And now, if anything more were needed to place the crown of immortal glory upon the brow of youth, it is the fact, that Jesus was himself a young man, and that, by dying and rising again, as such, he remains a young man forever. The incarnate son of God, before he was thirty-four, had fulfilled his great mission on earth, finished his grand work of atonement and salvation, won all his triumphs over death and hell, unbarred the prison of the grave, glorified God, and purchased immortality for manand had done all in the character of a young man. As such the first Adam had fallen and lost all. It was fit then, that the second Adam, while yet in the dew of youth, should stand for us, and restore the ruins of the first. And it is a pleasing thought, that in the person of Jesus, the inhabitants of heaven now behold, not only the restoration of our human nature from the ruins of the fall, but its exaltation and apotheosis in a state of immortal youth.

These things the angels desire to look into. And into these things the nations of the earth will desire to look more and more, Christ is already the central object of all history, and all human thought. It is the name which thrills most deeply through the great heart of the world-which absorbs its daily activities, and its midnight meditations, as no other name has ever done before. Be the field of discussion what it may, be the writers or speakers who they may-atheist or infidel, deist or skeptic, rationalist or Christian-the all-absorbing theme is still the same, the one ceaseless thought is about Christ. The officers of the Jewish Sanhedrim unconsciously uttered a great prophecy as well as a great truth when they said, "Never man spake like this man." For whether he spoke divinely or humanly, in words wisdom or of fable, as a Jewish Rabbi or as the son of God, one thing is certain, he so spoke that the world has never ceased

to speak of him, and never can. Even the infidels and raionalists of these modern times, from Spinoza down to Strauss, by every volume which they have published, and every effort they have made to crush his cause, have only fulfilled the prophecy and added fresh confirmation to that ancient record, that no man ever spoke like Jesus. Such herculean efforts, made from generation to generation, and still renewed after eighteen hundred years of defeat, to prove him a common man, and his religion but a dream, by the very intensity of their zeal, recoil and refute themselves; for they, if nothing else, bear witness, that he was no common man, and that his religion is one of the strongest vitalities in the world. The wider and stronger the opposition, the stronger and clearer is the proof, that the young Nazarene, though leaving the world after a few brief years of public teaching, had nevertheless so lived, so spoken, and so died, that all the world, infidelity not excepted, has heard his voice and felt his power. By a public ministry of three years spent in toil and privation, and ending in a dead which the world regarded as his complete and everlasting overh he produced effects upon the world, greater and more enduring than any other man, public or private, old or young, ever produced. So that from the lowest conceded facts of his life, regarded simply as a history, it is impossible to turn away without believing the truth of his doctrine as a theology. Admit the plain facts of his manhood, and there is no escape from the logical conviction of his Godhead. The only solution of such a Son of man, is in the conception of such a Son of God. Admit the "Christ of History," as the point has been well argued by a recent author, and you admit all that the Christ of Revelation ever claimed to be.

CHAPTER VII.

SCIENCE AND THE SAGES OF THE BIBLE.

Relations and Bearings of the Subject-The Moral Science of the Bible-The Bible on Physical Science-First Scientific Characteristic-Second Characteristic-Third Characteristic-Additional Illustrations-The Sages of the Bible.

I. RELATIONS AND BEARINGS OF THE SUBJECT.

No apology we trust, will be demanded for selecting the Science and Sages of the Bible, as a topic entitled to stand amongst those which have already claimed our attention in these pages. Some, perhaps, may be ready to ask at first, what good can come out of such a subject-so narrow in its range, so barren in all its aspects, so unattractive in its very announcement? The Bible, it is freely admitted, is not a scientific book in any ordinary sense. Whatever may be its claims to literature, it does not profess to teach the natural sciences; it is not received as an authority in the scientific world; nor do its writers, anywhere, lay claim to the title of philosopher or sage.

It does, indeed, sometimes speak of science, and of the Grecian philosophers: but it is only to put us on our guard against the babblings of a vain philosophy, and the oppositions of a science falsely so called. It is evident at a glance, that the book of God was not inspired for the purpose of being a

text book of natural science. It was not given as a history of the wonderful phenomena of the material universe, but as a revelation of man's origin, relations, duties and destiny. But still, our theme, whether barren or fruitful in itself considered, when viewed in all its relations and bearings, becomes one of attractive interest to all those who wish to know, not only what the Bible has said, but especially what it has not said, about science and philosophy. We deem it of essential importance to all the lovers of truth, and especially to our educated youth who will soon be called to guide the opinions of others, that the line which defines the true relations between science and the Bible, should be distinctly drawn and clearly understood.— It is our object to aid in pointing out the landmarks of that important boundary. It has been well remarked by one of our scientific men, that the subject may be presented in such a way as to "impart instruction, remove difficulties from the minds of the scrupulous, and deepen the convictions of religious truth; but on the other hand, it is easy so to exhibit it as to excite bigotry and prejudice, alarm the conscientious and do injury both to science and religion." Obviously it is a subject of profound interest alike to the scientific, the literary and the religious man.

It may be claimed for the Bible, that in the broadest sense, it is a book of learning, as learning existed in the ancient world. It comes down to us, laden with the rich stores of ancient oriental wisdom-the treasured lore of the first forty centuries of human history. It tells us of men, like Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and Solomon filling the world with the fame of his intellectual greatness. It tells of Eastern sages, like Daniel," skillful in Chaldean wisdom, cunning in knowledge, understanding science," and of Western

scholars like Paul, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and versed in all Rabbinical and Grecian literature.

And although it has given no clue to scientific discovery, and shed no light upon the brilliant pathway of our modern science, in her explorations of material nature; still, it has not been without its influence in stimulating and directing the progress of the modern scientific world. Although the Bible has had no mission to teach philosophy how to cast her measuring lines into the sea, or sink her shafts into the heart of the earth, or stretch her telescopes through the untrodden fields of space; nevertheless it has been a book of intense and undying interest to the most scientific minds, not only because it contains the Divine wisdom and Eternal life, but because of the peculiar and wonderful relations which it sustains to science in general and to the spirit of scientific discovery in particular. In its general tone and spirit every where encouraging scientific investigation, and yet nowhere pointing the way to scientific discovery; everywhere, speaking freely and fully of the diversified phenomena of the earth and heavens, yet nowhere explaining anything or professing to teach anything on such subjects; it has, in fact, so adjusted itself, from the beginning, to each advancement in science, that it would seem to have anticipated all its discoveries; and so far from having received any damage from all these new worlds of wonder which it has itself evoked from the vast deep of things unknown, the Bible has only awakened additional interest in its own revelations, and gained fresh confirmation for its own claims from every realm of living nature, and every department of the known universe..

Its language has adjusted itself to the vocabulary of univer sal science, in precisely the same way that its prophecy has adjusted itself to the facts of universal history. The history