character of Michael the archangel. Light seems here to burst upon this hitherto clouded subject; and we find ourselves in the presence of the Saviour.

The verse in Jude has been interpreted in a very different manner. Some are of opinion that it alludes to a rabbinical tradition, which, however, seems no better than a pretty tale. It is supposed that Satan actually disputed about the remains of Moses, when he died upon the mount; but what he could have done with his prize, had he succeeded against Michael, it would puzzle a whole community of doctors to say.* By "the body of Moses" may be rather understood the ceremonial law; which, without the spirit, would be dead.

Now, in searching the Old Testament for the circumstance mentioned by Jude, we come to the field of contest, where Satan is striving for "the body of Moses." In Zechariah iii. it seems natural to take Joshua, the High-Priest, as the representative of the righteousness which is by the law. "And he showed me Joshua the High-Priest standing before the Angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at His right hand to resist Him. And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan.........Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the Angel." Although as an angel this glorious One does not say, "I rebuke thee;" yet, using the power which he possesses independently of this relation, He shows Himself in the fourth verse infinitely superior to all the angels: "And unto him He said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment."

We meet with this great Personage more frequently in Daniel than in any other part of Scripture. In chap. x. 21, He is mentioned as the Prince of the Jews,-a title which is understood to refer to the Messiah : "And there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your Prince."

In chap. xii. the Archangel is mentioned more at large. The order of events is evidently the same that our Lord predicts in Matt. xxiv. These are acknowledged in Daniel as the effects of Michael's "standing up." In the first verse of the chapter, the siege of Jerusalem appears to be alluded to, and the end of all things follows. Our Saviour speaks in the same strain in Matthew,—the mighty results being given without express regard to the times in which they should take place: The great point is to announce the overwhelming transactions themselves, rather than the exact order of their occurrence. The Prophet indeed inquires, most anxiously, “What shall be the end of these things?" and he is answered, "Go thy way, Daniel; for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." But the "things shall be finished," "when He" (that is, Michael) "shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people."

The last account we have of Michael is in Rev. xii. 7, 8: "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon ; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven." On a contemplation of this wonderful scene, it is difficult to dismiss from our minds the idea of the Captain of our salvation, leading on His glorious army to the last conquest. As the Angel of the new covenant, He stands foremost in the contest against that

* The reader is doubtless aware of the opinion of Beza and others, who refer to Deut. xxxiv. 6, and conclude that Satan's aim was to disclose the place in which Moses was buried, with a view to idolatrous rites, on the part of the Jews, in honour of his dust.-EDITS.

mighty fallen angel who refuses to acknowledge His supreme dignity, and who is therefore destined to feel the weight of His all-conquering arm.

Thus, we find, He stands exalted far above all creatures ;-the Alpha, in that He is "the brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of His person;" the Omega, in the depth of humiliation to which He submitted that He might carry out the designs of infinite love. At one time He is addressed in the exalted strain,-"Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre." At another time we hear Him mournfully saying, "But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people." As the second Person of the Trinity, He is "over all, God blessed for ever." In His official relations, He is the Archangel, and the "federal Head of all mankind." Thus, "in all things," as the Apostle intimates, He has "the pre-eminence." He is the Alpha and Omega of angels, as well as of men: unto whom be glory and honour for ever and ever! Amen.

H. R.

REVIEW.

Lectures on the Religious History of the Slavonic Nations. By Count Valerian Krasinski, Author of the "History of the Reformation in Poland,” "Panslavism and Germanism," &c. Published for the Author by Johnstone and Hunter, 15, Prince's-Street, Edinburgh: and John Ollivier, 59, Pall-Mall; and E. Dettkens, 8, Davies-Street, London. 1849.

THIS is a masterly historical sketch of a race amounting to eighty millions of souls, living under the rule of Russia, Austria, the Ottoman Porte, Prussia, and Saxony. Attachment to their nationality is a distinctive trait of the character of the Slavonians, and animates the ignorant boor as much as the most accomplished scholar. It seems, however, that this national feeling has been irritated, in more instances than one, by attempts to supplant their language and thus destroy their nationality. Though split into many dialects, their principle of union is a literary Panslavism; and, though by nature a pacific people, they have been roused by their wrongs to seek the consolidation of their race as a natural bulwark against oppression. A powerful intellectual movement, giving birth to a literature purely national, evinces their steady progress in civilisation. Their political troubles are sure to be followed by religious inquiry; and hence arises an evident desire in the mind of the philanthropic author that British Protestants should step in with their Missionary agencies, to heal the wounds inflicted on his own and other Slavonic nations by intestine wars. He invokes also the kindly offices of Great Britain by direct diplomatic intervention. "The calm and dispassionate voice of England," he asserts, "may do much to soothe the mutual animosities between the Slavonians and the Germans, and prevent a war of races, the horrors of which may be conceived by the atrocious scenes which more than once occurred in the conflicts between the Magyars, Slavonians, Wallachians, and Germans, during the Hungarian troubles.” (P. 16.)

The late political revolutions on the Continent having awakened English curiosity as to their causes and probable results, they who wish to have

their inquiries into these matters guided by a mind familiar with the state of religious and political society in those countries which have been the theatre of convulsion, will consult with advantage the writings of our author. He is a trustworthy guide. While his book on "Panslavism and Germanism" sheds a concentrated light on the continued operation of the curse which in the beginning dispersed mankind by the confusion of tongues; his "Lectures on the Religious History of the Slavonic Nations" show how that confusion has been worse confounded by the religion of antichristian Rome, and more especially by its imposition of the Latin in the place of vernacular languages in the services of religion. His principles are those of a Protestant and evangelical conservatism. He takes his stand upon "Holy Writ," as "the Magna Charta of mankind ;" and he seeks for a cure of social evils in the moral regeneration of society. Speaking of the Slavonic nations generally, he boldly declares, that "they all advanced in their intellectual and political development with the progress, and invariably declined with the decay, of scriptural religion in their countries."

The chapter on Bohemia is full of interest to a Protestant Englishman. Our readers are aware of the connexion and intercourse which at one time subsisted between England and Bohemia through the marriage of our Richard II. with Anna, daughter of the Emperor Charles IV.; and that this providential arrangement brought within the walls of Prague the opinions of the parish Priest of Lutterworth, John Wickliffe. Now Count Krasinski has shown the existence of certain predispositions in the public mind of Bohemia, on which Wickliffe's opinions operated with marvellous effect in completing an already nascent religious revolution. In the first place Methodius, the Apostle of Bohemia, despatched by the Greek Emperor Michael in the ninth century to introduce Christianity therein, had translated the sacred Scriptures and organised the public worship in the vernacular language of the country,-an arrangement which, through the blessing of God on the cherished nationality of the people, had maintained itself in spite of the most furious opposition of the Romish Clergy. This was a capital point, and a leading predisposition in the arrangements of Providence. Another favouring circumstance was the final settlement of Peter Waldo and his followers in Bohemia. "It is, therefore, more than probable," says our author, "that Waldensian doctrines were widely spread in Bohemia when Huss began to preach against Rome, and that they greatly contributed to the progress of his doctrines." (P. 47.) Bohemia being blessed at this time by the illustrious reign of Charles I., a wise and liberal Monarch, the revival of national literature developed the study of the nation's history in its ancient records, and thus revived the traditional attachment of the Slavonians to their national worship. Then, again, several of the Clergy had directed the public attention to the necessity of a reformation of the corrupted morals of the age, which, by awakening the national mind to the serious consideration of religious subjects, greatly paved the way for the reforms of John Huss. Lastly, this Bohemian Reformer had endeared himself to his countrymen by many noble and patriotic acts; "and indeed," says our author, "he became the object of universal admiration in Bohemia, and his popularity amongst the inhabitants of that country was perhaps even greater than that which O'Connell enjoyed during his most palmy days in Ireland." (P. 58.) With such existing predispositions in the public mind of Bohemia, the moral influence of Wickliffe's translated writings was immense; and the mar

tyrdom of Huss completed the triumph of Protestant opinions. "The doctrines which Huss had sealed by his death received by this event a new impulse, and the number of their disciples rapidly increased. Several churches adopted the communion of two kinds, and introduced the worship in the national language." (P. 67.) Our space forbids us to do more than advert to that most extraordinary episode of modern history,-the Hussite war, which Protestant Bohemia carried on, single-handed, against the whole of Germany, successfully repelling reiterated crusades of the most sanguinary character under the immediate patronage of the Pope.

The chapter on Poland is yet more instructive, and full of dramatic interest. We are here furnished with a luminous statement of the Machiavelian policy of Rome, as displayed by the order of Jesuits. The reader must consult the volume itself, if he would obtain a comprehensive view of those intrigues by which they sapped the foundations of the Reformation in Poland, and eventually overthrew its liberties, and dimmed its national glory. In this part of the work we glean lessons of Protestant caution, of which the religious public of this country ought to take advantage in the existing struggle, on British soil, with the same subtle, unscrupulous, and unprincipled foe. No man can carefully peruse Count Krasinski's pages without acquiring such an insight into the actual working of Jesuitism,— which, while it promotes disunion in the Protestant camp, influences electoral struggles, tampers with the press, pushes on a repressive education, and in various other ways counterworks the agencies of scriptural Christianity,as will prepare his mind for more decisive action in the great conflict of principles on which we have entered. The temper of the Count is admirable. Catholic-minded Romanists themselves will thus be rendered more accessible to conviction from his statements. While Isaac Taylor develops the latent principles of the order in his "Loyola and Jesuitism in its Rudiments," Count Krasinski, like Steinmetz in his History of Jesuitism, supplies the practical and historical illustration.

Count Krasinski obviously traces, in the machinations of the Jesuits in Poland, much that reminds him of what is passing under his own eye in England at this moment. The following sketch of an ecclesiastical scenery, which is gradually obliterating the bold Protestant land-marks of this land of Bibles, though thrown off only as an imaginary picture, is so true to fact and daily observation, that we cannot withhold the significant warning which it is meant to convey.

But let me go one step farther, and admit a contingency which I hope never will take place, leaving, however, the decision of its possibility to the judgment of my readers. Supposing, then, that there was in Great Britain a faction -Jesuit, or whatever may be its name -having for its object to restore the dominion of the Church of Rome;-that this faction should prosecute its object with unabated perseverance and great skill, employing all possible means for the attainment of its end;-that it should condescend to the same means which were employed by the Jesuits to subject the eastern Church of Poland to the dominion of Rome, namely, assume the garb of the Ministers of that very Church which it was their object to sub

vert or to subdue;-that literature, the
most powerful engine for promoting
good or evil in a civilised country,
should be turned by that same faction
into an efficient tool, employing the
greatest learning and first-rate talents in
order to mislead public opinion, and
gain it over to their views by means of
publications adapted to the highest and
to the lowest degrees of mental cultiva-
tion,-by works of philosophy, poetry,
history, as well as by novels, popular
tracts, nay, even nursery-books;-that
all such works should have a more or
less open,
but always one and the same,
tendency,-to depreciate Protestantism
and to extol Romanism; whilst the Pro-
testants, either unwilling, from an im-
prudent contempt of their adversaries,

In the following passages, too, Protestants are admonished not to indulge in dreams of victory, instead of anxiously planning successful modes of defence or attack; and not to rely too exclusively on controversial tactics; but, on the contrary, to evince a yearning anxiety for the spiritual welfare of those exposed to the insidious arts of Rome, and to throw themselves heart and soul, by kindly offices and proofs of personal solicitude, into wellconsidered efforts to reclaim them.