thing in appearance which we are not in reality, to have the decorum of our manner substantiated by the virtues of the heart, the maxims which we profess the rules of our daily conduct, and because, in the strong and impressive language of the Redeemer, because it is not that which goeth into the man that can defile a man, but only that which cometh out of the man, that which cometh out of the heart, let it be our firm purpose to comply with the exhortation which God addresses to us, to keep the heart with all diligence, regarding it as containing the issues of life, as worthy to be watched over with all sorts and all degrees of care, as the fittest object for our most anxious and engrossing fears. 2. Beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees, in respect of lowering the authority of the commandments of God, and allowing a preference to be given to the commandments of men. The Pharisees, we know, were guilty of doing this, for they held in a superstitious veneration the traditions of their forefathers, and in their zeal for the observance of these, made the commandments of God of none effect. They deemed it a matter of no consequence, though the eternal rules of righteousness were all violated, provided no neglect was paid to their frivolous observances, and they acted as if it were of more moment that the wisdom of their ancestors should be reverenced by the homage paid to their traditions than that these moral laws, which proceed from the only fountain of truth should be respected by us, and meet, in all instances, with the honest and the hearty tribute of our obedience. And this is more or less the case with multitudes even now. The assertion is literally true of many men in this world, that they pay more regard to mere human enactments than they do to any of the matters of divine legislation. It is true of those who would, upon no account, be seen doing what implied the least disrespect to the commands of their earthly sovereign, and yet, without fear, and without compunction, can every day show despite to the authoritative laws of Him who was head over all from before the foundation of the world, who are most solicitous to evince the loyalty and the love toward their king that preponderate and that reign within, and yet give daily the most convincing manifestations of that hatred with which their hearts are inflamed toward that great God, who alone ought to have dominion over them; who exhibit the most obsequious observance of those fasts or festivals, which, in token of humiliation for national sins, or as a grateful commemoration of national mercies, are proclaimed by royal authority, and yet do weekly profane that high and that holy day which He who is the source of power, He "by whom kings reign and princes decree justice," even that jealous God who will not give his glory to another, and who spareth not to claim it for himself, hath commanded them to sanctify and to set apart to his more immediate service. And it is true of those who would be shocked at any instance of filial ingratitude in which they disputed the commands, or wounded the feelings of their earthly parent, and yet times innumerable, and without one repentant feeling, have violated the laws and sought to tarnish the honour of that great Being who has revealed himself to their experience under the affectionate appellation of their Father in heaven, who has fostered and fed them from their first of days until now,-who, amid all their forgetfulness of Him has never been unmindful of them,-who has guided and guarded them in their steps through life with a hand that is never weary, and with an eye that never either slumbers or sleeps,-who was at first the Author of their being, and has been ever since the free Giver of all the blessings they have enjoyed. And it is true of those who would not refuse the earnest request of a friend that was dear to their affections, to whom they lay under many obligations, and whose pleasure and whose interests had become objects of solicitude to their minds, and yet can unceremoniously refuse compliance with the requirements of the Friend who loved them with the love of a brother, and voluntarily submitted to the death of crucifixion as the sign and confirmation of it. And it is true of those who would be too happy to gratify the wishes, or to minister to the convenience of those who are raised by their intelligence, or by their virtues, or by their rank, over them in the scale of society, and who yet feel no anxiety for observing the commandments of that Master above, who is not only the greatest of beings, but is also the best, and who sets forth, in his own character, whatever excellence can adorn it, all that wisdom can admire, and all that virtue can love. One and all such people are in our own days the very Pharisees who flourished in the days of our Lord, are reacting the part which they acted before them, are liable to those censures and reproofs which our Lord administered to them, have great cause to be cautioned against the influence of their doctrine and leaven, and, in regard of whom, it may, with all truth be affirmed, that they make the commandments of God of no effect. Let each of us, brethren, examine ourselves and be sure that such a charge can, in no degree, be laid to us, that we need not the caution which was here given to the disciples, and that, while we pay all due respect to the laws and authority of men, we, in no instance, wilfully neglect the homage and the obedience which we all unreservedly owe to the commandments of our God. II. Beware of the leaven or doctrine of the Sadducees. The Sadducees, as we have already observed, were infidels both in faith and practice. They believed the soul to perish with the body, and the idea of an after-state to be one of those notions which were only fitted to entertain a capricious and a credulous fancy. Hence it was that, with such a creed, they laughed at all providence about futurity, led lives of the most thoughtless voluptuousness, having thrown down one of the most powerful barriers which God has erected against sin, they were not restrained in the excesses to which they ran, by any principles of prudence, or by any impressions of piety, and showed, by the loose manner in which they acted in this world, how confidently they believed that there never was to be another. We cannot say that there are many to be met with who make an open profession of a deportment like this, who thus speak in loftiness, setting their mouths against the heavens, who, like the proud Sennacherib of old, lift up their eyes and exalt their voice against the Holy One of Israel; though there are not a few in the world who, within the covert of their own hearts, have become infidels for their own defence, who, because they will not forsake their sins, do therefore renounce the opinions which condemn them, and finding that faith will be but an unsocial companion to an evil conscience, believe the Gospel to be false, because it is expedient that it should not be true. But though comparatively few have attained that baleful maturity of guilt that leads them to infidelity in undisguised acknowledgment, though comparatively few can, in this respect, be said to glory in their shame, yet infidelity hath a wider dominion than we at first sight would suppose, and unbelievers there are to be found, under the mask of a Christian profession, who, with an unobjectionable creed in the mouth, have yet no faith in the heart. I see a Sadducee in the man, who gives not to the great truths of the Gospel revelation that assent which is evinced by the belief of the heart, who, in despite of the care and willingness with which he may profess them, yet never suffers them to enter and to reign with an uncontrolled ascendency over all his habits, and over all his actions, who carries not their influences along with him in the intercourses of worldly business, or in the enjoyments and satisfactions of private life, and who, though his respect for them is sure to be made visible in all the professions which he makes, yet loses the measure of that respect in the conversation and practice which he follows. And I see a Sadducee in the man who, though he acknowledge the being of God, yet has no fear of him before his eyes; who, in any of the many scenes through which he doth daily pass, realizes not the truth that God doth see him; who indulges in thoughts, and lends himself to actions, of which, if he believe in His existence at all, he cannot but know He doth highly disapprove, and will one day call him to account; whose character is already tarnished with a degree of guilt, and whose conduct closely fills up a measure of iniquity, which he never could have contracted in the presence of a mortal like himself, and much less had he believed in the presence of that searching God, who is now his witness, and is ultimately to be his Judge. And I see a Sadducee in the man who, in the deportment which he maintains, impugns the exercise of the attributes of God, contests his wisdom, by refusing to do what he commands, distrusts his fidelity, by refusing to confide in what he has promised, and regards as a timorous religionist every one who believes the punishment which God hath threatened, and views all the forms and all the degrees of sin as an object of divine wrath. And, lastly, for it is needless to multiply more examples, I see a Sadducee in all those who live not under the powers of the world to come; who, though they speak of a heaven, yet do nothing to seek it; though they deny not a hell, yet do nothing to shun it; who, frequently as they say they anticipate a coming day of retribution, yet conduct themselves here as if the contemplation of such a day were one of the delusions of the fancy, who cling with all the affections of the heart to objects sensible and present, and never suffer the thought of an hereafter to shoot across the horizon of their lives, and to mingle with their pleasures the image of a judgment to come; who, mispending the valuable period of preparation for futurity, act as if this were their only state of being, and death put a final extinguisher upon the hope and the happiness of man; who, as if, notwithstanding of all the professions which they make, they were both ignorant and incredulous of a future state, blaze out their lives here in a course of the most thoughtless dissipation, and make no more preparation for that eternity, which they profess to believe, and upon which they must one day enter, than did those Sadducees before them, who preached up the absurdity of believing it, and who practised and professed accordingly. Take heed, therefore, brethren, lest there be in any of you this evil heart of unbelief. Never forget the sore punishment which God hath denounced against such, that he shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be condemned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness, and that our Lord himself, on his coming to judgment, is to take vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; and in impassioned appeals to the throne of mercy, let it be the heart's desire, and the earnest prayer of every one of us, that we may be kept from conduct so foolish, and so certainly fatal as this; that we may have grace given us to prepare for that futurity, of which the Gospel warrants the belief; that, by the refreshing visitations of God's loving-kindness, our hopes of it may be more and more brightened, our capacity for it more and more enlarged, our relish for it more and more quickened, and our preparation for it more and more extended; that we may ever act like those who know that there is a Great Being who sees us, and that there is a Great Judge who is hereafter to reckon with us; and that while we avoid the speculative error of saying that there is no God, we may yet not perish by the practical error of acting as if there were none. Amen. A RABBINICAL STORY OF SOLOMON. IT is well known to every reader of the Bible that of the gift of wisdom, and melancholy as was his abuse of that divine talent in after life, so far as regards the high purposes of his moral nature, there was no period in his long and busy reign wanting in proofs that he was preeminently wiser than his contemporaries. The admirable economy of his government; the comprehensive plans he formed for engaging the industry of his subjects at home, and for introducing rivers of wealth into his kingdom through the channels of foreign commerce; the order that reigned in the vast establishments of the palace and the temple; his exquisite skill in the fine arts; the literary works he composed, displaying a perfect familiarity with the whole range of the natural science of his age, and the penetrating insight he possessed into the principles of human nature; all these are sufficient to attest the justness of his claims to the attribute of wisdom. The Spirit of God, indeed, has seen fit to preserve comparatively few memorials of the fruits of his gigantic mind; for of the numerous works, in which he embodied the results of his scientific researches, and his observations on men and manners, the greater part have long since fallen a prey to the ravages of time; and as to the measures of policy he pursued, the course of the sacred history turns so exclusively on his splendid and extensive preparations for the national worship of God at Jerusalem, that but few anecdotes are recorded of those singular qualities, which; in the exercise of his judicial and legislative functions, and in the intercourse of his public and private life, must have so often surprised and delighted the people of his day. But the want of such memoirs of his every day habits and conversation will be no subject of regret to those who believe that divine wisdom has recorded every thing respecting him which is profitable for doc- | trine, for reproof, for instruction, and correction in righteousness; and as to any other notices respecting either his princely establishments, or his private and familiar conduct among his courtiers, it is of no great consequence to inquire rigidly into their authenticity or the measure of credit they are entitled to receive, as they can never be any thing more than matters of curiosity to the student of Scripture. In this light we must regard the Talmud, in which, among the wild and foolish fictions with which that collection abounds, many stories are told of Solomon, whom the blind admiration of his countrymen has made to play as roinantic a part as their Arabian and Persian neighbours have assigned, in their well known tales, to the most renowned of the caliphs. Of a prince so greatly loved and admired as Solomon was by his contemporaries, both at home and abroad, it is natural to suppose that many anecdotes, illustrative of the brilliancy and acuteness of his mind, would be circulated in his day, and be fondly transmitted from father to son, as memorials of a great monarch, in whose reign they could boast of having lived; but whether the stories ascribed to him, in this strange miscellany, refer to events which actually occurred, and which became afterwards a part of the traditionary legends of the country, or whether they are the pure inventions of the Rabbis, it is now impossible to determine. Some of them are too ridiculous for the grotesque scenes in which they make Solomon and the most venerable characters of antiquity to figure; and others are too extravagant and gross in sentiment to be fit for translation into the pages of a Christian Journal. But there are a few characterized by a pure, innocent, and beautiful simplicity, in which class is the following, selected in the hope that it may gratify the reader, not only as relating to a memorable passage in the life of Solomon, but as affording a pleasant illustration of a pastime on which the greatest and wisest men of the East have, in all ages, delighted to exercise their genius and their wit. The date of the story is the visit of the Queen of Sheba to the court of Jerusalem, who came, we are told by the sacred historian, "to prove the king with hard questions." And that these were neither of a learned nor philosophical cast, but nothing else than enigmas and riddles, is placed beyond all doubt by the testimony of Josephus, who informs us that the wise monarch of Israel used to relieve his graver cares by corresponding about these agreeable trifles both with King Hiram and another Tyrian of great celebrity for his skill in them, and also by the well known fact that they form a favourite source of enjoyment with the higher circles, in many countries of the East, at the present day. The legend, after informing us that the queen having gone over her whole collection of " questions," which she had studiously made of the most difficult kind, but which the quick and penetrating mind of Solomon easily unravelled, determined on making her last and greatest effort, by which she persuaded herself she would bring to a stand the hitherto invincible powers of the monarch. She formed a nosegay of the rarest and most beautiful exotics,—such as were growing in the pleasure gardens of the palace, and with the names and the hues of which she knew the royal student of nature to be well acquainted. In the construction of this artificial bouquet she had exhausted all the resources of art to render it a perfect imitation of natural beauty, and carefully concealing from all but her immediate attendants the secret of its origin, she arranged and brought it out in such a manner that it was impossible to judge by the eye whether it was a production of nature or of art. It only remained to choose a proper time, when the king might be taken by surprise, for the trial of her ingenious stratagem; and fixing, therefore, on the hour when Solomon was seated amid a circle of his courtiers at the gate of his palace, in the course of his daily administration of justice, she presented herself abruptly before him, and holding up her nosegay, at such a distance, that no scent, had there been any, could have been perceived, she challenged him to tell her whether it was natural or artificial. The king looked intently at the splendid bouquet, but seemed at a loss for a reply. The whole divan were thrown into confusion by the unexpected occurrence the first time they had ever seen their king in perplexity, and, waiting in silence, trembled for the honour of their prince; when, happily, looking around in his distress from the open scaffolding that formed his tribunal, he espied a swarm of bees fluttering about some wild flowers, and causing the nosegay, without declaring his object, to be placed on the meadow, he soon beheld them, with the greatest satisfaction, refuse to alight on the queen's flower, thus giving the most decisive evidence that it was a work of art. His triumph was complete; the whole court rang with applause at the sagacity of the king, and the Queen of Sheba, when she saw this fresh proof of the wisdom of Solomon," had no more spirit in her." Such is the story of the Jewish Rabbis. A MISSIONARY TOUR TO GOA AND THE NORTH OF CANARA. BY THE REV. JOHN WILSON, D.D., One of the Church of Scotland's Missionaries to the East Indies, and President of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. DR SMYTTAN and I sailed from Bombay on the 26th of January 1837, and next morning we arrived at Harnai, where we were kindly received by our friends, Dr and Mrs Robson. I employed myself during a great part of the day in the examination of the affairs of this our branch mission station. The Scripture readers of the schools of Harnai, Murud, and Anjarlá, were catechised and addressed by me at considerable length. They'read with great fluency, though in the sing-song tone so common among the natives. Our catechisms they have accurately com mitted to memory; but they do not acquit themselves so well in the Gospel history as our pupils in the vernacular schools in Bombay. I gave them some little works on ancient profane history, to be used along with the Word of God, in order that they may benefit by the general information which they contain, learn to distinguish between the Holy Scriptures and uninspired composition, and acquire the mechanical art of reading, without having it entirely associated with the Sacred Word. To Mr Drake, who is over the schools, and who is anxious to do well, and, all things considered, is really doing well, I gave such hints as appeared desirable. The inmates of the poor's asylum I likewise addressed. Several of the children are making respectable progress in reading, under Samuel, a Hindu convert. Mr D. gives them regularly religious instruction. One man, who has a considerable knowledge of the Gospel, is anxious for baptism. Dr Stevenson, who kindly superintends this branch of our mission, when on his visits to the Konkan every alternate month, will mark his progress. I We reached Ratnagiri on the 28th of January. took up my residence with a pious friend, Dr Lawrence. On the following day, which was the Sabbath, I preached in the morning to the natives in the bázár, and made among them a distribution of books, which were readily received. An impudent Brahman, however, tore one of them, and without the slightest provocation, and evidently to the regret of most of the persons who witnessed him, threw the leaves upon my head. Such insolence as this is seldom indeed witnessed among the natives. I preached in the forenoon in the Adalat, and in the evening in the house of Mr Glass, the collector, to the Europeans of the station, who seldom enjoy the privilege of a regular service by a minister of the Gospel, and visited a family under affliction. On the morning of the 30th, we examined the Government Marathi school in the presence of Mr Glass, Mr and Mrs Brown, and Mr Harrington, the civilians of the station. The boys, who, with few exceptions, belong to the higher classes of the natives, acquitted themselves in a superior style, and such as to show that they have an attentive teacher, encouraged and excited by the personal visitation and superintendence of the authorities. In arithmetic they were particularly prompt. Among other questions, I proposed to them the following, which they readily solved; "If sound travel at the rate of one thousand one hundred and forty feet in a second, and the sun be ninety-five millions of miles distant from the earth, what time will be required for a man's prayers to reach that luminary?" The Brahmans seemed much amused when they saw the result of the computation. I was glad to see other books in use, than those of the Native Education Society, from all of which Christianity is excluded, and particularly copies of "England Delineated," translated by a native friend, Náná Nárayan, and several little publications lately issued under the patronage of Mr Wathen, the chief secretary to Government. The only improvement in the mode of teaching which I could suggest was, that the pantoii should extend his cross-examinations to the scope of the passages read, as well as to the meaning of the words which occur. I rewarded some of the boys, by giving them a present of our books, which they were glad to receive. Several of their parents, and other inhabitants of the town, came to see me throughout the day. In the afternoon we visited the jail. I was surprised to find a much | larger proportion of its inmates able to read, than can be procured in any town or village in the country. Crime will never be diminished by any system of instruction not strictly moral; and no sound morality will ever be produced without the precepts, examples, and motives contained in the book of divine revelation. We arrived at Veugurlá on the 1st of February. I distributed some Portuguese Scriptures and tracts among a few officers from Goa, including the Marshall Correa, who had left that province on account of its late disturbances, and I preached in the bázár, to which I was accompanied by my friend, Lieutenant A. G. Shaw, to a large and attentive audience of natives. Next day, we arrived at Pangim, the modern Goa, but I was not successful in getting my books through the custom-house. We went up next morning to Old Goa, where we spent two days, principally in examining the churches, monasteries, and other antiquities. A most important change, we found, had taken place in reference to their use. The number of clergymen in the metropolitan church has, within these three years, been diminished one-half, All the monastic institutions, Dominican, Carmelite, Franciscan, Augustinian, &c., with the exception of the nunnery of St. Monica, into which, however, no more novices are to be admitted, and the female branch of the misericordia" have been abolished, and their inmates dispersed, with a right to receive a small pension for their present sustenance. Their articles of furniture, with the exception of the sacred vessels, which await the disposal of the crowr of Portugal, and the libraries, which are at present in Pangim, have been sold. There is not the slightest reason to believe that the extensive establishments, the fruit of priestly extortion and indulgences, which have been thus destroyed, will ever be restored. No person who reflects on the innumerable superstitions connected with them, and the advocates of the Man of Sin which they sent through the length and breadth of the land, will mourn over their overthrow, or sympathise with the votaries of the Papacy who lament their desolation by the civil Government, which though, in itself, in some respects, unjustly brought about, there cannot be a doubt, has taken place, in partial fulfilment of the prophecy which, ere long, will be fully accomplished, "The ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." Rev. xvii. 16. Of the "lies in hypocrisy" formerly forged, and propagated in connection with them, I may mention one example, which we noticed. In the splendid church of the Augustinian convent there are several "relics of the saints." In an ornamental encasement there is, apparently, a complete skeleton. Below it there is on the wall, in large letters, the following inscription: "Saint Fernando de Jao José, a Saint Augustinian monk, a Spaniard, provincial of the same order in Japan, was slain through hatred of the faith of Christ, and decapitated in a village near to Nonquasiqui, in 1617. His body, which was cast into the sea, was, after two years, raised by the water at the door of a Christian, who guarded it for three years, and afterwards, having been in various places, it was found in this box. The head is in the convent of the same order at Manilla." Here are miracles with a witness! What is not the least remark. able is, that the cranium has now taken its place with its quondam osseous fellows in the encasement. The opportunities of usefulness in Old Goa, on account of the changes to which I have alluded, were not such as Mr Mitchell and I enjoyed on our former visit. We distributed, however, about half a coolie load of Portuguese Bibles and Tracts, taken from the boat in which we had come from Bombay, among the persons in charge of the different buildings, several Padres, with whom we conversed a little in Latin, and the inhabitants of Panelly. At the latter place, in the Archbishop's palace, we offered a Portuguese Bible to the Vicar-General, who refused the gift, observing that It now occupies the buildings of the Augustinian convent. about seventy in number, with about double that number of female The pupils of the institution, who are permitted to marry, are attendants, the use of the translation is prohibited by the Church. We asked him to point out any passages in it which are erroneously rendered. "They are very many, they are very many," he said in Latin, turning the leaves; but he could not condescend on a single instance. He then said, "in the use of the Scriptures the unlearned fall into errors." He was replied to in the words of David, "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple," which he was told he could not have more directly contradicted. He then declared that the book which we offered him was imperfect. "The Apocrypha," I said, "is wanting, because it forms no part of the Word of God. To the Jews,' says Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, which ought to be a great authority with you, were committed the oracles of God.' They never acknowledged the Apocrypha to be inspired; and it has no claims to be considered as such." One of his brother clergymen received what he refused, and also some tracts, expository both of Christian truth and Papal error. A young man from Quilon, in return for the books which we gave him, presented me with two defences of the Roman Catholic faith, lately published in Columbo. They are both distinguished for their deliberate sophistry, perversion of history, and flagrant misapplication of Scripture. They will do more to injure than support the Roman Catholic cause. To be continued. You see CHRISTIAN TREASURY. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”– Yes, my friends, this is the end of all flesh. man walking in the majesty of strength, or in all the charms of gracefulness and beauty; you see the cheek blooming with health, and the eye beaming with intelligence, and altogether you might suppose him a god in this lower world, incapable of decay and dissolution. Look again, and God has taken away his breath, and strength, and beauty, and intelligence are gone, and a cold, pale, lifeless corpse is all that remains. Look yet again, when a few years have elapsed, and behold! his very bones are consumed, and you cannot distinguish him from the earth in which he was laid, and you cannot even tell that it was a human being whose remains you are contemplating. O this is the fate of all the children of mortality! The fairest form that ever kindled admiration in the eye of man, or made his heart beat and melt with love,-the most stately, and vigorous, and god-like frame that ever wielded the instruments of battle, or attracted the gaze of a multitude, must cease to be beautiful or strong, and lie down in the grave, and say to corruption, "thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister!" What a lesson of humility and abasement does this consideration teach us! How foolish, with such a prospect before us, to cherish one feeling of vanity or pride! How inconsistent with our known destiny to live as if we were ethereal beings, and our very bodies were to be immortal! O young man why boast thyself in a robust constitution and an athletic form, why so anxious to pamper its appetites, and minister to its gratification, since disease may deprive thee of all thy strength, and death will certainly bring thee to weakness and to dust? O young woman, why count upon thy personal charms, since death will soon consume thy beauty like a moth," and why so careful to adorn thy fair but fading tabernacle, which must, ere long, be shrouded from the eye of those who now admire and love thee, and be laid in the cold darksome grave, and moulder away unheeded into its kindred earth? But while death thus teaches us to be humble, as to all that is connected with our mortal part, it, with no less emphasis, directs us to the care of our imperishable souls. Our souls surviving the dissolution and corruption of the body, and designed for an eternal existence, rightfully demand that care which corresponds with their spiritual nature, and has a tendency to fit them for their future destiny. Death senas the body to the dust from which it was taken, but the spirit unto God who gave it; and that spirit must be prepared for appearing before him, by being clothed in the righteousness of the Redeemer, and adorned with the graces of Christianity. O then let us look beyond the comfort, and indulgence, and well-being of our frail and fading tenement of flesh and blood, and devote our chief attention to the health and improvement of the soul which inhabits it, so that when death comes we may resign ourselves to the dust, in the expectation of a blessed immortality. Nor are we left without hope even as to the body. It must, indeed, become the prey of worms and corruption; but it is "sealed to the day of redemption," which draweth nigh. The Son of man, when he comes the second time, shall call it forth to the resurrection of life. He shall glorify it by making it “like unto his own glorious body," and "this corruptible having put on incorruption, and this mortal having put on immortality, death shall be swallowed up in victory."-DR A. THOMSON. (Sermons.) Watchfulness.-The best rule for watchfulness that I know is a continued looking to, and dependence on, the grace of God's Spirit from moment to moment.TOPLADY. He did all things well.-It is the true laud.-God, when he created the universe, saw that each and every thing was very good. God, the Word, in the miracles which he showed forth, (for every miracle is a new creation, and not according to the law of the first creation,) willed to do nothing which should not breathe wholly of grace and goodness. Moses performed many miracles, and routed the Egyptians by sundry plagues: Elias performed them, and shut up the heavens that it should not rain upon the land, and again drew down from heaven the fire of God upon the leaders and the cohorts: Elisha performed them, and called forth the she-bears from the forest to tear in pieces the children: Peter struck Ananias, the sacrilegious hypocrite, to death; and Paul struck Elymas, the sorcerer, with blindness. But Jesus did none of these things: The spirit descended upon him in the likeness of a dove; concerning which, he said, " ye know not what spirit ye are of." The spirit of Jesus was a dove-like spirit. Those servants of God were as the oxen of God, treading out the wheat, and trampling the chaff; but Jesus was the Lamb of God, without anger, and condemnation. All his miracles concerned the body of man; and his doctrines the soul of man. Man's body has need of aliment, of outward defence, and of medicine. He gathered the multitude of fishes in the nets, that he might provide the more abundant food for men: he changed the aliment of water into the worthier aliment of wine, for exhilarating the heart of man: he gave order that the fig-tree, which performed not the office to which it was destined, namely, of furnishing fruit to man, should be withered: he enlarged the pittance of fishes and loaves, for feeding the multitude of people he chid the winds which threatened them who sailed: he restored motion to the lame, light to the blind, speech to the dumb, health to the sick, clean flesh to the lepers, soundness of mind to the demoniacs, life to the dead. No miracle of judgment; all of beneficence, and regarding man's body; for, in respect to money, or worldly riches, he did not condescend to show forth any miracle, save that one for payment of tribute to Cæsar.-LORD BACON. ("Meditationes Sacra," translated by James Glassford, Esq.) Sanctification.-Labour after sanctification to thy utmost, but make not a Christ of it to save thee: Christ's infinite satisfaction, not thy sanctification, must be thy justification before God.—WILCOX, |