for he must have been at least fifty-five if Hezron and Hamul were born prior to that event. Now, this general assumption with respect to Judah's age rests upon two other data. 1st. That Judah was only three or four years older than Joseph. 2ndly. That Joseph was thirty-nine when Joseph joined him.

These two data are, I think, incorrect; and if so, of course the conclusion drawn from them is not necessarily true, and the difficulty based upon it disappears. 1st. Judah was, probably by some ten years, Joseph's senior. Jacob remained with Laban for twenty years, and, on comparing Genesis xxx. 25 with xxxi. 41, we infer that Joseph was born at the expiration of fourteen years. Therefore Jacob's marriage with Rachel must have preceded the term of service by which he won her; consequently there is no difficulty in supposing that the same rule applied to his marriage with Leah, and that his marriage with her took place some time in the first year of his residence with her father. Thus there may have been ten years' difference between the ages of Leah's fourth son and Rachel's first-born.

This view is strengthened by observing that, between the birth of Judah and that of Joseph, circumstances are said to have occurred for which ten years would suffice, but which it is not easy to reduce within the compass of three years; namely, Leah's ceasing to bear children for so long a time that she was induced to give her maid to her husband, the birth of Gad and Asher, probably also of Dan and Naphtali, Leah's renewed fertility, and the birth of Issachar, Zebulon, and Dinah in succession.

Again, this view is more consistent with Jacob's partiality for Joseph, as explained in Gen. xxxvii. 3, "because he was the son of his old age." If all the twelve children were born within seven years of each other, the youngest could hardly claim distinction as being, in any exclusive sense, the son of his father's old age.

To the whole of this argument it may be objected that it is beside the purpose, for that, whatever may have been the age of Judah, he did not marry the daughter of Shuah until Joseph was seventeen. To establish this objection, we must allow that the events which these chapters describe are related in chronological order; and this supposition is at once disproved by finding the death of Isaac, which did not take place until the years of plenty were setting in, narrated before we read of the sale of Joseph. Nor is it necessary to suppose that the flight to Bethel (continued to Hebron) preceded the marriage of Judah; and it appears to me that this latter event may have occurred at any time after the arrival at Succoth, when Judah was sixteen or seventeen.

2ndly. Joseph may have been more than thirty-nine when joined by his family. He was thirty when he first stood before Pharaoh ; but there is nothing in the narrative which obliges us to assume that the years of plenty followed immediately upon his elevation, or that the famine succeeded them without any interval. The utmost that

we infer from the language is, that the dreams of Pharaoh were fulfilled without long delay, but it is far from implying that there

was none.

The fact that Benjamin had ten sons coincides with this view; but would not be easy to understand if Joseph was but thirty-nine, and he therefore but twenty-three or four. If some of these sons were grandsons, as stated in the LXX, and in other genealogies, it makes my theory, not merely probable, but necessary.

Again, Jacob was a hundred and thirty years old when he went down to Egypt; and if Joseph was then only thirty-nine, he must have been born when his father was ninety-one; and thus the age of Jacob, when he fled from Esau, would be made out to have been between seventy-five and seventy-seven. Not to speak of the improbability of his remaining so long unmarried, is it reasonable to suppose that for at least thirty-five years Rebekah continued weary of her life because of the daughters of Heth, from whom, at forty, Esau had taken wives? Surely before thirty-five years had elapsed, she would have found a wife for her favourite son, or at least have satisfied herself that he was indifferent to the objects of her aversion.

As, therefore, there is no positive evidence for either fact, either that Judah was only three years older than Joseph, or that Joseph was only thirty-nine when the emigration took place; and as, on the other hand, there are indications in each case that the contrary was the fact; I feel entitled to assume that Judah may have married, say eight years before the sale of Joseph, that Joseph may have been forty-eight in the second year of the famine, that consequently Judah may at that time have been fifty-eight, and he may have had forty years of married life, in the thirty-ninth of which Hezron and Hamul may have been born.

II. Are we, however, obliged to accept the conclusion to which the bishop has come? Does the writer mean to say that Hezron and Hamul were born in the land of Canaan, and were among the original emigrants? If not, we must accept one of two suppositions: either that this list of names does not, and was not intended to, represent the emigrant band; or if it does, that Hezron and Hamul are mentioned in some other connexion, and not as forming part of the company.

1. At first sight the former supposition appears unworthy of a moment's consideration; but a close examination will persuade us, perhaps, that there is something to be said for it.

Every one knows that a certain obscurity is attached to this catalogue. Stephen, following the LXX, gives the number as seventyfive, and to this total the LXX is led by its enumerating (after, in the English version, verse 20 of Genesis xlvi. comes to an end) a son and grandson of Manasseh, and two sons and one grandson of Ephraim. These were real personages; for, in the original, one is mentioned in Genesis 1. 23, and we can trace the names of four out of the five in Numbers xxvi. and in 1 Chronicles vii. The 26th verse of this chapter, in the English version, is the same as the LXX, but the 27th verse of the LXX speaks of Joseph and his descendants mustering nine souls, (why nine, and not eight, is the number given, I cannot discover,)—and the verse thenceforward agrees with the English version; that is to say, Joseph, who did not marry till after his elevation,

is represented as having two sons, three grandsons, and two greatgrandsons at a time which is also referred to as that of Jacob's coming out of Canaan.

In the case, again, of the sons of Benjamin, whom the English version puts at ten, the LXX describes three as sons, five as grandsons, and one as a great-grandson of Benjamin; and these are supposed to be alive at the time which is contemplated in the expression, "they came into Egypt."

. It is needless to state in detail how irreconcileable each of these accounts is with the usual assumption, that the time to which this catalogue refers is that of the actual emigration which took place about the second year of the famine.

How then is the use of such definite language as that of verses 8, 26, 27, to be explained?

Every student of the Pentateuch must have been struck with one peculiarity of the writer's style, namely, that he seems often to build upon the previous knowledge, and also upon the common sense, of the reader. He appears at times to be speaking to an audience already familiar with the subject, to whom it is needless to make explanations without which he would be unintelligible to the uninitiated. More than one of the bishop's difficulties will, I think, be at least lessened by bearing this in mind.

A lapse of time, for instance, is intended to be understood, but is not expressed; people are supposed to be aware that there was an interval, or else to be candid enough to allow that it may have occurred, in the absence of any proof to the contrary. In this, perhaps, is to be found the solution of the difficulties which the bishop is occupied with in the tenth chapter of his book. Again, with respect to genealogies, there is no doubt that a conventional way of speaking was made use of which would strangely mislead us sometimes were we not corrected by the obvious necessities of the case.

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Look, for example, at verses 15, 18, 25, where Leah, Zilpah, and Bilhah seem to be spoken of as the mothers of their grand-children, I can conceive it possible that the expression came into Egypt' had an arbitrary meaning attached to it, an application with which the Jews were familiar, not the natural one, not referring to the original emigration, but to some other epoch, perhaps to that of their permanent establishment in Goshen.

2. For the other supposition, namely, that this list was intended to represent the original emigrants, but that Hezron and Hamul, though mentioned in connexion with them, are not really represented as belonging to them, much is to be said.

If nothing had been said to break the continuity of the enumeration prior to the mention of their names, or if we were unable to trace any element of difference between the mention of their names and the mention of the remaining names, it would be bold to propose such an explanation; but it is easy to see both the interruption of the idea, and the change of method. The intention of the compiler of this genealogy appears to have been twofold. He wished to give a complete list of Jacob's descendants up to a certain time, and also one of the settlers in Egypt. These lists coincide as far the 12th verse. The writer is then induced by his first object to mention Er and