scription, they treasure none. They seem to either not hear, or they understand slowly, or forget with speed. We have been naming some out of the kind which obtains their attention and their recollections. We will now notice one or two out of the mass of items, such as they either do not learn, or do not hold.

CHAPTER IV.

FACTS, SUCH AS UNBELIEVERS DO NOT LEARN.

UNDER this head it matters not where we begin ;There is no necessity that we should quit the Record already before us. If you will go to that opposer of Christianity, who appeals loudly to that part of Chinese chronology already discussed, and ask him a few questions, you will find that part of Asiatic history with which he is utterly unacquainted. Ask him what he thinks, when the Chinese history speaks of Yao, their king, declaring, that in his reign, the sun stood so long above the horizon that it was feared the world would have been set on fire; and fixing the reign of Yao at a given date, which corresponds with the age of Joshua, the son of Nun-(See Stackhouse)-you will find, in nine cases out of ten, the objector knows nothing of that part of the Chinese Record. Out of the countless items of this character, which, if compiled, would fill so many cumbrous volumes, he has treasured scarcely one: his taste has not craved them with avidity, or he remembers not. We are not now speaking merely of the unlettered and the feeble-minded. This is true of the senator in legislative halls; of the minister plenipotentiary to foreign courts; of the man

whose information seems to extend almost everywhere. Of the Bible, and of ancient literature connected with with the Bible, he is uninformed: the cause is his appetite for darkness rather than light. The Latin Poet (Ovid) amuses the school-boy greatly, in his fanciful narrative of Phæton's Chariot. This heathen author tells us, that a day was once lost, and that the earth was in great danger from the intense heat of an unusual sun. It is true, that in attempting to account for this incident of peril and of wonder, the writer, as was his custom at all times, consulted only his imagination, and clothed it all with an active fancy. But our notice is somewhat attracted, when we find him mention Phaeton, (who was a Canaanitish prince,) and learn that the fable originated with the Phoenicians, the same people whom Joshua fought. If you will ask an unbeliever of these incidents, or of the common tradition with early nations, that a day was lost about the time when the volume of truth informs us that the sun hasted not to go down for the space of a whole day, you will find that he had never thought on these points;-they are not of the character which he is inclined to notice.

Let not the young reader suppose for one moment, that if the many octavo volumes which might be made, were really filled by the compilation of such items, and placed in his hands, that this would constitute the evidences of Christianity. Far from it. These books would scarcely form an introduction to that entire subject. Such corroborative history or traditional fragments are mentioned here, because they serve to exhibit the fact, that man is inclined to the side of error, (without knowing it,) in matters of religion. The way in which things have been and are received, exhibits our disposition unequivocally; and it is so important that we know plainly, whether

men by nature, do or do not turn away from holy light, that we will pursue this branch of the subject a little farther. The cases to be cited are merely several, (serving as samples,) out of a multitude, almost endless, which any one may witness who is much in the habit of exchanging sentiments with his fellow-creatures.

CHAPTER V.

MEN RECEIVE TRUTH SLOWLY: BUT ERROR PROMPTLY.

THE author once conversed with a talented statesman, and in the confidence of a private and social interview, inquired after the main prop of his unbelief. He answered that he had read a statement in a respectable print, which seemed to him as strong, indeed, against the common faith. It was that, at a given spot in Europe, bones had been found under a rock six hundred feet in depth. He said the Mosaic account allowed the world a youthful date: but that to him it was utterly incredible that a sheet of rock could be formed and grow above those bones, six hundred feet thick, within the space of five thousand years! After a class of facts connected with such subterranean discoveries, he did not seem to have inquired. It is a fact, that God's record speaks of the fountains of the great deep having been broken up. It is a fact, that if those waters were ever called to the surface, so as to cover our highest mountains, they did retire again, for they are not there now. It is a fact, that the billows of a sinking ocean would be strong enough to carry bones, or more massy bodies, under the largest rocks, and into the deepest caverns of unseen earth: and

the turmoil of the mighty deep could sweep hills of sand or clay upon that which was once exposed. It is as hard to believe that bones remained undecayed during the growth of six hundred feet of rock above them, as it is to suppose that a rushing stream carried them far along in a rocky cave. If this learned man were asked to account for the forests that are found with an hundred feet of earth heaped over them; or how it is, that all really learned chemists and geologists agree, that the present surface of the earth is a young surface, he did not seem to have thought on such facts. If asked concerning extracts from Berosus, the Chaldean; Nicolaus, of Damascus; Manetho, the Egyptian; or others, what they should have said of the ruins of a great ship, (in their day,) remaining in the mountains of Armenia, he did not appear to have read, or to have noticed points of this nature. Whether any ancient author mentioned the remains of this vessel as covered with pitch, which the natives used as a charm against disease, stating that a man once landed there when the world was covered with waterwhy the village at the foot of Mount Ararat, should always have borne a name which signifies the city of the descent, or of a thousand incidents of this nature, he seemed never to have inquired. He knew nothing of historic fragments of this cast; but that bones had been found deep under a rock, and that therefore the Bible was not to be obeyed, he seemed to conclude readily, and to remain confident.

That men do love darkness rather than light, will be exhibited in another form, and by a different process, in the following chapters.

CHAPTER VI.

2 Peter, Chapter iii. 3, 4, 5.

Knowing this, that there shall come in the last days scoffers,—saying, where is the promise of his coming ?-Of this they are willingly ignorant, &c.

In the preceding chapters, some objections often urged against Revelation, have been named. They are certainly characterised by imbecility. It is more than probable, that the youthful reader is ready to exclaim,"These are not my objections; my difficulties are of another cast; and remain unanswered in all the productions I have ever read in favour of Christianity." And they are likely to remain unanswered, unless some author should be able to write a book as extensive as all the volumes contained in a well-filled library. There are many faces belonging to the inhabitants of earth, now alive, but no two of them are just the same. So it is with the unending difficulties and objections in the minds of those who lean towards error, rather than the light of the sacred volume. We might remind any one reader, that we do not know what his particular objections are, therefore cannot answer, unless we could take up the millions of cavils on the surface of the ocean of darkness. If your difficulties could be known, they would resemble such as have been named or noticed by many authors. Some additional samples will be given, as we attempt fairly to hold up to view the general principle, or the cause of unbelief, viz-wilful ignorance. But before we begin, it will be necessary to guard by preliminaries against mistake.

Many are ready to suppose, that the wilfully ignorant have no desire for knowledge. This is a misunderstanding, against which we should be well guarded. The boy