now difficult to ascertain how far the dispersion affected the opinions of men, but it is at least certain that a change then came over the spirit of their dream, and it seems probable that the Jews were instrumental in accomplishing it. To show the grounds of this probability, let us glance at some of the important facts which belong to the history of the period. It was at the time of the dispersion that Zoroaster reformed the religion of the Magians; and without affirming the genuineness of those books which are ascribed to him, but regarding them only as the standards of his system, it is evident that, like the Koran, they were written by men who were not only acquainted with the writings of the Jews, but willing to copy their creed and customs. And if to this internal evidence from the sacred books of the Persians we add the external evidence from their history, where their kings are represented as being generally favourable to the religion of the Jews, it is manifest that the reformation of the Magians was indebted to the influence of the dispersion. It was also about the time that Judea became a province of the Persian empire that the first philosophers of the West began to speculate; and as these speculations commenced in the eastern colonies of Greece, the time and the place seems to suggest the thought, that even the proud philospohy of the West may after all have been but a distant ray from the light of the dispersion. However, that light appears to have reached the Greeks in rays so faint as only to awaken their first teachers, to let them see their darkness and feel their want; and as there is not in their first philosophy any internal evidence of its relation to the Hebrew faith, it is manifest that the discussion created by the dispersion rather started than guided their speculations; but having once begun to speculate, they availed themselves of every source of information, and ultimately gave indications of thoughts which were evidently borrowed from the Jews, though they had not the honesty to confess it. It was shortly after the dispersion that Confucius, the reformer of China, flourished, and then that his system was established in the different departments of the Celestial empire. without stopping to notice the traditions of a correspondence between Zoroaster and Pythagoras, or the evidence of a resemblance between the systems of Pythagoras and Confucius, we may assume that a movement so widely spread must have had its origin in some very general cause; and these facts establish the connection between the dispersion and the dawn of philosophy. The knowledge that these three great men were contemporaries, and

Now,

their systems sprung up simultaneously in the lands of their birth, is an important truth in human history; for though there may be as much variety in the systems as to manifest that they were the growth of different soils, there is also as much resemblance as to prove that they were the product of a similar seed. Thus the student of history may discover the fruits of the dispersion in the biography of man, as easily as the student of geology can discover the deposits of the deluge in the geography of the earth. Solitary facts may be as unmeaning as separate letters, but when combined they form the autograph of God, which is as legible on the pages of history as his footprints are on the strata of the globe. G. B., C.

POETRY.

THE SOULS OF THE CHILDREN.

'WHO bids for the little children

Body and soul and brain;
Who bids for the little children—
Young and without a stain?
'Will no one bid,' said England,

For their souls so pure and white,
And fit for all good or evil,

The world on their page may write?'

'We bid,' said Pest and Famine,

"We bid for life and limb; Fever and pain and squalor

Their bright young eyes shall dim. When the children grow too many, We'll nurse them as our own, And hide them in secret places Where none may hear their moan.'

'I bid,' said Beggary, howling, 'I'll buy them, one and all, I'll teach them a thousand lessonsTo lie, to skulk, to crawl; They shall sleep in my lair like maggots, They shall rot in the fair sunshine; And if they serve my purpose,

I hope they'll answer thine.'

'And I'll bid higher and higher, Said Crime with wolfish grin, For I love to lead the children

Through the pleasant paths of sin. They shall swarm in the streets to pilfer,

They shall plague the broad highway, Till they grow too old for pity,

And ripe for the law to slay.

'Prison and hulk and gallows, Are many in the land, 'Twere folly not to use them, So proudly as they stand.

child born in the morning is old enough to die before night. To-day to me, tomorrow to thee, is death's motto. When Jacob was asked by Pharaoh,' How old art thou?' or, according to the margin, how many are the days of the years of thy life? his answer was: Few, and evil, have the days of the years of my life been.' A great physician says that art is long, life is short. The heathens' emblem for life was an eye open, and for death an eye shut; as if there were no other difference between the living and the dying, but the twinkling of an eye. Man that is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.' Job scarce thinks himself worth the naming, who doth not speak of himself in his own name; 'Man that is born of a woman.' But, what of this man? He is of few days (short of days) and full of trouble. Few days, and many troubles, make up the character of man. We used to say, short and sweet; but here it is short and sour; yea, short and bitter. As some speak much in a little, much matter in a little discourse, and as some do much good with a little talent, so all suffer much trouble in a little time-many sorrows in a few days. The days of men are few, compared with the days that man lived before the flood; then man lived to six, seven, eight, nine hundred, almost a thousand years. They are few also compared to the days of God. As the days of God cannot be counted, because they are so many, so the days of man can scarcely be counted, because they are so few. Mine age (says the Psalmist) is as nothing before thee.' All time is as nothing, compared to eternity; what a nothing, then, is the age of one man unto eternity! Some things created and finite are so great above others, that they are nothing unto them. What is the ant unto the elephant? what is the shrimp to the whale? what is the whole body of the earth to the body of the heavens? It is but a point, say naturalists. As one part of the earth is but a point to the whole, and the whole earth but a point to the heavens, so one part of time is but a moment to all time, and all time is but a moment to eternity, especially to the eternity of God. What is finite unto infinite? The brevity of man's life will yet appear, beyond all modest contradiction, by the expressions wherewith it is clothed, by the metaphors wherein it is emblemed, and by the things whereunto it is compared. For instance: The life of man is compared to a weaver's shuttle: My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle.' A weaver's shuttle is an instrument of a very swift and sudden motion; this passeth the loom, or web, with such speed, that it is grown to a proverb for all things quick and transient. The life of man

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

GOVERNMENT.

THE friends of Presbytery will best secure approval for their Presbyterian polity by commending it in practice. Let the excellence of the tree appear in the gracefulness of its proportions, the freshness of its vegetation, and above all, in the abundance and salubrity of its fruit. Already Presbytery has undergone, in several features, great improvements in Scotland. That it should be immediately perfected by the Reformers, when they had just emerged from a corrupt and persecuting Church, was more than could be expected. In leaving Rome, they brought with them some of its intolerance, which they embodied in their new system of ecclesiastical polity. Mr Lawson has little difficulty in proving that the Presbyterians of Scotland' were chargeable with 'tyrannical proceedings,' especially in 'trying and punishing cases of scandal, at the end of the sixteenth century.' I have now before me scroll minutes of the Inverness Presbytery, recording the proceedings of that Court through a number of years, beginning with 1632, and showing, amid the changes of church government, little relaxation of penal discipline in the first half of the seventeenth century. We have there, on the 22d August, 1632, Mr Lachlan Grant, a member of Presbytery, accusit for his lang absence, nowe thre dayes togidder. He anserit for the first daye he was seik of ane cauld, and culd nocht be hard speik, for the secund that he was with the bischop, meaning yat yai war threatting to demeiss him of the gleb of Dalarassie, and for the third daye (when) ye exerceis was don or he cam in, answerit that he haid evill weather. These apologies seem to be tolerably good. Yet, when Mr Grant' was removit,' the Presbytery decernit him to pay xx£ moie.' In another minute, I see Donald Makanes ordained to make repentance in his own kirk three successive Sabbaths, at the foot of the stool of repentance, and to pay a penalty of £20 for cutting his neighbour's kail, and breaking his dyke. Examples of the same sort of dealing' abound in these records. We have a contrast to them presented in the declaration of the Church with which I am connected, that the word court,' as used in its Rules, etc., simply denotes ministers and elders regularly met for the discharge of their deliberative duties, in session, presbytery, or synod; and that it conveys no idea of authority beyond that of spiritual administration.'

6

There is still, however, room for amendment; and without dreading the advantage that may be taken of a confessional strain

of remark, I shall specify, in a few particulars, where improvement in the working out of Presbyterian government seems to me to be demanded:

1. There should be less jealousy than is sometimes manifested of unofficial Christian beneficence. I hold, and I have endeavoured to prove, the divine apppointment of the eldership. But since we find that wise men, not formally invested with office, were, by apostolic direction, set to judge on questions deeply affecting the honour of the Church, we should be slow to reject the aid of such wisdom, even in ecclesiastical proceedings, where it is still available for like service. An official agency is valuable, not only for what it can do itself, but as bringing into action all the graces and resources of the Church; and a punctilious dread of compromising our official status in permitting others to work with us, and hailing their co-operation, is not sanctioned, as I think, by the facts, the precepts, or the spirit of the New Testament.

2. We should do more than is now done to elevate the qualifications and efficiency of the Ruling as distinguished from the Teaching Eldership. That scripture makes such a distinction among presbyters has, I trust, been sufficiently proved. But the distinction has been too often widened into a chasm. Variety within a species has been enlarged into a specific difference. On this practical error both Episcopalians and Independents have reared their most formidable engines of assault against our Sessional system. They have asked why the apostles so generally speak of presbyters as one institution, if the teaching and ruling presbyters were then as wide apart as are ministers and elders in our own day. They have inquired what we gain by contending for Presbyterian ordination, and then excluding the great majority of presbyters from the privilege of ordaining.

Our present usage admits of some reply to such strictures. If the writers of the New Testament often speak of presbyters collectively and as one body, we also speak of the members of presbyteries or synods without distinguishing the ruling and teaching elders of whom the court is composed.

It is true, also, that the having or wanting a collegiate education makes more difference now than could have originally subsisted. But still the one term, 'bishop,' so often applied to elders, whether they ruled or taught, and without any mark of discrimination, shows that they were more upon a footing in the primitive Church than in the present working of Presbytery. At their meetings for public worship, all the elders occupied one bench or platform,

facing the people, to indicate the sameness of their order; and he who was to preach took his place with them, and delivered his message from amid his brethren.

I do not say this practice should be resumed, though I would not object to its restoration; but I do say there should be more of the parity of which it gave evidence. If not in their seats, at least in their services, the elders should be in view of the people, and valued as the pastors with whom they co-operate. We need not expect to reach an end so important without the use of reasonable means, and surely more pains might be taken to qualify elders for ruling well. Laudable zeal has been shown to institute ministers' libraries. Is there no need for elders' libraries? And might there not be more frequent meetings with them and addresses to them, and improving engagements assigned them, having a direct tendency to stimulate their reading of books, and render it profitable? Some time ago there was a noble movement among elders to improve their own order. Let them not languish in this enterprise. Let them magnify their office. Let them show that they have a high conception themselves of the trust confided to them, and others will hold it in like estimation: but if they let down the office, what wonder if others trample it under foot? And how are they to magnify it? By demeaning themselves consequentially-by walking with the air and strut of office? Assuredly not. They must qualify themselves for ruling, and then rule with diligence. The Church, through all its sections of young and old, rich and poor, near and remote, must feel the pervading efficacy of their vigilant inspection. Then it will be seen that they have plenty to do who have only to rule; and wonder will cease to be entertained that labourers so estimable and invaluable have been classed by the apostles with ministers of the word, as participating in the same superintendence of the Church, and similarly entitled to be esteemed very highly in love for their work's sake.

3. The representative principle might be more equally acted out by us. In some instances the application of it is rigorous; in others loose and partial. Ministers holding the most important secretaryships, and elders the most important treasurerships, are not 'members of court,' unless they happen to be so by official connection with some particular congregation. If they speak, it is by sufferance, and only in relation to their own particular business; and they may not vote at all. This is a strict rule for honourable functionaries who represent the Church at large in some of its most important interests. Along with this strictness there is commensurate

laxity. Civil society is not more unequally represented in parliament, than is Christian society in our presbyteries. If one church contains twelve hundred members, and if twelve churches have each a hundred members, the first twelve hundred people have two representatives, and the second twelve hundred have twenty-four representatives-the same numerical constituency is twelve times more adequately represented. Such facts deserve at least consideration.

4. Full advantage has not yet been taken of the vast power which assembled elders might wield for practical purposes. Presbyteries and synods have been called courts of review. The name points the injured to valuable means of redress; but it fosters a fallacy if it encourage any to think that the sole or chief use of presby terate gatherings is to settle disputes. There has been already a vast improve ment in this province. Appeal cases have been diminishing in number: there was not one of them at the last meeting of the United Presbyterian Synod, and their place was occupied by the prosecution of fitting measures for the maintenance and extension of religion at home and abroad. But though we have got upon the right road, we are far from our destination. The good that a synod might do is inestimable. The most devoted philanthropist is feeble in his isolation. When he joins a Church he has an admirable opportunity of engaging fellow-worshippers to be fellow-workers, and to advance in concert with him the common salvation. But what shall we think of the power of communicative zeal, judiciously developed in a synod or assembly, which acts on many hundreds of churches, and over the whole extent of a nation? If the nature of this influence were more duly appreciated, it would be more energetically put forth; many churches and pastors now pining in neglect would be visited and revived; the choicest religious literature would be showered upon our people; education for all the young in the charge of the Church would be adequately provided and indefatigably worked. Our waste and desolate places, and the land of our destruction -the regions which appeared to be solitudes, they were so few and destroyedwould become too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and a cry would be heard in many quarters from our crowded churches, "The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.' To none so much as to a concourse of ecclesiastical office-bearers is this commission given,

Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes: for thou shalt