not having received the New Testament; and it must be granted that the Hebrew prophets knew the holy character of God, and were remarkable for their insight into coming events, since much that they predicted is now visible to our eyes. But if the prophets with their sublime ideas, Job and his friends with their mysterious discussions, and Moses with his august record of the verified order of creation, are realities, we learn that Omnipotence has always operated in keeping with the morals of men, and that Providence is not the development of a mere physical contrivance, but the direction of a spiritual supremacy over beings capable of spiritual instruction by appeals to their understandings, and their motives as rational agents.

Man, then, is not a ripening organism, but a peculiar being, having relation both to the past and to the future, and an interest both in history and prophecy, because time, eternity, and man belong to God, who uses them all for the manifestation of Himself. Hence there can be no bound to man's capacity for intelligence, nor limit to his life, since both life and intelligence are united in him for the purpose of evincing God himself as the Eternal Reason. From this cause it arises that all men who have looked upon this world of light, with their spiritual eyesight open to perceive its beauties, have in all ages exhibited that degree and standard of intelligence which reach at once to the highest conclusions of science, and induce a man to join heart and soul with Job, Moses, David, and the prophets in celebrating the majesty of the Eternal, who in Himself gives unity to all the varieties of nature, makes the worlds of matter and of minds one universe, and claims our confiding trust in His hand, because unceasing providence is His one continued act.

From the foregoing and many other considerations, both scientific and religious, we shall probably be justi

fied in preferring to believe the statement that man was expressly created in relation to his Maker rather than that he was developed from an inferior creature. We would not, however, question the fact, that Omniscience is at work in all the universe, diffusing life and mind among innumerable beings, none of which stands alone, and among the minutest of which not a feeling is awakened that is indifferent to the heart of the Creator. He regards all his works, in their infinite totality, with a full knowledge of each inscrutable particular. His love is not divided, His mercy is over all, because all is His; but it is through man that the unity of nature is revealed, and the loving kindness of Omnipotence made manifest. And as no other creature on earth is conscious of God's love, so if he fail, through ignorant or malicious motives, to obey that love, he departs from his right place in creation, and bears a curse where he should have conveyed blessing.

Human existence is not an accident-God has a purpose in it; let us, therefore, endeavor to discover what belongs to us, and by learning how we are provided for, learn also what is demanded on our parts, in order to obtain our right position as individual spirits.

If we may judge from the more recently imported specimens of scientific surmise concerning man's derivation, there appears to be no such great improvement in the theory of development, as will serve to account either for our hopes or our fears, The mere fact that we are conscious beings, that can think of the demands of Deity on our consciences, is, however, the only omission in the scheme! Polarization and matter being given, make a man, says the physio-theorist. There is the difficulty; the materials may suffice to form a body, all we want is the soul; in short, the theory fails in its working, and gives us the man—all but himself!

"Man is also a child of the warm and shallow parts of the sea," says Oken, the logical physio-philosopher, (§ 213, Ray Soc. Transl.) "It is possible that man has only originated on one spot, and that, indeed, the highest mountain in India. It is even possible, that only one favorable moment was granted in which men could arise. A definite mixture of water, definite heat of blood, and definite influence of light, must concur to his production; and this has probably been the case only in a certain spot and at a certain time.” "The deluge cast up the first men," (Oken, p. 324.)

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They were littoral inhabitants, and, without doubt (!), carnivorous, as savages still are (?). From whence could they have obtained also fruits, cabbage, and turnips?" Whence, indeed-ask Moses. The certain time and the certain place of theory are the most uncertain things in the world, and the assumed definite mixtures necessary to make a man are more undefined than the man in the moon. But there are two or three points in this anthropology which are worthy of remark. The author acknowledges the deluge, and derives man from the East, and traces him, so to say, to one source. Would he have done so if he had not been compelled, in spite of his theory, to yield to the evidences in favor of these facts?

The philosopher ascribes the production of man to sea-mucus, or, to use chemical language, hydrated carbon. From this, he asserts, all organized beings have originated, and, by self-elevation, issued forth into higher organisms. Thus creative will is dispensed with; and man, like all the rest of moving things, grew up of his own accord, from the infusorium of a putrid sea-mucus. There stands the word, and there, the fact- Male and female created He them." If it could but be proved that there is no personal God, and that he did not create male and female, this theory would not be half so wonderful;

but that, with the definite mixture of heat, light, carbon, and water, in some certain time and certain place, two of each kind, male and female, of all the myriads of animated being, should have sprung up as a natural matter of course, and that only once, is very marvelous indeed, since we can see no reason why what has emerged from the shallow and warm sea should not emerge again. Sea-mucus is under as favorable circumstances for forming a man as ever, both in the West and in the East, or otherwise man and mucus could be scarcely existing in the same globe together. Whence can the organic have originated but from the inorganic? asks the philosopher again. We reply,

Could not God create both?

It will probably best promote our object, if we look back to the more authentic record of our origin, and learn our Maker's estimate of our existence.

The first man-the man of earth, e terrá terrenus, was, in his outward existence, fashioned and conformed with the materials of this objective world, in bodily keeping with the order of the elements from which he was to derive the sustentation of his physical life, and those impressions which should excite in his soul ideas and experience. Raised erect from the ground, as if by the hand that formed his body of the dust, he stood forth mature and perfect, exquisitely organized to be the fit inhabitant of the Paradise prepared by the Almighty, on purpose to prove the greatness of His goodness to His most august and stupendous creature. The spirit of animation, the very breath of God, kindled every fibre of his frame, and constituted within it a distinct selfhood, a being of thought and will, which thus reflected the mind that made it capable of perceiving and appreciating Divine purpose. In self-consciousness man responded to the movements of his living heart; within himself he felt existence to be a personality. Gradually the life with

in him opened the avenues of knowledge, and, as he stirred and felt, motion and sensation seemed one with himself. As a babe, tenderly nestled by its mother's loving heart, finds every thing around it so thoroughly arranged to meet the demands of its awakening mind, that nothing jars upon its senses; so man, by degrees, awoke to the presence of his prepared place, lapped in Paradise, with nothing wanting to the growth of his soul in knowledge and bliss. All things were so consistent with his nature, that surprise entered not amidst the expanding harmony of his enjoyments. The light, attempered in heaven, touched with the gentleness of God's own finger, the fine sensitive nerves of vision, even through his sealed eyelids, so as to cause them, with an involuntary action, to open of themselves, like the petals of a flower, and to admit into the soul, as at one draught, the whole paradise of sight. Thus man seemed united to all he saw, and, as one that dreams of peaceful glories, the scenes around him appeared but as if formed by his own spirit. Perfume blended with beauty in the dewy radiance, and the varied utterances of love and joy from every living thing mingled their music in the balmy air, and passed together so sweetly into his soul, that they became a world of ideas within him, more mighty in their influence, as thoughts, than were the things that caused them. Man began to reason, and then God met him, and that in such a manner, that he needed not to be told who was his Maker. The Almighty met man to command him, and to call upon him to name every animated thing according to his apprehension of its nature. He invested man with authority, and imparted to him power to hold dominion over all that moved in earth, and air, and sea; because he understood, by converse with Divine Intelligence, why and for what ends all were created. Without laborious research and elaborated logic, man saw the