THINKINGS, FROM RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

CONSISTENCY.-A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, and philosophers, and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Out upon your guarded lips! Sew them up with packthread, do; else, if you would be a man, speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon. balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day. Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood. Misunderstood! It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY.-Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul-drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and in me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, "I am divine -through me, God acts; through me. Would you see God, see me; or see thee, when thou also thinkest as I now think." But what a distortion did his doctrine and memory suffer in the same, in the next, and the following ages! There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the understanding. The understanding caught this high chant from the poet's lips, and said, in the next age, "This was Jehovah come down out of heaven-I will kill you, if you say he was a man." The idioms of his language, and the figures of his rhetoric, have usurped the place of his truth; and churches are not built on his principles but on his tropes. Christianity became a Mythus, as the poetic teaching of Greece and of Egypt, before. He spoke of miracles; for he felt that man's life was a miracle, and all that man doth, and he knew that this daily miracle shines, as the man is diviner. But the very word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression, it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain.

GOD AND SPIRIT.—Of that ineffable essence which we call spirit, he that thinks most will say least. We can foresee God in the coarse and, as it were, distant phenomena of matter; but when we try to define and describe himself, both language and thought desert us, and we are as helpless as fools and savages. That essence refuses to be recorded in propositions; but when man has worshipped him intellectually, the noblest ministry of nature is to stand as the apparition of God. It is the great organ through which the universal spirit speaks to the individual, and strives to lead back the individual to it.

Take

TRUTH.-God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. which you please-you can never have both. Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates ever. He in whom the love of repose predominates, will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets,-most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth. He in whom the love of truth predominates, will keep himself aloof from all moorings and afloat. He will abstain from dogmatism, and recognise all the opposite negations between which, as walls, his being is swung. the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion, but he is a candidate for truth, as the other is not, and respects the highest law of his being.

He submits to

NATURE'S MORAL TEACHINGS.-The moral influence of Nature upon every individual is that amount of which it illustrates to him. Who can estimate this? Who can guess how much firmness the sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman? how much tranquillity has been reflected to man from the azure sky, over whose unspotted deeps the winds for evermore drive the flocks of stormy clouds, and leave no wrinkle or stain? how much industry, and providence, and affection, we have caught from the pantomime of brutes? What a searching preacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of Health!

A NIGHT THOUGHT.

The night-wind rageth-the rain flood rattleth,
And Darkness enfoldeth a weary world;
The Spirit of Fire with the Storm-fiend battleth,

And swift through the air are the lightnings hurled.
The Daughter of Wealth her calm rest taketh,
And Fancy weaveth her visions bright;

Not the strife abroad-not a sad thought breaketh
Slumber thus 'twined in a web of delight:
In the grand halls of rank, there Plenty spreadetli
The table of Surfeit for wasteful pride;
And pampered Debauch rich carpets treadeth,
While shivering Poverty starves outside:
In yon rag-patched hut a maiden weepeth,

Gaunt misery blackeneth her sunken eyes-
The chill of Death o'er her lean form creepeth,
And now in her last sleep calm she lies!
Shall this last for ever? my heart enquireth;
For ever such scenes must they darken earth?
Ay, till man fulfil what Truth desireth-

Till man has created man's own new-birth.
Oh, joy! when the day-dawn of Justice beameth!
When brotherhood smileth over the world!
When Poverty's tear no longer streameth,
And the banner of War is for ever upfurled.

A LAY OF LOVE.

HEAVEN hath its crown of stars, the Earth
Her glory-robe of flowers;

The grand old woods have music,

Green leaves, and silver showers;

The birds have homes where honeyed blooms
In beauty smile above;

High-yearning hearts their rainbow dreams;-
And we, sweet, we have love!

There's suffering for the toiling poor

On Misery's bosom nurst;

Rich robes for ragged souls; and crowns

For branded-brows, Cain-cursed!

But cherubim with clasping wings,
Ever about us be;

And, happiest of God's happy things,
There's love for you and me!

We walk not with the jewelled great,
Where Love's dear name is sold;
Yet have we wealth we would not give
For all their world of Gold!

We revel not in corn and wine,

Yet have we from above

Manna divine! Then we'll not pine:
Do we not live and love?

I know, dear heart, that in our lot
May mingle tears and sorrow!
But Love his rainbow builds from tears,
To-day, with smiles, to-morrow!
The sunshine from our sky may die,
The greenness from Life's Tree;
But ever 'mid the warring storm
Thy nest shall sheltered be!

I see thee-Ararat of my life!—
Smiling, the waves above;
Thou hails't me, victor in the strife;
And beacon'st me with Love!
The world will never know, dear,
Half what I've found in thee;
But tho' nought to the world, dear,
Thou'rt all the world to me!

GERALD MASSEY,

FRANK GRANT.

THE WISH REPAIRED.

"Depend upon it, if you are not noble in the present age, in no age would you have been so." GEORGE DAWSON.

Oh, that my lot had been to live in days, alas! no more,
When valour drew the battle blade, 'gainst Saracen and Moor;
When glory called from every land, the noble and the brave,
To rescue from the infidel our Lord's dishonoured grave;
When valiant deeds where ever crowned with honour and with fame,
And poets sung the hero's praise, and nations blessed his name!
Oh, then might nobleness be gained, and noble deeds be done;
But now, alas! their days are passed, for ever set their sun.
Oh, that my lot had been to live in honour bringing days,
When persecution raised the stake, the faggot and the blaze ;
Days when the martyr's death procured the martyr's deathless fam e,
The victim was triumphant, and the victor won but shame :
When freedom's holy advocate, the daring and the strong,
Defied alike the tyrant king, the still more tyrant throng.
Oh, then might nobleness be gained, and noble deeds be done ;
But now, alas! their days are passed, for ever set their sun.
Oh, that my lot had been to live in freedom's holiest time,—
E'en when the Puritans achieved their victories sublime;
And from despotic will preserved this fair and goodly land,
Despite a church malignant, and a king's opposing hand:
When loving Hampden breathed his words of energy and fire;
When mighty Cromwell drew the sword, and Milton struck the lyre;
Oh, then might nobleness be gained, and noble deeds be done ;
But now, alas! their days are passed, for ever set their sun.

Oh, that my lot had been to live" Hold!" cried a warning tongue,
"There's sin in thy complaint, and there is evil in thy song;
"In every age, by noble hearts, may noble deeds be done,
"The battle yet is to be fought, the victory to be won;
"For every age has work demanding truthful, earnest men,
"A brave heart wields the sword, but 'tis a braver wields the pen.
And secretly, it whispered me, in accents how serene-

"If now thou art not noble, friend, thou ne'er hadst noble been !"
JOHN ALFRED LANGFORD.

CRITICAL EXEGESIS OF GOSPEL HISTORY,

ON THE BASIS OF STRAUSS'S LEBEN JESU.'

A SERIES OF EIGHT DISCOURSES; DELIVERED AT THE LITERARY INSTITUTION, JOHN STREET, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD, AND AT THE HALL OF SCIENCE, CITY ROAD, ON SUNDAY EVENINGS, DURING THE WINTERS OF 1848-9, AND 1849-50.

2. Lepers-from the tendency of the climate of Palestine to produce cutaneous disorders-might be expected to figure among the sufferers related to have been relieved by Christ. The narrative of the ten lepers, in Luke (17 c. 12 v.) is too indistinctly given to be singled out for criticism. The ten diseased men do not ask to be cured: they merely say "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Nor does Luke relate that Jesus said more to them than "Go, shew yourselves to the priests." Their cure, in the journey, is affirmed; the return, and "giving him thanks," of one, a Samaritan; and the declaration of Jesus respecting this one, that his faith had made him whole. But the narrative is too uncircumstantial, to bear dissection. Not so, with another narrative: that of the cleansing of one leper, which is given by the first three evangelists. (Matt. 8 c. 1 v.

Mark 1 c. 40 v. Luke 5 c. 12 v.) Matthew places his cure immediately after the delivery of the Sermon on the Mount: Mark and Luke, at some period not precisely marked, at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee. A leper comes towards Jesus, falls on his knees, and entreats that he may be cleansed; Jesus effects the cure by a touch and the declaration of his will-"I will, be thou clean ;" and then directs the leper to present himself to the priest, &c.

Again, we ask, who are the witnesses? We do not positively know who wrote the gospels to which the names of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are usually prefixed. And supposing that we had undoubted evidence that they were the writers-they do not tell us that they beheld the performance of this cure. Nay, a phrase of Luke, seems to indicate that he did not behold it. "It came to pass when he was in a certain city" (ch. 5 v. 12) our translators have rendered it; but the Greek is (literally translated) in one of the cities-a most uncertain phrase, which shows that the writer is relating something by hearsay: unless, the advocates for plenary inspiration,' will contend that Luke might have witnessed the miracle, but forgot the name of the place!

Let no one complain that this is hypercriticism. We are told that the 'Miracles' prove a Divine Revelation; and, again, we ask what proves this miracle? It is not substantiated by such testimony as would be accounted evidence, if we had read it in this shape in any other book-though there it might be perfectly valueless, even if fully attested-while here it is of such declared import that our salvation is affirmed to depend on the belief of it, among other 'miraculous cures.' It is not substantiated; and, therefore, to us, who have never witnessed a departure from the Laws of Nature, it could be allowed to be possible only by the operation of some great natural curative power resident in the body and will of Jesus of Nazareth. But there is nothing in the annals of animal magnetism to equal such a cure, or in any degree resembling it. We hear of the almost instantaneous relief of rheumatic and nervous disorders in our own day: we know some of the witnesses: we can summon their testimony. But it is a widely different story to be told that a leper-nay, one "full of leprosy," according to Luke-a person having the most obstinate and malignant of diseases of the skin; one in whom there is a thorough derangement of the animal fluids; one whose skin is corroded by this malady-was, by a touch and a sentence, instantly made pure and healthy. We feel that we are in the realm of legend, again; and the mythical sources of the story are evident. Thus remarks Strauss:

"In the fabulous region of oriental and more particularly of Jewish legend, the sudden appearance and disappearance of leprosy presents itself the first thing. When Jehovah endowed Moses, as a preparation for his mission into Egypt, with the power of working all kinds of signs, amongst other tokens of this gift he commanded him to put his hand into his bosom, and when he drew it out again, it was covered with leprosy again he was commanded to put it into his bosom, and on drawing it out a second time it was once more clean (Exod. iv. 6, 7.). Subsequently, on account of an attempt at rebellion against Moses, his sister Miriam was suddenly stricken with leprosy, but on the intercession of Moses was soon healed (Num. xii. 10.). Above all, among the miracles of the prophet Elisha the cure of a leper plays an important part, and to this event Jesus himself refers (Luke iv. 27.). The Syrian General Naaman, who suffered from leprosy, applied to the Israelitish prophet for his aid; the latter sent to him the direction to wash seven times in the river Jordan, and on Naaman's observance of this prescription the leprosy actually disappeared, but was subsequently transferred by the prophet to his deceitful servant Gehazi (2 Kings v.). I know not what we ought to need beyond these Old Testament narratives to account for the origin of the evangelical anecdotes. What the first Goel was empowered to do in the fulfilment of Jehovah's commission, the second

Goel must also be able to perform, and the greatest of prophets must not fall short of the achievements of any one prophet. If then the cure of leprosy was without doubt included in the Jewish idea of the Messiah; the Christians, who believed the Messiah to have really appeared in the person of Jesus, had a yet more decided inducement to glorify his history by such traits, taken from the mosaic and prophetic legend; with the single difference that, in accordance with the mild spirit of the New Covenant (Luke ix. 55.) they dropped the punitive side of the old miracles."

3. The Blind-also agreeably to the nature of the climate of Palestinemight be expected to fill a prominent place in the list of sufferers related to have been relieved by Christ. Of the blind several cures are narrated.

(1.) A narrative common to the first three evangelists, is that of a cure of blindness wrought by Jesus at Jericho, on his last journey to Jerusalem. (Matt. 20 ch. 29 v. Mark, 10 ch. 46 v. Luke, 18 ch. 35v.) The divergencies, in this case, are important: Matthew has two blind men, Mark and Luke but one: Luke makes the miracle take place on the entrance of Jesus into Jericho, Matthew and Mark on his departure out of that city. Moreover, the touching of the eyes, by which, according to Matthew, Jesus effected the cure, is not mentioned by either Mark or Luke. It may be replied, that although the second and third evangelist do not mention the touching, they do not, therefore, deny it. But should not plenary' or full inspiration, direct an equally complete account to each 'inspired' writer? To me, I must confess, that seems necessary-when our eternal interests are maintained to be involved in a belief of the account of a supernatural transaction. But how reconcile the difference relative to number? They who give the priority to the second and third gospel, say that one of the two blind men was possibly more remarkable than the other, on which account, he alone, was mentioned by Mark and Luke; but Matthew writing afterwards, and being an eye-witness, supplied the second blind man. On this supposition, Mark and Luke do not contradict Matthew, for they nowhere deny that another besides their single blind man was healed; neither does Matthew contradict them-for where there are two, there is also one! If this method of reconciliation be deemed satisfactory, who shall despair of reconciling any difficulty? But who can reconcile the statement of Matthew and Mark, "as they departed from," and that of Luke, as they came nigh to Jericho ?" Commentators, from Grotius to our contemporaries, have made attempts to render these passages consistent with each other; but the thing is impossible.

The older 'harmonists,' and some modern critics, maintain that two distinct cures are related by three evangelists: one, on the entrance into, and the other, on the departure from Jericho. Without detailing all their reasonings, it is sufficient to reply that, since Matthew says two blind men were cured on the departure from Jericho, and Luke, says one was cured on the entrance into that city, we should, on this hypothesis, have three cures of the blind-for Mark must be thrown into Matthew's account, with the supposition that he has only mentioned the most remarkable of Matthew's two men. And then, these puzzling considerations follow: 1. The one blind man at the entrance (Luke) and the two blind men at the going out, (Matthew) cry out in the same language. 2. The multitude rebuke' the one blind man at the entrance, and yet, although they had seen that they were acting in opposition to the designs of Jesus, they'rebuke' the two blind men at the going out! 3. Jesus puts the same question, in each case, to the blind. 4. The blind make the same answer (Mark and Luke.) 5. Jesus attributes their cure, in each case, to their faith (Mark and Luke.) 6. In each case, the blind follow him, when their sight is