and to seek those of a more powerful and beneficent ally. If ignorance could divest us, even of the sense of anxiety attending the apprehension of evil, the consequent tranquility of mind, deceptive though it were, would be, at least, some compensation for submitting to its rule. But, unhappily, so far from ignorance of the nature and extent of the threatening danger saving us from gloomy anticipations, the fact is notoriously the reverse; for the darkest picture ever drawn, is assuredly that devised by an unenlightened imagination."' Let us, therefore, heed not the stupid and canting cry about the danger of inquiry, the evils of knowledge, and the happiness of ignorance; but persevere in the great work of social, political, and religious reform; examine boldly and calmly, that the chaff of human opinions may be separated from the wheat of fact and philosophy; all of which is the proper object of human reason, that cannot more nobly employ itself than in the destruction of idolatry, physical and moral, the worship of idols, whether those idols be gods, devils, angels, or men; for all worship is slavish, fearful, and most irrational, having its root in folly, and the degradation of spirit to which fear ever gives birth. The virtue of the fearful man is not to be relied upon, it is a virtue which, "like wax, melts in its own fire;" but enough of fear and the fearful, for we write to the courageous, not to the cowardly to the philosophic, not to the faithful to the inquirer, not to the taker upon trust--to the man of science, not to the man of imaginings-in short, to the man who seeks for truth, that his reason may be strengthened and his heart purified, not the man who refuseth the truth when it alarms his fears, weakens and corrupts his reason instead of strengthening it, and hardens his heart by a soul-debasing superstition. In the words of Solomon," Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge; but a fool layeth open his folly. Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction; but he that regardeth reproof shall be honoured."

We shall not stop here to combat the absurd opinion, (once deemed incontrovertible, but now abandoned by all Christians who make the slightest pretensions to knowledge,) that the Bible is an infallible book, an unerring guide, even though the literal interpretation should be admitted as genuine; though by the way there are almost as many interpretations as divine interpreters, and as many divine interpreters as parsons, each claiming to be the man who alone can explain the deep and hidden meaning of the sacred volume; we say, to combat the argument of infallibility, will be

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displaying our valour, and using what strength we have to very little purpose, as we repeat, the point is now given up; and we are told by orthodox divines, that the Bible is full of errors, errors that cannot be numbered," which is certainly startling to those who think that the word of God is immutable, unchangeable, like himself, without change or shadow of turning; and, though not ourselves over orthodox, or righteous overmuch, we are compelled to declare our conviction, that if God had spoken to man, intending him not only to hear but to understand, he would have used a language as clear, as immutable, and eternal, as the truths he intended to convey; but the Bible is not written in such a language, as will appear from the following note, copied from Evans's Sketches of the Denominations of the Christian World: "Our English translation of the Bible was made in the time, and by the appointment of James the First. According to Fuller, the list of translators amounts to forty-seven. This number was arranged under six divisions, and several parcels of the Bible assigned them. Every one of the company was to translate the whole parcel, then they were to compare them together, and when any company had finished their part, they were to communicate it to the other companies, so that nothing should pass without the general consent, The names of the persons and places where they met, together with the portions of Scripture assigned each company, are to be found in Johnson's Historical Account of the Several Translations of the Bible. These good and learned men entered on their work in the spring of 1607, and three years elapsed before the translation was finished. From the mutability of language, the variations of customs, and the progress of knowledge, several passages in the Bible require to be newly translated, or to be materially corrected. Hence, in the present age, when Biblical literature has been assiduously cultivated, different parts of the sacred volume have been translated by very able hands. The substituting a new translation of the Bible in the room of the one now in use, has been much debated. Dr. Knox in his ingenious essays, together with others, argue against it; whilst Dr. Newcombe, the late Lord Primate of Ireland, the late Dr. Geddes, of the Catholic persuasion, and the late Rev. Gilbert Wakefield, contended strenuously for it. The correction of several passages, however, would deprive Deists of many of their objections, prevent Christians from being misled into some absurd opinions, and be the means of making the Scriptures more intelligible, and consequently more beneficial to the world.”

Here then, we have from Christians themselves, the important admission, that from the mutability of language, the variation of customs, and the progress of knowledge, several passages of the Bible require to be newly translated, or to be materially corrected; in spite of the great care of the forty-seven learned and holy men, time and change has changed the unchangeable word of God. After forty-seven wise heads, aided as they doubtless were by the holy spirit, had laboured for three long years sans intermission, we are now gravely told, not by Jews, Infidels, Deists, or Atheists, but such good and learned Christians as Dr. Newcombe, late Lord Primate of Ireland, the late Dr. Geddes, and Dr. Wakefield, that we must, if we would save our souls, substitute a new translation of the Bible in the room of the one now in common use; the text is to be reformed altogether, say these worthies, in the face of the threat held out against all innovators and unceremonious libertytakers with Scriptural texts, "Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar;" in the face of all this-in spite of the hurricane of passion which threatened to blow them into eternity, the above divines had the effrontery to persist, that the present version is little better than a forgery-that an entirely new translation must be made, or if they attempt to mend the old one, they propose to do it as the Irishman mended his gun, with a new stock, lock, and barrel.

The writer's gentle insinuation that "the correction of several passages would deprive Deists of many of their objections, prevent Christians from being misled into some absurd opinions, and be the means of making the Scriptures more intelligible, and consequently more beneficial to the world," is really racy, rich, and highly suggestive. The idea of appealing to revelation as a standard by which all opinions are to be measured, regulated, and determined, which reason must bend and submit to as being its superior, and then to propose the correction or mutilation of several passages in order to meet the cavils of Deists and others, is worthy of a Bedlamite, and should give the proposer the crown of folly-a crown so heavy, that, like the crook-backed tyrant Gloster, he might exclaim, "By heaven! the massive weight out galls my laden brow." Why the plain truth is, that if Christians re-translate and exclude from the Bible all that rationalists or reasoners carp and cavil at, there will not be a single page left, and the word of God would dwindle down into two pasteboard covers-a volume constructed after the manner of a back-gammon board, well bound

and marked " Bible" on the outside-but full of nought but emptiness! Yes, rationalists would find a flaw in every page-of course, we mean those rationalists who would be so irrational as to take as the letter that which is figurative-an allegory for a matter of plain and sober history. A knowledge of this double character of the Bible would, indeed, deprive Deists of many of their objections, prevent Christians from being misled into some absurd opinions, and be the means of making the Scriptures more intelligible, and consequently more beneficial to the world. We thank the Christian writer for such admirable sentiments-we thank him for teaching us those words, and shall endeavour to profit by them ourselves, and enable our readers to go and do likewise, for who does not see that when the "forty-seven" passed with such general consent such grossly absurd passages as the following, they gave a mortal stab to their system of religion, for though religion cannot be destroyed, all systems of religion may, if they be lying systems, "as a lie cannot live;" so that those who systematise religion should be careful lest they stumble, and in building their statetheologic house, they take or mistake not "bricks for stone, and slime for mortar." In the first chapter of Genesis we read, " And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night and the evening and the morning were the first day." Then we read, same chapter, "And the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, for seasons, for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also." Here we have a strange confusion of ideas-a strange jumble of all sorts of nonsense-when taken literally. The style of the above passage has been much commended; and Longinus the great critic, has said that the expressions "Let there be light, and there was light," are sublime. Perhaps so; but however sublime in style, it is extremely silly in matter; for how God could say-Let there be light, and see the light that it was good, and call the light day, and the darkness night, before he had made the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the nighthow, in short, taking a common-sense view of the subject, could

there have been an evening or a morning, a night and a day, without sun, moon, or stars? Again we read in the 27th verse of the same chapter, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them;" and in the second chapter we read, 21st verse, "And the Lord God caused a great sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and he closed up the flesh instead thereof;" so that, after creating them male and female, it afterwards appears, according to the text, that the man was first created and slept, and the Lord God gently took out one of his ribs, closed up the flesh thereof, and of the rib made a woman. No one doubts the power of Deity to act in this or any other unaccountable manner; and nothing could have been more easy than for God to have so acted, if he desired so to do; nor is it any thing wonderful to the people of this age, that a rib should be taken from a man without his own knowledge; for the disciples of Mesner, by Mesnerizing and throwing their patients into a very strange kind of sleep, can cut off breasts, legs, and even heads, without the patient wincing a tittle, and surely God may have mesnerized or magnetized Adam, and done all related in the text without difficulty; but it is quite impossible that God could have created man in his own image,—in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them, as stated in the 1st chapter and 27th verse, and afterwards say, as is set down in the 2nd chapter and 18th verse, "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make an help meet for him ;" but this little confusion is a trifle. In the 23rd verse and 24th of the 2nd chapter, there is something more-another trifle; but as it has been well observed, that trifles mark men's characters, trifles also mark the character of books; for Adam is further made to say by the forty-seven, "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." This is strange logic, and Adam must have been a strange logician; but as it is presumed, that before the fall he had not studied the art of reasoning, he must have spoken, if he spoke at all, by intuition; because, although he may, by some means unknown to us, have come to the knowledge that his fair companion was one of his own ribs; by what strange, incontrovertible process of reasoning (though he could hardly have reasoned before the fall) he came to the conclusion, because the woman was taken out of him, "therefore should