dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies," is a masterly stroke, full of kindness, loyalty, and fidelity. Nothing was concealed, and yet every art that practised courtiership could honourably suggest was employed to moderate the monarch's displeasure. Elijah in a shaggy mantle, emerging from unknown obscurity, was not more strictly faithful in delivering his denunciations against Ahab, than was Daniel, brought up amidst the refinements of a court, in delivering the interpretation to Nebuchadnezzar : for an inflexible firmness and the most heroic daring may exist equally under the polished manners of an aristocrat and the rough simplicity of a countryman; and Scripture history shows how the Lord has been pleased to employ both kind of men in His service. Daniel, too, “feared not the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible." In the Divine decree which the prophet had to communicate, there was, however, an ultimate reserve of mercy. The stately tree, it is true, was to be hewn down, its leaves shaken off, and its fruit scattered; but its root was to be "left in the earth, in the tender grass of the field," even " with a band of iron and brass,”—implying, apparently, the certainty of his restoration. The tree was not by any means to be uprooted: "Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the Heavens do rule." And what a merciful providence watched over this stricken man, so that no cold night-dews brought on fatal catarrh-none of the beasts with which he herded did him an injury—no political contrivers ascended his vacant throne-no ambitious supplanter had to be deposed upon his recovery to mental health-no jealous lords refused to submit again to his authority! His position appears to have been even firmer, and himself more popular, than before his calamity :-"I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me." Thus, even when punishing us for our sins, a forgiving Father does not lay upon us more than is needful. Not one stroke of the rod is miscalculated; and when His "wrath is o'er, and pardoning love takes place," we have to acknowledge, with mingled gratitude and wonder, how the severities of the chastisement have been mingled and tempered with the alleviations of mercy. We cannot reasonably question the reality of the king's repentance. The fact, that a man of such unapproachable rank, haughty disposition, and pampered pride, circulated throughout the empire so full and frank a confession of his past pride and folly, and so minute a statement of his degrading punishment, goes very far to evince the sincerity of his contrition. Especially when we consider the towering Oriental notions of regal dignity, and the prevalent superstition which had assigned to him a place among the gods, this act of humility must appear the more extraordinary. It is further to be remembered, that this confession of his sin and repentance was not made before, but after, the calamity. Many a man has exclaimed with Baalam, "I have sinned," while the apparition of the angel with a drawn sword in his hand was standing before him, but has pursued his way of iniquity after the terror was withdrawn. Many a patient has wept and prayed upon a sick bed, only to become more hardened after the disease abated. Nebuchadnezzar's public acknowledgment, on the contrary, was issued after his recovery from the effects of that dreadful stroke which had laid him so low. And a comparison of the terms of this proclamation with the terms of another which he had issued some years before, after witnessing the deliverance of the three Hebrews, will further illustrate the greatness of the change which had passed upon him. The former proclamation (Dan. iii. 29) was in these words:"Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill : because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort." The latter proclamation, after his recovery, is in a very different strain :-"Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment; and those that walk in pride He is able to abase.” (Chap. iv. 37.) The first is full of pride, the second is full of humility. The first expresses intellectual conviction, the second shows a contrite heart. The first is a threatening of punishment against any who should disparage a Divinity whom he, the king, thought proper to honour; the second is an humble profession of his own adoration. The first embodies truth, and would enforce it in a spirit of relentless despotism; the second is a profession of personal faith, in the boldest terms, but with a comprehension, far beyond his age, of the true and only principle upon which God's worship can become sincerely and permanently celebrated. And I hope to meet Nebuchadnezzar, together with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of the Father. The proclamation thus circulated throughout the Babylonish empire must have conveyed to thousands some knowledge of the true God; and it was wonderfully adapted to stimulate inquiry. It was, in its way, a Gospel for old Asia, whose inhabitants had more opportunities of getting religious light than is generally supposed. The dispensations of Providence were so arranged that there lingered among them a precious remnant of revealed truth. Ancient Egypt had it; Assyria had it; Babylon had it. But their corrupt hearts loathed the purity of the truth; "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge ;" and they did not "walk in the light" while they had it. Therefore less was vouchsafed to them. They chose darkness, and they were left to it. As we descend the stream of time, we find a dwindling light. Greece had less than Persia and Babylon, her elders; Rome had less than Greece; the darkness became total just as the Day-star appeared. Since that glorious morning of Bethlehem, the light has been increasing, till in this age it shines with a broad effulgence upon the earth. Yet, even amidst our sunlight, it is not unprofitable to dwell upon the records of a less perfect revelation: for it is one and the same holy and blessed GOD who reigns world without end. LUKE H. WISEMAN. 223 PAGES FOR THE YOUNG. NO. XIII.-MEMORY, AND ITS EDUCATION. NOTHING is more easy than to be wordy and discursive on the dignity and achievements of man. His greatness, and the variety and magnitude of his productions, forcing themselves upon us, extort our terms of admiration and applause. He is every where recognised as possessing powers of perception, high reasoning faculties, an untrammelled will, a glorious imagination, and a capacious memory. He can reflect, examine the desires that rise in his mind, and entertain or reject them. He is conscious of aspirations that nothing sublunary or finite can satisfy. He discovers moral and spiritual affinities, can dwell with the invisible, and anticipate immortality. Now, these prerogatives are admitted to belong to man, There is a something in him that thinks, reasons, remembers, and aspires. What is this something? Is it distinguishable from the body, or is it the result or accident of material organization and action? Our belief is, that it is an incorporeal entity, or principle, communicated to every man ; wholly distinct, in its essence and its operations, from his physical frame. The materialist, on the other hand, while conceding the reality and grandeur of man's intellectual powers and movements, affirms that they originate from the body, requiring nothing more for their parentage than the properties and arrangements of matter. He asserts that the phenomena of mind are evolved out of man's animal nature; that they are the development of physical cellular action, or the production of an unknown and unknowable agency. It was boldly affirmed at one of the sectional meetings of the British Association, held last year in Newcastle-on-Tyne, that "physiologists ought not to admit that there is any hidden vital force, or mysterious entity, in man." How strange is this doctrine! The circle of material existences may be examined, and from the centre to the circumference no separate portion will be found to manifest mental and spiritual properties. But we are told that these must reside in the circle; and that the magic thing, called "organization," which holds material bodies in life-combination, is sufficient for the origin of thought and reason. In the aggregate or in separable portions of matter, nothing like an intellectual act is discoverable; but when a happy mixture takes place, and a living mass appears, then, marvellous as it may be, the faculties and manifestations of spirit are unrolled ! This is the doctrine of materialism. While intelligence is denied to matter as a quality, it is assumed to belong to it, somehow or other, as an effect or accident. In our school-days we were taught, that "if equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal;" but here it appears, as a speculative empiricism would teach, that that which belongs to the whole does not belong to its constituents. Matter in its separate parts is destitute of intelligence; but when these "equals" are "added," in some bodily construction, the "whole" moves and brightens with intelligence! This is materialism, which can claim as its foundation nothing better than an illogical assumption. Here a word may be allowed on the true worth of metaphysical, or rather of psychological, science. In the view of many, it is associated with shadowy pretensions. It is almost deemed a dangerous study, and its deductions have to encounter grave suspicions. But this can only arise from misapprehension, or from a perversion. It is true, that, on metaphysical assumptions, the existence both of mind and of matter has been attacked, and their separate independence and distinguishable attributes have been thrown into confusion. A thousand strange things have been circulated under its name. Notwithstanding, it is a noble and invigorating science; one that may be marshalled on the side of truth, and safely employed in establishing the existence of the soul. And at the present day, notwithstanding certain popular materialistic theories as to the genesis of the human mind, the advocates of man's spiritual and immortal nature are warranted in assuming, under the sceptre of a genuine philosophy, a bolder front, and in avowing greater positiveness. The world of truth is with them, and with confidence they may everywhere greet the inquiries of nature and science. On many grounds may we encourage youthful students to prosecute mental studies. Providing exercise for the faculties of the mind, which tends to sharpen and strengthen them, they aid in the pursuit of all knowledge. They introduce man to himself, by guiding him to instruments of power and delicacy, with which he may arrest the complicated and fugitive facts of his own personality, and hold them for inspection. They help him to work forward from the vague to the distinct; they impart insight and certainty on questions that affect his highest interests and ultimate destiny. In satisfying many of his earnest desires and recondite queries, they must be deemed of priceless value:— "To search through all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, The surpassing dignity of the subject, with which these studies engage us, must not be overlooked. On earth there is nothing great but mind; and no other finite study so satisfies and swells the soul, as the study of itself. So dependent are other branches of philosophy upon this study, and so serious in these days are rash hypotheses and premature physiological speculations, that all intelligent people are bound to make the mind a paramount object of consideration. "Whoever would form a right estimate of himself and others, whoever would improve his own character, whoever aspires to the high office of meliorating the condition of society, whether as a statesman, as a religious teacher, as the promoter of education, or in any humbler capacity,-can in no other way so well qualify himself for his * Tennyson, undertaking, as by studying the laws which regulate his own mind,-displayed, as it is, in his own perceptions, sentiments, thoughts, and volitions. This is the only true foundation of that great science, which, for all practical purposes, is more important than anything besides, the Science of Human Nature. '* The knowledge of the human spirit must be sought with the greatest thoughtfulness and patience, and studied mainly by the aid of self-consciousness, observing what passes within, and frequently questioning and classifying our mental experiences. Physiology has done something toward explaining the laws of the human mind,-such, for instance, as its senseperceptions, and its acts of reproduction: but its unchallengeable properties -its high ideas of moral good and infinity, its moral sentiments, and sublime aspirations-are only to be known and surveyed by our inner self. In order to approach the great powers of the soul, which are open to analysis and classification, we must dwell with ourselves, and gather up and arrange its self-evidencing utterances. It may be said to substantiate itself before us in its conspicuous and imposing endowments. There is, for example, its elaborating power of thought, with the regulating or disposing faculty, the understanding. There is, likewise, its capacity of action, its power to direct its own attributes and treasures, through the agency of the will. Then there is the fancy, or imagination, which pictures and decorates or darkens all that it touches. Conscience-the morally discriminating power of the mind, and, in a certain sense, the oracle of God Himself within us-is another part of man's mental constitution. And whatever thought produces, and the understanding appropriates,-whatever the will chooses, and the imagination re-produces and adorns,—whatever conscience approves or disapproves, -it is the office of the MEMORY to preserve. This is "the warder of the brain," the conservative and re-productive faculty of the soul. So that the mind may be viewed as a cluster of rich and mighty powers, not distinct from the mind itself, not its separate portions, but its properties, inhering in one impalpable, undivided, and spiritual essence. The imagination and the memory are kindred labourers in the intellectual kingdom. The memory re-produces what has aforetime engaged attention, in its original and unaltered form, accompanied with the conviction that it has occupied the mind before. The imagination also re-produces, but in new combinations; since it diminishes or aggrandizes at pleasure. These are mutual helpers: for what could the exalting and gilding faculty accomplish, without the stores of memory? And how tame and naked would these stores frequently be, without the brilliant robes of the imagination! Memory may be designated the librarian of the soul, its office being to retain the collected possessions, and to bring them out when required. It waits obediently for the products of perception and sensation, for the treasures of the judgment, the imagination, the conscience, and holds them for future use. If not one of the higher and the more independent faculties of the * Sir B. C. Brodie's "Psychological Inquiries," Part ii. VOL. X.-FIFTH SERIES. |