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themselves. When did God create the universe? How many ages have we to go back in order to our reaching the beginning? Can numerical figures give us any adequate representation of the period which has since intervened ? Who is God? What are His attributes? Can any

thing be known about His essence ? How did He create? Is there such a thing as uncreated matter? If not, and if God alone be self-existent, must He not have made the universe out of Himself, and is not the universe thus con-substantial with Him? How could His power create that which did not previously exist, and the thing thus brought into existence form no part of Himself, though under hicontrol ? What was first made What is the extent of the heaven What is the extent of the earth? These and many more questions mi be suggested by the first verse a1 and if man were the author, he not be slow to attempt an answ we shall have occasion to si mediately. A reserve is worthy of God, when tell the creation of the world. has to pass his probati The announcement Creator is left in its u... ness to make its p In the same spirit of accompanied by the most important mation, the

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anent had prohibitions commerce in verbal variations troduced, which no riptures could have Isive enough to interinstance, did servants household, such as the formed, Thetes, fall within ription of dovλo (i.e. slaves)? serfs, again, to be accounted es, or the bondsmen and ascripti re of feudal Europe? At what nt was the line to be drawn? Or at was the essential and logical istinction by which Greek and Roman lavery determined its own more or less of assimilation to the modern in the Vest Indies for ast centuries, uth American slavery? Or, frankly and ongst our own both in England until very lately d subterraneously, whole lives subter

ously in mines or collieries, Scotch halike, and were by lawyers

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so many spokes in a eel, shafts and tubes in the "of the concern, and liable to sued as fugitive slaves in the of their coming up to daylight, and walking off to some other district, -would these poor Pariahs, Scotch and English, have stood within the benefit of any scriptural privilege, had the New Testament legislated in their behalf, and contented itself with the mere verbal letter of their description as slaves? Ten thousand evasions, distinctions, and sub-distinctions, would have neutralized the intended relief; and a verbal refinement would for ever have defeated a merely verbal concession. Endless would be the virtual restorations to slavery under a Mahometan appeal to the letter of the Scriptural command: endless would be the defeats of these restorations under a Christian appeal to the pervading spirit of God's revealed command, and under an appeal to the direct voice of God, ventriloquising through the secret whispers of man's conscience.

Meantime, this (it may be objected) is not so much a light which Scripture throws out upon human life, as inversely a light which human life and its eternal evolutions throw back upon Scripture. True: but then the very possibility of such developments for life, and for the deciphering intellect of man, was first of all opened by the spirit of Christianity. Christianity, for instance, brings to bear seasonably upon some opening, offered by a new phasis in the aspects of society, a new and kindling truth. This truth,

nations who have cultivated art, science, and literature, cosmogony has been a favourite theme, and has been largely discussed. To no subject has the human mind more readily turned,

and no subject has it more elaborately treated. What the heathen, especially the Hindoos, have thought about it we shall consider next month.

THE NEW TESTAMENT AND SLAVERY.
BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

In every age, man has imported his

Own

crazes into the Bible, fancied that he saw them there, and then drawn sanctions to his wickedness or absurdity from what were nothing else than reflexes projected from his own monstrous errors, or, at best, puerile conceits of adventurous ignorance. Thus did the Papists draw a plenary justification of intolerance, or even of atrocious persecution, from the evangelical" compel them to come in!" The right of unlimited coercion was read in those words. People, again, that were democratically given, or had a fancy for treason, heard a trumpet of insurrection in the words, "To your tents, oh Israel!" But far beyond these in multitude were those that drew from the Bible the most extravagant claims for kings and rulers. "Rebellion was as the sin of witchcraft." This was a jewel of a text; it killed two birds with one stone-viz., simultaneously condemning all constitutional resistance, the most wise and indispensable, to the most profligate of kings, and also consecrating the filthiest of man's follies as to witchcraft.

The New Testament had said nothing directly upon the question of slavery; nay, by the mis-reader it was rather supposed indirectly to countenance that institution. But

mark-it is Mahometanism, having little faith in its own spiritual power of rectification, that dares not confide in its children for developing anything, but must tie them up for every contingency by the letter of a rule. Christianity how differently does she proceed! She throws herself broadly upon the pervading spirit which burns within her morals. "Let them alone," she says of nations; "leave them to themselves. I have

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put a new law into their hearts, and a new heart (a heart of flesh, where before was a stony heart) into all my children, and if it is really there, and really cherished, that law, read by that heart, will tell them-will develope for them-what it is that they ought to do in every case as it arises, though never noticed in words, when once its consequences are comprehended.' No need, therefore, for the New Testament explicitly to forbid slavery; silently and implicitly it is forbidden in many passages of the New Testament, and it is at war with the spirit of all.

Besides, the religion which trusts to formal and literal rules breaks down the very moment that a new case arises not described in the rules. Such a case is virtually unprovided for, unless it answer circumstantially to a type laid down by anticipation in

some great premonitory model of legislation; whereas every case, together with its moral relations, is expounded by a religion that speaks through a spiritual organ to an apprehension spiritually trained in man. Accordingly we find that, when a new mode of intoxication is introduced, or a mode which, not being new, was unknown to Mahomet (or at least was overlooked by him), devout Mussulmans hold themselves absolved from the interdict of the Koran as to strong drink, on the ground that this interdict applied itself to the fermentations grapes.

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And so it would have been with Christians, if the New Testament had contented itself with literal prohibitions of slavery, or of the commerce in slaves. Thousands of verbal variations would have been introduced, which no letter of the Scriptures could have been comprehensive enough to intercept. For instance, did servants prædial and household, such as the Greeks termed, Thetes, fall within the description of dovλo (i.e. slaves)? Were serfs, again, to be accounted slaves, or the bondsmen and ascripti glebæ of feudal Europe? At what point was the line to be drawn? Or what was the essential and logical distinction by which Greek and Roman slavery determined its own more or less of assimilation to the modern negro slavery in the West Indies for the three-and-a-half last centuries, and (in the Spanish South American Colonies) of the Indian slavery? Or, again, speaking more frankly and nationally, of those amongst our own brothers and sisters, both in England and Scotland, that until very lately were born and bred subterraneously, and passed their whole lives subter

raneously in mines or collieries, Scotch or English alike, and were by lawyers regarded as ascripti metallo, borne upon the establishment as regular working tools, indorsed upon the machinery as so many spokes in a mighty wheel, shafts and tubes in the "plant" of the concern, and liable to be pursued as fugitive slaves in the case of their coming up to daylight, and walking off to some other district, -would these poor Pariahs, Scotch and English, have stood within the benefit of any scriptural privilege, had the New Testament legislated in their behalf, and contented itself with the mere verbal letter of their description as slaves? Ten thousand evasions, distinctions, and sub-distinctions, would have neutralized the intended relief; and a verbal refinement would for ever have defeated a merely verbal concession. Endless would be the virtual restorations to slavery under a Mahometan appeal to the letter of the Scriptural command: endless would be the defeats of these restorations under a Christian appeal to the pervading spirit of God's revealed command, and under an appeal to the direct voice of God, ventriloquising through the secret whispers of man's conscience.

Meantime, this (it may be objected) is not so much a light which Scripture throws out upon human life, as inversely a light which human life and its eternal evolutions throw back upon Scripture. True: but then the very possibility of such developments for life, and for the deciphering intellect of man, was first of all opened by the spirit of Christianity. Christianity, for instance, brings to bear seasonably upon some opening, offered by a new phasis in the aspects of society, a new and kindling truth. This truth,

caught up by some influential organ of social life, is prodigiously expanded by human experience, and subsequently, when travelling back to the Bible as an improved or illustrated text, is found to be made up in its details of many human developments. Does that argue any disparagement to Christianity, as though she contributed

little and man contributed much? On the contrary, man would have contributed nothing at all, but for that first elementary impulse by which Christianity awakened man's attention to the slumbering instincts of truth, started man's movement in the new direction, and moulded man's regenerated principles.

MEMORIES OF NEWPORT FIFTY or sixty years ago, in the quiet country town of Newport Pagnel, Bucks, there might have been seen an elderly gentleman of clerical garb and dignified deportment, whose appearance would at once have detained the gaze of the passer-by. His countenance beamed with intelligence and benignity and his eye with humour, while the tall, commanding figure carefully attired, the sort of bishop's frock he wore, the silver buckles, and white full-bottomed wig, suggested that he was an eminent dignitary of some Church.

This gentleman was the Rev. William Bull, whom the poet Cowper describes as "a learned, ingenious, good-natured, pious friend of ours." He was for many years the pastor of the Independent church at Newport Pagnel, and his son and grandson have, in happy and unbroken succession, occupied the same honourable position. The circumstances under which our attention is now called to Mr. Bull, and to the locality in which he lived and laboured, are especially interesting. On the 11th of October last, a century had elapsed since Mr. Bull was ordained to the pastorate at

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*"Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, of Rev. Josiah Bull, M.A.

PAGNEL AND OLNEY. Newport, and it was thought right that that event and the subsequent history of the church should be retraced and recalled. In undertaking to prepare some memorial of this kind, the present pastor-the Rev. Josiah Bull-found that it would be desirable to publish a life of his grandfather, whose eminent personal gifts and whose intimate connexion with the Nonconformist and religious life of those times, could scarcely fail to be interesting. To this valuable. and interesting work we are indebted for many of the facts we have now to narrate.

William Bull was born on the 22nd of December, 1738, at Irthlingborough, in Northamptonshire. His early life was eventful. When quite a child he fell into a well, and was not rescued until apparently dead. On another occasion one of his father's companions swam with him on his back across a river; the child slipped into the water and was nearly drowned, but his father dived after him and rescued him. Subsequently he received a severe and very dangerous wound on the head from a stone, the scar of which he carried to the grave.

Newport Pagnel." By his Grandson, the
London: Nisbet & Co.

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