Contemporary Literature [pp. 362-378]

1876.] CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE. 369
pel, edited and revised by THos. CROMBIE, the second being a Critical and
Exegetical Hand-book to the Epirtles to the E~hesians and Colossians, translated from the fourth edition of the German, by WILLIAM P. DICKSON
D.D., Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow. We find these
marked by the same judgment, candor, learning, and orthodoxy, which we
have noted in the previous volumes brought to the notice of our readers.
Bible Lands. their Modern Customs and Manners, illustrative of Scripture. By the REV. HENRY VAN-LENNEP, D. D. With maps (one physical and one ethnological), and wood-cut illustrations. New York: Harper
& Bros. The Harpers have published several valuable works on the Holy
Land, but the subject is one of inexhaustible interest. There is a fascination about it, due not only to its unique and incomparable history, but also
to its peculiar physical characteristics, its comparative unchangeableness, its
very contrast with the whole of occidental civilization. It is in the sharpest
contrast with American civilization; and this is one of the reasons why
Americans feel the spell more, perhaps, than most other travelers. Yet
they do not visit it as foreigners; it is rather like going to the old home of
which so much has been heard from one's earliest years. Some of the very
best books upon it have been written by our scholars, who have sojourned
there, and Dr. Van Lennep, in this new work, admirably brought out by
the publishers, has added another most valuable and engrossing volume to
the Palestine library. It will take its place by the side of Dr. Thompson's
The Land and the Book, not in the way of rivalry, but by adding new observations and illustrations, the fruit of a life4ong experience by one who
grew up amid those sacred scenes, and spoke the language of the land.
The style is simple and perspicuous; the descriptions are animated, minute,
and graphic; the whole arrangement of the work is simple and clear. With
no parade of learning, it rests upon minute and careful observations. It is
so written, that all may read it to their satisfaction and profit. The illustration of scnptural passages and allusions is made prominent on almost every
page, and a new sense of the reality of Scripture history is impressed upon
the mind of the reader. -
The first part of the work is devoted to the "Customs which have their
origin in the Physical Features of Bible Lands;" the second, to "Customs
which have a Historical Origin." Both are traced out in detail, with pertinent illustrations and descriptions. In the case of those lands, the present
explains the past more than is possible in any Western nation, for there the
past lives in the present. The races, the men and women, the habits of domestic and social life, the buildings, the arts, as now existing, carry us back
to ancient times. -In an Appendix there is a good selection of Oriental
Proverbs. There is a full index of Scripture Texts, and one of Subjects.
The illustrations are profuse and well executed. In the writing of names,
Dr. Van Lennep does not depart as much as some other writers do frori
the prevailing usage. He writes Mohammed, instead of Mahomet; Bedawy
(plural, Bedawin), for Bedouin-the religion of Mohammed is not called Mo