FREQUENTLY ask yourself what you have done, why you have done it, and how you have done it? This will teach you to inspect, first, your actions; second, your motives; and third, the manner in which you discharge your duty.

TO-MORROW.

To-morrow had need be a very long day,
Or what will they do who postpone and delay,
And put off their duties till then?

And yet we will find when to-morrow has come,
That for yesterday's work it will make little room,
And we needs must postpone it again.

To thousands to-morrow will never arrive,
And if we are spared, and it finds us alive,
We may yet be feeble or ill:

Besides, it will have its own business to do,

With its thoughts, and its labours, and cares not a few,
Sufficient each moment to fill.

To-day, says the dunce, to my playthings I'll turn,
To-morrow, to-morrow, my lessons I'll learn,
But to-morrow still finds him the same:
To-morrow, l'll rouse me, the sluggard still cries,
But while he is yawning it comes and it flies,
And adds to his sin and his shame.

To-morrow, the sinner repentingly says,
1 vow to reform my reprobate ways;

But to-morrow will laugh at his vow;

He deceives both himself and despises his God,
Who delays till to-morrow to turn from that road
Where conscience accuses him now.

The work of to-day then I must not postpone,
Lest if I delay it should never be done,

For I only am sure of to-day:

For each single hour I must give a report,
And to-day is too long and to-morrow too short
To allow of neglect or delay.

REFLECTION.

THE past-where is it? It has fled.
The future it may never come.
Our friends departed? With the dead.
Ourselves? Fast hastening to the tomb.
What are earth's joys? The dews of morn.
Its honours? Ocean's wreathing foam.
Where's peace? In trials meekly borne.

And joy? In heaven, the Christian's home.

R

19

THE RELIGION OF JESUS.-No. III. Can Jesus save his people from their sins? "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto Nathaniel, Come and see.' THE early life and history of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, the Saviour of sinful man, is well-nigh veiled in profound mystery. On this subject the sacred biographers are all but silent; neither is it at all requisite that more should have been communicated. Such information might indeed have gratified the curious, but it would not have benefited the candid inquirer. To advantage the seeker after truth is the design of revelation, and not to gratify the merely inquisitive.

The few brief notices produced by the evangelists relating to the advent, infancy, and boyhood of the Messiah, are to us however, who are privileged to survey them through the brilliancy and unparalleled glory of all the subsequent events of his future illustrious life, not less interesting than astonishing. To the contemporary of the new-born Saviour they must have appeared in a very different aspect, inasmuch as, that though an intelligent Jew, he could only view them through the medium of prophecy, at all times shadowed in considerable obscurity, but at the period referred to, shrouded by the intense darkness of traditional and superstitious falsehood, blinded prejudice, calamitous circumstances, and perverted, because only secular anticipation.

We take in the entire picture at a single glance, from the

VOL. VIII.

mnanger in Bethlehem, to the ascension from mount Olivet, those most intimately acquainted with the mere infantile history of Jesus, beheld only the first faint touches of the divine artist's pencil. We enjoy a complete flood of perfect light streaming from the SUN of righteousness in the very zenith of his mediatorial splendour, they only witnessed the first dim streaks of the early dawn enveloped in clouds of mist; moreover, they were as those on whose sightless eyeballs the sun had never shone before!

In justice therefore to the inhabitants of Judea, coeval with the Redeemer; and that we may be able in some measure correctly to estimate the real value of these preliminary evidences, it is requisite that, in imagination, we remove to Palestine, and mingle with those who from time to time were startled by the astounding reports.

The various communications made to Joseph and Mary by the angel Gabriel, were altogether of a private nature, intended to prepare their mind against error from undue astonishment; to accomplish some ancient prophecy; or to guide them into a path of security from the malignant and deadly hatred of enemies. The visit of the eastern magians to honour the new born Son of God was for a similar purpose, only creating alarm in Jerusalem and bringing into active operation the jealousy, envy, and murderous deter mination of the bloody Herod. The announcement made to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem, while tending their flocks by night, accompained by joyful acclamations of the angelic choir, is of a much more direct and striking character; but even this, clear as it now appears to us, was no more than proof to the shepherds of the birth of Him who was the hope of Israel, but of whose designs they were as yet entirely ignorant; while, in the minds of such as credited the report, it only produced amazement. The declarations of old Simeon, and Anna the prophetess also, were so carefully wrapped up in the mysterious future, that but little notice seems to be taken of them. When twelve years old we find Jesus in the temple among the Jewish doctors, both hearing and asking them questions; all manifesting astonishment at his understanding and answers; still this, clear and unequivocal as it now appears to us; by the conduct of those who heard him, it seems to have produced nothing but admiration, at so singular and striking an in

stance of juvenile precocity. Yea, on being questioned by his anxious and distressed mother, regarding his conduct in remaining behind his parents, when he furnished this, to us, very apposite, emphatic, and most satisfactory reply, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business," it was altogether lost on them-" they understood not the saying which he spake unto them." And if his parents who were minutely familiar with every superhuman declaration which had been made respecting their eldest son, aware of every particular of his life during the past twelve years; if they discovered such ignorance, it affords no subject for surprise, that those possessed only of distant and dark reports, should, on his appearing in public, regard him as nothing greater than the carpenter's son.

For eighteen years we lose all sight of the Saviour. Shut up with his parents in the town of Nazareth, he seems remarkable for nothing but his early piety, filial obedience, and suavity of manners. Time far more than sufficient had sped away to carry into oblivion all recollection of the past out of the public mind, in general only engaged with the events, and anxious to secure what only is required for the present; so that when he came forth to unfold his true, but hitherto concealed character, open up a new and living way of access to God for sinful man, establish a kingdom to remain for ever, and seal the eternal destiny of a world, we do not marvel that his brethren, the Jews, should openly declare him the despised Nazarene! "Can any good thing come

out of Nazareth? Come and see."

When Jesus had arrived at about the age of thirty years, he left his home and city. Now is he to become the object of public inspection. His determination is to revolutionize the world and reform mankind; to claim the Messiahship, fulfil all ancient prophecy refering to him who was to be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the MIGHTY GOD, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace: by whose shoulder a universal and eternal empire was to be supported, ordered, and established with judgment and justice, from henceforth, even for ever. Such were his high pretensions-where was his natural or historical proof? He had none! were his witnesses? Dead, or what is worse, valueless, because incompetent for the performance of this, far more than herculean task. How could his friends prove him to be the

Where

Mighty God? Could he have commanded the presence of them all, and had they been able to render a verbatim history of all they had heard or with which they were in any way acquainted, what was its value? It never could have demonstrated such claims as those recorded above. It was not beyond the power of possibility for Joseph and Mary, the eastern magians, and the shepherds of Bethlehem to have formed a conspiracy to deceive their neighbours, and enrich or aggrandize themselves: similar plots are of every day occurrence. Such evidence might have served to satisfy the credulous, but it could not have produced faith in the cautious or intelligent inquirer. To have believed on such evidence as this, would have been unscriptural, unreasonable, opposed to his own teaching, and highly dangerous to those who believed. In every previous age, the Almighty had supported all his sayings to men by irrefragable proof; he had also often cautioned mankind against being led astray by the subtility and specious manoeuvres of insinuating and designing impostors; and would it be in harmony with other parts of the Book of God to rest the greatest question ever proposed to, or by man, on the testimony of a few? By 110 means. Unreasonable. We have mentioned already, and we repeat it once more, that it may be indelibly written in every memory, our Maker has given us minds for the express purpose of examining, analyzing, balancing, receiving, or rejecting testimony, and other kinds of evidence, according to its real and proper value; and we act a most irrational part while refusing to use so valuable a gift. It would have contradicted his own teaching on this subject. We have referred to one declaration made by the Saviour, viz. "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true,' which in plain unvarnished words, reads thus, If I tell you I am the Christ and furnish no stronger proof, do not believe me. We now beg your attention while we introduce another," If any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe him not."-Matt. xxiv. 23. If he demanded that they should not believe the mere assertion of another, could he desire or would he expect, his own to be credited? He would not. He never did. It would have been highly dangerous. Sacred and profane history agree in proving that many pretended to the Messiahship, who by their cunning obtained numerous followers, to whom