more solid enjoyment in spending their leisure hours at lecture, or in friendly meetings, where God is the subject of conversation and prayer with reading his word the employment. The world may regard such persons as idle, morose, and self-righteous but they are not so. Nothing but grace can enable a soul patiently to bear up against a continued course of persecution; and those whose lives condemn the practices of a sinful world, must ever suffer it; for it has from the beginning been the portion of all God's servants.-" Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you."

"As to the charge of hypocrisy, the world has no right or authority to make it; and had they a spark of that religion, the form of which they keep, but the power of which they reject, it would teach them to judge not, lest they might be judged. Even among men it is uncandid to condemn without hearing; or to brand any body of men with names, or to attribute to them false motives of action, without the most unequivocal proofs of the truth of the charge. "The more simply the Gospel is preached, the greater opposition it will ever meet with it therefore requires a steady and determined boldness and perseverance in the professors of it, and particularly in its ministers. The cross must be taken up and borne; and if those who preach it bear no burden, but live in indolence and ease, and in the enjoyment of those pleasures by the world called innocent, in what do they differ from those idle shepherds (Zec. xi. 17) who feed not the flock, but themselves?

"It has pleased God to shew me the value of souls, the awful responsibility I took upon myself when I entered into the ministry, and the account I must one day give of those intrusted to my care. While I have this view (and I trust that while I live I shall possess it) I should be exposed to, and justly deserve, the heavy wrath of God, if I suffered myself either, by fear or shame, or a desire of human applause, to be led to act in opposition to the voice of conscience."

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Again we find Mr. Roe obliged to defend himself, and to explain his principles to his father. At that time, the theatre, the ballroom, and the race-course, were freely frequented by the great body of the Irish clergy; so that for a young man not only to absent himself from these amusements, but further, to enter his protest against

them, was a step calculated to draw down upon him much censure and enmity. But Mr. Roe, to use his biographer's phrase, had nailed his colours to the mast; and through God's grace determined to leave them there in defiance of all opposition. He writes to his father in October 1802 :—

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My dear Father,-Yesterday I received a letter from you, and it gives me much pain to think of the idea you have formed of me. By your last letters you seem to think that I am a hot-headed zealot, without reason, knowledge, or discretion; that I preach doctrines which have no foundation in reason, and that I shall blast all my future expectations. As to my conduct, I would appeal to every candid person here, whether I have in any instance exceeded the bounds of propriety; or whether I am that bug

bear that a sinful world would represent me to be. I would even appeal to my Bishop, with whom I had a long conversation yesterday, and who told me that I should be very wrong to go to the plays, &c., or do any thing which my conscience told me was not right. Liberty of conscience is one blessing we enjoy in this land, and indeed it is a great one; and those who are sticklers for it as to themselves, are enemies to its being extended to others.

"As to what I preach, it is the truth. Nothing but the truth could have produced such a change in a town, not exceeded in wickedness by any other in Ireland.

6

"As to my future expectations, I know that if they arise from the world, or the promises of man, I shall be disappointed. Besides, I cannot avoid believing that if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all things shall be added to us.' I would also gladly obey that special command, Lay up your treasure in heaven!' 'Deus providebit.' I mean not, however, to say, that human exertions are useless; but that they never will succeed without the Divine will, and that they ever must be subordinate to and guided by it.

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Humility is a great virtue, and no man can get to heaven without possessing it; and I feel that I am in just as good a situation for the growth of it in my heart, as if I were preaching to please the public, and joining in all their societies, where time is murdered, health destroyed, the active powers of reason enervated, the human soul debased and corrupted. 'Tis better to suffer,' says the Apostle, for well-doing than for

evil-doing; and indeed, it requires at least a small degree of humility to bear up against continual opposition. Nothing but the consciousness of my own utter unworthiness, and the mighty power of God's grace, could enable me to do this. The Lord has certainly worked by me, and made me the instrument of good to many souls; and having put my hand to the plough, I dare not, nor would I wish, to look back, lest I might forfeit the favour of God, and lose that happiness I feel in my soul."

The writer of this letter

must have rejoiced, with thanksgiving to God, when, soon after, he saw his father, whom he so deeply venerated, avowing those principles which he now deemed madness, enthusiasm, and bigotry.

Having followed Mr. Roe so far on his journey, we are unwilling to part from him abruptly; and therefore propose resuming our inter

course next month.

(To be continued.)

THIS elaborate discourse consists chiefly of three parts;-a hypothesis to be proved and illustrated; facts in proof and illustration of it; and warnings, exhortations, and consolations grounded upon it. The hypothesis is, that we are living under the outpouring of the sixth Apocalyptic vial, (Revelation xvi. 12); upon which the able and pious author founds many remarks relative to the events which he considers are about to come to pass. We fear he will think we use an improper word in styling his opinion an hypothesis; for he sets it forth, at least as to its broad outline, as a scriptural interpretation so clear and irrefragable that he cannot see how it can be questioned by any serious inquirer; and his adduction of facts and illustrations is striking; but every writer who has connected a scheme of interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy with passing events in his own day, has been able to find illustrations which appeared relevant to many of the cotemporary generation,

but which Time, that faithful expositor of inspired prediction, has proved to have had no such reference. Some writers have considered the Book of the Revelation as a prophetical_description of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the events therewith connected. The primitive Fathers, Greek and Latin, generally applied it to the persecutions of the Church under the heathen emperors of Rome, and its subsequent encouragement by Constantine and his successors. Protestants have usually considered it as referring to the Roman Antichrist, and his final downfall; though some have thought that Infidelity is the predicted Antichrist. May not both Popery and Infidelity be included in the denouncement? But the application to the Romish apostacy is so remarkable and minute, that this at least cannot, upon any consistent principles of interpretation, be exempted. The Romanists have had no other resource in this difficulty than to retort that Luther, and the rise

and fall of Protestantism, are pointed out; but they are unable to dove-tail the facts with the prophecies; whereas, as applied to themselves, the facts and the prophecies tally as minutely as a check and its counterfoil. Mr. Walmsley, under the feigned name of Signor Pastorini, excited much agitation in Ireland by applying the Apocalypse to Protestantism, which he affected to prove was to be destroyed in the year 1825; the very time when it began to assume new vigour in Ireland itself, where it had too long been inert. The college at Maynooth republished Walmsley's work, with buoyant expectations that the prediction would work its own fulfilment; but never were sanguine hopes more signally disappointed; for the revival of piety and zeal in the Protestant Church of Ireland is among the most remarkable features of modern annals.

We will not run through the long and melancholy catalogue of expositors who have not only darkened counsel with words without knowledge, but have exposed Holy Writ to the scoffs of the wicked by their vain imaginings. The agitated era of the days of Charles the First and the Commonwealth gave rise to shoals of such expositors; whose temerity has, if possible, been exceeded by many of those who have written since the period of the (first) French Revolution. One truth only have they clearly illustrated; -that prophecy was not intended to make men prophets. Even such a man as Baron Napier,-a cautious mathematician, whose felicitous invention of logarithms has assisted the science of astronomy, and the arts of practical geometry and navigation, beyond almost any discovery of ancient or modern times, could publish those thirtysix propositions relating to the seals, trumpets, vials, and thunders,

which ended with the declaration that the last trumpet and vial would conclude in the year 1786; but with the strange addition, "Not that I mean that that age (namely, 245 years, commencing from the year 1541, when the last vial began) shall continue so long; because it is said that for the elects' sake the time shall be shortened; but I mean that if the world were to endure, that seventh age should continue until the of year Christ, 1786." Napier's scheme was 245 years to each trumpet or vial; the first beginning A.D. 71; the second 316; the third 561; the fourth 806; the fifth 1051; the sixth 1296; the seventh 1541. In an argument from the 1335 days mentioned by the Prophet Daniel, and the thundering angels in the Apocalypse, he says that the former would give the day of Judgment in the year 1700, and the latter in 1688; whence he confidently concludes, that allowing for some error in calculation, it would arrive between these two dates. He wrote in the days of James the First, to whom he dedicates his book.

Now if we are constrained by truth to call the Lord of Merchiston's scheme hypothetical; and if Time, and the course of Divine Providence, have proved the hypothesis to be unfounded; we ought not to be accused of want of respect to any learned and holy man, to whose opinions we are in duty called to apply qualifying epithets. But we have seen the fallacy of so many predictive calculations, that in regard to questions of unfulfilled prophecy, when brought to bear upon the exciting occurrences of our own days, we dare not attempt to point out the times and the seasons which the Father has kept in his own power. Passing events are too near to us to be seen in their full aspect; their results also

are in the womb of futurity, and

may be very different to what we imagine; they are among the secret things which belong to God; and only the types and shadows of them are revealed to us and to our children; the utmost therefore that we dare venture to assert upon any scheme of interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy, is that it is plausibly supported by various facts and arguments; but whether truly so, must be left for futurity to decide. In so saying, we do not disparage this large and important portion of Holy Writ, upon the diligent study of which a blessing is pronounced; we only demur to putting prophecy out of its due place. The ancient church had a succession of prophets; we have not this privilege, because we have a higher one in the completion of the canon of Sacred Writ, the whole being in our hands. But we have what is tantamount to it, and as an evidence of the Divine inspiration of Holy Writ above it: namely, not a succession of prophets or prophecies; but a succession of fulfilments of a chain of prophecies recorded once for all, and successively developed. With these preliminaries, though we do not see our way to all our reverend friend's conclusions in regard to unfulfilled events, we feel not the less the importance of his facts and exhortations. We know, indeed, the reply usual in such cases, that to dissever the practical part from the hypothesis is to destroy its effect; for that it is the special view contended for which excites hopes, calls to watchfulness, and animates to duty. But then, be it remembered, when these things are grounded, not on the general principle, but upon the particular hypothesis, if the last fail, the former are subverted. An interpreter who fully believes in his own exposition, considers that it cannot fail, and therefore sees

no need to make provision for such a result. But large experience in treatises on unfulfilled prophetical interpretation, leads to the conclusion that the last novel exposition may prove as unstable as former ones; and hence there is much wisdom in the advice of Richard Baxter in his "Christian Directory," (Part iii. c. 7, Direction 15), "Take not obscure prophecies for precepts. The obscurity is enough to make you cautelous how you venture yourself in the practice of that which you understand not. But even if there were no obscurity, yet prophecies are no warrant to you to fulfil them; no, though they be for the Church's good. Predictions tell you but de eventu, what will come to pass; but warrant not to bring it to pass. God's prophecies are oft-times fulfilled by the wickedest men and the wickedest means. Yet many selfconceited persons think that they can fetch that out of the Revelations or the Gospel of Daniel that will justify very horrid crimes, while they used wicked means to fulfil God's prophecies." This is an extreme and an irrelevant case; but Baxter's general direction, "Take not obscure prophecies for precepts," we believe to be wise and scriptural; and hence we refuse to place the question of Christian missions, or our duty towards Jews or Romanists, or the practical points of the Christian life, upon this or that exposition of such very "obscure prophecies' as those respecting the Apocalyptic vials; and in reading such discourses as that before us, we mentally dissociate the facts and exhortations from the hypothesis, in order that we may obtain the practical benefit free from the speculation; believing with Baxter, that "prophecies are no warrant for you to fulfil them; no, though they be for the Church's good."