Could John have written such things of a mere man? Could a pious Jew have done so without conscious blasphemy? And can we believe that John was an idolater or blasphemer!

to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden | he was familiar, or the real though singirdle. His head and his hairs were white like less infirmities to which he was subject; wool as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as not the reception he met with from his if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the countrymen, or the death by which his sound of many waters. And he had in his right short earthly career was ended! What hand seven stars; and out of his mouth went a was there in such an earthly life, so insharp two-edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And tensely human, to convince such true, when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And thoughtful, godly, men as the apostles that he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, this man was one with the Holy One of Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he Israel, the Almighty Creator of the heathat liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of vens and the earth, one to be loved and hell and of death."-REV. i. 5-8, 10, 12-18. revered as God? Yet such was the conviction of John, who lent upon his bosom at the last supper, watched him in Gethsemane, beheld him in the Judgment Hall, and stood by him at the Cross! Such was the faith of Paul, who never saw him in the flesh, or ever heard his voice while he tabernacled among men. But if the alleged supernatural facts in the Bible are true, we can easily account for those convictions, but not otherwise. Notice, therefore, that along with the revelation of the one living and true God, there was a remarkable preparatory education of the pious Jew, in another "Lord," who was one with God in the mysterious unity of the Godhead, and yet a distinct person-a person in the full sense which we attach to that word; so that as such He addresses God, and God Him, and each using the per

We think it, then, established to the satisfaction of every candid man, that the apostles believed that Jesus of Nazareth was divine. I am not asserting, at present, that what they believed was true in fact, but only that they in fact believed this to be true. And here I might inquire, whether there was anything then in their personal knowledge of Christ which would have suggested such a thought to those men? We have seen that the grand lesson of their education as Jews was, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might." What-sonal epithets of I and thou. This prepaever other faith or worship did not harmonise with this was idolatry, deadly to soul and body. It is true that, with the exception of Paul, all the apostles had seen Jesus in the flesh, and John specially pleads for his humanity, a fact which, as well as his divinity, we have yet to consider, and presses it home with every form of expression. "That," says he, "which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life." But were we to lay aside all supernatural or miraculous evidences of our Lord's person, what was there in His life which could have produced this impression, or awakened this strange conviction of his divinity? Not surely his lowly birth, nor the long years in which he was known as the carpenter's son; not the sorrow and grief with which

ratory education for the reception in due time by the world of the crowning fact of all revelation, God manifest in the flesh, is too large a subject to discuss here. I would only direct the attention of the thoughtful reader to those remarkable appearances, from time to time, in a visible and human form, of one who has the incommunicable names of Jehovah and the "Lord" given to Him, while at the same time another Being, as it were, God the Father, remains unseen and unrevealed. (Read, for example, Genesis xviii. 1, 2; 13-17; 22. Exodus xxxiii. 20; xxiv.9–11. Ezekiel i. 26-28. Matthew xxii. 23.) We may quote at length one of those passages:

"Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the God of Israel: and there was under

his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire

stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of the children

of Israel he laid not his hand : also they saw God,

and did eat and drink."

There was thus a greater preparedness by God in the minds of the apostles, as Jews, for the reception of such a fact as God manifest in the flesh, than they were themselves properly conscious of. But not until the Spirit of God was poured down at Pentecost, enabling them to take into their minds, and grasp the whole life of Christ, in connection with all that had been revealed of God regarding that “Lord” who was promised as man's Saviour, and who, before coming to earth in fulness of time, to unite himself to man in man's nature, had ever been the only Mediator between God and man; not, I say, until the whole past was thus seen in the light of truth, was Jesus recognised as "the glory of the Father," and as the person to whom Moses and the prophets gave witness.

behind me, Satan." He was so poor that pious women ministered to him of their substance, and so sorrowful, that he often wept; yet he dried the tears of thousands, healed all who came to him of every disease, and by a word of power raised the dead, even when corruption had begun to do its loathsome work. He had his days of darkness when he could say, "Now is my soul troubled;" yet a voice from heaven even then witnessed to his glory. He washed the feet of his disciples, yet it was at the moment when, "knowing that God had given all things into his hands, that he came from God, and went to God!" He died and was buried, but while, during all the hours which marked that saddest of all tragedies, there were signs of human woe and weakness, as if "himself he could not save," yet what signs of dignity and superhuman majesty! He was addressed on the cross as a king by a dying criminal, and as a king he promised to save him; while How beautifully harmonious were the the darkened sky, the rending rocks, and facts of this person's life when thought of all the august circumstances which atas "Emmanuel, God with us!" These, tended his humiliation, proclaimed with when "called to remembrance," were the centurion, "Truly this was the Son such as must have confirmed and esta- of God!" He lay in the grave, and his blished the faith of the apostles. If body received the tears and affectionate there were evidences of a humility be- ministrations of attached friends; but an longing to him as man, there were angel descended and rolled away the stone, equal evidences of a dignity which be--the Roman guard became as dead longed to him as God. He was born men,-"the Lord is risen indeed!" and apin a stable, laid in a manger, but wise peared to his disciples, and so overcame men from the East, guided by a star, the unbelief of Thomas by His very precame to worship Him, and to present sence bearing the marks of his human Him with kingly offerings, while the sufferings, that he fell down and worhosts of heaven announced his birth with shipped him, saying, "My Lord, and my songs of rejoicing! During his life, God!" Jesus remained on earth for forty while he submitted to every trial and days, and we still "behold the man." He temptation to which humanity was liable, conversed familiarly with his apostles, "that in all things he might be like his eat and drank with them, and instructed brethren," yet never was evidence want them in the things pertaining to His ing of a dignity and glory which seemed kingdom. But he ascended to heaven bedivine. He was hungry, but fed thou- fore their eyes, while angels announced sands; wearied and asleep amidst the his second coming, and soon the descent storm, but he rebuked the winds and of the Holy Ghost, with the great inwaves, so that there was a great calm; gathering to the Church which followed, he was tempted of the devil for forty testified to the truth of the apostolic misdays, but Satan did homage to his dig- sionaries, that Jesus was the Son of God, nity by offering him as a bribe the king- and that all power was given to Him in doms of the world, while his grandeur heaven and on earth! was revealed in the command, "Get thee

Now, in all this eventful history, there

was that very combination of earth and, conviction and deep joy the mysterious heaven, of the human and superhuman, fact of Christ's divinity, the very thought which received an interpretation from the of which, without some such overwhelmfact of Christ's divine and human nature,- ing evidence, must have been to them a a history, too, which, when taken in con- blasphemous idolatry. They believed, nection with the previous Old Testament because they had sufficient grounds for record, of God's revelation of himself to their belief. Nor can we think that those man as the unseen Jehovah, yet the seen who rejected the claims of Jesus, and Adonai, the superhuman and unknown executed Him as a blasphemer who de"I am," yet the human and known served to die, were right, and that the personal Lord and Mediator, who con- apostles, who acknowledged him as one versed with the patriarchs, appeared to with God, were wrong, and that such the children of Israel, and guided their faith has been put to shame. destinies, must have prepared the minds of the apostles, along with the holy life and positive declarations of Jesus, to have at last accepted with such profound

But this subject is far from being exhausted, and we shall return to it in our next number.

(To be Continued.)

SPIRIT OF MODERN UNITARIANISM IN AMERICA.

We have had lying beside us for some time an extract from an American Unitarian periodical, which may be appropriately printed after the preceding article. It will show that there is a party in the Unitarian body in America which is not to be confounded with Theodore Parker and his friends. It is to be hoped that this party will increase, until the whole body will be pervaded by the serious and conscientious spirit which characterises these extracts. It is a most encouraging fact that there is such a party, and that it contains men who have the courage to speak as Mr Huntingdon does.

"Within the denomination known as Unitarian, there are those who accept Christianity as a dispensation of Divine grace, and not a development of human reason; as having, for its specific and peculiar power, a special, supernatural redemption from sin, in Christ Jesus, and not merely an unusual measure of natural wisdom or love. They believe in Christ as literally and verily God manifest in the flesh,' all power being given unto him in heaven and on earth; as the eternally begotten Son of God, his mode of oneness with the Father being a glorious and gracious mystery, transcending knowledge by the very conditions of the case; and as the ever-living present Head of the Church, and personal Intercessor for his disciples. They believe in the univer

sality of the need of a spiritual renewal in human hearts, through repentance, forgiving grace, and the salvation in Christ. They believe that the cross of the Redeemer is the world's only hope; all everywhere who are saved being saved through the spiritual administration and headship of the Son of God over the entire race, consciously or unconsciously veritable asking and receiving from God, operating. They believe in prayer as a and not a self-stimulating and re-active process of man. In these respects, they probably differ from others of the same name, doctrinally. In many other points they agree.

cordial fellowship with all, of every name, "These persons also earnestly desire a whose spirit and faith permit it. They suppose God has true servants in all religious households, and that other sects than the Unitarians have something to afford to the Church of the future. They take all honourable occasions, therefore, to cultivate these catholic sympathies, and to hold friendly intercourse with intelligent and earnest hearts of different denominations; their own deepest interest inclining them naturally to evangelical' associations, rather than the opposite. Ministers of this stamp would gladly exchange professional civilities with devout orthodox men, for the sake of the ends here indicated, and as being a simple act of Christian decency between disciples so agreed and related. They make full and unreserved use, not of technical terms, but of the rich scriptural

267

STANLEY'S SINAI AND PALESTINE.

to me quite unexpected-the immense wall of the mountains of Moab seeming to overhang the lower hills of Judah, from which they are only separated by that deep mysterious gulf of the Dead Sea. Well might Moses from their sum. mits overlook the Promised Land. Well might Orpah return as to a near country-and Naomi be reminded of her sorrows. Well might her descendant David choose their heights as the refuge for his aged parents when Bethlehem was no longer safe for them.

Of the one great event of Bethlehem you are, of course, reminded by the enormous conventor convents, Latin, Greek, and Armenian-clusering round the church, which is divided amongst them in different compartments. The original nave of Helena-which is the prototype of the Roman St. Paul's, and of St. Apollinaris of Ravenna-and the subterranean church, are alone in common. Whether the Cave of the Nativity be genuine or not, yet there is the deep interest of knowing that it is the oldest special locality fixed upon by the Christian Church. Before the Sepulchre, before the Church of the Ascension, before any of the other countless scenes of our Saviour's life had been localised, he famous passage in Justin Martyr proves that the cave of Bethlehem was already known and reverenced as the scene of the Nativity. And one of the most striking instances of this reverence exists in a cave, or rather in one of the any winding caves which form the vaults of the church, the cell where Jerome lived and died that he might be near the sacred spot.

I have said one is reminded of the Nativity by the convent. But, in truth, I almost think it istracts one from it. From the first moment at those towers, and hills, and valleys burst on you, there enters the one prevailing

thought that now, at last, we are indeed in the "Holy Land." It pervades the whole atmosphere-even David and Ruth wax faint in its presence.

FIRST VIEW OF JERUSALEM.

Next came Rachel's Tomb-a modern mosque, but the site must be the true one-and then, far on the top of the hill opposite Bethlehem, was the Convent of St. Elias, seen from Bethlehem, and from which I knew we should see Jerusalem. It is the one place which commands the view of both. We reached the spot from its broken ridge. I saw a wide descent and ascent, and a white line rising high-of I knew not what build. ings-but I knew that it was Jerusalem. What were the main features of the approach? First, there was still the mighty wall of Moab; secondly, there was the broad green approach of the valley of Rephaim, so long, so broad, so green, that it almost seemed a natural entrance to the city, which still remained suspended, as it were, above it-for that white line kept increas. ing in height and length as we neared it, yet saw not the deep ravines which parted us from it. The first building which catches the eye is the palace of the Armenian Patriarch, then the castle, then the minaret over the mosque of David. The Mosque of Omar, and even the Mount of Olives, were for a long time shut out by the Hill of Evil Counsel, which, with its solitary tree before us, intercepted all to the east. High beyond towered Ramah (of Benjamin). At last the deep descent of the Valley of Hin. nom appeared, opening into that of Jehoshaphat. What struck me as new and unexpected was the rush, so to speak, of both the valleys to the south-west corner of the city. We entered the Jaffa gate about 4.30 P.M.

PSALMODY.

No. VII.

I anticipate that when we practically deal with them, these difficulties shall appear by no means insurmountable, even though I proceed on the understanding that strict fidelity to the original is the first and greatest requisite of a metrical version.

It is, at all times, a difficult thing to make a good translation from one language into another. Are there not sug

THIS is perhaps a convenient point for making one or two observations about the manner and design in which a metrical version of the Psalms ought to be undertaken, and consequently, about the rules by which such works should be judged. Grave difficulties in the way of attaining excellence suggest themselves, no matter what the prescribed standard may be, and incline us to be blind to the faults and imperfections of the more suc-gestions and associations which depend cessful attempts. The sacredness of the theme, the doubtful acquaintance which we are supposed to have with Hebrew customs and language, the great antiquity of the original compositions, all seem to magnify a thousand-fold the common difficulties of translation. But

on the very words of the original composition, and which cannot, in most cases, be conveyed in the words of a translation? For example, the orations of Demosthenes in English, however faithfully rendered, however skilfully imitated, are painfully inferior to the original Attic.