The Left and Reign of David, King of Israel. By
George Smith, LL.D., F.A.S. (Longmans.)—The most conspicuous feature of this book is the way in which the Psalms are woven into the text so as to give them a more directly autobiographical meaning than they are in- vested with by their arrangement in the Bible. Several passages which are obscure are also aptly elucidated, and the whole book gives us a clear picture of the life of King David. Dr. Smith says rather strangely in his preface that " although there is not a sentence in the volume calculated to wound the feelings of any believer in revelation, yet he is greatly mistaken if a calm, common-sense consideration of the course of Biblical study here placed before the reader is not calculated to dispel many pernicious errors and unsound notions." We have hardly ex- amined this conclusion, but we wonder at the way in which it is reached. Dr. Smith cannot moan that, as a general rule, pernicious errors cannot be dispelled without wounding the feelings of believers in revelation.
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