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1843, 18mo, 4th edit., 1847, 18mo; Plan of Temperance Organization for Cities; A Lecture on Drinking Usages; Discourses, Charges, Addresses, Pastoral Letters, etc., etc., Phila., 1858, 12mo. He contributed An Introductory Essay to Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, Phila., 1855, 8vo, published single sermons, and edited a number of works.

THE BIBLE AS A STUDY.

as they are unrivalled in dignity. It has reasoning for the logical understanding; it has pictures for the discursive imagination; it has heart-searching appeals for the intuitive powers of the soul. There is no duty omitted; there is no grace or enjoyment undervalued. It provides a sphere for every faculty, and even for every temperament and disposition. This many-toned voice uses now the logic of a Paul, and now the ethics of a James; here the boldness and fervour of a Peter, and there the gentleness and sublim

awful guilt and curse of sin, and points us to the only way of escape; while with another it expatiates on the unutterable love of God and the attractions of the Cross of Christ. The Bible is no formal, lifeless system of propositions and inferences and precepts. It is as rich in the variety and vivacity of its methods, as it is in the overflowing abundance of its materials. While it draws some to religion, through the ideal, and some through the real and demonstrable, it allures others by means of the affections and sensibilities, and others it overawes, as a son of thunder, by its appeals to conscience and the dread of an hereafter.

What an instrument have we here for re-ity of a John. With one it discourses of the generating universal humanity! Ours is not a religion for a favoured family or a preferred people. We are put in trust of the Gospel, and we hold it for mankind; for the distant, the benighted, the down-trodden, the afflicted. Nations in their loftiest successes, in their purest forms of civilization, are but travelling towards the ideal presented in Scripture; and as new phases of society appear, that Scripture will be found adapted to each, so far as it may be legitimate, and be calculated to advance each to new glory and perfection. If this book be of God, then it was written with foresight of all coming conditions of the world, and it will be found to have for every one of them appropriate instructions and influences. What higher privilege or responsibility then than ours, who are called to dispense this word to all who need it; and what duty more solemn or more momentous for those who are appointed to study and to teach its truths, than to unfold such as are most applicable to the dangers and the difficulties of our own times! There are signs of impending and eventful changes. There are fearful struggles between capital and labour between liberty and order-between Church authority and private judgment between spiritualism and formalism-between asceticism and sensuality-between fatalism and freedom-between mysticism and dogmatism-between belief and unbelief. For these, then, let us be prepared by diligent communion with this word, whose wisdom alone can be our sufficient guide. But if the Bible be such an Educator for nations and for the race, it must have capabilities equally great for the culture and improvement of the individual. And what could we desire in a book, to rouse our dormant faculties or to invigorate and refine them, that we may not find here? Holy Scripture comprehendeth History and Prophecy, Law and Ethics, the Philosophy of Life that now is, the Philosophy of Life that is to come. At one time it clotheth its teaching in strains of the sublimest or tenderest poetry, at another, in narratives, as beautiful and touching for their simplicity

And how is it if we look to the culture of the intellect merely? How vast is the field which the Bible opens to our inquiries! What rich results may we not win in almost any conceivable line of research! What discipline does not the proper study of it provide for our reason and our faith, for patience and humility, for fortitude and moderation? And in respect to those momentous questions which pertain to God and the soul's destiny, there is light enough for every humble, robust mind; there is darkness enough for every proud and self-confiding one. To attain to perfect and all-embracing knowledge belongs not to us, who are still in the twilight of our being, and who are called to work our way, through patient and ennobling labour, to that state where we can see even as we are seen, and know even as we are known. That way will open gradually but surely before all who go forward trustfully and manfully with the Bible as their guide. They shall have no infallible certainty, but they shall have unshaken and soul-satisfying confidence. To the question of questions, "What shall I do to be saved?" they shall find an answer on which they can stay themselves in perfect peace. Their assurance will be the gift of no ghostly confessor; it will be the offspring of no sudden and undefinable impression or inspiration. It will be faith well grounded and settled,— an anchor to the soul. It will have the witness within that we love and strive to serve God; and it will have the witness

without that they who do Christ's will shall know of his doctrine, that the Holy Spirit will guide the meek in judgment and instruct them in God's way, and that he who cometh with a faithful and penitent heart in Christ's name, shall in no wise be cast out.

While here, in this state of warfare, the Christian must expect to be assailed through his understanding as well as through his heart. He may never hope therefore to be exalted, while in the flesh, above all necessity for seeking more truth, nor above the duty of guarding against the beguilements of his own frail heart. The divisions which rend Christendom, and the fierceness of contending sects, are not to be ascribed to the insufficiency of Scripture. They are to be ascribed to the insufficiency of man's fallen, but self-confident mind,-its insufficiency to discuss without passion, and to decide without prejudice. When men rise superior to selfish pride and interest, when they bring to the study of Scripture a devout and teachable spirit; when they gladly avail themselves of all proper help, and look with becoming deference to the judgments of the wisest and best of all ages and lands; when they seek truth, first of all as a guide in action, and not as a weapon for controversy; when they apply to its contemplation both their intellectual and their moral powers, their reason, their conscience, their affections, and an obedient will, they shall not be left, in such case, greatly to err. Says Pascal, "God, willing to be revealed to those who seek him with their whole heart, and hidden from those who as cordially fly from him, has so regulated the means of knowing him as to give indications of himself which are plain to those who seek him, and shrouded to those who seek him not. There is light enough for those whose main wish is to see; and darkness enough to confound those of an opposite disposition." [Thoughts, ch. xvii.] I have thus indicated some of the reasons which should determine us as ministers of Christ to more earnest and devoted study of Holy Scripture. The more we read and meditate upon it, the more will its spirit and influence transpire in our preaching and deportment, and the more will our people be taught to reverence and love it. It will be more attentively listened to in public. It will be more thoughtfully and systematically perused in private. The congregations will demand of the clergy, and the clergy will gladly furnish to the congregations, more full and copious expositions of the inspired word. Its authority shall rise as that of mere human teachers declines, and we shall come to learn, not that there may, on this side the grave, be unity in all things, but that in all things there may be charity, and

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that in many things now held to be as of the essence of the faith, there may be rightfully and safely more of toleration. We shall have fewer pretended articles of faith. We shall have more allowed diversity of opinion. We shall be more anxious to know of a brother, whether he have the Spirit of Christ, than whether he speak precisely according to our Shibboleth; and we shall not recoil from a day when we must own as among the faithful and the accepted, those who on earth have walked not, in all things, according to our will.

Discourses, Addresses, Charges, etc., etc., 127-133.

HUGH MILLER,

an eminent geologist and excellent author, born at Cromarty, Scotland, 1802, learned the trade of a stone-mason, and in 1819 became a quarrier; was employed at Edinburgh as a stone-cutter, 1825-26; in 1834 entered a bank in Cromarty as an accountant; and from 1840 until his suicide in a fit of insanity on the night of Dec. 23, 1856, was editor of The Witness, an organ of The Free Church or Non-Intrusionists, published in Edinburgh semi-weekly.

The first published volume was anonymous,-Poems written in the Leisure Hours of a Journeyman Stone-Mason, 1829. Uniform edition of his works (Catalogue of W. P. Nimmo, Lond. and Edin., 1875), 13 vols. cr. 8vo, viz. vol. i., My Schools and Schoolmasters (1854), 24th edit.; ii., The Testimony of the Rocks (1857), 42d 1000; iii., The Cruise of the Betsey, 11th edit.; iv., Sketch-Book of Popular Geology, 7th edit.; v., First Impressions of England and its People (1847), 14th edit.; vi., Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland (1835), 13th edit.; vii., The Old Red Sandstone (1841), 20th edit.; viii., The Headship of Christ and the Rights of the Christian People, 8th edit. ; ix., Footprints of the Creator, or, The Asterolepis of Stromness (1849), with Preface and Notes by Mrs. Miller, and a Biographical Sketch by Professor Agassiz, 17th edit.; x., Tales and Sketches, Edited, with a Preface, by Mrs. Miller, 7th edit.; xi., Essays, Historical and Biographical, Political and Social, Literary and Scientific, 17th edit.; xii., Edinburgh and its Neigh bourhood, Geological and Historical, with the Geology of the Bass Rock (1848), 6th edit.; xiii., Leading Articles on Various Subjects, Edited by his Son-in-law, the Rev. John Davidson, etc., 5th edit.

See The Life and Letters of Hugh Miller, by Peter Bayne, Lond., 2 vols. 8vo; Lon. Gent. Mag., 1857, i. 244 (Obituary); Edin.

Review, July, 1858; N. Amer. Review, Oct. 1851; N. Brit. Review, Aug. 1854.

"On his style it is not easy to confer too high praise. Dr. Buckland did not scruple to inform the world that he would give his left hand to possess such powers of description [illustration] as Hugh Miller. Recollecting the staid and prosaic habits of professors, we cannot but feel that Dr. Buckland must have been very much struck indeed. The style in question is one of very rare excellence. Easy, fluent, and expressive, it adapts

itself, like a silken shawl, to every swell and motion and curve of a subject. It is graphic yet not extravagant, strong without vociferation, measured without formality, classically chaste yet pleasingly adorned."-PETER BAYNE: Essays in Biography and Criticism: Hugh Miller, 338, 339.

FOSSILS OF THE OLD RED SANDSTONE.

The different degrees of entireness in which the geologist finds his organic remains, depends much less on their age than on the nature of the rock in which they occur; and as the arenaceous matrices of the Upper and Middle Old Red Sandstones have been less favourable to the preservation of their peculiar fossils than the calcareous and aluminous matrices of the Lower, we frequently find the older organisms of the system fresh and unbroken, and the more modern existing as mere fragments. A fish thrown into a heap of salt would be found entire after the lapse of many years; a fish thrown into a heap of sand would disappear in a mass of putrefaction in a few weeks; and only the less destructible parts, such as the teeth, the harder bones, and perhaps a few of the scales, would survive. Now, limestone, if I may so speak, is the preserving salt of the geological world; and the conservative qualities of the shales and stratified clays of the Lower Old Red Sandstone are not much inferior to those of lime itself; while, in the Upper Old Red, we have merely beds of consolidated sand, and these, in most instances, rendered less conservative of organic remains than even the common sand of our shores, by a mixture of the red oxide of iron. The older fossils, therefore, like the mummies of Egypt, can be described well nigh as minutely as the existences of the present creation; the newer, like the comparatively modern remains of our churchyards, exist, except in a few cases, as mere fragments, and demand powers such as those of Agassiz, to restore them to their original combination.

But cases, though few and rare, do occur in which, through some favourable accident connected with the death or sepulture of some individual existence of the period, its remains have been preserved almost entire; and one such specimen serves to throw light on whole heaps of the broken remains of its

contemporaries. The single elephant, preserved in an iceberg beside the Arctic Ocean, illustrated the peculiarities of the numerous extinct family to which it belonged, and whose bones and huge tusks whiten the wastes of Siberia. The human body found in an Irish bog, with the ancient sandals of thongs, and clothed in a garment of coarse the country still attached to its feet by hair, gave evidence that bore generally on the degree of civilization attained by the inhabitants of an entire district in a remote age. In all such instances the character and appearance of the individual bear on those of the tribe. In attempting to describe the organisms of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, where the fossils lie as thickly in some localities as herrings on our coasts in the fishing season, I felt as if I had whole tribes before me. In describing the fossils of the Upper Old Red Sandstone I shall have to draw mostly from single specimens. But the evidence may be equally sound so far as it goes.

The difference between the superior and inferior groupes of the system which first strikes an observer, is a difference in the size of the fossils of which these groupes are composed. The characteristic organisms of the Upper Old Red Sandstone are of much greater bulk than those of the Lower, which seem to have been characterized by a mediocrity of size throughout the entire extent of the formation. The largest ichthyolites of the group do not seem to have much exceeded two feet or two feet and a half in length; its smaller average from an inch to three inches. A jaw in the possession of Dr. Traill-that of an Orkney species of Platygnathus, and by much the largest in his collection-does not exceed in bulk the jaw of a full-grown coal-fish or cod; his largest Coccosteus must have been a considerably smaller fish than an ordinary-sized turbot; the largest ichthyolite found by the writer was a Diplopterus, of, however, smaller dimensions than the ichthyolite to which the jaw in the possession of Dr. Traill must have belonged; the remains of another Diplopterus from Gamrie, the most massy yet discovered in that locality, seem to have composed the upper parts of an individual about two feet and a half in length. The fish, in short, of the lower ocean of the Old Red Sandstone, and I can speak of it throughout an area which comprises Orkney and Inverness, Cromarty and Gamrie, and which must have included about ten thousand square miles,-ranged in size between the stickleback and the cod; whereas some of the fish of its upper ocean were covered by scales as large as oyster-shells, and armed with teeth that rivalled in bulk

those of the crocodile. They must have been fish on an immensely larger scale than those with which the system began. There have been scales of the Holoptychius found in Clashbennie, which measure three inches in length by two and a half in breadth, and a full eighth of an inch in thickness. There occur occipital plates of fishes in the same formation in Moray, a full foot in length by half a foot in breadth. The fragment of a tooth still attached to a piece of the jaw, found in the sandstone cliffs that overhang the Findhorn, measures an inch in diameter at the base. A second tooth of the same formation, of a larger size, disinterred by Mr. Patrick Duff from out the conglomerates of the Scat-Craig, near Elgin, and now in his possession, measures two inches in length by rather more than an inch in diameter. There occasionally turn up in the sandstones of Perthshire ichthyodorulites that in bulk and appearance resemble the teeth of a harrow rounded at the edges by a few months' wear, and which must have been attached to fins not inferior in general bulk to the dorsal fin of an ordinary-sized porpoise. In short, the remains of a Patagonian burying-ground would scarcely contrast more strongly with the remains of that battle-field described by Addison, in which the pigmies were annihilated by the cranes, than the organisms of the upper formation of the Old Red Sandstone contrast with those of the lower.

The Old Red Sandstone; or, New Walks in an Old Field, Chap. ix.

HARRIET MARTINEAU, born at Norwich, England, 1802, died 1876, was the author of many works on many subjects, of which it will be sufficient to chronicle the following: Devotional Exercises for the Young, 1823, 12mo; Original Hymns, 1826; The Rioters, 1826, 18mo, 1842, 18mo; Tracts on Questions relating to the Working Classes, 1828; Traditions of Palestine, 1830, 2d edit.. 1843, fp. 8vo; Five Years of Youth, 1831, 12mo; Illustrations of Political Economy, 1832-34, new edit., 1849, 8 vols. 18mo; Poor-Law and Paupers, 1833, 2 vols. 12mo; Illustrations of Taxation, 1834, 5 vols. 18mo; The Tendency of Strikes to Produce Low Wages, 1834, 12mo; Addresses, Prayers, and Hymns, 2d edit., 1838, 12mo; Society in America, 1837, 3 vols. post Svo (from personal observations in 1835); Retrospect of Western Travel, 1838, 3 vols. p. 8vo; How to Observe, 1838, p. 8vo; Deerbrook, a Novel, 1839, 3 vols. p. 8vo; Forest and Game Laws, 1840 (also '45 and '49), 3 vols.

18mo; The Hour and the Man, 1840, 3 vols. post 8vo, 1843, 12mo, 1855, 12mo; The Playfellow, 1841, 4 vols. 18mo. 3d edit., 1856, 4 vols. 18mo; Life in the Sick-Room, 1843, p. 8vo, 1844, p. 8vo, 1849, 12mo; Dawn Island, a Poem, 1845, 12mo; Letters on Mesmerism, 1845, fp. 8vo; The Billow and the Rock, 1846, 18mo, 1848, 18mo; Eastern Life, Past and Present, 1848, 3 vols. p. 8vo, 1850, cr. 8vo; Household Education, 1849, fp. 8vo, 1852, fp. 8vo; History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace, 1849-50, 2 vols. r. 8vo; Introduction to the History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace, 1851, r. 8vo; Half a Century of the British Empire, in Pts., 8vo, 1851, etc.; Letters between Miss Martineau and Mr. II. G. Atkinson on the Laws of Man's Social Nature and Develop ment, 1851, p. 8vo; Letters from Ireland, 1852, p. 8vo; The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, freely Translated and Condensed, 1853, 2 vols. 8vo; Complete Guide to the English Lakes, 1855, 12mo, 1856, 12mo, and in 4to; History of the American Compromises, 1856; Sketches of Life, 1856, 12mo; Corporation, Tradition, and National Rights, 1857; British Rule in India, 1857 England and her Soldiers, 1859; Endowed Schools in Ireland, 1859; Health, Husbandry, and Handicraft, 1861; Biograph ical Sketches, 1872; Autobiography, 1876.

FAITH IN PROVIDENCE.

The world rolls on, let what will be hap pening to the individuals who occupy it. The sun rises and sets, seed-time and har vest come and go, generations arise and pass away, law and authority hold on their course, while hundreds of millions of human hearts have stirring within them struggles and emotions eternally new; and experience so diversified as that no two days appear alike to any one, and to no two does any one day appear the same. There is something so striking in this perpetual contrast between the external uniformity and internal variety of the procedure of existence, that it is no wonder that multitudes have formed a conception of Fate,-of a mighty unchanging power, blind to the differences of spirits, and deaf to the appeals of human delight and misery; a huge insensible force, beneath which all that is spiritual is sooner or later wounded, and is ever liable to be crushed. This conception of fate is grand, is natural, and fully warranted to minds too lofty to be satisfied with the details of human life, but which have not risen to the far higher conception of a Providence to whom this uniformity and variety are but means to a higher end than they apparently involve. There is infinite blessing in having reached

the nobler conception; the feeling of helplessness is relieved; the craving for sympathy from the ruling power is satisfied; there is a hold for veneration; there is room for hope; there is, above all, the stimulus and support of an end perceived or anticipated; a purpose which steeps in sanctity all human experience. Yet even where this blessing is the most fully felt and recognized, the spirit can but be at times overwhelmed by the vast regularity of aggregate existence,-thrown back upon its faith for support when it reflects how all things go on as they did before it became conscious of existence, and how all would go on as now if it were to die today. On it rolls,-not only the great globe itself, but the life which stirs and hums on its surface, enveloping it like an atmosphere; -on it rolls; and the vastest tumult that may take place among its inhabitants can no more make itself seen and heard above the general stir and hum of life, than Chimborazo or the loftiest Himalaya can lift its peak into space above the atmosphere. On, on it rolls; and the strong arm of the united race could not turn from its course one planetary mote of the myriads that swim in space; no shriek of passion, nor shrill song of joy, sent up from a group of nations or a continent, could attain the ear of the eternal silence, as she sits throned among the stars. Death is less dreary than life in this view, a view which at times, perhaps, presents itself to every mind, but which speedily vanishes before the faith of those who, with the heart, believe that they are not the accidents of fate, but the children of a Father. In the house of every wise parent may then be seen an epitome of life,-a sight whose | consolation is needed at times, perhaps, by all. Which of the little children of a virtuous household can conceive of his entering into his parent's pursuits, or interfering with them? How sacred are the study and the office, the apparatus of a knowledge and a power which he can only venerate! Which of these little ones dreams of disturbing the course of his parent's thought or achieve ment? Which of them conceives of the daily routine of the household-its going forth and coming in, its rising and its rest -having been different before his birth, or that it would be altered by his absence? It is even a matter of surprise to him when it now and then occurs to him that there is anything set apart for him,-that he has clothes and couch, and that his mother thinks and cares for him. If he lags behind in a walk, or finds himself alone among the trees, he does not dream of being missed; but home rises up before him as he has always seen it,—his father thoughtful, his mother occupied, and the rest gay, with the

one difference of his not being there. This he believes, and has no other trust than in his shriek of terror, for being even remembered more. Yet all the while, from day to day, from year to year, without one moment's intermission, is the providence of his parent around him, brooding over the workings of his infant spirit, chastening his passions, nourishing his affections,—now troubling it with salutary pain, now animating it with even more wholesome delight. All the while is the order of household affairs regulated for the comfort and profit of these lovely little ones, though they regard it reverently, because they cannot comprehend it. They may not know all this,

how their guardian bends over their pillow nightly, and lets no word of their careless talk drop unheeded, and records every sob of infant grief, hails every brightening gleam of reason and every chirp of childish glee,-they may not know this because they could not understand it aright, and each little heart would be inflated with pride, each little mind would lose the grace and purity of its unconsciousness; but the guardianship is not the less real, constant, and tender, for its being unrecognized by its objects. As the spirit expands, and perceives that it is one of an innumerable family, it would be in danger of sinking into the despair of loneliness if it were not capable of "Belief

In mercy carried infinite degrees Beyond the tenderness of human hearts," while the very circumstance of multitude obviates the danger of undue exaltation. But though it is good to be lowly, it behooves every one to be sensible of the guardianship of which so many evidences are around all who breathe. While the world and life roll on and on, the feeble reason of the child of Providence may be at times overpowered by the vastness of the system amidst which he lives; but his faith will smile upon his fear, rebuke him for averting his eyes, and inspire him with the thought, "Nothing can crush me, for I am made for eternity. I will do, suffer, and enjoy as my Father wills; and let the world and life roll

on!"

Such is the faith which supports, which alone can support, the many who, having been whirled into the eddying stream of social affairs, are withdrawn, by one cause or another, to abide in some still little creek, the passage of the mighty tide. The brokendown statesman, who knows himself to be spoken of as politically dead, and sees his successors at work, building on his foundations, without more than a passing thought on him who had laboured before them, has

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