in the religious department than any other. But how much more imbecile and unfortunate is that false estimate of ourselves by which we are blinded to our own deficiencies, and rendered ignorant of our own ignorance! As, however, I intend nothing more than a hint upon the subject, I shall leave it to your more able pen to trace out the true causes of neglect of biblical study, and to enforce this most important duty. Oh! that young converts may devote themselves to the law of the Lord, and that his testimonies may be their constant meditation. By these will they be nourished, preserved, invigorated, and rendered fruitful. By communion here with the ancients who obtained a good report, and in fellowship with God and Jesus Christ our Lord throngh 'the written word and the divine Spirit, they can alone be prepared for the full fruition of the great and precious promises of the gospel.

R. R.

CHRISTIANS AMONG THE SECTS-No. V.

POSITIVE ORDINANCES.

CHRISTIANOS is on the King's business; and his command is, "Salute no man by the way." Controversy is right, and necessary too soinetimes; as when the infidel comes forward to strike at the foundation of the Christian hope, or the Catholic to sustain the pretensions of "the Man of Sin;" then would I meet them in "the armor of righteousness." But controversy is only to be chosen as the less of two evils. Its bitter waters have caused the whole religious world to sicken and die. But to resume my subject.

I am overwhelmed with this subject as I proceed. I again repeat the language of a former essay-The state of the heart is the all in all in the scriptures. The Psalmist exclaims, "For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Again, in the 50th Psalm how does the Most High rebuke the vain ostentation of Israel, who supposed they were ministering to his wants in offering their sacrifice and incense: "I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goat out of thy fold. For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgivings, and pay thy vows unto the Most High; and call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." How uncompromising and indignant is the language of the great

Jehovah, uttered by the Prophet Isaiah to this people, on the comparative value of positive ordinances and moral duties! "Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; and give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah: To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hands, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with: it is iniquity even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear." We are ready to exclaim, What means this? Did not the Lord appoint these institutionsthe sacrifice and incense-the feasts, and the prayers too? Yes, verily; but it was for the purpose of promoting moral purity, and not as a commutation for every abomination-not to purchase a license to sin. The Most High gives the reason why the observance of these things were thus regarded by him-“Your hands are filled with blood." He therefore calls upon them, "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." And by the same Prophet, in the 58th chapter, the Lord, after denouncing their fasts in the severest terms, besause of the state of their hearts, he says to them, "Is not this the fast that I have chosen?-to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor, that are cast out, to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward."

But if we leave the Old Testament and come to the New-is not the state of the heart made every thing there? "How can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Again, "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts," &c.-"these are the things that defile the man." "For thy heart is not right in the sight of God," said a holy Apostle to Simon the magician. He had idols there. "Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth," says Paul. Again, "The love of money is the root of all evil;" not money itself, as is usually represented; but the love of it. It was said by the Prophet concerning our Lord, six hundred years before his advent, "And the idols he shall utterly abolish." This is no less true in its spiritual than in its literal sense. casts out all idols from the heart wherever he takes possession. He will never consent to divide the heart with any being or object.-How divinely does the Apostle speak to the Corinthians! "I am jealous over you, with godly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one husband, that

He

294 THE ROMANTIC IN RELIGION AND MORALITY.

I might present you a chaste virgin to Christ." With what preventive wisdom does our glorious Leader, who "walked in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, and held in his right hand the seven stars," detect the germ of apostacy in the hearts of his disciples! The church at Ephesus he commends for every virtue; yet says, "Nevertheless I have this against thee, that thou hast left thy first love." Here is a premonitory symptom of a fatal disease, which, if neglected, would soon be irremediable; as one said, "A single drop of water oozing through the dykes of Holland, if unperceived, would desolate the fairest portions of that country." Therefore our Lord timely admonishes, "Remember, therefore, whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent." And the Laodiceans were so perfect in all the externals of religion, that they boasted, saying, "I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing;" and our Lord so far admits their pretensions that he does not bring against them one charge of immorality, or of neglect of one external duty; yet says to them, "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Thou knowest not that thou art poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love I rebuke and chastise; be zealous, therefore, and repast."

CHRISTIANOS.

THE ROMANTIC IN RELIGION AND MORALITY.

A STRIKING departure from the order of custom in that rank to which a man belongs, by devoting the privileges of that rank to a mode of excellence which the people who compose it never dreamed to be a daty, will by them be denominated romantic. They will wonder why a man that ought to be just like themselves, should affect quite a different style of life-should attempt unusual plans of doing good-should distaste the society of his class, and should put himself under some extraordinary discipline of virtue, though every point of his system may be the dictate of reason and conscience.

The irreligious will apply this epithet to the determination to make, and the zeal to inculcate great exertions and sacrifices for a purely moral ideal reward. Some gross and palpable prize is requisite to excite their energies; and therefore self-denial repaid by conscience, beneficence without fame, and the delight of resembling the Divinity, appear very visionary felicities.

The epithet will often be applied to a man who feels it an imperions duty to realize, as far as possible, and as soon as possible, every thing which in theory he approves and applauds. You will often hear a circle of perhaps respectable persons agreeing entirely that the one is an excellent principle of action, and that other an amiable quality, and a third a sublime excellence, who would be amazed at your fanaticism

if you were to adjure them thus: 'My friends, from this moment you are bound-from this moment we are all bound, on peril of the displeasure of God, to realize in ourselves, to the last possible extent, all that we have thus applauded.'

Through a fatal defect of conscience, there is a very general feeling, regarding the high honor of moral and religious attainments, that though it is a glorious and happy exaltation to possess them, yet it is perfectly safe to stop contented where we are. One is confounded to hear irritable persons applauding a character of self-command; persons who trifle away their days admiring the instances of a strenuous improvement of time; rich persons praising examples of extraordinary beneficence which they know far surpasses themselves, though without large means; and all expressing their deep respect for the men who have been most eminent for devotional habits;-and yet apparently with no consciousness tha they are themselves placed in a solemn election of henceforth striving in earnest to exemplify this very same pitch of character, or of being condemned in the day of judgment.

Finally, in the application of this epithet but little allowance is generally made for the very great difference between a man's entertaining high designs and hopes for himself alone, and his entertaining them relative to other persons. It may be very romantic for a man to promise himself to effect such designs upon others, as it may be very reasonable to meditate for himself. If he feels the powerful habitual impulse of conviction prompting him to the highest attainments of wisdom and excellence, he may perhaps justly hope to approach them himself, though it would be most extravagant to extend the same hope to all the persons to whom he may try to impart the impulse.

I specify the attainments of wisdom and excellence-because, to the distinction between the designs and hopes which a man might entertain for himself, and those which he might have respecting others, it is necessary to add a further distinction as to the nature of those which he might entertain only for himself. His extraordinary plans and expectations for himself might be of such a nature as to depend on other persons for their accomplishment, and might therefore be as extravagant as if other persons alone had been their object. Or, on the contrary, they may be of a kind which shall not need the co-operation of other persons, and may be realized independently of their will. The design of acquiring immense riches, or becoming the commander of an army, or the legislator of a nation, must in its progress be dependent on other beings besides the individual, in too many thousand points for a considerate man to presume that he shall be fortunate in them all. But the schemes of eminent personal attainments, not being dependent in any of these ways, are romantic only when there is some fatal intellectual or moral defect in the mind itself which has adopted them.

[Communicated by C. D. HURLBUTT.]

THE JEWS.

EVERY thing concerning the Jews, as a people, is daily becoming more interesting to the Christian community. The following article we have no doubt will be read with interest by our most intelligent readers:Ed. M. H.

From the London Quarterly Review.

STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE JEWS.

Our lot is cast in very wonderful times. We have reached, as it were Mount Pisgah in our march; and we may discern from its summit the dim though certain outlines of coming events. The tide of action seems to be rolling back from the west to the east; a spirit, akin to that of Moses when he beheld the Land of Promise in faith and joy, is rising up among the nations;-whatever concerns the Holy Land is heard and read with lively interest; its scenery, its antiquities, its past history and future glories engage alike the traveller and the divine-hundreds of strangers now tread the sacred soil for one that visited it in foriner days; Jerusalem is once more a centre of attraction; the curious and the devout flock annually thither from all parts of America and Europe, accomplishing in their laudable pursuit the promise of God to the beloved city—“Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated so that no man passed through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, the joy of many generations."

It would indeed be surprising if the wide diffusion of knowledge among all classes of the civilized world did not create a wider diffusion of interest for the history and localities of Palestine. All that can delight the eye and feed the imagination is lavished over its surface; the lovers of scenery can find there every form and variety of landscape; the snowy heights of Lebanon with its cedars, the valley of Jordan, the mountains of Carmel, Tabor, and Hermon, and the waters of Galilee, are as beautiful as in the days when David sang their praise, and far inore interesting by the accumulation of reminiscences. The land, unbroken by the toils of the husbandman, yet "enjoys her Sabbaths;" 'but Eshcol, Bashan, Sharon, and Gilead are still there, and await but the appointed hour (so we may gather from every narrative) to sustain their millions; to flow, as of old, with milk and honey; to become once more "a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates, olive-oil, and honey;" and to resume their ancient and rightful titles, "The Garden of the Lord,” and “The Glory of all Lands." What numberless recollections are crowded upon every footstep of the sacred soil! Since the battle of the five kings against fonr, recorded in the 14th chapter of Genesis, nearly two thousand years before the time of our Saviour, until the wars of Napoleon, eighteen hundred years after it, this narrow but wonderful region has never ceased to be the stage of remarkable events. If, for the sake of brevity, we omit the enumeration of spots signalized by the exploits of the children of Israel, to which, however, a traveller may be guided by Holy Writ with all the minuteness and accuracy of a road book, we shall yet be engaged by the scenes of many brilliant and romantic achievements of the ancient and modern world:-Take the plain of Esdraelon alone, the ancient valley of Jezreel, a scanty spot of twentyfive miles long, and varying from six to fourteen in breadth; yet more recollections are called up here than suffice for the annals of many nations. Here by the banks of "the ancient river, the river Kishon," "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera," the object of the immortal song of Deborah and Barak; and here too is Megiddo, signal