and criminal conjunction of persons within degrees of consanguinity prohibited by law," the first question in this event would be-were the parties in this case at all consanguinous, or in natural relation to each other-and if so, what is it? As respects descent from a common and immediate natural origin within any degrees nearer than any of the descendants of Japhet, nothing is even alleged in the examination had, nor in the verdict given.

They were not blood relations-not so near akin as cousins, nor even as near as Abraham and Sarah, as Isaac and Rebecca, as Jacob and Rachael; for, besides other intimacies, there was blood nearness in at least two of these three cases. Mr. McQueen was no more in consanguinity to his second wife than to his first; and if on the account of blood there was nothing incestuous then, there is nothing incestuous now. But it will be said, the law makes incest. But whose law can make incest? I consider none but the divine law,and where does the divine law pronounce such a connexion incestuous ? Let any one name the passage! It cannot be done. But this brings us to the words in the law which gave rise to this verdict. The words are -" Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex her beside the other in her life time." The meaning obviously is, that no man should marry his wife's sister while that wife is living. It neither forbids a plurality of wives nor even marrying a wife's sister after she is dead. But as Jacob vexed Rachael by marrying her sister Leah in her life time, Jacob's sons are divinely forbidden to vex a wife by marrying her sister while she lived; but they add to the precept-even after she is dead!

There is indeed a law commanding a brother to marry his own brother's wife, in one case clearly defined-Deut. xxv. 5. Now if it be not immoral to marry even a brother's wife after his decease, how, in the name of reason, could it be unlawful to marry her virgin or widow sister after his first wife is dead! But perhaps the doctors of divinity only intended to say that such a marriage is deemed incestuous by the English tables and the Scotch by-laws, and therefore in the United States it shall be so too, as far as their police extends. A. C.

TABLE-TALK.

SELFISHNESS-SELF-LOVve-need of REVELATION-SLAVERY• LIBERTY.

[IN conversation it was remarked that Mr. W., who had built a bridge at considerable expense, for his own accommodation as well as that of the public, had been actuated perhaps entirely by selfish motives.]

Mr. C. He certainly deserves credit for his enterprize and public

spirit. It is nevertheless true that selfishness is the grand moving principle of human action.

R. R. Selfishness is inordinate self-love. At least this term is usually taken in malem partem. Self-love is a very useful principle. Without it, man would certainly have no incentive to act at all. God himself, we are told, created all things for his own glory. To act without motive, is to act either involuntarily or irrationally.

Mr. C. Self-love, properly directed and restrained, will lead to actions the most praiseworthy. But when it is excessive, and induces a man to think of nothing but his own selfish aggrandizement, it is a dangerous and pernicious principle. This is undoubtedly the abuse of it.

R. R. It is to this abuse and misdirection of self-love that Mr. Harris, in his prize essay, entitled "Mammon," would restrict the application of the term selfishness. It is no doubt a very proper distinction. Self-love can never produce any but happy effects so long as it is regulated by the scriptural precept, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." It matters not how well we love ourselves if we love our neighbor equally well.

Mrs. C. What is it to love our neighbor as ourselves?

Mr. C. To feel and act towards him as we would wish him to feel and act towards us in similar circumstances.

Mr. H. [a stranger present.] We are gifted with a natural feeling of sympathy which seldom leaves us at a loss on such occasions.— We are prone at once to imagine ourselves in the situation of the person who claims our compassion. There can certainly no evil result from self-love if it be exercised according to the divine will.

R. R. Selfishness is doubtless a misdirection of self-love, rather than an excess of it. The author already mentioned very justly remarks in substance, 'that self-love is most wisely directed when it induces a man to make an entire surrender of himself to the divine guidance. In other words, that a man should love himself so well as to give himself away to God.'

Mr. C. That is a pretty sentiment. There can be no doubt that a perfect conformity to the divine will is the only way to insure perfect happiness.

R. R. Whether men practise it or not, it must be confessed by all that the precept "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" is a noble

one.

Mr. C. (with animption.) There is a force and impressive majesty about the divine communications truly wonderful This is, to a reflecting mind, one of the clearest evidences of their divine original. As it

regards this matter, however, the evidences are truly irresistible. How numerous and overwhelming are the proofs and illustrations which can be brought to sustain it not only from the Bible itself, but from reason and nature. It occurred to me the other day that it would be the most singular anomaly in the universe if man had not received a revelation. When we consider the inferior animated tribes, we find that each one is furnished with an unerring guide in its peculiar instinct. The beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea are each thus provided with a revelation precisely suited to the sphere in which they move. They go to work therefore with infallible precision. The fish chooses his appropriate abode; the bird builds its neat infallibly; the bee constructs its honeycomb infallibly. What an anomaly it would be, then, if man, the noblest of all, were left without a revelation suited to his circumstances. As to reason, it is no more to him without a revelation adapted to it, than the eye would be without light. But being furnished with such a revelation, it is his wisdom, his liberty, and his happiness to be implicitly governed by it. * *

As to liberty there can be no liberty without law. It is remarkable that the very first time the word freedom or liberty was ever uttered was in giving to man the law of Eden—“Of every tree in the garden thou mayest FREELY eat." When Adam was created he could look around upon all the pleasant fruits and beautiful productions of the garden, but he might not presume to touch any thing. He required permission-liberty, and his freedom consisted in liberty to act under a certain restriction or law. The planets move freely through space. It is because they move in conformity to law. True liberty and happiness, then, must be enjoyed in being conformed to the divine will, for liberty is freedom of action under laws and restrictions suited to

our nature.

R. R. The control, then, of injurious and unlawful influences, will be slavery.

Mr. C. Exactly so. Sin is slavery-righteousness is freedom. He that knows the truth, can be made free thereby. And he whom the Son makes free, shall be free indeed.

R. R.

THE COMING OF THE LORD-No. XVIII.

THE Miller Millennarians, now the loudest, boldest, and most confident in the field of discussion, are not so impartial and disinterested as I was at first so willing to believe. I gave their views so fully and

so impartially that some thought that I not only favored them, but had actually gone over to their system of interpretation. The virtue of impartiality in Editors is so rare in this one-sided, sectarian, and selfish age, that few can even form the conception of a being that can fairly and fully exhibit the entire force of the side that he opposes. One objection, then, to the fairness and honorable impartiality of these special pleaders, with me, is, that they have not permitted their readers to see my reasonings against their visions. There is scarce an allusion to the subject in all their publications. Why is this studied and obstinate silence? Is it that of contempt, of fear, or of ignorance? Speak out, Elder Himes!

A few of my readers complain of the tardiness of my advancement into the more profound arcana of prophecy. They think that I ought all at once, and in post haste, to have given all my conclusions, and long since decided the matter. Better, methinks, to be slow and pru dent in matters so grand and mysterious, than to have, like some, to recant with the new phases of the Moon, and like that nightly satellite, only "exhibit little light, less heat, and many changes." If ever there were truth in the proverb, "He that walketh slowly walketh surely," it is found in such instances as these, and on such themes: and that the other part of the proverb is true,-"He that hasteth with his feet erreth," needs no other demonstration than the frequent recantations of those who are changing their theories with the seasons of the year. I still adhere to the theory that contemplates a thousand years millennium-not to one day of judgment millennium. This consti. tutes my third grand objection to Mr. Miller and all those who represent the thousand years as one day, and as the Sabbath of the world, 1 am either literal or spiritual, not both, in interpreting the first week, and in applying it as an allegoric sketch of the events of time. As were the first six days natural, so was the seventh. If any one of them were a diurnal revolution, or an age of ten thousand years, the others were. If the first day were twenty-four hours, such was the seventh. They are all of one and the same category. Now as is the natural week of creation, so is the mystic week of Providence-so is the picturesque week of our planet's being. If we have had six thousand years of labor and travail, we shall have one thousand years of rest and peace. The first six were each a chilia eta, a thousand true and literal years, so will be the seventh. Either this, or there is no analogy, adumbration, or type in the first seven days-no allegorizing the creation week at all. If, then, we must reason from the creation week, or if we plead for seven thousand years as the age of our planet's present condition of existence, we must, on Miller's own

chronology, have yet one thousand and one years from the present Anno Domini 1842. From this he cannot possibly escape, on his own premises, unless he abandon the argument based on the assumption that seven thousand years must be completed before the end comes.

My fourth argument against his theory is founded on the assumption that the cleansing of the sanctuary means something equivalent to burning the earth, and not any purification of the church. I hesitate not to say that the phrase "cleansing the sanctuary" never did mean, and never will mean in any other style than that of our friend Miller, the purification of the whole earth by fire, or flood, or tempest, or sword, or pestilence, or any other such destructive ministry. Nay, I piously and fearlessly affirm the conviction that the earth is never called "the sanctuary of the Lord," as Mr. Miller affirms on page 100, section 6, of his volume. The only verse which he quotes in proof of this is as wide as Lebanon of the mark. The words are, "The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee-(What thee!—the earth: no: but the sanctuary of the Lord-the church!)—the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary— the place on which his sanctuary shall stand. "I will make the place of my feet glorious." The place of his feet, and the place of his sanctuary are neither his feet nor his sanctuary. Mr. Miller might, in all logical truth and assurance, argue that the place of his feet and his feet are the same thing, as that the place of his sanctuary and his sanctuary are the same. On such a slender basis rests the confident assertions of my friend Miller and his party.

A learned friend of mine in the West once said to me, that the man who confidently asserted his opinions and solemnly avowed his persuasion of their truth, would make incomparably more proselytes to them than the person who attempted to prove his opinions, however well founded they might be, by any other evidence than that he was confident they were just and true. So it seems in this case, as in many others. I never met with so much confidence, supported by so little reason and evidence, on a subject of so much importance, of such mighty magnitude, as I have witnessed in Mr. Miller and his party on the whole subject of the coming of the Lord and the things that are to follow.

To say no more at present on this theory, I must repudiate it as wholly imaginative, if for no other reasons, for these four:

1. His chronology of the age of the world, on which he relies with so much confidence, I have shown to be palpably erroneous and false. 2. His dating of the 2300 days, the sub-basis of his whole speculation, from the seventh of Artaxerxes, is without any sufficsent authority;