They were, in a have existed for perhaps grown

some other bodies and under some other forms. primary sense, new creatures. But after men some length of time, and grown up a little, and old, if they be brought, by the power of the Spirit of God working in the glorious gospel, to repentance to a complete moral change beginning in a change of views,—then they are a second time new creatures. They are renewed creatures. They are created anew in Christ Jesus and unto good works. They are born again. They have thus been twice made new. And the inspired writer here informs us that in all ordinary cases it is impossible to repeat the new-making process any more. Why? O why?

The inspired writer tells us,-"Seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." Most solemn and significant words. They who apostatize from christian experience and from Christ "crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh;"-they enact over again "to themselves" the very part that was enacted of old by the maddened mob that exclaimed Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him! Crucify him!-Then, unlike the old maddened mob, they do not act in ignorance of who it is on whom they are perpetrating their unutterably criminal ingratitude and indignity. They are hence far worse than the old maddened mob. And they also do, -so far as they are concerned, and so far as their influence can extend, more than the maddened mob. They not only repudiate the Saviour, and wish him away; - they are the executioners of their own hatred. The maddened mob only cried crucify him, crucify him. But apostates do crucify him. So far as all the finer feelings of his heart are concerned,those feelings that may be distinguished from the feelings connected with his physical frame, they subject him a second time to all the agony which he endured when he was rejected, abandoned, despised, and crucified. Is it a wonder that, when thus treated, Jesus should feel all his old wounds opened afresh? Is it a wonder that he should feel that he is, so far as they are concerned, and "to them," crucified anew?

But not only do they "crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh," they "put him to an open shame." They expose him to indignity before the world. This is a terrific element in their criminality and ingratitude. They not only re-enact to themselves the whole tragedy of the cross, they hold the Saviour up to all around them as a Saviour who is not worthy of being regarded or trusted. If their conduct has a tongue at all, it says to all who come in contact with them, and really know them, It is all a mistake; there is no beauty in Christ that ye should desire him; we have tried him, and weighed him in the

balances, and found him wanting. Such is the language of the conduct of the apostate. He exposes his Saviour to the scorn of the world; he puts him to an open shame.

What wonder, then, that it is, in all ordinary cases, impossible to renew again unto repentance those who have fallen away? If the heart has been allowed to become so callous, so unfeeling, so desperately ungrateful, so cruel to Christ, what can you do, what can you say, to win it? What can the Spirit do? What could the Spirit say? Would he tell again the old wondrous story of the cross? That has become a stale tale. In all ordinary cases, it is to be feared, there remaineth nothing but "a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." The inspired writer

adds:

:

Verses 7 and 8.-For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.

There is a mingling, in this graphic representation, of signs and the things signified: but the idea is evident and very solemn. Souls are like soil. They are moral soil. And if therefore it be the case that under the sweet influences of heaven coming oft upon them,-under the rays of the Sun of righteousness, the breathings and breezes of the Spirit of grace, the dews and rains of the loving Father's tender-mercy,-if it be the case that under these heavenly influences the souls of men bring forth fruits that are pleasing to the great Husbandman and useful to his family, they receive blessing from God, and become more and more fruitful, and beautiful, and useful. The soil of their souls is like the soil of paradise. Trees of righteousness and flowers of holiness thrive in it, and make it a dear and delightful resort to God. But if they continue barren and blasted, or if, though once fruitful they become unfruitful and waste, and prolific only of noxious things, like thorns and thistles, then, the moral soil becomes "nigh unto cursing." It is no longer a garden of Eden, a Paradise. God will not "walk" there. The children of God will but seldom resort thither. It is ready to be utterly abandoned. "For," while it is the case that "earth-or land, or soil, which has drunk in the rain coming oft upon it, and bringeth forth convenient-useful-herbs to them for whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God;" it is also the case that the soil "which beareth briers and thistles is rejected—is reprobate or regarded as irreclaimable—and is nigh unto cursing,-cursing whose end issues in burning." The moral soil, which has enjoyed

the sweet rays and rains of heaven, and all the sweet breezes of the Spirit of God, and which yet relapses into utter barrenness and blasted waste, and brings forth only what is noxious, is nigh indeed unto cursing,-such cursing as will end ere long, in all ordinary cases, in a descent of penal fire, as of old was rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha. O it is terrific to think of it. And yet it is right that cursing and not blessing should rest upon the morally irreclaimable.

THE ALLEGED ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

We

SOMEHOW, we all find ourselves believing that there was a time when there were no such beings as men on the earth. Even those who believe with Sir John Lubbock, that "man was at first a mere savage, yet believe that there was an "at first" for this remarkable race. are not concerned at present to discuss the grounds of this belief. We assume that the human family had an origin,—that man did really begin to be.

Looking back into the bygone ages, and reaching the point at which it is assumed that human life really began, we are able to look beyond, and to conceive a vast duration which preceded the commencement of all human experience. Whether we indulge in the contemplation of the immeasurable extent of this great past, in all of which there was no human mind to think, and no human heart to feel; or fix our attention on the beginning of humanity, fraught, as it has proved to be, with the incalculable issues that have become the experience and history of mankind, we have a truly overwhelming subject before us.

We see that there must have been a day when there was neither man, nor woman, nor child, in the universe, while the next day the human heart had begun to pulsate! Nay, there must have been an hour up to which no mind of man had thought,-and previous to which no human breast had breathed, and the hour after was one of the hours of the age of man. Is it wonderful that we, in whose hearts humanity is realised, should be interested-deeply and thrillingly-in thus looking back to the birth-time of our race?

When we take up the inquiry which leads us into this intensely interesting subject, we find that we have documents which are older than any other records possessed by men,-documents that have come through the sifting ordeal of more than three thousand years, and which, wherever known, are received as the Word of God by the vast majority of carefully thoughtful men. These documents give us an account of the origin of human life, and tell us particularly of our earliest ancestors. But the subject is either too interesting, or too slenderly presented in sacred Scripture for the satisfaction of certain minds. It is at least imagined that there are other sources of information, which are [Vol. 2.

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of a superior character to that found in the Bible, and to which lovers of truth will have recourse, accepting the teaching which such sources supply, in preference to that which is furnished by what has been so long regarded as the revelation of God.

There has been many a controversy as to the true meaning of the sacred record, but it is not into the field of interpretation that the drift of contemporary science leads us. We are directed, without any ambiguity of design, away from the Bible as a false book, to what is called Nature, as a true one. We are invited to forsake the written page for fossil relics and the situations in which they are found, as more to be depended on for information regarding ancient humanity.

Our readers will readily understand that we are not yet convinced that it would be well to make the exchange which is thus proposed to us. But we are prepared to look carefully into every source from which truth on so interesting a subject can be derived. And it is in this spirit that we would gather what we can of light from the discoveries of those who make the most of science in the direction of anthropology.

Our object is to put the ordinary reader in possession of the real knowledge which has been reached by truly scientific minds as to the early condition of man, and specially to distinguish that real knowledge from what is conjecture, and nothing more. There is a way of

speaking and writing on primitive man, as if it were an absolutely established matter of fact that his early character was one of barbarism. All ordinary readers and hearers of a certain extensive class of public instructors must be aware of this; they so often hear of the "savage" nature of our early ancestors as of a matter respecting which there can be no controversy among enlightened men. We are convinced that this idea is the result of an exceedingly narrow system of thought.

It is time, however, to enter upon our real inquiry, and to look into the testimony of the earth's surface as to the early condition and character of man.

What is called vegetable mould, or black earth, is the most recent of those formations that lie on any spot of the globe's surface. The leaves that have fallen from the trees- the grass which has grown on the surface without being consumed by animals-the remains of animals themselves-decomposed organisms of all sorts-unite in the formation of this superficial mould. And in this we meet with the freshest and most numerous of those objects that tell us of the beings who have lived on the soil.

Along with this may be classed all those formations that are now in course of accumulation, whether on the surface of dry land or under water. The bank of sand, for example, which is gathering in the bay at the present time, the mass of peat which is now growing in the morass at the rate of several inches a year,--the bed of mud that is fast altering the outlet of a great river, as truly as the mould which is accumulating in the forest,-are likely to gather within them relics of the creatures that are living and dying in the waters and

on the face of the earth. Whatever is going on in this way where men are, or where they occasionally come, will probably have relics of man imbedded.

Next to the surface-mould and the other formations now accumulating, are those works of ancient men that have been constructed on the land. Chief among these are ancient graves. These are not like the merely natural accumulations that have relics of men accidentally imbedded in them. They have been formed for the purpose of retaining relics,—and such as tell clearly of the character of those whose sepulchres they are. Wherever in particular it has been the custom of men to bury along with the dead, specimens of implements and ornaments used among them at the time, the sepulchral mound becomes a monument of great importance. Such monuments are not properly geological; yet they throw a light on the past which no merely geological monuments can equal. When we find, for instance, relics of men, mingled with those of animals that have not lived in the same locality during historical times, a question is started that is by no means easily answered, as to how the relics were so mingled, and whether both are relics of the same period. But when, among the carefully-disposed relics of humanity, you find, in the undisturbed tomb, relics of inferior animals equally carefully disposed, or, at least so placed as to prove that both kinds of remains must have been put there by the same hands, in a similar state of freshness, and at the same time, the latter question is readily answered; and so is the further question, as to whether these animals really lived on that part of the earth at the same time with the men whose graves are there

now.

This pushes us on in our statement to what is called superposition in the strata which compose the earth's surface. These inorganic masses are laid one above another in such a way as to demonstrate that one was formed before another, and so that each constitues a period in the earth's history, while all together tell of a succession of such periods, and prove, so far, a record of passing time. The one on the surface may be forming now, but the one beneath that must have been formed before this superficial one began to be formed. So in regard to each preeeding stratum as we go downward and search for relics of life, whether of men or of other creatures. We are led farther into the past. This is one of the real truths of geological science, and no doubt gives a certain idea of measure in geological time.

There is not only a successive formation of such masses, one over another, on the earth's surface, but somehow or other an upheaval and depression of that surface has taken place so that those masses rise and fall, over wide regions, in relation to the sea level. The marine shells that are found embedded on the tops of lofty hills are so placed as to assure us that the rocks of which those hill-tops are composed were far down in the bed of the ocean, when the creatures inhabiting the shells lived in its waters. On the same principle other portions of the earth's surface are regarded as having fallen inward, so that what were highlands and mountains are now beneath the waves. It is not to be hastily concluded that the manner of this upheaval and depression is known; for it really is not. But assuredly it is a fact that former