all the obscurities of ancient mythology, and from what was uncertain in itself, had drawn what he deemed certain conclusions, although their absurdity and extravagance were obvious to every man of sound judgment, whatever might be his creed." "Well," said his lordship, "Bellamy is going to give us a new translation of the Bible, which is to clear up many of our difficulties."-"The public," I replied, replied, "has already decided upon the presumption and incapacity of Bellamy for the task which he has undertaken, judging from the specimens which he has already laid before it." "the

"Do you understand," said his lordship, Scriptures in their original languages?" I replied, "that I understood the original language of the New, but not that of the Old Testament; that I had commenced the study.of the language of the Old Testament, and should have finished it long ago, if I had any reason to doubt the accuracy of our various translations."-" The apostles," said his lordship, "are accused of not having written in good Greek."-"This is an objection," I answered, "which has been made from ignorance or malice, or from a want of due consideration of the subject. They do not write, it is true, in the style of Demosthenes or Thu

cydides, any more than the majority of our authors write in the style of Robertson, Gibbon, or Johnson. If we admit them to have written by inspiration, it would be absurd to expect that God would have chosen the artificial forms and turns of expression, which to our taste might appear elegant and fine, in conveying a revelation of his will, which was intended for all mankind, of whom the poor, and the simple, and the illiterate, constitute the majority. We have, in other parts of the Scriptures, innumerable examples of the grand and sublime in writing, which uninspired writers have never equalled; but even there, the grandeur and sublimity consist entirely in the sentiments and thoughts, while the language in which they are expressed is invariably plain and simple. Fine writing among uninspired authors consists chiefly in the turns of expression. Now, the whole of the New Testament consists of narration of facts; of an enunciation of precepts; of close reasoning from, or illustration of the first, and of admonitions or exhortations to the last,-language which was plain, perspicuous, and precise; neither too elevated nor vulgar, such as the most learned and the most fastidious could not despise, and the poorest could easily comprehend, was

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best suited to the subject, and, consequently, was that which was adopted. The style of the Septuagint, and that of the New Testament, are precisely alike in purity and correctness; and the few Latinisms introduced in that of the latter, were names of things which were not known to the ancient Greeks. It would have been strange had the Apostles used a description of these things, instead of using the names by which they were known and understood, merely because ancient writers knew neither the names nor the things which they signified."

His lordship had taken up Scott during the time that some general conversation took place, and glanced over some of the pages. He now said, "Your favourite Scott does not say that it was the devil who tempted Eve, nor does the Bible say a word about the Devil. It is only said that the serpent spoke, and that it was the subtlest of all the beasts of the field." "There is, however," I replied, "no great difficulty or doubt on the subject. As beasts have not the faculty of speech, the just inference is, that the beast was only an instrument made use of by some invisible and superior Being. The Scriptures accordingly tell us, that the Devil is the father of lies, the lie

made by the serpent to Eve being the first we have on record; they call him also a murderer from the beginning, as he was the cause of the sentence of death which was pronounced against Adam and all his posterity; and still further, to remove all doubt, and to identify him as the agent who used the serpent as an instrument, he is called the serpent-the Devil."

The conversation turned on the many learned and fine writers who rejected Christianity, as a proof, that men of the first capacities and endowments, and well qualified to judge, had found the evidence for it unsatisfactory. I said, "that this was a common objection, and, to a superficial observer, appeared a very strong one, but that it would vanish on a close examination. No man can be eminent in all things, and equally acquainted with all things, nor can he bestow the same attention on all subjects. The astronomer, poet, historian, or man of science, can become distinguished only in proportion to the exclusive attention which has been bestowed on the respective objects of his study and research; nor can any genius, however exalted, supersede by intuition the long and continued application which is necessary, before any one can arrive at emi

nence in the arts and sciences. For my part, I concluded that, in proportion as a man was eminently master of one science, he was the less acquainted with others; though our prejudices led us to infer, that the same genius and sagacity which enabled him to rise to eminence in one branch of knowledge, entitled him to be deemed an authority in others; a conclusion which, it is obvious, would be true, only if these qualities had been as long exercised on all subjects as on that which had raised its possessor to distinction. We find that the writers of the highest talents who have rejected Christianity, as is apparent from their works, were deficient on many points, either of knowledge or judgment, connected with their favourite subjects; and from the nature of their objections against the Scriptures, we can discern that they were not intimately acquainted with the truths contained in them; and hence we conclude that these had never been, with them, the subject of much study or meditation. I should like much," I said, " to know, for instance, how many years Hume or Voltaire devoted to the study of the Bible; how many books connected with the subject of it they read; how many hours of meditation and reflection were spentby them; and how many