wind, and silencing them all by the most sublime display of his own power, magnificence, and wisdom, and of the comparative littleness and ignorance of man.

This indeed is the only conclusion of the argument which could be drawn, at a time when life and immortality were not yet brought to light. A future retribution is the only satisfactory solution of the difficulty arising from the sufferings of good people in this life.

Next follow the PSALMS; with which you cannot be too conversant. If you have any taste, either for poetry or devotion, they will be your delight, and will afford you a continual feast. In this, as well as in all other parts of the Scripture, you must be careful always to consult the margin, which gives you the corrections made since the last translation, and is generally preferable to the words of the text. I would wish you to select some of the Psalms that please you best, and get them by heart; or, at least, make yourself mistress of the sentiments contained in them: Dr. Delany's Life of David will show you the occasions on which several of them were composed, which add much to their beauty and propriety and, by comparing them with the events of David's life, you will greatly enhance your pleasure in them. Never did the spirit of true piety breathe more strongly than in these divine songs; which, being added to a rich vein of poetry, makes them more captivating to my heart and imagination than any thing I ever read. You will consider how great disadvantages any poems must sustain from being rendered literally into prose, and then imagine how beautiful these must be in the original. May you be enabled, by reading them frequently, to transfuse into your own breast that holy flame which inspired the writer!

to delight in the Lord, and in his laws, like the Psalmist, to rejoice in him always, and to think 'one day in his courts better than a thousand!' But may you escape the heart-piercing sorrow of such repentance as that of David,-by avoiding sin, which humbled this unhappy king to the dust, -and which cost him such bitter anguish, as it is impossible to read of without being moved! Not all the pleasures of the most prosperous sinner could counterbalance the hundredth part of those sensations described in his Penitential Psalms; and which must be the portion of every man, who has fallen from a religious state into such crimes, when once he recovers a sense of religion and virtue, and is brought to a real hatred of sin: however available such repentance may be to the safety and happiness of the soul after death, it is a state of such exquisite suffering here, that one cannot be enough surprised at the folly of those who indulge in sin, with the hope of living to make their peace with God by repentance. Happy are they who

preserve their innocence unsullied by any great or wilful crimes, or who have only the common failings of humanity to repent of; these are sufficiently mortifying to a heart deeply smitten with the love of virtue, and with the desire of perfection. There are many very striking prophecies of the Messiah, in these divine songs, particularly in Psalm xxii.: such may be found scattered up and down almost throughout the Old Testament. To bear testimony to him is the great and ultimate end for which the spirit of prophecy was bestowed on the sacred writers; but this will appear more plainly to you, when you enter on the study of prophecy, which you are now much too young to undertake.

The PROVERBS and ECCLESIASTES are rich

stores of wisdom; from which I wish you to adopt such maxims as may be of infinite use, both to your temporal and eternal interest. But detached sentences are a kind of reading not proper to be continued long at a time; a few of them, well chosen and digested, will do you much more service than to read a half dozen chapters together; in this respect they are directly opposite to the historical books, which, if not read in continuation, can hardly be understood, or retained to any purpose.

The SONG of SOLOMON is a fine poem; but its mystical reference to religion lies too deep for a common understanding: if you read it, therefore, it will be rather as matter of curiosity than of edification.

Next follow the PROPHECIES, which, though highly deserving the greatest attention and study, I think you had better omit for some years, and then read them with a good exposition; as they are much too difficult for you to understand without assistance. Dr. Newton on the Prophecies will help you much, whenever you undertake this study; which you should by all means do, when your understanding is ripe enough; because one of the main proofs of our religion rests on the testimony of the Prophecies, and they are very frequently quoted and referred to in the New Testament; besides, the sublimity of the language and sentiments, through all the disadvantages of antiquity and translation, must, in very many passages, strike every person of taste; and the excellent moral and religious precepts found in them, must be useful to all.

Though I have spoken of these books in the order in which they stand, I repeat that they are not to be read in that order-but that the thread of the history is to be pursued, from Nehemiah to

the first book of MACCABEES, in the Apocrypha, which, though not canonical, may be very useful as a historical record; taking care to observe the chronology regularly, by referring to the index, which supplies the deficiencies of this history, from 'Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews.' The first of Maccabees carries on the story till within one hundred and ninety-five years of our Lord's circumcision; the second book is the same narrative written by a different hand, and does not bring the history so far forward as the first; so that it may be entirely omitted, unless you have the curiosity to read some particulars of the heroic constancy of the Jews, under the tortures inflicted by their heathen conquerors; with a few other things not mentioned in the first book.

You must then connect the history by the help of the Index, which will give you brief heads of the changes that happened in the state of the Jews, from this time till the birth of the Messiah.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

THE NEW TESTAMENT.

THE biographic part of the New Testament is above all human estimation, because it contains the portraiture of Him in whom dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily.' If it were, therefore, our hard lot to say what individual part of the Scriptures we should wish to rescue from an otherwise irreparable destruction, ought it not to be that part which describes to us the conduct and preserves to us the instructions of God manifest in the flesh? Worldly Christians have affected sometimes to prefer

the Gospels to the rest of the New Testament, on the intimated ground that our Saviour was a less severe preceptor, and more of a mere moralist, than his inspired followers, whose writings make up the sequel of the New Testament. But never surely was there a grosser delusion. If the object be to probe the heart of man to the centre; to place before him the terrors of that God, who, to the wicked, 'is a consuming fire;' to convince him of that radical change which must take place in his whole nature, of that total conquest which he must gain over the world and himself, before he can be a true subject of the Messiah's spiritual kingdom; and of the desperate disappointment which must finally await all who rest in the mere profession, or even the plausible outside of Christianity; it is from our Lord's discourses that we shall find the most resistless means of accomplishing each of these awfully important purposes.

To the willing disciple our Saviour is indeed the gentlest of instructors; to the contrite penitent he is the most cheering of comforters; to weakness he is most encouraging; to infirmity, unspeakably indulgent; to grief or distress of whatever sort, he is a pattern of tenderness. But in all he says or

does, he has one invariable object in view, to which all the rest is but subservient. He lived and taught, he died and rose again, for this one end, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.' His uniform declarations, therefore, are- Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.' 'If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.' 'Except a man deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me, he cannot be my disciple.'