laid these honours aside, he waived nis right to them, by veiling his glory in human flesh. It is not implied that he laid aside his Divinity, but the glories and honours due to it-he cheerfully obscured them for a time out of love to fallen men. He made himself of no reputation (EαUTOV XEVO), he emptied himself; that is, as the passage goes on to state, he united his Godhead to the nature of humanity, for he took upon him the form of a servant and was found in the likeness of man, ministering and toiling for the temporal and spiritual welfare of our race, and finally, he submitted himself to the most painful and ignominious death-the death of the cross.

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Thus the passage accords with the numerous scriptures which assert the glory and dignity of our Lord prior to His incarnation-the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. It accords with the frequent allusions made to His boundless grace and amazing condescension, in that though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich." It gives point and energy to the apostle's exhortation to pure, disinterested, and self-sacrificing love to our brethren; and presents the most affecting and powerful illustration of this duty in the example of our Lord. But the Unitarian theory divests the apostle's argument of all power, and renders the Saviour's example totally irrelevant. On the supposition that Christ was a mere man-when had he any riches or glory to lay aside, and in what do his condescension and humility consist? In his human nature he was always poor; his birthplace was a stable, and his bed a manger; what sacrifice of honour and wealth then did he make in becoming the Messiah? Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and abandoned his connexion with the palace and the throne of Egypt: here was a real sacrifice for the honour of

seek to retain his glory, the evidence for Christ's divinity is the same in this passage. In either interpretation it is manifest that our Lord waived his right to honours which were naturally his due.

God; for though Moses was rich, he voluntarily became poor. The apostle Paul also relinquished emoluments and honours for Christ, and counted all things but loss for his sake: here again was a real sacrifice. But if the Messiah were only a man, in what does his amazing condescension and humility appear? Was it a mark of humility in a poor peasant becoming the messenger of God, the revealer of his truth, the chief of his prophets, the Saviour of the world, and the head of the Church? Was this to make himself of no reputation? Could human origin be more humble than that which he had as a man? Could any reputation or honour be so exalted as that to which he was raised? His course was one of elevation, not depression; of continually-increasing dignity, not condescension. Besides, Christ demanded honour, and said that "all men should honour him even as they honoured the Father." If he had no claim to this honour, he must have been proud, not humble; he must have set up false pretensions to honour, and usurped the prerogatives of God! The allusion of the Apostle, therefore, to Christ's divesting himself of dignity is inexplicable. Had Paul referred to the sacrifices involved in his own example, or that of Moses, we could have understood him; but his allusion to Christ's example is irrelevant and absurd. Moreover, on the supposition that Christ was an angel, even of the highest order, the passage is still without force or consistency. For, in what respect can the highest angel in heaven be said to exist "in the form of God," or be entitled to claim an equality with God? The most exalted seraph is but a creature, limited, dependant, imperfect, and at an infinite distance from the perfections and glory of the Creator. Nor would it be an act of condescension for such a diguified being to take the place of the Messiah. On the contrary, it would confer dignity and honour upon the most glorious creature in the universe to perform the work, to sustain the office, to bear the titles, and receive the homage of the Saviour.

Thus, the Unitarian interpretation is equally repugnant to the grammatical structure of the passage, to the common sense of the apostle, and to the whole tenor of the scripture, and is therefore to be rejected as a perversion of the word of God. But interpret the text by the common laws of language; admit the natural and obvious sense which is upon its surface, and everything is clear, the context is in harmony, and the argument of the apostle is full of propriety and cogency. The Great and Eternal God humbled Himself to take upon Him our nature, to dwell upon earth, to become the teacher, the example, the servant of men; and in that nature finally died to save us from everlasting wrath. Herein is condescension; herein is love; and hence our duty to humility and devoted affection for the brethren is enforced by the weight of his own self-denying and humble example-therefore, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."

If it be demanded from us to show how God could thus humble himself, we reply, the demand involves a false and unchristian principle; for it implies that our duty to believe is only co-extensive with our ability to comprehend and explain. But the obligation of faith arises from the testimony of God, and we believe what He declares, because we are assured that he cannot be deceived himself, and that he will not deceive others. The fact of our Lord's incarnation the apostles both believed and taught, though they make no attempt to explain it. If it be alleged that the Deity is declared unchangeable, and therefore the doctrine involves an absolute impossibility, we reply, that

THE RESURRECTION OF THE SAINTS.-Why should the true believer in Christ tremble at the thought of laying aside this weak, sinful, mortal body? You will receive it again: not such as it now is, frail and perishable, but bright with the glory and perfect with the image of God. The body is that to the soul which a garment is to the body. When you betake yourself to repose at night, you lay aside your clothes till morn

Christ is declared unchangeable, as we have already shown: and if the Unitarian admits this to be an attribute peculiar to Deity, he must, on his own principle, admit Christ to be God, and thus the controversy on that subject is at an end. As to the objection that the unchangeable nature of the Divine Being forbids the possibility of his incarnation and consequent humiliation, we conceive that this objection is irrelevant; for the Scriptures do not teach that our Lord, in becoming incarnate, parted with anything essential to his Divine Nature, or that by becoming man he ceased to be God. They teach that in some manner he resigned such honours and glories as were due to him as God-that for a season those glories were eclipsed and obscured. The bright orb of day may be obscured by clouds, or concealed as in an eclipse, but its nature is not changed by the event. A prince, for the welfare of his subjects, may lay aside his robes, and assume the humble condition of a peasant, but that condescension does not change his nature. Though his honour as a potentate is obscured or suspended, he is not deprived of his nature as a man, nor his relationship to his father annulled, nor his claim to resume his princely honours abolished. So the condescension of our Lord, the Prince of Life and Glory, involved no change in what was essential to his Deity. Though his glory was so deeply veiled, and his condition so greatly humbled, that he was born of a woman, was made flesh, was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, despised, rejected, and crucified, he was still truly and properly God.

ing, and resume them when you rise. What is the grave but the believer's wardrobe, of which God is the keeper? In the resurrection morn, the door will be thrown open, and the glorified soul shall descend from heaven to put on a glorified robe, which was, indeed, folded up and laid away in dishonour, but shall be taken out from the repository, enriched and beautified with all the ornaments of nature and of grace.

It may be thought that they who promote mirth so much in others, and who treat life as if it were a jest, have themselves found out the true secret of enjoyment. Very different, however, is the result. There is a mirth in the midst of which the heart is sad, and a laughter the end whereof is heaviness. Not that there is anything sinful in mirth; not that it is not a quality which, when rightly directed, may be turned to useful purposes; but that, when unsanctified, it is, as a source of happiness, a delusion and the mirage. Samuel Foote, a great wit of the last century, died of a broken heart. D'Israeli mentions, that one morning meeting in a bookseller's shop a squalid and wretched-looking man, the very picture of misery, he was astonished to learn that he was a person who was amusing the me tropolis by his witty effusions in verse. The anecdote is well known, of the physician recommending a man who was pining under melancholy to attend, as a means of cure, the performances of some noted comic actor, and of being informed that his patient was the actor in question; himself wretched,while amusing others. Captain Morris, a witty writer of considerable reputation at the commencement of the present century, when aged, deserted, and well-nigh impoverished, described in the following lines the little satisfaction which the retrospect of his life of folly could afford him :

My friends of youth, manhood, and age,
At length are all laid in the ground;
A unit I stand on life's stage,

With nothing but vacancy round.
I wander bewilder'd and lost,
Without impulse or interest in view;
And all hope of my heart is, at most,
Soon to bid this cold desert adieu.

As the most striking example in modern times, perhaps, of the unsatisfactory nature of a life of

frivolity, we select, as our next illustration, THEODORE HOOK, or The Man of Wit and Humour.

This remarkable man, who died only a few years ago, was the son of a musical composer of considerable eminence in his day. He was, by death, early deprived of the training of his mother, a circumstance to which much of the unhappiness of his future career may be attributed. His father, returning home one evening, was astonished at his son, then a mere child, producing two ballads, which, with appropriate music, he had himself composed; the one plaintive, the other humorous. These prognostics of future distinction were verified. At the age of sixteen, a time when other youths are just leaving school, he was, from his powers of dramatic composition, in the receipt of a considerable income, and enjoying great popularity. His name was blazoned as a youthful genius in the newspapers, his portraits stood in the booksellers' windows, and he had free admission to the places of public amusement. How many a young man in the present day would have envied his position, as containing all that was desirable! Life lay before him like a smooth ocean; and, intoxicated by success, he launched his barque fearlessly upon it: Youth stood at the prow, Mirth trimmed the sails, Folly took the helm, while the pennon which streamed in the air bore the

spirit. Hook plunged into these amusements, and kept a private museum containing abstracted bells, knockers, and signboards. We feel some scruple in making allusion to such disgraceful follies; but it is necessary, for our illustration, that the gay as well as the grave side of the picture should be shown. On one occasion Hook's friend pointed out to him, as an appropriate specimen of natural history for his mu seum, a new-gilt eagle of large dimensions, which had just been erected over a grocer's shop. A few weeks afterwards, the same friend happening to be dining with Hook, the latter, towards the close of the entertainment, ordered "the game to be served up." Immediately, to the astonishment of the visitor, the servant entered the room, staggering under the burden of a dish of unusual size. On uncover. ing it, there was produced the identical eagle, which Hook, as a practical joke, had contrived to carry off. Such were the contemptible frivolities in which the man of humour wasted his youthful prime. Among other accomplishments for which he was distinguished, was a remarkable power of producing extempore poetry. At a dinner-party he would, without premeditation, compose a verse on every person in the room, full of point and wit, and with true rhyme. Sheridan, the orator, who was present upon one of these occasions, declared that he could not have imagined such a talent possible had he not witnessed the exhibition of it. So confident was Hook in his powers of humour, that, passing with a friend a house in which a party was assembling for dinner, he undertook, although quite unacquainted with the owner of the house or any of the guests, to join them, and instructed his friend to call for him at ten o'clock. Knocking at the door accordingly, he gave his hat confidently to the servant, and was ushered up stairs. Entering the drawing-room, he affected to have for the first time discovered his mistake, and poured out such sallies of wit, that, as he had anticipated, the company, although ignorant

even of his name, actually pressed him to stay to dinner. When his friend Mr. Terry called, ignorant whether he should find him there or in the neighbouring watchhouse, he was astonished, on being shown into the drawing-room, to see the man of humour seated at the pianoforte, delivering some extempore poetry, which, upon perceiving the entrance of his friend, he wound up with the following stanza :—

I'm very much pleased with your fare,
Your cellar's as good as your cook,
My friend's Mr. Terry the player,
And I'm Mr. Theodore Hook.

The fame of the man of wit at last reached even royalty itself. The Prince Regent was so fascinated with him that he appointed him treasurer to the island of Mauritius, with a salary of £2000 a-year. He here gave himself up to every enjoyment. "This island," he wrote home to his friends, "is fairyland. The mildness of the air, the clearness of the atmosphere, the liveliness of the place itself, all combine to render it fascination. Every hour seems happier than the last." Here, then, was Hook at the pinnacle of his glory. Rich, popular, witty, and full of friends, he had surely found the secret of happiness! No; he had only followed the mirage.

Business and pleasure, in the worldly sense of the latter term, are rarely compatible. A deficiency of £12,000, arising, not from fraud, but from gross carelessness, was found in Hook's treasury. He was suddenly arrested in a ball-room, and sent home a prisoner for debt to England, stripped of all his honours, and penniless. Happy would it have been for him had this blow awakened him from his dream of folly; but, alas! as one delusion was dissipated another took its place. By his pen he soon achieved literary eminence, and an income of £4000 a-year. Seated at the tables of the great, he became again, from his powers of humour, the life of every party. His genius and his wit sparkled more brilliantly than ever, and he was the admired of all admirers. In the midst of his gaiety, however, he had an aching heart.

From the brilliant saloon he would retire to his lonely apartment; and there, with jaded spirits, sit down to write for his bread some work of humour, racking, as has been well observed, his imagination for mirth, with anguish at his heart. "We may venture," says one who appears to have known him intimately-"We may venture to supply, by way of specimen, a sketch, by no means overcharged, of one of those restless, life-exhausting days in which the seemingly iron energies of Hook were prematurely consumed. A late breakfast-his spirits jaded by the exertions of yesterday, and further depressed by some pecuniary difficulty-large arrears of literary toil to be made up-the meal sent away untasted-every power of his mind forced and strained for the next four or five hours upon the subject that happens to be in hand-then a rapid drive to town, and a visit first to one club, where, the centre of an admiring circle, his intellectual faculties are again upon the stretch, and again aroused and sustained by artificial means the same thing repeated at a second club-a ballot or a general meeting at a third- -a chop in the committee-room, and then a tumbler of brandy-and-water, two; and, we fear, the catalogue would not always close here. Off next to take his place at some lordly banquet, where the fire of wit is to be again stirred into a blaze, and fed by fresh supplies of potent stimulants. Lady A. has never heard one of his delightful extempores-the pianoforte is at hand-fresh and more vigorous efforts of fancy, memory, and application are called for-all the wondrous machinery of the brain taxed and strained to the very utmost-smiles and applause reward the exertion, and perhaps one more song is craved as a special favour.

or

He retires at last; but not to restnot to home. Half an hour at Crockford's (a gambling-house) is proposed by some gay companion as they quit together. We need not continue the picture. The half-hour

is quadrupled, and the excitement of the preceding part of the evening is as nothing to that which now ensues. By the time he reaches home the reaction is complete; and, in a state of utter prostration, bodily and mental, he seeks his pillow, to run perhaps precisely a similar course on the morrow."

Such was the daily life of the man of wit and humour! Hook has left behind him a journal, some extracts from which appeared in the Quarterly Review a few years ago. It is a harrowing description of splendid misery-of the life of one who, while in the world's opinion full of enjoyment, was in truth thoroughly wretched. Let a few brief extracts suffice. "To-day I am forcing myself, against my inclination, to write. The old sickness and faintness of heart came over me, and I could not go out. No; it is only to the grave that I must be carried. If my poor children were safe I would not Another year opens upon

care.

me with a vast load of debt, and many encumbrances. I am suffering under a constant depression of spirits, which no one who sees me in society dreams of." The close was, however, approaching. One day, at a dinner-party, all were struck with the ghastly paleness of the man of humour. Turning round to a mirror, he himself exclaimed, "Ah! I see how it is. I look just as I amdone up in mind, in body, and purse." Returning home, he took to his bed. A friend calling on him found him in an undress. "Here you see me," he said. All my buckling, and padding, and washing dropped for ever; and I a grey headed old man." A few days afterwards he died.

Such was the end of the man of wit and humour. His noble powers had all been wasted in the service of the world. He had followed mirth and folly as his grand object in life. Oh, how emphatically had they proved to him-only the mirage !— From the Mirage of Life. By the Religious Tract Society.