nests to gain strength; but in due time they were able to cleave the air, and soar beyond the tops of the mountains. Young disciples in the Church, said I, by careful attention to the first principles in the Christian life, will so gain strength that at the last they can, on their own wings, leave the place where they first breathed the Christian life, and bringing into play all that had been taught them by their superiors, soar beyond and above every earthly hinderance, and with their eye steadily fixed on the Sun of righteousness reach points of which before they dared not dream to reach.

WISE WAY OF REPROVING.—“ As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.”—Prov. xxv, 12.

A few months before Mr. Wesley's death, when he was breakfasting one Sunday morning in London, with severa! preachers, both itinerant and local, one of them had occasion to reprove another for something which was deemed improper. The rebuke was not so kindly taken as perhaps it should have been, and was intended, and the person reproved, who sat next to Mr. Wesley, turned to the venerable man, there a father among his children, and said, “Sir, I do not think it right for a junior brother to speak in this way to a senior."

Mr. Wesley immediately stood up, and, looking with benignity and affection upon those around him, who were mostly young men, said, "If any of my younger brethren know any thing amiss in me, I will thank them to tell me of it." A reply worthy of a man of God, then in the eighty-eighth year of his age. It is scarcely needful to add that this remark put an end to all further complaint.

A STRANGER SALUTED.-" A word spoken in due season, how good is it."-Prov. xv, 23.

One day as Felix Neff was walking in a street in the city of Lausanne, he saw, at a distance, a man whom he took for one of his friends. He ran up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder before looking in his face, and asked him, "What is the state of your soul, my friend?" The stranger turned; Neff perceived his error, apologized, and went his way. About three or four years afterward, a person came to Neff, and accosted him, saying he was indebted to him for his inestimable kindness. Neff did not recognize the man, and begged he would explain. The stranger replied, "Have you forgotten an unknown person whose shoulder you touched in a street in Lausanne, and asked him, 'How do you find your soul? It was I; your question led me to serious reflection, and now I find it is well with my soul." This proves what apparently small means may be blessed of God for the conversion of sinners, and how many opportunities for doing good we are continually letting slip, and which thus pass irrecoverably beyond our reach. One of the questions which every Christian should propose to himself on setting out on a journey, is, "What opportunities shall I have to do good?" And one of the points on which he should examine himself on his return, is, "What opportunities have I lost?"

LOVE TO CHRIST.-"I will love thee, O Lord, my strength."-Psalm xviii, 1.

Not only the flowers unfold their petals to receive the light; the heart of man also has a power of expansion. It is love which opens it, and expands it, so that the rays of the spiritual sun may penetrate and illumine it. The Christian, in the work of self-examination, need not direct VOL. XVII.-8

his attention to many points; all is included in the daily question, How is it with my love to Christ? That love to him is of great importance, we must conclude, since he in truth requires of us an affection for his own person such as no one else ever claimed. O Thou must be more than father and mother, than brother and sister, else how couldst thou, the lowliest among the children of men, lay claim to such superabundant love? Since I have believed in thy word, all my desire has been to love thee. I will not cease to love thee, till thou art dearer to me than father, mother, and brother! If they deny thee,

if they revile thee what is so dreadful as to see one's

father or mother reviled at our side!-but more than when they reproach father and mother, shall thy reproaches, thy wrongs go to my heart.

NINE TRACTS ON A VOYAGE.-"The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple."-Psalm cxix, 130.

A sailor, says the report of the Branch Tract Society in Baltimore, being about to embark on a voyage, called on a gentleman to take leave of him, and was presented with nine tracts. Several months afterward he returned, called immediately on his friend, and the first words he uttered were, "The books, the books, the best books in the world." When requested to give a statement of their effects on himself and the crew, he said: "There was on board a sailor who was a very profane man; he used to read old newspapers and almanacs, and the man praised himself for reading so well. One day I told him I had some books, and he promised to read them. I brought him the nine tracts, and he swore that he would read them all if they would be still. He took one, and said, 'Here is the Swearer's Prayer, we will read that first.' He read, but he soon began to weep; the sailors made sport of his tears, but he became so affected as to be compelled to lay down the tract-he became so much alarmed for himself that he would not go aloft for fear of falling, and having his wicked prayers answered. He cried and prayed till he found peace in Jesus Christ. Then he would go aloft as well as ever, and read the rest of the books for the sailors. Every calm we go around him to hear him; and on that voyage four others were converted to God. He came to be the best man on board; when the hands got sick he would pray for them, and read my books for them; so that you see they are the best books in the world."

THE MERIT OF CHRIST.-Were I disposed to boast, Bishop Asbury once said, my boasting would be found true. I obtained religion near the age of thirteen. At the age of sixteen I began to preach, and traveled some time in Europe. At twenty-six I left my native land, and bid adieu to my weeping parents, and crossed the boisterous ocean to spend the balance of my days in a strange land, partly settled by savages. I have traveled through heat and cold for fifty-five years. In thirty years I have crossed the Alleghany Mountains fifty-eight times. I have often slept in the woods without necessary food or raiment. In the southern states I have waded swamps, and led my horse for miles, where I took colds that brought on diseases which are now preying on my system, and must soon terminate in death. But my mind is still the same-that it is through the merits of Christ I am to be saved. "We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved." Acts xv, 11.

SECOND PAPER.

BY THE EDITOR.

WE come now to inquire what is the theological, or, if the reader inclines to that phase of the subject, what is the philosophical basis of this magnificent hypothesis of our individual pre-existence. Dr. Edward Beecher, who has given to this figment of antiquity its recent notoriety, assumes it as a mode of adjusting the elements of the Divine government in consistency with the principles of "honor and right," and thus removing the "conflict of ages." He assumes that "the principles of honor and right demand that God shall give to all new-created beings original constitutions, healthy and well-balanced, and tending decidedly and effectually toward good. To make them either neutral or with constitutions tending to sin, would be utterly inconsistent with the honor and justice of God, and would involve him in the guilt and dishonor of sin. Moreover, God is bound to place newcreated beings in such circumstances that there shall be an overbalance of influences and tendencies on the side of holiness, and not of sin." (Page 214.) Thus he finds a "conflict" between "those thorough views of innate human depravity, and subjection to the powers of evil, which are recognized as true and Scriptural by men of a profound Christian experience, and the highest principles of honor and right, which a well-tutored mind intuitively perceives to be true, and obligatory upon God as well as man." (Page 198.) Having developed these "principles of honor and right," Dr. Beecher triumphantly inquiresassuming that "men are new-created beings," and assuming also "the radical doctrine of human depravity"— "What becomes of the honor and justice of God?" The solution of the difficulty and the removal of the "confliet" is found in the hypothesis that, in a pre-existent state, where men had been created with such constitutions and placed under such circumstances as the law of right and honor demanded, they had revolted and corrupted themselves, and as a consequence of, or punishment for which, they were sent into this world of sin and misery. We have here condensed the entire logic and argument of the "Conflict of Ages."

A naturalist discovers the fossil remains of a huge mastodon, scattered and commingled. He attempts to arrange and place them in order so as to construct a perfect skeleton, but here and there a bone is wanting. These the philosopher will supply by a manufacture of his own.

His perfect knowledge of the animal structure will enable him to do so. But were he ignorant of the animal economy he would be very apt to blunder in his attempt to arrange the bones of the mastodon; he might imagine a bone to be wanting when they were all present; and in his efforts to supply any real or imagined lack, he would be more likely to deform the skeleton than to imitate the symmetry and beauty of nature. Such is the principle on which our pseudo-philosophers undertake to fill up what they imagine to be lacking in the perfect outline of the Divine government.

The logic employed by them, when put into form, is

about this: "The hypothesis of a pre-existence will remove a difficulty which it appears impossible to remove by other means; therefore it is true." To show the absurdity of such an induction, we need only bring out an illustration, unfortunately for his hypothesis, suggested by Dr. Beecher himself. In all the early ages it was assumed that the earth stood immovably fixed in the center of the universe, and that the sun, moon, and stars revolved diurnally around it. This hypothesis accounted apparently for the observed motions of the heavenly bodies. Had the Copernican system been propounded, it would have been condemned as involving intolerable contradictions and absurdities. So, then, a hypothesis may appear to solve a difficulty or harmonize a presumed contradiction; but after all have no basis in fact.

Let us take another case. Dr. Kane, Mr. Wrangell, and other arctic explorers, have observed an open sea apparently around the north pole; currents in the ocean have been discovered setting through the straits in that direction; the course of animals and the flight of birds also seem to indicate a refuge beyond the frozen regions explored by man. Now, we have only to assume, with Mr. Symmes, the theory of a great hole opening at the north pole into an interior world-warmed by the internal heat of the earth and lighted by the aurora borealis-and our hypothesis will account for the phenomena and harmonize the apparent contradictions. Nay, further, it will be exceedingly difficult to disprove it. But how far short of proving the actual existence of such a hole, this hypothesis, with its loose probabilities, come, every scientific man must at once perceive.

But this hypothesis of pre-existence not only fails in point of evidence, but it is inadequate-even if established-to settle the conflict of ages. Of that pre-existent state we have no remembrance, no knowledge of its acts, no consciousness of its guilt. How, then, can this life be a punishment for them, and a discipline designed to remove their effects? In a system of moral government this state of the case involves a paradox more inconsistent than the difficulties it was designed to remove. The author of the "Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation," in a recent work,* has shown the absurdity of this hypothesis, with a logic so conclusive and an irony so pungent that we can not forbear an attempt to embody the gist of it. He assumes a fact taught in the Bible and historically verified in thousands of instances, but especially in the history of the Jews. Children do suffer for the sins of their parents; or, in others words, the iniquity of the fathers is visited upon the children. How can this be reconciled with "the principles of honor and right?" How can the "conflict" here engendered be settled, and the charges of dishonor and wrong be removed from the Divine government?

A hypothesis will effect the end desired, and the author propounds it. "We assume," says he, "that men are created in races. Then each spirit that is created lives on upon the earth in successive bodies till the end of the race. When one body dies the spirit is transmitted into

*God Revealed in Creation and in Christ. By James B. Walker. See Addendum.

another, and so consecutively for ages. Thus the Jews, as their rabbis, or doctors of divinity, taught, were all created at the same time, and while they often change bodies, the spirits of the race continue upon the earth, the same in number and person. An opinion similar to this had not only the suffrage of very venerable and learned men among the ancients, but it is countenanced, likewise, by great names of modern times. Among these we might mention Herder of Weimar."

The author then applies the hypothesis especially to the case of the Jews. In consequence of their fearful sin committed in the days of the Messiah, "a curse came upon them and their descendants, and followed them seventeen hundred years. Now, how shall we reconcile the 'principles of honor and right,' with the penal providences of God, and the facts of history, unless we suppose that the same spirits that committed the sin, suffered also the penalty? The reason reluctates-the conscience repels the idea that a Jew of the middle ages suffered for the sins of others who lived ten centuries before, and with whose acts the sufferer had no more connection than he had with the sin of Adam."

The theorist concedes that the pre-existence of the soul is not a doctrine of revelation. And yet, according to him, the Divine government can not be vindicated on the principles of honor and right without the aid of this theory. How is this? Can God be indifferent to the vindication of his government before his intelligent creation? Nay, verily. What, then? is the thing here set forth as fact too obvious to require the elucidation and the authority of revelation? No one will assume this. Nothing, then, is left us but the suspicion that the pseudo-philosopher, who was so zealous to vindicate the Divine government, has failed to comprehend the principles and designs of that government in their breadth and extent; and that there are other methods of vindieating it which he has failed to discover. If there was a neces-ity for the doctrine, there was a necessity for its revelation. If the "conflict of ages" could be harmonized only by the recognition of this doctrine, the failure to give it the sanction of inspiration is, to say the least, a most astonishing omission.

If it is a truth obvious in itself and easily comprehended, we can easily perceive a reason why revelation might be silent upon it. Or if it is a mere speculative matter, of no practical utility, nor of any high moral significance, we should not wonder that the Bible passes it by in total silence. But neither of these conditions apply to this hypothesis. It is of the highest importance, according to its advocates, in the vindication of the Divine government. Also, if this life is a penal state, for offenses committed in a former life, it was of the first importance to all the ends of moral discipline, that the convict should have clear knowledge of his condition; and a revelation, in this case, was all the more needed, as memory retained no knowledge of that former state or of the sins committed in it, and, therefore, conscience could not be awakened with reference to them. These facts, here set forth, must appear to every candid mind a sufficient refutation of this hypothesis.

It has, indeed, been suggested that it was wise on the part of God to leave this great truth to be sought out by the ingenuity and research of man, just as the Copernican system in astronomy and the Newtonian in philosophy were discovered only after long ages. The analogies of the cases are incomplete. The Copernican and New

tonian systems are not mere hypotheses simply assumed to harmonize facts apparently discordant, but they rest on the basis of ascertained facts. Then, again, the system of nature belongs to the province of science; hence, our ignorance of any part results from our failure in successful investigation. On the other hand, the system of God's moral and remedial government is a subject of revelation; it is above and beyond the sphere of science. Hence, any failure in its full development is a failure of revelation. That that failure should occur just at that point when it was necessary to harmonize and vindicate the whole system, is not only inexplicable, but absolutely incredible.

Still another objection to this hypothesis is, that it is inconsistent with some of the well-established facts of philosophy. Personality implies self-consciousness. Continued personality implies continued self-consciousness. Without this personal identity is lost. In looking forward into the "great hereafter," every one recognizes the fact that his personal identity will be preserved, and that his self-consciousness will go forth with him. On this basis rests whatever we hope or expect of reward or punishment in that future state. It will be this continued identity which will connect us with the present life, ages after we have passed away. If memory and self-consciousness utterly perished at death, we should appear in that future state, not as the same, but other creatures than we now are.

So of the supposed pre-existent state. We have no recollection of it; no self-consciousness running back and connecting us with it. If we lived then and there, we know it not; if we committed sins, we have no consciousness of them. All one can say, then, is, that "if some being, called by my name, once preceded me in another state of being, he failed to bring through the transition that introduced him into this world as me, that self-consciousness which is essential to connect me with himself; and, therefore, he is to me as though he had never been. I can not own myself to be a continuation of him, nor yet responsible for any thing he may have done. It seems to me not a whit less absurd to identify me with, Adam, or Moses, or Isaiah, as with some being that lived thousands or millions of ages ago."

At the outset we found that this hypothesis was unsustained either by Scripture or by facts. Now we find it is utterly at variance with all our established ideas of psychological truth.

We have already referred to the fact that the Bible no where gives any confirmation, and, indeed, no where lends any countenance to this hypothesis. Whenever it has been attempted to be ingrafted upon revelation, it has been by the most far-fetched and inconsistent censtructions put upon single texts or passages. But lest it should be thought that there is simply a failure to authenticate the hypothesis in the Bible, we will add that, according to our conception, the true theory was propounded and authenticated by revelation when it is said, "God created man in his own image." What is "created" here? Not the body; for it is in the "image" of God, and "God is a spirit." It must, then, have been the soul-the spiritual nature of man.

St. Paul also speaks of Adam as the first man-1 Cor. xv-and referring to the process of being as well as to the relations of Adam to Christ, he adds: "That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual." So far, then, as the

morasses by drainage, with the careful and vastly extended cultivation of the soil.

NUMBER OF GRADUATES.-The following statement of the comparative number of university graduates in the United States and the principal countries of Europe, presents an interesting view of the progress of popular education among the several nations mentioned:

Scotland, one graduate to every 5,000 of population.
Norway, one graduate to every 7,428 of population.
Holland, one graduate to every 9,692 of population.
United States of America, one in 7,795 of population.
Saxony, one in 7,826 of population.

Austria, archduchy of, one in 8,000 of population.
Belgium, one in 8,670 of population.

Belgium, in the sixteenth century-6,000 students at Louvain.

Bavaria, one in 9,000 of population.
Denmark, one in 10,000 of population.
France, one in 10,871 of population.

England and Wales, one in 14,705 of population.
PREACHERS' SALARIES IN CALIFORNIA.-The number

of Methodist ministers in the regular work in California, is sixty-one. The average salary promised them last year was $1,300, and the average sum received by them about $1,000. Some of the ministers of our Church, especially those in San Francisco and Sacramento, get over $3,000 as their annual allowance. This, of course, the reader will readily understand to be an effect of the enormous cost of living on the Pacific coast. The average salaries of our ministers in the Atlantic states does not exceed $450 per annum.

EVANGELICAL RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES.— The following statistics in regard to the condition of evangelical religion in our country are said to be reliable: There are over 30,000 working ministers of the Gospel, sustained by 4,000,000 communicants, and heard by 16,000,000 of Church-going people. The worth of the Church property is $70,000,000, and the amount of contributions annually, for religious purposes, $24,000,000.

LARGEST NATIONAL CHURCH.-The largest national Church in the world, is the "Greek Church" in Russia. It embraces from forty to forty-five millions of people. Besides these, Russia contains Lutheran and other Protestants, three or four millions; Roman Catholics, seven millions; Mohammedans, two and a half millions; Jews, perhaps two millions; and about half a million pagans.

MR. PRESCOTT'S INCOME.-Last year the income from the Boston editions of his works yielded Wm. H. Prescott the sum of $20,000. His edition of Robertson's Charles V is just from the press.

MORAVIAN STATISTICS.-The Moravian contains the following general statistics of the United Moravian Church: The American Province, whole number, 8,831communicants, 4,460; the German Province, 5,894-communicants, 4,541; the British Province, 5,061-communicants, 2,921; the Foreign Mission Province, 71,450-communicants, 19,600; the Continental Diaspora Province, 100,000.

A WASTE OF LIFE. The destruction of life in the different armies engaged in the late eastern war, has been officially announced, as follows: of the French army, 62,492; of the English army, 19,314; of the Sardinian, 2,532; of the Russians, 277,000.

THE BRITISH POST-OFFICE AND BRITISH LIQUOR.-The value of the stamps sold by the post-office, in 1855, amounted to £1,537,396. In the same year, 27,485,193 gallons of spirits were distilled, more than in any one of England, 7,921,983 gallons; in Ireland, 8,279,574 gallons; the preceding five years. The quantity consumed was, in and in Scotland, 11,283,636 gallons. No wonder that the poor-rate is increased, and that reformatories are so much talked about.

IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES.-From a work written by Mr. Bromwall, of the Department of State, we learn that from the last day of September, 1819, to the close of December, 1855, a period of thirty-six years and three months, as many as 4,212,624 passengers of foreign birth arrived in the United States. Of these, 2,343,445 were born in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; 1,206,087 in Germany; 188,725 in France; 91,699 in British America; 35,995 in Prussia; 35,317 in the West Indies; 31,071 in Switzerland; 29,441 in Norway and Sweden.

AN OPEN POLAR SEA.-Professor Maury is of the opinion that there is a boundless, iceless sea around the

north pole, and that at the south, or antarctic pole, there is a country of ice and mountains. The temperature of the arctic open sea is 40 degrees. It will be remembered that two of Dr. Kane's men stood on the shore of this sea, in the year 1853. In an address before the Brooklyn Atheneum, in December last, Professor Maury stated that the waters of the torrid zone were as a wall of fire to the passage of the right whale of the Arctic Ocean into southern waters; and yet that the right whale of the north seas was found in the Southern Ocean; for several that had been struck with irons in northern latitudes had been captured on the coasts of Japan. The Professor accounted for this fact, by stating that there must be an under current of cold water, by which the whale makes his exit from the north to the south. But if this be admitted, who can tell us how the whale can get along for hours and days without breathing?

HUMAN LIFE. The average of human life throughout the world is thirty-three years. One-quarter die previous to the age of seven years; one-half before reaching seventeen. Of every one thousand persons only one reaches one hundred years; of every one hundred, only six reach the age of sixty-five; and not more than one in five hundred lives to eighty years. There are on the earth 1,000,000,000 inhabitants, and of these 33,333,333 die every year. This loss is about balanced by an equal number of births. The married are longer lived than the single; tall men live longer than short ones. have more chances of life in their favor previous to being fifty years of age than men, but fewer afterward. Children born in the spring are generally more robust than others; and births and deaths are more frequent by night than by day.

Women

POWER OF CAR BRAKES.-Brakes can not stop a train of cars instantly. If applied too tightly, they "lock the wheels," but they prevent the whole from slipping along on a smooth track. At a speed of six miles per hour, a train will slide nine feet; at twenty miles, one hundred feet; and at a speed of sixty miles per hour a train will slide, in ordinary condition of the track, a distance of nine hundred feet, or over one-sixth of a mile, in spite of all that the brakes or even runners or drags under the wheels could do to prevent it.