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tower, that they might not be scattered, and that God prevented their design by confounding their language, and that as the result they were actually dispersed over the surface of the globe. We derive from this history the following conclusions:

First, that previous to the building of Babel, the sons of Noah all spoke one language. We have every reason to think that it was the language of the world before the flocd, and the language of Adam in Paradise.

Secondly, that at that period a variety of languages were formed, through the miraculous interposition of the Creator. This is obvious, from the very nature of the case. He rendered their speech unintelligible to each other. This does not mean, that He rendered the words of every individual incapable of being understood by every other: but that He made the speech of one family unintelligible to the other families. They still used articulate speech, and each tribe could communicate within its own circle. Each family, therefore, must have had a language different from the rest, and this constituted a variety of languages. They must have been fully formed and fitted for all the purposes of articulate speech.

Thirdly, the manner in which this was done was by confusion. God confounded their language. Its elements were deprived of their old arrangements, and arranged anew; and new elements and new forms were introduced. The old language was employed, so far as it was available, in the formation of new ones; and where it failed, new materials were added, and tongues of a different genus and construction were introduced. We may expect to find traces of the original language diffused through those now formed.

Fourthy, it was not requisite that the original language should be obliterated. There are good reasons to think that it would be preserved. It would serve some one tribe, as well at least as any other that could be created. Now, God does nothing in vain. Why destroy the old language, and create a new one, when

there was no object to be gained by it. Besides, there were important objects to be served by its preservation.

Fifthly, in illustration of the same subject, let us consider the effect-the dispersion of men over the earth. This dispersion, though occasioned by the confusion of language, does not appear to have taken place from a mere panic, but to have been conducted on rational principles. It is likely that such an extraordinary event would suggest to Peleg, or some other of the leaders, the design of God; and they would begin to take measures for its accomplishment. It was natural to think that the families, whose languages were found to differ least, would remain most nearly together, and that those which differed most widely should proceed to the greatest distance. Hence we can easily perceive how those who spoke the Shemetic languages would go to form neighbouring nations.

3. Let us notice in one or two instances how this key is fitted to unlock the treasures of philology. We have found that it was a confusion, not obliteration. In comparing two languages nearly allied, we find the following facts: -1. We find the same words unaltered, having the same signification. 2. More generally we find the same words slightly altered; and those seem to form the central stamina of the new language. 3. The same roots, with a different but yet allied signification. 4. Different grammatical forms, the change of the article, new forms of nouns, certain changes in the verb. 5. New vocables introduced by a change in one of the letters. And, 6. Words radically and essentially new. In languages less nearly allied we find the differences increase, while the similarities diminish; but we see still traces of the original language. To give only one instance. The word signifying earth is found in Hebrew; in Arabic almost the same; in Chaldee a little disguised; in Syriac the same as in Chaldee; in German, in English, and in Latin, by inversion; but in Greek it is totally different. We can discern, with a very limited examination, traces of the words

signifying father and mother through eight or nine languages.

We must leave many things unsaid. Meanwhile, I conclude by summing up the practical amount of the whole subject. First, the Bible, as a literary production, has a high value. As the depository of the Hebrew classics, it is a treasure of simplicity and beauty. Secondly, it furnishes a key to all philology, and till it is applied this literary source will never be complete. Much has been done, but the philosophy of the subject is yet imperfect; and it will continue so till we take our stand on that great historical fact, that at Babel God confounded the language of men. And thirdly, we derive from this subject a

proof of the truth of the Scriptures. The more we have the opportunity of testing the Scriptures by matters of fact, the more evidence do we perceive of their truthfulness. It is so in the present instance. Not more truly does the chemical examination of any substance give evidence of the elements of which it is composed, than the examination of languages gives evidence of the confusion at Babel. And if the Bible be true, it has its origin in heaven, and is deserving of our incessant study and high estimation; worthy to be the companion of our solitary hours, the foundation of our faith, the guide of our lives.-Yours truly,

IOD.

WHAT ARE TO BE THE RESULTS OF THE WAR?

As Christians we share all the expcctations cherished by mere secularists of these results, in respect of the advantages to be secured for civilization and commerce. Important, however, though these be, there is another cause still dearer to us, that of our faith, which we fear will not only be neglected but miserably sacrificed, unless a public opinion be generated on the subject, and expressed with determination. We shall shortly state the grounds of our apprehension.

1st. The uniting of Austria with the Western Powers cannot fail to be injurious even to the secular interests. Kossuth's views are receiving additional confirmations every successive day. But, before that eminent statesman had uttered his warnings, the editor of the Economist, an official of the Government, inserted in his journal, if he himself indeed was not the writer, a paper which amounted to a demonstration, that, unless Austria restore the national independencies of Hungary and Poland, which in her folly and wickedness she is not likely to do, she must continue dependent on the help of Russia to maintain her usurpation. Nothing but an ignorant or infatuated blindness can prevent any one from seeing that her

offer to occupy the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, is designed to protect Russia, instead of being indicative of a hostile spirit-that the two tyrant-knaves understand one anotherand that so soon as Francis Joseph finds an opportunity for efficiently aiding Nicholas, he will play traitor to Britain and France. No fear of being charged with perfidy would restrain him. Any one who has read that interesting volume lately published by Bohn, on Hungary and Kossuth, cannot have escaped the impression, that there is no duplicity so base that the Court of Austria is not adequate to stoop to it; yea, no perjury so atrocious that it cannot with the coolest facility perpetrate it. The prospect for religion, however, is still darker than that for civil liberty. There is no court in Europe which is at present so subservient to the Jesuit power. The queen-mother Sophia, the wickedest woman in Europe, not excepting Christina of Spain, and whose influence with her weakling son is irresistible, is at once the abject slave and active munificent employer of these hooded malignant conspirators against the faith of Christ and the liberties of man. With the Austrian army a host of them will enter the Principalities for their demon

work of darkness, fraud, and treachery. Then farewell to all hope of opportunity for the dissemination of a Bible faith. A thousand times rather let matters return to the protectorate of the Czar.

2nd. Who expects anything of Louis Napoleon in advancing the cause of religious liberty? Protestantism is in a more harassed condition under his regime than it was under that of Louis Philippe. He has not so much of the religious principle as to be superstitious—he would not be his uncle's nephew if he had, unless it were the fear of certain days which the fates had decreed to be unfortunate; but he and the Jesuits are mutually dependent for the maintenance of their kindred usurpations; and although under their influence he might make provision in the final settlement of matters for the protection and promotion of Popish interests, he would not dare be a party in pleading for such a universal religious toleration as would give scope to any British missionary society.

3rd. What may we expect of British statesmen? Nothing, we answer, unless the public Christian sentiment coerce them, much against their own wills. Hitherto, in every such arrangement, they have betrayed and victimized the gospel. At home, they are zealous for the support of a spurious type of it, exacting on us for its benefit to the extent of many millions annually, because they, the Bedford family and the Derby family, have extensive patronage for the distribution of the spoil; but let it be a question for this same gospel abroad, the zeal has all evaporated. At the conclusion of the great revolutionary war, after they had expended hundreds of millions of our wealth, and an ocean of our kindred blood, so as to be entitled, one would think, to speak a word of authority in the arrangements to those whose thrones they had restored at so great expense, they yet united in imposing the Pope and the Bourbons on the unwilling nations, not only without a stipulation in favour of religious liberty, but without a hint of recommendation. The consequence was, that scarcely had

Louis sitten down on his throne when a bloody persecution burst forth on the Protestants at Lyons; and the conse quence is, that at Madrid a British Protestant who dies is consigned to the ignominy of a felon's burial. Some may foolishly reply that matters are in a much better condition now than when Castlereagh presided at the councils of our country; and that there are men in our cabinet who will make better arrange ments on the present occasion. Who are they? You will not surely give the names of the despot-apologist, Lord Aberdeen, or the sham-constitutionalist, Palmerston, or the not less sham-liberal, Molesworth. Lord John Russell, and Mr. Gladstone, then. Well, we doubt not, that supposing the American and British Dissenting Missionary Societies had, at the cost of much wealth, and of much life of martyr agents, had succeeded in bringing in some moral waste in Wallachia; and that the espiscopacy, now that matters had been made easy for them, sent out a bishop to occupy the field-if so, we doubt not, that in these circumstances, Lord John and Mr. Gladstone would be induced to assume a protectorate. According to the theologico-algebra of the latter, there would be here an individual possessed at least of 1993 parts of a certainty that he forms a link of the apostolic succession (see his Church Principles); whereas all the Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, and Baptists, and Methodists, and Moravians, by whom the people had been apparently converted, were unmistakeably presumptuous intruders into the ministry of the gospel; and whose baptisms consequently were possessed of no regenerating potency. As for Lord John, he would now see some security in the bishop's mitre for the maintenance of the monarchical princi ple, and some hope for the introduction of church-rates into Turkey, which form a necessary element in a well-consolidated monarchy. (See his recent speech, so ignominiously repudiated.) Does any one doubt, that had Tahiti been evangelized by bishops instead of Congregationalists, the declaredly atheistic

Philippe, and the treacherous pseudoProtestant Guizot, would not have been permitted by our government to perpetrate their heaven-avenged villany, in casting a bone to the Jesuits, by delivering over that beauteous vineyard, to be desolated by their demonism? We have nothing to expect different from what has been done heretofore. Which member of the cabinet appreciates a pure, spiritual, New Testament faith and liberty? while there are some of them, of whom it would be a violation of common sense to doubt that they regard it with scorn and deep detestation. So that if they are left to their own dispositions in making ultimate arrangements in the Russo-Turkish question, any advantages gained for commerce will be more than counterbalanced by the acquisitions of Popery, which, we may be certain, will not fail to profit by the occasion. What then is that public opinion of the Christian community which we wish excited to coerce those men to do their duty? Is it to the effect, that a demand be made on the Porte for permitting free scope to the evangelizing efforts of the London and other British and American missionary societies throughout the Principalities? We claim nothing so specific; but only, that our government shall say to that of Turkey, that the British people will be excited to a state of dangerous exasperation, if they find that they have been expending their treasures and blood for the support and maintenance of a power which fines, and bastinades, and imprisons, and expatriates, and murders men, whether they be Greeks or Mussulmans, Papists, Protestants, or Jews, merely on account of their religious belief and profession; and that they therefore demand a well guaranteed enactment of religious tole ration. If we have a right to interfere for the protection of that power, we have a right to demand this. Otherwise, we shall be found to have been criminally aiding a wicked despotism, to be more despotic than ever, in op pressing, among others, our co-religionists. Let it be observed, that in

making this demand, we do no violence to our professed Voluntaryism, which is every day more endeared to us by the manifestations of the malignancy of its antagonist. What but the church cum state principle originated this miserable war? It is Nicholas, as the head of Christ's church (so the imperial blasphemer professeth), versus the head of Mohammed's Church, Abdul-Medjid-Khan (the less impious, and morally by far the worthier character of the two). From the imputation of being in the least infected by the leprosy of this most pestilent of principles of wickedness, than which there is no other by which the world is more troubled, and Christ's gospel more hindered, we are concerned about defending ourselves. Observe, therefore, that in our demand we ask nothing for the Christian which we do not concede to the Jew, nothing for the Protestant which we do not concede to the Papist; and that for them all we demand only this first and most deeply fundamental civil right, liberty of conscience, and, according to that conscience's dictates, liberty of worship. Even for home administration our statesmen have need of being taught the alphabet of this science of common justice. Gladstone can scarcely distinguish its o; Russell has not got beyond its small e; the people as the great I, must teach them the broad a of equal liberty, rights, and honours to all who speak truthfully and act justly, of whatever creed. judge us of our faith. We decline the jurisdiction of such a conglomeration of ignorance (we mean in things spiritual), superstition, bigotry, heresy, infidelity, simony, bribery, impiety, and profligacy, with but a few elements of sanctity, which is exhibited by the Queen, Lords, and Commons, and Bishops of the British constitution. The conglomeration may do well enough for the management of our bridewells; but as it would not aggravate the curse which rests on it, let it cease from intermeddling with the church of God. Has not the curse been heavy enough already in the manner by which this presump

Let God alone

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And what if no peculiar cause
Beyond the course of nature's laws,
Thus gives the harvest moon to shine;
What if that bounteous care benign,
Be but a portion of the whole
Stupendous plan, which bids her roll
Her silver orb through heaven's highway,
In course oblique, that so her ray
May best, to all beneath the sky,
Its light, as most they need, supply;

Shall we for this, the rather fail

With meek and grateful hearts to hail
The wisdom, goodness, and the might,
Which made the moon to rule by night;"
And most, when autumn most requires
The cresset of her useful fires,

To glad the farmer's longing sight,
And bless him with the harvest light!

THE HARVEST MOON.

CAREFUL observers of lunar phenomena must have remarked, that the moon reaches her meridian about fifty minutes

-BISHOP MANT's British Months. later than on the previous day. The is exactly opposite to the sun. At the full moon takes place when this planet full moon nearest to the autumnal equi nox, she rises for several nights not only

• Tese verses are an almost literal embodiment of a dying confession. She who received grac: to make it was one of the most single-hearted Christians it has ever fallen to our lot to meet with.-PASTOR L.

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