EMBLEMS FROM EDEN. *

1. Wherever there is union to Christ there is love. This, as we have said, is the essential principle. Whatever else there be, if there be not love, it profits nothing, it proves nothing. Love to God and our neighbour is the essence of piety. It is the body, the basis, the staple element; and if the great commandment, and

• Emblems from Eden. By James Hamilton, D.D., F.L.S. London: James Nisbet & Co.

where duty calls and the captain waits. It is Elijah before Ahab. It is Stephen before the Sanhedrim. It is Luther at Worms. It is the martyr in the flames. Nay, it is a greater than all,-it is Jesus in the desert It is Jesus in Gethsemane. It is Jesus on the cross. And it is whosoever pursuing the path, or finishing the work which God has given him, like the great Forerunner, does not fear to die.

out in serenity and simple faith, and the Lord | words are obnoxious. It is firmness marching God, merciful and gracious, smiling over it. through fire and through water to the post 4. Long-suffering. This is love enduring. If the trial come direct from God, it is enough. It is correction. It is his Heavenly Father's hand, and with Luther the disciple cries: "Strike, Lord, strike. But, oh! do not forsake me." If the trial come from Christian brethren, till it be seven-fold seventy times repeated, love to Jesus demands forgiveness.. If it come from worldly men, it is the occasion for that magnanimity which recompenses with good. And in every case, it is an opportunity for following a Saviour whom sufferings made perfect. That Saviour never loved the Father more intensely, than when His Father's face was hid, and when the bitter cup proclaimed His justice terrible, and His truth severe One apostle denied Him, and all the disciples forsook Him; but Jesus prayed for Peter, whilst Peter was cursing, and His love followed the rest, even when they were running away. Jerusalem killed Him; but in foresight of the guilty deed, it was over Jerusalem that Jesus wept; and when the deed was done, in publishing pardon and the peace of God, it was at Jerusalem that evangelists were directed to begin.

5. Gentleness or affectionateness. This is love in society. It is love holding intercourse with those around it. It is that cordiality of aspect, and that soul of speech, which assure us that kind and earnest hearts may still be met with here below. It is that quiet influence which, like perfumed flame from an alabaster Iamp, fills many a home with light and warmth and fragrance all together. It is the carpet, soft and deep, which, whilst it diffuses a look of ample comfort, deadens many a creaking sound. It is the curtain which, from many a beloved form, wards off at once the summer's glow and the winter's wind. It is the pillow on which sickness lays its head and forgets half its misery, and to which death comes in a balmier dream. It is considerateness. It is tenderness of feeling. It is warmth of affection. It is promptitude of sympathy. It is love in all its depth, and all its delicacy. It is every melting thing included in that matchless grace, "the GENTLENESS of Christ."t

6. Goodness or beneficence. Love in action, love with its hand at the plough, love with the burden on its back. It is love carrying medicine to the sick, and food to the famished. It is love reading the Bible to the blind, and explaining the Gospel to the felon in his cell. It is love at the Sunday class, or in the Ragged-school. It is love at the hovel-door, or sailing far away in the missionary ship But whatever task it ndertakes, it is still the same,-Love following His footsteps, "who went about continually DOING GOOD." 39

7. Faith. Whether it means trust in God, or fidelity to principle and duty, Faith is love in the battle-field It is constancy following hard after God, when the world drags downward, and the flesh cries, "Halt." It is zeal holding fast sound words when fervour is costly and sound +2 Cor. x. 1.

χρηστότης.

8. Meekness is love at school,-love at the Saviour's school. It is Christian lowlihood. It is the disciple learning to know himself; learning to fear, and distrust, and abhor him-. self. It is the disciple practising the sweet but self-emptying lesson of putting on the Lord Jesus, and finding all his righteousness in that righteous Other. It is the disciple learning the defects of his own character, and taking hints from hostile as well as friendly monitors. It is the disciple praying and watching for the im. provement of his talents, the mellowing of his temper, and the amelioration of his character. It is the loving Christian at the Saviour's feet, learning of Him who is meek and lowly, and finding rest for his own soul.

9. Temperance,-Love in the gymnasium, love enduring hardness, love seeking to become healthful and athletic, love striving for the mastery in all things, and bringing the body under. It is superiority to sensual delights, and it is the power of applying resolutely to irksome duties for the Master's sake. It is selfdenial and self-control. Fearful lest it should subside to gross carnality, or waste away into shadowy and hectic sentiment, temperance is love alert and timeously astir; sometimes rising before day for prayer, sometimes spending that day on tasks which laziness or daintiness de. clires. It is love with girt loins, and dusty feet, and hands which work makes horny. It is love with the empty scrip but the glowing cheek,love subsisting on pulse and water, but grown so healthful and so hardy, that it "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

Matt. iv. -11.

Hope says, Thy health and life may be,
And years of joy for hours of pain;
Christian it matters not to thee;
To live is Christ: to die is gain.

Life has a thousand hopes to give,
A thousand blessings to bestow;
And thou, I know, wouldst joy to live.
Or, if thy Father bids, to go.

Little it matters thus to part,

The same our way, the same our shore;
One Lord, one life, one hope, one heart,

One meeting-and we part no more.

"There is a little child in every healthy heart, if one only knew it, that is pleased with all simple, natural things." -Mrs. H. B. Stowe.

"THE CREDULITY OF SCEPTICISM."

We forget which of the French infidel philosophers once remarked to the great Fichte, that the day would soon come when men would no more believe in a God than they now believed in a ghost. "Depend upon it," replied Fichte, "men will begin again to believe in ghosts the day they cease to believe in God." How true! Universal scepticism, or unbelief in anything, is an impossibility for man. He must believe the truth or the notruth. The "infidel" professes to believe as well as the Christian. The one, for instance, may believe, with many Jews, that Christ was an impostor, "and had a devil," while the other believes that He spoke the truth, and was the Son of God. To the thorough going infidel, as well as to the advanced Christian, we may say: "Great is thy faith!" The one believes great lies, and the other great truths. It is very remarkable how near scepticism is to credulity. The sceptic and the superstitious man are the same Janus-like person, with two faces looking different ways; or like two travellers who, back to back, journey in a circle, but meet, to their own perplexity, face to face on the opposite side. He who refuses to believe in Scripture facts from insufficient evidence, generally ends in believing his own imagination, or that of others, with-sonal Being or Creator, nor sees the out any evidence whatever. The diseased eye of the spirit, which cannot perceive the excellence of Christ, soon sees visions of its own. Egypt was never more sunk than when the magicians were believed before Moses. Saul was at his lowest point, and God had forsaken him indeed, when he went to the witch of Endor. The nation was about to go into captivity when "the prophets prophesied falsely," and "of the deceit of their own heart," and "the people loved to have it so." Our Lord said: "I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not; if another shall come in his own name, him will ye receive." And so it was with the Jews; they who neglected the true Christ, soon believed in false Christs. And thus it has ever been. When men

receive not the truth in the love of it, there comes, as an awful judgment, the strong delusion which believes a lie!

We are led to make those general remarks by the perusal of an excellent lecture of Dr. Vaughan's on "the Credulity of Scepticism," which he delivered lately in Exeter Hall to the London Young Men's Christian Association. It contains some admirable illustrations of the credulity of men in believing the grossest and most palpable absurdities— who have nevertheless devoted their talents and their lives to overthrow men's faith in God, and in His Son whom He hath sent.

His first instance is that of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who appealed to a remarkable and miraculous answer he received to a prayer recorded by him, and offered up to know whether or not he should publish his book De Veritate, as an argument in favour of that book being published, one great object of that very book being to disprove the possibility of any revelation from heaven!* Mr. Atkinson, the atheist priest of the atheist Miss Martineau, is also a remarkable instance of the credulity of scepticism. "Philosophy," writes Atkinson, "finds no God in nature, no per

want of any." The same gentleman-
who is an enthusiastic believer in clair-
voyance-in a letter printed by Professor
Gregory of Edinburgh, says:
"On one
occasion I breathed a dream into a glove
which I sent to a lady; the dream oc-
curred!" Can anything go lower than
this? We think credulity has deeper
abysses still. Dr. Vaughan selects Mr.
Chapman as a patron of the credulous.
Who would have thought it possible!
Mr. Chapman is the well known book-
seller in the Strand, and a zealous pro-
pagandist of all infidel literature. He
considers Christianity effete-gone for
ever. But Mr. Chapman thinks the
world may still be the better of a revela-

The story is told, not only in Lord Herbert's
Life, referred to by Dr. Vaughan, but also in
Leland's Deistical Writers, Vol. I., p. 27.

corresponds to their physical developments. Smoothness and evenness are upon their form not walk erect, but assume an inclined position, generally. But, the clairvoyant adds, "They do frequently using their hands and arms in walk

than the arms, according to our standard of only in an inclined position, they have formed proportion. And by a modest desire to be seen this habit, which has become an established custom among them.'-(Vol. i. 189) With all deferceptions of a graceful and perfect being that he ence to our clairvoyant, it is not one of our conshould go upon all-fours! But something more note-worthy still is recorded of the inhabitants is said, 'become instantly impressed upon their of Mars. Sentiments arising in their minds,' it countenances, and they use their mouth and tongue for their specific offices, and not as the ation which illumes their faces while conversing,

tion, and that it is not unreasonable to expect it in the present age," when the creeds and dogmas of the past have lost their influence and vitality." But how think you, reader, is this "new revela-ing, the lower extremities being rather shorter tion, suited to the enlarged views and spiritual needs of man, to be obtained?" Through a far safer channel than prophets, or apostles, or the Saviour-through "the mediatorial element between mind and matter-the magnetic fluid!" Accordingly Mr. Chapman, some years ago, published and edited two large volumes, containing the clairvoyant ravings of a knave or lunatic, with the title, "The Principles of Nature, her Divine Revela-agents for conversation. But that glowing radi. tion, and a Voice to Mankind, by and through Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer and Clairvoyant." This Andrew, when in a clairvoyant state, could see what was doing in every part of the universe. The inhabitants of the stars passed before him when asleep as plainly as his own neighbours did when awake. Nay more, he could see down the long vista of time, and know what was taking place before Moses wrote, and in the world before man was created. We almost fear that our readers will think we ourselves are drawing upon their credulity, in asserting that such things have been gravely published by any sane person, far less by a would-be great social and religious reformer like Mr. Chapman ; but it is a fact. We give the following specimens from Dr. Vaughan's lecture of the seer's visions:

is to us inconceivable. Their eyes are blue, and of a soft expression, and are their most powerful agents in conversation. When one conceives a thought, and desires to express it, he casts his sentiments instantly become known. And thus beaming eyes upon the eyes of another, and his do their countenances and eyes, together with their gentle affability, typify the purity and beauty of their interiors." "—(Vol. i. 202.)

The following is the seer's account of man before he became perfect, for, according to him, he was a growth, a development from a less perfect type:

"The first type of man, it seems, made its appearance in the early part of the sixth day. worked their way into existence, are called quadrumana, because they were not so much bipeds as creatures going, Jupiter fashion, upou all-fours, being of a huge monkey or baboon gonist, describing these embryo specimens of tribe. This Poughkeepsie Seer, this new cosmo. humanity, says: Their body was short and heavy, their limbs disproportionately long, and their heads of a very wide and low form. The

The creatures in question, which then somehow

more nearly that of the fish than that of any other form. The shoulders were of great width, and the neck was very short and full. The whole body was covered with thick, heavy hair, like many of the plantigrades of that period. Some parts of the body of this quadrumana resembled those of the lowest animals, such as the fore limbs, which were used always in walking This animal was the first type, after many ages of regeneration, which resembled in any particular the form of man.'-(Vol. i. 315.) So writes our Poughkeepsie Moses. Behold Eschylus, ye Shakspeares and Miltons-behold Homer and your sires! Those hairy brutes climbing their way through yonder primitive forest, they—they are your fathers! "

"As to the inhabitants of Saturn, so clairvoy-spinal column, in the early species, resembled ant are they, that every man knows the surface of the whole globe, and what is everywhere tak. ing place. They inhabit buildings,' says the seer, of an ingenious and peculiar structure, which are also beautiful and convenient. These are very large and extensive, covering immense areas of land, like an extensive city among us. There are, however, but few of these large and united buildings on the surface of the planet, these being near the equator, where light and heat, which correspond to interior truth and love, are most perfectly enjoyed.' Concerning the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter, the clair. voyant says, Much might be said that would be of interest; for their relation to our conceptions of a perfect being is much closer than the inhabitants of Saturn. Their form is full, and well sustained by inward and physical forces. Their size, symmetry, and beauty of form exceed those of the earth's inhabitants. Their mental organization

8

it is the manifesto of no less a personage The last specimen needs no comment; than Mr. Robert Qwen, who has been