the party who is here called Palmer be still alive, he is enjoying the respectable competence which he honourably earned in the establishment, the stock and goodwill of which was the legacy to him of his early benefactor. His patron's second trial of his fidelity was not

thrown away; it nobly set aside the disappointment of the first, and was the means, under God, of making him an honest and a Christian

man.

It is as important to know when it is merciful to forgive, as when it is just to punish.

JAVING often met Mrs. Prim in society, I thought her the neatest woman in the world; and probably should have always thought so, if I had not, very strangely, had access to her house. For once, when I had praised the good woman, a mischievous girl whispered just loud enough to be heard (exactly as if she was trying to keep it a secret,-cunning rogue!), "He ought to see her at home, if he wants to know what neatness is." This ran in my head, and stirred up a host of busy fancies and wondering thoughts. "Well, I do wish I could slip in some time, unexpectedly, and see if this fair show is a pretty piece of domestic imposture!"

Who knows what is before him? My wishes were gratified. For that very night I dreamed; and Mrs. Prim was the heroine of my dream. By that amazing power given unto dreams, I found myself the husband of Mrs. Prim,-the very Mr. Prim himself.

Methought my lady had gone out to spend an evening; and after sleepily reading a paper for awhile, I retired to rest. Entering the room, there lay a stocking sprawled out at full length on the floor, its mate coiled up into a dump by its side, just as it was turned off the foot. In the middle of the room stood a stack of underclothes, just as they had been stepped out of. Several pairs of shoes and several widowed ones, which long had mourned the loss of a companion, and had, for grief doubtless, much run down at the heel, were sprinkled around the room promiscuously. The washbasin, its contents creamed over with soap, stood in a chair; the towel lying half in it, the soap on the floor with a coat of dust be-feathering it. The wash-stand was covered with ends of candles, open and evacuated snuffers, scraps of fancy soap, two toothbrushes coloured with powder, the one red, the other black, a shoebrush, a piece of black braid for shoe strings, half a dozen empty perfume bottles, and a

Bible. The bureau was as much beyond the wash-stand in condition as in original size. Every drawer but one was open in different degrees, like Peel's famous sliding scale of tariff. The cloth, designed to cover and protect it from all scratches, had certainly been used for a towel at each corner, for there were the finger-prints. A pair of curis, several unmanufactured wads of vagrant hair, an upset box of tooth-powder, two dispersed squadrons of pins, the one sort mere light infantry, the other full-grown dragoon pins,-hair-brushes, one, two, three; two long combs, one fine comb so old as to have lost many of its teeth and to have turned quite gray; pomatum, oils, uncorked Cologne, mille-fleur, lavender, patchouli, verveine, and a host besides; wristlets, hair. bands, ruffles, laces, lockets, rings, thimbles, elongated hair-pins, side-combs, back-combs, refuse curl-papers, a pair of curling-tongs laid down too hot, and making the cloth to blush brown under them; a bundle of tracts, several notes and billets-doux, seals, wax, several skeins of silk, a crushed cap or two, sundry ribbons, an odd volume of Hannah More's works, the constitution of a maternal society, gloves a score, black, white, yellow, blue, and brown,— and all this just on the top, for the drawers were yet to come!

A tempest had evidently been dealing with these lower depths, for they were stirred up from the bottom. When, in dressing in hot haste, a collar had been sought, the sweet Mrs. Prim, beginning at one side, forced down to the other end each article which was not the one sought for; and then, returning, pressed them all down to the other side. Going to the next drawer, the ceremony was repeated. Some of the drawers were emptied into others; and then the contents put back by the handful, and kneaded down to their proper compactness. Once the candle-which was in a "melting mood"-had been overturned into a heap of fine linens, but the mischief was

effaced by pressing the ill-fated things, in disgrace, far back into the drawer and deep under many companions. Many things were torn open to see if something else was not in them. Stockings were unrolled and left; or a cotton and silk one rolled up together, a black one and a white.

Thus much for the bureau; but it is only a hint, and not a full description. My coats and overcoat, overhauled daily to see if a stray dress or under-dress had not hid itself among them, were thus well trained to ground and lofty tumbling; and were becoming quite fledged with lint and feathers.

Out of such a chaos Mrs. Prim would come forth the sweetest-looking creature and the best-dressed woman in town, when she was going into company! How came she forth when only entering her own family? With hair spreading in different directions; with a bestained and dirty dress, half-hooked and half-pinned with pins black and white; one of the backs of her dress an inch higher than the other; the skirt, ripped out of the gatherings in spots; and an apron tied on askew.

Oh, what a waking was mine, when morning broke up the dream, and divorced me from

Mrs. Prim! Really, I do not suppose such a person ever lived or was thought of, except in a dream. If it ever were true, out of dreams, I do not think that husbands would respect their wives; honeymoons would wane; men would not love their homes; things would go at sixes and sevens; young married couples would grow indifferent to each other; wives would complain that husbands did not care for them; husbands would mutter something about being "taken in;" both would learn to say, "I remember the time, Mr. Prim, when you would not have treated me so." 'And I, Mrs. Prim, remember the time when you did not look so." "Well, my dear, whose fault is it. when I have nobody here at home half the time to care how I look? "Well, love, who wants to wade knee-deep in dirt, and call that home?" "Well, sir, you are a proper man to talk about dirt, you are so neat yourself; pray sir, do give me a lecture; do show me how to keep things neat; couldn't you write a little book about it? it would be very nice, Mr. Prim!-neat Mr. Prim!!· charming Mr

Prim!!!"

But as such things never happen, there is no use in writing any more about them.

CHAPTER VI. (Continued.) UT (3) the most manifest and permanent, and consequently the most incontestable, proof of the Divine origin of the Prophecies of Scripture is furnished by the past history and present condition of the Jewish people. From the call of Abraham to this hour hath this people dwelt alone. When dispersed, dispersed everywhere, intermingled everywhere; but nowhere fused or lost-scattered among all nations, yet confounded with none-living everywhere as a distinct people, yet nowhere living according to their own laws, nowhere electing their own magistrates, nowhere enjoying the full exercise of their religion. Where are the descendants of the savage hordes who, only a thousand years ago, overran Southern Europe? Who can draw the line of demarcation between the

Num. xxiii. 9.

conquering and the conquered races-Gauls and Franks; Iberians, Goths, and Moors; Britons, Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans? But the demarcation which separates the Jews from the rest of mankind is broad and palpable. And this, too, notwithstanding the constant and long-continued operation of causes, which in other cases present a uniformity of results to which this is the only exception. For the Jewish people, after being subjected to repeated exile, have for eighteen centuries suffered an unparalleled expatriation. They were in possession of their Promised Land three centuries before the siege of Troy; nor did their national dispersion take place until the greatness of Greece had been for more than two hundred years a mere shadow of a great name. The mere uprooting and ejection of a powerful and long-settled nation like that of the Jews would itself have been sufficiently remarkable

and rare; but in the case before us we have a peculiarity which is absolutely without precedent or parallel. In other instances we may witness the process of violent subjugation by conquest; or the silent and crumbling decay of populous states by the lapse of time; or the decline and fall of nations, consequent on the loss of temporary advantages, such as those which in the middle ages enabled petty Italian republics to outshine even great kingdoms. But, in this instance, we have a desolation of the land without the exhaustion of the people. The children of the soil, everywhere dispersed, have nowhere disappeared.* And the deviousness of that dispersion, as well as its perpetuity, constitutes a peculiarity perfectly unique. "For where is the other country in the world, and in what quarter of it, which lies so vacant, so thinly occupied, while its proper race are to be seen everywhere else—they and it divided: a solitary soil, and a displaced, distracted population, abounding anywhere rather than in their own land? In that divided state they remain-present in all countries, and with a home in none; intermixed and yet separated; and neither amalgamated nor lost; but like those mountain streams which are said to pass through lakes of another kind of water, and keep a native quality to repel commixture, they hold communication without union, and may be traced, as rivers without banks, in the midst of the alien element which surrounds them."

4. But the fulfilment of the prophecies which relate to the preservation of the Jews appears still more remarkable when compared with the fulfilment of those other prophecies which foretold the extirpation of the Edomites. For the Edomites, like the Jews, were the descendants of Isaac. "They were the posterity of Esau, as the Jews were of his twin brother Jacob; and what was there to guide the conjectures of men in thus discriminating their future history? Humanly speaking, the Edomites were more likely to be preserved than the Jews. They rose earlier into power; and they were more warlike. The Jews were scattered by frequent captivities; not so the Edomites. When Jerusalem was taken by the Romans, the Edomites were a powerful and flourishing people; while the traces of their greatness, and the remains of their magnificence, continue to this day. It was when they were in the zenith of their pride and power that the prophecies were uttered which foretold their

Amos ix. 9.

66

66

irretrievable destruction.* It is to them that Sir Isaac Newton traces the origin of letters, of astronomy, of navigation; and their deep study of moral problems may be seen in the Book of Job. But now the wise men" are destroyed "out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau;" the pride that made its "nest as high as the eagle" has been brought down from thence, and, in the emphatic language of prophecy, "Esau is not." The numerous marts once thronged with traffickers from the Red Sea, from Syria, from India, are lost beyond recovery: for concerning Edom the decree is gone forth, that" none shall pass through it for ever and ever." And although it was traversed by a Roman road for centuries after this bold utterance-although at this moment it would furnish a shorter route than the ordinary one to India, the "sure word of prophecy" has outlived all unlikeli hood, and is this day fulfilled in the fact that even the Arabs of the neighbouring regions, whose home is the desert, and whose occupation is wandering, are afraid to enter it, or to conduct any within its borders;" while modern travellers who have attempted to find or to force a passage through it (though possessed of every advantage), have attempted it in vain. Judea, though now trodden under foot of the Gentiles, still retains much of her ancient fertility; but the whole interior of Idumea is fast becoming one vast expanse of shifting sand, drifted from the borders of the Red Sea. For the desolation of Judea is temporary only-" until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled;" but the desolation of Edom is perpetual-“as in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah." After a national existence of more than seventeen hundred years, the Edomites have been utterly extirpated: while the Jews, after more than seventeen hundred years of unparelleled dispersion and suffering-proscriptions, massacres, confiscations,—still exist. Scattered over the face of the whole earth, without distinction of tribes, "without a king, without a prince, without a sacrifice," without even the form of a civil government, with no officiating priesthood, still they exist-unbelievers in Christianity, and yet the guardians of the very prophecies which prove the unreasonableness of their unbelief; mingled among, but distinct from, those around them; the wonder and scorn of the world; a standing illustration of "the bush burning with fire, but not consumed."

To these instances-and they might be multiplied indefinitely-we will not add, except by the mention of a few of those characteristic marks by which the prophecies of Scripture are distinguished.

5. And perhaps the most striking of these is their strong antecedent improbability.

The promise that he should be "the father of many nations" was given to a childless old man; and the chosen race, after a period of nearly two hundred years, had increased to not more than seventy souls.* Their future greatness was foretold by Balaam and by Moses when the whole nation lay under the Divine displeasure when they were merely a vagrant race, wandering in a wilderness which (it was even then announced) should be the premature grave of all who entered it (with only two exceptions); and when the surrounding nations, whom they were commanded to exterminate (even the nation of giants!)†, were leagued together for their destruction. Isaiah foretold the captivity, in the days of a pious king and a prosperous government. Jeremiah's predictions of deliverance were uttered in the deepest extremity of their distress, and when ten of the twelve tribes had already disappeared. And, to advert only to the prophecies of another class, what could be more improbable than those which relate to the coming and work of the Messiah? That a virgin should conceive and bear a Son! that the Son, as a "King," should "reign and prosper," and yet should die a violent death-should be "cut off, but not for Himself!"-in a word, that predictions of so contrary a character as those of the twenty-second and seventy-second Psalms should find in Him-though in Him alone--a complete and harmonious fulfilment !

* Gen. xlvi. 27.

The formidable character of these giants is sadly overlooked by ordinary readers. "In their inaccessible retreats, protected there by the mighty bulwarks which the volcano had built up around them, they were a continual occasion of dread to all the neighbouring tribes, even to those who were yet exempt from their control. Og and his chiefs, armed with iron missiles, and entrenched behind those mighty bulwarks, in those intricate and inaccessible fastnesses, were indeed terrible neighbours, and enemies dreadful to encounter in aggressive war. Nor had any of the adjacent powers ventured to assail them. Indeed it is probable that all which even the Egyptian armies had accomplished in their muchvaunted exploits against the Rephaim was to drive them within their fortresses." And yet so Divine was the Power of that Presence which accompanied the chosen people, that they "smote Og and all his people"-"none" of all his gigantic force "was left to him remaining." "All his cities also, fortified "with high walls, gates, and bars," they took at that time. (See Christian Observer, Jan., 1861. "Bashan and the Cities of Moab." Also Drew's "Scripture Lands:" Smith, Elder, and Co., 1860.)

Art.

6. Another remarkable feature of the prophecies of Scripture consists in their systematic subordination to one great object.

Whatever mention may be made of men or nations in the details of prophetic revelation, Messiah, and He alone, is the theme of all. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. The history of individuals, the rise and fall of empires, are mentioned only as they bear on the advent and work of Him who, in the fulness of time, should come "to make an end of sin, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness," and to unseal "the vision and the prophecy." And this subordination is the more remarkable when viewed in connexion with the vast extent of prophecy, from the fall of man to the consummation of all things; the dignity of the Person who is the principal subject of prophecy (of whom Moses, in the law, and the prophets did write); and the supreme importance of that redeeming purpose for which it is declared that this Divine Being came into the world.

7. In connexion with this, it should be remembered also how multifarious and minute are the details thus involved.

Take, for instance, the exact fulfilment of the minutest details of prophetic Scripture concerning the birthplace, birth, character, ministry, miracles, sufferings, death, and burial of our Lord; or those (both Messianic and Mosaic) concerning the siege of Jerusalem, with all its attendant horrors; the marked particularity which characterizes the predictions of the overthrow of the Persian empire, at the very moment when it was first rising into fame; the hourly fulfilment of Noah's prophecy (three thousand years old) concerning Japheth "enlarged," and " dwelling in the tents of Shem;" not to speak of the strange prediction of the rise of all-conquering Rome, eight hundred years before she came into existence.

8. Lastly, let it be noted that in this long series of fulfilled prophecies there is nothing fortuitous. The verifications are without exception: the failures are nil. Neither is there anything conjectural. The predictions are such that the supposition of a "happy guess" is absolutely impossible. Three thousand years ago it was foretold that the family of Ishmael should dwell in the presence of their enemies; their hand against every man, and every man's hand against them. To-day, notwithstanding all the efforts of the greatest conquerors-Sesostris, Cyrus, Pompey, Trajan, and the Turks (in the height of their power),

-they remain, as ever, still unconquered!—the only people in the world to whom this boast is possible. The barbarians who conquered Rome were in their turn themselves subdued by the subtle power of Roman arts and letters; but the Arab descendants of Ishmael, who for three hundred years swayed the sceptre of dominion over the most civilized and fertile portions of the earth, have retained their wild habits unaltered; in the midst of the civilized world they continue uncivilized as ever. The children of the bondwoman are free; the children of promise, descended from the same ancestor, are conquered and outcast! Is this the sort of fulfilment that can be called fortuitous? Can any prediction be imagined which shall be more utterly foreign to everything conjectural?

9. To the foregoing particulars there must be added one other of a very different kind. It is this: There is a moral, as well as a predictive element in every prophecy of Scripture. To this moral element the oracles of Paganism made no pretension; but "the oracles of God" -"the lively oracles "-teach while they foretell.

The moral teaching of the Prophetical Books is based on the knowledge of God as revealed in "the Law." It illustrates the Divine attributes of justice and mercy. Its "vision of judgment" is invariably consequent on sin. It maintains the universality of Divine Providence, and exhibits the theocratic character of the King of kings. It proceeds throughout on the assumption of man's probation, and his assumed prospect of a future life. In a word, the prophecies of the Bible, like its miracles and its morals, are prophecies worthy of a God. What a contrast to the oracles of Paganism! If we should be charged with having dwelt

*

E. g. The response of the oracle of Serapis concerning the fatal sickness of Alexander, or that of Heliopolis concerning Trajan's fatal expedition against the Parthians. Every one is familiar with the ambiguity and equivocation of the oracle by which Croesus was deceived:

" Κροίσος "Αλυν διαβὰς μεγάλην ἀρχὴν καταλύσει.” "Croesus Halym superans magnam pervertet opum vim." So that if the Lydian monarch had conquered Cyrus, he overthrew the Assyrian Empire; if he himself was routed, he overturned his own. That delivered to Pyrrhus,

"Credo equidem Eacidas Romanos vincere posse," had the same advantage, for it left it uncertain whether the Romans should conquer the Eacidae (from whom Pyrrhus was descended), or should be conquered by them. Sometimes the response of the oracle was mere banter, as in the case of the man who inquired by what means he might become rich, and received for answer, that he had only to make himself master of all that lay between Sicyon and Corinth. Another, wanting a cure for the gout, was told by the oracle to drink nothing but cold water.

at undue length on a topic of comparatively minor importance, Bishop Butler shall be our apologist: "It requires a good degree of know. ledge, and great calmness and consideration, to be able to judge thoroughly of the evidence for the truth of Christianity, from that part of the prophetic history which relates to the situation of the kingdoms of the world, and to the state of the Church, from the establishment of Christianity to the present time. But it appears, from a general view of it, to be very material. And those persons who have thoroughly examined it, and some of them were men of the coolest tempers, greatest capacities, and least liable to imputations of prejudice, insist upon it as DETERMINATELY conclusive."*

II. And yet," determinately conclusive" as is the evidence from prophecy, it is not more conclusive than the evidence from other sources. The agreement of the several parts of the Bible with each other; the wonderful preservation of the whole; its moral character; its moral influence,—each of these is sufficient to demonstrate its Divine origin. What, then, must be their united force ? And this-aye, much more than this-we actually possess. Not to anticipate, however, we will, in this place, do no more than cite a single paragraph from one of the most distinguished of our opponents. His assertions we will consider hereafter. Meantime we shall do well to ponder the weight and importance of his admissions.

View it in what light we may," says Theodore Parker, "the Bible is a very surprising phenomenon. This collection of books has taken such a hold on the world as no other ever did. The literature of Greece, which goes up like incense from that land of temples and heroic deeds, has not half" (nay, not a thousandth part) "the influence of this book from a nation alike despised in ancient and modern times. The sun never sets on its gleaming page. It goes equally into the cottage of the plain man and the palace of the king. It is woven into the literature of the scholar, and colours the talk of the street. It enters men's closets; it mingles with all the cheerfulness of life. The Bible attends men in their sickness; the aching head finds a softer pillow when the Bible lies underneath. The mariner escaping from shipwreck clutches the first of his treasures, and keeps it sacred to God. It goes with the pedlar in his crowded pack, cheers him in the fatigue

* Bishop Butler's "Analogy," Part II., ch. vii.