spread over the rest of Asia as the designation of the whole Chinese people. 2. The second objection will not appear of much weight to those persons who have read the works of Professor Heeren, on the early commercial intercourse between the various nations of Asia, and have seen how caravans traversed the vast plains of central Asia, at the earliest period of which we have any records. There can be no doubt that there was a very active trade carried on between the remote east and west of Asia long previous to the eighth century before our era, which was probably the time at which the prophet Isaiah lived. And as it was during this period that the Israelites became closely connected with the great Asiatic_monarchies, nothing is more likely than that the prophet heard some report respecting this distant people, and therefore introduced them into his poetry as the representatives, so to speak, of the remote east. If we turn to the Greek and Roman writers, we shall find strong confirmation of the opinion, that the Sinim are the Chinese. It is usually stated that in the Greek and Roman writers Seres is the name of the Chinese, and Serica the name of their country; but we hope to show that there never was a people called Seres, nor a country called Serica. There can be no question that the Chinese were first known in Europe under the name of Thine, or Sina, which clearly contains the same root as the Hebrew Sinim; the a in the former words, and the im in the latter, being, as we hardly need remark, terminations to indicate the plural. The first mention of the Thine is in the treatise of Aristotle De Mundo, if that work be his; but they were spoken of more at length under the same name, by the celebrated astronomer and geographer Eratosthenes, who lived in the third century before the Christian era. His account is copied by Strabo,* who makes no mention of the Seres. In the time of the latter writers, that is, the time of the Augustan age, we first hear of the Seres. Virgil is the first author who speaks of them, and from this time downwards the name occurs as that of a people through a long series of writers. Along with the noun Seres, we also find an adjective sericus. Still the first author who gives any description of the Seres as a distinct people is Pomponius Mela,† who describes them as a very honest race, who brought what they had to sell, laid it down, and went away, and then returned for the price of it. The name of Thinæ, or Sinæ, however, still continued to be used; and at length we find them and the Seres described as two distinct people: thus Ptolemy goes so far as to tell us that the country of the Thine or Sinæ on the north bounded Serica. The name of Seres, however, has always remained unknown in the east, and we find no traces * Book i. p. 65, 68. ed. Casaubon. † iii. 7. of any people in Asia called by that name, either by themselves or by their neighbours. Hence it may be conjectured with great probability, that the name was first introduced into Europe merely to signify the article for which the Chinese were most celebrated, namely, that of silk, and that it was subsequently applied to indicate the people from whose country this article came. This conjecture was first stated, as far as we are aware, by Professor Neumann, in the journal already referred to, and has subsequently been maintained by an able writer in the Classical Museum,* who apparently was not aware of Professor Neumann's remarks. The conjecture is rendered almost a certainty by the name of silk in the countries around the original localities of the silk-worm. In the following languages the name for silk is : Professor Neumann informs us that the inhabitants of the northern provinces of China frequently make use of the particle or as a termination, and he supposes that this termination or affixed to the root sse produced the names Ser, Seres, Serica. It is unnecessary to pursue the subject farther in this place. All the passages in the Greek and Roman writers relating to the Seres will be found collected in the learned and interesting work of Mr. James Yates, intitled, Textrinum Antiquorum: an account of the Art of Weaving among the Ancients. London, 1845. The reader will also find some valuable information respecting the knowledge possessed by the Greeks and Romans of the Chinese, in Dean Vincent's Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, vol. ii. p. 573 foll. London, 1807; and in Dr. Forbiger's Handbuch der alten Geographie, vol. ii. p. 473 foll. Leipzig, 1844. * No. VII. p. 43 foll. London, 1845. VI. CRITICISM ON HEBREWS x. 38. Ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται· καὶ ἐὰν ὑποστείληται, οὐκ εὐδοκεῖ ἡ ψυχή μου ἐν αὐτῷ. 'Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.'-Authorised Version. (From a Correspondent.) AMONGST the means of comparing spiritual things with spiritual, included in the range of scriptural study, none is more natural than to seek for the elucidation of any apparent difficulty, by reference to the parallel passages occurring in other parts of the same Divinely-inspired volume: and in no case does this seem more important, than where a New Testament writer has quoted directly from some of the earlier records of inspiration. In some instances, however, of this kind, considerable attention is required for reconciling the seeming varieties of form under which the truth enounced appears in its original place, and in its position of reference this is often owing to the imperfection of translation, or to the frequent want of uniformity of expression, incident to our English version, from the very source of many of its excellences, that it was the production of combined, not of individual talent. At the close of the 10th chapter to the Hebrews, we evidently have a quotation from the prophet Habakkuk, in the sentence, 'The just shall live by faith; but in the clause which concludes the 38th verse, partly perhaps from the two sentences changing places, and partly from the variety of the language, it may easily escape the observation of the English reader, that the apostle is still giving the language of Habak. ii. 4; and even when this is noticed, a difficulty arises in reconciling the words, as they stand in the epistle, with the declaration of the prophet. If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him,' says the apostle; his soul which is lifted up, is not upright in him,' is the apparent language of the holy seer, as he announces the vision wherewith the Lord answered him, whilst he stood on his watchtower; and though thus strikingly different the exterior form of expression with which the truth is presented by our translators in the two passages, it is doubtless important to recognise, in the argument adduced for strengthening the faith of the Hebrews, the reflected brightness of the vision vouchsafed to the waiting hope and expectant faith of the prophet of Judah. The fact is that the apostle gives exactly the words of the prophet, as they were rendered by the Septuagint : èàv dè útoσtelλntai οὐκ ευδοκεῖ ἡ ψυχή μου ἐν αὐτῷ and whilst attention may naturally be awakened as to the real meaning of the text, from observing the ' insertion of the words any man,' not found in the original, the importance of ascertaining the correctness of this or the contrary, appears from the bearing the passage has on the doctrinal views of the Calvinist and the Arminian. The grammatical uncertainty turns on the nominative case to the verb лоσтelληTαι. Beza, I believe, was the first who, to save his own system of doctrine, supplied the indefinite sense which our translators have adopted. The Arminian scholar, discovering the absence of Tis in the Greek, naturally thinks himself justified in connecting the clause with that which precedes it; and, by referring it to the just,' adduces the words as favouring his objections to the doctrine of Christian perseverance. But, instead of allowing doctrinal opinions to bias the rendering of the original, it must be the path of fairer criticism to ascertain the meaning, by seeking for some sense which may agree with the Greek which the apostle quotes from the LXX., and with the Hebrew which they thus rendered. In following this course, it must be admitted in limine that there is nothing to justify the Calvinistic caveat interposed by Beza and his followers; and, on the other hand, that the Arminian rendering is quite excluded from the passage in the prophet, by the order in which the two clauses there stand. In looking at the Hebrew, the principal difficulty is found in the word hy represented by the Greek úоσTelλŋṛαι, and by the English lifted up; and the two points requiring notice are, the meaning which this word bears, and the connexion in which it is to be taken. As a guide to the latter, the feminine form of the word may be some assistance; one commentator, indeed, takes it as a noun, and, by a reference to an Arabic derivation, renders it, subductio, aut negligentia; and the meaning he thus derives from the passage is this: Lo, is there negligence of my word? in such a man, He -the coming Saviour-will not be satisfied. (Ludov. De Dieu.) But this can hardly agree with the rendering of the LXX., which in this case comes to us with all the claim derived from inspired sanction. Taking the word, in accordance with the vowel points, as the feminine of the Pichal form of a verb, we naturally fix on the feminine substantive p as the only word with which it can be connected; and this, I conceive, further suggests ἡ ψυχὴ as the nominative case for ὑποστείληται. To the person implied under the common Hebrew idiom of his ? yvxì or soul, is hypothetically referred the action expressed by the verb by or ÚTOσTÉλλoμaι. A similar connexion may be recognised in the rendering of the passage by the old translator Aquila, vwxeλevoμévov οὐκ εὐθεῖα ἡ ψυχή μου ἐν αὐτῷ. Is not the participle in the genitive connected with the pronoun pov in the same case? According to Scapula, the sense of voxeλevóμevos is segnis, tardus, and the rendering of Aquila would therefore express, when I am sluggish, my soul is not right in him. By this ancient and generally accurate version, we are guided as to two points of the grammatical construction-the connexion of the verb ὑποστείληται with ἡ ψυχὴ, or the person so expressed; and the distinguishing the person whose soul is spoken of, from him in whom uprightness is supposed to exist, or towards whom approval might be felt. Of these two points, the former has the more important bearing on the Greek of the passage as quoted by the apostle; the latter warns us not to adopt a sense which might otherwise have naturally been inferred, alike from the Hebrew and from the English translation of the sentence as we find it in the Old Testament. The suggestion is thus in some degree supported, that ǹ yvxý μov be considered as the nominative case tо vñоσтεíληтаi, and that the person referred to by in (èv avrệ, in him,) be regarded as ó èpxóuevos, He that shall come, spoken of in the preceding verse. עֶפְּלָה The Hebrew word If occurs only in one other passage, Numb. xiv. 44, and there the LXX. represent it by diaßiaσáμevoi, forcing through-in the English version, they presumed.' there is some idea expressed by the word, common to the two passages, may not this be impatience? In Numbers, let the historical connexion be considered: after the judgment had been denounced on the Israelites, that because of their rebellious murmuring they should wander for forty years in the wilderness, impatient of the delay thus put on their entering into the promised land, stung by feelings of remorse into the reckless despair of selfconfident daring, the people dieẞiáo avro, broke through, and 'presumed' to go up against their enemies. Their conduct was that of presumptuous confidence and forbidden enterprise, but the spring of feeling which prompted to it was impatience. Again, in the passage now under consideration, a promise had been given of the sure fulfilment of the vision; the declaration that the announced person or event would surely come, is connected with the injunction to wait for this accomplishment. By the best versions and critics, the third verse in the prophet is taken as announcing the certain advent of One, who, though He tarry, will not be too late, or after His own appointed time: the state of mind enjoined is the waiting induced by a confident belief that the promise will be fulfilled; and in contrast with this, the effect of an impatience leading to the disbelieving timidity and depression of any man's mind, is stated. In accordance with this is the force of the Greek ÚTOσTÉλλoμα, which Scapula explains by vela contrahere, expressing the conduct of one who, afraid to launch forth, keeps his sails furled, or else with timid misgivings trims them under to the wind, fearing to open his canvas to the full gale. Such a feeling, |