nearly four hundred thousand pounds of these shells were imported into Calcutta for the African market. It is said that it takes camels' loads of these shells to purchase an article of value making it rather inconvenient to carry a purse while shopping. In Nubia, rings of gold and silver are the currency. In Manilla, an iron ring is in common circulation. In Abyssinia, glass beads, white cotton cloth, and blocks of salt, are currency. All showing, as we have already intimated, that ornaments or necessaries brought into a country by traders may be used as money and become currency, till gold and silver, current everywhere, take their place; and showing also, that many portions of the world are about as civilized now as the section where Homer lived three thousand years ago, where an ox could be bought for a bar of brass three feet long, and a woman who understood several useful arts was considered equal in value to four oxen. From the earliest times the coinage of money was considere a State or royal prerogative. In all ages to the present, it was therefore considered treason to counterfeit it. The Latin word nummus, money, from which comes our word numismatics, relating to coins, was taken from the Greek nomos, law-nomisma, a piece of money, to express that the weight, purity and value were fixed by law. The counterfeiting of the public money was probably as early as the first public coinage. Counterfeits of the earliest coins, apparently made in their day, have been found. They are of copper, plated or cased with silver, and some of them are considered by coin collectors, for specimens of art and as curiosities, almost as valuable as the true coins. That there were forgers in early days, we may infer from the laws of Solon, six centuries before the Christian era, by which counterfeiters were to be punished with death. Among the Romans, general pardons did not include the forger. According to the laws of Constantine the Great, counterfeiters were to be burnt alive: and the law of England to a late period was, the counterfeiter, if a man, was to be drawn and hanged; but if a woman, she was to be burnt.1 Thanks be to God! that which man needs most can be bought "without money and without price," faith, and eternal life, being the gifts of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.3 1 Statute 25th, Edward III. 2 Isaiah lv. 1; Rev. xxii. 17. 3 Rom.vi. 23; Eph. ii. 8. CHAPTER XLIV. TYPES AND SYMBOLS IN CREATION, HISTORY AND REDEMPTION. ROM the beginning, the Creator has revealed Himself FRO and His purposes in creation, providence, and revelation. In each of these fields we find a remarkable succession of types. Every step of the progressive work of creation has in it a type of something greater that was to come after it. Every step in the development of the plan of Redemption likewise presents a type showing more clearly Him who was to come. The great Antitype in each is the Creator and Redeemer of the world. The early history of the world is, in a great degree, made up of a succession of types. The mode of worship, which God instituted for the first four thousand years, was almost entirely typical. Through types and shadows, through things seen and temporal, we have been enabled to conceive things unseen and eternal.' In creation the human appears to be the pattern form, or archetype of animal existences. In the structure of all animal forms, from fishes to man, there are striking resemblances designed to assimilate the lower, as near as circumstances would admit, to the higher. Thus, for instance, every segment, and almost every bone, present in the human hand and arm, exist also in the fin of the whale, though they do not seem to be required for the support and movement of that undivided and inflexible paddle: and one can think of no specific reason for such a peculiarity of structure, excepting 1 Those wishing to enter more fully into these subjects are referred to the work on Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation, by Dr. McCosh and Dr. Dickie, and to The Typology of Scripture, by Dr. Fairbairn. Much of this chapter has been taken from those works. |