ical inspiration; a scheme comprehensive enough to include all ages and all tribes of the earth, and whose living reality surpasses all that it was given of old to heart to conceive or tongue to utter in anticipation of its future glory?

It is interesting to trace backwards the swelling flood which is spreading its waters over the globe, to mark the tributary streams which in ancient times flowed each in its own channel, yet were all hastening to the same 'place of broad rivers'," wherein the Lord has set his glorious Name, as our Judge, our Lawgiver, and our King. It is interesting to observe how when the highways lay waste, and the wayfaring man ceased, the axes of the pioneers were removing obstructions, where a highway was to be cast up, and a road carried through the wilderness, for the triumphant march of the mighty Conqueror of the world. For here, as in all God's works, we discover complete harmony and order. The same God who created, governs the world, and calls forth "the chariot and the horse, the army and the powers." He that poureth water upon the thirsty soil, and floods upon the dry ground, poureth His Spirit upon the seed of man, and 2 Isai. xxxiii. 8.

1 Isai. xxxiii. 21.

Isai. xliii. 17.

His blessing upon their offspring'. He who made the sun and moon for the light of the earth, caused also the Sun of Righteousness to arise with healing on his wings. He that created the heavens, and stretched them out; He that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it, He that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein, He called Jacob in righteousness, and gave light to lighten the Gentiles, He brought the former things to pass, and new things did He declare, and before they sprang up He told of their approach.

We are not then to conceive of Christianity as of a scheme detached from the general system of the universe. Rather let us recognize herein the design and end of creation-the good for which all things work together under the guidance and control of a superintending Providence. In the natural world the combination of numerous contrivances, and their adaptations to one end, has ever been deemed a convincing proof that this end was the result not of accident but of design; and may not the same line of argument be justly applied to the supernatural ? The wonderful concatenation of events upon which Christianity depends furnishes

1 Isai. xliv. 3.

2 Isai. xlii. 5-9.

the best credentials for the confirmation of its authority. How futile then is the insidious attempt, which has not unfrequently been made, to shake our belief in its divine origin, by enlarging upon the natural causes to which it may have owed its birth, as if these natural causes were not under the control of the God of Nature, as if the Creator were not also the Governor of the universe, but resembled those fancied deities, which have place in the most shallow of all systems of Heathen Philosophy -deities whose imagined perfection was made to consist in an absolute indifference to the interests and to the actions of mankind'.

While therefore the speculations of such objectors can have no termination but in absolute Atheism, we may be taught by a sounder philosophy to follow, if it may be, the mysterious links of the golden chain to the throne of the Almighty-to dwell with a reverent and submissive spirit upon the secondary causes which have prepared the way for and have contributed to the progress of Christianity, recognizing in all the operations of the First Great Cause, who stilleth the noise of the sea, the noise of the waves, and the tumult of the people, who maketh the outgoings of the morning and evening to praise

1 Lucret. 1. 57.

Him1, who creates good out of evil, and works out His pure intent by the wayward passions and conflicting wills of the human race2.

And not only is there harmony in the works and decrees of God, but also a wonderful analogy subsists in different parts of His creation, and in different acts of His government. Unity of design is evident in His material works-unity of administration in the constitution set visibly before us, and in that made known to us by the language of Revelation. The visible and invisible, the things of heaven and the things of earth, are linked together by many a tie, discoverable to our apprehension, and suggestive of a closer union and more intimate connexion, which shall hereafter meet our view when this mortal shall have put on immortality, and the grosser humours have been purged away which interrupt our clear vision of the deep things of God.

We have an illustration of this analogy in the correspondence between the progress of religious truth in the world, and the growth of an individual, whether physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Not without appointed

1 Psal. lxv. 7, 8.

2 "For working out God's pure intent
Is man, on mutual slaughter bent."

means of supporting and nourishing body and mind, does each of us step by step advance to the stature or the intellect of a man; not without the ordained means of spiritual sustenance, does he grow in grace, and forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth to those things that are before, press toward the mark for the prize of his high calling in Christ Jesus'. Not unlike this is the process of growth and development which the Almighty has been pleased to appoint for what may be called the spiritual life of the world. It is gradual, it is progressive; means conduce to ends; one thing hangs upon another; the grain of the word puts forth first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear 2. God works by measure in Time, but without measure in Eternity.

Thus there was a " fulness of time" in which it was fitting, according to the selfimposed law of Divine operation, that the Son of God should be "born of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons3.”

The lapse of ages before the promulgation of Christianity is far from furnishing 1 Philip. iii. 13, 14. 2 Mark iv. 28.

3 Gal. iv. 4, 5.