"orders are given to cleed us all anew before the winter sets fully in. -But who is the commander of the Douglas party?' "O, it's that scapegrace, Peter Inglis." "Peter Inglis ? I thought he had been garrisoned in Hell's Byke in Lesmahagow." "So he was; but he's come bussin' out o' that byke, and a' his bees at his back; and noo they are skeppit in the Red Ha' in Douglas." "So ho," he cried, and rode off.

'But the thing I am ga'en to tell is this: there's a blade, a dragoon in his party, they ca' Geordy Ga'; a fine chiel. I kent his father weel. He was a douce man, auld Saunders Ga'. He was one o' the cottars o' Carmacoup. It was a waefu' day, that o' their flittin', when so many godly families were driven frae the skirts o' Cairntable; and when thirty chimneys ceased to smoke on the fair lands of Carmacoup, and a' for keeping a gude conscience. But Geordy means nae ill. He just wontit to be a sodger, and sodger he is. Geordy tells me he never puts lead in his pistol, and when he fires, his piece maks as loud a noise as ony o' them. Weel, as I was sayin', Geordy was in the troop, and when

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he saw me and the captain haverin thegither, he fell into the rear, and so when the party scampered off, Geordy cries, Eddie, hae ye ony tobacco ?" "I dinna ken but I hae," I says; and so he fell back; for a' this was a pretence. He just wanted to speak wi' me; for ye see I sometimes get news frae Geordy. So as I was takin out the tobacco, I says, "Geordy, what's in the wind enow ?" "O," says he, "we are on the chase the day.

Twa herd lads frae Lesmahagow side were seen hereabouts, and we are after them; and last night we got notice of other twa men frae Cairsphairn hand, the one a tailor and the other a shoemaker, that have been seen coming down the Afton, and then directing their course to the upper part of Kyle; at least so say the spies from New Cumnock. But I hope we'll make nothing of it::-noo ye hae my secret; and, good day."

'I now began to think what I should do; and so praying earnestly for Divine direction, I rode to Glenbuck, for the snaw was beginning to fa', and there I was storm-stayed till the day ye saw me and the cuddie on the tap o' the snaw.'

'BUT there is mystery in it!' Such | is the reply of the rationalist socalled and the infidel Socinian (for Socinianism is nothing less than infidelity adapted to the latitude of England), and it amounts to this, that mystery is suspicious and constitutes a valid objection to a Divine revelation. It is implied too, although perhaps it would not be avowed, that a Divine revelation should have everything comprised in it plain, if it be not even exhaustive. The objectors, however, forget two great principles-First, that Divinity itself and its actings, must necessarily be beyond the range of human cognition that a God wholly comprehended - known by the creature

--

RELIGION.

the finite to perfection, would be a solecism, an absurdity. We don't know ourselves. Man is an enigma, a mystery to himself. Our mental and moral being is inscrutable in many points, defying the analysis of the most subtle metaphysicians as evidenced by their conflicting interpretations. And if man be a riddle to himself, if all nature be full of mysteries, if the sublimest intellects are ever finding and confessing that there are limits beyond which clouds and darkness rest upon' truth, can anything be more irrational, impudent, and hypocritical than to take objection to a revelation of God because it contains mysteries -things 'dark with excessive light,'

things too vast for man's grasp, too lofty for human intellect to surmount? If God be infinite (and He is not God if He be not), his ways and works must partake of Himself in some of their aspects, and therefore a revelation of God without mystery is impossible, and would prove anything pretending to that character an imposition. The mawkish and puerile complaint of mystery, then, made by the infidel, is a shameful pretence, as full of ignorance as it is of ingratitude. He fights against an inexorable law, and commits the same sort of suicide as certain fabled frogs who thought to swell themselves out into the bulk and proportions of the ox. The thing however is no new thing under the sun. It is at all events as old as Job's times, and received the most withering and crushing rebuke'Vain man would be wise though man be born like a wild ass's colt.' That which is one proof of the Divine revelation, infidelity perversely uses as an objection, and thereby at once insults the Deity and tramples on one of the clearest dictates of human reason which it professes to worship, and to which it makes even the Infinite subject.

But a second principle ignored is, man's own nature. Mystery not only enshrouds nature, but is in some sort necessary or contributory to our highest interests. It contributes to delight, to hope, to love, to aspiration. I stand upon the sea shore. I gaze upon the illimitable waste of waters. I hear its measured everlasting music; but I cannot fathom its depths. I cannot imagine the inexhaustible riches of its dark caves. I cannot understand the laws which govern it (for all that human wisdom has ever discovered is simply their agency and the regularity of their operation-nothing of their nature). It seems to me as I gaze that the sea is infinite, a thing of life, a grand mystery, puzzling and confounding human knowledge; and I am enraptured mystery perfects my joy. I gaze into the blue heavens. I breathe its atmosphere.

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I see the innumerable points of light which stud the brow of night. I remember the names by which the planets and the constellations are known, and the immense distances at which they are, and the exactitude with which they keep their several places, and that there are beyond them all, even the most distant, systems which only the telescope can descry, and that probably the immense mass of worlds and systems visible from earth are only a portion of God's works,-that beyond the farthest of them there stretch away and away other systems grand and vast as the grandest and vastest of those discovered. Mystery is connected with all the visible, and mystery yet more profound reigns on the limits which bound the visible. My intellect is fired, delighted, entranced by the spectacle, and still more by the imagination which it challenges and yet confounds. The mystery is an element in my joy-it swells and dilates my heartit creates hopes and aspirations boundless but transporting - and thoughts that wander through Eternity.' I am bowed down to worship. I recognize the presence, agency, and glory of the Great Creator in His glorious works, and I love Him with an awful but warmer love for that He is infinite in wisdom and power.' Take away mystery, and you rob me of my overflowing joy; you draw a veil between my soul and my God, hiding His supreme glory; you divest my adoration of its ever-growing strength, its ever-rising tide, its perpetual freshness, blossoming sweetness, and satiating transport.

Not deeply to discern, not much to know, Mankind were made to wonder and adore.

Inscrutable as it may be, it is a fact, a phenomenon of human nature that we take pleasure in mystery. It tends to brace the mind up to a higher tension and to satisfy a native instinct. Where all is known curiIosity droops its wing, thought takes

rest, and the charm and bloom and fascination of the thing being gone, we feel a want, a strange depressing sense of some incompleteness steals

over us.

If there be any truth in this, it holds still more true of the modes of the Divine existence, as for example, the tri-unity and the incarnation: these are essentially out-lying facts immeasurably beyond the sphere of human cognition: Dogmatically to pronounce them impossible or unreasonable, would be irrational, or it would betray ignorance of the doctrines as correctly stated. Any truth may be travestied by being falsely put. But it is simply irrational to deny the possibility of the Divine tri-unity and the incarnation. The only question is, do the Scriptures assert them? If so, their mystery strongly makes in their favour rather than otherwise. The man is to be pitied, profoundly pitied, who under pretext of the difficulty as to the mode, rejects the facts, which are so luminously illustrative of the blessedness of the Divine nature, and of the ineffable benignity and condescension and grace of the Divine tri-unity.

If they knew the infinite affluence

of blessing and comfort in the latter doctrine (Incarnation) they would not deny the Lord of glory, the Lord that bought them' with His own most precious blood. They who know it, cry with united voice

'I love the Incarnate Mystery
And there I fix my trust.'

The Divinity of Him who is also the man Christ Jesus,' the son of Mary, and so my brother, is a necessity of His office and mediatorship, necessary for His completeness and suitability, and equally so for our trust and comfort in Him, and so for our drawing out of His fulness.' Divinity is an essential and everlasting mystery, and if it please to assume the humanity into personal union, without change or confusion of nature on either side, why the mode must necessarily partake of the same character. If the union of soul and body be a mystery (and he who denies it is a fool in his pretended knowledge), how much rather the incomparably higher and glorious fact of the unity in one person of the Divinity and the humanity! Sheffield. J. J.

ARMINIUS:

SKETCH.

THE divinity professorship at Leyden was in those days a distinguished and important office. The name of Junius, whose place Arminius was elected to occupy, had shed lustre in the University and invested with additional dignity the chair he had filled. Protestantism had but just established itself in the land, and the political struggles of the Netherlands were not over. The Dutch Reformed church had scarcely passed its infancy. Its future doctrine and life would be largely influenced by the training of its clergy. The first body of its ministers had in the main been

drawn from France. There were also French congregations and French pastors in most of the cities. But as the Reformation took root, a native church and a native ministry grew up. The Genevan faith was criticized in a spirit of sturdy independence, and its rigid exclusiveness was toned down. There were thoughtful Dutchmen who inclined to the more moderate opinions of the sage of Rotterdam, and Arminius was one of the most prominent of them. His elevation to the honour of a theological professorship was promoted no doubt by a desire to secure for a native of Holland, a

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an influential position among the ministers of the Reformed church. He entered upon the duties of the professorship with becoming modesty and zeal. He knew the heavy responsibilities of the office, and he was not without serious misgivings as to his wisdom in accepting them. There is one thing,' wrote he to Uitenbogardt, which vehemently distresses me. How shall I be able to satisfy such a great explanation? How shall I be able to prove myself to be in some measure worthy of having so mighty a movement set agoing on my account?' But though his heart sometimes failed him, he was reassured by the kindly judgment of his friends; and the whole academic body welcomed him to their midst. In a letter written about this time he says;'I will therefore, with the help of the good God, address myself to this province and look for success by His abundant blessing. He knows from what motive I have undertaken this office, what is my aim, what object I have in view in the discharge of its duties. He discerns and approves, I know. It is not the empty honour of this world-mere smoke and bubblenor the desire of amassing wealth (which indeed were vain let me strive to the utmost) that has impelled me here; but my one wish is to do public service in the gospel of Christ, and to exhibit that gospel as powerfully and plainly as possible before those who are destined in their turn to proclaim it to others.' In this spirit he commenced his work at Leyden. His first lectures were a great success. He magnified both his office and his theme. They were not, he maintained, topics of trifling import upon which he was about to discourse. The science of theology was superior to all other objects of human research, and worthy in every way of the profoundest study. He would adopt therefore the most approved method of tuition. It would be his aim, first of all, to stimulate the

earnest enquiry; for he thought with Socrates that he should have accomplished an important part of his duty as a teacher when he had inspired his pupils with an ardent desire of learning. Besides this, he perceived, as he feared, that some of the students of theology were entangling themselves in the thickets of barren speculation, and pursuing crabbed and thorny questions, to the neglect of scripture truth. After conference with his colleagues, he determined to discountenance such profitless studies. His efforts were not without effect. He restored, says Peter Bert, the earlier, and masculine and muscular kind of study. He withdrew his pupils from their wanderings among the theorems and problems of scholasticism to the fountain of spiritual life, the pure and crystal waters of inspiration. He taught them to seek their principles of faith from the scriptures, and to cultivate not the religion of bickering and controversy and fruitless disputation, calculated only to sharpen the intellect and harden the heart, but the religion which breathes forth charity, which follows after truth, which leads to holiness of life, and marks off the Christian character from the ungodly and heathen world.

*

The

His introduction to the University was thus full of promise. popular preacher of Amsterdam became the popular Professor at Leyden. At one bound he secured for himself the highest distinction and widest regard. The students declared that Junius was restored to them again. The curators congratulated themselves on the acquisition of a new Atlas of the University. The promoters of his election were publicly thanked for their service. Cromhout received the tribute of a copy of dull Latin verses, and Uitenbogardt was presented with a brilliant silver cup.

But the woe of universal applause

* Priscum illud, et masculum, et torosum studendi genus.