And the believer has a yet higher source of consolation in the consideration that it is for our own good we suffer; and that, severe as our afflictions may be, our God is able to make up to us, in himself, for every other good of which He in his wisdom deprives us. This world is a place of discipline and trial. We are training here for another and a higher state of being. And well may we, with the apostle, contrast our "light affliction, which is but for a moment," with the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" yet to be revealed. "For which cause we faint not; but, though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." The Christian is convinced, by experience, as well as by the teaching of God's most holy word, that sorrow and trial, pain, sickness, and bereavement, yea, and even temptation, and sometimes, too, reproach and obloquy, are a necessary part of the discipline which must wean him from earth, and sin, and teach him to seek his happiness in God and from God only. When the heart revolves steadily around that centre, undisturbed by the perturbations which other objects of attraction cause, then all is well. And the believer is well taught, by the loving discipline of his all-wise Father, that it is sometimes needful for those objects of attraction to be removed out of the way, in order that, escaping from such unnecessary perturbations, he may pursue the orbit of rectitude and love more closely, and meet with no source of attraction save the Sun of his spiritual hemisphere. Then is the height of enjoyment reached. Then are the richest streams of consolation poured into the soul. He who has made a void in the heart fills up that void by richer and fuller manifestations of his own grace and love. In the hour of earthly desolation, the Man of Sorrows becomes doubly precious; drawing near to us with a tenderness and love we had not before realized. Truly He is a brother born for adversity; for the night is never too dark for his visits, and the fierce storms only hasten his coming. We know not the power of Jesus in his grace, until we are made to prove it. May He, the God of all consolation, be more and more precious to every afflicted believer, in each season of trial and sorrow; and as the void daily opens, may He fill it up with his presence, giving unto each new joy and peace in believing.

T. R.

OUR "STRONG POINTS."

To the Editor.

IT has been affirmed, whether truly or falsely I do not pretend to say, that in almost every human face the features of some particular animal predominates, and the man within has always something which corresponds to this outward peculiarity. The lionfaced man is pronounced to have something within him of the

savage nobility of the king of the forest. The tiger-faced man is a tiger at heart. The man of a lynx-eye is, at the bottom, fierce and subtle. The fox-like countenance betrays a mischievous tendency to break the eighth commandment. As I have said, it is far from my wish to maintain the theory; and I am disposed to think that the holders of it may be prompted, by the supposed analogy, to conjectures on character which may be both erroneous and dangerous. The probability is, that such theorists reason backwards; and where they find the inner quality, are tempted to imagine the outward indications. Be this, however, as it may, it is not my wish at present to treat of the theory, but to direct the attention of your readers to a peculiarity in the moral history of man, which it seems to me of importance to notice.

Whether or no certain strong features in a face predicate particular features of the mind, this is certain, that as a large number of faces have what may be called their predominant features, this is equally true of the mind-it has its predominant features, or what may be called its "strong points." In some minds, the milder qualities and graces prevail. In some, the quality of courage; in some, beneficence; in some, what is called the rigid sense of honour, and inflexible adherence to truth; in some, strong determination of will. And it is far from a defect in the constitution of things that it should be so. The variety has in it the elements of beauty and power; as the mixed colours in a state of union produce the sunlight. But, then, there is often this accompanying mischief, that men are disposed to pride themselves on one or other of their predominant qualities; to rest upon it; to feel their weakness at every point but this; to set it against other obvious faults and deficiencies; to fancy that, however the hand of the Great Guardian is needful at other points, as to this particular one they need no help.

Now I have here to notice, in the experience of a somewhat extended life, a curious fact in the history of man; viz., the frequency with which he breaks down precisely at what is deemed his "strong point." His strong points often prove, in the end, to be his weak ones; and the fortress is entered at the gate where nature had seemed to have done the most to fortify it. Let us see whether some of the histories in Scripture do not confirm this state

ment.

Noah is singled out in Scripture as the "preacher of righteousness," in the midst of an unrighteous world. But this righteous Noah plants a vine, drinks to excess of its fruits, and exposes the very righteousness he is called to inculcate, to the ridicule and scorn of the ungodly. Abraham, at the command of God, boldly and disinterestedly abandons his father's house, and plunges into all the dangers of a distant and hazardous march. But this father of the faithful, and friend of God, suddenly breaks down, and inflicts a fearful wound on the faith he is called to establish. Moses is

spoken of as the "meekest" of all men; but this model of meekness, under the pressure of a sudden temptation, is guilty of such a burst of passion as shuts him out from more than a distant view of the land of promise. The patient Job is provoked to curse the day of his birth. The lion-hearted Elijah casts himself on the ground in a fit of effeminate despondency. The gentle St. John desires to "call down fire" on his adversaries. The loving, ardent Peter forsakes his Master in the hour of his deepest extremity. Other cases in proof of my proposition might be selected, both from sacred and profane history; and we can scarcely have gone through life, with our eyes open, without seeing them for ourselves. Perhaps, indeed, if we look for them, we shall find that our own supposed strong points have proved to be very weak ones; and the oak staff on which we were accustomed to lean, a mere reed, which has unexpectedly broken short in our hands.

If the fact to which I have referred, in the constitution of our nature, be obvious; so, I think, is the origin and source of it. Take especially the case of a true, but infirm, and perhaps fallen servant of God.

One object of the divine discipline, in the case of such a man, is altogether to strip him of high notions about himself; so to bring him down, as that he shall be satisfied to enter heaven by the low gate of deep self-humiliation. His supposed strong point was, perhaps, the main obstacle in his way. Some deep offence on the very side of this predominant quality is calculated to bring the man to his senses; and in his defeated and prostrate state he calls for mercy as he never called before. Job had probably presumed on his patience. It gives way under a peculiar pressure, and he exclaims-"I abhor myself, and repent in dust and

ashes."

In like manner, another lesson to be learned in our education for eternity, is our absolute dependance upon the power and grace of God. Here, again, the "strong point" may be the main obstacle in our way. Samson shall have the lock of his strength removed. The man shall be made to feel that, in himself, he is nothing; and accordingly he is suffered to break down at the very point where his strength is supposed to lie. His temptation had been independence of the Spirit of God, as to at least one point; and he is accordingly called to sustain defeat in the field of expected victory; and is thus taught that the supposed giant in the conflict with corruption is a mere child, and that he never needs Divine help more than when he least seeks it. Let him only learn, as he lies thus prostrate under the power of temptation, to look exclusively to the blood of Christ as the only source of hope, and the power of the Spirit as the only source of strength, and he will thank God through eternity for his defeats and sorrows in the vale of tears.

I happened to pass through a forest shortly after one of the

recent storms had fallen upon it with unusual severity, and had my attention called to the fact, that almost every tree struck by the tempest and cast to the ground, had on it, sometimes in the apparently strongest parts of it, the symptoms of incipient decay. The ravages of the storm had only cut away the parts of the tree which were draining away the sap from the healthier branches. The "stump of tree" seen by the king of Babylon might, by teaching him the lesson of human weakness and insufficiency, have saved him from deep calamity. May the "trees" which I saw prove to have "tongues" for me, and teach me to suspect myself at all points, and especially perhaps at those which I have been in the habit of regarding as the strongest !

H.

THE MOSAIC INSTITUTIONS: WINES'S COMMENTARY, &c. 1. Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews. By E. C. Wines, D.D. Philadelphia: Martien. London Nisbet. 1860. 1 Vol. 8vo.

:

2. Commentary on the Pentateuch; translated from the German of Otto Von Gerlach, by Rev. Henry Downing, Incumbent of St. Mary's, Kingswinford. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. London: Hamilton and Co. 1860. 1 Vol. 8vo.

THE Mosaic laws and institutions have from time to time been made the subject of learned and elaborate commentaries. In particular, Spencer and Maimonides have been regarded as the Coke and Blackstone of the Hebrew lawgiver; yet few of us have read the treatise De Legibus Hebraeorum of the one, or the Moreh Nevochim of the other. And even Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, amusing as it is from its very extravagance and paradox, is scarcely known to the present generation. The reason is partly to be found, no doubt, in our growing aversion to ponderous folios and Latinized theology. This may account for our neglect of Spencer. Ben Maimon or Maimonides does not repay the labour of perusal even in an English translation. He was a Jewish neologian; and attempting to elucidate the Jewish institutions without the proper clue, he failed of course; though he scattered by the way some useful illustrations. Of Warburton we do not speak; his theories never commanded respect, and are now defunct.

Of the two volumes standing at the head of this article, the first will chiefly engage our attention. We introduce the second to recommend it to our readers as an excellent explanatory commentary. It bears a high character in its own country, where it has passed through several editions, and is regarded as a standard work of its kind. The editor says:- "The notes of Von Gerlach cannot be called learned. They do not make pretension to such a

character. The work is rather of a popular than a scientific caste. It is intended to help towards the profitable, devout reading of holy scripture; the author of the Annotations never loses sight of the practical application of the text; and yet the Notes will be found to condense a great amount of scriptural knowledge."

These modest claims are well sustained; the work is well edited; and the English reader who would study with profit to himself, or expound to others, this portion of scripture, will thank us for having directed his attention to it. If not exactly a learned work, it contains the result of much solid learning.

Dr. Wines may be said to adventure upon ground which has now been long unoccupied. There are no living claimants to question his right, and we are willing to recognise his title. We must, however, make some exceptions; and we must notice two faults, one of them rather amusing than of grave importance, the other of a more serious kind. Dr. Wines is a staunch republican. He sees his beloved commonwealth all through the Pentateuch, and finds the outline of a democratic constitution, if not the minutiæ of the American Union, even at the foot of Mount Sinai.

But this we can forgive. It adds to the entertainment his book affords on this side the water; and we can understand amidst what applauses such discoveries were enunciated to admiring crowds upon the other. But we, too, in England, have had our own absurdities in politico-theology. They belong, in fact, to the nonage of free countries; and, like the gambols of sportive youth, are only out of place when ripe manhood comes and renders them unnatural. Our second objection is more serious. Dr. Wines frequently indulges himself in a way of speaking of the great lawgiver which, if strictly understood, would imply that Moses was the author of the institutions which, in common parlance, are associated with his name. He sometimes forgets, or rather seems to overlook, the fact, that the institutions of Moses are divine; that God himself, not Moses, was the lawgiver; and that the true character of the latter was simply that of a faithful interpreter and agent. "Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant." So speaks the apostle, and we can bring nothing in explanation of words too clear for misconception. The next verse tells us that "the house" in which Moses was a servant is the family of which God is the builder, and Christ the head. Any treatise on the laws of Moses which should deny or studiously conceal this fact, would be undeserving even of a serious refutation. Dr. Wines means, we have no doubt, to assert the divine authority of the institution; but he allows himself, especially in a concluding lecture upon the character of Moses, to speak of "the legislative skill, the profound wisdom, and far-seeing penetration of the legislator," in a manner which is both unbecoming and inconsistent with the principles he has advanced.

Two systems of civilization preceded the Hebrew constitution,