mote part of the assembly, a deep, hollow voice saying, 'Beware!"

"The priest approached the altar, held the volume over the flames, and uttered the curse. What it was we heard not distinctly, for each word was lost in loud volleys of applause, which the priests began and the vast multitude repeated. But as he held it in his grasp, and was uttering his low maledictions over it, we saw the book becoming radiant with a strange lustre, brightening at every word, as if it were uttering a silent protest, and giving the lie in light to the syllables of insult. And when he ceased there was silence, and he was about to drop the book into the burning when a voice is heard saying, not now in a whisper, but as in ten thunders, Beware!' And, turning round, we saw, speeding from the mountainboundary of the plain, the figure of a man-his eyes shining like the sun, his hair streaming behind him, his right hand stretched out before. And as the multitude open, by their trembling and falling to the ground, a thousand ways before him, and as the old priest stiffens into stone and holds the book as a statue might hold it, and as the priests around sink over the altar into the flames, and the winged creatures fly, he approaches, ascends, takes the book, and, looking up to heaven and around to earth, exclaims, The Word of the Lord, the Word of the Lord endureth for ever!' And, lo! the altar seemed to shape itself into a throne, and the man sat upon it, and the judgment was set, and the books were opened.' And we awoke, and, behold, it was, and yet was not, a dream."

The present times present a moral phenomenon which may well rivet the attention of the thinking portion of mankind. Never was scepticism more rampant, yet never was there an age in which the Bible was less likely to be forgotten. It is not merely that its unequalled literary power secures its vitality, but that over it, as a professed revelation from God, there has begun a keen, hotly-contested fight, closing every day into deadlier earnestness, and which, at no very distant period, promises to be finally decided. That the Bible is to go down, we believe as impossible as it were shocking; but that there is a deep danger before it, a partial eclipse awaiting it, a "rock ahead," we are firmly persuaded. First of all, there is the spread of scepticism, which has now fairly become an agetendency a world-wide, calm, aud steady current-a tide advancing upon

young and old, wise and foolish, vicious and moral, high and low. It has been found of late in strange places, even in the sanctuary of God. Witness Foster and Arnold-men of great talents, of ardent religious feelings, representing thousands-and who both died, torn and bleeding, in the breakers of doubt. The effects of this abounding scepticism are most pernicious. It has made the rash and inconsiderate abandon churches and openly avow their unbelief; it has driven one species of the timid into the arms of implicit faith, and another into a shallow hypocrisy; while meantime the bigotry of some is hardening, and others are striving to forget their doubts amid the clatter of mechanical activities in the cause of religion. "But on still the dark tide is flowing, and alas! gaining ground. One is reminded of a splendid drawing-room, in a room adjoining to which a secret murder has been newly committed. Brilliant is the scene, gay are the lights, beautiful the countenances, soft the music-a wall of mirrors is reflecting the various joy; but below the feet of the company there is slowly stealing along the silent blood, biding its time, and too secure of producing, to hasten the terrible effects of its discovery.”

But

But how to meet or counteract this wide current? Some say, "Let alone; there was a similar tide in the days of the French Revolution-it passed away, and so it may be again." the movement now is quieter, deeperaltogether irrespective of politics, and partly of morals. And though we were willing to let it alone, it will not let us. Its consequences, in the language of Burke, are "about us, they are upon us, they shake public security, they menace private enjoyment. When we travel, they stop our way. They infest us in town, they pursue us to the country." Efforts, indeed, to check it are numerous. Lectures and essays on the Evidences--Associations and Convocations, and many other ways, have been tried or are trying, but still the dark tide is rising. Others continue to trust implicitly in old forms of faith and old shapes of agency, provided the first be made still more stringently orthodox, and the second be intensified in energy and zeal. But too often these agents gain a partial and mean triumph by dogmatising down, instead of meeting fairly and

kindly, the doubts that encounter them; and while they are breaking in upon the ignorant gloom of the masses at home or abroad, behind, with sure, noiseless footstep, the illuminated darkness of this twilight age is following in their track.

"Our agencies," says

Mr. Gilfillan," are excellent, but imperfect; our creeds excellent, but with something wrong in all of them. And till these imperfections be remedied, we calmly, yet fearlessly, expect the following phenomena-an increasing indifference to forms of faith; a yearly increase of deserters from churches and public worship; the increase, too, among a class of a fashionable, formal, and heartless devotion; the spread, on the one hand, of Popery and superstition, and of fanaticism and bigotry on the other, which shall each react into doubt by its very violence; the increase of determination and unity among philosophical sceptics continued, and fierce assaults on the bulwarks of the Bible from without-feebler and forbler resistance from within; a growing impatience and fury on the subject in the general mind; all the signs, in short, that the Book, as a religious authority, is tottering like an old crown, and must be supported from within or without, from around or from above."

The cause of all this woful uncertainty is, that the two revelations of the Deity appear to clash. God has revealed himself to mankind not only in his word but also in his works; and even the sincerest Christian must allow that there is "a greater strength and quantity of evidence for God's works in nature, than for the Scriptures that the Bible cannot be equalled, in point of vastness and variety, to the universe." Nature cannot lie, neither can the Bible-but their interpreters may err. A century ago, Hume seduced many into unbelief by declaring the Scripture miracles impossible; but now many are falling away from the faith, because they think they can explain these miracles upon merely natural principles. Here is a total revolution in scepticism and natural philosophy in a single century. What should it teach us but humility?—to remember that now we "see as in a glass darkly," and in this spiritual crisis of humanity to beware of presuming too much on what we call philosophy. The great problem of the present time

is, to have our intellectual progress reconciled with Christianity; and this not only by such an elaborate system as Coleridge died in building, but also by "a living synthesis-a breathing bridge-the new Chalmers of the new time, forming in himself the herald of the mightier one, whose sandals even he shall be unworthy to unloose." This is a task similar to what St. Paul accomplished of old, when he reconciled the intellectual spirit of his day with the nascent system of Christianity; and "this is what the wiser of Christians, and the more devout of philosophers, are at present longing and panting to see."

The truth the Bible teaches is not indeed the absolute, abstract, entire truth; but it is (in our judgment, and as it shall yet be more fully understood) the most clear, succinct, consistent, broad, and practical representation of the truth which has ever fallen, or which in this world ever will fall, upon the fantastic mirror of the human heart, or of nature, and which from both has compelled the most faithful and enduring image. As the highest word ever spoken to man, it is entitled to command our belief, and comes over the world, not as a suppliant, but as a sovereign ruling our earthly night, "until the day dawn, and the daystar arise in our hearts." And yet this most precious Book, the sole hope of mankind for the future-the sole comfort of mothers mourning for their dead babes, brothers for sisters, friend for friendnow confessedly, "as a religious authority, is tottering like an old crown." It is the very tale of the Jewish temple before the advent of Christ. It had fallen into comparative contempt; the Shekinah had departed from it; it was under an enemy's hand; it was not only forsaken of many men, but God's fire was burning low upon the altar, and not a few voices were heard saying, "Raze, raze it to the foundation." Its young worshippers seem generally to have forsaken it; and in the doctrines of the Sadducees, we find an exact anticipation and parallel to the rampant Materialism of the present day. But the old disciples, the Simeons and Annas, and the middle class of men and women, were to be found faithfully worshipping. They still believed in its former divine consecration and present connexion with heaven; and two events, by-and-by, convinced

the land and the world that their belief had been sound. The first of these was the rise of the Baptist. He came in haste, to announce the approach of the mightier than he. He roused the whole land by his startling words. "And while he was yet speaking," the Master appeared. "But," says Mr. Gilfillan, have the words, Behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord,' been exhausted by his coming? Was the day he introduced a dreadful day?' Must there not be a reference in the prophecy to events still future? We, for our parts, expect the Master to be again preceded by a forerunner. His work, like the Baptist's, may be partly conservative and partly destructive.

Down with all that oppresses the genuine spirit of Christianity, and impedes its free motions,' shall be one of his cries. But hold to the Book with a death's grasp, till the Master come to explain, supplement, glorify it anew,' shall be another. And a third, and loudest, shall be, He is behind me; the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'”

"The full amount of impression such cries may produce, we cannot tell. Rouse many they must; check many they may; fan the flame of hope in the hearts of many drooping believers they will. But they will not, nor are meant to stop the progress of the mist of darkness, gathering on to that gloomiest hour which is to precede the dawning of the great day-an hour in which the Word of God may seem a waning moon, trembling on extinction, and in which every Christian heart shall be trembling too. There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory.'

"'Tis a remarkable saying which follows: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.' It is as if the Saviour anticipated the crisis which was before his words.' They are in danger of passing away-nay, they are passing awaywhen He comes down and says, 'No, heaven and earth must pass away first, must pass away instead;' and they are straightway changed, and his warning words catch new light and fire from his

face, and shine more brightly than before. It is as it were a struggle between His works and His words, in which the latter are victorious.

"We are fast approaching the position of the Grecians on the plains of Troy. Our enemies are pressing us hard on the field, or from the Ida of the ideal philosophy throwing out incessant volleys. There are disunion, distrust, disaffection, among ourselves. Our standard still floats intact, but our standardbearers are fainting. Meanwhile our Achilles is retired from us. But just as when the Grecian distress deepened to the darkest; when Patroclus, the 'forerunner' had fallen; when men and gods had driven them to the very verge of the sea; Achilles knew his time was come, started up, sent before him his terrible voice, and his more terrible eye, and turned straightway the tide of battle; so do we expect that our increasing danger and multiplying foes, that the thousandfold night that seems rushing upon us, is a token that aid is coming, and that our Achilles shall no more be silent, but speak out '_shall lift his

Bow, his thunder, his almighty arms''shall take unto him his great power, and reign.' And even as Cromwell, when he saw the sun rising through the mist on the field of Dunbar, with the instinct of genius, caught the moment, pointed to it with his sword, and cried,

Arise, O God! and let thine enemies be scattered,' and led his men to victory, let us accept the same omen, and breathe the same prayer.

It

"Nor does it derogate from the Bible to say, that it must receive aid from on high, to enable it to stand in the evil day, and having done all to stand.' has nobly discharged its work; it has kept its post, and will, though with difficulty, keep it, till the great reserve, long promised and always expected, shall arrive. It was no derogation to the old economy to say that it yielded to the new Shekinah; it had accomplished its task in keeping the fire burning, although burning low, till the dayspring appeared; nor is it a derogation to the New Testament to say, that it has carried, like a torch in the wind, a hope, two thousand years old, till it now seems about to be lost in the light of a brighter dispensation.

And while the hope is to be lost in its fruition, what is to be the fate of the volume which so long sustained it? What has been the fate of the Old Testament? Has it not retained its reverence and power? Is it not every day increasing in clearness? Has not the

New Testament reflected much of its own radiance upon it? Do they not lie lovingly, and side by side, in the same volume? And why should not the new book of the laws and revelations of the Prince of the kings of the earth (if such a book there were) form a third, and complete the threefold cord which is not easily broken ?' And would not both the New and the Old Testament derive glorious illustration from the influences and illuminations of the millennial day?"

From the specimens which we have now given, our readers will be able to appreciate the great talents which Croly and Gilfillan have brought to bear on their several tasks-tasks differing greatly, yet uniting in the noble aim of glorifying, directly or indirectly, the Book of God's revelation. We hold that Mr. Gilfillan's work is a national benefit. We know no book more fitted to stablish the Bible on its proper grounds, and to comfort that class of sceptics, of all others most deserving of our sympathy and our efforts; those, namely, whose heart and predilections are in favour of the august volume, yet in whom intellect is ever suggesting doubts, and plunging them into the cold, shivering depths of unbelief or despair. Yet not a word of controversial writing disfigures his pages. No appeals are made to his readers to turn lovingly to the Sacred Volume; yet they come to do so insensibly. They are won by the warm-heartedness of the writer, and by his broad and truly Christian spirit of tolerance and concession. Oh, bow different from cold-blooded latitudinarianism! Teach men to love, he says, and they will soon understand-a wise maxim, which the Church militant would do well ever to bear in

Dr. Croly's "Scenes from Scripture" are followed by a collection of miscellaneous poetry, containing the "Dream of Mahomet II.," and other good pieces. For the sake of unity, however, we have omitted criticising this latter and subordinate part of the volume, and devoted our attention exclusively to his poetry in relation to the Bible. We close our review by quoting a sweet little piece addressed to the "Evening Star;" that brightest and loveliest of the host of heaven. A contemplative, half-melancholy spirit pervades it. Gazing upwards from the dark earth, where there is a night for the heart as well as for the eye, the Poet beholds that bright, sweet starthat

"Hesperus, that bringeth all good things"—

and his heart flows forth to ask it of that happy Spirit Home, which his soul whispers is up in that blue starry ether, and which Fancy dreams the Planet is now beholding, it looks so joyful in its radiance:

"Tell us, thou glorious STAR of Eve!
What sees thine eye?—
Wherever human hearts can heave,
Man's misery!

Life but a weary chain-
Manhood, weak, wild, and vain—
Age, but a lingering pain,
Longing to die!

"Tell us, thou glorious STAR of Eve!
Sees not thine eye

Some spot where hearts no longer heave
In thine own sky?

Where all life's dreams are o'er,
Where bosoms bleed no more,
Where injured spirits soar,

Never to die ?"