on foot great schemes of political, social, moral and religious reform; and has caused the light of civilization and peace to shine to distant and forsaken lands.

But it is to be regretted that eminent abilities have not always been directed to worthy and profitable pursuits. While the genius of man has blessed the world, the abuse of that genius, on the other hand, has been the source of many curses to man. An able writer, in allusion to one of these forms of perverted talent, says: "I am the more disposed to dwell a little upon this subject, because I am persuaded that it is not sufficiently attended to-nay, that in ninety-nine instances out of one hundred, it is not attended to at all: that works of imagination are perused for the sake of the wit which they display; which wit not only reconciles us to but endears to us opinions and feelings and habits at war with wisdom and morality, to say nothing of religion. In short, that we admire the polish, the temper of the sword, and the dexterity with which it is wielded, though it is the property of a lunatic or a bravo; though it is brandished in the face of wisdom and virtue, and at every wheel threatens to inflict a wound that will disfigure some feature, or lop off some member, or with masterly adroitness aims a death-thrust at the heart!"

Again he says: "I know not a more pitiable object than the man who, standing upon the pigmy eminence of his own self-importance, looks around upon the species with an eye that never throws a beam of satisfaction on the prospect, but visits with a scowl whatever it lights upon." This was said with reference to one who stood high on the intellectual eminence of the Old World, but is just as applicable to men of high intellectual training and wit in this country. How many who are endowed with a high order of talent by their Creator, delight only in using them as a scourge instead of a blessing to society? They have genius, but the abuse it; they have learning, but they sacrifice it upon unholy altars; hey have wit and skill, but they have consecrated them to the god of this world. What a pity. Think, dear reader, for a moment, of the ase of genius in the case of Lord Byron, Voltaire, Rousseau, Paine, and others! Think of the prolific source of human error which has obtruded itself upon our attention through the learning and abused genius of these men. And think, lastly, of the streams of moral poison that flow in the world, whose fountains were the polluted hearts and unsanctified talents of such gifted men, then you can form a faint idea of the curse of abused genius. Had these men been men of integrity and piety, as they were men of talent and learning, nations and individuals might well have rejoiced over their existence, who now groan and mourn because they lived. They might have stood as high on the mount of God and human honor as Baxter, Bunyan, the Reformers, and others, had it not been for abused genius.

Young reader, are you marked out by the Almighty as one from whom the world may expect much on account of your superior order of mind? Are you looking forward anxiously to the day when you will make your mark in the world, be it on a large or a small scale? If so, we beseech you to not suffer yourself to be modeled after the fashion of men that have abused their skill, sacrificed to unlawful ends their talents, and have written with poisoned pens and spoken with wicked tongues.

JESUS THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS AND OF ALL

HEARTS.

BY THE EDITOR.

On one occasion, when Simon and some others found Jesus in a solitary place praying, they said to him, "All men seek for thee." In so saying they uttered a far deeper and broader truth than they intended. All men do seek for Christ: we do not mean that they do it consciously, and in the true way; they seek something of which they feel a deep need, and which can be found alone in Him. All the seekings of men are impelled by that eternal restlessness of want which can only be satisfied in Christ. Unconsciously, all men seek for Christ.

Men seek wealth, pressed by an inward want which hopes to satisfy itself in this way: but the true riches are in Christ-in Him alone is this desire satisfied. Out of Him it only ever increases! Men seek happiness; but He alone is its fountain. Away from Him, every cup emptied only increases the thirst.

Men seek knowledge; but in Him alone dwells all the fulness of wisdom: away from Him all knowledge is a lie, that disappoints at the last. Man is restless; he feels that he wants something which he has not, and which will quiet his spirit: he goes seeking he knows not what-he is diverted and allured by various promises which meet him by the way; he tries them and finds them wanting, and goes to seek farther. Now ask such seekers, what do you seek? One will answer truth, knowledge. Another will say, I seek a key to the mystery of my own spirit-the ideal of my desires-rest and peace for my heart-the goal of those longings which consume me. Thus each one will give a different answer, which is however in its ground the same; and each spirit will be seeking in a different way, and in a different direction, that which will answer to its wants and longings. This can only be found in Jesus. Him all hearts unconsciously seek. Such restless hearts may be properly addressed, as Paul addressed the idolators at Athens, "Jesus, whom you ignorantly seek, Him declare I unto you."

This unconscious seeking after Jesus, as the only rest and home of the ever restless heart, has in all ages been strong in the bosom of heathenism. Long before Christ came in the flesh did the sighs and groans of helpless and exhausted humanity gather themselves up in a kind of unconscious hope and prophecy of some coming help. Though they knew not Christ, yet their wants cried after one; and hence, truly, is Jesus called "the desire of all nations." Here in the desires of heathenism we have the first and faintest dawn of the advent of Christ.

The prophet, in speaking of Christ as the desire of all nations, recognizes the fact that humanity, before Christ appeared, and even among those to whom He had not even been announced and promised, felt the need of just such a Saviour as He is, and unconsciously longed for Him, and desired Him.

To this thought we invite attention in this article: Jesus, the true

object of the unconscious hopes and longings of heathenism; Jesus, the true rest and satisfaction of all hearts. The thought is beautifully expressed Jesus, "the desire of all nations." They did not, of course, know him. He was not proclaimed to them, as He was to the Jews, by prophets. He was not urged upon their attention by an outward revelation.

That which they longed for was the projection of their own wantsthe incarnation of their own desire. Their IDEAL was not born from above, but He was born from beneath: a helper created out of their own need; but still the dark type of the true.

He was the desire of the nations. What is the cause of desire? A sense of want. This want begat the desire, and this desire created for itself an object, and then longed after it.

God gave over the heathen to themselves. Their progress in their own way, was a progress toward ruin. They sunk deeper and still deeper into misery, until the disease itself, out of stern necessity, thought of the need of a remedy. The remedy must answer to the disease; the wo suggests the want; and thus the wants of the Pagan heart became a true prophet, telling what was needed. Jesus is needed!-every wo in the heart asks for him. He is thus the desire of all nations, though they know him not.

The blind man sees not Jesus; his wants press him; he turns his blind eye-balls in the right direction and cries: "Jesus of Nazareth, have mercy on me." So does the heathen seek what he sees not-Jesus!

It is a remarkable fact, that natural disease, in extreme cases, when skill has done its utmost, sometimes points out its own remedy with wonderful correctness. The system craves just what will meet its wants -the pressure and pain of the disease designates its cure. It is so spiritually. The desire of the nations is just what the nations need. The hollow want knows what it needs to fill it-Jesus.

There is, therefore, in heathenism a revelation in human nature, as there was in Judaism one to it. If we look into heathenism we find, in its wants and woes, in its strivings and struggles, a dark unconscious foreshadowing of the main and central elements involved in Christ's mission into the world. We learn from its desires, what our wretched nature needs. In the desire of all nations we find Jesus our Saviour. We hear the same voice out of the pagan gloom, fainter and feebler, it is true, that was once heard in the wilderness of Judea, cry: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord;" and, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world."

We find that the heathen always had some dark sense of sin in themselves. To this they traced their misery, and the misery of the race. This is evident from the uneasiness of their consciences, which led them to mortify and afflict themselves in the hope of obtaining rest and peace. Sin is the violation of a law in man's nature. When they sinned, violence was done to this inward law, and the effect was felt in its consequent misery, even though the nature of sin was not understood. Thus being "a law to themselves," they had also the sense of sin in themselves; and this sense of sin being painful, they desired to be freed from it-and so they desired Jesus.

The heathen always felt that the sin and misery, of which they were

conscious, was the result of some fall in their nature. They knew, or dreamed, that it had not been always so. They knew, or dreamed, of a golden age long past—a higher, happier condition, long since lost and left behind. In their deepest misery-and this thought of light made their gloom deeper and darker-they never lost sight of traditionary glimmerings from a bright morning-land of joyful innocence and painless peace. They had fallen, and they deeply felt their fall.

As they knew of a better state, from which they had fallen, so they dreamed also of a better state to which they longed to be restored. As there was a golden age in the past, so there was also one glimmering in the distant future. If they had not the hope, or the knowledge, they had at least the desire of redemption. Hence they had their temples, their sacred persons, their sacrifices, and their worship. By these helps they sought what they had not-Jesus.

Thus, with light behind them-lost forever! with light before them— which they could only desire, but dare not even hope for; and with anguish, doubts, fears, within, and gloom around, no wonder they desired, though vaguely, darkly, and with painful uncertainty, that some restorer might appear! No wonder that their desire gave birth to some pleasant dreams, in which they for a moment forgot their misery, and saw as a passing shadow, the "desire of all nations," in the distant future, and with Him the return of the golden age.

We do not say, of course, that there was any saving substance in paganism. It is from man, fallen man, and not from God. It grows up out of the natural, and does not come down out of the supernatural. It is the mere shadow moving on the earth of the eagle that soars above. It could only reveal want and wo. It could only increase the sense of misery, not relieve it. It could only awaken desire, but neither direct nor satisfy it. It could not even complete that desire by cultivating it into a true hope. It had no promises-no positive revelations, and consequently no hope. It was the mere cry of nature, that was cheered by no response.

Christ was, therefore, not even the hope of nations. Hope is the fruit of faith, not of want; and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard. They had no evidence that what they needed and darkly desired, existed for them, or would come to them. In this respect they were not only infinitely behind the Jews, but did not stand on the same ground, or move in the same path. Though their desires cried after just such help as was promised to the Jews, yet they were "without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."

This desire of the heathen could not improve itself. No inquiry, no wisdom, no seeking could help them. This desire was truest, the more purely it remained mere desire. The sighs of the pagan heart were nearer the truth than the inquiries of their minds.

The more and the longer they reasoned the farther they came to be from the truth. The progress of heathenism was always downward. The oldest is the purest and best. From the worship of the heavenly bodies of incarnations from heaven down, as in the Eastern world, and deifications from the earth up, as in the Western, they descended to

"images made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things." The more they reasoned-the more they endeavored to improve their religion by the results and conclusions of science, the more they corrupted the comparative purity of ancient traditions, and misled and deceived their own spontaneous desires. It is a remarkable and exceedingly significant fact, that in the politest ages of Greece and Rome they were both most foolish and most skeptical in regard to religion and the future life. Their hearts sighed and desired, but their minds doubted and denied.

How sad the condition of heathenism! How moving are their helpless, unconscious, infant cries, for help and hope. How ought the church to pray that God would shake all nations, that its idols may totter to the ground; and that He, who is the desire of all nations may come, the light in their gloom, the satisfaction of their wants, and their Saviour from despair and death!

What a strong evidence is here furnished of the truth of christianity. We are aware that out of this very subject it has been attempted to form weapons against Christ. Enemies of christianity have endeavored to show, from the sighs and desires of all nations after that which christianity offers as a revelation from heaven, that it is only the fruit of pagan suggestions, a compound of all religions-a cunning device, which has taken up the imaginations and dreams of human nature and cunningly palmed them upon the judgments of men as a revelation from heaven.

The representations now given, do not only fully repel these assaults, but wonderfully confirm the truth of the system which they assail. Christianity does not grow out of wants, sighs and suggestions of paganism; but it comes from heaven to satisfy those wants, and quiet and allay those sighs; and its truth is witnessed by its exact adaptedness to meet what nature calls for and unconsciously seeks.

There is now no stronger argument to be used with sinners, and enemies to christianity, than to show them the helplessness of heathenism as the highest effort of mere nature; and, at the same time, to point them to christianity, as furnishing full satisfaction to the longings of the human heart, and the wants of the race. To show them that Jesus is "the desire of all nations"-the joyful response from heaven to the earnest cries from the depths beneath the peace of human restlessness -the balm of human wo!

We tell infidels and sinners, who dwell in the midst of the present glorious results of christianity, and from this point of view disparage it, that their opposition is ungrateful and unfair. Shall a child, brought up in the bosom of a good family, turn round and despise the care which has preserved and moulded it, and say it was not needed. Just so little is it fair for a skeptic, whose very light and mercies have their source in the christianity which was before him, and is around him, to say it is not needed! He needs it even in this position; but were it not around him he would need it more.

Not where the christian religion prevails, and where, like the sun from heaven, it shines upon and enlightens even those dark pools of corruption and sin which send up their stench in its face-not here must we judge of the christian religion! No, no. We point to pure hea