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imagining land about forty miles distant, according to his reckoning. A thought struck him to open the Bible before he dropped asleep. It lay within reach of his hand, and he opened upon these words: "And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south." (Acts viii. 26.) A sense of immediate danger took possession of his mind, and exclaiming involuntarily, " Truth, Lord!" he sprang on deck. It was then about four o'clock of a winter's morning, and looking up, a star or two was twinkling here and there through the gloomy vault, but the tempest was tremendous. He ordered a man aloft to look out-the waves ran so high and furious there was little chance to see anything from deck. "Look right to leeward," said the captain, apprehending danger from that quarter. In a few moments there was a cry from the rigging, "Breakers ahead, sir!" "Where away!" The answer confirmed his singular impression, and he instantly ordered the helmsman to keep her away south; the ship obeyed, and barely escaped destruction; and that night they entered the Shannon all well. Thus the Bible, that had been the means of saving his soul from sin and hell, seems to have been the means also of saving him and his crew from a watery grave!

6. It is thus in matters of doctrine: when a man is perplexed by temptation and darkness and skepticism, he may find the true point of his spiritual course, as well as his peril, by consulting the Bible! Let him, in doing so, pay attention to the impression it may make upon his mind, and govern himself accordingly. This little anecdote may be of some use to you. Ponder it. Watch and pray, and steer as the New Testament may direct. From this hour may you never look upon the Bible without those lines occurring to your mind:

"May this blest volume ever lie
Close to my heart, and near my eye;
Till life's last hour my soul engage,

Be this my chosen heritage!"

7. Whether he was a friend or foe to your faith, who perplexed you so on Gen. ii. 17, judge for yourself after pondering the following hints: "For on the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die "—or as the Hebrew has it, "dying thou shalt die "-the same as if God had said, "Thy body shall cease to be immortal, and shall gradually tend toward death. Thy soul shall instantly lose its spiritual life, which consists of union and fellowship with me, its Author;-thy soul shall become dead to the life of communion with me, as thy body shall be dead when thy soul has been separated from it. Continuing thus, thy separation from life and peace must be eternal, which is the second death." Disobedience followed. Now, had the fruit of that forbidden tree remained untasted, man had never died; and, most likely, neither spiritual, temporal, nor eternal death had ever befallen the family of man. Yet, from all this, the doctrine of annihilation can no more be extracted than oil out of flint; no, not by the most forced or strained method of interpretation.

8. "Earnest objections," I admit, have been made by infidels in every age against that plain account of the fall of man in the Book of Genesis; yet I have never met one that was able to propose anything better. "Alphonso the Wise," as he was called, but one called him "Alphonso the Fool, rather," was impious enough to declare that had the Maker of the universe consulted him at the creation, he could have given him hints for the improvement of his plan; thus boasting that had

he been of God's council, many things had been advised and ordered better than they now are. Alas for the royal brains of Alphonso! His own plans needed mending in the government of his country. And what answer could he give his God when standing before his tribunal? "God is not mocked" with impunity.

9. The expulsion from the garden, and the sword of flame at the gate through which the guilty pair passed, and, indeed, the entire destruction of the garden, were all necessary acts of mercy: "lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever." A terrible calamity would that have been! A deathless union between soul and body—an eternal old age, with all the attendant evils now known in the lot of man, afflictions, temptations, sins, sorrows, and sufferings, yet incapable of death! What a horrible state of things! There are five prophetical months indicated in Rev. ix. 6, when men shall endure such torments that death in any form would be a boon. "And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it, and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them." Imagine the frenzy during such a state of things! Picture to yourself the state of our world thus circumstanced if but for a thousand years only!—that plaintive cry of Job saluting us in every direction: "Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures?"—unwilling to end life with their own hands, but rushing into scenes where death is most likely to meet them-as some who have been known to rush into the battle-field, hoping that a ball from an enemy's gun might do that for them which they had not courage to do for them

selves! Such "heroes" have performed wonderful exploits on the field of blood and desperation.

Perhaps you have not met with those lines by one of the Latin poets:

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Seeing that long life is both useless and burdensome,

When we can no longer live comfortably, shall we be permitted to die? Oh! how hard is the condition on which we hold life!

For death is not subjected to the will of man.

To die is sweet to the wretched; but wished-for death flees away.

Yet when it is not desired, it comes with the hastiest strides."

CHAPTER XLI.

THE TRUTH OF GOD DEFENDED.

T is a long time ago since it was said of Truth, that she seldom appears in public without a scratched face! Men hate her so! Sometimes, indeed, she comes too near the heel of Error, and gets knocked down for her pains. But her wounds, thank God, are never mortal, nor incurable. Her Lord, who healed the ear of Malchus, is never less kind to Truth, his own representative upon earth. As some poet says, though crushed to earth, she is sure to rise again, for the eternal years of God are hers! Error, like the vicious horse, that wounded himself in hitting against a spike, writhes and dies in the midst of its admirers.

2. There is a difference between yonder old oak on the heights, and that willow on the verge of the swamp. The oak contends with the furious blast, and roots itself deeper by the fray. It is its nature to do so; and the soil on which it grows, and where it has been so long nourished, supports it in the conflict. But the willow-it is its nature to yield—a good illustration of the presence or absence of principle. I remember reading of a celebrated English statesman, who contrived to hold office both under the government of Queen Mary the Papist, and Queen Elizabeth the Protestant. One

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