result of the inspection of modern Christianity by our Lord and his apostles.

The notion of a sacrifice, of an altar, of a priesthood, was familiar to the Jew and to the heathen from their earliest recollections. This notion incited both Jew and Gentile to oppose Christianity, which threw down both the altar and the priesthood in the dust, and reared its sacred edifice upon the ruins of both.

The Jews and the Gentiles loved their systems. The Jew boasted that the origin of his system was from God. Christianity taught him that his system was prophetic of a better sacrifice and of a more enduring priesthood, and that the prophecy was fulfilled in Christ, who, by one offering of himself, had for ever perfected those who were sanctified, and who ever liveth to make intercession for us, and who is, therefore, able to save unto the uttermost all who come unto God by him."-Heb. vii. 25.

The Gentile boasted that his system was historic. The remembrances of the past were seen in the customs of the present. He opposed a system, such as Christianity, which taught him to "count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, his Lord."-Philippians iii. 8.

When Christianity became the religion of the state, by the decree of Constantine, the persecution by the heathen and by the Jew was changed into the determination of obtaining a compromise in the system of Christianity which had been in opposition to both. The teachers of Christianity were converts from the learned both of the Jews and of the Gentiles. The eloquence and the philosophy of Greece and of Rome were enlisted in the service of Christianity. The ceremonies of the Jews and of the Gentiles were introduced by the new converts into the Christian worship; and if heathenism and Judaism would not become Christianity, Christianity must become Judaism, heathenism, and Christianity altogether, in a compromise to the satisfaction of all parties. The altar, the sacrifice, the priesthood, the real presence, must exist; and heathenism, with a mixture of Judaism, has led captive the Church of Christ from the time of Constantine to the time of Martin Luther.

The influence of heathenism moves to action the greatest portion of the visible Church of Christ here on earth. The mystery of iniquity did already work in the lifetime of St. Paul. It has not ceased to

"darken counsel by words without knowledge" (Job. xxviii. 2), and "to spoil, by philosophy and vain deceit " (Col. ii. 8), the simplicity of the faith of Christ. "The simplicity which is in Christ."—2nd Cor. xi. 3. (R.) Books which are calculated to open the understanding, and to train the mind to correct thought and expression, may be selected, having respect to the circumstances and to the time of life of the student. It is possible to have before the mind a select list of books at a very early period of life, and to obtain possession of these books as circumstances may permit. The sooner the following list can be obtained and read the better for the interests of the student:

These books, carefully read, must form the mind of the student to accurate thought and expression, and cannot fail to facilitate his progress in the study of other books written by eminent men on the subject of ethics and of theology.

The mode of reading is the cause of success in study. Repetition makes the scholar. A student, when preparing for a competitive examination, declared that he read Butler's Analogy twenty times consecutively, and that he succeeded in understanding the book on the last the twentieth-reading. This formed only a small part of his subjects for examination. He succeeded. He was afterwards Bishop of Limerick.

The metaphysical and ethical subjects should be read carefully at least six times for each examination. The classical subjects should be read over very carefully at least three times for each examination.

I know that in the early years of life this foundation in the knowledge of divinity may be securely laid. I also feelingly acknowledge that every youth has not the means of obtaining the list of books which I have given. I hope a young student may pardon me if I give myself as an example. I had not an early access to the books named above. I most deeply regret my loss, for it was a loss of time and of life. In the course of the changing scenes of life, I became tutor in a family in the Wesleyan connexion. I had one pupil. He was the last of his father's offspring, the last of his mother's children. His father died six weeks before the birth of his last child. His widow was a widow indeed. She made a fortune for the children of her departed husband,

and after the lapse of many years she died in the arms of her second son, who was named after his father. That son invited me to meet him in Wales. He gave to me an account of the death of his mother whilst we were walking, by design, on a solitary road. When in this good woman's house my sitting room was a small library formed by providence, not by chance. The good lady was guardian to an orphan, the only child of a lady who was a connexion of her husband's family, whose husband had been a minister in the Wesleyan connexion. The Wesleyan minister had purchased second-hand books on various bookstands during his varied ministerial pilgrimage. I took into my hand, from the shelves which held the books of their deceased owner, one small volume, Marsh's Lectures on the Old Testament. I read the book very carefully. I examined all the books in my study. I arranged them as well as I could in the order set forth in Bishop Marsh's Lectures, and then I set to work and read them. This was the foundation of my knowledge of the subjects essentially necessary to be studied by all who will be ministers of the Word.

The desire to improve in knowledge, and in the expression of the knowledge acquired, may be considered instinctive. When young men have finished their school and university courses, they have before them another course on which they must enter. The senate, the bar, the pulpit, the medical profession invite their services. A power to express the thought is a felt necessity. How can we accomplish the task now before us? is a question which has found its answer in the formation of societies for debating upon certain proposed questions of history, of law, and of morals. Some honest tradesmen who had success in business, and who loved to help the studies of young men seeking to learn to speak, have opened their houses for the entertaining of the young men who were enrolled as members of what was called a debating society.

In the last century, the eighteenth (1730, January 1), Edmund Burke was born in Dublin. He died on July 8, 1797. He was a celebrated orator, statesman, and philosopher. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, without distinction, A.B. 1747, when seventeen years of age. He took his master's degree (M.A.) 1751, when he was twenty-one years of age. He was, as his will directed, buried in Beaconsfield (though Mr. Fox moved that he should be buried in Westminster Abbey), in the grave of his brother and of his son, his only child. Prior, in his Life of Burke, declares that he has abundant authority for saying that Edmund received, "at one time or another, not less than twenty thousand pounds (£20,000) from his family." "Beaconsfield is a town in South Buckinghamshire. It stands on an eminence, and, though small, is well built. Edmund Burke and Waller are buried here. Waller owned the manor. The town derives its name from beacon fires having been often lighted on the hills." Population, par. 1684, houses 345. Mr. Fox had proposed in the House of Commons that the remains of Mr. Burke should be interred in Westminster Abbey, with public honours. This, however, was rendered impossible by the tenor of

Mr. Burke's will. The following is part of a quotation from Mr. Burke's will:-"First, according to the ancient good and laudable custom, of which my heart and understanding recognise the propriety, I bequeath my soul to God, hoping for his mercy through the only merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. My body I desire, if I should die in any place very convenient for its transport thither (but not otherwise), to be buried in the church at Beaconsfield, near to the bodies of my dearest brother and my dearest son, in all humility praying that, as we have lived in perfect unity together, we may together have a part in the resurrection of the just." Edmund Burke, born A.D. 1730, January 1. Died July 8, 1797. Aged 67 years.

A passage in the early history of Edmund Burke may be considered valuable in proving the usefulness of social meetings or of societies for the improvement of their members in the expression of their opinions upon fixed subjects. All professions have encouraged societies of this kind. In the early part of the last century a baker in London formed such a society, and entertained the members in his own house, and at his own expense. Edmund Burke was a member of this society, and learned, by practice, how to express his thoughts in the form of extempore address.

Mr. Sheridan, afterwards, in the House of Commons, did not fail, when an opportunity served, to inform the house, of which Mr. Burke was also a member, "how some reversed, in their lives, the order of nature. His right honorable friend, Mr. Burke was an example. He [Mr. Burke] had, by an extraordinary reversion of all the known laws of nature, gone to the baker's for his eloquence, and had come to the House of Commons for his bread.""

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The French priests write, and commit to memory, and then deliver their sermons from memory. The various dissenting ministers adopt a similar custom. The ministers of the Church of England, who preach "without book," write and commit to memory either partially or entirely. What is understood by extempore preaching is, therefore, a something which does not exist. There may be occasional examples of address purely extempore, or of parts of addresses, delivered under the impulse of unexpected suggestion; but such a thing as purely extempore preaching

does not exist.

This subject should be most carefully considered by all students, whether they intend to be silent members of society or to undertake the responsible and laborious duties of speaking, or of reading, or of both, for the good of their fellow-creatures, and for the glory of God. Young men who have entered into the ministry in the Church of England have felt the deficiency in their education which has been caused by the absence of training in the composition of their own language, in committing pieces of good composition to memory, and in reciting the words so committed. They who have never had the opportunity of attending private literary societies when they held their meetings, and who have never learned the mode of preparing to speak "extempore," feel at a

loss when they may be called on to speak in public in favour of "the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge," "the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," "the Church Missionary Society," "the Bible Society," or any society which has as its end the glory of God and the good of all men.

your

Walk to and fro in your study (writes Professor Dugald Stuart), and call to mind, or rather order memory to bring before you, certain passages of previous life. Turn all your reminiscences into a consecutive narrative. This is a secret in the art of composition.

On this principle a "hedge schoolmaster" in Ireland acted, when he taught his pupils to turn into Latin, as they walked in the fields and along the roads, the objects which presented themselves to their observation. Another schoolmaster recommended his pupils to call to mind certain passages of the New Testament, and to turn them into Greek. Another advised his pupils to carry pocket-books and pencils, and to note immediately any plan or scheme of any kind of composition which any immediate movement of the understanding might suggest.

The constant and unvarying habit of the mind must be studious. No holiday, no suspension of the mind's exercise in systematic thought. The student must have his work always before him. Let him take four hours every day for the performance of the duties of his study, never remitting his daily exercises in his study. This time, four hours daily, spent systematically in the acquiring of a knowledge of the learning necessary for the student's purposes, must prove satisfactory to his own mind, and his own conscience will be void of offence toward God and toward man.

Demosthenes poisoned himself, and died in the sixtieth year of his age. B.C. 322. He carried poison in a quill, and used the poison in the temple of Neptune, in Calauria, an island in the bay of Argos. He died when Antipater and Craterus, two of Alexander's successors, were approaching Athens. He died on the very day on which the Thesmophoria were celebrated. Thesmophoria was a surname of Ceres. Festivals called Thesmophoria were instituted in honour of Ceres by Triptolemus, or, according to others, by Orpheus, or by the daughters of Danaus, the Danaides, fifty daughters of Danaus, king of Argos. The fifty, with the exception of one, Hypermnistra, obeyed the horrid command of their father, and killed their husbands on the first night of their nuptials, by using the daggers which their father had given to them for the murderous purpose. An oracle had informed Danaus that a son-in-law was destined to be the cause of his death. The murderous daughters of Danaus presented to him the heads of their murdered husbands. Their uncle, Ogystus, came from Egypt with his fifty sons to have them married to their fifty cousins. Hypermnestra was summoned to appear before her father, and to answer for her disobedience in allowing her husband, Lyceus, to escape. The voice of the people declared her innocent, and she dedicated a temple to the goddess of

persuasion. The received opinion concerning the murderous sisters is, that they were condemned to fill with water, in hell, a tub with holes. Of course their labour must be fruitless, and their punishment everlasting. Another opinion is in favour of their being exempt from punishment, because it is stated that they were, by the order of Jupiter, purified of the murder by Mercury and Minerva.

Demosthenes was most industrious in his education of himself for the station in which he designed to act. He has been compared by his rival, Æschines, to a siren on account of the melody of his expressions. He transcribed eight or ten times the history of Thucydides on the Peloponesian war. The Peloponesus was a celebrated peninsula which comprehends the most southern parts of Greece. The Peloponesians carried on this war against Athens for twenty-seven years. Peloponesus was separated from Greece by the narrow isthmus of Corinth, that is, the isthmus was a narrow neck of land which joined the peninsula to the continent. A sea must have been on both sides of this isthmus. Corinth would be situated between two seas, "Bimaris Corinthi." Demosthenes transcribed the history which Thucydides had written on this Peloponesian war, that he might possess and imitate the power of expression which characterised the writings of that great historian.

Cicero called Demosthenes a perfect model, and

such as he wished to be.

Two examples have been given to the world, and to students especially, by two men who have obtained the greatest fame for their eloquence. One, the Athenian orator, the greatest orator of Greece. The other, the Roman orator, the greatest orator of Rome. The first died B.C. 322, aged fifty-nine years. The second died B.C. 43, aged sixty-three years eleven months and five days.

Mark Antony's assassins pursued Cicero as he fled in a litter. When the assassins overtook him he put his head out of the litter, and Herennius severed it from the body. His head and right hand were carried to Rome and hung up in the Forum, the place of public assembly. Antony's wife, Fulvia, drew Cicero's tongue out of his head, and bored it through repeatedly with her bodkin :

Forasmuch as revenge is always the pleasure of a dwarfish and an infirm and puny mind, immediately make the inference thus, that in revenge (or in vengeance) nobody has more delight than a woman.

The examples of these two most celebrated orators of antiquity prove the necessity for persevering industry in study, and for the most upright conduct in the public and in the private concerns of life. Cicero introduced into his orations philosophical reasonings and reflections. Edmund Burke has imitated Cicero in this matter. Sir James Macintosh followed in the same path. The system has its

advantages. It does enlighten the minds of the hearers. But it has its disadvantages. It produces weariness in the minds of the hearers. The reader of the works of these great masters of eloquence should choose for himself whether clear, and concise, and forcible expression is not better adapted to instruct, to persuade, and to please the hearers, than expression expending itself into illustrations of principles of philosophy, however excellent. The public assembly is one subject for consideration. The closet or the study is another. Each scene has its own peculiar requirement. The public assembly requires concise expression. The closet can afford leisure for the reading of statements of principles made in a more extended and diffusive manner.

CHAPTER VI.

I. The Apocrypha. The sixth article of the Church of England names the books of the Old Testament as they are placed in the authorised version, and all the books of the New Testament as they are commonly received. We do receive and account them canonical.

The declaration in this article is of vast importance. "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation." Then follows the inference, that nothing should be considered as an article of faith which cannot be proved by Holy Scripture." The names of the Apocryphal books are given in the sixth article. "And the other books, as Hierome (Jerome) saith, the church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine. Such are these following:

II. Canonical books are books ordered by a law of the church to be received by the church. Canon is a church law. Canonist is one skilled in the knowledge and explanation of the canons or laws of the church, made at the general councils, or provincial synods, or synods of the church.

Canonical books of the Holy Scripture are the books received by the church as of divine authority, out of which are to be taken the doctrines essentially necessary to salvation. The question, what is the church? receives an answer from the nineteenth article of the Church of England:

"The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in the which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered, according to Christ's ordinance in all things which of necessity are requisite to the same."

"As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith."

The Greek word for church is Ekkλnoia, from which we, English people, form the word ecclesiastical. The Greek word EKKλnoia is compounded of Ex-sequente consona and Eg sequente vocali-vel dipthongo, and Kaλew-VOCo-I call. Ek or Eέ-out of, and κaλew -I call, form the word EKKλnoia, which we English people translate by our word church. The suggestion is, that all believers are called out." The suggestion next in order is, "from what?" The answer is, "From sin, from the world, from the devil." May all who are named by the name of Christ obey the call, and "walk worthy of their high calling of God in Christ Jesus." The word, therefore, means a company called out from a world of sinners to serve God faithfully, and through the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, to " lay hold on eternal life."

A church was in the house of Cornelius, in the house of Lydia, in the house of the jailor at Philippi, as well as in the city of Jerusalem, and in the city of Antioch, or in the seven cities of Asia.

The

St. Paul "commended" the elders of Ephesus "to God, and to the word of his grace, which was able to build them up and to give to them inheritance among all them who are sanctified."-Acts xx. 32. Apocrypha is a word formed from aжо and кружтш. meaning of aо is " from;" the meaning of крUTW is "I conceal." You conceal your loved treasure in your chest. Now, Apocrypha means your chest. The chest contains some things laid aside. The Apocryphal books are laid aside as being doubtful, uncertain, not acknowledged to be divine or inspired by God. Protestants reject the Apocryphal books from being to themselves a rule of faith, while Romanists acknowledge many books of this description as canonical.

"The canon of Protestants, as it respects the Old Testament, is the same with that which the Jews always did and do now acknowledge."

The learned Du Pin, a Roman Catholic, quotes Jerome on this subject as follows:

"Thus all the books of the Old Testament among

the Jews are two-and-twenty, of which five belong to Moses, eight to the prophets, and nine to the other holy penmen. Some reckon four-and-twenty by separating Ruth from Judges, and the Lamentations from the Prophecy of Jeremiah, and placing them in the number of holy writings. This preface, adds he, may serve as a head or preface to all the books which we have translated from the Hebrew; and we are to take notice that whatever is not contained in the number of these books is Apocryphal. Hence it follows that the Book of Wisdom, commonly ascribed to Solomon; Ecclesiasticus, said to be composed by Jesus, the son of Sirach; Judith, Tobit, and the Pastor, do not belong to the canon, no more than the two Books of the Maccabees, of which one was in Hebrew, and the other (as appears plainly from the style) was written in Greek."-Du Pin's Hist. of the Canon, vol. i. p. 7. London 1699.

"Neither the ancient prophets, Christ, nor his apostles, nor ancient Christians, as is worthy of remark, accused the Jews of omitting any canonical books, which they would not fail to have done [would not have failed to do] had they considered the books called Apocrypha as properly belonging to the inspired writings."

"The Apocryphal books are not canonical."

(1.) They possess no authority whatever, either external or internal, to procure their admission into the sacred canon.

(2.) The Apocryphal books contain many things which are fabulous, contradictory, and directly at variance with the canonical Scriptures.

(3.) They contain passages which are, in themselves, false, absurd, and incredible.

(4.) "Many parts contained therein are at variance with the authentic records of profane historians. limits do not permit us to enlarge."

(5.)

Our

"The Apocryphal books are not quoted in the New Testament, but those which were received into the canon of the Jews are frequently quoted."

(6.) "The third Council of Carthage, held A.D. 397, admitted as canonical the books of (1) Wisdom, (2) Ecclesiasticus, (3) Tobit, (4) Judith, (5) Maccabees, confirming the decree of the Council of Hippo, A.D. 393, wherein these books were received into the canon."-Du Pin's Hist. of the Canon, vol. i. p. 3. London, 1699.

"Nothing is more common than for Romanists, especially Jesuits, to deny or pervert the best authenticated historical facts; and the only reason which can induce the Church of Rome to receive as canonical the Apocrypha, is that many of her doctrines derive their authority from these books."

"The decree of Pope Eugenius, the canon of the Council of Trent, agrees with the canon of Carthage, and with the decree of Pope Innocent, and therein are ranked among the books of the Old Testament (1) Tobit, (2) Judith, (3) Esther, (4) Wisdom, (5) Ecclesiasticus, and (6) the two books of the Maccabees."-Du Pin's Hist. of the Canon, vol. i. p. 89. London 1699,

"The main prop upon which the advocates of purgatorial punishment rely is derived from the conduct of Judas Maccabeus, after his victory over Gorgias, the governor of Idumea. Having put the enemy to flight, he is reported to have visited the field of battle in order to superintend the burial of those who had fallen in the fight."

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Now, under the coats of every one who was slain, they found things consecrated to the idols of the Jamnites, which is forbidden to the Jews by their law. Then every man saw that this was the cause wherefore they were slain. All men, therefore, praising the Lord, the righteous judge, who had opened the things which were hid, betook themselves unto prayer, and besought him [the Lord] that the sin committed might be wholly put out of remembrance."

"Besides that, noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin, forasmuch as they saw before their eyes the things which came to pass for the sins of those who were slain. And when he had made a gathering throughout the company to the sum of two thousand drachmas of silver (perhaps the silver drachma was worth 63d. or 73d.), he sent it to Jerusalem to offer a sin offering, doing therein very well and honestly, in that he was mindful of the resurrection; for if he had not hoped that they who were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead; and also in that he perceived that there was great favour laid up for those who died godly."-2nd Mac. xii. 32-46.

"The above being the only passage in any writing, anterior to the Christian era, which is now commonly adduced in proof of the tenets under consideration, it may reasonably be inferred that the Old Testament writers knew nothing of their existence. Did they afford any indication of them, the passages formerly alleged would not have been so generally given up, but we should still have been referred to them as we are referred to the Scriptures of the New Testament, in which certain allusions and expressions are presumed to establish their truth."-p. 249. Elliott, &c.

I have made these extracts from a work of great merit-Elliott's Delineation of Romanism, A.D. 1844, edited by Rev. John S. Stamp. The editor has made most important additions to the original text, from the most approved authorities. Every divinity student should have a copy of this work. I will make another quotation from this work on the subject of the Apocrypha :

"From this it appears that during the first four centuries, the Jewish canon (Kavov) alone was received in Christendom. The decision of the Council of Laodicea was received by the universal church. But the Council of Carthage, in Africa, in A.D. 397, decided only for themselves; and, besides, they wished to consult churches in other countries on this

subject. And when, in A.D. 418, a Roman Council took in the Apocrypha, they were so far from deciding absolutely on this subject, that they thought proper to confer with the churches of Italy. In brief, it