fields of a universe, teeming with "grand thoughts grandly expressed," are not only largely unexplored, but in their boundless infinitude almost unknown. Our intellectual nature, with its everwidening range of vision, may expatiate for ever in these fields of thought. All are the "precious thoughts" of God. Christianity represses no reverent curiosity. Its license is wide as the range of virtue, and interminable as existence. "Prove all things." "Whatsoever things are true," &c. "Think on these things." Our Father spreads out for the education of His children the grandly-illustrated page of nature, and the letter of His love. Christianity is the nurse of free thought. Thirdly: Heart and soul-our moral being-find a home in God. "In all generations." Religion, under every different form, and with every varied accompaniment: Patriarchal simplicity, Mosaic picture, Christian manhood have ever been the same, ever fitted to man's heart. With tones of tenderness, it has ever substantially said, "I will give you rest." Believers of every past age, guided by the stars of promise, have passed within the vail, leaving their testimony; and each succeeding generation has been able gratefully to cele brate it "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place," &c. Every believer is going home. III. OUR HOME IN GOD IS INVIOLABLE-IT IS PERFECTLY SECURE. This cannot be predicated of any earthly home. "He builds too low, that builds beneath the skies." Fortune's wheel is sure to revolve and bring widowhood to many. Uncertainty is the wormwood that embitters the joys of earth. But God knows every contingency, calculates the result of every event. His wisdom, power, love, &c., guarantee the inviolability of our home. Out of God, there is no resting-place for the jaded spirits of men; no arbor on the difficult hills of life; no home proof against the spoiler; or so barred that the ruthless hand of death will not tear the tenant from its shelter. But there is a "land of Beulah," "a house not made with hands," &c. IV. GOD OUR HOME THEN IT IS ETERNAL. "From everlasting to everlasting thou art God." An eternal home! Here culminate our loftiest aspirations, our highest hopes. Give man the good his nature is fitted to enjoy ; secure its possession to him for ever, and he finds that a perpetuity of bliss is bliss indeed. He has attained "glory, honour, immortality, and eternal life." Man has no lease of aught he values here below; the grant by which he enjoys is not renewable for ever. Every moment relaxes his grasp of earth's joys. Everything here below that makes life desirable, fades; no spring revives the wasted forms of sere and faded pleasures. But rise up and look through the glass of this text, and "pleasures for evermore" are discoverable; for "thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations," and "to everlasting, thou art God.” V. THIS HOME IS TO BE REACHED THROUGH CHRIST. "I am the door." Even on earth, a man can enter the avenue to his Father's house, the strait gate leading to immortal honors. In Him, "the whole building is fitly framed," &c. Built on Him, the rains may descend, the floods come, the wind blow, and yet the house falls not. In calm confidence of eternal security the believer says, "Return, O God, our shield." Christ is the door. Miss it, and the spirit is a homeless exile; a shelterless outcast on the plains of undone dispair. The door of hope is for ever barred. Dream not of the joys of home out of Christ; and say not in your heart, "I cannot reach this distant home; it is the seducer's whisper; stop your ears and cry "eternal life," home, home, sweet home! Every man may say, and ought to say, "I will arise and go to my Father." A home and welcome awaits every returning prodigal. Christian! as the world reads your creed in your tones and life, let it see that you are going home. W. C. B. The Pulpit and its Handmaids. HEATHEN THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. O souls bowed earthward, and void of heavenly thoughts! what avails it to bring to the temples these worldly principles of ours, and to estimate what the gods think good after our own depraved nature? Why do we not offer to the powers above, what the high-born cannot give from his great dish-duty to God and man harmonized in the soul, heart of hearts all holy, and a breast imbued with generous honor. If only I bring these to the sanctuary, I shall please Heaven with my mite of salted meal. PERSIUS Sat. i.,61,j. Is there nothing, then, for men to pray for? If you wish my advice, you will let the gods give of themselves, what is expedient for us and is suited to our fortunes. For the gods will send what is best for us, rather than what is pleasant. Man is dearer to them than to himself. We, from impulse of passion and blind overpowering desire, pray for this and that; but the gods know what our prayers would turn out for us. If we must pray, if we must offer sacrifices, pray for a sound mind in a sound body; ask for a brave heart, free from fear of death, to reckon the end of life among the functions of nature; a heart able to endure any labors whatever; a heart that knows not passion or desire, and holds the toils of Hercules and cruel labors preferable to adultery, gluttony, and effeminacy."-JUVENAL, Sat.x., 346-363. And he (Socrates) prayed also to the gods simply to give him what was good, on the ground that the gods know best what kind of things are good. And he alway thought that those who prayed for gold, or silver, or power, or anything of this sort, might as well pray for diceplay, or a battle, or anything else of which the result is uncertain. And making small offerings from small means, he thought he stood on a level with those who made many and great offerings from great means. For, he said, that, as one thing, it was not well for the gods, if they took more pleasure in great than in small offerings, for in that case the offerings of bad men would often give them more pleasure than the offerings of the good; and again, it would not be worth while for men to live, if the offerings of the bad were more pleasing to the gods than those of the good. But he ever thought that the gods took most delight in honors paid them by the pious. And he approved this line"As you have ability, do offerings to the immortals." Just as in conduct to our friends and guests, and in all one's life, "Do your best," was good advice.XENOPHON, Memorab., Bk. i., ch. 3, J. 3. Theological Notes and Queries. OPEN COUNCIL. [The utmost freedom of honest thought is permitted in this department. The reader must therefore use his own discriminating faculties, and the Editor must be allowed to claim freedom from responsibility.] SATAN AND SIN. REPLICANT. In answer to QUERIST No. 1, p. 52. Satan and sin are not inseparable, in the sense that wherever there is sin, Satan must have caused it. Much sin is caused by the promptings of our own corruption, irregular instincts, and the like; and by the temptations of the world. ANCIENT PREACHING. REPLICANT. In answer to QUERIST No. 2, p. 52. Noah was a preacher of righteousness." (2 Peter ii. 5.) Ezra, standing on a pulpit or platform, expounded the law. (Neh. viii. 4-8.) Under the old economy, generally, the priests were expounders of the law, and the instructors of the people. (Mal. ii. 7.) The prophets were qualified and commissioned by Their God to speak in His name. prophesying corresponded to our preaching, with the exception that they were inspired, whereas our preachers often propagate error. The prophet's business was not mere prediction of the future. He was God's mouth to the people; reproving sin, recalling them to allegiance, often declaring the most spiritual truths, and predicting the future Messiah and the glories of the Church. WINNING REFINED SCEPTICISM. REPLICANT. In answer to QUERIST No. 3, p. 52. They cannot be won by Calvinian preaching, but are rather confirmed in opposition to Christianity. Perhaps one good method might be to nail to our pulpit doors wherever truth is not preached, until some one could be got to preach it. The truth of Christ, the standard doctrine of all ages of the Church, is "the power of God unto salvation" for all classes, for the Greek as well as the barbarian. Literary Notices. [We hold it to be the duty of an Editor either to give an early notice of the books sent to him for remark, or to return them at once to the Publisher. It is unjust to praise worthless books; it is robbery to retain unnoticed ones.] THE REVIEWER'S CANON. In every work regard the author's end, Since none can compass more than they intend. CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPEDIA. A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the People. Illustrated with Maps and numerous Wood Engravings. Vol. VI. London: W. & R. Chambers. WE are glad to receive the sixth volume of this magnificent work. Alphabetically it carries us on from L A B to N U M. If the alphabet decides the length of the undertaking, it is half-way to the terminus. Its path hitherto has been through scenes rich in every department of science, literature, and art. Every step has given a revelation of something worth knowing. The amount of information compressed into the articles is truly amazing. There are volumes in a page, yet there is no confusion; there is clearness with condensation. The judgment we have passed upon the preceding volumes apply to this, and our recommendation is as hearty as ever. The work, when completed, will be a library in itself; such a library as comes within the reach of almost the poorest man that craves for knowledge. THE ILLUSTRATED POCKET CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY COMMENTARY ON THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT. Part I. to XII. By the REVS. ROBERT JAIMESON, D.D., St. Paul's, Glasgow; A. R. FAUSSET, A.M., St. Cuthbert's, York; and REV. PROFESSOR DAVID BROWN, D.D., Aberdeen. London: William Wesley. THESE numbers complete this work. A work, "the object of which," we are informed, "has been to produce a Commentary embodying the ripest results of modern criticism, and conveying the sense in a popular style, so full as to be of practical value to the Bible student, and compressed within such limits so as to bring it within the reach of all. The New Testament portion of the work is prepared with continual reference to the Critical Greek Testaments' of Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles; and to the 'Critical Commentaries' of Bengel, de Wette, Meyer, Olshausen, Stier, Luthardt, Alford, Webster and Wilkinson, Philippi, &c. Similar sources, including the most recent British and foreign commentators, are consulted on the Old Testament." For Sabbath School teachers, city missionaries, itinerant preachers, this work will be found of special service. Though scholarly, it is popular. It gives us the results, rather than the processes of learning, and its pages are not overlaid with Greek and Hebrew type. The work has our hearty approval, and we trust that its circulation will be equal to its merits. SERMONS ON BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL SUBJECTS. By the REV. THOMAS ALLEN, Author of "Discourses on Atheism. London: Jackson, Walford & Hodder. THE Author of these sermons has long been a distinguished ornament of that influential and growing body of Christians known as "New Connection" Methodists. Though a man of his type ought to be known by Christendom, we fear that his name has not travelled far beyond the precincts of his own denomination. He is a thinker of no ordinary mould, dealing with the roots of things. To such, fame seldom comes at once, but it does come at last, and when it comes it spreads with the advancing intelligence of mankind, and flourishes for centuries over the graves of reputations won by superficial men. This volume contains thirteen discources on important religious subjects, and they are fraught as might be expected from such an author with thoughts of unusual value and force. PASTORAL COUNSELS. By REV. J. C. BOYCE, M.A. London: William Macintosh. "THE following pages," says the author, "owe their existence under the Great Disposer of all things, in the first instance, to a want felt by the author, in the course of his own ministrations to the sick and suffering, of a hand-book, that in cases of lingering illness, might enable him to impart some little varity to them on each successive visit. He felt anxious to turn to the best possible advantage, a season that, with very many, is the great turning-point of their lives-a season when the infinite realities of the eternal world are impressed with greater force and persistence upon the heart and the conscience; because in those still hours' prospects commonly open out before the sufferer, that stretch away into immensity, beyond this little islet of human life." This volume contains |