mind itself. The rationalist assumes, that God at the beginning, formed the world as a machine, with whose powers, having once set them in motion, he never interferes. This view is in the first piace false, but admitting its correctness, the conclusion drawn from it by the rationalist, is by no means, necessary. For granting that God does not interfere with the world, it does not follow that he cannot and will not. At most the improbability, but not the impossibility, of an immediate revelation follows from this view.

But the view itself is false; God is not a mechanist who having finished his work retires behind the life in the universe cannot be regarded as absolutely distinct from the life of God. God continues and supports the world by a continual creation, for such in fact is preservation. The life of the world is the breath of Jehovah; its active powers, the working of his omnipresence; the laws of nature are not therefore fixed once and forever. Augustin says, Lex naturæ is voluntas dei, et miraculum non fit contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura. The laws of nature are mere abstractions, which men make from the usual operations of God. It can therefore by no means, be said, that his unusual operations, as in immediate revelations and miracles, are violations of the laws of nature. There is no essential difference between immediate and mediate operations, it is merely the difference between unusual and usual And if God would reveal himself as a living and personal Being, these extraordinary operations of his power are essential, as they contain the proof that nature is not a piece of dead mechanism.

But the rationalist also endeavours to show the improbability of a revelation upon moral principles. He says, it would prove that God had made man imperfect, if later communications and revelations were necessary. But in this objection it is overlooked that man is not now,

as he was originally created. In his primitive state, an immediate revelation might not have been necessary, but in his fallen state, the case is essentially different. The rationalist further demands, why was the revelation not made immediately after the fall, before so many generations had passed away? To this we may answer, that God appears to have determined to conduct and educate the whole race as an individual, and in the idea of education, lies that of gradual progress.

Finally it is objected that the revelation is not universal. In answer to this we may say, that the difficulty press es the deist as much as the Christian, because it affects the doctrine of Providence. The deist makes religion and refinement the greatest blessings of men, but why has God left so many ages and nations destitute of these blessings? If the deist must confess his ignorance upon this point, why may not the Christian? Besides this, Christians themselves are to blame, that the Revelation has not been more extensively spread, why have they only within a few years awoke to the importance of this work? And why do the rationalists of all others, take the least interest in it? It may further be remarked, that the New Testament does not teach, that those who have never heard the Gospel, are (on this account) to be condemned. The apostle says, that God winked at the times of ignorance, that those who sin without law, shall be judged without law. And it may be hoped that as Christ is the only means of salvation, that those, who have not heard the Gospel here, may hear it hereafter. Peter says, "that the Saviour communicated the knowledge of his redemption, to those who had died before his appearance.

See in answer to Rohr's Letters on Rationalism, Zol lich's Lettres on Supernaturalism, 1821; and, see Titt mann on Naturalismus, Supernaturalismus, and Atheismus, Leipzig, 1816.

Bockshammer's Revelation and Theology,Studgart, 1820.

Gleanings.

I. On the Recent Elucidations of early Egyptian History. From The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and Art. New Series No. III.

Since the commencement of the present century, the researches of philologists have ascertained that the language of ancient Egypt-the language of the hieroglyphical inscriptions engraven on its ancient temples and monuments, and of the still existing manuscripts of the same period,differs from the modern Egyptian or Coptic, only in the mixture in the latter of many Greek and Arabian and a smaller portion of Latin words, introduced during the successive dominion of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Arabs, and occasionally substituted for the corresponding native words. The grammatical construction of the language has remained the same at all periods of its employment and it finally ceased to be a spoken language towards the middle of the seventeenth century, when it was replaced by the Arabian.

In writing their language, the ancient Egyptians employed three different kinds of characters. First, figurative; or representations of the objects themselves. Second, symbolic; or representations of certain physical or material objects, expressing metaphorically, or conventionally, certain ideas; such as, a people obedient to their king, figured, metaphorically, by a bee; the universe, conventionally, by a beetle. Third, phonetic, or representative of sounds; that is to say, strictly alphabetical characters. The phonetic signs were also portraits of physical and material objects; and each stood for the initial sound of the word in the Egyptian language which expressed the object pourtrayed: thus a lion was the sound L. because a lion was called Labo; and a hand a T, because a hand was called Tot. The form in which these objects were presented, when employed as phonetic characters, was

conventional, and definite to distinguish them from the same objects used either figuratively or symbolically; thus, the conventional form of the phonetic T was the hand open and outstretched; in any other form the hand would either be a figurative, or a symbolic sign. The number of distinct characters employed as phonetic signs appears to have been about 120; consequently many were homophones, or having the same signification. The three kinds of characters were used indiscriminately in the same writing, and occasionally in the composition of the same word. The formal Egyptian writing, therefore, such as we see it still existing on the monuments of the country, was a series of portraits of physical and material objects, of which a small proportion had a symbolic meaning, a still smaller proportion a figurative meaning, but the great body were phonetic or alphabetical signs: and to these portraits, sculptured or painted with sufficient fidelity to leave no doubt of the object represented, the name of hieroglyphics, or sacred characters, has been attached from their earliest historic notice.

The manuscripts of the same ancient period make us acquainted with two other forms of writing practised by the ancient Egyptians, both apparently distinct from the hieroglyphic, but which, on careful examination, are found to be its immediate derivatives; every hieroglyphic having its corresponding sign in the hieratic, or writing of the priests, in which the funeral ritual, forming a large portion of the manuscripts, are principally composed; and in the demotic, called also the enchorial, which was employed for all more ordinary and popular usages. The characters of the hieratic are for the most part obvious running imitations, or abridgements of the corresponding hieroglyphics; but in the demotic, which is still further removed from the original type, the derivation is less frequently and less obviously traceable. In the hieratic, fewer figurative or symbolic signs are employed than in the hieroglyphic; their absence being supplied by means of the phonetic or alphabetical characters, the words being spelt instead of figured; and this is still more the case in the dometic, which is, in consequence, almost entirely alphabetical.

After the conversion of the Egyptians to Christianity, the ancient mode of writing their language fell into disuse;

and an alphabet was adopted in substitution, consisting of the twenty-five Greek letters, with six additional signs expressing articulations and aspirations unknown to the Greeks, the characters for which were retained from the demotic. This is the Coptic alphabet, in which the Egyptian appears as a written language in the Coptic books and manuscripts preserved in our libraries; and in which, consequently, the language of the inscriptions on the monuments may be studied.

The original mode in which the language was written having thus fallen into disuse, it happened, at length, that the signification of the characters, and even the nature of the system of writing which they formed, became entirely lost; such notices on the subject as existed in the early historians being either too imperfect, or appearing too vague, to furnish a clue, although frequently and carefully studied for the purpose. The repossession of this knowledge will form, in literary history, one of the most remarkable distinctions, if not the principal, of the age in which we live. It is due primarily to the discovery by the French, during their possession of Egypt, of the since well-known monument called the Rosetta Stone, which, on their defeat and expulsion by the British troops, remained in the hands of the victors, was conveyed to England, and deposited in the British Museum. On this monument the same inscription is repeated in the Greek and in the Egyptian language, being written in the latter both in hieroglyphics and in the demotic or enchorial character. The words Ptolemy and Cleopatra,written in hieroglyphics, and recognized by means of the corresponding Greek of the Rosetta inscription, and by a Greek inscription on the base of an obelisk at Philæ, gave the phonetic characters of the letters which form those words: by their means the names were discovered, in hieroglyphic writing, on other monuments of all the Grecian kings and Grecian queens of Egypt, and of fourteen of the Roman emperors ending with Commodus; and by the comparison of these names one with another, the value of all the phonetic characters was finally ascertained.

The hieroglyphic alphabet thus made out has been subsequently applied to the elucidation of the earlier periods of Egyptian history, particularly in tracing the reigns and the succession of the Pharaohs, those native princes who