He burned to make Olym'pus2 bow its awful head, and cast down its coronet of gods, at His feet who dwelt in Zion; and the pæans of Bacchus and Apollo3 were, in his ear, but preludes to the swelling "song of Moses and of the Lamb."

Animated by such feelings, we may now regard Paul, in what must have been one of the most interesting moments of even his eventful life, preparing himself on the Hill of Mars to address an auditory of Athenians on behalf of Christianity. He would feel the imposing associations of the spot on which he stood, where, in the darkness of night, and under the canopy of heaven, justice had been administered in its most awful form, by characters the most venerable. Accompanied as it was with the solemnities of religion, it was attended with an authority which public opinion assimilated rather with the decrees of conscience and of the gods than with the ordinary power of human tribunals.

He would look around on many an immortal 'trophy of architect and sculptor; where genius had triumphed, but triumphed only in the cause of that idolatry to which they had been dedicated, and for which they existed. And beyond the city, clinging around its temples, like its inhabitants to their 'enshrined idols, would open on his view that lovely country and the sublime ocean, and the serene heavens bending over them, and bearing that testimony to the Universal Creator which man and man's works withheld.

With all would Grecian glory be connected-the brightness of a day that was closing, and of a sun that had already set, where recollections of grandeur faded into 'sensations of melancholy. And he would gaze on a thronging auditory, the representatives, to his fancy, of all that had been, and of all that was; and think of the intellects with which he had to grapple, and of the hearts in whose very core he aimed to plant the barbed arrows of conviction.

There was that Multitude, so acute, so inquisitive, so polished, so athirst for novelty, and so impressible by eloquence; yet with whom a 'barbarian accent might break the charm of the most persuasive tongue; over whom their own oligarchy of orators would soon reässert their dominion, in spite of the invasion of a stranger; and with whom taste, feeling, and habit would throw up all their barriers against the eloquence of Christianity. There would be the Priest, astonished at an attempt so daring; and as the speaker's design opened on his mind, anxiously, and with alternate contempt and rage, measuring the strength of the Samson5 who thus grasped the pillars of his temples,

threatening to whelm him, his altars, and his gods beneath their ruins.

There would be the Stoic, in the coldness of his pride, looking 'sedately down, as on a child playing with children, to see what new game was afloat, and what trick or toy was now produced for wonderment. There the Epicurean,7 tasting, as it were, the preacher's doctrine, to see if it promised aught of 'merriment; just lending enough of idle attention not to lose amusement should it offer; and venting the full explosion of his ridicule on the resurrection of the dead.

There the Sophist, won, perhaps, into something of an approving and complacent smile by the dexterity of Paul's introduction; but finding, as he proceeded, that this was no mere show of art or war of words; and vibrating between the habitual love of entangling, bewildering, and insulting an opponent, and the repulsiveness which there always is to such men in the language of honest and zealous conviction. There the Slave, timidly crouching at a distance to catch what stray sounds the winds might waft to him, after they had reached his master's ears, of that doctrine, so strange and blessed, of man's fraternity. And there the young and noble Roman, who had come to Athens for education;—not to sit like a humble scholar at a master's feet, but, with all the pride of Rome upon his brow, to accept what artists, poets, and philosophers could offer as their 'homage to the lords of Earth.

If for a moment Paul was overwhelmed by the feeling,-in the circumstances, perfectly natural, that he was the central object of such a scene and such an assemblage, there would rush upon his mind the majesty of Jehovah; and the words of the glorified Jesus; and the thunders that had struck himself to the earth on the road to Damascus ;10 and the sense of former efforts, conflicts, and successes; and the approach of that judgment to come, whose righteousness and 'universality it was now his duty to announce.

Unappalled and collected, he began :-"Ye men of Athens,11 I perceive that in all things ye are too 'superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made

of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of

At Athens.-Paul's visit to Athens | temple and lords of the Philistines, by was made in what is known as his second pulling down the pillars that supported missionary tour,-A. D. 51-54. Driven the house. The heathen priest at Athens by persecution from Philippi and from Thessaloni'ca, he took refuge in Bera'a, where for a time his ministry was successful; but to avoid a storm of hostility which seemed to be gathering there also, he secretly left Beræa and went to Athens. (Acts, xvii.)

QUESTIONS.-What feelings would encourage Paul to preach boldly at Athens? Where did he address the Athenians? What "imposing associations" would the place suggest to his mind? What would he see from that spot? What classes of people would be represented in his audience? By what would the Sophist be won at first? What was that introduction?

EVIDENCES OF DESIGN IN CREATION.

WHEN we observe a number of separate forces acting in union and harmony, we must believe that there has been a designing mind bringing them together and causing them to cooperate. When we see these agencies working in happiest association to produce innumerable effects of a beneficent character; when we find them consenting and consorting throughout thousands or myriads of years or geological ages, -the evidence is felt to be overwhelming beyond the power of human calculation.

"How often," asks Tillotson,() "might a man, after he had jumbled a set of letters in a bag, fling them out upon the ground before they would fall into an exact poem, yea, or so much as make a good discourse in prose? And may not a little book be as easily made by chance as this great volume of the world?— How long might a man be 'sprinkling colours upon canvas, with a careless hand, before they would happen to make the exact picture of a man? And is a man easier made by chance than this picture?

"How long might twenty thousand blind men, which should be sent out from the several remote parts of England, wander up and down before they would all meet upon Salisbury Plain, and fall into rank and file in the exact order of an army? And yet this is much more easy to be imagined than that the innumerable blind parts of matter should rendezvous1 themselves into a world."

Every manual labourer may see something analogous to the art by which he earns his livelihood, operating among the natural objects by which he is surrounded.

The sailor may discover the 'peculiarities of his craft among marine animals. Thus, among the lower tribes, he has observed a jelly-fish-called by him the Portuguese man-of-war—

setting up a sail which consists of a crest surmounting the bladder. He may notice, too, how the mussel and pinna 2 anchor themselves by means of threads of a horny material. The tail of the fish, it is well known, acts as a scuttle, enabling its possessor to plough its way through the deep.

The web-foot of the swimmers is an example of what is called "feathering the oar: :"3 when pushed forward, the web and toes collapse. The leg (usually so called) of the guillemot1 and of divers is compressed laterally, presenting a knife-edge before and behind, and thus gives less resistance in the fore and back stroke. It is worthy of being mentioned, as illustrating the same point, that the whale's tail collapses in the upward but expands in the downward stroke.

The shepherd knows how much care and watchfulness are necessary in order to protect his flocks from the wild beasts which attack them, and is thus led to admire the instincts of those animals, such as the deer, which set a watch to give a signal of danger. The hunter knows how much cunning he must exercise in order to come within reach of the wild animals 'pursued by him, and should not withhold a feeling of wonder when he observes how their instincts lead the brutes to show such 'dexterity in avoiding their natural enemies.

We find that those liable to be chased as prey, often take the colour of the ground on which they habitually feed. Riflemen are invariably dressed in the hue which is deemed least 'conspicuous, and which is best fitted for concealment; and is there not an equally clear proof of design furnished by the circumstance that fishes are often of the colour of the ground over which they swim, and that wild animals are not unfrequently of the colour of the covert in which they hide themselves? The red grouse and red deer are of the colour of the heath on which they feed; whereas the lapwing and curlew, themselves and their eggs, take the hue of the pasture among which they are usually found.

Speaking of the ptarmigan," the late Mr. Thompson says: We hardly draw on the imagination by viewing its plumage as an exquisite miniature of the seasonal changes which the mountain summit undergoes;-a miniature drawn, too, by a Hand that never errs! In summer we look upon the beautiful mixture of gray, brown, and black, as resembling the three component parts of ordinary granite-feldspar, mica, and hornblende-among the masses of which the ptarmigan usually resides. Late in autumn, when snows begin to fall about the