is the same salt sea. The breath do you say to this book? Begin of a man may produce different to read and study it.' Cyclops sounds, according to the character replies, It is all dry matter that of the instrument on which he does not concern me.' 'Verily,' plays. The flute, the pipe, and the then adds the other, 'I see thou trumpet have each their peculiar art indeed a true disciple of the note. And yet the breath that calls sack, but a false disciple of the forth the notes is in each case one book.' and the same. The light of the planets we see in heaven is very various. Mars and Saturn and Jupiter have each a peculiar colour. And yet we know that the light of the sun, which each planet reflects, is in each case one and the same.

Just in the same way, the books of the Old and New Testaments are all inspired truth, and yet the aspect of that truth varies according to the mind through which the Holy Ghost makes it flow. The handwriting and style of the writers differ enough to prove that each had a distinct individual being; but the Divine Guide who dictates and directs the whole is always one. All is alike inspired. Every chapter and verse and word is from God.-Ryle.

"There is much truth in that wit. If people carry their Bible as Erasmus wished this man to carry his sack, they will get no good out of it. We may scatter Bibles by millions, and reduce the price to twopence or nothing; but we have done nothing but add to men's responsibility, unless we pray earnestly that God will lead men to study it, and by His Spirit bless it to their conversion, their edification, their sanctification in righteousness."

What are the Holy Scriptures?— "Men can never precisely explain," observes Monod, "the manner in which they were composed, nor, in particular, how the Spirit of God and the spirit of man are combined in them so as to make them at the True and False Disciples.- same time Divine and human-a "Erasmus," says a living minister, Divine word reaching to heaven, "laughs at the man who attaches and at the same time human, and a benefit to the mere possession of quite near to us. This is not less the Bible. He likens him to one difficult to explain than the manwhom he calls Cyclops, who wears ner in which the Divine and human in his belt on this side a goodly nature were united in Jesus Christ. bottle of sack, and on the other This parallel is not mine, for Scripside a richly ornamented copy of ture calls itself the written Word, the Word of God, and he says in and it calls Jesus Christ the Word his swaggering style, In truth, I made flesh.' But, however the am as good a saint as any.' Eras- Holy Scriptures may have been commus tries to disprove this, and in posed, they literally are heaven his witty way. Prithee serve thy speaking upon earth:' they are the sack bottle as thy Bible. There maxims of the kingdom of heaven are many virtues in a bottle of sack; communicated to men in human it warms you when you are cold, it language, as if the invisible world gets your valour up when you are were come down amongst them and half afraid. But do not take it; placed before their eyes. There is no never take the cork out of it; and other book, even amongst the best, then see what its virtues are.' Of which like this makes known to us course our friend objects. He ad- the mysteries of the kingdom of mires the bottle of sack; but he heaven. likes it better when the cork is out, and most of all when it is against his lips, and the stream is flowing. 'Ay,' says Erasmus, but what

All are more or less tainted with human errors-this alone is exempt from them. It is the book of God, full of the truth of God; in it we hear God speak

by the Holy Spirit. We see God, guarded sepulchres old Pharaohs man, the present, the future, time totter into court, and testify how and eternity, described exactly as true was the tale which Moses they are. For any one who has wrote three thousand years ago. thus understood what Scripture is it In my youth,' said Caviglia, when will not be difficult to confess the Lord Lindsay found him in the use he ought to make of it. We East, I read Jean Jacques and ought to interrogate the Scriptures Diderot, and believed myself a as we would an angel from heaven, philosopher. I came to Egypt, and sent by God at this very moment the Scriptures and the Pyramids on purpose to instruct us-or, what converted me.' And even so a is still better, as we would question visit to Palestine, the reading of the Lord Jesus Christ if we could Keith's Fulfilment of Prophecy,' speak to Him and hear Him. And, -nay, the mere sight of the Asin fact, we do speak to Him and hear Him when we read the Holy Scriptures, for they reveal Him, and through Him they reveal all things by His Spirit.'

syrian antiquities has given faith to many a doubter; just as we could scarcely imagine any one reading Dr. Stroud on the Physical Cause of Christ's Death,' or Mr. Smith on the Shipwreck of St. Paul,' without carrying away the firmest conviction of these historical facts, and, consequently, of all those vital truths which the facts by implication involve."

Confirmations of Holy Writ. Speaking of the various modern corroborative evidences of the truth of Holy Writ, Dr. Hamilton says: "Lieutenant Lynch has floated down the Jordan, and explored the Dead Sea; and his sounding-line Universality of the Bible.-No has fetched up from the deep volume ever commanded such a physical confirmation of the cata- profusion of readers, or has been strophe which destroyed the cities translated into so many languages. of the plain. Robinson, and Wil- Such is the universality of its spirit son, and Bartlett, and Bonar have that no book loses less by transtaken pleasure in the very dust and lation. None has been so frequently rubbish of Zion; and they come copied in manuscript, and none so back declaring that the Bible is often printed. King and noble, written on the very face of the peasant and pauper, are delighted Holy Land. Since Laborde opened students of its pages. Philosophers up the lost wonders of Petra, its have humbly gleaned from it, and stones have cried aloud, and many legislation has been thankfully ina verse of Jehovah's Word stands debted to it. Its stories charm the graven there with a pen of iron in child, its hopes inspirit the aged, the rock for ever. Scepticism was and its promises soothe the bed of wont to sneer, and ask, Where is death. The maiden is wedded Nineveh, that great city of three under its sanction, and the grave days' journey? But since Botta is closed under its comforting asand Layard have shown its sixty surances. Its lessons are the esmiles of enclosing wall, scepticism sence of religion, the seminal truths sneers no longer. Hidden in the of theology, the first principles of sands of Egypt, many of God's morals, and the guiding axioms of witnesses eluded human search till political economy. Martyrs have within the last few years; but now, often bled and been burnt for atwhen Bibles increase, and are run-tachment to it. It is the theme of ning to and fro through the earth, universal appeal. In the entire and when fresh confirmations are range of literature no book is so timely, God gives the word, and frequently quoted or referred to. there is a resurrection of these The majority of all the books ever witnesses, and from their sphinx- published have been in connection

"Startled by the scarcely expected answer, but soon recovering his self-possession, the inquirer eagerly exclaims, Who is God? What is His nature, His character, His attributes ?' 'God,' replies the voice, 'is a Spirit: He is from everlasting to everlasting, without beginning of days and end of years; and with Him is no variableness, nor shadow of turning: He fills heaven and earth: He searches the hearts and tries the reins of the children of men; He is the only Wise, the Almighty, the High and Holy and Just One: He is Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; but One who will by no means clear the guilty.'

with it. The fathers commented the world which I inhabit, and the upon it, and the subtle divines of the various objects with which it is Middle Ages refined upon its doc- filled, indebted for their existence?' trines. It sustained Origen's scho- A mild but majestic voice replies larship and Chrysostom's rhetoric. from the oracle, 'In the beginning It whetted the penetration of Abe- God created the heavens, and the lard, and exercised the keen inge- earth, and all that is therein.' nuity of Aquinas. It gave life to the revival of letters, and Dante and Petrarch revelled in its imagery. It augmented the erudition of Erasmus, and roused the blessed intrepidity of Luther. Its temples are the finest specimens of architecture, and the brightest triumphs of music are associated with its poetry. The text of no ancient author has summoned into operation such an amount of labour and learning; and it has furnished occasion for the most masterly examples of criticism and comment, grammatical investigation, and logical analysis. It has also inspired the English Muse with her loftiest strains. Its beams gladdened Milton in his darkness, and cheered the song of Cowper in his sadness. It was the star which guided Columbus to the discovery "A solemn pause ensues. of a new world. It furnished the inquirer's mind is overwhelmed. panoply of that Puritan valour It labours, it sinks, it faints, which shivered tyranny in days while vainly attempting to grasp gone by. It is the Magna Charta the illimitable, incomprehensible of the world's regeneration and Being now for the first time liberties. The records of false re-disclosed to its view. But a new ligion, from the Koran to the Book and more powerful motive now of Mormon, have owned its superiority and surreptitiously purloined its jewels. Among the Christian classics, it loaded the treasures of Owen, charged the fulness of Hooker, barbed the point of Baxter, gave colours to the palette and sweep to the pencil of Bunyan, enriched the fragrant fancy of Taylor, sustained the loftiness of Howe, and strung the plummet of Edwards. In short, this collection of artless lives and letters has changed the face of the world, and ennobled myriads of its population.-Eadie.

The

stimulates his inquiries, and with augmented interest he asks, 'Does any relation or connection subsist between this God and myself?' 'He is thy Maker,' returns the oracle, the Father of thy spirit, and thy preserver: He it is who giveth thee richly all things to enjoy: He is thy Sovereign, thy Lawgiver, and thy Judge: in Him thou dost live, and move, and exist, nor can any one deliver thee out of His hands; and when, at death, thy dust shall return to earth as it was, thy spirit will return to God who gave it.'

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The Oracles of God.-The fol- 'How,' resumes the inquirer, lowing very striking passage is from" will He then receive me?' 'He the pen of Dr. Payson:-"To will reward thee according to thy whom are the heavens above me, works.'

BLESSINGS.

"The blessing of the Lord maketh rich."-Prov. x. 22.

We write our blessings on the them. The first would make us water but our afflictions on the rock.-Guthrie.