As a beautiful confirmation of the great idea of this lecture, we have the following illustration.

"Permit me now to give an illustration, and indeed a proof of the subject of this lecture from the last work of Merle D'Aubigné, the learned and eloquent author of the History of the Reformation, The following is the substance of the account he publishes to the world of his final establishment in the truth of revelation :

"After his conversion to God, and after he had begun to preach Christ with fulness of faith, he was so assailed and perplexed in coming into Germany by the sophisms of rationalism, that he was plunged into unutterable distress, and passed whole nights without sleeping, crying to God from the bottom of his heart, or endeavoring by arguments and syllogisms without end to repel the attack and the adversary. In his perplexity he visited Kleuker, a venerable divine at Kiel, who for forty years had been defending Christianity against the attacks of infidel theologians and philosophers. Before this admirable man D'Aubigné laid his doubts and difficulties for solution: instead of solving them, Kleuker replied, 'Were I to succeed in ridding you of these, others would soon rise up. There is a shorter, deeper, and more complete way of annihilating them. Let Christ be really to you the Son of God-the Saviour-the Author of eternal life. Only be firmly settled in this grace, and then these difficulties of detail will never stop you; the light which proceeds from Christ will dispel all darkness."

"This advice, followed as it was by a study, with a pious fellowtraveller at an inn at Kiel, of the apostle's expression, 'Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,' relieved him from all his difficulties. After reading together this passage, they prayed over it. "When I arose from my knees in that room at Kiel,' says this illustrious man, 'I felt as if my wings were renewed as the wings of eagles. From that time forward I comprehended that my own syllogisms and arguments were of no avail; that Christ was able to do all by his power that worketh in me, and the habitual attitude of my soul was to be at the foot of the cross, crying to him, 'Here am I, bound hand and foot, unable to move, unable to do anything to get away from the enemy that oppresses me. Do all thyself. I know that thou wilt do it; thou wilt even do exceeding abund

antly above all that I ask.' I was not disappointed. All my doubts were soon dispelled, and not only was I delivered from that inward anguish, which in the end would have destroyed me had not God been faithful, but the Lord extended unto me peace like a river."

This incident is much to our mind. We have often contended that if the witness within do not furnish a tangible argument in favor of the Divinity of Christianity, it gives what is still betterconviction. Reasoning is but one step towards this, but full assurance is the top-stone. We cannot be more than convinced by the most cogent testimony, whilst without any external appliances we may arrive at the "I know and am persuaded" of one of the most manly minds that ever breathed.

Here is another sketch from the autobiography of our lecturer himself.

"My youthful days were passed and my character was formed in a town where an infidel society existed. I heard the belchings of its foul and loathsome blasphemies, and the more wily utterance of its subtle, and therefore more dangerous sophistries, which, like the poisonous words of the serpent in the ear of Eve, whispered to me when alone: but I had by that time put on the shield of faith, and was safe.

"Not so a young companion-he, though moral, was not pious. He was taken in the snare, and became not only a disciple in the school of Paine, but a zealot. Unable to procure a copy of the 'Age of Reason' for himself, he sat up whole nights to write a copy from one he had borrowed of a friend. Soon after this an attack of disease brought him to the borders of the grave. Standing, as he thought, amidst the shadows of death, and with the still darker shadows of eternity spreading out before him-with nothing visible to his perturbed imagination but the judgment throne of that God whom he had impiously defied, and the fiends of night stretching their foul wings and flying to meet him, he saw and felt the danger of his situation; a secret horror crept through his blood; conscience, the scorpion of guilt, struck his sting into his bosom ; and forebodings equally dark and intolerable--the dreadful presentiments of judgment to come, harrowed up his soul.

"Whither, in this extremity, did he, or could he turn for

succour? To his infidelity and his infidel companions? Oh, no; they were the objects of his abhorrence and his dread. A pious friend, long forsaken, and perhaps much ridiculed, was sent for, who found him haunted with the spectres of guilt, oppressed with the terrors of eternity, and convulsed with the agonies of remorse. He renounced his infidelity with detestation and contrition, and as a proof of the sincerity of his conviction, and repentance, ordered his manuscript copy of Paine's 'Age of Reason' to be brought out and burnt before his face."

We have thus sketched an imperfect outline of some of these lectures. But lest those of our young readers, who are unhappily not in possession of this spirituality, should be disposed to think these reasonings inconclusive, we hope on resuming the subject next month, to shew that men are dealt with as men, and on the grounds of reason and morality, as well as met on the assumption that they are or ought to be believers in the volume of Revelation.

"GOD GEOMETRIZES." *

THE following eloquent extract is from the "Democratic Review," by Mr. Arrington, of Texas. To a mathematician the reasoning in favor of an intelligent First Cause is simple and conclusive; and similar evidence may be drawn from almost every object in nature:

"The construction of the following argument, in my mind, originated in the necessity of my nature. Some years ago I had the misfortune to meet with the fallacies of Hume on the subject of causation. His specious sophistries shook the faith of my reason as to the being of a God, but could not overcome the repugnance of my heart to a negation so monstrous; and consequently left that infinite restless craving for some point of fixed

We are indebted for the above argument to our esteemed cotemporary, "Hogg's Instructor " In bringing it again before the public, we must say that we admire its philosophy far more than its poetry. Who would think now of days of weeping over Plato, or casting him theatrically on the grass, because he spoke an unwelcome truth? Far more absurd would it appear if any one were to clasp him as a child to his bosom; and then fall upon his hands and knees, like a second Nebuchadnezzar, to kiss the flowers he had endeared. Truths like that enfolded in this little story lose half their vraisemblance when dressed up in such May-day finery.

ED.

repose, which atheism not only cannot give, but absolutely and madly disaffirms.

"One beautiful evening in May, I was reading, by the light of the setting sun, in my favorite Plato. I was seated on the grass, interwoven with golden blooms, immediately on the crystal Colorado of Texas. Dim in the distant west arose, with smoky outlines, massy and irregular, the blue cones of an offshoot of the Rocky Mountains.

“I was perusing one of the academician's most starry dreams. It laid fast hold of my fancy without exciting my faith. I wept to think it could not be true. At length I came to that startling sentence, "God geometrizes." "Vain reverie!" I exclaimed, as I cast the volume on the ground at my feet. It fell close by a beautiful little flower that looked fresh and bright, as if it had just fallen from the bosom of a rainbow. I broke it from its silvery stem, and began to examine its structure. Its stamens were five in number, its great calyx had five parts, its delicate coral base five, parting, with rays expanding like rays of the Texas star. This combination of five in the same blossom, appeared to me very singular. I had never thought on such a subject before. The last sentence I had just read in the page of the pupil of Socrates, was ringing in my ears" God geometrizes." There was the text written long centuries ago; and here the little flower, in the remote wilderness of the west, furnishes the commentary. There suddenly passed, as it were, before my eyes a faint flash of light-I felt my heart leap in my bosom. The enigma of the universe was open. Swift as thought I calculated the chances against the production of those three equations of five in only one flower, by any principle dcvoid of reason, to perceive number. I found that there was one hundred and twenty-five chances against such a supposition. I extended the calculation to two flowers, by squaring the sum last mentioned. The chances amounted to the large sum of fifteen thousand six hundred and twenty-five. I cast my eyes around the forest: the old woods were literally alive with those golden blooms, where countless bees were humming, and butterflies sipping honey-dews.

"I will not attempt to describe my feelings. My soul became a tumult of radiant thoughts. I took up my beloved Plato from

the grass where I had tossed him in a fit of despair. Again and again I pressed him to my bosom, with a clasp tender as a mother's around the neck of her sleeping child. I kissed alternately the book and the blossom, bedewing them both with tears of joy. In my wild enthusiasm, I called to the little birds on the green boughs, thrilling their cheery farewells to departing day, "Sing on, sunny birds; sing on, sweet minstrels; lo! ye and I have a God."

INJUDICIOUS COMMENTARIES.

(Concluded from page 138.)

« II.--Having thus shown that the word 'machaira,' was the name of a ' knife,' as well as of a' sword,' we must now turn to the verses in question and endeavour to learn from the scope of our Lord's directions which of these instruments he desired his disciples to procure. Nearly all words taken separately are ambiguous, and therefore the context, not the lexicon or dictionary, must settle the meaning. An extensive knowledge of authors and of lexicons would show us the various significations which the same word may bear in different writers; hence, if we would settle the exact sense in which any term is to be understood, we must carefully examine the sentence in which it is used, the other sentences with which it is connected, and the intention of the writer or speaker in employing it, Let us apply these rules to the word in question and most persons will perceive that our Lord did not command his disciples to buy swords.

"I. The number of the disciples, and the number of cutting instruments' which the Saviour said was enough,' prove most satisfactorily that he did not refer to offensive or defensive arms. As soon as he had given his directions respecting purse, scrip, and knife, one of the disciples said, Lord, behold here are two knives,' and he said unto them, 'It is enough.' Now it should be remembered that they were twelve men, and if he had intended to make warriors of them, instead of saying, 'Two swords are enough,' he would rather have exclaimed, Two swords are surely not enough for twelve soldiers; by all means sell your coats and buy ten more!' Twelve men with only two weapons would be but poorly equipped for the battle-field, for at best they could only