to a salt pit in Tatta, a lake between Galatia and Cappadocia :

"This pit," says Strabo, "is a natural one; and so easily does the water form a crust round everything baptized into it, that if persons let down a circlet of rushes, they will draw up wreaths of salt."-Lib. xii. cap. 6, 568.

V.

Strabo is speaking, in his next extract, of the celebrated passage of Alexander along the shore of Cilicia:—

"Although Alexander," he says, "had chanced on a tempestuous season, he trusted in the main to his fortune, and set out before the tide had abated, so that the whole day's march was in the midst of water, the men being baptized up to their loins."Lib. xiv. cap. 3, 2 667.

VI.

Our last extract will remind some of our readers of a similar passage in Josephus. It is an account of the asphaltus which is got from the lake Sirbonis:—

"This asphaltus," says Strabo, "is a clod of earth which when soaked in warm water expands and swells out; but on the application afterwards of cold water, such as that of the lake is, it congeals into a solid mass, so as to require cutting?and chopping after this it will float on the surface, owing to the nature of the water, which, as we said, is such as to render swimming unnecessary, and such, that one who walks upon it is not baptized."-Lib. xvi. cap. 2, 3 764.

The exceptional instance among the, above will be easily seen to be the fifth; but here it will be evident at once that the writer is speaking of but a partial bap-. tism. I need only add, that such of your readers as will refer to the former articles on Josephus and Plutarch, will easily gather that Strabo, as a writer, was a little earlier than each of these authors, both of whom, in fact, refer to him. Stepney College.

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN BUNYAN. Edited by GEORGE OFFOR. Vol. II. large 8vo. London: Blackie and Son.

The second volume of Bunyan's Works consists of practical and controversial pieces. We give the list of them, as before, since very many of our readers may be quite ignorant of the variety of topics which he wrote upon:-"The Saints' Knowledge of Christ's Love," "Of Antichrist and his Ruin," "The Resurrection of the Dead, and Eternal Judgment," "Some Gospel Truths Opened," "A Vindication of Gospel Truths Opened," "A Discourse upon the Pharisee and Publican," "A Defence of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in Jesus Christ."

These diverse topics are discussed with the minuteness and fulness of Puritan times, and the peculiar unction and ingenuity of our author. In regard, indeed, to some whom he deemed utter subverters of the Gospel of Christ, such as Mr. Fowler, against whom he wrote in prison the Defence of Justification by Faith, he could use the current terms of theological abuse: he is a "brutish, beastly man," "this thief," "a blasphemer," "horribly wicked," "a learned, ignorant Nicodemus," "a bat," "an angel of darkness;" his clerical antagonist, who of course was soon made a bishop, replying in language of at least equal taste and elegance.

Bunyan's Calvinism was up to the full

pitch of that adopted by the great but cruel State-Churchman who gave his own name to thoroughgoing and consistent Predestinarianism. This is especially evident in his "Reprobation Asserted." Reprobation is a leaving or passing by, not a cursing of the creature. "It does not hinder God from blessing men with the gift of Christ, of faith, hope, &c., it only denieth them that benefit that will infallibly bring them to eternal life." "It does no harm to any; nay, it rather decrees him upright, lets him be made upright, and so be turned into the world." We may here just add our own opinion, that Bunyan makes not the least approach to a solution of the real difficulty of the whole question, viz., the admission of sin into the dominions of an all-powerful, and perfectly benevolent Creator, and the connected one of the reconcileableness of responsible liberty with divine preordination.

On the Sabbath question modern writers have added nothing; on this as on most theological subjects, the modern theologian will be struck with the unconscious confusion of reasoning from the Jewish carnal theocracy to the spiritual New Covenant; an error, however (witness pædobaptism), by no means expunged from the reasoning of this day. Many will be curious to see Bunyan's arguments on the communion question. Mr. Hall frequently remarked that he had

added nothing to Bunyan. Bunyan's antagonists admitted that baptism was not an ordinance of admission to church membership, a concession which many strict communionists would not now accede to, but of which he makes, of course, good use. Perhaps, however, we could hardly describe the controversy as then carried on, without being supposed to loan to one side or the other.

We cordially commend the volume to our readers (not endorsing every doctrine, or every interpretation of individual texts), and wait with interest the appearance of the third volume, comprising all his allegorical pieces. It is on his imaginative writings, after all, that the fame of Bunyan must chiefly rest.

THE BIBLE AND THE WORKING CLASSES: BEING A SERIES OF LECTURES DELIVERED TO THE WORKING CLASSES OF BRADFORD, YORKSHIRE, IN 1851. By ALEXANDER WALLACE, EDINBURGH. Pp. 298. London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co.

We cordially welcome this little work. It is the offspring of a well planned and useful movement, and it is well adapted for its purpose. On a Sunday afternoon-not in a chapel which hundreds of operatives will not enter, but in a Mechanics' Institute at Bradford, in Yorkshire-these lectures were delivered for the Town Mission, to a full attendance of working men. We want far more of these extra-professional and nonprofessional efforts. Thousands in our busy towns can only be reached thus. It is a sufficient proof of the merits of the lectures that all the leading religious gentlemen in the town, including several who have been mayors of the borough, subscribed to provide a thousand copies of them for the working men at a nominal price; while the Dispatch, so notorious for its attacks on our religious institutions, and which knows so well the character and wants of the

working men, commends it highly, and says, "that it deserves a world-wide circulation." Those, therefore, who wish to put a suitable book into the hands of sceptics, could not well select one better attested. It is frank and manly, pious and earnest. Absolutely free from that kind of writing which a sceptic at once rejects as "religious cant," and which is so common in most tracts, that we cannot wonder that an infidel should think that the writers have all "learned their tale of one another," or "written to order," or else, that they must be men of humble capacities indeed to tell them the same thing so often in the same unvarying formulas. We do want just the christian outspokenness, the freedom from conventional change-ringing, and the willingness to deal with men as they are, which pervade these addresses. May they be abundantly blessed!

THE FAMILIES OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. By CHARLES LAROM. Pp. 246. London: Houlston and Stoneman.

The author of this volume remarks, that being about families, it is meant for families. Those who know the excellent writer, will be prepared for the interesting and truly devotional character which marks it throughout, and which makes it a very suitable book for evening family reading. Perhaps, the best way of recommending it to our readers, will be to state the subjects of the chapters:- Introduction,- The First Family, The Family of Noah,-The Family of Abraham,-The Family of Isaac,The Family of Jacob,- The Family of Joseph, The Family of Naomi,—The Family of Elkanah and Eli,-The Family of David, The Family of the Jewish People, -The Family of Zacharias,-The Holy Family, The Family at Bethany,- The Family of the Philippian Jailer,- The Family of God. An extract will be found on another page.

where. There is a poor little girl very ill; and she wants to see you very much."

"How did you hear of her? and where does she live?" asked Mr. S.

"I was in Mrs. B's shop," said the teacher," when a woman came in, and said, 'Do you know where a Mr. S―, whơ

preaches at Whitechapel, lives? My girl is very ill; and she will not give me any peace till I find him out. She says she wants to see him directly.' I said I knew where you lived, and I would fetch you. I am very glad I have found you."

The teacher told Mr. S-where the little girl lived; and he went to her directly. It was not very easy to find the place, for he had to turn out of the wide street into some little streets, and then into a dirty court, and then into another dirtier and darker still. The opposite houses were very near together, and the cheerful sky could not be seen from them. When he found the house, he saw that it was not clean and pleasant, like the houses in which many of my little readers live. The panes of the windows were broken and stuffed with rags. There were no chairs to sit upon, only one or two old stools, and the room smelt badly. There were children crying and quarreling, and a woman with a loud voice, scolding and swearing at them. Mr. S hardly liked to go into so dirty and wicked a place; but he was a minister of the gospel, and he knew that he ought to be ready to go wherever there was any good to be done.

The room was so dark, that when Mr. S- first went in, he could scarcely see about him. As he looked around, however, he spied a little bed in the corner. Indeed, I ought not to call it a bed, for it was only some straw laid on an old wooden bedstead. A little girl, about thirteen years of age, lay upon it. She looked very ill; and she had no nice blankets and sheets about hernothing but a piece of dirty sacking as a counterpane. When she saw Mr. S-, she rose up on her bed and stretched out her thin hands to him, and said, “Oh, Mr. S-, I am so glad to see you: I have been wanting to see you so long!"

"How is this? I do not know you, my little girl," said Mr. S———.

"Oh, Sir-but I know you! I heard you preach, and I wanted to see you," she said again.

"Where did you hear me preach ?" Mr. Sasked.

"I should like to tell you, Sir, if you please," said the little girl, and she began her story: "I have been ill for a long time," she said; "and one Sunday afternoon I felt weary and ill, and I tried every place in the room, but could not rest; and mother said, 'Why can't you sit still? You

had better go out and take a walk.' So, Sir, I went out, and I walked down Whitechapel till I was very tired, and I wanted to sit down and rest. I did not like to sit down in the street. Just then I came to a church, and I thought that if I went in there, I should find a place to sit down. It was your church, and you were preaching to the Sunday school children. The text was, 'It is time to seek the Lord.' I thought, as I listened to the sermon, 'I am very ill. I get weaker every day. Perhaps I shall die soon. It is time for me to seek the Lord.' So I did seek him, and I hope I have found him: and I am so happy. I wanted to see you, Sir, to thank you, and to tell you how happy I am."

You may be sure that it gave Mr. S much pleasure to hear all this. He talked to the little girl, and asked her many questions. It seemed as if she had indeed found. her Saviour, and as if he had himself taught her by his Word and his Spirit, for she had had no one else to teach her. She could read; and she had a little Testament and an old hymn book; and she read these very much. Mr. S asked a good woman in his congregation to visit her; and she, too, was much pleased with her. He went again himself very soon, and talked to the little girl for some time. He took up her hymn book, and found several of the leaves turned down. He read some, and asked her why she liked them. "Because it is just as I feel, Sir," she said. They were beautiful hymns, and such as no one could feel who had not been taught by the Spirit of God.

I think Mr. S saw her a third time, but I am not quite sure. The next time he went, he saw the little bedstead in the corner, but the little girl was not on it. The mother was in the room, and Mr. Sturned to her for an explanation. "Well, I will tell you about it," she said. "On Saturday, I was peeling potatoes by the window, and she called, 'Mother!' I went to her, and she raised herself up in the bed, and put her arms around my neck, and said, 'Mother, I want to speak to you, and I want to kiss you. I am going to die; but I am so happy. Oh, mother, do go to hear Mr. Spreach, and ask father to go, and do let my brothers go to the Sunday- School. Oh, mother, I am so happy!' She went on so till she was quite tired, and she let go my neck, and fell back on the bed. I went on peeling my potatoes; and when I had turned round, she was dead."

Mr. S was very sorry that he had not been there when the dear little girl died. Two or three days after, he thought that he ought to go and see the poor wicked mother, and try to do her good. He found the house shut up, and he knocked and knocked without getting any answer At last a woman looked out of a window in the next house, and asked what he wanted. "I want Mrs. ," he answered. "Oh," said the woman, "you will not find her. The father has been sent to prison, and the

mother and children went away in the night, and no one knows what has become of them." Then Mr. S- felt thankful that God had taken the dear child to be with himself.

My dear little readers, this little girl had only heard one sermon, but she attended and believed. Perhaps you have heard many without feeling or minding them, or being any the better for them. She had sought the Lord, and found him. Is it not time for you to seek him too?

HOW TO REACH THE WORKING CLASSES. -Our church and chapel services, as ordinarily conducted, are useless, if the parties will not attend them; nor is the preaching there always best adapted to the peculiar modes of thought of our working men. If they will not come to hear the Gospel, we must convey it to them; and we must present it in a manner most likely to overcome their prejudices, to arrest their attention, to secure their belief. He who bears it must be a man fitted to gain their confidence; he must go to them not hedged about by an assumed sanctity, nor with a supreme dignity, nor with the stiff forms of officiality and conventionalism,-not assuming a patronising air, not meeting their doubts with threatenings of damnation, as if their unbelief were a personal offence, and he were glad of an opportunity of personally retaliating. He must go with the eye, and the ear, and the heart of a man who sympathises with them in their struggles, who would gladly lighten their burdens and better their present position, while he seeks to prepare them for eternity. must treat them as his equals; he must address them as a brother addressing his brethren; he must appeal to their candour for a hearing; he must fairly weigh and courteously meet their objections; he must distinguish between religion and its professors,-between the Christianity of the New Testament, as exhibited in the life of Christ, and the Christianity of the present day, as exhibited in the lives of too many of its professors; he must shew them how religion regards them with a benignant spirit, how it provides for their wants, and would satisfy their longings,-how it conduces to their progress,-how it promotes their comfort,-how it invests them with dignity, how it allies them to God,how it makes them the heirs of the universe, how it points them to a destiny before the grandeur of which their present circumstances dwindle into insignificance, which is worthy of their best efforts, and affords the fullest scope to their loftiest aspirations. Let the Gospel be presented thus, and we fear not for the results, whe

He

ther brought into contact with the brutally profligate or the intellectually sceptical. We know too much of what it has done in the past, we feel too convinced of its power, when we look at its trophies, to doubt that it will triumph over both,overcoming the hostility of the sceptic, raising the downfallen from his degradation, and proving itself to be, as it was in days of old, "mighty, through God, to the pulling down of the strongholds" of sin and Satan.-From a Speech at the Baptist Home Missionary Society's Meeting, by the Rev. J. Landells.

THE HOME OF THE FAMILY OF GOD.The children of God have many homes on earth, for which they are humbly grateful to divine goodness. And many of them are very happy homes-homes made happy by religion, by the presence and the smile of God. What a happy home was that at Bethany, where the brother and the two sisters lived, of whom it is declared that Jesus loved them! and that at Philippi, of the jailer, when "he rejoiced, believing in God, with all his house!" And that of many a disciple of Jesus, at present upon earth, is equally happy. But we speak especially now of the final home of the whole household of God. That home is heaven. When Christ took leave of his immediate followers, he said to them, and to us through them, if we believe in him, "I go to prepare a place for you;' " and he declared that he went for that purpose to his father's house-that is, heaven. There the whole family is to be gathered, that in permanence it may dwell there. This furnishes an additional, and perhaps the strongest proof, that God is fully a father to his family; for what can be a greater evidence of this than the fact that he will have his children with him? An earthly parent regrets that the members of his family should be dispersed; he rejoices to see them all gathered under his own roof. And God, the great father of all who believe in and love the Saviour, gives emphatic expression of his paternal regards to them, by appointing that his own dwelling-place shall be their eternal home. That is a home where

there is never any sorrow-a very commonplace remark, truly; but we offer no apology for making it, because it is a remark that applies to no other home. Go, and we will follow you, through the earth, heedless of language, climate, distance, if you will shew us a home anywhere in which there is never any sorrow; but there is not one on earth. Even into that sweet home at Bethany sorrow came, and there stood Jesus and the two sisters weeping at their brother's grave; but in the final home of this family there is

never any sorrow. No one ever enters it as a physician, for there is no disease; nor any one as an undertaker, for there is no death; nor as a comforter, for there is no distress; nor in the way of pecuniary demand, for God, their father, pays the whole expense-he meets it all. And not only is there no sorrow, but there is its opposite-there is joy; for it is the place of God's presence, and in his presence is "fulness of joy."-Larom's Families of Holy Scripture.

THE MONTH.

Since our last, the House of Commons has decided, by immense majorities, to go on with the Militia Bill; and though Messrs. Cobden, Bright, and their associates, have nobly done their duty, Whigs and Tories, equally in want of places for the numerous idlers who beset them, have continued to press this odious measure. The Ballot, i.e., compulsory service, is not to be put in force till next year. The useless and demoralizing militia will just absorb the money which would have been sacrificed by repealing two of the three taxes on Knowledge! Fifteen millions were first voted for our National Defence; then, rather than give the people cheap newspapers and advertisements, another quarter of a million and more, is asked for a militia! We trust that

in every liberal constituency a vote against the Repeal of Taxes on Knowledge, especially if coupled with a vote for the militia, will be held a complete disqualification for a candidate. Government Education must be the most barefaced hypocrisy in legislators who tax us to the amount of at least £150 a year for diffusing cheap knowledge; who refuse the artisan his penny newspaper; and who require of subscribers to the Tract Society to throw away one half their subscriptions in taxes on paper, &c. It was in evidence before the House of Commons Committee, that cheap newspapers did more than all besides in America, to ensure reading habits in the working classes. So successful are they, that the business of a halfpenny paper was sold in New York lately for about £50,000, and "cheap at that!" Every workman has his daily paper with his breakfast! So bitter is the aversion of Whigs and Tories to cheap information, that Lord John Russell, and now the Earl of Derby, have determined, if they can, to prevent monthly publications like ours from giving any news. Dickens had established the right at the cost of a trial; they are about to try it over again!

Mr.

In the case of Mr. Gladstone disobeying the inhibition of the Bishop of London, it has been again laid down, that the Bishop has the power of stopping every curate he pleases from preaching, without assigning any reason whatever! One may well doubt

which is the most abject slave, the illiterate man who hires himself to do the bidding, just or unjust, of an officer, under fear of the lash, or the educated man who ties himself by oath to such mental slavery as that of curates to their "Ordinary." Mr. Gladstone is, however, we understand, a bitter enemy, and even ranter, against Dissenters; and, in his defence, pleads his "apostolic succession:" such evangelicals deserve to be slaves.

On the Continent, civil and religious liberty continue at the lowest ebb. Protestant Prussia still at the head of Baptist persecution! In France, the President is slightly checked in his perjured and bloody career. The ablest and worthiest men write, though not permitted to speak, in manly style, and refuse to take the oath of allegiance to the great oathbreaker. At a splended fete, on the 10th of last month, at which it was generally understood he meant the soldiers to proclaim him emperor, that step was not ventured upon. The courts of law, also, have honourably resisted him. It seems as if France must, ere long, awake to a sense of its ignominious position.

Of the religious meetings we have spoken elsewhere. It seems as if the atmosphere of May were contagious, for even the House of Commons has been occupied with a real religious discussion, the doctrines, namely, taught at Maynooth College; the Government assents to a committee of enquiry; but at the adjourned debate on the 19th, the House was counted out. Mr. Gladstone taught Dissenters a lesson. He reminded his Church friends, "that if the repeal of this grant were proposed, they must enter into the whole question of religious endowments." We rather expect the zeal of clerical opponents of the grant will therefore cool a little. Let Dissenters, however, be consistent, and never demand that one sect, however obnoxious, should be disendowed, while Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Unitarians, and even Indian idol worshipers, enjoy the money of the State.

One word to CHRISTIAN ELECTORS. Probably Parliament will be dissolved before we address them again. They are still without the protection of the Ballot, still exposed to the intimidations of unjust masters, landlords, customers, and employers. Bu