any stretch of imagination, be easily conceived to come within the range of priestly artifice and cunning. I might illustrate each of these remarks by appropriate cases; but it would be a humiliating waste of pains, equally tedious and trifling. And not a few of them, moreover, are of such a character as to preclude the possibility of my introducing and detailing them. I feel myself laid under a peremptory interdict. I could not do it without feeling that I was violating at once the claims of becoming gravity, and the still more imperative demands of moral purity. A vast number of them, from their pitiful littleness and silliness, and from their fantastic and laughable grotesqueness, could not, with any propriety, be treated otherwise than with unsparing ridicule and scornful merriment, not quite the spirit that beseems the height of this great argument.' And some too there are in which the disgusting is added to the ludicrous; the filth, obscenity, and loathsomeness shutting them out from association with all that is decent-much more with what is sacred and divine.

Let me select three of the more respectable cases of alleged miracle for a remark or two, and then group the rest together, and have done with them.

The FIRST I mention are the miracles said to have been performed, or rather to have taken place, at the tomb of the Abbè Paris, in the beginning of last century. I mention these, because they are specially noted and commented on by Mr Hume. There is no need, however, for entering into detail. It will be quite enough to observe-first, that there were thousands -many thousands of diseased persons who crowded to the tomb for cure; and of all these cases, there were but nine in which any cure was pretended to have been wrought. All the thousands, excepting these nine, proved failures. This of itself is quite enough to induce a suspicion, or more than a suspicion, that there was no supernatural power in operation, but that these nine cures were to be accounted for from natural causes.-In confirmation of this-secondly:-even of the alleged cures none were instantaneous. Many of those who frequented the tomb attended for days, weeks, and even months together. How long each of the nine said to have been cured were in attendance, we cannot tell. But gradual cures want one of the distinctive characteristics of miracle. Then, thirdly:- The patients were so affected by their devotion, their expectation, the place, the solemnity, and, above all, the sympathy of the surrounding multitude, that many of them were thrown into violent convulsions; which convulsions, in certain instances, produced

a removal of disorders depending upon obstructions: * * * so that all the wonder we are called upon to account for is, that out of an almost innumerable multitude who resorted to the tomb for a cure of their disorders, and many of whom were there agitated by strong convulsions, a very small proportion experienced a beneficial change in their constitutions, especially in the action of the nerves. And even of the cases alleged to have been cured, some were imperfect and temporary.'-Let the reader just look at the two following cases: they may serve as a sufficiently striking contrast to the miracles of the Gospel history. A young man laboured under an inflammation of one eye, and had lost the sight of the other The inflamed eye was relieved; but the blindness of the other remained. The inflammation had before been abated by medicine; and the young man, at the time of his attendance at the tomb, was using a lotion of laudanum. And, what is a still more important part of the case, the inflammation, after a time, returned.'-Is it not a burlesque to dignify this at all with the title of miracle?- Another young man had lost his sight by the puncture of an awl, and the discharge of the aqueous humour through the wound. The sight, which had been gradually returning, was much improved during his visit to the tomb; that is, probably, in the same degree in which the discharged humour was replaced by secretions.'-I might surely, as to this case too, repeat the same question. 'And it is observable,' adds Dr Paley, from whom I quote,' that these two are the only cases which, from their nature, should seem unlikely to be affected by convulsions.' Read the accounts of the cures of the blind in the Gospel history, and compare them with these; how sublimely simple in their manner!— and all instantaneous-perfect-and permanent. The SECOND I select because it is an annually exhibited miracle at Naples, to the present day. It is what is called the liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius! With the history and character of the saint I have at present nothing to do. What is said to be his coagulated blood (a portion of it that is) is kept in a vial, in the form of a hard ball. And on a certain annual festival,-amid superstitious ceremonies and devotions fitted to awaken interest, and to impress the minds of the spectators with the extreme difficulty, on account of their demerit, of obtaining the intervention of the saint, and so of the power of God, to produce the effect, pretended to be wistfully longed for,-the officiating minister lifts the vail, and with his hand, brings it toward the skull of the saint;-when, to the amazement and de

light of the faithful, the hard mass begins to soften and to flow, till all is dissolved! -The best way to set the worthlessness of this wonder before the reader in its true light, will be, just to quote a few sentences from Dr Cumming's recent lecture on Romish miracles :

:

'But I revert to the saint's blood and in doing so, I would ask the following questions is the substance in the glass blood at all? to ascertain which I would propose to Dr Newman, who desires us to go into evidence, to submit it to chemical analysis. This is a sure test. It is easy of application. If blood, is it the blood of a human being? Bishop Burnett says, that the blood of a duck was used at the Reformation for a similar purpose, and with similar pretensions, in England. In the third place, if human blood, is it the the blood of the said St Januarius, and of no one else? Prove it. Fourthly, does it liquefy by a miracle? or by the application of heat? or by a chemical process? or by other priestly manipulation? And, lastly, I observe, the exploit is so easily done, that strong proof seems to me to be required to lead one to accept it as miraculous. In order to show that this is so, I will attempt to perform this alleged miracle in your presence. I have had a glass bottle made as nearly like the original as possible. The mass of substance in the top bulb is perfectly solid; on applying the hand, you see, it very soon begins to melt. (Dr Cumming here displayed the fac-simile of the Neapolitan miracle.) Now, I will tell you what this miracle is. It is a little otto of roses coloured with dragon's blood. I found that otto of roses became solid at adout 40 deg. or 42 deg.; and therefore, after it has been reduced to that temperature, or lower, and thus becomes solid, on applying the heat of the hand to it for a minute it lipuefies. You thus see how easily this supposed miraculous feat can be imitated, and how necessary it is, therefore, that Dr Newman should not only show a red liquid passing from a solid into a liquid state in a glass, but that he should also prove that that liquid is blood, and that it does not melt by any hand touching it, or other natural process, but by a special interposition of miraculous power.'

This surely is enongh. We may be pretty well assured, that all such testing of the miracle, as any Protestant may propose, will be carefully eschewed, and some convenient apology found or invented, for the refusal. It is a 'LYING WONDER.'

The THIRD I mention is that miracle of miracles among the devotees of popery— the miracle of TRANSUBSTANTIATION. The discussion of such a topic at large is, of course, out of the question. I must, for

the present, regard it simply in its character as a miracle:-and even under this aspects have already, though in a different connection, adverted to it.-On the endless contradictions and absurdities involved in the fact, supposing the transmutation really effected-with other points of a similar kind, I now say nothing. Regarding it simply in its miraculous character, I remark-1st, The miracle is no miracle:-for a miracle is a fact, of which the reality must be tested by the senses, and can be determined in no other way than by their testimony. But this is a miracle, which must not be tested by the senses; but is believed, and is required to be believed, not only independently of their testimony, but in direct opposition to it their testimony being, without exception of any instance or of any sense, a direct and palpable contradiction to it.2dly, It is a miracle of which the evidence is self-contradictory, and therefore self-destructive :-for, while the faith of it professedly rests on divine testimony, in opposition to that of our own senses, it is, notwithstanding, on the testimony of sense, and of sense alone, that it does rest;-and it is doubly self-destructive-inasmuch as, it not only rests on the testimony of sense, while professing the contrary, but it rests on the testimony of one sense alone, while it refuses the testimony of four at least of the senses, if not of all the five; thus believing on the ground of one fourth, or one fifth part of the very same description of evidence as that by which the opposite of what is believed is attested. For it is by one sense only-the sense of sight-that any man can know the words

this is my body'-(on which his faith professes to rest) to be in the Bible; whereas all the five, or at least four of them, attest the indentity of the bread and the wine before and after the words of consecration.-And then, 3dly, It is a miracle which, by the nature of the ground on which the belief of it rests, destroys all other miraculous evidence, and so sweeps away one of the chief external proofs of our religion. The evidence of miracles can be judged of only by the senses. Now, if in one instance, our senses may so thoroughly deceive us, as to testify, not a mere slight variation from truth, but its very opposite,

pronouncing that to be, beyond contradiction, bread and wine, which is neither the one nor the other, but a body of flesh and blood, in union, too, with soul and divinity-if, we say, in this instance, our senses may so thoroughly deceive us, and our faith must be yielded in perfect contrariety to their united and peremptorý testimony; then how and when are we to know that our faith ought to be in concurrence with that testimony? The un

settling of the evidence of our senses goes thus to the unsettling of this important branch of the evidence of the entire system of revealed truth!

I might show, further, the variety of extraordinary sequences which would follow, and follow on the sure ground of Bible testimony, were the principle but fairly followed out of interpreting the verb Is' literally; as by the advocates of the dogma of transubstantiation is done in the words, 'This is my body.' But I forbear. Besides that it would be diverging from my special subject, it would very soon lead me into the region of the ludicrous, presenting some of its most exquisite specimens, which I would rather shun. For the same reason, I must forbear all details respecting the legendary transportation, by angels, through the air and over the sea, of the house of Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Loretto; of many a wondrous vision of the Virgin, and of Jesus himself, granted to the enthusiastic raptures especially of sentimental female worshippers; of appearances of the devil, under various forms-as an old man, and as a young man, as a huge black dog, or as a no less huge black cat; of battles serious and comical with his Satanic Majesty, and the various ways, some of them equally ludicrous and loathsome, in which, coming off, of course, with the worst, he takes his departure; of delightful odours, as if from beds of roses and a very paradise of all sweet-scented flowers, from opening coffins and putrid graves;-of one saint blinded for three days by a light that streamed from an image of the infant Jesus; of the same image smiling sweetly on a female devotee -and, at her bidding, and, withal, gentle chiding, stretching out its little arms and legs, to get its clothes easily and duly put on; of sparks of light and fire issuing from the eyes and the mouths of devout saints, produced by the fire of love in their bosoms, and of ribs divinely broken, and breast-bones divinely protruded, to make room for the hearts of certain other saints, which so swelled out with intense devotion that the ordinary cavity of the thorax could no longer hold them; of the wonders performed by the virtue of holy relics, and the wonders moreover, neither few nor small, of such relics themselves; there being, not seldom, many more humeral, or femoral, or other bones of saints, than the good men could well be fancied to have had when they were alive,-many more than four legs of the ass that carried our Saviour: and of the true cross pieces so numerous, that, were they gathered together, it has been roughly estimated, they would go far towards the construction of a first-rate ship

of the line; of holy coats, and weeping Madonnas, and winking and bleeding pictures, and all the other contemptible trumpery of a religion of traditional and superstitious externalism. It is indeed for a lamentation,' that in the middle of the nineteenth century, in an age that vaunts of its rapidly advancing light, so many thousands and tens of thousands should be thus gulled and befooled, and cheated of their spiritual freedom and of their soul's salvation, by deceptions so pitiful, in support of the self-justifying errors of an Antichristian system. And of a vast number of the pretended miracles the true secret may be learned from our great Reformer, MARTIN LUTHER :- In the monastery of Isenach,' says he, 'stands an image-which I have seen. (It was Mary with her Child.) When a wealthy person came thither to pray to it, the child turned away its face from the sinner to its mother, as if it refused to give ear to his praying, and was therefore to seek mediation and help from Mary the mother. But if the sinner gave liberally to that monastery, then the child turned to him again; and, if he promised to give more, then the child showed itself very friendly and loving, and stretched out his arms over him in the form of a cross. But this image was made hollow within, and prepared with locks, lines, and screws; and behind it stood a knave, to move them: and so were the people mocked and deceived, taking it to be a miracle wrought by Divine Providence.*

Dr Kidston was born in the village of Stowe, county of Edinburgh, on the 9th He was the fifth of September, 1768. out of thirteen children,-all of whom are now in the eternal world. His father was the Rev. William Kidston, the Secession minister of Stowe, a man of God, who, in his generation, served the

*The above extract is from a Work on 'Miracles,' which has recently appeared, by the

Rev. Dr Wardlaw; and while we intend, in a future Number, to include it among our Notices, in the meantime we recommend the Work itself to the attention of our readers.-Edinburgh: A. Fullarton & Co.

+ Christian Old Age, as exemplified in the Life of the late Rev. William Kidston, D.D., Glasgow. By the Rev. John Macfarlane, LL.D. Glasgow: David Robertson.

Lord Jesus Christ with faithfulness and success. He was indeed one of a class of Secession pastors, who lived in these days, of remarkable theological attainments, and wide-spread influential godliness. The savour of his life of faith is not even yet away from that interesting pastoral country, where for more than half a century he lived, and laboured, and died. After receiving the elements of a useful and clasical education, first under Mr Doeg, of the Grammar School of Stirling, where he lodged with his paternal aunt, and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh, he was admitted by the Presbytery of Newtown (the village where the late venerable Dr Waugh of London was ordained) to the Divinity Hall. The professor at that time was the well-known and revered John Brown of Haddington, the grandfather of our own Dr Brown of Edinburgh. He, however, enjoyed the benefits of Mr Brown's professorship only for two sessions, those of 1785 and 1786, the venerable author of the Commentary on the Bible having died in the summer of 1787. The late Dr Lawson of Selkirk was chosen in his room by the Synod. After attending two sessions at Selkirk, he was licensed by his Presbytery to preach the everlasting gospel, on the 15th of April, 1789, in the 21st year of his age. I have heard those who knew him in his youth say, that he was then an animated, somewhat rapid, and interesting speaker; and we have Dr Lawson's testimony that he was not only sound in the faith, but for his years, exceedingly well versed in the theology of the Bible. He was what is called a popular preacher. In a short time he received no less than three calls, from Hawick, Lanark, and Kennoway in Fife. By the decision of the Synod, he was sent to Kennoway. Previous, however, to his ordination there, he received a call from this congregation-no, not from this congregation-for the congregation that called him are all in eternity, except the much esteemed father of your session-but from the church at that time assembling here. The call came before the Synod. It was not sustained, because the deed of Synod, as to Kennoway, must be first carried into effect. He was therefore ordained by the Presbytery of Dunfermline in Kennoway, on the 18th of August, 1790. In the summer of 1791, the then congregation of Campbell Street brought another call for him. He left the decision in the hands of the Synod, and by the Synod he was appointed to Glasgow. His connection with Kennoway was little more than one year; but I have often heard him speak of it with affectionate interest. Writing upon the subject, he says: 'I was averse to sub

mitting to ordination in Kennoway, and would have preferred either of the other congregations, Hawick or Lanark, and often spoke unadvisably on this subject, During the short time of my connection with Kennoway, I enjoyed much comfort; my pastoral labours were kindly received, and seemed to be not unprofitable. My separation from them occasioned feelings more painful by much than I had anticipated.' His induction into this charge by the Presbytery of Glasgow took place on the 18th of October, 1791-a day concerning which, not many weeks ago, he wrote: A day which I well remember, and will remember, with deep interest.' He was your first minister, and by all accounts was unusually successful for these times. Speedily this large edifice was completely filled; and while health and strength were continued to him the congregation flourished exceedingly. As a preacher, he was mainly characterised for very accurate theological views, expressed in simple and perspicuous language, logically arranged, and delivered with a degree of calm earnestness, which alike suited the dignity of the pulpit, and the solemnity of the theme. He kept to the doctrines of the cross, and to the precepts of the law; and was never known to condescend to any out-of-the-way topics for the sake of pandering to low tastes, or gaining a little self-importance. I have never known any man, whose nature was more completely free of all such imbecile longings after ephemeral applause, and who could take a more accurate measure of what was its real worth, or rather worthlessness. Strictly speaking, he was not eloquent-but this can be satisfactorily explained; for, as it has been well written by a much-respected friend, the structure of his mind was analytical rather than synthetical. His forte was analysis. Every object of thought that came before him, whether in conversation or exposition, he was disposed to break down into parts to view it on all sides, and in all lights, and to make it the subject of minute and accurate survey.'

But Dr Kidston was equally diligent in the discharge of his other pastoral duties. He was an unwearied attendant in the house of mourning, and at the sick and death-beds of his people. I have often heard that he excelled as a son of consolation. It is therefore an exceedingly pleasant thought, that, independent altogether of his pulpit ministrations, he was a master in those less public departments of his official duties, where the tear has to be wiped from the eyes of widowhood and orphanhood, where the broken heart is to be healed, and where the sighing of the mourner has to be changed into the