do not find ourselves dealing with Scripture, as a solitary subject of speculation. On the contrary, we find ourselves standing, as it were, face to face, in the presence of a great objective reality, the Christian Church. In its action and its developments it meets our very senses. We cannot ignore its existence, we cannot shut our eyes to its characteristics and attributes. It is ancient, powerful, wide-spread. The noblest and purest hearts, the most vigorous and the most gifted intellects of our race have yielded it a willing and grateful allegiance. We inquire, then, into the cause, the origin, the purposes of this great Institution. She offers us in explanation a Book, which she cherishes with reverential care as her charter, her code, and, to a great extent, her history. She testifies of this Book that she received it from God by the instrumentality of Apostles and Prophets. We have, then, first, the weighty presumption in its favor derived from her testimony, and guided by this we inquire further into the evidences on which the Church Herself has received this Her sacred volume. We ascertain that this Book contains a record of prophecies and miracles. There is Historical testimony to these as to other Historical facts, that the miracles were actually wrought, that the prophecies were uttered before the occurrence of the event's predicted, and were strictly fulfilled when they occurred. The truth of the Book is thus established on Historical grounds, and that truth carries with it by inevitable inference, the plenary Inspiration of Scripture. For this is the very character it claims. It expressly avers that all Scripture is given by Inspiration. The Divine origin and the plenary Inspiration of the volume then stand or fall together, and the former being sustained so far as logical tests are applied, the latter too stands proved. We then begin, (of course we do not speak now of the order of time, but of the order of thought,) we begin, then, to study the contents of Scripture, and we there find the evidence on which Mr. M. solely relies-the evidence of Intuition. We find a remarkable correspondence between the teachings of Scripture, and the experience of our hearts, and the necessary convictions of our minds. We find the enunciation of moral and spiritual verities which address themselves immediately to our higher consciousness, and meet an instantaneous response from it. These truths bring their own testimony with them, and we find that just in proportion to the purity, calmness, and exaltation of our own spiritual state, are the certainty and the force of these truths. Thus the whole man is appealed to, and the whole man subdued. "Thus we are con

vinced of all, we are judged of all, and thus are the secrets of our hearts made manifest." But is the existence of this last kind of evidence, any discovery of Mr. Morell, or of his school? By no means. They disguise it under new names, but it is an ancient and most valued possession of the Church. It is that to which St. Paul alludes when he says, 66 The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, (that is, the purely Divine element in the Gospel,) for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." This it is to which Christians refer, when they speak of the witness of the spirit, of the inward light, of the testimony of the heart and the like. This a Peasant may have, and a Philosopher be destitute of.

Before we conclude our notice of this important work, we will give ourselves the pleasure, and our readers the benefit of an extract from a fine passage in the chapter "on the significancy of the Past," that passage conveying important truth, and at the same time a favorable specimen of our author's clear conception and lucid exposition of a subject. He is speaking of the process by which the Individualism of each of the inspired writers appears in his manner of setting forth Divine Truth:

"Each of those inspired minds," says he, "although they received the truth by direct Intuitions granted from above, yet grasped it, and taught it, through the medium of their own individuality. Christianity, though in itself a perfect unity, yet was regarded even by them from different points of view. The mind of Paul, for example, was strictly of the severe and logical order; it ever tended to definitions, to distinctive statements, to logical argumentation, and though we should hardly say that in His Epistles, Christianity assumes the complete aspect of a formal and systematic Theology, yet the path at least was opened to it, and that peculiar method. of thinking exhibited, from which such a Theology was sure sooner or later to result. The writings of John are of a totally different cast. There we see the Intuitional element preponderating over the logical, the religious life brought into more direct prominence than theological lore. In James again we see the purely practical side of Christianity. The first says, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.' The second says, 'He that loveth is born of God.' The third affirms that pure and undefiled religion before God, even the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their afflictions, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.''

This quotation reminds us of one characteristic of inspiration, which we have not heretofore adverted to, but which needs always to be borne in mind by the intelligent student of Scripture. That is, that though in substance revelation is a message from God, yet it comes to us through the channels of human minds, and consequently tinged by their peculiarities. The mechanical theory, as Mr. M. calls it, by which God is supposed to have dictated each word, leaving nothing to be done by the mind, memory, or affections of the writer, as if He had spoken by a trumpet instead of a man, this theory is as decidedly opposed to our principles as to those of Mr. Morell, and indeed can be received by none, we should suppose, but very ignorant or thoughtless persons. On the whole, we take our leave of Mr. Morell with a high respect for his abilities, and his spirit, with a strong sense of the value of many particular truths he has taught, but with a profound distrust of the principles of his "Philosophy of Religion," and with serious apprehensions of their at least partial prevalency, and of their pernicious consequences.

LAYARD'S REMAINS OF NINEVEH. r. Chasin

ART. VII.-Nineveh and its Remains; with an account of a visit to the Chaldean Christians of Kurdistan, and the Yezidis, or devil-worshipers; and an inquiry into the manners and arts of the ancient Assyrians. By AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD, Esq., D. C. L. 2 vols. 8vo. 1849.

Two thousand and five hundred years ago, there stood upon the river Tigris an exceeding great and mighty city, which was, according to the testimony of the ancients, eighteen miles in length and twelve in breadth, or sixty miles in circumference, surrounded by a wall one hundred feet in height, so broad on the top that three chariots might be driven abreast, guarded by fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet high; containing, in the time of the prophet Jonah, (cir. B. C. 850,) one hundred and twenty thousand persons "who could not distinguish their right hand from their left;" by which is understood young children, thus giving a population of near a million of souls. After the transient repentance of the Ninevites, upon the preaching of Jonah, they relapsed into their former wickedness, and something more than a century later, (cir. B. C. 710,) Nahum denounced the anger of GoD against the people, foretelling the terrific calamities that should come upon them. A century more rolled on, and the fearful words of the Prophet became fiery realities,—the Assyrian falling a prey to the combined forces of Cyaxares of Persia, and Nabopolassar of Babylon, about B. C. 606. So complete was the destruction of the city, that about two hundred years later, when Xenophon with his ten thousand Greeks passed over the place where Nineveh once stood, he heard nothing of it; even the name of the mighty one had been forgotten, and for more than two thousand years the site of that wonderful city has been unknown. So complete and thorough had been the annihilation, that the few fragments which the ancients had left us in regard to its history and magnificence, have been regarded by moderns as more of fiction or fable than as sober history. But thanks to the untiring energy, the unquenchable zeal, and, above all, the special Providences attending the researches of Mr. Layard, Nineveh is again before the world. Its temples and palaces, with all their gorgeous adornings, have been laid open to the sun, and

we may now look upon the Assyrian, as, three thousand years ago, he pursued the enemy, or followed the chase, or bowed down in the temple of his god.

Our readers will no doubt feel a desire to know to whom we are indebted for these interesting discoveries, what are the circumstances that led to the investigation,-how the obstacles that must necessarily stand in the way of such an undertaking were surmounted, and how the effort was brought to so successful a termination. We are sorry that we are unable to satisfy their curiosity or our own upon some of these points, the personal history of the man being very slightly known to us, except as it is portrayed in the volumes before

us.

Mr. Layard is grandson of the Dean of Bristol of that name, who distinguished himself, several years since, in the University of Oxford. He has been long resident in the East,visiting Asia Minor, Syria, and Ancient Assyria,-learning the language of the Orientals,-studying their manners and customs,-imitating their habits of living and traveling, until he seems to have acquired such perfect mastery of the oriental character, as to be able to command the Chaldee and the Arab, the Musselman and Yezidee, rendering all subservient to his wants and wishes. Prompt and energetic, fearless but just, he won by his mildness, or awed by his boldness, as the occasion or the circumstances seemed to require. As a book of travels, the work of our author holds a place among the very best. The story is told in a simple, unambitious, but in a most intensely interesting manner, carrying the reader along with him, causing him to see what the writer saw, and as the writer saw it, making the reader sympathize with the writer in all his troubles and perplexities, or rejoice with him in some unexpected deliverance from impending danger. Indeed, we do not wonder at the seeming awe and veneration with which the natives looked upon Mr. Layard, nor can we fail to see in the circumstances of the narrative, evidence of a special Superintending Providence, leading him on to the important results which must flow from his labors. And yet all is told with such unassuming modesty, that details, which might ordinarily prove only the ambition of the writer, become in the work in question, a guaranty of the entire trustworthiness of the narrative. We might illustrate these remarks by numerous extracts, would our pages admit, but at present we must reserve all the space we can give the subject for more important points connected with the history and results of his labors.

Although the site of Nineveh has long been unknown, tra