kali. It is the muriate, then, and not the subcarbonate, of soda, which is contained in sponge; which I have further proved by very considerably increasing its discutient effects by the addition of that salt. But the more modern and generally received opinion is, that it is an animal composition, and recent discoveries have placed it among the productions of those numerous and wonderful animalculæ, the zoophytes.We have seen the effect of their labours in the once merely curious, but now dangerous, coral rocks, one of which extends upwards of a thousand miles; and, in spite of the threatening billows of the ocean, is slowly forming a new continent in its very bosom. Probability and possibility have also united to let the matter rest here, and it is now considered not as a subject of investigation, but as an established fact. That it is an animal composition, I allow. But I am inclined to think the zoophytes have the unmerited credit of its production, as it appears to belong to the large crustaceous fishes, and to be the nest in which they deposit their spawn; and if we consider the situation of the young of these fishes, it will appear very necessary, as they are without fins, and thus deprived of voluntary locomotion to any extent; and as they are from the beginning enclosed within their shells, and would be thus liable to be wafted from the place where the instinct of their progenitors had placed them. We know that the eggs of the shark are secured by those strong tendinous filaments, which are known to our anglers by the name of Indian grass, and that the muscle is secured in its resting-place by the beard (so called) at the root of the tongue, and that after these parts are perfected for their intended use, they lose the sensibility of animal structure, and are excluded from the economy of the body which gave them origin; and being thus deprived of nutrition, they acquire a durability for which the sponge also is very peculiar, and cease to be operated upon by the same agents as purely animal matter, and are therefore surcharged by maceration in æther, alcohol, or water, which is never the case with vegetable substances. I am also supported in these arguments by the following observations: I subjected a large piece of new sponge to minute examination, and discovered that many of those substances which are felt in new sponge and supposed to be stones or extraneous matter encircled by it in its growth, were small but perfectly formed shells, of different genera, which I carefully separated and have preserved, and find them to be of the same shape precisely with those beautiful and large ones which decorate our mantel-shelves. One of these I examined, and found the sponge following through all its windings, till it terminated in that part which I supposed to have been the recess of the little inhabitant, which would make it appear that it also formed its first nutriment. The difference in the quality and porosity of sponge, which is so great as to make a considerable difference in its value and use, also favours this opinion, a difference which could not exist to such an extent, if it were the production of any one species of ani mals; of the truth of which, the nests of birds, the houses of beavers, &c. are a strong proof. Should this meet the eye of any of your philosophical readers, and call forth the result of deeper and more successful researches than my own in this obscure department of God's creation, I shall be amply rewarded. S. D. W. OBSERVATIONS ON THE PEDIGREE, SHOULD you think proper to insert in your magazine the following endeavour to throw some light upon the probable descent, circumstances, and country of Job, you will oblige your's, &c. EUGENIUS. Stoke-upon-Trent, Nov. 1824. VERY many have been, and still are, the opinions entertained respecting the book of Job; some supposing the whole to be ideal,-others insisting upon its reality. Of those who have agreed as to its being a relation of facts, some have conjectured the characters thereof to have been of one country and descent, while others maintain them to have been of very different. The general opinion, how ever, appears to have been in favour of Job himself being a descendant of Nahor, the brother of Abram; but it is equally, if not more probable, that Job was descended from Abraham through Isaac, and through Esau, the brother of Jacob: or, in other words, that he was of the generation of Esau, as recorded in the 36th chapter of Genesis; a minute examination of this chapter, in comparison with the book of Job, will readily induce, from the great similarity of names of persons and places, a belief that Job and his friends were closely connected with the generations of Esau. In support of this opinion, it may be remarked, that Job is said to have lived at Uz; a place, it may be presumed, from reference to 28th verse of the 36th chapter of Genesis, deriving its name from one of the sons of Seir, whose descendants Esau's posterity expelled their country, and themselves possessed, naming it after their own head, Edom, generally. The principal of Job's friends is named Eliphaz, and described as being a Temanite. Esau's immediate son was of the same name, and his grandson by that Eliphaz was named Teman. Now, admitting the fact of the prevalence of naming their lands and children after their forefathers, and making allowance for lapse of time and intervening generations, here are two conjunctive presumptions in favour of the opinion of Job and his friends being so descended. But to approximate more nearly to Job himself. It is said, of the kings who reigned in Edom, of Esau's race, verse 33, that there was one named Jobab, a name not dissimilar to Job of Uz, which it has been shewn was, or might have been, a place in the dominion of Edom, formerly called Mount Seir. It is further remarked, that this Jobab was succeeded by a person of the very same country as the eldest friend of Job, viz. a Temanite. That Job and his friends were of high state and authority in their lands, may be inferred from the whole of their arguments in conversation with each other, particularly Job, as of royal state and dignity, from the whole of the 29th chapter of the book bearing his name. It may readily be concluded, that the events of his sufferings took place during the time the descendants of Without much trouble, also, a similarity of names and parts of names is discoverable between Job's other friends and others of Esau's posterity. Not, however, to perplex the reader, thus much may suffice to the elucidation of their origin. The subject may be perused by the curious with interest and satisfaction. AN ENIGMATICAL FRAGMENT. THERE is a being who is a citizen of the world, who travels incessantly. The air is not more subtile; water is not more fluid. He removes every thing-replaces every thing. He is mute, yet speaks all languages, and is the most eloquent of orators. He appeases all quarrels, all tumults, and he foments and encourages all laws and lawsuits. He excites courage, and instigates cowardice; braves all seas, breaks down all barriers, and will never sojourn any where. He diminishes all geographical distances, and increases all moral ones. He makes rougher all social inequalities, or levels them. He has power over all trades. He procures repose, and banishes sleep. He is the strong arm of tyranny, and the guarantee of independence. Virtue despises, and yet cannot do without him. His presence gives birth to pride; his absence humbles it. He is audacious, imperious, and impudent; he is benevolent, and willing to relieve. He is the best of friends, and the most dangerous of enemies; the wisest, and most fatal, of advisers. At the voice of the prodigal he transforms his land and house into dust which may be given to the winds; and he assists the provident man to heap up his savings. Innocent himself, he corrupts innocence. He provokes all crimes, protects all vices, and attacks all virtues. He is not less the idol of universal worship. Nations, indivi ter," on the "State of the Soul between Death and Judgment." As I happen to differ from the author on a few points, and have observed your liberality in admitting the pro and con of a question to your columns, I have set my reasons upon paper, and hope they bear sufficiently on the point, for insertion. As I am of opinion with Septuagenarius in the former part of his essay, I omit going over the ground; but in his fourth column, I find the following passage :-' "Shall then, after this gradual progress from an atom to the man of the highest attainments and most cultivated intellect, who is, however, after all, in his natural state, but a fallen depraved creature; shall such a one then expect the graduatory scale to cease with him, and at his death to jump at once into the state of an angel in heaven?" duals, contend for his exclusive pos- | say by "Septuagenarius of Chichessession, although he is their mutual and necessary interpreter. He causes pleasure and satiety. He is equally serviceable to caprices and wants, as to tastes and passions. He gives nourishment and toys to infancy; and he is nourishment and toys to old age. He conveys bread to the mouth of the paralytic, and daggers to the hand of the assassin. He is deaf to the poor who implore him; and forces himself upon the rich who prostitute him. He is the maker of many marriages, and the divider of numerous families. His natural disposition is to travel unceasingly. He is fit for every kind of service, but, withal, a wanderer. If he comes to you, it is but to leave you. If you retain him, he is good for nothing-he sleeps. Take care that he returns, for he knows how to do every thing; he is successful in all. If you want employment, orders, titles, honours, or even absolutions, address yourself to him; he knows all the magazines; he has all the keys. Are you weak, or powerful? No matter, he will make you either a Croesus or an Irus. Are you a Racine, or a Cavois-a Rochefoucault, or the Jew Samuel? No matter, he will open to you the pavilions of the Tuilleries. Are you the niece of Mazarine, or of Villars-of Isaac, or of Praslin? No matter, he will make you a duchess. He is indispensable: without him, princes would be obliged to make their own shoes; the ugly Martha would have remained unmarried; Bouvard would be a mechanic; and Rhodope would be a modest woman. He is in the midst of all good and all evil. He burned Copenhagen, and built St. Petersburg. He is inactive, and yet the universal mover. He is inanimate, and the soul of the world. In the plenitude of his power, would he bestow health, he sends Hippocrates; would he defy death, he raises pyramids. Lastly, sprung from the dust, he is regarded as a divinity. But of whom or what are you speaking ?-Of MONEY! Now, here is a question, which, taken in connexion with his preceding "graduatory scale," carries a strongly negative meaning, in spite of the succeeding qualification. To treat it then as a negative, I would refer all inquiring minds for an answer to the three or four first chapters of the first volume of Scott's Christian Life; which (if any thing can) will satisfy of the possibility-nay, probability, amounting to a strong moral certainty, that the graduatory scale (which Septuagenarius has so prettily stated) can be perfected upon earth in the mind of a Christian, so as to leave him but the slender veil of the body between mortality and heaven. That there is a locality to hell and paradise, is not, I believe, doubted by those who have examined the subject with attention. Scripture warrants us in supposing it, and speaks of a 66 great" separating "gulf;" but Septuagenarius says, in the words of Bishop Pearson,-" There is a vast distance between these two; nor is it likely that the angels, which see the face of God, should be sent down from heaven to convey the souls of the just into that place where the face of God cannot be seen."-When that place is pointed out, I shall freely give in to Septuagenarius's hypothesis; but, till then, I must beg leave to agree with David, who has so beautifully expressed his opinion in the 139th psalm," Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me: even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee." The two instances of Enoch and Elijah are brought forward as bearing upon the question, "that, when the former was translated, and the latter carried up in a chariot to heaven, they seem not to be conveyed to a place where there was no vision of God." My quotation averts the force of this objection. But, independently of that, I do not consider Enoch and Elijah to be fair instances; the body and soul not having been separated, as in the case of those under our consideration; but rather, having been (at the time of translation) subjected to that change which St. Paul speaks of, 1 Cor. chap. 15, verse 52,-"For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality,"they were in the state of our Saviour, when, just after the reassumption of his body, he said to Mary, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended unto my Father." And being thus fitted in body as well as spirit, they might enter immediately into the enjoyment of the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. But to return. The "great gulf," or, as Septuagenarius says, "the vast distance," (which, if he had not extended its import beyond the warrant of sacred scripture, would mean the same thing,) was, in the words of Abraham, "fixed so, that they which would pass from hence to you, cannot; neither can they pass to us who would come from thence." This imports both the locality of the places, and the impossibility of access from one to the other; but that impossibility is stated expressly to be occasioned by the " gulf," and not by the 73.-VOL. VII. distance; as it appears from the dialogue which occurred, that they were (humanly speaking) within conversation distance, and also within sightthe one party, of the punishment they had escaped; the other party, of the felicity they had lost: no trifling increase to their "weal or wo." Of the hypothesis of Septuagenarius, namely, that disembodied spirits may inhabit the various planets, he himself says, "it is but conjecture after all;" and, hinting at the opinions of others, he continues, "Neither their's nor mine can be absolutely supported throughout on scriptural grounds, though I think it may be inferred from them, that the soul will in some state survive the body." This inference is as unassuming as any Christian would wish it to be. If I had been writing the sentence, I would have changed may for must, and would have concluded with him, that every hypothesis which attempts to localize the situations of those places, or that state, must be conjecture; and that, not because scripture will not absolutely support it, but because it will not support it at all. To give my whole reasons for not agreeing with Septuagenarius in his hypothesis, would be too great a trespass on your columns. I will, however, remark on one or two points. For First. He says, "The spirits of those who have been justified and sanctified on earth,-having first been restrained to the region of the earth, till the spirits of those relatives and others they had left in this mortal state had joined them, &c. then betook themselves to the planets." Now, I submit that this, if true, would lead to a rather ludicrous conclusion, viz. that the planets are (comparatively speaking) inhabited by none but such as have no earthly relations. Mr. S. no doubt, means, that parents could not depart without their children, " dear next to heaven itself." But those children will, most likely, be restrained to the region of the earth by the same ties as their parents. So that I may safely conclude on this hypothesis, that, if I (or you, Mr. Editor) wish for a habitation in some planet, we must beware of the matrimonial bond, there appearing no medium between adieu to it, and tarrying for the full procession of our ancestors and offspring; which may E not be completed till the day of judg ment. 3dly. When he appeared to his disciples, the doors being shut. As Septuagenarius has stated this, he appears to have confounded two distinct occurrences; for he says, Jesus "vanished from them when the doors were shut;" whereas there is no such thing in the bible account. But this is evidently a mistake. And if it were even thus, it was as easy for the Saviour, to whom all power was delivered in heaven and in earth, to hold their eyes that they should not see him, as to hold those of the two disciples going to Emmaus that they should not know him. Again. As to the planets Ceres, Juno, Pallas, and Vesta, when three only of them were known, a celebrated astronomer calculated (from a certain proportion he had invariably found in the sizes of planets as compared with their distances) that they must be the ruins of a planet, of a certain size, which had been shattered by concussion with a comet, or from some equivalent cause; and he computed still farther, from their relative | positions and sizes, that there must be a fourth, crossing a particular space in its orbit. The event fully But as to his appearing under a difanswered his expectations, and war-ferent form when the doors were shut; rants us in supposing, as the most I know not on what grounds Septuaprobable conjecture, that they are the genarius asserts it, therefore will not ruins of some planet, as he concluded, undertake to controvert it farther than and not a habitation" expressly fur- saying, that it is not mentioned in nished" for souls. scripture, nor do I see any grounds for its being supposed. "Tis asserted, col. 828, that our blessed Lord "appeared in three different forms" to his disciples: 1st, "when the doors were shut;" 2d, "to the two disciples going to Emmaus;" 3d, "to Mary in the garden." To begin with this last:-The firm belief that Mary had of his being then actually dead, would naturally prevent her recognizing him as Jesus, especially on a transient view, and she evidently had no more; but, absorbed in sorrow and reflection on her loss, had just glanced her eye on him, and then turned her head away. For, when the Saviour in his wonted manner called her by her name, "she turned," and instantly recognizing him, now when her attention was aroused, would have embraced his feet in rapture, had she not been prevented by his voice, saying, " Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended unto my Father." 2dly. As to his form when he appeared to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus. 'Tis evident that it was not different from that he appeared in before death; for, 'tis said, "their eyes were holden, that they should not know him." So that the reason of his appearing to them to be a stranger, was, because of their eyes being holden by a supernatural affection, not because of any actual change in his figure: and in accordance with this view of it, as soon as " their eyes were opened, they knew him." There is another instance of our Saviour's appearing to his disciples, which Mr. S. has not noticed, though apparently much more to his purpose. I mean his appearing to them on the sea-shore as they were a-fishing. But neither here are we to suppose that he appeared under a different form; but, rather, that the imperfect light (for they had spent the night fishing, and it was then but dawn of day) prevented them from recognizing their Lord and Master, who was at a distance on the shore. I will suggest a reason I have for concluding, with Dr. Horsley, that the place where our Saviour descended during death is situated in the centre of our earth. "Tis this: There was an earthquake at the moment of his giving "up the ghost," and an earthquake when his soul and body were reunited, or at his resurrection, which means the same thing. The earthquakes I consider to have been caused by his passing to and from that place, by whatever name it be called. I take my leave with saying, that I would not have obtruded these objections to Septuagenarius's hypothesis or essay, did I not think it has a tendency to remove the hope of a Christian too far from him, certainly farther than Christianity was ever intended to do, and at best portrays it in too feeble a light and in too dark a hue. Z. Z. A. |