it? Of whose glory, under one most important aspect considered, is it the image, the faint reflection? Milton evidently spoke both from the depth of his own feelings, and from an intimate knowledge of the true nature of man, when he composed the "Morning Hymn of Adam and Eve," so often quoted with pleasure even by those who are not aware of the profound philosophy and poetic feeling in which it originated "These are thy glorious works, Parent of good! Thus wondrous fair. Thyself how wondrous then, In these thy lowest works; yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.” But the subject comes to us possessing the stamp of far higher authority than that of Milton. The Psalms of David abundantly show that their author was enabled to penetrate the mysteries of the tabernacle and its services, and to perceive in these outward sacraments, the spiritual truths they were designed to body forth. His earnest desires after communion with God were, therefore, often expressed in language supplied by the visible objects which he beheld, but which referred to the invisible truths contemplated by his living faith. One instance of this is remarkable, bearing more directly on the subject before us than even the glowing language of Milton, and doing this with the certainty and authority of inspiration. His words not only expressed his own feelings, but show how such feelings ought to be expressed. “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, TO BEHOLD THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD, and to inquire at his temple." He desired that constant access to God which belongs to the truly anointed and royal priesthood alone, of which the Priests of the law were only the outward figures; and this he desired, not merely for the purposes of continual prayer, but for the spiritual contemplation of the divine glory as exciting admiring adoration;-" that I may behold the BEAUTY of the Lord." And this is one aspect under which the divine character is presented to us, it is infinitely beautiful. He is the "fairest among ten thousand, the altogether lovely." And love to him, when complete, not only implies gratitude and delight, as he does good, and is good, but admiration, as possessing the highest and most attractive excellence. The dew-drops reflecting the lustre of the morning sun, and clothing the earth in radiancy, only faintly illustrate the truth, that all the beauties of creation are but reflections, partial images, of the perfect and eternal beauty of the Creator. When they are admired, the admiration should never rest till it has extended to him; and so ought he to be regarded by us as admirable in himself, and for his own sake; infinitely exalted above all his works; so that when seen by the true faith of his children, the highest emotions of adoring love shall be called forth. And the more his character, represented in Scripture, is studied in the light, and under the influence, of this spiritual faith, the more shall we see to admire, whether we place him before us as Creator or Redeemer. We shall still be "beholding the beauty of the Lord." How often soever, therefore, this subject may be desecrated and debased by association with only created and material objects, or with trifling vanities, this is not its proper nature. It is one of the degradations of our fallen condition. It is designed to occupy a much higher, a truly elevated and holy, position. The faculty is designed for improvement; and when properly improved, becomes one of the most important elements of religious character. For it should never be forgotten, that there is not only a natural but a moral beauty: and to this are we solemnly commanded to direct our attention. One class of the subjects of which it is written, "Think on these things,” is thus described, "WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE LOVELY.' It is not enough that we have the negative virtue of not disgracing religion: we are commanded to "adorn the Gospel of God our Saviour in all things," to set it out to the best advantage, to evince the beauty of holiness, to make it admirable and lovely. In a word,—and what more powerful recommendation can we give, the subject is one susceptible of no ordinary degree of sanctification, and opens a path which, though it may first present us with objects visible and material, conducts to those which are intellectual and spiritual, and leads onward to the very heights of religion, both in happiness and holiness. GEOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS. OUR readers will perhaps have noticed that, among the subjects we from time to time bring before them, whether in the form of essays, or of observations upon books, we have never referred to what has of late been called geology. Perhaps they may have thought that an omission so guarded and entire, must have been intentional; and if so, they are not mistaken. So far, indeed, as the mineralogical constitution of the earth is concerned, we might have adverted to this subject; but such statements are seldom alone: they are for the most part connected with speculations concerning the original work of creation, whose tendency is not only to unsettle the mind in reference to some fundamental articles of revealed truth, but to produce a universal scepticism, by confusing all the mental laws connected with the exercise of belief. What else can be the effect, on the unsuspecting mind, of bold assertions, merely plausible because of their grammatical form, and which can no more abide the test of rigid analysis, and deliberate investigation, than the drop of water can retain its aqueous form when cast into the vehemently heated furnace? We wish we could induce our young readers to adopt early in life, the rule which has been forced on ourselves. When we find declarations clothed in specious but vague generalities, we ask, "And now what is the real meaning of all this?" We try to make the sentence speak out, and tell us what it does actually mean, and all that it means. We seek to get at the meaning, the whole meaning, and nothing but the meaning; in fact, to translate the sentence into the language of honesty and common sense. Had we acted on this rule earlier, in our unsuspicious youth, when we took for granted that words were always the expressions of clear and distinct thought, we should not only have been much less frequently misled, but much less frequently puzzled. Lucretius wrote a poem to argue all religion out of the world; and certainly his language rolls on very magnificently; but the moment it is analyzed, his arguments are evidently, not merely inconclusive, but absolutely meaningless, and his vestiges of creation just vestiges of nothing at all. Even sound argument is useless where the original proposition, like the unsubstantial phantom of Virgil's Juno, only gives empty words, and sound without mind." But here is often the mischief. Some meaningless sentence introduces some not bad argumentation, which is pursued through a whole paragraph, till, deceived by this correctness, the reader forgets the original and incurable fault. Start with a cipher, add it to itself a hundred times over, multiply it by twenty figures, divide it, fraction it, decimal it, square it, cube it, the result is a cipher still; and the figures employed in the various operations, though they may fill the slate, and deceive the eye, add no value to the original nothing, and do not at all belong to it. And yet, by a little management, this may be made to appear to amount to a great deal. Suppose we were to arrange a sum thus:0×24÷6+10 × 50. Square the product; add twenty, and again multiply by fifty. By going on thus, we may get so accustomed to figures of real value, as to overlook the original and fatal defect, which no application of figures can possibly remedy, and come to imagine that the conclusion must possess some appreciable value. And if instead of employing Arabic numerals, we make use of an algebraic notation, the mystification will be more complete. And thus, by the employment of high-sounding words, grammatically arranged, (and especially if some attention be paid to elegance in composition,) the artful juggler utters his hocus pocus, and lo! the meaningless becomes transformed into the significant. That between true science, with its actually proved facts and really established principles, and the rightly understood statements of divine revelation, there neither is, nor can be, discrepancy, we have no doubt whatsoever; but still, we did not see, nor do we now see, it to be our duty to make geological theories one of the subjects to the elucidation of which our pages should be devoted. We would as carefully avoid all doubtful disputations in science, as we would all party discussions in modern politics. The theories themselves are in too unfixed a condition. Those which were held yesterday, have given place to others; and what are received to-day, are very likely to be rejected to-morrow. When the proper number of facts for the formation of a true theory have been collected, and the theory formed according to the established laws of induction, it will be time enough to institute the inquiry whether it be in harmony with the language of Scripture, fairly and honestly interpreted. Till then, the task would be altogether premature. In the meanwhile, it should be remembered that there are two facts on which the mind may repose with the highest degree of security and satisfaction. First, the demonstration, by numberless lines of argument, many of them entirely independent of each other, that the Bible is a true book; and that it is impossible, properly understanding it, and viewing, both minutely and comprehensively, the mass of evidence producible in its favour, even to conceive of it as a merely human production, or as other than divinely inspired. Unless a human composition can exist without a single mark characteristic of its proper origin, the Bible cannot be such a one. Of human instrumentality, the marks are plentiful enough: but to an exclusively human invention, all the facts are unitedly and utterly opposed. It is a great mistake to imagine that the Bible rests merely on the truth of its recorded miracles. The force of these, indeed, is not trivial. Such is the evidence for the facts of the case, that Hume, well-knowing that a boy might as well try to batter down the Peak of Teneriffe by blowing at it peas through his tin tube, adroitly evaded the task, and set himself to prove, by metaphysical subtleties, that all such facts were unprovable. A verbal demonstration that a wheel cannot be turned on its axle, so constructed as that a verbal reply would be difficult, is by no means impossible. But the wheel would turn round in spite of it. But if Hume's argument were, what it is not, unanswerable, he would only have picked off a pebble from the mountain-top. The Bible must be taken as a whole, and its evidence as collective and |