the final overthrow of the beast. When he speaks of the disciples forsaking the doctrine of the twelve apostles, and disputing about the nearness of the Advent, of great defections in doctrine, and few faithful teachers being left, his words must evidently refer to a date after the death of all the apostles. So far from proving, as the Professor argues, a Neronic date, the passage is conclusive for a later origin. Even down to the time of Victorinus the expectation continued, that Nero would revive, and be the last Antichrist. Hopes of the speedy return of Christ did not vanish with the first century, as Professor Stuart rashly affirms; and somewhere in the first half of the second century may be viewed, with tolerable certainty, as the date of this apocryphal work.

The remarks (I. 82-86) on the author and date of the second book of Esdras, are still more unhappy, and are indeed one tissue of errors. After the main part has been separated from the opening and closing chapters, which are ascribed to a Gentile Christian, the rest are assigned to an unbelieving Jew, at the close of the first century. Yet the marks of a Christian writer, though a Jewish Christian, are conspicuous in every part. Again, in xiii. 28, 29, we read, "For my son Jesus shall be revealed, with those that are with him, and they that remain shall rejoice, within four hundred years. After these years shall my son Christ die, and all men that have life." Here the Professor finds the Rabbinic creed of two Messiahs, one of them a son of Joseph, mortal and perishable, and adds that "such views of the Messiah are not Christian, for the Christians always represented a thousand years as the length of the Messianic reign." But he entirely forgets that the writer personates Ezra, in the days of the captivity. The Jews and many of the early Christians were accustomed to shorten the times of the Persian history. And hence the meaning is plainly that in 400 years from Ezra's vision, Jesus the Messiah would appear. The true interval, from the assumed date, is about 554 years; and the Jews, to this day, shorten the chronology to an equal extent. Or, if we reckon from the reign of Artaxerxes, ch. i. the contraction required is only sixty years. All is then consistent with the writer's assumed chronology. After Jesus has appeared, he himself will die, and all men will die also. Then will be a pause of seven days, before the general resurrection. The words of the writer are thus quite consistent with the views of the early Christians, and it is clear that he speaks of one Messiah only, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.

Again, the Professor "sees nothing against the supposition that the author has given the true date of the work, in 2 Esdr. iii. 1, "He was in Babylon (Rome) in the thirtieth year of the

46

PROFESSOR STUART ON THE APOCALYPSE.

ruin of the city." The passage plainly and unequivocally avows the ruinous condition of Jerusalem, and shews that the author must have lived after the destruction of that city by the Romans. That by Nebuchadnezzar is fairly out of the question, considering the other historical matter to which the work adverts."

Never surely did learned exegesis prove itself more grievously illogical. The Professor still forgets that the writer personates Ezra, and that Ezra was assuredly not living after "the destruction of the city by the Romans." The remarks are thoroughly absurd, on the least reflection. The false Ezra speaks, prophetically, of many later events, but his own time is supposed, throughout, to be in the Babylonish captivity. This is itself an anachronism of near a century, and thus frees the explanation above offered, of the 400 years, from all difficulty.

We have, however, two other indications of the real date, which the Professor has overlooked, or entirely misconceived. First, the angel tells Ezra, that the world's age has twelve parts, of which ten are past, and half of a tenth past. Our author, unwisely, prefers a various reading of ten parts, instead of twelve, which makes the whole passage nonsense, without a second alteration. But the real meaning is not difficult to trace. Six thousand years, the traditional age of the world, contains twelve parts of five centuries each. Of these the writer supposed ten and a half, or 5250 years to be passed in the time of Ezra. Four centuries more were assigned, till the coming of Christ; so that the residue would be 350 years. We might lessen this period fifty years, if we suppose the writer to have placed Ezra at his real distance from our Saviour, and that 400 years is only a round number. There would then result A.C. 300, as his conjectural date for the end of the world. And from these data alone we may infer that the author could scarcely be earlier than the close of the second century.

We may, however, gain still fuller light on the date of the writer, from the prophecy of the eagle, ch. xi. xii. The twelve great feathers, as all may see, denote the twelve Cæsars, from Julius to Domitian. Then follow several reigns, not reckoned by number, which may denote the Emperors from Nerva to Commodus. Then a time of confusion begins. The two feathers that were set up, and shortly appeared no more, answer well to Pertinax and Didius Julianus. The two that remained will denote the provincial generals, Albinus and Niger, who sought to rule after the death of Julianus. The three heads who awake, and devour these, are Severus and his two sons, under whom, for the first time, Rome saw three joint Emperors. The oppressive rule

of the great head answers exactly to the character of Severus. After this head falls, the one on the right hand devours the other on the left; or after the death of Severus, who " died on his bed, and yet with pain," Caracalla murders his brother Geta, and was himself murdered by Macrinus. Macrinus himself, and his son, answer to the two last feathers, whose kingdom was small and full of uproar. And thus the forgery is fixed to a data, shortly after their fall, which took place A.D. 218. The two marks of time therefore agree, and assign the work to the first quarter of the third century.

THE FEMALE VISITOR TO THE POOR; or, Records of Female Parochial Visiting. By A CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER. London: Seeleys. 1846.

THIS is an exceedingly useful and interesting volume. By simply and modestly detailing what has been done, it shews every one desirous of benefiting his fellow-creatures, what may be done. So successfully does the writer keep herself in the background, that the reader is in doubt, when the volume has been perused, what share the writer herself may have taken, in the various works of mercy she so well describes. For the most part she appears only as the spectator,-the chronicler of the merciful deeds of others. Take an instance :

"On a cold bleak day in January, I had been the beloved visitor's privileged companion to the hamlet. Before we started on our homeward drive, she stopped at the wicket gate of this cottage garden, saying, ' I must go in here to see a poor dying girl.' We entered and found the mother employing herself below. How is your child to-day?' Very bad indeed; I don't think there's any chance of her mending now.' Shall I go up and speak to her? O yes, if you like;' and she opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, and going up first, and shouting the visitor's name with a loud harsh voice in the deafened ear of her dying child, instantly withdrew.

"It seemed, by contrast, like an angel presence that drew near with its perfect gentleness to the low and wretched bed on which the sufferer lay. Kind enquiry was made in a voice distinct, but lower far than the mother's in its tone, Well, Harriet, how are you to-day?' Very ill! very ill!' The laboured utterance was slow, and death it was evident was drawing near. The visitor seated herself close by the bed on an old chair: I looked round the comfortless apartment, and took my seat on a box under the lattice-window which was shaking with the wintry wind. The bed was opposite to me, but not very near, the room being rather large. The poor girl appeared to be about seventeen years of age. There were traces of past beauty on her countenance, now worn with suffering, and pale with the hue of death. Her large dark expressive eyes were turned with earnest heed upon the friend beside her. I heard the questions put, but scarcely remem

ber to have caught the faint replies. I heard the words of comfort and encouragement addressed, but I knew not then whether the listener's heart was capable or not of full response.

"It was a solemn thing to gaze upon that fading flower, lingering its life away within a home as cold as the frozen earth without. Could the heart of the dying child be as frost-bound as the home within which she was laid to suffer and to die? Might it not be animated with love, hope, fear? and must it perish under the cold world's breath, and find no warm refuge in which to repose and live? Such questions might well arise within the gazer's heart, for, dear reader, the life and death of the cottage girl is in itself all one with yours or mine, and one in the estimation of the Lord of both, for there is no respect of persons with God. Such questions, I say, might well arise, but the living answer was before me. She who bent over the dying girl was one whose spirit glowed with heaven's warm love, one whose heart was open to the lowliest seeker for the blessing of its kindly warmth. To that dear child it had drawn near, again and again winning her to itself, that it might lead her to the feet of Him whose name is love; to whom her swiftly ebbing life might flow to be safely 'hid' till the resurrection morn, when He, the Lord of Life, shall restore her purified spirit to its raised and glorified body, to droop and die no more, but to be as 'the angels of God in heaven.'

While I thus sat gazing on the two, the visitor enquired, 'Tell me, would you rather live, or die?' "Go to glory!' was the emphatic reply. Is there any text that comes to your mind with comfort now?' Then in a moment she looked upward, not to her friend, but towards heaven, with a look of such fixed and intense earnestness, I can see it even now, though years lie between that day and this; and the very sound of her dying voice, so loud and so distinct in its effort, thrills me even now as then. The Lord God is a sun and shield! He will give grace and glory! No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.' Dear reader, was it nothing worth to have borne to the dying child the knowledge of a shield' from the stroke of death, of a sun' to break upon her view beyond the cold, dark grave? Nay! to have led her spirit even now beneath its penetrating warmth and light, and so to annihilate death and the grave in their terrors, by making them only the dark shadow under which the spirit lost to our dim vision, passes to the light and love of heaven? If you possess and duly prize this hope for yourself, you will not rest but in the ceaseless effort to communicate it to those who have it not, and yet must perish without it.

"As we pursued our homeward way, I asked for Harriet's history. She had been a child, it seemed, of early promise, but in her youth had turned aside to the world's vanities: sickness surprized her, the voice of instruction was blessed, and she returned to the feet of her forgiving Saviour.

"On entering the hamlet early in the following week, we heard that Harriet had departed not many hours before. After the Scripture Reading, her friend learnt all that was known of her death, from an excellent and kind-hearted woman, in every sense a neighbour' of the poor girl's. I listened with the deepest interest, and can still remember her words. 'I went in yesterday to see her: I thought her very bad, and near her end. Some other neighbours were there, for her mother didn't care to come near her. As the evening closed in, the rest went away, and I was left alone with her. I would have staid all night, for I saw she could not hold it long, but her mother came to the stairs and called out that I had better go. I said, I thought the girl was dying, but she said she didn't think it. I felt I could not stay against her mother's will, so I stooped down and said, 'Harriet, I am going home now.' She looked up in my face and said, 'So am I soon!' I left her, and this morning I heard that she was dead.'

"We walked silent and thoughtful to the cottage.-We found the mother washing below. So your poor girl is gone! Yes, she died last night,' said the mother.

We should like to see her poor remains: may we go up?'

O yes, if you wish it. I havn't been; I could not get myself to look: I never saw my other child after she was dead: she was eleven when she died.' "We entered the chamber of death. The lifeless form was laid upon the same wretched bed, decently arrayed by the hands of neighbours. I looked for the same earnest suffering countenance, but O how changed!-emblem of the freed spirit's perfect rest. I could not refrain from uttering, How beautiful! The smile that curved the lips was one that seemed to betoken some sense of deep calm happiness to which the parted lips seemed ready to give expression. While I lingered at a little distance, her blessed guide on earth stood over her, as silent as the form she looked upon, but in her silence she still seemed to question, and the happy one to make reply.

"Dear pilgrim child! I see thy weary spirit hath found rest, what wouldst thou say to me ?'-' All men forsook mé, yet I was not alone, for my Father was with me; and one like Him of whom I have read as the Son of man, drew near to me and said, 'Fear not, I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.' So into His pierced hands I did commend my spirit. I feared no evil, for He was with me, and by His light I walked through darkness. We entered in through the gates into the city, and now I am at home, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. Where they that be wise do shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever?' -(pp. 57-61.)

One more passage we must give, or at least a portion of it :—

"John was a respectable labourer, residing in a little country village, blessed with many privileges; but while living in the midst of them, this poor man manifested no value for them, beyond a formal attendance at church, and sending his children to a Sunday-school. After many years' residence, he quitted the place for an adjoining parish, and for a considerable time nothing further was heard of him. At length a poor woman, an inhabitant of the village he had left, brought a distressing report of the state of his health: he was suffering, and had been for long, with a cancer in the jaw, which now appeared hastening rapidly to a fatal termination. The account was accompanied by a pressing intreaty on the part of the poor woman, that a visit might be paid to the sufferer. His former minister went in consequence to see his old parishioner, and had some conversation with him, and would have continued to visit him, but for his own weakened health, and the difficulty of reaching the cottage, which lay much beyond his usual sphere of labour. The poor woman, the sufferer's friend, now dwelt upon his pitiable case to another member of her minister's family, intreating that the dying man might be visited. An unusual pressure of engagements, and the distance of the cottage, were obstacles in the way; but the secret of the long delay, the often-deferred intention that ensued, was the hopeless, faithless view that was taken of the case. Here was a dying man, who had left a situation, in which the way of salvation by Jesus Christ was constantly set before him, not only indifferent, but ignorant, in consequence of his lengthened indifference; unable to read, and this always leaves the poor the subjects of an intenser darkness, and destitute of the material to work with which a knowledge of the sacred letter of Scripture furnishes,-distracted by his sufferings, clinging to the faintest hope of life, and in deep depression. It was from such an one, how strange or sad soever it may seem, that the invited friend shrunk back. Weeks were suffered to pass by, again was the earnest request repeated by the poor woman, who felt unable herself to teach the dying man, and who was only anxious for his soul. The resolution was then taken, and with a spirit faint from lack of hope, the cottage was sought. It was pleasantly situated on the side of a steep hill, very solitary, and removed back from the narrow lane which intersected the village. Leaving