moral sentiments-more especially the higher, and most of all of those which constitute godliness-that they communicate happiness. This has been so often proved by divines and moralists-agrees so thoroughly with our own consciousness whenever we have reason (but, alas, how seldom is this the case!) to believe that the motive of any of our actions for the good of men and the glory of God is, on the whole, pure and single, and is so thoroughly rational in itself, as not to require here any special evidence of its truth. Granting, then, that godliness is happiness, how exalted, on the Christian supposition, must be the bliss of the true believer when, having regained in grace this lost image and likeness of the living God, however dimly and imperfectly it may have been outlined on earth, he finds it perfected in glory, and with his WHOLE being-a body in resurrection grandeur, likened to the body of his Lord—an understanding irradiated in all its powers with the light of the Spirit of "God, the only wise "-and, above all, with a moral and a spiritual nature assimilated to the Divine-he enjoys the everlasting and the glorious presence of that God who shall then be all and in all, ruling, pervading, animating, inspiring, and actuating all things."

It is no wonder, on this supposition, that "these are the things which the angels desire to look into;" and that redemption is the theme, as told in the Apocalypse, of the new song-for ever new, because exhaustless-in heaven; since that redemption has a bearing, in some way or other, on all things and beings, from the very first to the very last, in all this lost but ransomed world,

as either affecting or affected by man and man's Redeemer.

There is a solemn and sublime simplicity in the Scriptural account of man's creation which affords a remarkable contrast to the wild and fantastic legends of heathen mythology. Nothing can be more grotesque and extravagant than the origin assigned to mankind by all the nations of antiquity except the Hebrews. Gods are described as beings "who have their heads cut off, or devour their children, or undergo marvellous transformations, or marry their mothers, or are fished up out of the sea by fishermen, or are otherwise set before us in ludicrous aspects, which take away all solemnity and seriousness from the narrative. How different from this is the simple and awful grandeur of Genesis! What a deep and solemn earnestness meets us in the very first words! What sustained seriousness do we find throughout! How evident that we stand on holy ground in the hands of a writer who does not dare to jest or sport with things divine! who is no fanciful allegorizer, weaving quaint fables to delight as he instructs, but one, who speaks as in the presence of God, with a simple, reverent solemnity incompatible with any conscious departure from literal truth." ("Aids to Faith," p. 275.)

The writer here quoted gives the following example, and it is only one out of many of the legends alluded to:

"In the beginning all was darkness and water, and therein were generated monstrous animals of strange and peculiar forms. There were men with two wings, and others even with four, and with two faces; and

others with two heads, a man's and a woman's, in one body; and there were men with the heads and horns of goats, and men with hoofs like horses, and some with the upper parts of a man joined to the lower parts of a horse, like centaurs; and there were bulls with human heads, dogs with four bodies and with fishes' tails, men and horses with dogs' heads, &c., &c., &c. Belus then commanded one of the gods to cut off his head, and to mix the blood with earth to form men and beasts. How different this from the majestic simplicity of Scripture, And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.'"

Such are a few of the arguments to prove, independently of Scripture, the credibility of the doctrine that man was made in the Divine image; but they will derive additional weight from the proofs (to be considered hereafter) of the Fall, since it is clear that whatever proves the Fall, must prove that there was something to fall from, and therefore a previous state of virtue and happiness.

III. The antiquity and the origin of the human species lead us naturally to consider, in the next place, its unity. Scripture informs us that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men" (Acts xvii. 26); and it seems to be quite clear that the conclusion which the great majority of the highest scientific authorities have come to on this point agrees with the testimony of revelation. We can quote upon the orthodox side of the question the illustrious names of Humboldt, Cuvier,

Müller (the German naturalist), Pritchard, Owen, Max Müller (the philologist), Hugh Miller (the geologist), and a variety of writers of less note on the natural history of man, including some who have written on the subject since the publication of the ablest and most recent works on the opposite side of the controversy. †

But admitting that all the tribes of men are but forms of a single species; admitting, too, that they have descended from a single pair; what bodily configuration and character, it may be asked, constituted the primitive type of mankind? This is a question to which science, it has been said on high authority, can give no satisfactory reply; and though Scripture is wholly silent upon the subject, we may yet presume, in accordance with its own statements respecting the dignity of man's origin, that that type was the noblest, or what is generally called the "Caucasian."

IV. The next point in connexion with the earliest condition of our race, regards its birthplace; and could that be clearly ascertained, what a profound and peculiar interest would attach to the locality! Man has been regarded as

"The glory, jest, and riddle of the world;"

but, whatever he is, no human being, we might suppose,

* We are far from being convinced that more recent authorities have shown that the foregoing are of no value.

+ The reader will find a brief, popular, and, we think, a very convincing argument, to prove, not only that man is the only species of the genus "Homo," but that all races and diversities of

E

could look with indifference on the spot in which the first of his kind came into existence. It is not without

mankind are really derived from a single pair, in an article on the Natural History of Man, in "Essays on Scientific and other Subjects," by Sir Henry Holland. See also "Scientific Theories on the Origin of Man," No. III. The unity and specific individuality of the human race are ably advocated by Dr. Pritchard, in his great work, "Researches into the Physical History of Mankind." This remarkable work is now scarce, but by no means out of date. We confess that we do not ourselves think it has yet been answered; and Dr. Pritchard's opinions are still held, we believe, by many, if not most, of the more eminent anthropologists of the age. The theory of transmutation makes, we think, too little of the vast difference between men and apes; while the theory of more than one origin for the human race makes too much of the differences between men and men. The exigencies of either theory appear to militate against those of the other; and facts would seem to be equally strained, though in opposite directions, in order to meet them. The author of a recent work, edited by Reginald Stuart Poole, on "The Genesis of Earth and of Man," having come decidedly, but, we cannot help thinking, prematurely, to the conclusion, not only that the human race is vastly more ancient than is generally supposed, but also that it has descended from more than one pair, endeavours to reconcile both positions with Scripture by contending that it refers to Adamite and preAdamite races. His object is to reconcile Revelation with what he considers as proved facts. "If," he says, "we find any inconsistency between what we certainly know of the works of God, and what we conceive to be the meaning of His Word, we may be sure that we have not rightly understood the latter; and we have not sufficiently emancipated our minds, if we cannot accept the revelations of science, and use them to explain obscurities and ambiguities in the Bible."

But do we "certainly know" that the age of man is utterly inconsistent with such an enlargement of our received chronology