off! when he is enlarged from his loathsome dungeon and the house of his bondage, breathes in a free air, can dispose of himself, and walk at liberty whither he will! The bird escaped from his cage, or freed from his line and stone, that resisted its vain and too feeble strugglings before,-how pleasantly doth it range! with what joy doth it clap its wings and take its flight!-a faint emblem of the joy wherewith that pleasant cheerful note shall one day be sung and chanted forth, "Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken, and we are escaped." There is now no place for such a complaint, "I would, but I cannot,"-I would turn my thoughts to glorious objects, but I cannot. The blessed soul feels itself free from all confinement; nothing resists its will, as its will doth never resist the will of God. It knows no limits, no restraints; is not tied up to this or that particular good; but expatiates freely in the immense universal all-comprehending goodness of God himself.-Howe. ST. JAMES says, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;" that is, into divers tribulations. A strange command, one would think, to bid them rejoice at such a time, and in such circumstances as these! Certainly, such an exhortation, which seems so contrary to the inclinations of nature, had need be enforced by some strong motive. This the apostle gives them :-"Knowing that the trial of your faith worketh patience." Now, in this are included two things, which should mightily further their joy. 1. That all their sufferings and afflictions are for the trial of their faith. God, by those, tries whether your faith be weak or strong; able to support itself only upon a promise, or wants the crutches of sense to bear it up: whe ther it be a faith wrought in you only by evidence of the truth, or a faith that is accompanied by a sincere love of the truth. And, therefore, rejoice in your sufferings and afflictions; for these will help you to determine this important question. If your faith be such as can overcome the world,-if it can persuade you to esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the world,—if it respects the promises of God more than the threatenings of men, and future rewards than present advantages,—this is a faith that is true and genuine, and shall be "found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Such a faith as this, that can endure the fire and lose nothing of its weight and substance, is more precious than gold which perisheth. A faith that can bring you to suffer and die for Christ will bring you to live and reign with him. And have you not, then, great cause to rejoice in afflictions, which afford you a means to know whether your graces be genuine or spurious? Certainly that Christian hath great reason to suspect himself that cannot rejoice that he is going to heaven, though God send a fiery chariot to fetch him. II. This trial of their faith worketh patience. The more a Christian bears, the more he is enabled to bear. And therefore, also, account it all joy. For patience is, of itself, such a Christian excellency and perfection, that all trials and afflictions, tending to increase this, are to be reckoned as gain and advantage. If thy sorrows and troubles add any degree of fortitude to thy patience, thou hast far more reason to rejoice than to repine. If God confirm and augment thy patience under sufferings, then sufferings are mercies, afflic tions are favours. He blesseth thee by chastening thee, and crowns thee with glory while he seems to crown thee with thorns. And wilt thou not triumph at this, O Christian, especially considering that the end of thy patience is hope, and peace, and eternal life? (Rom. v. 3-5.) Here is true cause of glorying indeed,-when our patience shall cause us to ascend, through all these degrees, to the top and perfection of Christian attainments. It is far better, therefore, to have patience under afflictions than to be freed from them: it is more cause of joy to suffer the hand and will of God than not to suffer at all. -Bishop Hopkins. THE HUMAN SOUL. THE Soul of man! how shall we value it? Shall we estimate it by its duration? The stream that is now rolling before me has been sending on its waters toward the ocean ever since it began to flow, without stopping for an hour. But that stream shall be dried up, and the unceasing noise of its waters hushed in perpetual silence, while the soul still lives and moves. That mountain, whose summit has been the home of snows and frosts and the birthplace of ten thousand tempests since the day it emerged from the bosom of chaos, and which seems to be based upon eternal pillars, shall be shaken and tumbled from its proud height, while the soul still flourishes without decay and towers in its might and majesty. That sun, which after a period of six thousand years continues to send forth its light and heat to animate our system, its fires still burning with undiminished lustre, shall be extinguished, while the soul shall still be beaming with the brightness of its immortality. At the general wreck and dissolution of created things it shall be there, witnessing the dread magnificence of that awful scene. The soul of man! Shall we estimate it by its capacities? That which, from the weakness and helplessness of childhood, rises through the several gradations of the elasticity of youth and strength of manhood to the beautiful proportions of maturity-when, with comprehensive reach, it takes in the numberless objects of intelligence, what may we not expect it to embrace after it is freed from the chains that bind it here, and it leaps into the freedom of its eternal state. Consider, too, its moral capabilities; with what a constancy and fervour it can love, and that, for affection's sake, it can endure deprivation, and toil, and death; and when the Spirit of God animates it, how it arises from its natural deadness to spiritual things, and, breathing the atmosphere of prayer, and feeding upon the joys and hopes of religion, and exercising itself in works of godliness, it grows up to the "fulness of the stature of Christ" and all this, too, though opposed by the world, and fighting against the flesh, and tempted by Satan. A guest of such noble birth, so rich in possession, so high in expectation, does this mortal frame contain. That which now animates us, by which we think, and love, and hate, shall never cease to be and to act. But soon in how different a state will it find itself! Here, in the hands of most of us, there are two cups, and with the sweetness of the one we can almost neutralize the bitterness of the other. But in eternity the one or the other will be taken from us. Oh! how wretched the fate of him that must forever hold to his lips "the wine-cup of the wrath of Almighty God!" And who shall measure the delights of him that shall ever be tasting "the cup of blessing" which God will put into the hands of his saints? GENEALOGICAL LIST OF JACOB'S FAMILY. IT has often been objected by infidels that the genealogical list of Jacob's family, as given in Genesis xlvi. 8-27, is inconsistent with itself and Stephen's statement in Acts vii. 14. Let us look at these supposed discrepancies:1. In verse 27, the aggregate is stated at "threescore-and-ten," (70.) 2. In verse 26, threescore-and-six," (66.) 3. In Acts vii. 14, "threescore-and-fifteen," (75.) : In each of these cases the most precise phraseology is used to describe the persons intended to be included. 1. Verse 8. "These are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons." Thus Jacob himself is here included. JACOB Leah. REUBEN,-Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, Carmi.. SIMEON, Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Zohar, Shaul LEVI,-Gershon, Kohath, Merari JUDAH,-Er, and Onan, Shelah, Pharez, Zarah, (sons of ISSACHAR, Tola, Puvah, Job, Shimron ZEBULON,-Sered, Elon, Jahleel...... DINAH,-(Jacob's daughter, Gen. xxx. 21) Verse 15. "These be the sons of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob in Padan-aram, with his daughter Dinah; all the souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty and three".. GAD,-Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, Areli.......... Zilpah. ASHER,-Jimnah, Ishua, Isui, Beriah, Serah, (their sister,) (sons of Beriah,) Heber, Malchiel. Verse 18. "These are the sons of Zilpah, and these she bare unto Jacob:-sixteen souls". JOSEPH, Manasseh, Ephraim...... Rachel. BENJAMIN,-Belah, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, Ard. Verse 22. "These are the sons of Rachel, which were born to Jacob. All the souls were fourteen".. 1574 4 6541 | 33 16 3 11 14 Bilhah. {DAN,-Hushim.... Brought forward... 8251 63 NAPHTALI, Jahleel, Guni, Jezer, Shillom Verse 25. "These are the sons of Bilhah, and she bare these unto Jacob; all the souls were seven". Total............ 7 70 Mark the precision of the language used, (verse 27 :)—" All the souls of the house (or family) of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore-and-ten.” But, in verse 26, "All the souls that came with Jacob, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore-and-six.” Now, observe: this last number includes only Jacob's lineal descendants; and, of them, none but those "who came with him into Egypt." Therefore Joseph and his two sons, who were already in Egypt, and Jacob himself, (who did not "come out of his own loins,") must be deducted from the preceding total, and leaves precisely THREESCORE-AND-SIX. Again: Stephen says, in Acts vii. 14, "Then sent Joseph and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred,—threescore-and-fifteen souls.” This number evidently includes "Jacob's sons' wives," for they were of his kindred," and were expressly sent for. Gen. xlv. 18, 19. How many of them were then living in Canaan we have no means of determining. Joseph's wife was already in Egypt; Judah's wife, we are informed, was dead, (Gen. xxxviii. 12,) and probably others. If, then, to the previous number of sixty-six we add nine, we have the exact number stated by Stephenseventy-five, ("threescore-and-fifteen.") Surely the man who can refer to these several statements for discrepancies must be sadly at a loss for employment or exceedingly hard pushed for objections against the Sacred Scriptures. But there is another consideration that adds force to the preceding demonstration. Though the Scriptures were written by many different hands, at long intervals of time, and frequently refer to the same facts, yet they manifest no solicitude to make their statements agree; and here is a case in point. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, in his dying speech refers to a fact that had been recorded more than fifteen hundred years before; and he states a number that differs from any one on record, which, upon being examined and compared with the phraseology he uses, is found to agree to a unit with statements made by another writer so long before. The more of such apparent discrepancies that can be found in any book, the more reliance may be placed on its statements.-New York Observer. NOW. WHAT is it? That point in duration which links the two eternities; that flitting moment which, as it emerges into the present, vanishes into the past. A beat of the pulse measures it-a heart-throb-a breath. While one utters the word, it comes, is gone. What of it? Especially this:-It is the accepted time-the day of salvation. As it flies, God waits to be gracious. Listen! Divine love speaks:-"Unto you, O men, I call. The great expiation has been made. The fountain is open. That blood is sufficient. Whosoever will may live, from death in sin rise to glory. I am a just God, and yet a Saviour. But delay not. Now-not to-morrow. Time rushes; life ebbs; death hastens. What men are at that last, now they are forever. Its moral hue colours the illimitable ages." Will you waste it? What! this breath into which such interests crowd? on which hangs eternity? Waste it? Are you mad? Must truth be unheeded, love rejected, heaven lost? Waste it? Ease, pleasure, gold, famethrow them all away, if need be,-not moments. Seize them, hold them! That undying soul is to be saved, if ever, now.-Presbyterian. CHRIST CARING FOR US. "For he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."-Heb. xiii. 5. [The following lines recently afforded great comfort to an aged Christian lady on her deathbed. She had cut them some months before her death from a religious newspaper, and almost wore out the copy with continual using.-Eds. N. Y. Observer.] |