left in the centre of the chambers, the whole excavation consists of a number of narrow passages, panelled on one side with slabs of alabaster, and shut in on the other by a high wall of earth, half buried, in which may here and there be seen a broken vase, or a brick painted with brilliant colours. We may wander through these galleries for an hour or two, examining the marvellous sculptures or the numerous inscriptions that surround us. Here we meet long rows of kings, attended by their eunuchs and priests,-there, lines of winged figures, carrying fir-cones and religious emblems, and seemingly in adoration before the mystic tree. Other entrances, formed by winged lions and bulls, lead us into new chambers. In every one of them are fresh objects of curiosity and surprise. At length, wearied, we issue from the buried edifice by a trench on the opposite side to that by which we entered, and find ourselves again upon the naked platform. We look around in vain for any traces of the wonderful remains we have just seen, and are half inclined to believe that we have dreamed a dream, or have been listening to some tale of Eastern romance. "Some, who may hereafter tread on the spot when the grass again grows over the ruins of the Assyrian palaces, may indeed suspect that I have been relating a vision."-Vol. ii, pp. 89-93.

Mr. Layard left Nimroud in the middle of May, and having expended the funds intrusted to him by the British Museum, and made the necessary preparations, took his final departure from Mosul for Constantinople on the 24th of June. With this ends his personal narrative,—one of the most interesting that has lately appeared from the press. Without pretending to elegance or any striking quality of style, it is perspicuous, and bears the assurance of good sense and truth, while the novelty of the scenes it describes is irresistibly alluring. It is fortunate that ruins so likely to illustrate hereafter many points and sayings in the Bible, should have been brought to the notice of the Christian public by a writer so well qualified to awaken a popular interest as Mr. Layard. In proof of the manner in which he executed his trust, and of the importance attached to his discoveries, the newspapers inform us that he has lately been appointed attaché to the British embassy to the Sublime Porte, and that the British Museum have appropriated $15,000 for the continuance of the excavations at Nimroud and Kouyunjik under his supervision.

This fact, as well as the nature of the subject, and the absolute impossibility of showing, without occupying a great deal of space, how much he has thus far actually brought to light, must be our warrant for giving but a few words to Part II. of his book, wherein he treats of the results of his discoveries. The truth is, a great deal has certainly been discovered, but little that is definite; and the chief value of the whole is rather in the promise it gives of what we have yet to learn. Mr. Layard devotes much space to speculations concerning the cuneiform writing, or writing with arrow-headed letters, in which the Assyrian inscriptions are written; but the conclusion of the whole matter is, that he is unable to read it. When,

therefore, he assures us that certain odd-looking marks are the names of kings, we naturally wish to know how he "found it out," and what the names are. It would appear that here something had been withheld, either through his desire to reserve his discoveries until they are more complete, (as he has unquestionably a right to do,) or because the subject was thought to be above the comprehension of the general reader. When nothing definite is known, however, nothing definite can be communicated; and probably Mr. Layard's intention was simply to place before the reader the exact state of his own mind with regard to his discoveries-a condition of embryo knowledge where there are few clear ideas, but many indefinite suggestions and sanguine expectations pointing that way. If so, he has certainly succeeded. We read his speculations with interest, but in a state of doubt, and his conclusions remind one of the concluding chapter of "Rasselas," in which nothing is concluded. If he goes on with his labours, a few months may falsify all that the acutest conjecture might utter upon the subject at present. Upon the whole, therefore, and especially since he has resumed his explorations, it is deemed best to postpone criticism upon what he has accomplished until we hear from him again.

Only this is positively ascertained, that nothing has been yet discovered which does not directly harmonize with the Scripture accounts of the Assyrian cities. Their magnificence, of which the vastness of their ruins was before the only proof, is now confirmed by the exhuming of so many buried sculptures and bas-reliefs. In many other particulars they illustrate sayings and allusions in the Old Testament. Thus there is a coincidence between the sacred symbolical figures found among them, and those of the four living creatures seen in vision by the prophet Ezekiel, which is too remarkable to escape notice. 'As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four had also the face of an eagle." Also, "they had the hands of a man under their wings," and "their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went." It is impossible not to think of the winged bulls and lions, and the lion and eagle-headed figures found at Nimroud, in connexion with this passage. Also the "wheel in the middle of a wheel" will remotely suggest one of the emblems representing the supreme Deity. And more especially in the prophecy against Nineveh, Nahum ii, 11: "Where is the dwelling of the lions," &c., seems to be rendered intelligible by the constant occurrence of winged lions and lion-headed figures at Nimroud, and appears to us quite as striking an illustration of the sacred writings

as any of those adduced by Mr. Layard. The discovery of the use of colours on the sculptures and bas-reliefs explains Ezekiel xxiii, 14, 15. "If we take," says Mr. Layard, "the four great mounds of Nimroud, Kouyunjik, Khorsabad, and Karamles as the corners of a square, it will be found that its four sides correspond pretty accurately with the four hundred and eighty stadia or sixty miles of the geographer, which make the three days' journey of the prophet." (Jonah iii, 3.) This conjecture is, to our apprehension, the more plausible, on account of the difficulty of accounting for the existence of the ruins in the shape of great isolated mounds.

Many other suggestions and indications will occur to Biblical students on reading these volumes, of customs and ceremonies elucidating passages in the prophets; and it would be more easy than profitable to fill a volume with them. There is a weakness in our minds which leads us to admit a connexion between similarities brought merely into juxta-position, but this kind of proof is only temporary; the understanding, lulled for awhile, awakens, restless, and finds nowhere to repose-nothing established. We have neither enlarged the boundaries of our knowledge nor gratified our faith; but, on the contrary, so far as our faith can be affected by such speculations, we have offended and weakened it. Hence, especially in the study of matters of history which come under the head of Biblical literature, we should be careful to deal only with facts and certainties. We should not only repress the natural eagerness to spy coincidences, but be particularly desirous not to seem too eager; lest we produce upon the cavilling the impression of "swift witnesses" in a court of justice. There is no need of our straining points and catching at motes of evidence to justify our belief in the Holy Scriptures; our religion should dwell beyond that, in the inner temple of the soul, where to doubt is not to live; it should be like the virtue of the Roman wife, above suspicion. And there is a certain irreverence in so doing which tends to bring religion into disrespect; it is as if one should go about defending the reputation of his mother or sisters by the cumulation of circumstantial evidence. The Word of God need not be timidly and anxiously supported by the word of man.

Not that we are not at liberty, however, to strengthen ourselves in the faith by all that research can show us of the past, or deny ourselves the pleasurable feeling we so involuntarily experience in having the scenes and events of the Bible brought, as it were, before our eyes; but simply that we should desire to accomplish these things nobly. When we have ascertained that the relic is genuine let us preserve it,-not before.

To apply these observations to Mr. Layard's discoveries, we would simply say that they do not as yet seem to present a sufficient body of clear, definite, historical facts to warrant our putting them forward as strong links in the great chain of evidence which surrounds the sacred Writings. We are not able, although they are in this view of the highest interest, and full of expectation, to conclude enough from them to enable us to hail them and reiterate them through the press and the pulpit, as we do, and ought to do, with other clearly ascertained historical matter bearing directly upon the Bible. And we ought to be especially cautious, for the reasons above given, how we make use of knowledge that is so weak to strengthen a faith that is not built upon sand, but founded on the Rock of ages.

In fine, we are yet, as regards Nineveh, just in the early twilight; her towers are yet desolate; the light over her is gray and dim, and all that we can discern by it is undefined and indistinct; but there are streaks which portend a coming brightness, and if the researches so happily begun are as prosperously continued, we may hope ere long to behold her in the clearer light of day.

ART. V.-REV. THOMAS CHALMERS.

Posthumous Works of the Rev. Thomas Chalmers, D. D., LL. D. Edited by the Rev. WILLIAM HANNA, LL. D.

Hora Biblica Quotidiana. Daily Scripture Readings. In three vols., 12mo., pp. 422, 478, 426.

Hora Biblica Sabbatica. Sabbath Scripture Readings. In two vols., 12mo., pp. 436, 507. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1848-9.

WE have read few works lately that have moved us more than those which stand at the head of this article. It is not that they are eloquent; for, although they give us the dying notes of an eloquence that entranced thousands, the most gifted as well as the most humble, their characteristics are rather plainness and simplicity. It is not that they are learned; for, although they evince the marks of a ripe scholarship, and an extensive scientific culture, they add but little to our exegetical knowledge, and leave most of the loca dubiaque vexata of Scripture where they find them. They have many points of excellence, a charming naïveté of expression, a rare spirituality, a profound reverence for the revealed will of God, and rapt fervour of devotion at times, that betrays a heart burning with the living fire.

But we value these volumes mainly in their auto-biographical

character, as developments of the author's self-often unconscious, yet, for that very reason, the more worthy of our reliance. In this respect they remind us continually of Augustine's Confessions. We knew the author before as an eloquent preacher, on whose lips the first minds of the age had hung enraptured; as a philosopher, whose high attainments had obtained for him a reputation which enrolled his name in that august list that appears on the register of the National Institute of France; and as an ecclesiastical statesman whose leadership was acknowledged by thousands, and whose name was identified with some of the most remarkable movements of the present age; but we never before knew him as a man,-as an humble, believing, child-like Christian,-as we know him from these volumes. It is this that throws around them a charm so inexpressible, and rivets us to their pages with so much delight. We are amazed when we think of the stupendous labours of this old man, for many years before his death; but we find the secret of this untiring energy in these volumes. It was the constancy and fervour of his communion with God, in the written Word, and at the throne of grace, that sustained his unflagging energies. In common with Alfred, Luther, Wesley, and every really great reformer, his strength, Antæus-like, was continually renewed, as he was thrown back on the rich maternal bosom from which he drew his earliest life.

These volumes constitute the first part of his posthumous works, now in process of publication under the supervision of his son-inlaw, Rev. Dr. Hanna, the eloquent editor of the North British Review. The first three volumes are termed Hora Biblicæ Quotidiana, and contain his daily meditations on the Scriptures during the last seven or eight years of his life. They were not designed as a learned commentary, or an exercise in homiletics, nor even written for the benefit of others; but composed by the venerable author, as a devotional exercise for the benefit of his own soul. They were his first and readiest thoughts on the passage for the day, clothed in the first and readiest words that occurred to his mind. Hence he used but little exegetical apparatus, and endeavoured simply to bring his mind and heart into warm and living contact with the Word; to look back on the scenes of the olden time, the days of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, with his own eyes; and to gaze at the awful and glorious facts of revealed religion with an eye of light, and a heart of love. Whilst his method often diminishes the depth and value of his criticisms, it yet confers at times a freshness on his remarks that makes them like the first rich gushings of juice from the unpressed grapes.

The Hora Sabbaticæ are Sabbath meditations on chapters of FOURTH SERIES, VOL. I-40