d glories ofnature disappear in their unseen cause. It is not the ar he sees, it is the congeries of laws it represents; it is the great eleton of the universe, stripped of foliage, light, and warmth, ich stands up before him-a shadow as well as a skeleton. His nd, or temperament, may be called the cold jelly in which the teor of the Hebrew genius spent itself. Paul possessed great lytical and logical power, coupled, however, with a passionate I lyrical nature; but Spinoza is "Old Analysis" himself. Yet 3 impossible to deny him profound penetration and thoroughng honesty. His very inability to sympathise with the imagina1, the enthusiasm, and the taste for the marvellous which inguished his countrymen, led him to do the more justice to the ral element of those writings with which he could sympathise. › piety proceeded not so much from the heart as from the legal I orderly character of his genius, which in some points reminds of Moses, although it is of a much colder cast. With the childe and benevolent spirit of Christ, Spinoza was less en rapport, hough he acknowledges the spirituality and universality of his

cepts.

The attempt to resuscitate Spinoza's writings from the oblivion which they had fallen, is not likely to be hailed by a very e portion of the public. Those who sympathise with his views to the canon, will prefer the more modern rationalistic books he subject, where the question is treated with the advantage he lights of recent criticism. His theology, like that of all Panists, is sterile, and can never propagate to any great extent. It sublime thought indeed, that of the Divine idea giving without , withholding or punishing without hatred, looking rather to the than to the individual, to the whole than to the parts, pursuing ternal silence its own dignified and inscrutable path. But it Is the life, interest, and beauty which the doctrine of the fatherd of God, and some of the other elements of evangelicalism, sent. The evangelical creed offers a kind of certainty and security which men and especially women are fain to cling, and which cannot essentially disturbed even were the more philosophical and liberal ories turning out to be true. Should Spinoza's dream be realized, Christian can only sink, spent and lost, in the same ocean with rest of mankind. If all men are to be saved, he will, of rse. If a few only are to be singled out, he has the best of nces, to say the least; a chance which is increased to certainty the case of the Papist, of the Methodist, or any religionist who ds personal assurance. And hence the popularity of these creeds th a vast number of men, women, and children, who like the ortest cut to heaven, and think the shortest the securest. Where ere is no doubt as to religion, there is seldom any as to outward orality, and thus the votaries of unhesitating creeds are usually

correct and often zealous in conduct. Unquestionably, too, t element of child-like submission which implicit faith and assuran imply, exerts a beneficial effect as the teacher of humility, a in general of sincerity. On the other hand, evangelical securi is sometimes apt to lead to uncharitableness, to dogmatism, narrow-mindedness-with some, to efforts at proselytising of th pharisaic type which Christ denounces; and with others, to self isolation or fierce fanaticism.

The vital want of Spinozism, as of all similar systems, is that whi Christianity so abundantly supplies-the want of a great hum link uniting us with the divine of one who is at once Man and G -who unites human and genial elements with perfection as a c racter, and infallibility as a guide. This is the sublime truth wh Christianity gave us originally, and which the Reformation restor Many infallibilities, such as that of the Pope-of the ChurchCreeds and Confessions-have perished to belief. But the fallibility of that great scheme of moral and religious tr which radiates from and centres in the Divine Prophet Galilee, is the real and only Rock of Ages. It satisfies ev want in the human bosom, and is not opposed, we believe, to conclusions of manly and candid intellect and research. It cons tutes the kernel of Christianity, rescued from that husk and sh which were necessary to its concoction-the essence of the Old a New Testaments freed from a thousand minute and non-essen elements, which yet were of immense importance to its growth. development. It is the high task of this age to extract that ker and collect that essence, and in this we should not omit to cons even the writings of the "noble and misunderstood " Spinoza.

It is impossible not to congratulate ourselves, on the whole, u the attitude the best and wisest of Christians are now assum towards their opponents; they are not only forgiving them t hate them, and blessing them that curse them, but they are find out that many of their apparently bitterest foes were friends brothers-friends in mistake, and brothers in disguise. They discovering something good even in Hobbes, and suggestive Spinoza. God forbid that it should ever be otherwise! God for that the illiberal reaction which has begun both in England an Scotland, should, from a petty, become a large and multitudin movement, through the mere force of false and unprincipled uni A Church which does not now allow the fullest margin for inq is doomed-may remain a Church, but will be deserted by the g and true; and a Church, however large, which has no new insp tion to boast of-which shall include no great progressive mi within its ranks-which, while boasting of its plusquam Po unity of opinion, may thus only prove that the vast majority of ministers are below the standard, where, in the present day, do

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ad inquiry must arise, and may produce divergencies of view hat they are shrieking gorillas instead of thinking men, which all trust mainly in dogma, mechanism, and money, and discover › deep sympathy with the young and struggling souls, with the aturer speculations and uncertainties of the enormous majority thinking laymen, and with the profound and determined inquies of the age-such a Church may attract the ignorant, overawe e timid and superstitious, repay the mercenary, and fascinate ose whose ambition is at once unprincipled and small, but can ver be a Pharos of light, or a centre of hope and promise to the ter years of the nineteenth century. G. D.

SUNDAY READINGS.-No. VI.

THE HOLY CHILD JESUS.

AFTER breakfast on Sunday, June 17th," says Dr. Robinson, "I walked out ne to the top of the hill over Nazareth. Here a glorious prospect opened the view. The air was perfectly clear and serene; and I shall never forget enchanting panorama that burst suddenly upon me. There, to the south, the magnificent plain of Esdraelon; to the east, the sea of Galilee and the ge of its surrounding hills; to the north, the snow-covered summits of ermon; to the west, Carmel and the Mediterranean, gleaming in the morn? sun. In the village below, the Saviour of the world had passed his childod. From the spot where I sat, his eyes must often have gazed upon the lendid prospect around me. I remained for some hours under the shadow of ruin, lost in contemplation."

Let us, in imagination, also visit the pleasant breezy summit of those encirng hills, and think of the bright vision that once lighted up the "village low," where the people sat in darkness.

Few are the notices of the "Gospel of the Infancy" in the Scriptures. No aven-inspired Murillo was commissioned to paint the picture of the early ys of that life, which was like a fair lily in the wilderness. We have four ng narratives of the Passion, but only a few descriptive touches of the childod of Jesus. Let us gather up the few hints dropped by the evangelist. "He grew in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man." The amanity was developed according to the regular laws of nature. A trifling atement to make respecting anyone else, but noteworthy in relation to Him in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." In the holy of olies dwelt the Everlasting Light; but it beamed only with a dim restrained adiance through the mysterious veil which separated it from the human mind lat ministered in the "first sanctuary." That some bright rays broke through is dark curtain in childhood, it is impossible to doubt; but the full revelaon to the consciousness of the complex mystery of divine and human personlity must have been reserved for after-days. Only gradually was the Wonerful One revealed even to himself; and the innocence and weakness of childlood dwelt unchanged beneath the overshadowing glory of the Infinite.

Unchanged so far as this, that the finite intellect did not cease to be child like, since, as to Omniscience, there was the hiding of its power; but not mo rally uninfluenced by the divine companionship, since the image of God shon forth from a face like the blue heavens without a cloud. We may well believ that the labouring fancy of art, through all the centuries, has failed as ye to depict worthily the childish countenance that expressed the sweetness an majesty of Eternal Love. A light of more than angelic perfection must hav shone around that head on which were to rest so "many crowns." We ma well suppose that, in earliest infancy, a divine unusual calm surrounded th holy child, growing up in blissful silence; and afterwards that a constar affectionate obedience, an industrious compliancy with the will of his much pondering mother, and freedom from all sinful passion or boyish vulgarity temper, attested the early beauty of the Rose of Sharon blooming in the shad Yes; how the mind labours after the conception of the scenes in that ca penter's workshop and home, then the most sacred temple in the world! 1 think, for example, how the first efforts of Joseph and Mary to convey to h opening mind knowledge of the things of God, were met with wondro readiness by a revelation from within ;-how all the rays of wisdom shinin from without grew pale before the bright effulgent light from the interior his soul;-how his understanding in religious knowledge seemed a grow from inward life much rather than a building piled up by external agency; how the prattle and the playfulness of early childhood were in his case a free from vanity and passion, if, indeed, the holy childhood bore not rath in a natural exceeding pensiveness the prophetic traces of his destiny as ta Man of sorrows; so that a melancholy seclusion of spirit, not less than innate sublimity of thought, separated from other children the "rejected men;"-how his early prayers were not the form of an infantile liturgy repeate night and morning, in joy or weariness, without thought or care, but from th earliest use of speech and dawn of reason the passionate divine breathings a heaven-born soul, turning by a natural instinct its eagle eye upon the sun spirits; a soul without the sense of sin, that feasted itself upon the divi brightness as upon its proper intellectual aliment--a soul not once disturb by anger or moroseness, crafty dealings, or the spasms of obstinate self-will a spirit that moved evenly in its orbit, like a bright planet unclouded by t mists of evil, and poised in serenity upon the "poles of truth."

Devout fancy, methinks, delights to dwell upon the image of this Prince the kings of the earth in his earliest boyhood. See him in Joseph's workshop he grew old enough to lend a hand of help, however trifling, to that "j man," the Carpenter of Nazareth, now holding the tools required in su cession, now trying an unsteady hand with the hammer or the saw, while ev and again Joseph was struck dumb and brought to a halt in his industry by sudden glance at that marvellous countenance like a window into heaven, by some soul-searching, truth-piercing question from his lips. See him ag on clear Sabbath mornings, in the village boy's best attire, clean and holy, t "spotless lamb," hasting in Mary's hand, in good time, to the synagogue the hill-side "where he was brought up;" there distinguished amidst t crowds of formal or noisy worshippers by his devout attention, by the zeal his adoration, and by his voice as the chorister of God in psalmody uplin with the warmth and vigour of an angel's hymn.

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See him, too, sometimes, when a little older, on summer evenings, ascendi the heights alone, to gaze abroad over the vast panorama of northern Palesti while the Mediterrancan lay westward like a sea of glass mingled w fire" flashing under the beams of the descending sun, and Hermon flung be the radiance from his snow-crowned summits,-there gazing until the sh twilight had darkened into the gloaming, and the firmament was alight wi the constellations; when he, the Son of the Blessed, would prostrate hims

fore the King of Eternity, and pour out the ardour of his youthful spirit in ecstacy of delighted worship, or in the lonely far-resounding voice of a ilm. Was there ever such an altar, or ever a worshipper so pure? Then, what must have been the influence of the Holy Child at home? In er households, the chief formative influence descends from the elders of family upon the younger ones. Here it was the reverse; the grand vating religious influence was from the child upon the elders; his character liating truth and love upon all around; the thought of God and of eternity growing brighter and clearer in his mind; his presence a lesson, his life incessant example of the glory of religion.

Very interesting, also, to inquire how and when the consciousness of his desy dawned upon him. Did Mary early acquaint him with the prophecies t went on before him; with the visions of angels that shone over his birth Bethlehem; with the solemn blessings of Simeon and Anna in the Temple; h the visit of the magi to the manger, under the guidance of the wandering ; with the inspired dreams of Joseph; and the Egyptian journey, under the cial direction of heaven? Unless her lips were sealed, she would have been eh unlike other mothers if she did not. Then, who can properly imagine at was the effect of those outward instructions, combining with the promptof the Spirit that equally announced from within his celestial origin? agh can be conceived to assist us to understand that his feelings would be aliar to himself, when promised for the first time that he should accompany parents and the devout persons of Nazareth to Jerusalem, to celebrate in Temple the great spring festival of the Passover. That Temple would be im much more than the cottage at Nazareth, his father's house. The only dent of his childhood recorded in the gospels occurred during one of these y visits. The festival was over. The sacrifices, the loud exulting songs he Temple service, were completed. The many thousands of Israel were ersing again in scattered caravans to their homes. The sunlit metropolis, 1 its groves and gardens, was fading in the distance. The pilgrims halt for r evening rest, when it is discovered that Jesus was not there. Joseph and y return, seeking him "in sorrow." We know the misery occasioned by missing of a child. They hunt through the streets and lanes of the city, through the open squares. They inquire at every inn; they look in at y synagogue. At length, on the third day, they bethink themselves of the ple, with its vast surrounding colonnades. There the people were accustomed alk, and to sit under the shade of the cedar roofs shining with inlaid marble gold. They find a crowd assembled round a number of learned scribes and ins. Approaching, they hear the voice of a child-it was their lost son. y rushed in, mother-like, "Son, why hast thou dealt thus with us?" ist ye not," replied he, "that I must be at my Father's? Where should I out at home?" They understood not the saying that he spake to them. this answer indicates that he at least understood his own relationship to A warning was here for Mary; it behoved her henceforth to learn that im the human was subordinate to the divine.

essons also there were for the doctors of Jerusalem, the great authors and porters of the system of pharisaic formalism under which the nation sat in ness. There, on high benches, they sat, clothed in their long robes, ned with their phylacteries and high-sounding titles, "had in reputation ng the people." At their feet sat the marvellous boy, his bright open beaming with the lustre of heaven, his eyes (afterwards to be as a e of fire) flashing with the living glances of an intelligence which asshed all who beheld it. That was a terrible tribunal for learned pharisato confront--the mind of the honest and God-fearing child! It is often cult to answer the questions which ordinary children propose on estabed doctrines and institutions; but for those pharisees and doctors to have