what it is to worship God-can be supposed to be the God of rational, earnest, practical, and ever-during worship, with no relation to the system except that of originating at once the first and ultimate action, and with no possible relation in the future-for the creation is so perfect as to meet all possible issues, or, at least, to develop its own results; so can man be supposed to be the first check to the process of Development, the all students of God's Word and works ought ever to be on their guard against, and perhaps specially the students of Natural Science. It is law, and nothing but law, the personal, present God-BEFORE ME, as the Sinaitic revelation describes it-being put aside. The supremacy of law, in the true sense of the words, is not indeed inconsistent with the recognition, and the most reverential recognition, of the Lawgiver. There is a lifetime of humble earnest inquiry-about law in its universal, unchanging operation, and its iron grasp ! To see it, as it were, taking no notice of virtue, or even of humanity-anticipating goodness, and almost depriv first perfect, and, therefore, eternal form in the king-mystery-not at first thought only, but even after a dom not to the Lawgiver, but of Law. But is it so? Is there in man, as he now exists, and on the principle of Development, anything to support such a view? Would not reason be compelled, with nothing but the facts of the world as they present themselves to us, to rejecting it of its reward; unsympathetic, undistinguishing, the hypothesis, and to demand that the great law should still further develop itself, and open up a more glorious result? The Anthropological Society, and more than the Anthropological Society, would answer the question in the affirmative. The testimony of God protects the grand truth of man's immortality on this its weakest side, and, by giving us the high origin of man with his sad fall, restores alike immortality and the reasonableness of it to man; but Development does the very reverse, and to have the same strength of argument which revealed truth gives—with perhaps a deeper shade of mystery, but at the same time with the distant streaks of a full revelation when that which is in part shall be done away-there must be something of the perfection of humanity established in the history of the race, though even then it would be difficult to see why a perfect man should be immortal any more than a perfect monkey, as Development can give us something better than either! At the very least, however, there must be something of the perfection of humanity ere man can, on any possible application of the Development theory, be believed to be immortal as a species and an individual-the first exception to the eternal, hitherto assumed immutable law; unless our opponents prefer another explanation, that Development itself has grown old, and under its growing infirmities has accepted a compromise, and made us immortal! The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is not the easy and conclusive one which men sometimes dream of, on the principles of natural religion. Life and immortality, we believe, have been alone brought clearly to light by the gospel; and were that gospel disappearing from the world as the testimony of God, the grand and inspiring truth of man's immortality would sink again into the shades of twilight, or even of night; and, with the Development theory superadded, into the blackness of darkness for ever! We have given this prominence to the Development theory, not that it is a fair representation of the position, or perhaps even the tendencies of the Natural Science of our day, but that it not only presents an unmistakable antagonism to revealed truth on the part of certain prominent expounders of that science, but illustrates, in the form and in the spirit of it, that which inexorable-one recognizes the mystery, and bows reverently before it. We feel that, if we are to behold the sight, we must contemplate issues on a grand scale, and with the cycle reaching beyond our feeble range; and that in the mean time, as subjects of law, we must humbly study and apply those laws which will not meet us half-way, or with any relaxation of their natural results. But is this the form of man's relation to the Unseen, which is so fascinating to a creature, that he can throw himself with confidence and sympathy into it, and into it alone, with no room for repentance, with no recognition of what seem the very conditions of his being? Not in this spirit, I hope, is your study of whatever department of science may engage your attention, carried out. Let us study Nature and Nature's laws as we can; the revelation is a glorious one. "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all that have pleasure therein." Who that has read the glorious. Book of Psalms, but has felt the harmony of the study of nature with the devotion of the spiritual worshipper? Who that has attempted even to measure in their grandeur the sublime sayings of the prophets, but has felt law and grace, there, at least, to be one even in the contemplation of the God of Nature. "The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. The Lord is good, and a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in Him." Our object, therefore, is not to say a single word against the fullest and freest inquiry into Nature—her laws, and her mysteries. It would require, indeed, an extreme of folly and ingratitude in our day to attempt to undervalue Natural Science in its sublime teachings, and in its perhaps more sublime issues. The grandest of these issues, that almost instantaneous communication of thought from man to man, separated by distances however great, "taking the wings of the morning, and dwelling in the uttermost parts of the sea"-all but a touch of divinity itself! That latest result, joining almost the thoughts of the two great nations of the East and the West, the children of the one family-whom may God in his mercy long preserve in happy concord-that marvellous link now embedded in the depths of ocean-a scarce feeble illustration of the transcendently more glorious link which binds the family in earth and in heaven-one in Christ Jesus! With such results through Natural Science, and with results in prospect which cannot, perhaps, be so novel and thrilling but may be equally practical and important, we repeat that we do not wish to say a single word in disparagement of Natural Science. But it is not strange, it might have been expected, that under such conditions Natural Science should take for a time at least an unduly exalted place. The earth thus bringing its tribute to man, and with almost willing subjection acknowledging his lordship, it might have seemed as if the glory of the race and the triumphs of the spiritual were thus to be realized, and not through Him in whom, himself crowned with glory and honour, we see not yet all things put under him! But it is not in natural researches, however interesting, nor in issues which con tribute so greatly to the conditions of physical happiness, that the aspirations of humanity can ever anticipate their fulfilment. In the results of commercial progress, and the almost divine operation of free trade-a principle of heaven brought down to earth-we recognize the action of utilitarian causes, in theory prolific like the dew of the morning, but often in fruit like the seven thin ears blasted with the east wind. History repeats itself to the instruction of the infidel equally with that of the believer, and we anticipate no reign of peace or consecration of humanity through any process to which Natural Science alone can minister. In the dignity of her pursuits, how far short she comes of the science which teaches man what he is in his higher nature, and traces those processes of thought and consciousness and purity which ally him to Divinity itself. THE OLD NURSE. (TRANSLATION FROM THE RHEINLAND SAUNTAGS BLATT.) "She hath done what she could." N the house of the merchant Braunthal, of | earnestness, industry, and acuteness could do, to avert in honour of the owner's return home after long absence. The more than ordinary joy and congratulations of all present, clearly proved that their welcome was something more than what is given to a friend returning from a mere pleasure tour. And such was truly the case. The return of Braunthal to his fatherland was that of one who had been expected to return no more. the coming calamities, but all was in vain. No one, not even his wife, suspected the possibility of a catastrophe, which in his own heart he felt to be an inevitable reality. Only the old book-keeper of the old firm began to guess the truth, but when he made the first approach to the subject with his master, he found that Braunthal had already perceived the whole, and had attempted and risked every remedy which to his honourable mind seemed allowable. It is true that he, like others, might have risked much more, for his credit as yet was hardly shaken; but he shuddered at the very idea of deceit. and after a night of sleepless distress, he went to his wife, and explained to her his hopeless involvements, and his resolution to give up business while he could meet every claim, and, with the little that would remain, go to America, where some considerable but uncertain debts were still due to his father. He was the son of a rich and honoured merchant, and by the death of his father came early into the possession of great wealth. He was prudent and intelligent, and carried on business in a sensible and careful manner. Yet, by degrees, the plans of his father-who had been content to aim at secure rather than large profits, and had always gone forward in a regular way-began to appear in the son's eyes a little too cautious and old fashioned. Almost imperceptibly, he found himself Emilia trembled as she listened, but the only com"going ahead ;" and was led into speculations whose plaint which escaped her lips was that he should so very dangers and uncertainties had for him an excite-long have concealed from her his anxieties and trials. ment and a charm. In the height of his prosperity he married a maiden whom he had loved from his early years. "Emilia" was a distant cousin, and they had been brought up much together. The young couple were happy; and in their own happiness not forgetful of the sorrows and misfortunes of others. Braunthal gave liberal alms on all sides, founded schools, assisted all benevolent societies; and his name was as well known and honoured in the hovels of the poor, as in the halls of the rich around him. But adversity, which he strove to ward off from others, was now rapidly overtaking himself. He did all that She approved his determination, and strengthened and comforted him by her expressions of pious hope and trust in the gracious providence of God. Braunthal went with a lightened heart to follow out the course which conscience and honour set before him. Great was the astonishment of his friends at his unexpected conduct, but this was soon changed into universal sympathy, when the whole circumstances were understood. The state of Braunthal's affairs proved even worse than the public believed, or his own fears had anticipated. When all claims were paid, nothing seemed left. He found that even the voyage to America, necessary to begin a new business, could not be accom plished without asking help from friends, and that he could not bring himself to think of doing. On the morning of his final reckoning, after dismissing his servants, he sat silent and solitary, his face hid in his hands, in the empty apartment which he could no longer call his own. Just then his wife entered, and kneeling before him, gently drew his hand from his eyes. He saw that she was smiling through tears, and silently embracing her, he sobbed aloud. "Karl," she whispered, "see, we are not so poor as you think!" and she laid a tolerably heavy purse on the table. Braunthal gazed at her in astonishment and distress. "Emilia," he asked, turning away his face, "where did this gold come from?" "Oh," she exclaimed, “only look at me, only look at the money, it is all yours and mine! What use had I now for ornaments-for all the costly rings and jewels, and pretty useless things, which in our new life I shall never miss? See, Karl, they have brought almost 1000 dollars, and that will be enough for us." At this moment there was a knock at the room door, and the old nurse came in. "I wish to say farewell to my young master," said the old woman, taking Karl's hand and kissing it. "God will be with you, Karl; you were always a good child. Only think, it was fifty years yesterday since I entered your father's service. I expected to have died in the house, but the will of God be done, Karl! When better days come to you again, you will remember old Katharina." In truth, nothing made Karl feel his misfortunes so deeply as parting from this old faithful woman, who had served his father and the family for half a century; who had been to himself in the place of a mother, and get who now in her old age must seek a new home. Katharina," he said, grasping her withered hand, "where will you go?" He touched mechanically the purse of money. "Oh, wherever I choose," said Katharina hurriedly; "that is of no importance; so aged a woman will easily find a corner to die in, and I thank you, Herr Karl, for my wages, which I received from the cashier last evening." Braunthal coloured as he drew back his hand from the purse, and said smiling, "Ah, you always liked your own way, and you are richer now than myself. You must have a good sum in the Savings' Bank." Yes, yes," she replied, "I am well provided for. And for you also, my good children, the Lord will provide. May he bless you, and be with you in all your ways!" 66 Scarcely had the old nurse left the room, when the letter-carrier brought a small packet, addressed to Brannthal, carefully sealed up, and marked to contain 2000 dollars. Karl broke the seal in surprise; the money lay within, and a paper with these few words: "A grateful heart sends this, with many blessings, to its benefactor." Karl and Emilia looked at each other in silent astonishment. "Emilia," he said at last, laying the money beside her purse, "I should have an ungrateful heart did I not thankfully accept this money and yours: what is given with so many blessings must bring a blessing with it." A day or two afterwards they departed. No one accompanied them, no friendly hands waved farewells; only one pair of dim eyes gazed after the boat which bore them out to their vessel-old Katharina, absorbed in silent prayer, stood on the shore till the ship had vanished from her sight. Seven years later, Braunthal returned with Emilia to his native city, and the fête of which we have spoken was in honour of his unexpected return. True friends surrounded him in his newly regained home, and he | frankly answered their questions as to the dealings of Providence with himself. His tale was a simple one. He had recovered most of his father's debts, and with these and 2000 dollars had commenced a business in New Orleans, which soon made him again a wealthy man. While he was relating particulars, Emilia, who had been called away, returned to the company. "Where have you been?" said Braunthal, interrupting his story. "I have been," she said, "by a dying bed, in the hospital, the death-bed of Katharina!" "Poor Katharina !" exclaimed Karl. 66 Oh, we know who she was!" said several voices ; "the ugly old tyrant of your father's household." "Hush, do not give me pain," said Karl. "I thought the old woman had been well provided for in her latter days. I know she had laid up a good sum in the Savings' Bank, and yet I found her dying in the hospital, and the manager told me she had come in the day of our departure, with nothing but her Bible in her hand. She must, he remarked to me, have lost her money in the lottery." "Katharina's last words were blessings for you, Karl," said Emilia; "and her last request that you would see her honourably buried. Here is her Bible, I brought it away with me." Karl took the old sacred volume and opened it. There was writing on the first blank page,-bardly had he glanced over it, when he became pale and sank back in his chair. But quickly recovering, he exclaimed with a loud though faltering voice,— "Hear, my friends! hear, Emilia! it was old Katharina who sent to me the 2000 dollars, her whole savings, and then for our sakes died as a beggar in the hospital!" H. L. L. LESSONS AND PICTURES, ESPECIALLY FOR YOUNG MEN, FROM THE BOOK OF PROVERBS. BE BY THE REV. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., EDINBURGH. T may be difficult to give an absolutely perfect definition of a proverb; but it will generally be acknowledged that a saying or composition, in order to be entitled to this name, must possess the qualities of shortness, solidity, and pungency. It must be short, so as to admit of being easily called up by the memory, and, in general, of being uttered in a breath. It must be solid, coming home to men's business and bosoms, containing some important maxim that shall entitle it to universal currency and to frequent repetition. And it must be pointed and pungent, expressed in such happily chosen. words as to attract the attention, to lay hold of the memory as by hooks or barbs, and to fasten itself there, and when it once finds a place in the mind, scarcely to admit of its being dislodged from it again. Solomon appears to have recognized more than one of these qualities as essential to a good proverb, when, referring at once to their material value, and to the felicity and elegance in which they ought to be clothed, he describes them as "apples of gold in baskets or network of silver;" and when alluding to their compacted form and point and pungency as fitting them the better for being driven home to the heart and conscience, and fixed in the memory, he speaks of them as "goads and nails fastened by the Master of Assemblies." It would not be easy to name a country that has risen many steps above barbarism, in which proverbs are not in extensive use; but those of China, Arabia, Persia, and Spain, are especially rich in the abundance and variety of these sententious maxims. The instances are even not few in which the same proverb is to be found in many different languages, like some winged seed that has been formed to sow itself in every land; especially when it is clothed in some remarkably attractive and striking imagery, or when it gives utterance to some deep thought or feeling of universal humanity. It is easy to see how important a place the proverb must have occupied in countries without a literature, forming, as it must have done in such circumstances, a sort of common stock of wisdom and instruction from which all might draw; but, in truth, it is impossible for us to imagine a state of human society in which the mission of the proverb is past. For, when we consider how often men are placed in circumstances in which they are called to act rather than to deliberate, and in which even a slight delay would be fatal to well-timed action, it would be difficult to over-estimate the advantage of having the mind richly stored with weighty maxims that can be brought to meet the passing exigency. It is but few of our race comparatively that have either time or mental taste and capacity for abstract specula tions; the atmosphere is too rare and too cold for most minds; and without unduly depreciating the pursuits of the metaphysician, we are safe in saying that their practical results in past times have borne small proportion to the mental effort or the promise, and that they may be left alone by the multitude with little loss. But every man, in every day of his existence, finds himself in the midst of circumstances in which he needs the guiding-lights of other men's reflective wisdom and experience, and in which some well-remembered proverb wherein that wisdom and experience have been happily reflected and concentrated, would stand him in good stead, disentangling his feet, making his way plain, or saving him from rash words and acts which, if once spoken or committed, would have given occasion to a long life-time of unavailing self-condemnation and regret. "Not to know at large of things remote From use, obscure and subtle; but to know And renders us, in things that most concern, We might safely take this universal prevalence of proverbial sayings as itself affording conclusive evidence of their utility and adaptation to human life. Undoubtedly, however, the grand testimony to the usefulness of the proverb is to be found in the circumstance that it has been so extensively adopted as the fit vehicle of divine instruction in the Book of God itself; lessons thrown into this form being scattered over almost every part of the field of Scripture, a whole book of the Old Testament, commonly styled "the Book of Proverbs," or "the Proverbs of Solomon," consisting mainly of such choice sayings of compacted wisdom; and a greater far than Solomon, the Son of God, taking up some of the current proverbs of his own time and stamping them with the royal seal of his approval, elevating and transfiguring others by breathing into them nobler and diviner meanings, while he permanently incorporated them with his own lessons, and bringing others fresh from the stores of eternal wisdom,-proverbs which, like the cut and polished diamond, are found to sparkle and shed their lustre in many directions, and which for eighteen centuries have been current on the lips of men, myriads of whom have little guessed by what blessed lips they were first spoken; or which, like some nourishing and quickening soil, have been ploughed down and intermingled with the common thought of universal humanity. Confining our attention now more particularly to the Book of Proverbs, I proceed to specify various excellencies which place them immeasurably pre-eminent above all the other collections of proverbial sayings in the world. This might, indeed, be safely concluded beforehand from the simple fact of their inspiration; but it will be well that we specify these qualities of superiority a little more in detail. One of these is their unexceptionable purity. There are no sayings in this magnificent series which express low cunning under the name of prudence, or excuse deception by an assumed necessity, as is the case with so many of the proverbs of Italy; no proverbs which make the individual man his own selfish centre, as is the case with some few of our own country; none which reflect our common depravity rather than the universal conscience; no base-born proverbs which have evidently come from the mint of hell, and bear upon them "the image and superscription" of the prince of darkness. Like the stars in our firmament, some shining apart, and some grouped in constellations, they all shed some of heaven's true light, even though they "differ from one another in glory." Another excellence of this inspired collection of proverbs is their universality of application. They are not merely adapted to one condition of society, or to some particular stage of civilization. They abound in broad views and in those "touches of nature which make the whole world kin." Spoken nearly three thousand years ago, and in the sunny East, they hold up a mirror to all ages and to the heart of all humanity. So that, as has been truly and happily said, "they may be studied with fully as much benefit and interest by men who are here in the nineteenth century in populous cities pent, amid the whirl of chariots, the clang of machinery, and the hiss of steam, as by the plain men who thirty centuries ago rode quietly about on asses, and sat in peace under their vines and fig-trees.” | gates." The husbandman is admonished against procrastination, the labouring man is cheered in his toils, the merchant is warned against false depreciation of his neighbour's goods or undue valuation of his own, and the tradesman against "the false balance, which is an abomination to the Lord." So that it would be very difficult to conceive of a combination of circumstances so peculiar that this wonderful book would not present some hint or timely direction for our guidance, and from its faithful and genial page light would not arise in the midst of darkness. A third characteristic excellence of this collection of inspired proverbs consists in their astonishing variety and minuteness. They penetrate with their useful and homely light everywhere. From the keeping of the heart to our very looks and gestures, they glance upon us with their sage counsels and shrewd suggestions. They abound not only in solemn and earnest advices on good morals, but in judicious and delicate hints on good breeding, aiming to add the seemly to the solid in character, the "whatsoever things are lovely and of good report to the whatsoever things are grave and pure." The temper and the tongue are sought to be regulated by many a wholesome rule. The rich are warned amid the temptations of their abundance, the poor consoled amid the trials of their penury. There are innumerable wise saws for the young, while the crown of glory is held up before the hoary head. There are counsels for the married and for the unmarried, for the maiden at her toilet, for the judge upon his tribunal, for the king upon his throne, for the mother in the training of her children, for the children in their reverence for parents, for friendship and love, and even for the "stranger that may dwell at times within our And all this is sought to be accomplished by the most skilful variety in the outward shape and drapery of the parable; now by compacted and pointed statement, now by homely allusion, now by felicitous and elegant language, now by dazzling imagery, now by partial obscurity and enigma arousing curiosity, now by the musical cadence of the sentence, now by the play of some fine antithesis, and yet again by the sparkle of a kind of sacred wit; the whole justifying the remark that, "as there is no tragedy like Job, no pastoral like Ruth, no lyric melodies like the Psalms, so there are no proverbs like those of Solomon; all the forms of human composition finding their archetypes and their highest realization in Scripture," and giving sober truthfulness to the assertion, that "were the world in general only governed by this book, it would be a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the whole of the Book consists of a series of proverbs according to the rigid and technical sense in which we have hitherto used that expression. Indeed, the first nine chapters of the book can scarcely be said to come under this description at all; but they are not the less valuable or deserving to be searched and pondered on this account. For they consist of a succession of appeals to young men, in which, by every form of eloquence, vivid description, tender allusion, resistless argument, and earnest expostulation, the writer seeks to delineate before them the deformities and the horrors of vice, its seductive wiles and its terrible retributions, and to win them and fix them in the pleasant paths of piety and virtue. It is, in fact, a sublime poem on the pleasures of a pure and holy life. Religion, under the name of wisdom, is allegorically represented as a tree of life, yielding delicious shade and wholesome and mellow fruit to those who seek rest and shelter under her branches, throwing a covering of honour around their shoulders, and decorating their heads with a graceful chaplet more precious than rubies. And how does it indicate the importance attached by divine wisdom to the season of youth, and the value with which it regards young men, that nine chapters of an inspired book should thus be specially devoted to their warning and instruction! Young men, study those nine chapters, pray over them, turn them into a mirror by which you may examine your souls, into a lamp by which you may regulate your steps; let them become inwrought with all your moral |