and wonderfully made!" Paley well observes, "The ejaculation can never too often be repeated. How many things must go right for us to be an hour at ease!-how many more for us to be vigorous and active! Yet vigour and activity are, in a vast plurality of instances, preserved in human bodies, notwithstanding that they depend upon so great a number of instruments of motion, and notwithstanding that the defect or disorder sometimes of a very small instrument, of a single pair, for instance, out of the four hundred and forty-six muscles which are employed, may be attended with grievous inconveniency."

The ant was formerly supposed to be held forth in the Book of Proverbs as a model on account of its parsimony; but, the observations of modern naturalists having rendered it tolerably certain that that insect is not in the habit of hoarding, a moral more in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel may now be elicited. "The moral intended in Solomon's allusion to the ant, (Prov. vi. 6.) is simply to avail one's self of the favourable time without delay. The description which follows, of the sluggard sleeping, evidently during the day, the proper season of activity, and of the consequences of his vice, agrees with this interpretation. The other passage, (Prov. xxx. 25.) probably by another writer, also considers the ant simply as the symbol of diligence.”

The following passage, from a recent publication, is, we think, deserving of the reader's consideration:

"What should Joshua want with the moon for daylight, to help him to rout the foes of God more fiercely? Why not, according to the astronomical ignorance of those days, let her sail away, unconsorted by the sun, far beyond the valley of Ajalon? There was a reason here of secret, unobtruded science: if the sun stopped, the moon must stop too; that is to say, both apparently: the fact being, that the earth must for the while rest on its axis. This, I say, is a latent scientific hint: and so

*Rev. J. F. Denham, in Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature. "Ant."

likewise is the accompanying mention as a fact, that the Lord immediately 'rained great stones out of heaven' upon the flying host. For, would it not be the case that, if the diurnal rotation of earth were suddenly to stop, the impetus of motion would avail to raise high into the air by centrifugal force, and fling down again by gravity such unanchored things as broken fragments of rock?"+

4. Science teaches the supremacy of the mind over the body, the superiority of intellectual operations to physical violence. The great conquerors, who for a time filled half the world with noise and confusion, have passed away, leaving little behind them but their names, to serve as chronological sign-posts on the road of time; but the discoveries of science are still present with us, the lasting trophies of the triumphs of mind, though, perhaps, the names of their first acquirers may be lost. The thoughtful man, whether he looks up to the sky or down on the earth, whether he gathers a flower or treads on a stone, is reminded of some of the utterances of the oracles of science. The conqueror may, indeed, by working on the hopes or fears of multitudes, induce them to follow him, and further the enterprizes which his ambition has sketched; but if a true love of humankind animated their breasts if they could behold the thousands of their own number who would be left to perish on the field, or to sink beneath the ravages of inclement seasons, hunger, and disease, while with cold eye their leader would count their corpses, calmly calculating how he might best supply their loss surely they would all, as one man, shrink back from unjust aggression, and leave the restless slave of ambition to weave in solitude his imaginary plans of selfish aggrandizement. But with the exploits of science it is far otherwise. The road to some new discovery is announced, and the world hastens to follow, drawn by an instinctive love of advantage.

Of the greatness of the soul, then, science gives abundant proof; but of +Tupper's Probabilities: an aid to Faith, p. 117.

its immortality she knows nothing by experiment. And to the intellectual inquirer, the uncertainty on this subject becomes more painful than to the mere sensual man. The latter places his chief delight in the gratification of his animal appetites; and having made himself like to irrational creatures in his life, he may perhaps be content if he can convince himself that he will be like tnem in his death. But with the contemplative man it is not so. He cannot but feel that the thirst of his soul has not been half slaked—that its powers are capable of a far greater development; even when in the full possession of his physical powers, there have been seasons when he has felt that his body was a clog and a hindrance to his more sublime aspirations;-is he, then, instead of being raised to a higher state, to be finally crushed into nothing instead of being lifted to a place amid those bright orbs on which he so loves to gaze, is he to be trodden into dust, and scattered to the winds?

"Who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity,

To perish rather swallowed up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night, Devoid of sense and motion ?"

Here, then, Christianity comes in to the aid of the humble enquirer : life and immortality are brought to light by the Gospel. The dark mountains of doubt which bound scientific inquiries are irradiated by the Sun of righteousness: faith invites us to try the difficult ascent, revealing to us a safe path, and assuring us that a sunny landscape lies on the other side. No representations given by science of the worth of the soul, can at all equal that which is contained in the fact, that God gave his only-begotten Son for its redemption.

And further, though we are forced to acknowledge that there is no necessary connexion between intellectual eminence and moral propriety, for there are too many sad examples to the contrary, yet we may conceive that to the enlightened mind the feeling of remorse and self-detestation on account of any departure from

rectitude, would be more keen than in one of less cultivation. "All around me," the man of science may say, "is harmony and obedience from the least to the greatest: as the blood circulates in my body, so flows the sap through the tree-the atmosphere has its ebb and flow, similar to that I observe in the ocean-the laws of gravitation are respected throughout the universe,—but in myself I find war and rebellion, my awakened conscience tells of sins done and duties

omitted; how then, is my peace of

mind to be restored?" Science can give no suitable relief in this emergency: for, she tells no way by which the stains of sin can be washed out, or the moral harmony of the offender restored. Here then comes in the Gospel with its voice of comfort: telling of atonement and pardon for the truly penitent, of healing and restoration for the broken in heart.

We may, "when free from cares, delight to know what is passing in the material heavens;" but when filled with sorrow for sin, when bowed down by affliction, then is it that we cast eager glances of apprehension or hope towards those spiritual heavens where the atoner and purifier dwells.

5. Science teaches its votaries to combine theory with practice. The time is now past when philosophers confined themselves to fabricating theories which experiment had not confirmed, and which could not be brought to bear upon the necessities of life. Science has descended from the clouds to move among men, and to scatter blessings as she goes. She is still, indeed, occupied in following the high but safe path of a farreaching analysis; but she stoops nevertheless to introduce many new comforts into our dwellings, to suggest greater facilities of intercourse, to remove numerous lesser inconveniences, and even to frame playthings for the child.

Let us learn from her example that Christianity too calls for more than a mental adhesion to its teachings: that religion is a practical thing which ought to pervade all the offices of life. Christianity, it is true, invites to contemplation-it summons the mind to dwell on the most exalted subjects, and re

among non-Episcopalians: it will, I apprehend, be impossible so to extend and diversify the Christian labours and influence of the latter, as to render them equal in power and efficiency on the spiritual welfare of the flock of Christ, with the similarly extended labours, and the peculiarly diversified influence of the former. He has not the same point of advantage, from which to act. He carries not with him, in the peculiar genius of his office, the same silent, but living and deep-felt power for good. This comparison is not intended to depreciate the blessed power of the able and holy man of God, in the office of such a minister; but to shew that it is simply impossible to clothe him with all the means for good, which invest the equally holy and able man of God in the office of a bishop. In his doctrine and in his teaching, in his example and in his active measures for the extension of true religion, there is a peculiarity of influence about such a bishop, to which no other minister of Christ can attain. It is, of course, a peculiarity which grows, not out of the man, but out of his office, and out of the adaptedness in which that office meets certain great and permanent susceptibilities in our common nature. Say what we will, we cannot take out of our nature the salutary feelings of deference and respect, with which it stands in the presence of just and fitting, and rightly constituted superiority of official rank; a superiority of rank, not so highas toinspire awe, and a painful sense of distance; nor yet depressed so nearly to the common grade, or to the idea of a mere gift from the people, as to breed familiarity, or generate contempt. In spite of theories, our nature dreads the monotony of an unbroken level. A beautiful and harmonious ascent of being and of orders marks all God's works in heaven and on earth; and it is impossible to extinguish the feelings, which spontaneously spring up in the manifested presence of this divine constitution of things. A pure Gospel, and the religion which it embodies, spread to the best advantage from such a bishop as I have described. He has the best opportunities for impressing the holy

character of Christ and his Gospel upon wide masses of men, and upon all the living institutes and permanencies of the Church. The point of influence, from which he acts, gives him the best means of "driving away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrines, contrary to God's Word." He is not so far off from his clergy and people but that he can see and measure error and its evils with his own eyes, and remove them by such means as are wisest and best; nor yet, so nearly on an equality with them in conceded authority and influence as to strip his discipline of its just power for effect. He is, I venture to affirm, the happiest instrumentality for religious good, which the Church has ever known, or the world ever felt. He concentrates confidence, veneration, love; he awakens respect, reverence, obedience; he promotes harmony, zeal, action; and he does all with a peculiarity of success to which, as I venture to suppose, no one, under other forms of the ministry, can attain; to which no one in the lower orders of an Episcopally constituted ministry itself can attain: which springs from the fact that there are lower orders in this ministry; and which, in truth, is partly but the power of those lower orders working upwards, and becoming manifest in the results of this benignly effective presidency.

The main objection to this view will, I suppose, be found in the allegation, that the office of a bishop has too much power, too strong attractions for the mere worldly heart in its love of authority and of official consideration; and that, therefore, bishops are more liable to become worldly in spirit and corrupt in doctrine, and consequently baleful in their influence on the cause of spiritual religion, than a ministry constituted on the basis of official parity. If the Episcopal office were indeed and intrinsically identified with the pomp and circumstance, the wealth and political power which, in some countries, have been associated with it, there would be weight in the objection. But such is not the case. These corrupting influences belong

not to the office itself, so much as to the circumstances with which worldly influence has surrounded the office. The love of power is innate, ineradicable, and, unless under the control of divine grace, inordinate. To the human heart office is nothing, but as it is a means for acquiring, or an instrument for exercising, the power which it loves. And even as such a means, or instrument, it is, perhaps, of less importance than many suppose. The main sources of power lie within a man; and when the spring is deep and copious, if it do not find, it will soon force a channel for its gushings. When the love of power is strong, if it do not meet, it will easily make, an office, into which it may vault and ride on high among the people. And when human ambition makes an office for itself, it is somewhat apt to make it higher than God, in his wisdom, has seen fit to ordain.* So far, then, as the theory of the Episcopal office is concerned, it may, perhaps, be said that where no due gradation in the ministry is established and conceded, the ambitions which lie deep in our nature, and the consequent difficulty of maintaining simple equality among masses of men of varying abilities and susceptibilities, will be more likely to engender strifes after superiority of place and power, than where such a gradation in the ministry is established and conceded, and where the very fixedness of institutions tends, as far as anything can tend, to generate a spirit of quiet submission and contentment of mind under the reign of lawful and acknowledged order.

The best illustration, both of the theory and of the working of the true Episcopacy may, perhaps, be gathered from the earliest ages of the church. What, then, was a bishop designed to be? What was he in the pristine

*I am willing that this should be applied to the causes which set in the church Archbishops, Patriarchs, and Popes. These, as I have shewn, are not naturally developed Episcopacy; they are man's aspirings, vaulting above primitive order: and, had that order been presbyterial, the leap upwards would have been quite as possible, and but little higher.

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days of his office? I answer, the most conspicuous follower of Christ, as well in poverty and sufferings as in the aboundings of his toils for the souls of men; the very front mark in the Christian army to the arrow of the destroyer and the sword of the persecutor. "Nolo Episcopari," "I desire not to be a bishop," was the utterance, not of a counterfeit or a false modesty, but of a human heart, speaking out of its deepest sensibilities, and meaning that, "if the Master would mercifully excuse His servant, he would prefer labouring in less observed and less perilous posts of duty." The Episcopal office was not sought by the worldly or the ambitious then; it could not be urged on any but those who were strained, by love for Christ and for the souls of men, to "count all things but loss," and to be counted as but the offscouring of all things." Then, the influence of the office was not corrupting but purifying. It drew, into that front ministry, none but the choicest of the fine gold; and it drew that gold thither but to refine it still more perfectly, as in a furnace of fire! Those days will never return; but the time may come-God send it soon-when the office of a bishop shall have nothing-(in our country [the United States,] it now has little indeed)—to attract the heart, but superior opportunities of doing good in the salvation of men, amid more abounding toils, privations, and hardships, endured from love to the dear Saviour of our souls, and to those for whom he so freely shed his own precious blood. The idea, wherever it prevails, that the dignity of this office must be maintained by surrounding it with the adventitious array of wealth and titles, seems like an imputation on the lowly Jesus, and to be born of a mere earthly conception of the dignity in view as if the works of Christ and the office of his chief ambassador did not shine brightest and most heavenly when seen, like the stars, at night; surrounded, if need be, by the darkness of poverty, and of a wicked world's frown! True, bishops need not court either poverty or persecution; neither should they ignobly