But if a man's convictions are not against religion; I see not how intellectual difficulties can be justly regarded as the cause of his impiety. I am well aware that they are frequently so regarded. Ask men why they are not religious, and if they venture a reason at all, the probability is that they will refer to some difficulties of the Bible which, they say, necessarily prevent them from receiving it as the "word of God." The introduction of moral evil—the trinity of the Godhead-eternal predestination -the divinity of Jesus-these, and such points as these, are mentioned as the moral causes of their scepticism. We are challenged to reconcile the first, with the moral purity of the divine character-the second, with indivisible and absolute unity of being the third, with the free agency and personal responsibility of man-and the fourth, with the sufferings, the infirmities, and the weepful supplication of the despised Nazarene.

That such are difficulties, I dispute not-I readily grant-I deeply feel. They rise before us like some huge rocks, whose foundations are hidden in the fathomless deep below, whose lofty peaks are enfolded in impenetrable clouds above: they bound our horizon; we cannot reach down to their basis; we cannot ascend their awful heights; we have no line to gauge their dimensions. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it."

But whilst we admit in full the greatness of these Biblical difficulties, we cannot concede that they are hindrances to a religious life. Where they are sincerely felt, we think that but a little fair reasoning would suffice to remove them-would render them conducive rather than obstructive. As objections, can they stand before the arguments of Grotius or Littleton, Fuller or Watson, Paley or Butler? No! the reasonings of these men would scatter them from the mind of every honest reader, as the vapoury mists are scattered from the lovely hill by the stirring breeze of a sun outshining in his strength. We consider even the following thoughts sufficient to obviate all that may be felt obstructive to religion in connexion with difficulties.

Intellectual difficulties are, in themselves, no evidence against the truth of the subject to which they refer. Were we to deny

the next.

the truth of a subject on the mere ground of its difficulty, we creatures of limited but progressive faculties should be involving ourselves every day in most ridiculous absurdities. We should be rejecting as false one day, what we should proclaim as truth The fact is, difficulty is a relative thing. The subject that is difficulty to one mind is mere rudiment to another. The A.B.C. of Newton are inscrutable enigmas to the mass; and that which stretched beyond the grasp of the great astronomer, may be the simplest elements in the knowledge of an angel; what is mystery to an angel, is alphabet to God. Yes, and even to the same mind, subjects once most difficult become most plain; that which over-tasked our energies at school, is too easy for effort now. Interminable ages of progression are before us; the present intellectual mountains will dwindle into particles as we advance-particles of light streaming a radiance on our future steps.

Intellectual difficulties in relation to Biblical revelation are to be expected. There stands the student of nature, perplexed by every sentence on the page he reads. Has he walked the fields of botany and culled the flowers and the plants? Still, he cannot tell how springs the little seed from the earth, and how it covers hill and dale, mead and forest, with such a vast profusion and endless variety of life. Has he studied the stars of God, as they have swept along in silent splendour through the dome of night? Still he understands not the "ordinances of heaven." Has he surveyed the exquisite and complicated machinery of his own frame? Overwhelmed with astonishment he must confess "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Let him be a Humboldt in the sciences; yet every where will he hear the great spirit of nature, reproving his ignorance, and challenging his puny intellect to interpret fully her mystic page. "Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all. Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof; that thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof? Knowest thou it because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great? Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail which I have reserved against the time

of trouble, against the day of battle and war? By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth? Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder; to cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness wherein there is no man; to satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen." Go to that perplexed disciple of nature with the Bible-tell him that it is a book written by the author of the system he has been studying. Satisfy him as to its divinity; and then I ask, how would he be likely to receive it from your hands? Would he do it with a thoughtless spirit? With what ideas would he open its pages? Would he expect to master every thing it contained? Nay! would not an awful solemnity pervade his being at that moment; and would he not commence its perusal, fully anticipating to meet in its every section things that would baffle his thoughts and outstrip his comprehension ? We think so. And if that man, in the progress of the perusal, met with no difficulties, methinks his scepticism would be awakened, and he would renounce it as an imposture.

Intellectual difficulties in Biblical revelations accord with its professed design. What is the avowed object of the Bible? Is it not mental and spiritual culture--the training of the intellect and heart" the teaching of every man"? if so, is not difficulty essential? The school book, whose difficulties the pupil has mastered, has lost its educational worth. It has no longer a challenge to his faculties; its suggestive force has been exhausted. If the Bible is always to be in our world as its teacher, must it not always have a something in it that man does not understand? Tell me of a period when humanity in its progressive march shall have mastered every difficulty in the Bible, and you will tell me of a period when the Bible shall cease to be the teaching book of the race. Intellect, in that colossean age, will treat it as a vesture which it has outgrown. Still more-its difficulties are as necessary for the training of the heart as the understanding. They make us sensible of our

feebleness. They humble our proud spirits. They inspire us with stirring questions. They fill us with devout amazement and solemn awe. They appear to me somewhat analogous to the stupendous highlands and the deep glens-the yawning chasms and the circuitous rivers-the craggy rocks and the dashing seas of a highly picturesqne and romantic territory; there is an air of grandeur-a living spirit of sublimity pervading the whole, which starts in the bosom of the spectator inspirations he could never feel amidst the tame and monotonous in nature. Would I have all this removed from the Bible? Would I level its Alpine heights? Would I fill up its awful deeps? Would I make straight its labyrinthine rivers, and turn its shoreless oceans into lakes? No. It is when I look up at those dizzy altitudes which I cannot climb-adown those abysses which I have no plummet to sound-abroad on those oceans through whose surges no human bark has ever steered its course, that I catch the apostolic inspiration, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"

THE MISSIONARY.

(By Rev. John S. C. Abbot.)

THE following story a seaman recently related to the writer. Many years ago, when New Zealand was a land of uninterrupted heathenism, the ship in which I was a common sailor dropped anchor at a cautious distance from the shore, in one of the harbours of that island. We had been months upon the ocean without seeing any land. And when the sublime mountains and luxuriant vallies of that magnificent isle rose from the wide waste of waters before us, it was difficult to realize that we were not approaching some region of fairy enchantment. We soon, however, found that we were still in this world of sin and woe, for it so happened that there was a terrible fight between two war parties of the natives raging at the very hour in which we entered the lovely bay. From the deck of our ship we witnessed, with awe, the whole revolting scene, the fierce assault, the carnage, the infuriated shrieks, the demoniac attitudes of those maddened savages, as they fell upon each

other with inhuman fury. This awful scene of savage life as beheld from the deck of our ship, impressed even us unthinking sailors with emotions of deepest melancholy.

In consequence of the war, or for some other cause, no canoe from the shore approached our ship, As we were entirely destitute of wood, the captain sent a boat's crew, with many cautions as to safety, to the opposite side of the harbour to collect some fuel. I was sent with this party. We landed upon a beautiful beach, upon which a heavy surf was rolling. The savage scene we had just witnessed so filled us with terror, that we were every moment apprehensive that a party of cannibals would fall upon us and destroy us. After gathering wood for some time we returned to the boat, and found to our dismay that the surf rolling in upon the beach had so increased, that it was impossible to launch the boat. The sun was just setting behind angry clouds which betokened a rising storm. The crested waves were rolling more and more heavily in from the ocean. A dark night was coming on, and savage warriors, their hands already dripping with blood, were everywhere around. We were all silent. No one was willing to speak of his fears, and yet no one could conceal them.

Before we left the ship, the captain had informed us that an English missionary had erected his hut about two miles from the place where we were to land. The captain had visited him about two years before in his solitary home, and it was then very uncertain whether he would be able to continue in his post of danger. We immediately resolved to endeavor to find the missionary, and to seek such protection as he could afford us for the night.

Increasing masses of clouds rolled up and spread over the sky; and as we groped our way through the deep and tangled forest, darkness like that of Egypt enveloped us. After wandering about, we hardly knew where, for some time, we heard the loud shouts of savages either in conflict or in revelry. Cautiously we approached the sounds, till we beheld a large war party gathered around their fires, with the hideous trophies of their recent battle, and exulting over their victory. We thought it wise to keep as far from them as possible, and again turned from the light of their fire into the dark forest, where we