their warfare are carnal; and because not carnal they are mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strong holds. Hence this kingdom is at once designed and adapted for universal prevalence, and is distinguished by perpetuity and celestial glory.

This kingdom is found on earth in its commencement; it is found in heaven in its consummation. It is called emphatically the kingdom of heaven, not only because it is found in its perfect state only in the heavenly world, but also because it is the re-establishment on earth of the principles which have ever prevailed in heaven. Moreover, the subjects of this kingdom are all tending thither. Heaven is perpetually attracting to itself all kindred elements. There all the subjects of this kingdom shall meet at last, and there they shall dwell for ever. This is the kingdom of heaven which is promised to the poor in spirit, and which none else can inherit.

Before we close these remarks we may advert for a moment to the richness, as well as the wondrous adaptation, of this promise to the characters described. To the poor is promised a kingdom; to the poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven. What adaptation, and, at the same time, what munificence is here! It had been much if Jesus had said, "Blessed are the poor, for all their wants shall be supplied:" but he goes far beyond this; he gives them a kingdom! He raises them from the deepest distress and places them amongst princes. And this rich inheritance is suited to their character. Their poverty is not outward, but inward; and their inheritance is not an earthly kingdom, but the kingdom of heaven,—a spiritual, glorious kingdom, which will never pass away.

Reader, is this kingdom yours?—now yours ?-for ever yours? It is proffered to all to whom the gospel comes; but it can be enjoyed only by the poor in spirit; and to them it is freely given.

SPANISH MIRACLES.

objects of blind adoration.

There was there an image of the Virgin Mary, which had the miraculous property of weeping. Many a time have I seen it, with the big tears trickling down its cheeks, and I, as all others, believed it to be unquestionably a miracle. When the insurgents penetrated into the chapel, as I have above stated, they tore the image down from its niche, and discovered behind its head small tubes conducting from a basin in which water was poured; and thus the image wept.

IN 1835, the liberal government of | altars, which had so long been the Spain, at the head of which was queen Christina, since the death of Ferdinand VII. in 1833, was unable any longer to withstand the insurgents, and ordered that all the monastic communities should be dispersed, and their convents destroyed, which was done in many places. The 6th of July was the day appointed for the formal suppression of our convent. The Justicia, or civil officers, presented themselves, and, in the name of the queen, declared the community to be dissolved, and delivered to each monk a passport to return to his native place. But before we had time to leave the convent, the leaders of the insurgents of Olot rushed in, and began their work of destruction. The crowd soon hastened to the chapel, and tore down the pictures and the

Another similar discovery was made in our vicinity. In the town of Baguet there was a church which was celebrated far and wide for containing a figure of the Saviour, called the "Santa Majestad," or Sacred Majesty. It had the appearance of being covered with a shining

CAPTAIN KEMP.

CAPTAIN KEMP was one of a numerous class, who, in early life are induced by a spirit of enterprise and flattering prospects, to try their fortunes in the east. His mother was a member of the baptist church in Devonshire Square, and carefully instilled into the youthful mind of her bold and adventurous son, the principles of her faith. A sea-faring life, with rising prospects of multiplying temptations, soon obliterated all religious thoughts and impressions, till at length sceptical, or rather infidel, opinions, took possession of his mind. Still, from early habit and fond recollections of home, he did not wholly estrange himself from Christian worship. At the time when Dr. Carey and his associates were conducting their missionary operations in full vigour, and when the doctor himself statedly preached, Captain Kemp was an occasional hearer, when

his ship was in port. At the close of one of his discourses the preacher made an appeal to unbelievers and rejecters of Christ, in language which he was in the frequent habit of employing, and remarked, that if such objections should prove right, it would not materially affect believers; but, said he, in conclusion, "If we should be right, what will become of you ?” This pointed interrogation, like the arrow from the bow drawn at a venture, which reached a king's heart, penetrated the conscience of the gay captain, and never ceased to affect him till he became a humble penitent at the foot of the cross of Christ.-Hoby's Memoir of Yates.

Captain Kemp rendered important assistance afterwards to our mission in India, by conveying missionaries in his vessel free of expense.

SCHOLASTIC DISPUTATION.

THE schoolmen gloried in dispensing with texts of scripture. Thus it was boasted among them, that "there was a disputation that lasted the whole of the sixth of July from morning till night,

and which was conducted with so much subtlety that during the whole time not one word of the scripture was quoted.”Birt's Patristic Evenings.

A HARD HEARTED CREDITOR.

An honest lawyer of Brecon, who un- Mr. Cottle, of Bristol, but as your husfortunately adopted the notion that he band owed me money, I shall carry it was a poet, and to substantiate his claim to the credit of his account;" when, published a book, died soon after, leaving buttoning his pocket, he walked away. his widow in straitened circumstances. I immediately sent her another guinea, Meeting with a gentleman who was and requested her not to name so disgoing to Brecon, says Mr. Cottle, I re- reputable an action in one from whom quested the favour of him to convey to I had hoped better conduct. This genher a guinea, as a small present. A tleman, till the period of his death, week after, I received a letter from the twenty years after, always shunned me! widow, thanking me for my kind re- At the time the abstraction took place, membrance, but she said that she was he was a wealthy man, and kept his not benefited by it, as Mr. said carriage; but from that time he declined to her, "This is a guinea sent to you by in prosperity, and he died in indigence.

REVIEW S.

A Treatise on the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ, and its Relation to the Principles and Practice of Christianity. By WILLIAM STROUD, M.D. London: Hamilton and Adams. 8vo. pp. x. 496. THE aim of the pious author of this work is to illustrate by medical science the most important event that ever took place. The death of the incarnate Son of God, being the basis of all wellfounded human hope, is interesting beyond all comparison to every man who appreciates rightly the love which it exhibited and the advantages which it secures. Personal affection for the adorable sufferer naturally inclines the devout believer to meditate on the scene; every expression that fell from the Redeemer's lips, and every incident that can throw light on his emotions, are worthy of consideration; and if physiology can do anything to elucidate the facts of the history, every enlightened Christian will be ready to welcome its aid.

Three circumstances connected with the dying sufferings of our Lord must strike an intelligent reader of the New Testament as extraordinary. The first is the early termination of those sufferings; a termination which took place before it was expected by the actors in the scene, and much more speedily than was common among persons doomed to the same punishment. The Jewish rulers, knowing that the death of the culprits was not to be expected on the day in which they were crucified, were anxious that it might be expedited, so that the bodies might be removed from the crosses before the commencement of the sabbath; but when the soldiers came to execute the order which had been obtained, they found that Jesus was dead already. Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and requested permission to remove the body of his deceased friend; "Pilate marvelled if he were already dead;" and it was not till he had ascertained the fact from the centurion that he consented. The object was that the bodies should be removed before six in the evening, and it was not till nine in the forenoon that they had been nailed to the crosses. Our Lord died when he

had been crucified but six hours. Now the death of crucifixion was proverbially lingering. The sufferer was worn out by pain, and thirst, and hunger, but the wounds inflicted on his hands and feet were not necessarily or immediately fatal. No vital part was injured; no large vesseltorn. The local inflammation would cause sympathetic fever: throbbing headache, intense thirst, restlessness, and anxiety would follow. When suppuration set in, the fever would abate; but the wound being prevented from healing, suppuration would continue and the fever would assume a hectic character, and sooner or later would exhaust the powers of life. When the inflammation of the wounds produced mortification, nervous depression would be the immediate consequence, and the sufferer would sink rapidly. No longer sensible of pain, his anxiety and sense of prostration would become excessive; hiccup would supervene, his skin would be moistened with a cold clammy sweat, and death would ensue. It was in this manner that death on the cross must have taken place, in an ordinarily healthy constitution. The wounds in themselves were not mortal; but, as long as the nails remained in them, the inflammation must have increased in intensity till it produced gangrene. Thirty-six hours would be an early period for death to be caused by crucifixion in a healthy adult forty-eight hours would be far more common. When Felix Carey was in Burmah, he interceded successfully with the viceroy for a man who was crucified; he took him down after he had been nailed up more than six hours, carried him home, and dressed his wounds. The sufferer was able to sit up the next day, and eventually was cured. Josephus tells of three of his own acquaintances whom he had recognized on crosses at a village called Thecoa, and who at his request were taken down, of whom one survived, though two expired in the hands of the physicians. Captain Clapperton, writing on the capital punishments inflicted in Soudan, as quoted by Dr. Stroud, says, "I was told, as a matter of curiosity, that wretches on the cross generally

;

It has very commonly been remarked that the Saviour had been brought into a state of exhaustion previously by the sufferings he had undergone during the preceding night and early in the morning; but Dr. Stroud observes that "the scourging, mockery, and labour of carrying the cross, were not in themselves more distressing to Jesus than to the malefactors who accompanied him his fasting and watching had not, at furthest, continued longer than from the preceding evening;-his removal from place to place was not likely to be attended with much fatigue, since all the places lay within a narrow compass; -and heat of climate could not have been very oppressive in Jerusalem at the vernal equinox, to a native of the country; more especially when it is considered that, during the last three hours of his life, from the sixth to the ninth hour, the sun was obscured, and that in the much hotter climate of central Africa crucified persons usually live three days on the cross." Nor had the preliminary outrages produced such visible effects as to prevent Pilate, who had known of them, from expressing surprise at his early death. Nor do they account for his loud cry just before he expired, which Matthew Henry says was a sign that after all his pains and fatigues his life was whole in him, and nature strong." "The voice of dying men," adds that celebrated commentator, "is one of the first things that fail."

Another explanation of the fact given by eminent writers, both in ancient and modern times, has been that when Jesus had hung upon the cross six hours he voluntarily relinquished life. This view of the case is certainly congenial with expressions he had used some weeks before, when he said, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." The reference of this language may be, however, to his voluntarily placing himself in the way of his foes when he knew that his hour was come, and refraining from the use of any means to protect

himself, or induce his enemies to let him go. "That it was in the power of Christ to avoid such a death," says the author of the work before us, "had he chosen to renounce the object of his mission, is evident amongst other reasons from his miraculous overthrow of the hostile band in the garden of Gethsemane; from his question to Peter,Thinkest thou that I cannot even now request my Father, and he would send to my aid more than twelve legions of angels? [but] how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, [which declare] that thus it must be ?'-and from his remark to Pilate,-"Thou wouldst not have had any authority at all against me, had it not been given to thee from above.' In all the scriptural allusions to this subject, the death intimated, although voluntary, is moreover represented, not as self-inflicted, but as penal and vicarious," page 58. On such a subject as this we would write with great diffidence; but, though we have been accustomed to interpret our Lord's language respecting his power to lay down his life, as indicating that his relinquishment of life when all was finished" was his own act, we cannot deny that this view is open to some grave objections. If this were the case, death was to him an entirely different thing from what it is to us. Death, that terrible infliction which is regarded with so much dismay is to men in general the deprivation of life, not by their own active agency, life being forced from them by physical causes; while death, to him, according to this hypothesis, was the relieving himself from suffering, an act by which he authoritatively put an end to his anguish. He had never made use of his superhuman powers to supply his own bodily wants, but had refused when tempted to do so after his long fast in the wilderness. Had he turned the stones into bread, he would not have been an example of the endurance of extreme destitution to his brethren who could not work miracles. He had never apparently made use of those powers to mitigate the pains inflicted upon him by his foes, or render himself insensible to any of the hardships pertaining to the lot of suffering humanity. It was something new-something quite distinct from his previous course-if when his life was still whole within him, he withdrew himself from further suffering, and from the endurance of those peculiar