where they are produced; of this last, we shall extract the notice of the places where wines are grown-" Wines: Port; Douro, in Portugal-Sherry; Xeres, Spain-Claret; Bourdeaux, in France-Champagne, in France-Burgundy; ditto-Madeira; Madeira Islands-Malmsey; ditto-Teneriffe; in TeneriffeMarsala; Sicily-Cape; in South Africa." In this brief way, a very great amount of information is given; and there are also, among other useful pieces of information, an index of 2,100 places, with their latitudes and longitudes. Its cheapness will bring it within the reach of the poorest person who can send his child to school, and its superior execution will recommend it to general use.

A CATECHISM OF THE MAP OF THE HOLY LAND. 18mo. Groombridge and Sons. pp. 34.

This useful Catechism is by the author of "Lessons on the Voyages and Travels of St. Paul," and "Instructions for the Young." It leads, by question and answer, to develope the principal events in the Old Testament, and in the Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is very well and briefly compiled, and will be an excellent assistant to mothers and nursery governesses, in the instruction of young children.

The means by which great events are accomplished may be guessed at occasionally, and are sometimes apparent; but, as all things come from the Governor of the Universe, it is to that source, and that only, we can attribute awful visitations in the shape of plague, pestilence, and famine.

THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

(Continued from page 77.)

THE CHURCH at Corinth owes its foundation to St. Paul himself, as will be seen from a reference to his travels, according to St. Luke's account, in the Acts of the Apostles. Corinth, situated on the isthmus which joins the Peloponnesus to the rest of Greece, was at the time when this Epistle was written, a place of extensive commerce, and the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. Near it were celebrated the Isthmian games, to which the Apostle alludes, 1 Cor. ix. 24.

THE OCCASION of St. Paul's visit to that city, was on his first journey into Europe, when he remained there eighteen months, during which time he made many converts from heathenism, and planted a church, with every prospect that its members would continue to hold the "true faith, in unity of spirit." The object he had in view in writing to these Corinthians, some time after he had departed from them, was in the first place to express his sorrow for the contentions which he had been privately informed, (1 Cor. i. 11.) existed among the members of the church of Christ in that place. These seem to have been caused by Jews, who, being opposed to Christianity, sought to defend their own conduct, in main

F

taining that they were still subject to the law of Moses, and could not therefore partake of "the liberty, wherewith," as St. Paul had taught, "Christ had made them free." The Christians at Corinth had not contented themselves with holding their own faith in peace and concord, but had been led away by the vehemence of their oppositon in defence of it, to destroy that "unity" which the Apostle had aimed to inculcate upon them, hence schisms and divisions had arisen among them, and the church at Corinth had sunk into a state of great corruption and error, since St. Paul had quitted Greece.

WE MAY divide this Epistle into four parts, each containing a different subject of admonition from the Apostle who wrote it, and from these we also may judge, how far the censures passed upon the early Christians, are applicable to ourselves, and whether we may not also take heed to " speak the same thing," and to "have no divisions among us."

FROM the 1st to the 5th chapter, St. Paul speaks of the dissensions among the Corinthian converts, which arose from the cause we have just stated, and in which quarrels, each asserted the superior excellence of their respective teachers. We are not to suppose from these expressions (chap. i. ver. 12) that the Apostles SS. Paul and Peter (here spoken of as Cephas,) or Apollos (the attached friend and fellow labourer of St. Paul,) were divided against each other, or had in any way sought to lead the people to attach themselves to either of them as their particular leader, in opposition to the rest. Their conduct in this particular, St. Paul warmly condemns; while he asks those who declared themselves converted by his preaching, whether they had been baptized in his name, having received salvation from him, or whether he had not taught them that he baptized in the name of Christ their Saviour, crucified for them? His particular mission, he tells them, was to preach the gospel of Christ crucified, which "to the Jews was a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." He did not come with "excel

lency of speech or of wisdom," but "in the power of God "— as his minister, who, while he sowed the seed in faith, looked to God for the blessing, or increase upon his labours. In the second part, which includes the 5th and 6th chapters, the apostle alludes to the immoralities of the Corinthians, which we learn, were notorious even among the heathen, who, though in general they regarded the indulgence of the sensual appetites, as a matter in itself indifferent, were shocked at the proverbial excesses of Corinth. Shall we wonder then that St. Paul earnestly entreated his disciples to " flee fornication," and remember that they are called upon to "glorify God not only with their spirits, but in their bodies, which are the temples of the Holy Ghost."

THE NEXT, and succeeding chapters, contain answers to some questions the Corinthians had proposed to St. Paul by letter. In the matter of matrimony which he first considers, the dispute concerning it had arisen from the Jewish Christians being disposed to inculcate the necessity of marriage, as a point of duty; while the Gentile party were inclined to run into an opposite extreme. The Apostle's reply was, that while every one might act as he felt to be the best for himself, in those times of distress and persecution among Christians, it would be better for those to remain single, who could with safety do so.

THEY enquired of St. Paul also, whether it is lawful for Christians to eat things which had been offered unto idols, and to be present at the feasts of the heathen in the temples of their false gods; to which he answers, that Christians know very well there is but one God, and that idols are lifeless and vain, and could not defile the meats offered to them; and therefore it was lawful to eat even of meat offered to idols. But he goes on to warn them, lest they should cause a weak brother to offend, by their indulging in what all would not know to be innocent, they should abstain from doing it, that none might be misled into thinking from the liberty they exercised in

this particular, that there was virtue conceived in the idol, when by it they wished to express so very contrary a belief.

WE LEARN from this chapter, that it is the duty of Christians, in matters wherein they are left at liberty by the law of God, to take that part which they see will give least occasion of sin to their brethren, aud to avoid that part, which if taken, will certainly give others occasion to sin. The chapter following (ix.) appears to have been written by the Apostle, to disprove an assertion that had been made by the Judaizing Christians at Corinth, relative to himself, which was, that because in some particulars his conduct differed from the practice of the other Apostles, they chose to consider that he was not possessed of the same power or authority as they were. The chief point of difference from which this dispute arose, was, that St. Paul would not receive maintenance from the Corinthian Christians, but lived either upon his own labour, or contributions from other churches. In the 24th and remaining verses to the end of the chapter, the Apostle alludes to the celebration of the Grecian games, which took place on the isthmus which connects the Morea with the continent. These remarks chiefly bear reference to the foot-race, which was one of the principal of the games which marked this solemnity, for which the candidates so carefully prepared themselves, that the Apostle takes occasion from it to observe, that if THEY needed all this preparation and discipline before engaging in a combat for an earthly crown, how much more was it necessary to him, whose object was to attain au incorruptible and heavenly crown, to keep under the body, and bring it into subjection, lest, after he had preached to others, he should himself be rejected as unworthy.

AFTER THIS We find the Apostle (chap. xx.) again reverting to the subject on which he had previously given his advice to those who asked it of him, by letter, viz. on the propriety of ating things offered to idols. His relation of the conduct of