The History of the Hebrew People. By Charles Foster Kent,
Ph.D. (Smith and Elder.)—In this book Professor Kent takes up an earlier work, in which he had told the story of the United Kingdom. It will be found by the student prepared to regard the subject of Hebrew history and religion with an open mind to be a highly instructive and, we might say, illuminating book. Here is an example of his treatment :—" Amos outlines, in his artistic introduction (i.-ii.), the new and revolutionising principles which characterise his prophecy. Jehovah is God, not only of Israel, but of each and every nation. The gods of the other
peoples shrivel into insignificance in the fall light of this truth. Before Jehovah's tribunal the nations are condemned, because they have transgressed the common laws of humanity. Each is judged according to its enlightenment." This growth of the prophetic insight into tho foundation truths of religion is described with much force. It is in Jeremiah, rather than, as has been usually said, in Isaiah, that Professor Kent sees the " Evan- gelical Prophet." "Jeremiah voiced this conclusion [that Israel as a nation would never attain the divine ideal], and at the same time opened a new chapter in God's revelation, when he declared, as he sat upon the ruins of Jerusalem, that instead of the old covenant between God and the nation, which had been broken by the people's sins, Jehovah would establish a new and everlasting covenant, inscribed not in law books but in the human heart. Then the people would come no more to the priest or prophet to learn the character and will of God, but all would know Him, from the least even to the greatest."
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