current proof from fact, evincing that the wisdom and love of God can transmute the blackest crime into a source of blessings, and elicit the most glorious hopes from the profoundest anguish,-what contrary appearances should thenceforth cause us to stagger, through unbelief?" We may still have frequent reason to feel, this is, indeed, in my own weak and narrow view, a terrible and overwhelming mystery; or that, although of a minute character, by many undiscerned-and by multitudes never thought of in its moral aspect-remains to me a most perplexing and insidious fact. But yet, were a thousand more such distressing enigmas of evil placed under our review, it would behove us to conclude with hope as well as submission,-all these are within the instant solution and the curative or compensating resources of Omnipotent Beneficence: all shall co-operate for good in his hand who wields eternity and immensity to achieve the structure of his own glory; who has revealed also not the mere vastness but the inventiveness, so to speak, of his remedial wisdom and love, and from those appalling, agonizing scenes" accomplished at Jerusalem," called forth the lustre of innumerable graces, and the promise of unfading joys. When we think of what Omnipotence can do, and of what Love has done, shall we not feel bound to say"Is there any thing too hard for Jehovah?" We

may rise higher and higher towards this devout and delightful assurance, but after the most arduous effort of reason, and the most solemn aspiration of faith, we must be conscious that there are heights where it would be incomparably more complete, since " as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts."

It is not at all to be doubted, that, even for the highest of created minds, there must remain in the divine administration mysteries unsolved; and that their successive, though still partial solution, must be one of those ever-new satisfactions which the recesses of endless futurity reserve. But we can well conceive, that, after the first series of such solutions, all distrustful and painful doubt concerning what shall remain or accrue will utterly subside, and be converted into a tranquil, and unhesitating, though still astonished faith. Thus, in the present life, after having studied some dark predictions of Daniel or Isaiah, and found them marvellously and undeniably fulfilled, we are prepared to await, with far more confidence, the fulfilment of other prophecies which may still remain in unrelieved obscurity. And thus also the experience of memorable difficulties and singular extrications, in our own personal course, has often a measure of like salutary influence.

But when we shall pass into a second state of being, and shall find many, perhaps all, the mysteries which distressed us here, scattered by the first daybreak of another region, then must we, of necessity, attain a new and transporting reliance on the Infinite Revealer. New "clouds and darkness," indeed, awful in their majesty, may still be gathering "round about his throne"; but it will be never possible to forget what doubts and terrors and despondencies were turned to praises, in that moment when the curtain of mortality was rent; and we shall hail those new secrets of heaven which cannot be too vast or multiplied, since they are all to be prolific, at length, of new adoration and delight.

ON THE DIFFICULTIES OCCURRING IN REVEALED TRUTH, AND IN THE STUDY OF SCRIPTURE.

WE are often, it may be, much disturbed, when meditating on revealed truth, and particularly when reading the scriptures, by philosophical, critical, or moral difficulties, or by miscellaneous objections and suspicions, which our minds rather insinuate in passing, than distinctly and formally present. Thus the very exercises which have been justly commended and enjoined, as especial means, of growth in piety and happiness, are frequently rendered to us an occasion for conflict and discouragement. This is a source of grief, not only at the time, but in the recollection that such is our propension of mind; and it is aggravated by observing, that many excellent Christians do not appear to share it. We could, indeed, view this with complacency as the privilege of the poor and un

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learned;-that of having their speculative difficulties less and fewer, while their other trials may be more severe. If we observe their happy simplicity, and sometimes sigh to be partakers of it, there is no contempt in the perception, and no bitterness in the wish. But when persons of finished education, and enlightened understanding, appear not only not to feel, but scarcely to discover difficulties; when, having no such trials to interrupt their comfort in religious thought or scriptural study, they hardly comprehend or sympathize with those who deplore them,-when we even find something of this characteristic in certain expository writers respectable for learning and honoured for devotion,-we are apt to repine, and sometimes to despond. We ask ourselves, how is it that these Christians of our own class enjoy while we suffer; that they are edified and animated while we are "shaken in mind and troubled;" that they can say cordially, Thy testimonies are my delight," while we have much more cause to say, "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law:" "let the crooked be made straight, and the rough places plain." We regard the dissimilar experience of such persons, sometimes with discouragement and envy at their "unmoveable" and triumphant faith, sometimes with a half-grieved, half-proud (perhaps half complacent) suspicion of their want of intellec

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