the true primitive faith, which at a very early period were unquestionably abroad in the world.

If we might give anything like a settled shape to this want, it was that of a desire to be at peace with God. The world felt that the great power or powers who ruled the universe were unfriendly; and that it was completely at the mercy of an enemy. But how to make this enemy their friend they knew not, except through the dim and uncertain medium of tradition. Yet in the shapelessness and inconsistencies of their creed we may trace a recognition of the great doctrine of vicarious sacrifice. They knew-all the nations of antiquity without exception—that without shedding of blood there was no remission, and they immolated consequently, not their cattle only, but their sons and daughters, measuring the value of their sacrifices in God's sight, by the costliness with reference to themselves, Here again we find Deism put to the rout, by the poor unenlightened nations of antiquity, savage no less than civilized. To the pure Deist (as he styles himself,) the offering of blood is an abomination from which he turns away with the contemptuous remark that Nature never taught it. Yet doubtless it prevailed throughout the world, as evidenced in the temples, the sculptures, the statues, the paintings, the still-standing altars of our heathen progenitors in all quarters of the globe. And what inference can we deduce from this fact, but that the Bible, radiating some portion of its light through the misty atmosphere of a world lying in wickedness, left there some traces of revealed truth-disfigured and disjointed, and exaggerated more or less by the media through which they passed, or the characteristics of the people, on whom they lighted. Allowing this, we allow the superlative antiquity of the Bible, and thus disarm the Deist of his foolish and sinful plea, that Scripture is an invention of comparatively recent time.

Besides this notion of vicarious sacrifice, there seems to have been an anxious looking for some Coming Teacher-some wise, great, powerful legislator and intercessor, through whom mankind were to receive such an insight into the things of God, his pleasure and his purposes, as they had never possessed beforesome being, through whom a new and living way might be consecrated into the holiest of all-a mediator-an advocate a

daysman-who laying hold on humanity with one hand, was to seize on that within the veil with the other, and thus bring together God and his hitherto alienated creatures. In one word, they looked for a Sacrifice, and a Teacher as the great desiderata of their several religious systems-a sacrifice to place them on the vantage ground of acceptability, a teacher to enable them to improve this privilege, by knowing and serving God in a way of his own choosing.

It would thus seem that the world was ripe for those very plans, which God in his wisdom was prepared to unfold. And this brings us to the third part of our subject.

III. That the goodness and love of God being granted, it is but reasonable to suppose he would meet this want, by such further acts and revelations as were needed.

In matters of religion we are not over ready to deal with the conclusions or inferences of Reason. But there exists a large class of cavillers who must be fought with their own weapons. The Deist must weigh everything by Reason, though Reason herself, when weighed in the Balance of Revlation, is often found wanting. But here we join issue with him—the goodness. and love of God being his favorite topics, the very principles, in fact, with which he sets out in his ill-advised and ill-concerted warfare with the Bible.

We have therefore endeavoured to shew the existence of a Great Want, and are shut up to the necessity, in order to make out the Deist's own argument-of showing that a Great Grant was a priori probable-inasmuch as the character of God himself required to be vindicated by it. Hence we find the whole world expectant upon this point, contriving in the absence of the True Bible, an Apocryphal Version of their own. For the World has always had its Bible, as well as the Church-mutilated, distorted, imperfect, but still retaining such traces of its original, as to shew that in the heathen, as in the Christian mind, this want took a direction towards sacrifice, mediation, and enlightenment.

Now this is just the shape in which the Scriptures meet it. All that every age and every people has desired, with an importunity whose vehemence is traceable in the religious monuments still extant, stupendous, majestic, overwhelming by

their costliness and grandeur, is granted in this one grant of Jesus. For he is made of God unto us Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption. Thanks, then, a thousand thanks, to God for his unspeakable gift!

Is there a lesser want involved in this absorbing want of peace with God, that he has not met and satisfied?

Wisdom to know the Way, to know himself, to know ourselves, to bring our souls into the light and warmth of his blessed teaching, and to grow wiser than our enemies, our arch Enemy not excepted, wiser than our teachers, wiser than the ancients, because we learn of him in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily! Wisdom to light up and glorify all other knowledge; and yet so to pale its lesser fires, that we may count it but dung and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord.

Righteousness! Is this, too, shut up in Christ? "All the multitude of our sacrifices, our rites, our bodily service, our bitter penances"❞—cries out all heathendom—“have been for this. How could we stand before him, how could we hold communion with him, how could we place ourselves upon the platform of prayer itself, without a covering from his awful presence? We heard his voice—we were afraid—we hid ourselves amongst our groves and in the awful fanes of our high places, for we feared the thrilling call again, “Who told thee that thou wast naked? We knew it: but that Thou, our God, shouldst know it too, was full of awe, of misery, of death!"

Such was the earnest and unmistakable language of the world. But now these terrors have no power to harm. Clothed in the perfection of our Saviour's righteousness-regarded in Him in whom the Father is always well pleased, we have no fear, though registered as wretched, and poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked, (Rev. 17.) He has provided for us "white raiment that we may be clothed, and that the shame of our nakedness do not appear."

Sanctification! Yes, God has provided, not only that we should stand justified and acquitted in his sight; but that we should henceforth live not unto ourselves but unto him-that we should be the subjects of a holiness that can bear his searching eye-a holiness borrowed from his own-made ours by the

constant and copious and unmeasured renewings of the Holy Ghost-a goodness ever-flowing from the fountain of all goodness, through the new and living way consecrated for us by the blood of Jesus!

And lest we should lack anything, he has bought us back again, body, soul and spirit, by the one offering made on Calvary. Redemption is the crown-the crisis of Christ's mediatorial work. Can we want-can we conceive of-anything beyond this? Redeemed-re-purchased unto God's family-reinstated in all we lost in Adam-restored again to the Paradise of God's favor, to the Eden of unfettered communion with the Father of our spirits-clothed and unabashed to see Him, face to face, to enter into the secret of his tabernacle, and to hear his voice calling to us from the excellent glory-not as it called to our fallen father, but in tones of love and mercy, "Fear not little flock, though you were naked, and conscious of your nakedness, I have made you meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, having delivered you from the power of darkness, and translated you into the kingdom of my dear son, in whom you have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of all your sins."-Col. i. 12, 13.

THE LONELY ROCK.

THREE summers ago I had a severe illness, and on recovering from it, my father took me for change of air, not to one of our pretty townish watering-places, but up to the very North of Scotland, to a place which he had himself delighted in when a boy, a lonely farm-house, standing on the shore of a rocky bay in one of the Orkneys.

My father is a Highlander, and though he has lived in England from his early yonth, he retains, not only a strong love for his own country, but a belief in its healthfulness; he is fond of indulging the fancy that scenery which the fathers have delighted in, will not strike on the senses of the children as something new and strange, but they will enter the hereditary region with a half-formed notion that they must have seen it before, and it will possess a soothing power over them which is better than familiarity itself.

I had often heard my father express this idea, but had neither understood nor believed in it. The listlessness of illness made me indifferent as to what became of me, and during our steam voyage I cared neither to move nor to look about me. But the result proved that my father was right. It was dark when we reached our destination, but I no sooner opened my eyes the next morning than a delightful home-feeling came over me; I could not look about me enough, and yet nothing was sufficiently unexpected to cause me the least surprise.

It was August, the finest part of the northern summer; and as I lay on pillows, looking out across the bay, I enjoyed that perfect quietude and peace so grateful to those who have lately suffered from the turmoil and restlessness of fever. I had imagined myself always surrounded by shifting, hurrying crowds, always oppressed by the gaze of unbidden guests; how complete and welcome was this change, this seclusion! No one but my father and the young servant whom we had brought with us, could speak a word that I understood, and I could fall asleep and wake again, quite secure from the slightest interruption.

By the first blush of dawn I used to wake up, and lie watching that quiet bay; there would be the shady crags, dark and rocky, lifting and stretching themselves as if to protect and embrace the water, which, perhaps, would be lying utterly still, or just lapping against them, and softly swaying to and fro the long banners of seaweed which floated out from them.

Or, perhaps, a thin mist would be hanging across the entrance of the bay, like a curtain drawn from cliff to cliff; presently this snowy curtain would turn of an amber color, and glow towards the centre; once I wondered if that sudden glow could be a ship on fire, and watched it in fear, but I soon saw the gigantic sun thrust himself up, so near as it seemed, that the furthest cliffs as they melted into the mist, appeared further off than he so near, that it was surprising to count the number of little fishing-boats that crossed between me and his great disc; still more surprising to watch how fast he receded, growing so refulgent that he dazzled my eyes, while the mist began to waver up and down, curl itself and roll away to sea, till on a sudden up sprang a little breeze, and the water, which had been