No. XII.

OBJECTIONS. PART II.

Or the objections that have been brought against Christianity, there are some which ordinary Christians may learn enough to be able to refute for themselves. There are others, again, to which learned and able men have found answers, but which the generality of Christians cannot be expected to answer, or even to understand; and, again, there are other objections which no man, however learned, and however intelligent, can expect to answer fully, on account of the imperfect knowledge which belongs to man in this present life. For you are to observe, that when we speak of any one as having much knowledge and intelligence, we mean that he is so comparatively with other men; since the best informed man knows but few things, compared with those of which he is ignorant; and the wisest man cannot expect to understand all the works, and all the plans of his Creator. Now this is particularly important to be kept in mind in the present case, because Christianity, we should remember, is a scheme imperfectly understood. What is revealed to us, must be (supposing the religion to be true) but a part, and perhaps but a small part, of the whole truth. There are many things of which at present we can know little or nothing, which have, or may have, a close connexion with the Christian religion. For instance, we are very little acquainted with more than a very small part of the universe; of the whole history, past and future, of the world we inhabit; and of the whole of man's existence.

This earth is but a speck compared with the rest of the planets which move round the sun, together with the enormous mass of the sun itself, to say nothing of the other heavenly bodies. It is likely that all these are inhabited; and it may be, that the Gospel which has been declared to us may be but one small portion of some vast scheme which concerns the inhabitants of numerous other worlds.

Then, again, we have no knowledge how long this our world is to continue. For aught we know, the Christian religion may not have existed a fifth part, or a fiftieth part, of its whole time; and it may, perhaps, have not produced yet, one-fiftieth of the effects it is destined to produce.

And we know that as it holds out the hope of immortality beyond the grave, it is connected with man's condition, not merely during his short life on earth, but for eternity.

Seeing, then, that Christianity, if true, must be a scheme so partially and imperfectly revealed to us, and so much connected with things of which man can have little or no knowledge, we might have expected that difficulties should be found in it, which the wisest of men are unable to explain. And men truly wise are not surprised or disheartened at meeting with such difficulties, but are prepared to expect them from the nature of the case.

The view which we have of any portion of a system, of which the whole is not before us, has been aptly compared to a map of an inland country; in which we see rivers without source or mouth, and roads that seem to lead to nothing. A person who knows anything of geography, understands at once, on looking at such a map, that the sources and mouths of the rivers, and the towns which the roads lead to, are somewhere beyond the boundaries of the district, though he may not know where they lie. But any one who was very ill-informed might be inclined presumptuously to find fault with the map which showed him only a part of the course of

thing else, of which we see only a part, unless we recollect that it is. but a part, and make allowance accordingly for our imperfect view of it.

There is much truth, therefore, in the Scotch proverb, that "children and fools should never see halffinished works." They not only cannot guess what the whole will be when complete, but are apt to presume to form a judgment without being aware of their own ignorance. If you were to see for the first time the beginning of the manufacture of some of the commonest articles, such as, for instance, the paper that is now before you, you would be at a loss, if you had never heard the process described, to guess what the workman was going to make. And if you were to see the first beginning of the building of a house or a ship, you would be very unfit to judge what sort of a work it would be when completed.

And the same holds good, only in a greater degree, in respect of the plans of Divine wisdom. So small a portion of them is made known to us, that it would be strange if we did not find many difficulties, such man cannot expect to explain, in that portion which we do see.

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Although, however, you must not expect to be able to answer all objections that may be brought, you will be able, in proportion as you improve in knowledge, and in the habit of reflecting and reasoning on the subject, to find satisfactory answers to many which at first sight may have appeared very perplexing. And in particular, you will find that some difficulties in the Christian religion, which have been brought forwards as objections to it, will appear to be, on the contrary, evidences in support of it. They may, indeed, still continue to be difficulties which you cannot fully explain, and yet may be so far from being objections against your faith, that they will even go to confirm it.

For instance, the bad lives of many Christians, who profess to expect that Jesus Christ will judge them, and yet act in opposition to what He taught, and to the example He gave, is an objection which has often been brought forward by unbelievers, and which probably influences their minds more than any other, Here is a religion, they say, which professes to have been designed to work a great reformation in Man's character, and yet we find the believers in this religion living as if there were no world but the present, and giving themselves up to all the base and evil passions of human nature, just as the Heathen did. And besides those who are altogether careless and thoughtless about their religion, we find (they say) many who talk and think much of it, and profess great Christian zeal, and who yet live in hatred against their fellow Christians, indulging in envy, slander, strife, and persecution of one another; and all the time professing to be devoted followers of One who taught them to love even their enemies, to return blessing for cursing, and to be known as his disciples by their love towards each other.

Now it is certainly most mortifying and disheartening to a sincere Christian to find that his religion has produced hitherto so much less improvement among mankind than he might have been disposed to expect from it. And you should consider deeply what a double guilt Christians will have to answer for, whose life is such as to bring an ill-name on their religion; and who thus not only rebel against their Master, but lead others to reject Him. But when the evil lives of so many Christians are brought as an objection against the Christian religion, you may reply by asking whether this does not show how unlikely such a religion is to have been devised by Man.

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B

both the original squares. of fig. 2 to represent two Fig 2.

E

B

A

A

their angles: thus the triangles ABC, CDE, and EFG, are equal to each other.

To form two squares of unequal size into one square equal to Suppose the upper part squares of unequal size : lay them close together, as in the engraving; mark off the length of one side of the smaller square on the top of the larger, from A to B; draw one line from B to c, and another from B to D; cut the pasteboard from в to D, and from B to c; remove the triangle ABD; place it with its side AD against the bottom of the larger square, so that the line DA shall touch it, the angle A being to the left. If now the triangle BEC is also removed, and placed with its side EC against the bottom line of the smaller square, it will be found that the five pieces of pasteboard will form a perfect square equal in its superficial contents to the two original squares.

Tig. 3.

Fig. 4.

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D

To make two small squares out of one larger let fig. 3 be the larger square; cut it from corner to corner in two directions, and the four pieces will form two smaller squares, each equal to one half the larger.

To form a large circle, whose area shall be equal to two smaller circles. Suppose the two lines, AB BC, fig. 4, to represent the diameters of the two circles; place them at right angles, as in the figure, and connecting the extremities, form a right-angled triangle; find the centre of the longest of the sides of this triangle; take this point as the centre of a circle which will pass through the angles of the triangle this circle will be equal in its superficial contents to the contents of two circles whose diameters the lines represent.

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To form a regular-shaped solid figure which shall exactly fit three different-shaped holes: namely, a round, an oval, and a square hole ;-a small cylinder, whose height is equal to its diameter, will answer these conditions. It will pass through the circular hole in a direction

parallel to its axis, through the square hole in a direction at right angles with its axis, an through the oval hole when the axis of the cylinder is at an angle of forty-five degrees, with the plane surface in which the hole is cut.

To draw the arc of a circle to pass through any three determinate points, if required, without the use

of the compasses, or any other similar contrivance, and when the centre of the same circle is unknown. Suppose A B C. the three points through which the circle is to pass; cut a piece

of pasteboard, wood, or any other solid substance, in such a manner, that when its angle is placed at a, its two sides shall pass through c and B. If now the solid body is moved along to the right and left, so that its strait sides keep close to, but never go beyond, the points в and c, the point A will trace an arc of the circle required.

THE SCALE OF THE UNIVERSE. MAN can never attain, in the shape of conviction, lively idea of his own position on the scale of the universe, unless he look with undistracted attention above and around him, and put forth all the energies of his intellect, with a view to explore the vast scheme of existence, of which he forms a part. As long as he confines his curiosity to the history of his fellow men, wondering at their progress from the tangled forest to the crowded city; shuddering at the sanguinary wars, foreign or domestic, of which almost every field on the globe has at one time or another been the theatre; poring over obsolete principles of philosophy and legislation, or devising new combinations for the regulation of transitory interests, so long will he remain unconscious of the much more exalted pursuits for which his faculties are destined. The little routine of each succeeding day leads him into notions altogether false, as to the real purpose for which life was given him.

Looking upon the immediate objects of his avarice or ambition as exclusively worthy of his care, his busy thought by day, his feverish dream by night,he feels an exaggerated sense of his own importance, that precludes him from bestowing a single reflection upon the commencement, the termination, and the final issue of the sixty years,-an hour, nay, not a minute-of eternity,-which are allotted to his share. Sometimes he falls into the opposite extreme. Travelling over the Alps or Andes, he grows pale at the lightnings, which reveal their peaks, crowned with the snow of past ages; he trembles at the thunders that shake the stupendous masses to their centre; and if the forked bolt shiver the rock on which he stands, what an insect he becomes in his own esteem! Wrecked on the Scilly isles in the midst of a tempest, he beholds the billows of the Atlantic lifting their heads to the sky, and threatening to break down the bulwarks which nature and art have conspired to raise against their fury; he shrinks in idea to the rank of the cockle-shell, which the retiring wave leaves behind it on the shore.—Quarterly Review.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS AND FINAL PERFECTION OF OUR NATURE.-It is delightful to contemplate the following passage in a private letter from that eminent philosopher, Sir Humphry Davy, to one of his early friends." We can trace back our existence almost to a point. Former time presents us with trains of thoughts gradually diminishing to nothing. But our ideas of futurity are perpetually expanding. Our desires, and our hopes, even when modified by our fears, seem to grasp at immensity. This alone would be sufficient to prove the PROGRESSIVENESS of our nature, and that this little earth is but a point from which

we start towards a PERFECTION of being."

LONDON:

JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY PARTS PRICE SIXPENCE.