his calculations for the possibility of his being ignorant of anything; and the effect is, that even when he is right, the conclusions to which he has come exist in his mind as prejudices, which preclude any further examination of such questions as he has made his mind up on, as it is called, and, producing little influence on others, impede rather than assist the progress of truth. From these faults, Southey's own mind was not altogether free; and we think, so far from the Latin and Greek which he read at school doing him any harm, the great misfortune of his life was that he neglected such learning."—North British Review, No. 25.

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES TO TURKEY AND RUSSIA.

"THE only modern European nations which pretend to be mentioned in Scripture, are the Turks and Russians. Historical antiquaries tell us that Togarmah is used for Turk; and they affirm, that the Targhitaos of Herodotus, whom the Scythians called the founder of their nation, and the son of Jupiter, is identical with the Togarmah of Moses and Ezekiel.*

The Russians can boast of much more precise notice in Scripture than their enemies, the Turks. Though their name is omitted in our translation, it occurs in the Septuagint three times, and under the peculiar ethnic denomination in which it re-appears in the Bysantine historians. The word is 'Pos, and on this name Gibbon remarks, "Among the Greeks this national appellation has a singular form as an undeclinable word;" but he does not mention that it is found in the Septuagint. The second and third verses of the thirty-eight chapter of Ezekiel, according to the Greek text, read thus: "Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of the Russians (apxovra 'Pas,), Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith the Lord God, I am against thee, O chief prince of the Russians, Meshech and Tubal." And again, in the first verse of the thirty-ninth chapter: "Therefore, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold Í am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of the Russians, Meshech and Tubal.” -Blackwood's Magazine.

THE WIND IN THE PINES.

"You stiff

'MOVE! move!" cried the hoarse Wind in the Pine Tree tops. old Pines are good enough in your way, only you are so immovable. It is my business to make all bend before me; and there are poisonous weeds protected by your shade that I want to blow down. So move! move!"

Nay, Wind," said the Pines, "we shall not move for a noisy, hasty fellow like you. You may make the clouds and the waves fly before you, or shake the boughs of trees more flexible than we are; and you are welcome to brush the dust from our heads; but you shall do nothing more. It is well that there is something firm enough to withstand your levelling blasts. Tender blossoms and useful shrubs and vines look to us for a shelter. Do not think that you will be permitted to destroy us and them just to overthrow a few vile weeds."

Then the Wind grew angry, and blew a furious gust, which caused two or

three of the tallest trees to fall with a heavy crash.

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They were decayed to the pith," murmured the standing Pines.

"Keep straight while you are sound, then," answered the Wind as he went whistling away; "but when you get rotten hearted, you also will have to come down."Similitudes.

*Gen. x. 3; Ezek. xxvii. 14, xxxviii. 6; Herod. iv. 5.

LONGEVITY OF GREAT MEN.

Academicians, in respect to longevity, have been particularly distinguished. We find, also, many instances of long life among schoolmasters; so that one might believe that continual intercourse with youth may contribute something towards our renovation and support. But poets and artists, in short all those fortunate mortals whose principal occupation leads them to be conversant with the sports of fancy and self-created worlds, seem to have a particular claim to a place in the history of longevity.

The following short list of the ages of distinguished men may be interesting to the reader; for a more complete catalogue, arranged according to the classes of science and literature upon which they shed their light, he is referred to Madden's "Infirmities of Genius."

Ir is a wild, unearthly death shriek, startling the ear in the still summer eventide, or at the breathless noon of night. No wonder the Indians around Lake Pepin answer it with their most hideous whoops and yells, for it warns them away from the last of their ancestral strongholds.

It is the tocsin for another Bartholomew massacre of the beautiful, the old, and the grand.

Shriek! Down with vour wigwams, Chippewas and Sioux! they are right in the path of the iron horse; but he will condescend to use them for provender. Run faster, Mississippi and Niagara, or you will be overtaken and exhaled through his monstrous lungs. Humble your proud heads, White Hills, Alleghanies, and ye Rocky Mountains, for your time shall come; your sides shall be seamed and scarred, until the winds of all your summits wail over your ruined

symmetry. Back to your sod, grim revolutionary ghosts! they have laid the rails over the battle grounds of Bennington and Stillwater; and if you rise in rebuke, you will only be mistaken for a puff of vapor from the locomotive.

Shriek! whistle! shriek! What is that lying across the track? Only the mangled corps of Romance. Off with it, cowcatcher! All right, now! Put on

more steam!

LOVELINESS OF CHRIST.

"He is altogether lovely."-SOL. SONG, v. 16.

Lovely in his person in the glorious all sufficiency of his Deity, gracious purity and holiness of his humanity, authority and majesty, love and power.

Loving in his birth and incarnation; when he, though rich, for our sakes became poor; taking part of flesh and blood, because we partook of the same; being made of a woman, that for us he might be made under the law even for our sakes.

Lovely in the whole course of his life, and the more than angelical holiness and obedience which, in the depth of poverty and persecution, he exercised therein; doing good, receiving evil; blessing and being cursed, reviled, reproached all his days.

Lovely in his death; yea, therein most lovely to sinners; never more glorious and desirable than when he came broken, dead, from the cross. Then had he carried all our sins into a land of forgetfulness; then had he made peace and reconciliation for us; then had he procured life and immortality for us.

Lovely in his whole employment, in his great undertaking; in his life, death, resurrection, ascension; being a Mediator between God and us, to recover the glory of God's justice, and to save our souls; to bring us to an enjoyment of God, who were set at such an infinite distance from him by sin.

Lovely in his glory and majesty wherewith he is crowned. Now he is set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, where, though he be terrible to his enemies, yet he is full of mercy, love, and compassion, towards his beloved

ones.

Lovely in all those supplies of grace and consolation, in all the dispensations of his Holy Spirit, wherof his saints are made partakers.

Lovely in all the tender care, power and wisdom which he exercises in the protection, safeguarding, and delivery of his Church and people, in the midst of all the oppositions and persecutions whereunto they are exposed.

Lovely in all his ordinances, and the whole of that spiritually glorious worship which he hath appointed to his people, whereby they draw nigh and have com• munion with him and his Father.

Lovely and glorious in the vengeance he taketh and will finally execute upon the stubborn enemies of himself and his people.

Lovely in the pardon he hath purchased and doth dispense, in the reconciliation he hath established, in the grace he communicates, in the consolations he doth administer, in the peace and joy he gives his saints, in his assured preservation of them unto glory.

What shall I say? There is no end of his excellencies and desirableness, "He is altogether lovely." This is our Beloved, and this is our Friend, O daughter of Jerusalem.

THE

PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE.

MAY, 1854.

Miscellaneous Articles.

WHAT IS DEATH?

THAT organized matter should be dissolved, and every order of irrational existence cease to live and move, and all return again to their parent dust, is not surprising. These are but dust, essentially dust. Their death is but the dissolution of a material organization, the winding up of a transient existence that involves no final account. They return to dust, and their spirit goeth downward; to them there is no future, and no future reckoning.

This is the full import of the term death, as it regards the highest orders of mere animal life. It has no moral relation to the past, and is connected by no moral link to the future. But far otherwise the import and the relations of that death which it is our present purpose to consider. We are to speak of the death of man, and of his death not as a mere physical phenomenon, but as an event in his moral history, that stands associated and linked with sin. This at once takes us into the sphere of the spiritual and moral. The death of man is a death inflicted because of the transgression of moral law, and consequently has reference to man as a moral agent. It is death in all the senses in which man can die. It includes temporal death, or the separation of the soul and body. It includes spiritual death, or the separation of the soul from God, with its immediate consequences. It includes eternal death, or the eternal reign of spiritual death, with all the positive inflictions of unutterable misery, that torture the inhabitants of the world of woe. It is by weighing the import of the term death as viewed in these three aspects, that we shall most readily and fully, attain to a comprehension of its significancy. I. It will not be necessary to dwell long on the first item in the account, to tell the dying what death is, to discourse upon morVOL. IV.-No. 5.

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tality to those who are themselves mortals. Who is there that has not seen its ravages, that has not, in some measure, felt its power? Ah! yes, we speak of a subject with which all are conversant, when we speak of temporal death. It is what we have all looked upon; it is that whose very utterance calls back remembrances, and crowds upon us recollections that almost crush the heart. Oh, what sundered ties of family, or of social affection; what desolating bereavements; what chilling loneliness, force themselves upon us at the very mention of the name. But what are all the bleeding emotions that rend the hearts of weeping friends; what the tide of grief that stifles utterance, and what the gloom and the solitude that follow in the track of death, but the mere appendages of his real terrors? It is sad to visit the tenement whose beloved inhabitant has been carried to his final resting-place, and feel that he is to return no more; but what is the upbreaking of earthly friendships save the mere accident of that change which has passed upon our departed friend? We speak not of the actual amount of pain endured, of the agonies by which the helpless sufferer may be wrung when the hand of death is laid upon him; for these are still naught but the usual messengers of the King of Terrors. They are but the harbingers of an approach that may be, and often is, unpreceded by any such announcement. They are the common fore-runners, but they are not the principal. They may be the efficient of which death is the effect, but they are not the effect itself, nor are they the only, and invariable cause. However much we may be accustomed to associate pain, and death, the latter is independent of the former. By continuous suffering our bodily organization may at length be rendered incapable of performing the functions necessary to life, and thus may death gradually extend his dominion over us, but the same result may be reached by a very different process. The vital functions may cease in a moment, the silver cord be loosed and the spirit divested of this earthly tabernacle, return to God who gave it, and yet not a sigh, not a pang, announce the change.

Now, though we have excluded pain as not entering into the essential idea of death, it does not follow that we have robbed it of its terrors. There is enough in the idea of temporal death, even when viewed apart from the almost invariable concomitants of pain, to strike the hardiest with awe. It belongs not to man to contemplate. such an event with complacency. Nature shudders at the very thought of dissolution and the grave; and it is only when life has been rendered a burthen, and every avenue to enjoyment barred up against the soul, that the man can prevail upon himself to close his eyes upon the light of heaven, and resign an unattractive world, for the cold embrace of death.

What is death? It is the separation of the soul from this earthly tenement; that change in which the noblest work of the Creator is subjected to dissolution, the dust to return to the dust as it was, and the spirit to God who gave it; a change in which man formed for the contemplation of the divine character, for the declaration of the