virtues and vices of their gods; and during the feast it was not only lawful but proper to imitate the vices of the divinity they were met to honour. Hence, in the worship of the heroes, athletic exercises and combats were always the most important parts; but what those mysteries were which marked the solemnities of the heroines, can only be learned from the legends of their impure lives. Though the worship of Minerva at Athens was not so gross as that of the patronesses of the passions in ancient Phenicia and Rome, still it was so licentious as to lower the standard of public morals, and to extend and confirm the degradation of the female character. These festivals were the high mass of the heathen world; and then, as now, custom drew multitudes to the solemnities who cared little about religion, so that the whole inhabitants were engaged in their celebration, and vice received the stamp of fashion and the unanimous sanction of public opinion. Plato says that at the feast of Bacchus he has seen the whole city of Athens drunk, ' and everywhere nothing was to be seen but dancing and debauchery, and all that the most abominable profligacy could invent.' And Socrates, though anxious to avoid everything that might either provoke the intolerance of the populace, or encourage the Sophists in their attempts to undermine the national faith, was yet so earnest in his effort to purify the religion of his country from the Homeric fables, and the ceremonies that had grown out of them, that he refused to attend these festivals, believing that customs which were so disgraceful to men could never be acceptable to the gods. This nonconformity is said to have been the first thing which led his countrymen to suspect his religion; and feeling that the purity of his life, and the truth of his doctrine, were a libel on all that they practised and worshipped, they poisoned a better man and a nobler hero than any whom they adored.

Neither was there in the heaven they hoped for anything that could improve their faith or manners. Like the gods who inhabited it, it was 'of the earth, earthy. It was but a poet's paradise, containing everything that might please the taste or gratify the senses; but it had nothing that could stimulate the hope which maketh the heart pure.'

Thus as the Greeks had been taught to look on the divinities as 'beings of like passions' with themselves, it was impossible that they could feel any proper veneration for such gods; and as they had ascribed to them the vices, as well as the virtues of men, their religion had no good example to guide them on the paths of virtue, and no correct rule to teach them to distinguish between right and wrong.

They

had

clothed cruel and crafty chiefs with the attributes of divinity, and they became assimilated to the character of the beings they worshipped, and the longer they worshipped the more they resembled them. Also, as they adored the heroes of a past age, it was but natural for them to admire those of their own times, and that such of their countrymen as had distinguished themselves in life, should after their death be elevated to the ranks of their kindred spirits in heaven; and as every age added its share to the long catalogue of divinities, the temples below were crowded with the images of a countless host above, till

Even laureled Athens deified so fast

That thirty thousand swelled her host at last.'

The sneer of the poet was verifiedAthens will soon have more gods than men ;' and the observation of the apostle was confirmed-'the city was wholly given to idolatry.'

As an illustration of the facility with which divine honours were conferred, we may look at the circumstances connected with Paul and Barnabas' visit to Lystra, where the people, after witnessing the power of the apostles, are with difficulty prevented from worshipping them as gods. In remonstrating with them on this absurd custom, Paul honestly condemns the folly of the times: We also are men of like passions with yourselves, and teach that ye should turn from these vanities to serve the living God, who made heaven and earth, and the seas, and all things that are therein.' The ready act of homage was but natural to the Greeks; and the fact that their haughty spirits did not immediately resent the language of the apostle as an insult to their religion, only shows how completely their superstition was awakened by the miracle. But after they had time to reflect, and opportunity to see that the teaching of the strangers tended to subvert the religion of their country, then their opposition was aroused, and they needed only the instigation of the Jews to become the murderers of the man they had mistaken for a god. There is another instance of this vanity in the reign of Herod Agrippa. All the Herods were suspected by the Jews of having a leaning to the worship to the Greeks; and though Herod the Great beautified the temple, and Heriod Agrippa persecuted the Christians, in order to please them, still they doubted the sincerity of the whole family. There were, however, some aliens and apostates, who took part with the Court in its insidious attempts to introduce into Palestine the religion and customs of Greece. These' Herodians' were always ready to embrace every opportunity

of countenancing the foreign and fashionable system; and whether the attempt to canonize Herod was the result of accident or arrangement, the impious deed was too daring to pass with impunity under the Theocracy of Judea. The inspired history of this transaction is very expressive: 'On a set day, Herod sat on his throne arrayed in royal apparel, and made an oration to them, and the people gave a shout, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.' That shout was heard in heaven, and the candidate for divine honours became a banquet for the worms.

Image worship was but the second stage of hero worship, and this custom also originated another form of idolatry, which we may designate as monster worship. Within this designation we would include all those idols whose forms had no resemblance to any existing creature, but were either a monstrous compound of different forms, an imaginary likeness of some supposed being, or a pictorial representation of some past event. The worship of such ridiculous idols appears to have arisen from the following causes. With the exception of the Romans, the heathen nations generally compelled the states which they conquered to adopt the gods of the victors, allowing the vanquished at the same time to continue in the worship of their own gods. As the policy of the heathen led them to worship power by whomsoever it was manifested, they generally added the gods of the conquerors to their own, in the hope of acquiring the favour of these deities, and the fortune of being the most powerful state. But being afraid lest they should incur the wrath of the gods of their fathers, they sometimes compromised the matter, by instituting a mongrel worship, or by making their idols so as to represent in one image the gods of both parties. At other times this was also done as a compliment to the gods of more powerful states. The Moloch of the East, which in some parts of Syria was represented by an idol with the ox head of the god of Egypt, and the human trunk of the gods of Greece, is an instance of this. It was also common among the image worshippers, when deifying any of their heroes or heroines, to make some distinguishing marks on their images, so as to commemorate the events from which they derived their fame. Gradually these marks became incorporated with the image, so that it was transformed into a representation of the character or history of the person it was intended to honour. The Dagon of the Philistines was a specimen of these kind of idols; it being the image of a heroine, with whose history there was mixed up a fabulous account of the deluge -had the head and breasts of a woman,

with the trunk and tail of a fish. Also in Hindostan the temples are filled and covered with a crowd of varied and impure images, whose monstrous and disgusting forms are but pictorial representations of the legends which form the history of their supreme go dess. Besides, in every region where demon worship prevailed, as terror was the chief element in such superstitions, the monstrous idols which they worshipped were but the creations and manifestations of their ill-defined fears. What was said of the Samaritans was equally true of many other nations-'Ye worship ye know not what.' From these and other causes, the forms of idols became monstrous as the legends of fable, and various as the tastes and circumstances of men, until every trace of design was lost in the grotesque figures now worshipped in so many uncivilised lands.

Before proceeding to notice the dawn of philosophy, and the decline of superstition in the West, we may pause to mark the difference between the early literature of Greece and the Sacred Writings. The fact, that the first records of the Hebrews were in prose and not in poetry, makes an essential difference between the character and influence of their writings and those of the Greeks. The historian feels himself under restrictions from which the poet is relieved, and is entitled to a confidence which the other does not claim; and while we cheerfully allow to the Greeks all those faculties of invention and imagination which give interest and ornament to the poem, yet we claim for the Hebrews those more important qualities of simplicity and truthfulness, which give dignity and value to the history. The minstrel sung at the festival to instruct and amuse his countrymen; but the prophet speaks as if from the witness box, and feels as if under oath to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, in the great cause between God and man. The Hebrews had no other literature save their sacred books, and they appear to have looked on their language as sacred to God and Truth, and to have felt as if it were sacrilege to devote it to any other purpose. 'A solemn gravity pervades all their writings befitting a people who were charged with the religious history of the world, and with the oracles of divine truth. No smile ever appears to have brightened the countenance of a Jewish author, no trifling thought to have passed through his mind, no ludicrous association to have been formed in his fancy. In describing the flood of Deucalion, the Roman poet laughs at the grotesque misery which he himself exhibits, and purposely groups together objects, with the intention of exciting in his readers the feeling of ridicule. But in no

instance can we detect the faintest symptom of levity in the inspired penmen: their style, like their subject, is uniformerly exalted, chaste, and severe; they write to men concerning the things of God, in a manner suited to such a momentous communication; and they never cease to remember, in all their records, that they were employed in propagating those glad tidings, by which all the families of the earth were to be blessed.'-(Russell.) | Their many fine parables and beautiful images show that they had both invention and imagination; but these only encircle some great truth, like the ivy round the oak, and if it falls its ornaments perish with it. Their very poetry owes all its excellence to the consciousness that it confines itself solely to what is known to be true of God and real in man; its truth is all its charm. No heathen writer has produced a single poem which can be used in the present day for the purpose of devotion; but the Hebrew poetry is so pure that it still retains its place in the sanctuary; and however deficient it may be as a complete psalmody, from its want of references to latter times, and from its frequent expressions of the feelings of a bygone age, yet its devotional pieces ere still as fresh as when they were laid as the first fruits of human genius on the altar of God. They were proud of the distinction that to them had been committed the living oracles, and this duty they discharged with fidelity, though these contained many things that were disgraceful to them as a nation. The tombs of the Pharaohs have given up their records, the ruins of buried cities have uncovered their remains, the walls of forgotten temples have preserved their ornaments, and the Jew still clings to the symbols of his ancient ritual, as if to complete the proof, that the manners and customs of the olden times were such as the Old Testament represents them to have been. They boasted of the difference between their God and the gods of the heathen, and exulted by contrasting the evidences of their religion with the laboured legends of superstition. In the New Testament we find them using such language as this: We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty;' and as they attach great importance to the fact that they were witnesses of the events recorded in the Gospels, we may examine its bearing on the authenticity of New Testament history. It was but natural to expect, that many of the followers of our Lord should have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things, which were most surely believed' amongst them, though

only four of these have reached our times, It is also evident that these four evangelists wrote their Gospels with the intention of recording and preserving the sayings and doings of their Master, so that disciples in every age might know the certainty of those things wherein they had been instructed.' Thus the evangelists are rather to be understood, as the recorders of important facts, than as the teachers of a system of truths. We make this distinction between facts and truths, in order to show the nature of that evidence which testifies to the truth of the gospel. By facts, we mean such things as are known to have happened; by truths, such things as are known to be true: and we have made the distinction because the testimony which certifies a fact, is somewhat different from the evidence which is necessary to establish a truth. To certify a fact, it is only necessary that we have the testimony of honest witnesses; but to establish a truth it is necessary that we have such an amount of evidence as will clearly demonstrate it; and if it depend on a testimony, that must be the testimony of one who is not only an honest witness, but a comepetent judge. There are thousands who would be ready to give their testimony to the truth of the creed they believe, but there may not be one in the thousand competent to form a correct opinion of its merits, or whose judgments would be taken as any evidence of its truth. The martyrology of Protestantism and Presbyterianism is a noble monument to the sincerity of the martyrs; but as they might be mistaken in their judgment, their sufferings rather prove the faith of the sufferers than the truth of their creed. However, the martyrology of the first Christians is a more certain testimony to the facts of the gospel. It was of no abstract theory or intricate system, requiring the exercise of the higher powers of the mind, that their testimony was given; had it been so, they might with all their honesty have been mistaken; but as it was only of such things as they had seen and heard that they testified, they were perfectly competent to bear witness to these facts; and as they submitted to death rather than deny or conceal the events they had witnessed, their competency and honesty are alike indisputable. Many have died for unconscious error, but no man ever yet gave his life to testify for a known falsehood. Hence the importance which the writers of the New Testament attach to this peculiarity in the evidence for the truth of the gospel. The facts were delivered unto them by those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses;" they were sure they could not be mistaken, for the things were 'such as they had

heard and seen with their eyes, and looked upon and handled.' This kind of evidence was the most acceptable to the Jews, for as the religion of their fathers had been established by miracles, they would not consent to any change, save by the evidence of a sensible demonstration. The Greeks sought after wisdom, but they demanded a sign; they were notorious for their unbelief. The Gentiles of Tyre and Sidon would have been sooner converted to the faith than them; and some of the converts from the neighbouring nations manifested a far stronger faith than any in Israel. Even the disciples were slow of heart to believe ;' and one of them would not credit the report of the resurrection until he saw with his eyes the print of the nails, and felt with his hand the wound of the spear. Thus it will be seen that the character of the first Christians, and the circumstances in which their testimony was given, forms an important link in the chain of evidence for the truth of the gospel.

But passing the contrast between the authentic history of the Hebrews and the fabulous poetry of the Greeks, there are other points of difference worthy of our notice. For instance, there is a striking contrast between the Theogany of Hesiod and the Genesis of Moses. The one is only regarded as a dream of the past; while the other still retains its place in the halls of science, its light undimmed, and its inspiration unchallenged. Every science has had three distinct periods of existence. There is first the period when its elementary principles, truths, or facts form but a part of general knowledge; there is next the period when these elements assume importance as a distinct science -a time of investigation and inquiry, when details are examined, relations are discovered, and evidences are accumulated; then there is the period of arrangement, when the evidence is summed up, what is false is exposed, what is true is confirmed, and the truths being now well ascertained are arranged in proper order, and become a systematic science. Now it is not wonderful that, during the second period, there were some discussion between the geologists and the divines, and that these tended to correct the mistakes and to enlarge the views of both parties. And when we consider that it is not much more than fifty years since geology became a systematic science, that all its distinguished names belong to the latter end of the last and to the beginning of the present century, and that many of these still are or were but lately alive, it is not surprising though there should be still some points of difference between the ancient record and the infant science.

But happily these are so few and unimportant, and the points of agreement are so many and essential, as to warrant the conclusion that harmony is the rule, and the want of it is only the exception; and to confirm the assurance that, were the truth of revelation more correctly explained and the facts of geology more clearly ascertained, the present harmony would become an unanimous agreement. The cosmology of Moses is also as poetically beautiful as it is philosophically correct. Our globe is represented as being cradled in the bosom of a shoreless ocean, whose silent waters sleep out the first long evening of time beneath the cheerless gloom of a sunless sky. Light, the first-born, ushers in the dawn of nature amid the melody of the morning stars; then creature after creature in regular progression take their place in the order of existence; and man, with becoming dignity, closes the procession, bearing his Maker's image on his brow, the fit insignia of his rank as lord of all below.

The theology of the Hebrews is also widely different from that of the Greeks, and where could they get their idea of God? They must have either borrowed it, invented it, or received it through some traditionary or direct revelation? Where could they borrow it, for no ancient nation had any such idea to lend them? If they invented it, how was it that the Hebrews felt themselves so much at home in the province of theology, that to them it was all firm ground and dry land, while the master spirits of Greece felt themselves so much at sea, with nothing to rest on or guide them?-where, struggling and sinking in their difficulties, the wailings of their doubt comes to us like the 'cry of some strong swimmer in his agony.' The Greeks perceived the necessity of a First Cause, but the Hebrews traced it up to an infinite and eternal Being, whom they described as spiritual in his essence and holy in his nature, as just and merciful in his character, as gracious, benevolent, and long-suffering in his disposition, and as the creator, governor, and judge of men. The Greeks drew their pictures of the divinity from their own resources, and the superhuman forms of their early creed are seen retiring like mermaids at the dawn of light. Then their first causes appear each in its turn courting the faith of man, till at last these blend in one shadowy cloud that flits from the grasp of his intellect, and avoids the embrace of his faith, and leaves him but a guess for a god. The Hebrews seem to have found their portrait somewhere; it is the very image of the Deity, and they only unveil it; it is so perfect that it could neither want an attribute, nor admit of

another perfection. But where did they find it? Unable to solve the difficulty otherwise, we are glad to believe that they got it by revelation from heaven. G. B., C.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

GABRIEL MINISTERING.

A LOOK of utter desolateness reigned
Within the chamber where the dying saint
Lay, waiting his dismissal. No kind hand
Tendered the gentle offices of love:
To soothe the mortal agony, or reach
A cup of water to his lips, was none.
His was the depth of human wretchedness,
And loneliness, and suffering, while the night
Of nature and of death was closing in-
When all the powers of darkness would assail
That weak and weary spirit. The last beam
Of earthly light those glazing eyes should see
Came slanting through the chamber, and it brought
A ministering spirit from the throne.

Beside the bed with folded wings then stood
The strong and radiant angel: it was he
Who once in dark Gethsemane had bent
To adore incarnate Godhead, and to wipe
The oozing blood-drops from a mortal brow.
And as the darkness deepened, brighter grew
The light on Gabriel's crown: the spirit felt
The nearness of its glory, as he spread
His wings, and canopied the roofless couch,
To keep his watch and ward. The morning came;
A soul was borne away to Paradise!
'Twas said, alone the poor old beggar died!

I. C.

HINTS TO A YOUNG DISCIPLE.

MY YOUNG FRIEND, I rejoice with your other friends in the change which has taken place in your views and conduct. Though it is too soon to pronounce it a saving change, yet I am willing to hope that it is such. The day will disclose it. I do not know whether a tree full of fragrant and beautiful blossoms, or the same tree laden with ripe fruit, gives the most pleasure. So, I am not able to say whether a young Christian, full of simplicity, eager for instruction, and ardent in hope, or the aged child of God, chastened in all his desires, deeply versed in the knowledge of his own heart, and richly laden with experience, is an object of the greatest interest. Older Christians commonly hope that those who come after them will avoid the errors into which they have fallen, and so accomplish wonders in the cause of Christ. At least, they have good hopes, even if they have fears also, respecting those who promise well, and so

they desire to be useful to them. I venture to say some things which may do you good. They are said in love. I feel sure you will not despise them.

1. It is not an easy thing to be a Bible Christian. The righteous are scarcely saved.' None but the 'violent take the kingdom of heaven by force.' To lead a Christian life is to run a race; it is to wrestle with principalities and powers, it is to fight with legions of foes. Running, wrestling, and fighting are all hard. Of all errorists, none are more wild than those who teach that it is easy to obtain the crown. 'Strive to enter in at the strait gate.' Thy work will not be done till thou hast got thy crown.'

2. Obtain clear views of religious truth. To be clear, they must be both definite and extended. Be not satisfied with a few vague notions. Be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.' The Word of God is the food of all true Christians. If they would grow and be strong, they must know it.

'Search the Scriptures.' The Bible is the richest mine ever worked. There is no danger of your reading it too much, or of your being too much controlled by it.

3. Settle it now and for ever, that whatever puffs up your mind and makes you feel secure or self-satisfied, is adverse to piety. To the humble alone does God give grace. Nothing, positively nothing, can be a substitute for deep self-abasement before God. Those thoughts, books, and sermons which awaken in you sentiments of self-abhorrence are the best.

Paul

4. Adopt as your standard the Word of God, and nothing else. There is not a more dangerous practice than that of comparing ourselves with men, and not with God's Word. It is the adoption of a forbidden rule. Besides, when we have begun to lower the standard, we continue to lower it until we get it so low as not to condemn us in our own eyes. This was the great error of the scribes and Pharisees. says: 'We dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves; but they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.' Will you dare to do what Paul did not venture on? Your life, your heart, your faith will all be judged in the last day by the Bible, not by other men's attainments.

5. Beware of becoming a mere professor of religion. The pious Scougal speaks of some who were 'mere talking and walking skeletons' in the Church. 'He that boasteth himself of a false gift, is as clouds and wind without rain.' Never express more feeling than you have. Let your