the substance of religion is gone. For the mind that has been used to mysterious dogmas is perverted; the truth does not produce the effect of truth upon it. It is in the same condition as the eyes of those men who have worked in mines a greater part of their lives by the light of lamps; if they are brought into the open air, they are at first not able to see. But one might as well in this case reason from such a fact against the brilliancy and potency and beneficial influence of the sun's light, as object to simple and intelligible truths in religion, that they do not contain the essence and substance of Christianity. The fault must be in the mind, which does not fully comprehend and value them. With such persons as are educated from the beginning in simple, unconfused notions of Christianity, there is not the difficulty we have mentioned. They value, as beyond all price, the few plain truths disclosed to them in the Gospel. They feel that around these truths all their hopes and joys cluster, and they draw from them a peace, both in prosperity and adversity, which the world never gives, and can never take away.

L.-N. Y.

TO A CLERICAL FRIEND DEPARTING IN A STORM.

Clouds are gathering on thy way,
Winds are rising loud and near,
Messenger of God, delay,

We have calm and comfort here.

Look, how darkly frowns the sky!
See within where quiet smiles.
Why through storms and tempests hie,
When domestic peace beguiles?

Messenger of God, I cease;

On your brow impatience lowers,
Yours must be that holy peace

Born from duty's well spent hours.

Like the doctrine which you preach,

You must break through clouds and gloom;

Joyous as the truth you teach,

Christ arising from the tomb.

Faintly beam to you the gems,

Worldly spirits love to wear;

Crowns of thorns are diadems,

Which the christian waits to bear.

Hasten then thy holy way,

Bearing comfort to the heart;

May HE teach thee how to pray
Who comfort only can impart.

Tell the widow, there is one

Revives the dying, wakes the dead;

That unconfined by burial stone,

Her partner to his God has fled.

Tell the sinner, though the wave
Has nearly sunk his fragile bark,
Jesus kindly bends to save,

And draws him to his heavenly ark.

I suppose that these temptations were thoughts suggested to Jesus in the depths of his own spirit. He probably related them, in this figurative and impressive form, to his disciples; for he had been alone in the wilderness, with no human eye to observe his conduct

or witness his varied emotions. His design undoubtedly was to strengthen them by his example. He related some of his own experience, or something which passed through his mind, to succour them when they should be tempted.' He showed them, that by the power of divine faith, he had resisted every solicitation of self-love-every temptation to avail himself of his miraculous character to promote his own comfort or advancement. He taught them that his extraordinary powers were bestowed for specific objects, connected with human salvation; and to these objects alone, he would sacredly apply them; for he came not to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him.' He did this, we may suppose, in foresight of the trials to which his followers, particularly the apostles, would afterward be exposed, with a view of preparing them, by his own example, to encounter these trials with a firmness worthy of their cause and their characters.

6

I. The first specific trial was after a fast of forty days, when 'the tempter came to him and said, if thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread.'

Our Saviour wanted food, and he was poor. He was living in the world he had come to save, with scanty and precarious means of subsistence. The Son of man had no home in which he could lay his weary head-no plentiful board at which he might refresh his exhausted nature. He could not have been insensible to the value of a comfortable dwelling, and other outward advantages, which mankind earnestly seek after, for they are real and substantial blessings. But his peculiar office and relations did not allow him

to enjoy the good which opulence may purchase. It was necessary for the establishment of his religion, that the manifest disinterestedness of his spirit should convince the world that 'he came not to seek his own,'that he had no view whatever to his own advantage or convenience. The success of his mission depended not only on his 'doing his Father's work,' but on impressing mankind with the conviction that he came for the sole purpose of doing it. If then he had appeared anxious for his personal comforts, his disinterestedness as man's great benefactor would have been liable to question, and the power of his instructions and example would have been greatly impaired.

Hence he firmly resisted every temptation. He kept down every human feeling which may be supposed to have urged him to employ his miraculous power for selfish ends. He, whose word once turned water into wine to promote the festive joy of others, could as easily have changed worthless substances into gold for himself, or have raised a magnificent palace for his accommodation, that the majesty of heaven might be shadowed forth in the splendor of its earthly representation. And how natural it was that he should be tempted to gratify his own pressing wants, by converting the stones of the desert into bread; especially at this time, when he was wandering about in penury, with no present means of support, and urged by overpowering hunger after a long continued abstinence ' This trial was so well timed, and so true to the feelings of nature, that we might conjecture what would have passed in his mind in such circumstances, even had his historian been silent on the subject.