The Massorah.

figured by the ruthless hand of the Christian Scribe , and many a fair parchment cut to pieces and made to serve for repairing the boots of the Nazarene . It is the persecution of Antiochus E piphanes repeated , intensified , prolonged , through centuries .

Add to all this the fact , that it has been the practise of the Jews themselves to consign to oblivion all imperfect copies of their Scriptures . The Talmud enacts that if a copy of the Law have two errors in a page , it shall be corrected ; if three it shall be stowed away . The act by which

this is done is called Genizah . By the Kararite Jews the receptacle itself in which incorrect or mutilated copies of the Bible were placed were called Genizah , but it is not so called in the Talmud . The receptacles in which all imperfect or

injured MSS . of the kind are placed are called by the German Jews '' Shemothboxes , " in allusion to the names ( Shemoth ) of God , because every scrap on which that name might chance to be written , as might be the case' with any leaf of the Biblewas

, held too sacred to be destroyed , and must , therefore , be solemnly deposited in the receptacle prepared for it . No Hebrew MS . was therefore preserved by the Jews , merely on the ground of antiquity , and

taking this circumstance into connexion with the wholesale destruction of MSS . by Christians during the Middle Ages , to which we have already referred , it can no longer appear surprising that our oldest MSS . are so comparativel y late .

Thus Jews and Christians have conspired together for the destruction of these precious documents . The earliest known MS . of the whole Old Testament ( which is in the University Library at Cambridge * ! only dates from the middle of

the ninth century . A fragment belonging to the beginning of the same ceutury is in the Library at St . Petersburg . The beautiful MS . of the Later Prophets in the same Library , already referred to , bears the date A . D . 916 . AA e must not , therefore ,

indulge unreasonable expectations . It is scarcely probable that even Dr . Ginsburg ' s collations will furnish us with a large harvest of important textual variations . But his work is one of which it is scarcely probable to exaggerate the value notwithstanding . It will g ive us , what we have

The Massorah.

never had before , a really accurate collation of all the best MSS . of the Old Testament , together with a complete view of the Massoreth of each . The work will fill four folio volumes when finished . The publication of such a work is an enterprise too great to be accomplished by any

single individual unassisted . But it may be hoped that our Universities , and that Biblical scholars in this and other countries , will take care that the Funds requisite for its publication are forthcoming . AVe cordially congratulate Dr . Ginsburg on

having brough his labours so nearly to their conclusion , ancl thank him in the name of all students of the Hebrew Bible for this most important contribution to the formation of a critical text of the Old Testament .

The Bright Side.

THE BRIGHT SIDE .

BY W . W . HIBBEN . ( From the " Masonic Advocate" ) " Let us gather up the sunbeams , Lying all around our path , Let us keep the wheat and roses

Casting out the thorns and chaff ; Let us find our sweetest comfort In the blessings of the day , AVith a patient hand removing All the briars from our way . " CLOUDS aud darkness follow sunshine and

clay , and the darkest fortunes of life are apt to be succeeded by whispers of comfort and relief which come to us , like the visitations of the angels when they are on their missions of mercy . Though the heart be heavy with sorrows , the wicket gate of

hope may be seen in the dim distance . The God of our fathers never leaves us to struggle alone . The poet speaks truth when he says : "The promise assures us the Lord will provide . " In regions the most desolateunder circumstances the

, most disheartening , when cold , bleak winds are upon us , there is still a bright side of life to look upon , if we will only search for it . When Alexander Selkirk found himself a castaway on the Island of Juan