propriate for them is the song, "great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty." In a great council of all the celestial hierarchies to which the discoveries they had made might be brought, only one conclusion could be formed, and against that conclusion not one dissentient could reasonably enter his protest;-that " every thing which God has made is very good." But Adam, just created, is walking in the cool shades of Eden. Let him look into the system of nature, at the head of which Jehovah has placed him. Let him pursue his inquiries in every direction, and as far as possible, into the great scheme. Let him employ on the objects around him, his powers of apprehension, understanding, reflection and reason. Let him investigate, analyze, arrange, classify. Let him penetrate, as profoundly as possible, into the deep things of God" which invite his scrutiny, in every department of the universe, and then, after having taken his extensive and searching survey, let him form his conclusion. That conclusion, formed from the inductions of a being whose powers are properly balanced and perfectly adapt ed for investigation, must be a correct one. But what will it be? It cannot possibly differ from the proposition under discussion. Physical, mental, and moral science also confirm its truth. The astronomer, the geologist, the botanist, the student in the various departments of animated nature, the chemist, the mechanical philosopher or the psychologist, pursuing his enquiries with a devout spirit, arrives at the same conclusion. There may appear, in some of his discoveries, a seeming deviation from the Mosaic statement, mainly arising from human ignorance, or from inability to discover the connection and mutual relations of some parts to other parts of the great scheme, but the discrepancies are only apparent. By the study, also, of the natural connection existing between all the sciences, as far as that connection can be traced, the truth before us will be confirmed and verified. The general conclusion of each and every candid enquirer into the system of nature must be, "that every thing which God has made is very good."

Lastly. Any disorder which now

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exists could not possibly originate with God. He is not the author of confusion." It is incompatible with his nature. It must proceed from another source. On looking round, it is at once evident that disorder prevails. The sun still knows his path in the heavens, but man has deviated from the path of rectitude marked out for him "in the beginning." Other beings still live in conformity with the laws of their nature; but man, regardless of his obligations to his Creator, and of his high destiny, has broken moral law. The rest of creation is, even now, subserving, to some extent, the great ends for which it was brought into existence; but man, though an immortal spirit was implanted in him, has lost his native relish for those pure delights which would have resulted from unswerving obedience. Morál disorder and confusion are every where visible. The human spirit is degraded by "vile affections.' Man glories in his shame. He makes his immortal nature, endowed with faculties so no ble, the slave to his appetites. Instead of reflecting the splendours of holiness," the wild beasts are in his ruins, and the dragons are in his pleasant places." He worships and serves the creature rather than the Creator." History, observation and experience, verify the truth of the inspired declarations respecting human depravity and guilt. "They have altogether become unprofitable." In the spiritual government of God it is ordained that transgression of law shall be followed by disorder and suffering. Such disorder and suffering follow either as the natural results of transgression or as special penal inflictions. Man's transgression was voluntary. Hence, all disorder and suffering, with all the judgments which have been pronounced upon him, and upon the earth over which he bears rule, have succeeded as consequences of his own perverseness. How has the gold become dim, and the fine gold changed ?" In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis it is asserted that "God saw everything that he had made, and behold (no exception whatever is made), it was very good." But in the sixth chapter of the same book, after our first parents had brought on them

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THE life and character of the disciple "whom Jesus loved," must ever be an object of lively interest and affection to all who worthily bear that 'worthy name by which they are called.' Some of the ancient fathers trace a natural kinship between the Saviour and John by making his mother Salome, wife of Zebedee, the daughter of Joseph, by a marriage previous to that with Mary the mother of our Lord. But these traditional genealogies are deserving of little notice, and less reliance; although in the present instance it might be argued that this opinion would well coincide with, and in a manner account for, the tender familiarity—the "reclining on his bosom," to which John was admitted beyond the rest. Another explanation of this fact, but apparently as traditional as the other, has been found in the comparative youth of John when he began to follow Jesus. It is assumed that he was the youngest of the apostles, and therefore became specially endeared to Him of whom it was foretold, "He shall carry the lambs in his bosom." It has further been supposed, that John was one of the two disciples to whom the Baptist pointed out the Messiah as he walked, in the prophetic gospel words, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," and who both received from the Gracious Teacher the hospitable invitation which made them for a day the guests of his sacred home. Some support is given to this conjecture by the minute account John furnishes of the transaction, and by the omission of the other's name, Andrew being one of the two. But we take leave of conjecture and enter upon certitude, when we turn to the statements of the other evangelists concerning his call to be a public disciple of the Son of God. His brother James and he were in a ship with their father, and mending their nets-being industrious men we see-when Christ's selecting and inviting voice was heard, and immediately they obeyed; a circumstance which

so long as it remains on record wil. preach to every reader a sermon of instant submission to every word of the Redeemer, whatever nets have to be left unmended by attending to the summons. That voice often reaches us in reference to some duty of christian faith and love, but how often, too, we linger among the nets! Then we fall into condemnation; and John, springing alertly from his ship, forcibly condemns us. It is an error to conclude, as many have done, that Zebedee's family were in poverty, be cause hard-working fishermen; for it is distinctly mentioned by Mark (i. 20), that the brothers left their father in the ship "with the hired servants," and went after Jesus. When the apostles were ordained, John was chosen to a place among them, and received, conjointly with his brother James, the surname of Boanerges,* the second and last appellation of the kind, it would appear, which Christ conferred. "Sons of thunder" is the translation supplied by Mark, but much diversity of opinion has existed on the characteristic sense it was designed to bear. One class of critics have regarded it as a term of censure, epithetic of the fiery spirit displayed as related in Luke ix. 54-56. Another class have considered it a laudatory indication of their high-minded zeal in his service. Does it strike the mind as natural that in forming his apostles into a peculiar band, their Master would have selected that as the time for applying to two of his earliest followers a name of censure? On the same principle we should have expected that the "betrayer" would have received a surname appropriate to his selfish and thievish character. With the fact of Simon's surname to lead the way, it may be more judicious to understand" Boanerges

as an appellative having both a natural and an official aspect, the

*The Galilean form of a word from the Araman language, the one spoken in Palestine in the Saviour's day.

one describing the ardent temperament of the brothers, and the other prophetic of the use to which that temperament should be put in sounding forth the gospel of their Lord.* None can deny that John gave this rendering to the title, when his boldness excited the astonishment of the Sanhedrim; and why should it not be conceded as highly probable that it was by James making his boanergetic temper to be felt that his martyrdom by Herod imparted such pleasure to the Jews? As a member of that narrow circle, which included only Peter and James besides himself, John subsequently enjoyed the privilege which was confined to it, of being present at the raising of the ruler's daughter, the transfiguration on the "holy mount," and the agony of the garden. On another occasion Andrew alone, from among the other disciples, was present when the three coming privately made an enquiry respecting the destruction of the temple, which elicited that terrible prediction of Jerusalem's overthrow, which was in the hands of the Jewish christians before Titus beleaguered the city.t

Two incidents (to one of which allusion has been made,) implicating the character of John and his brother, are preserved in Scripture for instruction and admonition, while they wit ness to the fidelity of the evangelists, and thus confirm our confidence in their honesty as men, and their veracity as historians of those things which they saw and heard, or of which they received information from apostolic sources.

The first of these incidents occurred during one of the Saviour's progresses from Galilee into Judea, when he must needs pass through Samaria. But the villagers, seeing where he was going, behaved in a very rude

*To the question, why this designation did not, as Peter in Simon's case, supersede the others, Olshausen satisfactorily replies, that this use of it was prevented by its bestowment on two persons, so that it could not till James' death become distinctive of either.

+ A pointed proof of this occurs in the interposition by Matthew (xxiv. 15,) of the words, "Whoso readeth, let him un

and churlish manner, provoking James and John to ask permission to call down fire from heaven to consume the people. Into their request they adroitly slipped a Scripture example, which did not, however, save them from a severe rebuke. It was their "spirit" which was at fault. Elijah invoked the destructive element to vindicate his prophetic office, but they from a feeling of vindictiveness, which was, they might have known, wholly foreign to the spirit of their Master, It is not to be conceived that in a common case of inhospitality, the brothers would have uttered such a wish; but the very warmth of their attachment to Christ, and their reverence for him, as greater than Elijah, had kindled and fanned a fierce and offensive temper.

The history of Christendom has been fertile in melancholy indications of this unholy zeal; striking home the truth as with the force of thunder, that a fervent devotion to the glory of God may stimulate a disposition and deeds most shameful. Calvin procuring the burning of Servetus for heresy is a modern example of this spirit carried into practice.

The second incident relates to the petition for self-aggrandisement preferred by the brothers through their mother, or in company with her.— Matt, xx. 20-28, compared with Mark x. 35-45. This petition was prompted by a selfish ambition acting upon a worldly misconception of the Redeemer's mission, and was justly visited by the displeasure of the ten, when from some cause the fact of its presentation had leaked out. It may excite our wonder that men who had walked with Christ two years and more should still be susceptible of such irregular desires; but this will be most wisely employed in directing the

derstand." The design of this parenthetical clause cannot be mistaken; but if Matthew's Gospel had not been published till after the siege, and if the prophecy had been forged by him to correspond with the horrors which attended that event, who does not discern that the insertion of this clause, which could then have had no meaning but a mock one, must irremediably have ruined the credit of his production?

eyes of our contemplation around and within, where the prevalence of so much self-preference and selfishness, after so long a professed union with the Exemplar of Self-denial, calls for mingled astonishment, sorrow and repentance. John did not repeat his proposition after the resurrection, and could he have done it after the holy jubilee of Pentecost?

What Scripture reader has not lin. gered over one passage in the record of the crucifixion which comes to the mind like an anodyne in the crisis of the acutest pain-like a sungleam dropping through the rift of some most awful tempest-cloud? The heart aches at the sight of that crucified sufferer; and what relief is offered by the view of a mournful mother and weeping friends, who stand helpless by that cross? But see! he bends his head, and beholds beneath him the heart-pierced Mary and the faithful John; his eye regains its lustre, and his voice its familiar tone-while turning to both, to her he cries, "Woman, behold thy son!" and then to him, " Behold thy mother!" What a precious moment was this in the life of John; -recognized and addressed by his dying Master-and receiving as His legacy, the charge of henceforth representing Him, in all the duties of filial protection, care, and tenderness, to his bereaved and childless mother. The assurance is sweet to read, but our faith could have dispensed with it:"And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home."

:

The mind of the observing reader may have been drawn to the particu

It is only in unison with his custom of never naming himself, that John uses the phrase," another disciple." If not himself, why did he not give the name? The conjecture in M. Henry's Exposition, that it might have been Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea, or some one else of influence, is inadmissible, since they were secret disciples; and it is positively said that the "other disciple" followed Jesus from the garden at the same time with Peter, and knew of his standing at the door. The term "also" in the 17th verse intimates that one disciple was known to be present in the palace watching the proceedings. John's presence and boldness on this occasion renders Peter's weakness less excusable, and nobly shows

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lar friendship and alliance which subsisted between Peter and John. That they became special companions is made clear by a string of various facts: they were sent together to find and furnish a guest-chamber for the Passover; (Luke xxii. 8,)—they followed Christ together from the garden to the High Priest's palace;* (John xviii. 15)-they were together when Mary Magdalene announced the absence of the Saviour's body from the sepulchre, (John xx. 2, 3,) and emulously engaged in a race to see the marvel for themselves-John gaining the entrance first but entering second, when he "saw and believed;"+-they were in the same boat fishing togegether, when Christ stood upon the shore and spoke (xxi. 7);—they followed Jesus together when he predicted the different destinies which awaited them (xxi. 20, &c.);-they walked together into the temple when they performed that miracle upon the cripple, which terminated in their imprisonment, trial, and release (Acts iii. 1); and they were despatched together to complete in Samaria the work which Philip had begun (Acts viii. 14).

How John continued to be engaged after the persecution of the church by Saul had abated is not specifically said; but when the gentile apostle went up "by revelation to Jérusalem, seventeen years after his conversion, he found John to be one of the three "pillars " of the mother-church in that city. Ecclesiastical history conveys him after this to Asia Minor, and assigns him after this the presi