dent that these virtues existed in our first parents only in their embryo state.

Besides, the joy of recovery is a far higher and sublimer feeling than that of simple possession. The poor lost sheep that wandered on the mountains is dearer to the shepherd's heart than all the ninety and nine that went not astray. He estimates its value, not by its intrinsic worth, but by the sufferings and toil he has endured for its restoration; and as we are called to enter into the very joy of our Lord, it is evident that a believer's happiness must be of the same ennobling character, of which the principal features seem to consist; not so much in avoiding natural evils as in overcoming them; not so much in shrinking from suffering, as in rendering its patient endurance a pathway to glory and security.

It seems as though the knowledge and experience of evil were essential, if not to the enjoyment of good, at least to the perfecting of that enjoyment. Could we fathom the depths of nature and grace, we should in all probability perceive that every dark shadow in the one, is intended to serve as a foil and contrast for manifesting the perfections of the other. While lamenting the consequences of folly and injustice, we console ourselves by anticipating the righteous retribution of God, forgetting, at the same time, that the noblest part of it will consist in the very effect of those actions and circumstances which we esteem to be evil and unnecessary. We thus regard the present condition of things to be in a disjointed state; instead of constituting, as it really does, the essential and component parts of a system which must be perfect in all its bearings.

What are victory and triumph without danger, op

position and difficulty? Did there exist a person altogether ignorant of these things, we could only explain to him the former by unravelling the nature of the latter. Perhaps nothing serves to manifest more wonderfully the perfections of the Deity than the manner in which evil is rendered subservient to his purposes of mercy. We admit the skill of the workman who produces a delicate and highly finished performance, by means of tools that appear rude and ill-adapted to the purpose; but the Great Father of lights operates with materials that are not only inadequate, but adverse, to the designs he promotes by their instrumentality. His dealings in this particular entirely overthrow the arguments of that wretched philosophy, which deifies laws, and powers, and causes; for what proportion can exist between an evil cause and a good effect; or to what can such a result be ascribable, but to the volition of an omnipotent and incomprehensible being?

We see a physical cause operating to the debasement of the species; man became, by the total corruption of his nature, a slave to his bodily appetites, a serf to the ground on which he trod. Well might St. Paul exclaim, when suffering under this very law in his members, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" What could philosophy do for him? She could tell him that pain was not pain, that sorrow was not sorrow--that he was a god-like being, whilst apprehending the fate of the insect beneath his foot ;—or, worse, she could seek to reconcile him to his misery, by asserting that his existence was as useless as it was transitory. She could propose expedients-she could array appetite against appetite, and passion

against passion, and offer him thereby a choice of tyrants; but St. Paul knew full well that it was not in nature to rectify nature; that it were as easy to turn the planets from their courses, as man from the very law of his being; some new principle must be communicated to the work; some power different and distinct from the creature must impart its mighty impetus, to rectify the gravitation of nature, and give a heavenward direction to its affections and its hopes.

Jesus Christ, by assuming the likeness of sinful flesh, has accomplished this transcendent work. Being very God as well as very man; our weak and suffering nature has thus been brought, through a miracle of mercy altogether unparalleled, into the closest contact with Deity itself. At the hand of every man's brother the life of man has been required, Gen. ix. 5; and he who could cancel such a debt, and satisfy both in obedience and in suffering the utmost rigour of God's righteous law, now liveth for evermore as a quickening Spirit to infuse into all his members new life and vigour to overcome themselves and the powers of darkness.

It is by contemplating the resurrection of Jesus, and his own therein contained, that the believer learns the value of eternal things, and is set free from that bondage to which the fear of death has subjected him. Perceiving that his immortality is certain, his cares are directed to nobler objects, and the spirit freed from her earthly shackles, expatiates on her probable destination, and thus comes into contact with her God. And although at first amazed and confounded at his stupendous attributes, she yet finds him to be her's. His gifts declare him such

the new energy, and life, and love of which she became susceptible from the first moment that she dimly recognized him. And now the world becomes no more a scene of shadows, but a school of futurity wherein the laws of nature, and the ties and obligations of society represent to the believer the essential characteristics of his heavenly inheritance, and also prepare him for the enjoyment of it, by affording him, even amidst difficulty and conflict, many a delightful foretaste of future felicity.

J. D

Review of Books.

THE HISTORY OF HENRY MILNER, a Little Boy, who was not brought up according to the fashions of this world. By Mrs. Sherwood, Author of 'The History of the Fairchild Family,' &c. THE FOURTH PART. Hatchards.

RARELY have we with such painful reluctance responded to the call of duty, as in the present instance. When to unfeigned admiration of great natural gifts, and respect for the feeling that has long consecrated those gifts to the service of spiritual religion, is added a degree of personal esteem and affection for their possessor, it becomes indeed an oppressive task to sit, as it were, in judgment on one to whom we have been wont to look up; and to denounce as unsound the productions of a pen, the powers of which we may well be conjectured rather to envy than to undervalue. Yet, in proportion to the weight of a name in the Christian world, is the peril incurred by keeping silence when that name is thrown into the wrong scale. Anticipating there