It is good for a man not to touch a woman" (1
Cor. vii. 1) to St. Paul, not to those who wrote to him; and he thinks
the history of the Last Supper was revealed to the Apostle directly in a
trance--as to which he might be corrected by Professor Plumptre's
explanation of St. Paul's "going up to Jerusalem by revelation" in the
note on Acts xv. 2. But these are comparatively small blots, if they be
blots, in an exposition which is well worthy to take its place in this
most useful of modern Commentaries on the New Testament.

We are glad to hear that Professor Plumptre's "Commentary on the Acts"
has been reprinted for the use of schools, and we hope that the other
parts of the Commentary may be similarly treated.

* * * * *

The translation of Professor Cremer's "Biblico-Theological Lexicon,"
from the German, by Mr. Urwick (_Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New
Testament Greek_, by Hermann Cremer, D.D., Professor of Theology in the
University of Griefswald. Translated by W. Urwick, M.A. Edinburgh: T.
and T. Clark), supplies a great want in our helps to the study of the
New Testament. Parkhurst is out of date and limited in his range of
reference. Winer is a Grammar, not a Lexicon. Archbishop Trench's
Synonyms, with all their value, do not cover the whole ground. The
student turns, therefore, with eagerness to such a book as that of
Professor Cremer. And he will not be disappointed. The book is what it
professes to be. The author speaks modestly and truly of his work: "The
work which, after a labour of nine years, I have now brought to
completion is certainly an attempt only, and effort to do, not a result
accomplished; it simply prepares the way for a cleverer hand than mine."
He writes as an earnest believer, a pupil of Tholuck's, whose
commentaries he singles out as alone fully investigating the great
conceptions embodied in particular words of the New Testament Greek. He
seems to have been fired by an expression of Schleiermacher's, which
might be taken as the motto for his work: "A collection of all the
various elements in which the language-moulding power of Christianity
manifests itself would be an adumbration of New Testament doctrine and
ethics." Like so many of Tholuck's pupils, he has tested his theology by
the practical work of the ministry, not, however, neglecting the
student's part, which after many years' toil has issued in the important
work which has won him his professorship.