yea, let him dwell in God, and God in him, knowing all the fulness thereof. CONFIDENCE AND DEPEND ENCE CONTRASTED. Confidens ascended the pulpit stairs with an high head, a quick pace, and a firm step. There seemed in his whole air a consciousness that he was well prepared for his hearers; and the sight of him inspired the unwise with an expectation that they should that day drink of the water of life. Confidens delivered his sermon in an animated strain. Every one spoke of the abilities of the preacher, but no one was found to say he heard him well: all were pleased with the performance, but none were edified. Dependens ascended the pulpit stairs pale, his look cast down, his pace slow, and his limbs almost in a tremble. From such a pitiful appearance of weakness, the injudicious presumed, he could have nothing to say, and concluded it would be a lost opportunity. But Dependens had no sooner entered upon his subject, than it was felt that God was present in the midst of his people to bless them. Dependens was under no more hesitation than Confidens, but his preaching was imcomparably more solemn he spake as one awed by the presence of the Almighty, and affected by a close view of the awful realities of the eternal world. Out of weakness strength arose; and his words were indeed accompanied with the demonstration of the Spirit, and with power. Dependens concluded with the ascription of Glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with such a tone, that it was visible to all that his heart was penetrated with his own insufficiency, and that all his trust was in the Lord his God. He left the pulpit, and instead of the pallid countenance which he brought into it, his looks were beaming full of love and gratitude. His hearers returned, some of them in profound silence and meditation, and others discoursing, not on the composition of the sermon, but on the good they had got by it. FAMILY CIRCLE A FINANCIAL OPERATION. Two honest Dutchmen-would that there were more such men. 66 WE lately heard a story illustrative of the early days of York County, Pennsylvania,-those good old times when every body was honest as the days were long." The parties were two of the early settlers in the western part of York (now Adams) county-both were of the honest old German stock-and as one of them is still living, we suppress the name. Peter, it appears, had increased the size of his farm by annexing thereto a small tract adjoining; and lacked about a hundred dollars of the sum necessary to pay for the new acquisition. He called upon his neighbour, George, to borrow the amount. George brought out an old bread basket, and counted down the desired number of thalers "-and then, of course, the two sat down to two large earthen mugs cider and as many pipes of tobacco. 66 of After smoking over the matter for a while, it occurred to Peter, that in similar transactions he had seen or heard of something like a note passing between the borrower and lender, and he suggested as much to George. The lender assented to the propriety of the thing paper, pen and ink were produced—and between the two a document was concocted, stating that George had loaned Peter 100 dollars, which Peter would repay to George in "dree monts" (three months.) This Peter signed, and thus our two financiers had made the thing all regular and ship-shape. But at this point a difficulty presented itself. They both knew that notes were made in the operations of borrowing and lending which they had witnessed-but neither of them had observed what disposition was made of the document-neither could tell whether it was en regle for the borrower or lender to take charge of the paper At Here was a dilemma! length, a bright idea struck George. ! Welcome, new year,-Yet for many thou hast Sad afflictions and troubles in store, But may they resignedly drink sorrow's cup, In hope of the joys evermore. Welcome, new year,-But thou art the last, Which to myriads on earth shall be given, Oh! if this be our lot, as time shall expire, May we join the undying in heaven. Welcome, new year,-For labours of love, For a useful and holy career; And be this our solace and joy every day, That the Master and crown both are near. Paddington. "THE STILL SMALL VOICE." A "still small voice" is whispering It comes not in the whirlwind's roar, When angry billows lash the shore, And loud the tempests wail; But when night's silvery shades around The slumbering waters brood, There comes a soft and solemn sound, It whispers, God is good. It comes not in the thunder tones, But gently, when the moon's pale light O sinner, hear "the still small voice" REVIEW. THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION, Natural and Revealed, to the Course and Constitution of Nature: to which are added two brief dissertations; 1.-Of Personal Identity, II.-Of the Na ture of Virtue. By JOSEPH BUTLER, LL.D., late Lord Bishop of Durham. A new edition, with an Introductory Essay, by REV. ALBERT BARNES. London: J. C. Bishop, Aldine Cham bers; Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. 18mo., cloth, pp. 238. 1851. ment; and that nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world." Two philosophers rendered good service to the truth during this period; Locke, by his publications; and Newton by his discoveries. But infidelity was still proud and boastful; and it remained for another, far mightier for good than either, and equal with both in profound thought, to deal this phantom a deadly blow. DURING the reign of Charles I. and his son, England learnt lessons never to be Four years after the great revolution forgotten. The "divine right" preten- in 1688, the future champion, Butler, sions of the father stirred up the brave was born at Wantage in Berkshire. He to be free, and shewed the world that was the son of a respectable shopkeeper, Hampden dared to resist even a mon- of the Presbyterian persuasion, and was arch's claims when they were unjust, early sent to acquire the rudiments of and that in the defence of their birth- learning at a grammar school. It soon right, Britons would willingly lay down became evident to the father that his their lives. The brief interval afforded youngest son possessed for learning, both by the iron, but just rule of Cromwell, natural aptitude and strong inclinagave the mighty Milton opportunity to tion. He was consequently removed to an speak out against the tyranny of the academy of higher pretensions at Tewkes. church, and the shackles of the press. bury, with a view to his ultimate ordinaIf in the period of the Protectorate de- tion as a minister among the dissenters. bauchees were numerous, they were While here, he wrote privately to Dr. frowned into seeming sobriety; while Samuel Clarke on his celebrated Boyle's scepticism lurked only in secret places. lecture, which had just been published, The unblushing profligacy, however, of and suggested many difficulties with Charles II. and the importation from such ingenuity and depth as at once to France, not only of gold to buy the obtain the friendship of the doctor, who courtiers, but of much that passed for published these letters with the next learning in the shape of a shallow scep- edition of his lecture. Whether Butler ticism, scattered far and wide the bane- was at all influenced by Clarke or not, ful seeds of infidelity, the rank product in reference to his subsequent conduct, of which flourished with wild luxuriance cannot now be ascertained; but very long after the "merry monarch" was laid soon after his correspondence with him, in the tomb. The popish tendencies of he conformed to the established church, James II. did not materially check their and removing the same year to Oxford, growth; and even though on the acces- entered himself as a student at Oriel sion of the protestant Prince of Orange College. Four years after he took holy to the throne, infidelity might wither in orders, and was appointed preacher in the court, yet there still existed much of the chapel of the Master of Rolls. The its spirit among all classes of society. publication of the sermons delivered at It was vaunted that the religion of the that chapel gained him great reputation Bible was a child's fable and a priest's as a profound and original thinker. He stock-in trade; and "at length it was was then for a considerable time pastor taken for granted by many persons, of an obscure village; but as his friends that christianity was not so much as a were anxious for his advancement, Mr. subject of enquiry; but that it was now Secker, a fellow-student of Butler, who discovered to be fictitious: and accord had been made King's chaplain, took ingly they treated it as if this were an occasion to mention his name in a conagreed point among all people of discern-versation with Queen Caroline. VOL. 14.-N. S. Ꭰ Her Majesty, supposing he was dead, asked | unique. It was evidently little cared archbishop Blackburn if that were not for by the writer. There are no wellthe case. 66 No, madam," he replied, balanced periods, no forceful antitheses, "but he is buried." This jeu d'esprit no swelling climaxes. It is the lanonce more introduced him to notice, and guage of a close, consecutive thinker, he filled successively the posts of chap- who studiously avoids throughout the lain to Talbot the Lord Chancellor, pre-embellishments of the rhetorician. Each bend in the church of Rochester, clerk of the closet to the Queen,-in which year (1736) he published his famous Analogy of Religion, and two years afterwards obtained his highest preferment. He was wafted," says Horace Walpole, "to the see of Durham on a cloud of metaphysics.' Butler's enemies now taunted him with not using well the office of a bishop; and a charge to the clergy of his diocese on the subject of external religion, as well as the circumstance of his setting up a marble cross in his chapel at Bristol, were made to indicate a relish for popery. So far indeed did some carry this spleen, as to report on his death, two years after he was made bishop, that he died in the Catholic faith-a story, which it is but fair to state, was satisfactorily refuted by his former friend, archbishop Secker. While, however, Butler the prelate will be forgotten, Butler the author of the Analogy, the christian world will not willingly let die. In the execution of this work he devoted many of the best years of his life. The entire argument was carefully weighed over. Many parts were re-written. Unnecessary words were weeded out, and sentences curtailed, until each expressed the precise meaning intended. Twenty years were thus spent; and the consequence was, that his work came forth, not as the crude effort of a stripling, but as the master-piece of a mature thinker. "The Analogy of Religion to the Course of Nature," says Sir James Macintosh, "though only a commentary on the singularly original and pregnant passage of Origen, which is so honestly prefixed to it as a motto, is notwithstanding, the most original and profound work extant in any language on the philosophy of religion." Butler's style, like his argument, is sentence and paragraph fits, link-like, with its neighbours, and is necessary for its completeness. Yet the style often appears obscure, is generally stiff, and occasionally unwieldy. In the latter respect it reminds us of those ponderous claymores prevalent in his day, with which a stalwart arm might strike a mortal blow, but which are far too cumbrous for men of the present generation. But every defect in Butler's style may be overcome by the patience of the reader; and in every case, his pains will be amply rewarded. The design of the Analogy is not to show the truth of religion, but to show that it cannot be proved to be false. A great system of things is everywhere seen now actually going on in the world, and with this system, religion is shown to accord. The attacks, therefore, which are made on christianity, are to the same extent assaults on the course and constitution of nature, and cannot consequently be valid. By this style of reasoning the war is carried into the camp of the enemy. The mouth of the infidel is stopped; and he has neither ventured to patch up an answer to Butler, nor attempted to show, what indeed is impossible, the futility of his reasoning. The old plan is generally resorted to, that of dragging forth into the light timeworn objections, on which the master intellects of past days have indorsed "none effects.' As for Butler's argument itself, it is a compact whole, and we feel on this account considerable difficulty in presenting anything like a faithful abstract adapted to the limits of our pages. This argument will indeed admit of almost unlimited application, or rather amplification, as is shown in the "Introductory Essay" to the present volume, and in an elaborate article on "Reason and Faith," which recently appeared in the Edinburgh Review; but it will by no means allow of extensive compression. must therefore content ourselves with an enumeration of the title of each chapter, and one or two quotations. We Butler opens his argument with "that which is the foundation of all our hopes that we should, with regard to our temporal and fears, which are of any considera- interest, form and cultivate practical princition," namely, a future life. He then ples within us, by attention, use, and disciin the six following chapters treats re- pline, as anything whatever is a natural law; spectively, "of the government of God chiefly in the beginning of life, but also by rewards and punishments; of the throughout the whole course of it. And the alternative is left to our choice, either to immoral government of God; of the state of probation, as implying trials, difficul- in default of such improvement to remain deprove ourselves and better our condition, or, ties, and danger; of a state of proba- ficient and wretched. It is therefore pertion as intended for moral discipline and fectly credible, from the analogy of nature, improvement; of the opinion of neces that the same may be our case with respect to sity, considered as influencing practice: the happiness of a future state, and the qualiand of the government of God, consid-fications necessary for it."-pp. 115–116. ered as a scheme or constitution imperfectly comprehended." In speaking in chap. ii. on the fact "that all which we enjoy, and a greater part of what we suffer is put in our own power," and shewing how the consequences of rashness and folly in youth are felt throughout the whole course of mature life, he says: "Habits contracted, even in that age, are often utter ruin; and men's success in the world, not only in the common sense of worldly success, but their real happiness and misery, depends in a great degree, and in various ways, upon the manner in which they pass their youth; which consequences they for the most part, neglect to consider, and perhaps seldom can properly be said to believe beforehand..... .....If, during the opportunity of youth, persons are indocile and self-willed, they inevitably suffer in their future life, for want of those acquirements which they neglected the natural season of attaining. If the husbandman lets his seedtime pass without sowing, the whole year is lost to him beyond recovery, In like man ner, though, after men have been guilty of folly and extravagance, up to a certain degree, it is often in their power, for instance, to re. trieve their affairs, to recover their health and character, at least in good measure; yet real reformation is, in many cases, of no avail at all towards preventing the miseries, poverty, sickness, infamy, naturally annexed to folly and extravagance, exceeding that degree. There is a certain bound of imprudence and misbehaviour, which being transgressed, there remains no place for repentance in the natural course of things. It is further very much to be remarked, that neglect from inconsider ateness, want of attention, not looking about us to see what we have to do, are often attended with consequences altogether as dreadful as any active misbehaviour from the most extravagant passions."— p. 76. The second part of the Analogy treats but regret that our limits will only allow of "Revealed Religion;" and we cannot us to refer to the several headings of each chapter. They relate to "the importance of christianity; the supposed presumption against a revelation, considered as miraculous; our incapacity of judging what were to be expected in a revelation, and the credibility from analogy, that it must contain things appearing liable to objections; christianity considered as a scheme or constitution imperfectly comprehended; the particular system of christianity-the appointment of a Mediator, and the redemption of the world by him; the want of a universality in revelation, and the supposed deficiency in the proof of it; the particular evidence for christianity; and lastly, the objections which may be made against arguing from the analogy of nature to religion." We have also added at the end of this volume, two dissertations; one on "personal identity," well worthy of perusal; and another, "on the nature of virtue." The "Introductory Essay" to the present volume, by Rev. Albert Barnes, is designed "to give a specimen of the argument from analogy in support of the christian religion, without very closely following Butler; in order to excite enquiry, and lead those who may read it to a practical acquaintance with the Analogy itself." In this effort, the worthy author has given some very striking simplifications of various parts of Butler's argument. Take as an example the following, on "the probability of the present life being a state of probation." "The infidel objects that our previous rea soning is on mere probability, and that in concerns so vast, it is unreasonable to act without demonstration. We reply, that in few |