Bible Class.

Mr. Greenough White's Bible class which has been meeting on Wednesday evenings, has taken up the following subjects: Babylonia; Persian mon archy; Post-exilian psalms, giving aims and emotions of Jews; formation of Old Testament canon; the Temple and Synagogue and great influence on early Christianity of Jewis ideas, strengthened by contact with Persians. Last Wednesday night Haggai was studied from a literary standpoint, and approached as a preacher or writer of our own time. Five points of interpretation or higher criticism were considered: character of author; plan of composition of the prophecy; date of composition; the people to whom work was addressed; purpose or motive of the work. Mr. White said that we know nothing certain of Haggai except from the fifth chapter of Ezra and from the prophecy itself, and yet he was one of the three great prophets who influenced the Jews after the exile. Ewald and Pusey believed Haggai was very old when he began to prophesy (from the sixth verse of the second chapter of the book itself.) Owing to his age his words would have great influence and his remembering the first temple would be a motive in his urging the building of a second. The prophecy was addressed to about two hundred thousand Jews, who, having returned from Babylon some years before, had become either indifferent to rebuilding the temple or discouraged. The style of the prophecy is abrupt, iterative and concise. The first chapter is addressed to the indifferent, the second Chap., verses one to nine, to the diccouraged, ten to nineteen to summary of these prophecies, and verses twenty to twenty-three, to Zerubbabel, the governor.