Expositions of Christian Doctrine. By the late Rev. John Wallace,
of Lindsay-Street Chapel, Dundee. (W. Kidd, Dundee.)—The friends of Mr. Wallace have done well in publishing this selection from the ser- mons which ho left behind him. The selection appears to ns to have boon very judiciously made, so as to give a good idea of what Mr. Wallace's teaching was. This teaching was remarkable and distinctive in its kind, and worthy of much wider recognition than it probably received in the preacher's lifetime. The sermons aro, for the most part, argumentative, some of them discussing the antitheistio attitude of certain scientific mon and philosophers, and others dealing with what Mr. Wallace considered perversions of Christian doctrine. All are remarkable for clearness of style, cogency of reasoning, and fairness towards antagonists. There is, however, in them a lack of feeling and imagination which makes the writer's conclusions unsatisfying, even when not unsatisfactory. " Faith," says Mr. Wallace, "is attachment to the unseen unrighteousness of God." This, as a definition, is very good indeed, and the conclusions drawn from it are convincing and weighty. Yet Christian faith is practically more than this. It is attachment to a righteous Person, to One felt to be full of grace and truth. The one object is to the other as a complete painting to a sketch in outline. Jesus, according to Mr. Wallace, is a sinless and perfect man, and therefore one altogether unique among mon. But he seems to us nob to feel himself called upon to account for
this altogether transcendent fact, and to shrink from presenting ins his fullness the Christ of the Gospels and of the Church. While, therefore, these sermons may do for many the inestimable service of " clearing their minds of cant," they will not nourish them with a quite satisfying food. One admirable sermon, on " Eternal Punishment," is especially to be commended to the notice of readers. Expounding the words, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment," Mr. Wallace insists that their meaning is, that the fire is eternal, the punishment eternal, but not the suffering of the individual human child. Whore those is moral government, punishment most be eternal in possibility, if not in actuality. This interpretation of a passage, which to many is a difficult one, is very forcibly drawn out by the writer, and seems to us the true one.
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