TWO VOLUMES OF THE "TEMPLE BIBLE."
In the "Temple Bible" (J. M. Dent and Co., 1s. each net) we have The Book of Jeremiah, and Lamentations, edited by E. Tyrrell Green, M.A., and The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, edited by 0. C. Whitehouse, D.D. Both volumes are worthy members of the excel- lent and instructive series to which they belong, but we have been especially impressed by the latter. The section on the "Religious Ideas of the Book of Ezekiel" seems particularly valuable. This prophet, we are told, is the great preacher of personal responsibility, and this departure was the natural outcome of the history of the people. "This was due to the altered political conditions which demanded a change in the religious modes of thought. The old religious ideas were based on the fundamental conception of the race or the clan as the Unit
of social life as well as of worship. The individual lied no place in relation to God save in and through the clan and its common sacra. •But the Assyrian invasions of the Palestinian lands and their races since the eighth century had gradually broken up the nationalities and deported the races from the old homes and only possible seats of religions life. It was necessary, therefore, that religion should be based on something deeper and more permanent than the integrity of the clan and its local sacra. This needful reconstruction of ideas was accomplished by the prophets. For race-religion they substituted personal religion." Another useful section is that in which the indebtedness of Ezekiel to earlier prophets is worked out.
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