Enquiries and Correspondence.

ANSWERS TO ENQUIRIES, at p. 377.

13. "Death as consequent on Sin."

MY DEAR SIR,-I find in the Youths' Magazine this month, a query, as to the introduction of death before Adam, and the enquirer refers to Geology as originating doubts in his mind.

I also have lately commenced studying geology, and would take this opportunity to thank you for the plates and articles which occasionally find their way into the Youths' Magazine on this subject.

Among other works which I have recently read is Dr. Pye Smith's admirable work, and in his supplementary notes, he treats on this subject. Some remarks which will bear detaching from their connection, I beg to subjoin; the arguments they contain are conclusive to my own mind.

"A system of nature, according to which organized creatures should not die, would be totally incompatible with the plan which the Creator has been pleased to establish in this department of his works. But let us try some hypotheses.

"Put the case, that there be no death. Upon this supposition two or three modes are conceivable :

1.

“Life prolonged without food. But this would be irreconcileable with a system of successive production, nutrition, assimilation and growth. Such beings would be perpetual possessors of the earth and the waters, in their own persons, without any progeny. Only imagine such a world! Shall we say one, or some number of each species? Quadruped, bird, reptile, fish, mollusc, zoophyte, insect of every kind, including all those invisible without microscopic aid; each immortal.

2.

"Life prolonged by vegetable food alone. But this would require a differently constituted vegetable world; for there is no plant on the land, or in the sea, which does not nourish myriads of minute insects, which are destroyed in the eating of the plants.

3.

"Must there be any multiplication by progeny, upon any scheme? Then, either the whole number must be always extremely small, by being kept down in some inconceivable way;

or would, after a time, multiply to that degree, that there would not be room for them. The land and the waters would be over-filled.

"Let the supposition be that death take place, but only in the way of natural decay and old age; not by violence. The debility and decay of age require the nursing and soothing attentions of other individuals of the same species. But, except very imperfectly, in a few instances of quadrumana, and some domesticated animals, nothing appears in the brute creation analagous to the care and tenderness of man for man, in nursing and tending the sick and feeble. Even in the human species, unless where RELIGION breathes its vital influence, that class of duties is miserably attended to. Let us therefore weigh the opposite amounts of suffering, the one by natural and intended delay, the other by an almost instantaneous act of violence.”—Dr. Pye Smith's Congregational Lecture on Geology, third edition, p. 356-7.

May we not conclude from the above, that death in the brute creation, is a beneficent provision of a Divine Providence, for securing enjoyment to a much larger number of animals than could otherwise be possible. Geology acquaints us that "Generations lived, died, and were entombed, in the evergrowing depositions. Succeeding generations pursued their instincts by myriads, happy in existence, over the surface which covered the broken and perishing remains of their predecessors, and then died and were entombed in turn, leaving a higher platform, and a similar destiny, to the generations that succeeded.”— Hugh Miller's Old Red Sand Stone, fourth edition, p. 285.

May we not also understand the passages of Holy Writ, which refer to the entrance of death into the world, as regarding it as a punishment or consequence of sin, and as extending exclusively to the creature, man, of whom, be it observed, immortality is a characteristic.

Blackfriars-road.

Your's truly,

W. H.

DEAR SIR.-To detail the evidence which goes to support the opinion, that if Adam had not sinned, the inferior animals would have died, [and indeed actually did die prior to man's

fall,] would occupy too much of your space: I shall therefore simply refer to a few arguments, or groups of argument, such as follow:

1. There is no antecedent probability of the immortality of brutes, arising either from a consideration of their structure, or the ends they answer in the world, and the laws which determine the increase and perpetuity of races.

2. The conclusions of modern science are very unfavorable to the notion that God made all things to live for ever. In particular, the researches of geologists and comparative anatomists almost prove the contrary.

3. A comparison of God's natural government in reference to plants, &c., affords presumption against it. These advance to maturity, flourish, and decay, by processes wonderfully similar to the life of animals.

4. The innumerable benefits which result to the world-not to man merely-from the death of animals, and the evils which would arise from their continued life and habitation upon earth.

5. There is no necessary connection between sin and death; such that death cannot take place except as the direct consequence of sin. Death may be without sin; sin may not be

without death.

6. Scripture is silent upon the subject, so far as clear assertion or just inference is concerned. Wherever death is spoken of as the natural or penal consequence of sin, it is death to man. This is evident to any who consult the passages which bear upon the subject: e. g. Gen. ii. 17., iii. 19.; Rom. v. 12-21.; 1 Cor. xv. 21.; and James. i. 15., in which man alone is the subject of discourse.

I am, yours &c.,

B. H. C.

P.S. Parvulus should consult the valuable work of Dr. J. Pye Smith,"Scripture and Geology," for many facts and reasonings on this wide subject.

MELANCTHON'S BIBLE.

LORD SPENCER possesses a copy of the first edition of Pagninus' version of the Vulgate, dated 1528, which has Melancthon's autograph-a passage from one of Gregory Nazianzen's Orations, subscribed "Scriptu, manu Philippi""written by the hand of Philip" (Melancthon).

POETRY.

THE CHILD OF JAMES MELVILLE.

One time my soul was pierced as with a sword,
Contending still with men untaught and wild;
When He, who to the prophet lent his gourd,
Gave me the solace of a pleasant child.*

A summer gift my precious child was given,
A very summer fragrance was its life;

Its clear eyes soothed me as the blue of heaven,
When home I turned, a weary man of strife.

With unformed laughter, musically sweet,
How soon the wakening babe would meet my kiss,
With outstretched arms its care-worn father greet;
-Oh! in the desert what a spring was this.

A few short months it blossomed near my heart,
-A few short months, else toilsome all and sad;
But that home-solace nerved me for my part,
And of the babe I was exceeding glad †

Alas! my pretty bud, scarce found, was dying,
(The prophet's gourd it withered in a night;)‡
And He who gave me all, my heart's pulse trying,
Took gently home the child of my delight.

Not rudely called, not suddenly, it perished,
But gradual, faded from our love away;
As if still secret dews, its life that cherished,
Were drop by drop withheld, and day by day.

My Blessed Master saved me from repining,
So tenderly he sued me, for His own;
So beautiful he made my babe's declining,
Its dying blessed me as its birth had done.

* Jer. xxxi. 20.

+ Jonah iv. 6.

Jonah iv. 10.

And daily to my board at noon and even,
Our fading flower I bade his mother bring;
That we might commune of our rest in heaven,
Gazing the while on death without its sting.*
And of the ransom for that baby paid,

So very sweet at times our converse seemed,
That the sure truth, of grief, a gladness made;
-Our little lamb, by God's own Lamb redeemed.

There were two milk-white doves my wife had nourished,
And I too loved e'erwhile at times to stand,
Marking how each the other fondly cherished,
And fed them from my baby's dimpled hand.
So tame they grew, that to his cradle flying,
Full oft they cooed him to his noon-tide rest;
And to the murmurs of his sleep replying,
Crept gently in and nestled on his breast.

'Twas a fair sight, the snow-pale infant sleeping,
So fondly guarded by these creatures mild;
Watch o'er his closed eyes, their bright eyes keeping;
Wondrous the love betwixt the birds and child!

Still as he sickened, seemed the doves too, dwining, †
Forsook their food, and loathed their pretty play;
And on the day he died, with sad notes pining,
One gentle bird would not be frayed away.

His mother found it when she rose, sad-hearted,
At early dawn, with sense of nearing ill;
And when, at last the little spirit parted,

The dove died too, as if of its heart's chill.

The other flew to meet my sad home-riding,
As with a human sorrow in its coo;

To my dead child and its dead mate then guiding
Most pitifully plained—and parted‡ too.

"I was accustomed" says the father's diary, "to set him at the end of the table, in tyme of denner and supper, as the Egyptiens did the picture of the dead, till acquint me (to acquaint me, or make me familiar) therewith." This practice of the ancient Egyptians is mentioned by Herodotus 2., lxxviii, and other writers. ED.

+ Dwining, from the Saxon "Dwinan," whence our synonyme "Dwindle.”—ED. + Departed, died.