made by Christ, so they were all made for him; that "he is Head over all things to the church;" and that he is overruling all, in some way, for the advancement of his kingdom. History is thus brought into close connection with the kingdom of Christ. It is represented as subservient to that kingdom. And the Christian student is led to inquire what this connection is, and in what the subserviency consists.

He perceives, in the first place, that the arrangements of providence were all of them so adjusted in ancient times, as to prepare the way for the kingdom of Christ. They were so ordered as to illustrate its necessity, to make room for it, and fitly introduce it. Here is one point of connection.

Men naturally seek their own happiness. Their most earnest inquiry is, "Who will show us any good?" They do not know that their highest good is in Christ and his service, but are prone to seek it in other things. And so God has permitted them, through long ages, to try a variety of vain experiments, with a view to show them that they were vain; that they could not be relied upon; and that if they would possess the good they seek, they must find it in religion.

One of the first of these experiments was long life-a long period of probation. This was tried by the earliest inhabitants of the world; and it signally failed. Their long probation before the flood, so far from making them good and happy, resulted in a state of awful wickedness. The wickedness of man was so great in the earth, that a righteous God could no longer endure it, but (with the exception of a single family) swept the whole race away.

Another experiment, in search after happiness, was that of false and idolatrous religions. This may have been tried before the flood. It certainly commenced soon after the flood, and has been persisted in to the present time. But this experiment, like the one just mentioned, has totally failed. The worship of idols, so far from making men virtuous and happy, has ever had the contrary effect. Men have been miserably degraded and corrupted by such worship. They have sunk down under the influence of it, till they were but little better than the brutes.

A third experiment in the pursuit of happiness, was that of civil government.-Civil government is an institution of God, designed for the protection of human beings and their rights in the present life. It was never intended as a source of true spiritual enjoyment, either to rulers or the ruled. But as men were inclined to trust to it for that end, and to build their hopes upon it, God permitted them to try the experiment, and they have given it a long and varied trial. They have tried every form of government, from the most liberal to the most absolute, which their ingenuity could invent, and what is the result? Have civil governments alone ever been able to make men virtuous and happy? Look at the great empires of antiquity-the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, the Roman. Look also at the governments of modern times. I hesitate not to say, that this experiment, like the others, has most signally failed. The governments of the world have been, in most instances, corrupt and cruel. Instead of conferring happiness, they have marred and destroyed it. Instead of giving it, they have taken it away.

Still another experiment in the search after happiness, was that of learning, philosophy, and the arts. It might seem, at first, as though these would make men wise and good, and yet they have not. Among the ancients, the highest literary culture, and the most atrocious wickedness, often existed together, and so it has been in modern times. Else why has France been proverbially called "the land of science and of sin?" And why has plodding, delving, literary Germany become a country of infidels?

Still another experiment which God has permitted to be tried, is that of living without learning, without arts, without any settled forms of religion or government, very much in the state of nature. There are those in this nineteenth century, who think that this state of nature is the most happy statewho insist that if men would only forget their arts and their learning, give up their artificial modes of life, and fall back into their native barbarism, then they would be happy. But such men forget how long this same experiment has been tried, and with what terrible results. Wherever we find man

in what is called the state of nature, he is always a cruel, ignorant savage. Murderous wars, unbridled licentiousness, the immolation of human victims, slavery, cannibalism, exposures of every kind, and frequently death by starvation or suicide; such are some of the woful attendants of what is cried up to us as the state of nature.

I cannot pursue this train of illustration farther. In making or permitting experiments, such as have been noticed, and others like them, the history of the world has been, in a great measure, filled up. And now, what is the bearing of them all upon the kingdom of Christ? Obviously, as I said, to prepare the way for that kingdom; to illustrate its necessity; to show to wandering, wretched man-and that, too, by actual experiment—that there is no happiness without it; that nothing else can be relied on, as a source of real good. As much as this the world's history, thus far, conclusively shows, and in this way is made directly subservient to the kingdom of Christ.

Another point of connection between the world's history and the kingdom of Christ, is this: Whatsoever stands in the way of his kingdom, or cannot be made to subserve its interests, is quickly removed. "The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted."-Is. lx.: 12. What a commentary on this remarkable prediction does the history of the ancient world present? Where now are the kingdoms of Assyria and Egypt, the oldest of which we have any knowledge? Where is great Nineveh, and the still greater Babylon, which once frowned defiance on all that approached them, and seemed as though they must stand forever. Where is the Medo-Persian ram which Daniel saw "pushing westward, and northward, and southward, so that no beast could stand before him, neither could any deliver out of his hand?" And where is that Grecian he-goat, which came so rapidly from the west, that he seemed scarcely to touch the ground--which smote the ram and broke his horns, and trampled his empire in the dust? And where is that fourth beast which Daniel saw, "dreadful, and terrible, and strong exceedingly, which devoured and

brake in pieces with its iron teeth, and stamped the residue with its feet?" Those mighty empires have long since departed; their cities are in ruins; their names and their history are all that remain to us. And why have they passed away? Why have they been so utterly and miserably destroyed? With the Bible in our hands, we cannot hesitate for an answer. They set themselves in opposition to the kingdom of Christ, and they could not prosper. They put themselves in the way of the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, and it rolled over them, and ground them to powder.

And so shall it be with every other kingdom which presumes to follow their example. We have, in the Apocalypse, visions of the future, which are as instructive, on this point, as events already past. We have there brought before us the last enemies of God and his Church-the beast, and the false prophet, and the mystical Babylon, drunk with the blood of martyrs and of saints, and what becomes of them? What is their end? The beast and the false prophet are taken, and "cast alive into the lake of fire." "A mighty angel takes up a stone, like a great mill-stone, and casts it into the sea, saying: "Thus, with violence, shall that great city, Babylon, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all." So true is that fearful declaration of Isaiah, before quoted: "The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee, shall perish; ea, those nations shall be utterly wasted."

The foregoing discussion is enough to satisfy us, that the true philosophy of history is essentially religious. There is no tracing the events of history to their causes, but by tracing them up directly to God--to his all-wise counsel, and his powerful hand. We are not, indeed, to overlook instrumental causes, second causes, and more especially that most influential one of all in this wicked world-the native corruption and depravity of our race; but these all receive their direction and their efficiency from the great First Cause of all. We are not to overlook general laws; but then these are but the "ordinances of heaven "-established modes of Divine operation, which God, in his goodness, has appointed, and the operation of which he may at any time suspend.

And when we look still further into the causes of thingswhen we inquire for their final cause; we find them all bearing somehow upon the kingdom of Christ. They were all made for Christ, and he is overruling all for the interests of his holy kingdom. Much of the past history of the world has gone to illustrate the necessity of that kingdom, and to prepare the way for it; while other much exhibits the wrath of God against the oppressors of that kingdom, and the ruin which hangs impending over them. Mighty nations which have set themselves in opposition to the Church of God, have, one after another, been destroyed; while the stone cut out of the mountain, is rolling on, and is destined to roll, crushing everything that stands in its way, till itself becomes a mountain, and fills the whole earth.

It adds a tenfold interest to the study of history, to see God in it all the way--to trace it in its religious bearings, and especially in its bearing on the kingdom of Christ. President Edwards understood this subject, and commenced a work, which he lived not to finish, on this grand principle. And, in my humble opinion, there is more true philosophy of history in Edwards' History of Redemption, (though it be but a fragment) than in all that the transcendentalists of Germany have dreamed out, during the last half century.

ARTICLE III.-THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE DISCOURSES OF JESUS.

BY D. GOTTHARD VICTOR LECHLER.

WE will next consider,

(Continued.)

2. The History, or the events and persons of the Old Testament, as they are mentioned and elucidated in the Discourses of Jesus.

We have seen that Jesus went back to the Mosaic history of the creation, and on the one hand, inferred from the make