deemed it slight, had already begun to excite the apprehensions of her friends, Too painfully were their fears realized. A few weeks of doubt and anxiety passed, and then came another letter to tell me that she had taken her place among the pure inhabitants of heaven. Her departure was sudden and unexpected, and her loss such as only those who felt it can know.

"Throughout her last sickness,' remarks the friend from whose letter a previous extract has been taken, ‘and amid all the crosses incident to her station, no note of complaint ever escaped her lips. "God's will be done!" was the uniform language of her gentle life; and although the progress of her disease forbade her to speak of her Christian hopes in her last moments, yet her life gave the sweetest, as it is the highest, assurance that she had been washed in the blood of the Lamb slain for sinners, and that she had entered into that rest which remaineth for the righteous. She came into our community, and moved amongst us, as a beam of light; she has gone back to her native skies, and left the shadow of grief upon every heart. Long may the odour of her loveliness linger in the circles where it was shed, and many be the souls whom it may win to the Redeemer!

"It was a source of consolation to the bleeding hearts that her death made desolate, that her tender spirit was not called to endure the anguish of parting, that would have been so deep and exquisite to one whose heart was so finely strung. All unconsciously to the meek and quiet sufferer, the 'golden bowl was broken,' and the ties severed that bound her to the earth. She awoke from the stupor of disease amid the glories of the 'celestial city;' and the sounds that first fell upon her ear were not those of sorrow, but the song of that redeemed company that encircle the 'throne of God and of the Lamb.'

7

CHRISTIAN EARNESTNESS.

"WHATSOEVER thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest!" Christian responsibility is a solemn thing. Is it realized as it should be? Christian, ask thine own heart, hast thou laboured with thy might, with hearty zeal, with persevering energy, with truthful confidence?

A father, mother, sister, brother, husband, or wife is still an alien from God. Now, surely here is a case which calls for the most anxious concern of the believer. Thou shouldest cease not strong crying and earnest supplication to Almighty God, that this dear one, from whose presence thou canst not now, perhaps, be separated from an hour, without pain, shall not be forever separated from thee in eternity! Here is something, surely, which "thy hand hath found to do." Hast thou done it, art thou doing it, with "thy might?" Hast thou affectionately, yet solemnly-the more affectionately from deep solemnity-warned thy impenitent relatives of the certain consequences of a continuance in rebellion? Hast thou urged them by all their appreciation of happiness, here and hereafter, by all their hopes of heaven and fears of hell, to fly "for refuge to the hope set be fore them in the Gospel?" Hast thou, we repeat it, “laboured with thy might," for the conversion of these souls, so soon to take up their abode in darkness, or in joy eternal? If not, DO IT! "For there is no knowledge, nor wisdom, nor device, in the grave whither thou goest!"

A Sunday-school is languishing for want of Teachers. (And there are such now, perhaps, in thine own place.) Frequently, it may be, thou hast been importuned to take part in this good thing-again and again has thy conscience seconded this appeal to thy sense of accountability to Him who shall soon return to enter into inquisition of thy stewardship; but thou hast stopped to "confer with flesh and blood;" thou art not yet prepared to submit to the self-sacrifice which the duty of a Teacher demands. In the meantime, the school drags heavily

along a precarious existence. The minister is discouraged; the Teachers are discouraged; the children are discouraged. But there is another side to the picture; all is not discouragement; oh, no! The great enemy, Satan, who seeks the precious souls of these children, he is encouraged by thy supineness. Now here, Christian, is something which thy "hand findeth to do;" do it, we warn thee, "with thy might?" Alas, alas! what a fearful reckoning is preparing for the careless Christian; what an awful account must those give, who, in the midst of "a world lying in wickedness, fold their hands," give slumber to their eyes and sleep to their eyelids, and, although surrounded with the spiritually dead and dying on every side, are yet "at ease in Zion!"

The Holy Father, who freely gave up his only begotten Son to die for our salvation, is waiting for the repentance of the unconverted.

Jesus, who ever liveth to make intercession for all who come unto God through him, is contemplating his disciples to observe how nearly they emulate his holy zeal, who fainted not, neither was weary, in the discharge of his merciful mission!

The Eternal Spirit of the Most High is moving upon the hearts of the redeemed, to go forth and prepare the way for his blessed ministrations to the hearts of those who now slumber in indifference.

The holy angels, who would fain be employed in ministering to those who shall be heirs of salvation, are anxious to extend their beneficent agency to the fallen sons of men; they would fain rejoice over new-born souls, abased in holy penitence; and yet, Christian, art thou inactive ? Awake, thou sleeper, and call upon thy God." Whatever has been thy remissness, heretofore, be no more slothful! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no knowledge, nor wisdom, nor device in the grave, whither thou goest!"

9

HINTS ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE

SCRIPTURES.

NO. III.

THE primary principle to which we must adhere, in all interpretations of the sacred volume, being the text taken in its obvious and literal sense, it will follow that the spiritual or figurative, where maintained, must be the exception to this general rule. I shall occupy the present paper with some observations on this second principle, and state the chief reasons for its adoption in particular cases. The third century of the Christian era witnessed a lamentable departure, in some of the most celebrated divines of the Church, from just principles of Biblical Interpretation. It was maintained that every passage of Scripture contained, besides the historical or literal sense, a moral doctrine, and a more hidden and exalted idea, which they denominated the mystical or spiritual sentiment. It was brought into repute, if not first commenced, by him whose name we have mentioned above-Origen, of Alexandria-and arose out of a fond and overweening inclination to engraft certain heathen notions on the Christian scheme. The consequence was, that Scripture was distorted, allegorized, and mystified; and where the three interpretations could not be elicited, which happened in many places, the literal was made to give way, and the moral and mystical were supplied instead.

Now, while such a system must be at once and for ever reprobated by a humble enquirer after truth, it is most true that moral and religious lessons are often intended to be conveyed under literal representations, and figurative and more remote interpretations to stand in the place of the more obvious and plain. This is as reasonable as the former principle I contended for, when we consider that many of the books are poetical in style, which always abounds in figurative expressions; when we remember that the object of the Christian revelation is to inculcate spiritual truths, and bring out into bold relief moral doctrines-its author God, and its promulgator God and man, mysteriously united.

By a spiritual interpretation of Scripture, then, I would be understood to imply every kind of secondary or indirect sense which is substituted for the direct and literal. This will include under it, consequently, the metaphorical, as where man is said to be grass, (Is. xl.) -that is, figuratively or metaphorically, like it-the allegorical or mystical, as where the servitude of Hagar and Ishmael is said (Gal. iv.) to represent the bondage of the legal dispensation—the parabolical, or moral, as where love to our neighbours is inculcated by the story of a good Samaritan and his compassionate tenderness.

The FIRST and most infallible rule to guide us in expounding a passage spiritually, is obviously the express and explicit announcement of the speaker or writer, that it must be so explained. We find an apposite illustration of this rule in St. John, 6th chapter. Our blessed Lord there uses certain symbolical expressions with reference to himself and the effect of his doctrine, when received into the heart: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

The Jews, following the natural impulse of a carnal spirit, and uninitiated in the spiritual mysteries of Christianity, interpreted this sentence literally: they "strove among themselves, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Christ soon after comments on this error, and declares that it must be explained spiritually: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life."* Here is an express limitation

* I cannot forbear quoting Dr. Hammond's beautiful paraphrase on this verse: "And for the other particular of eating his flesh, he tells them they cannot but know that it is the soul that enliveneth, and not the body; and, agreeably, that it is not the gross, carnal eating of his body of flesh that he could speak of, when he talked of their eating, and his feeding them to life eternal, but certainly a more spiritual divine eating, or feeding on Him which should bring them a durable, eternal life; his words, (see v. 68.) that is, his doctrine, being spiritually fed on by them-that is, being received into their hearts-not only their ears-will quicken them to a spiritual life here, and that shall prove to them an eternal life hereafter. (So St. Chrysostom expounds the flesh, that is, the fleshly hearing