that we sometimes see in gardens, where the prevailing green of nature is completely sacrificed to the garish tints of an artificial and exaggerated bloom. If we look abroad on the hues so exquisitely blended in the tapestry which a divine hand has thrown over the fertile earth; the verdure not overpowered but enriched by the bright blossoms which sprinkle it with snow, and gold, and azure,— we shall lose our relish for the overcharged style which flings around the garniture of gay colours, with as little design or discrimination as is to be found in

the field of the kaleidoscope. That is a miserably depraved taste which can prefer glitter to beauty, show to substance, bustle to tranquillity, the petty deteriorations of man's fancy to the perfection and harmony of the divine inventions. "A garden," in the often-repeated language of Lord Bacon, "is the purest of all human pleasures." It is a relic of our first estate; it breathes of paradise; it comes down to us as a kind of legacy from our first parents, bringing with it "airs from heaven." On this subject the highest imaginations have delighted to dwell. The groves of the Hesperides were the glowing vision of ancient bards; Homer has given a brief but bright sketch of the gardens of Alcinous; and Milton has placed his human characters amid scenes of unequalled beauty. But that man is deeply to be pitied, who can behold nothing more in the rich clothing of the flower, or

the

gay plumage of the insect that lights upon its petals, than an object of transient pleasure or scientific observation. They offer us a higher lesson than any which are learnt in human schools, and they should teach us to go deeper than externals for the objects and the causes of our admiration. Let us not forget that, beautiful as these things are, they are so, only

inasmuch as they are transcripts of the original idea of beauty, existing in the Divine mind. And if, amid the desolation of the fall, and the barrenness of a world withered by the curse, we can still trace so much of loveliness and grandeur, how glorious must it all have been when it came forth fresh from its Maker's hand, undefaced by sin.

HORTULENSIS.

BIBLICAL CRITICISM. REPLY TO K. ON GENESIS XXviii. (To the Editors.)

GENTLEMEN,-The lovers of Holy Writ must feel delighted at the improvements in Scripture criticism, which have been made within the course of the last half century: and gratitude is due to every person who corrects an a mistranslation, error, amends rectifies a mistake, removes misapprehension," or brings the word of truth any nearer to the standard of grammatical accuracy or verbal purity.

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I am ready to acknowledge that I look with a lenient eye on such attempts, when well meant, even when they seem to fall short; I am not one of those who dread that the credibility of divine truth will thus be weakened—it will, it must stand; and one jot or tittle of it will not fail. I was at first inclined to allow, your correspondent K.* had cleared Genesis but on looking at the subject xxviii. from "a misapprehension," again, I find myself compelled to hold by the opinion of the "old preachers."

that

is

I admit, that "to illustrate any subject with fanciful, rather than Scriptural representations," wrong, and however much I might bė disposed to draw matter from the unprotected circumstances in which Jacob is supposed to be placed-sleeping in the open air

* In the Number for July.

without a human hand to help him, a human face to smile on him, or a human voice to soothe him under his banishment: how ever much I might be disposed to think the dream amplified, and its importance increased, by Jacob's situation, with the earth as his couch, and the vast expanse as his canopy-however much it might seem to add to all the scenery of the subject; still I would consider it unsafe to hold all this under an illusion, and if K. had proved that Jacob did not sleep in the open air, his point would have been gained. Will he forgive me, when I say, he has not yet proved it? and I shall proceed to examine what he has brought forward as evidence for his opinion.

He appeals to the text: the text says, "he lighted upon a certain place;" will he point out, in all the Bible, this expression used for arriving at a city, and sleeping in an inn. It would hardly do for any village in England or Scotland. Why did not the narrator say at once, that Jacob came to Luz ? From this name, K. affirms, that it was known as a town before Jacob slept there. Is he yet to learn, that both in sacred and profane history, there are towns called by their names in anticipation? Did he never hear of this very thing being urged by unbelievers against the genuineness of sacred story? It is no proof that there was a city in Jacob's time, though there had been a Luz built where Jacob called the name of the place Bethel. As little proof of a city can be derived from the name implying that almonds or nuts grew there; these grow spontaneously, and if K. had been where I have been, he would find nuts where there is hardly any trace

of human footsteps, far less a city. In fact, I should consider nuts as a sure sign of the distance of city.

Again, was it wonderful to sleep in the open air in a country like Judea; and in the patriarchal ages-when houses were little used, men 'dwelling in tents," the transition was not great-How often did Jacob do so afterwards? Gen. xxxi. 40. How long did David wander without a city to dwell in? Yea, Saul the king slept in the open air, without either the conveniency of a caravansara or inn. In the days of our blessed Lord, the shepherds spent the night with their flocks-he himself spent nights on a mountain in prayer. In the cold frosty region of Scotland, where snows lie deep, not a century ago, a Highland Chieftain, with his party, would have slept in the woods; and in Greenland and Labrador they construct snowhouses when overtaken by a

storm.

The lions and savage beasts were not such a terror to Jacob as they would be to K.: there was courage enough in David, when a youth, to attack them; from many allusions in Scripture, they seem to have been common-what is common is not so much dreaded. Ask the Rev. John Campbell, the African traveller, he will tell you of "wild beasts and wilder men;" still he slept in South Africa under the sky.

Jacob was, it may be, never a day's journey from home before, or perhaps not in that direction; there were then no road-books, itineraries, stage-coaches, or turnpike roads; he was no traveller, he was not even a hunter, like his brother; he was a "plain man dwelling in tents."

"It is probable there was an inn or caravansara there ;"-it is probable there was not probabilities

Kaimes' Sketchesi

are not proofs; if there were, it was very odd that Jacob set up his stone bolster for a pillar, and anointed it, and returned back to it in after times. Even in a caravansara, empty and unfurnished as they are, no man would think of erecting a pillar as a memorial.

Having thus briefly touched on K.'s arguments, and I think shown their weakness, I shall conclude by giving the opinion of three writers in corroboration of my view of the question.

Josephus the Jew says, -" iter faciebat per Chananæam: cumque simultatem haberet cum ea gente, nolebat ad quenquam divertere, sed sub dio quiescebat, lapide vice pulvini capiti subjecto." I quote from the Latin version, having no other copy at hand: here a reason is assigned why Jacob would not lodge in a city, had there been one.

John Calvin. "Paucis autem verbis admonet Moses quam durum ac laboriosum sancto viro iter fuerit ad longam distantiam: cui etiam additur altera circumstantia quod humi sub dio cubuit, sine comite sine hospitio.Quæritur unde oleum sancto viro in solitudine. Qui respondent, ab urbe vicina fuisse emptum, longe meo judicio falluntur. Locus enim tunc vacuus incólis fuit." Calvin is of opinion that Luz was not then built. Indeed, thirty years afterwards, Jacob set up an altar when he came back with a large family, with flocks and herds; all these could not lodge in a caravansara, nor would he ever dream of building an altar there. It was there he buried Rachel's nurse, not in the city burying-grounds, but under an oak. Strange, if there was a city there at that time.

I shall quote one commentator more, who, though he differs from Calvin, in supposing that Luz was then a city, yet by no means CONG. MAG. No. 70,

GENTLEMEN, Your poptismal article in the last number gratified and amused me; gratified me by those portions which exemplified the ability and Christian temper of the reviewer, and amused me by its grave advocacy of a whimsical hypothesis. Allow me first to say that I am, though by no means a pædopoptist, a very decided pædobaptist, and that I have read with much pleasure the substantial portions of Mr. Ewing's little volume; and then permit me to indulge in a few further observations.

I am very willing to give all possible license to etymologists; it is my delight to stand by and look on, while they turn words and syllables topsyturvy, and treat letters with as little ceremony as the Parisian gendarmes do the refractory members of the French legislative body. Les consonnes sont peu de chose, et les voyelles vont pour rien, is the most convenient rule imaginable; it enabled the learned Menage to derive chez from apud, and it has now metempsychosized Baptism into Poptism. I have however three trifling objections to this last exercise of the legitimate canon just cited. the first place, it might, if carried to its fair limits, make rather 3 X

In

aukward work with certain parts of Scripture which may as well be left to the old-fashioned system of interpretation. Secondly, I cannot, with the utmost exertion of my modicum of intellect, find out what is to be gained by the new etymology. And lastly, if I were in a humour for buffoonery, and your Magazine the proper place to exhibit antics in, I think I could hit upon an equally satisfactory etymon, which should give to the Baptists at least as great an advantage as any that they can possibly lose by this new species of verbal and literal Rosycrucianism.

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Mr. Ewing-with whom I had once the gratification of spending two or three very pleasant hours -is a man whose talents and learning are as unquestionable as his piety and excellent temper, and towards whom I should feel it at my own peril, if I ventured on a syllable bordering on disrespect; but he must really excuse me, if, when he requests me to accustom my ears" to such words as Popto-Poptizo, and a long kyrielle of similar barbarisms, I reply, that my ears are not quite pliable enough for such a purpose. My tympanum is only accustomed to vibrate to such sounds as those of Bapto-Baptizo, and their derivatives, and I cannot in the smallest degree comprehend how these arbitrary mutations, and fanciful resemblances, are to aid us in finding our way through the "highways and by-ways" of a controversy which will agitate, and I fear divide, the Christian world, till the very dawn of the Millennium.

Our ground is strong, do not let us weaken it-do not let us give any room for the imputation

new doctrine of divorce, and object most decidedly to the disconjugation of long-lived consonants from vowels to which they have been wedded for some odd thousands of years.

There is much substantial matter in Mr. Ewing's book; his observations on Campbell are excellent; and I hope that, in a second edition, he will fairly dismiss his etymologies, and if they are worth any thing, let them occupy their proper place in a new recension of his valuable lexicon.

After all, Gentlemen, cui bono all this chaffering about the primary meaning of the word Banтw, when the real question concerns the secondary and theological import of its derivation? This is a point, as it appears to me, scarcely within the cognizance of any other authority, than the fair interpretation of Scripture statement and reasoning.

It is hardly necessary for me to disclaim any disrespectful feeling towards the Reviewer. He has a right to his own opinion, the more complete, inasmuch as he is evidently a man who does not pin his faith on the verba magistri; but as I rather think that the current of general sentiment runs strongly against the new system of derivation, I feel anxious that some intimation of this should appear in your pages. His introductory remarks are excellent ; they are as justly discriminative as they are admirably expressed, and it were much to be wished that points of equal importance were always set forth with the same happy mixture of firmness and liberality. Pentonville.

TIANITY. (To the Editors.)

J. R.

GENTLEMEN,

Whoever asserts and attempts to prove that the

religion of Christ is unable to promote the design of its founder, and that human prejudice and vice can frustrate the gracious purposes of Jehovah, may, without injustice, be considered as opposed to Christianity.

The Abbé Du Bois, formerly a Romish Missionary in India, in a recent publication, has made this attempt, by trying to show that Christianity can never succeed in India, and that it is in vain to employ any farther means to introduce the Christian religion among the natives. Bibles he considers as by no means calculated to do any good, and missionaries, he affirms, had much better remain in Europe. Such are the sentiments of this Roman Catholic priest, and though we need not fear that any injury will result from his book-either to the cause of missions or religion in general, yet it may be proper to notice it. You have not, indeed, considered it as of sufficient importance to occupy a niche in your reviewing department. Still a few remarks, in the form of an Essay, may enable some of your readers, who have not seen the volume, to form an estimate of the objections which are now made against evangelizing India. Some periodicals of a certain character have spoken of it with approbation, and though the religious public pay no deference to their authority, it may be desirable to expose some of the more prominent errors of the book, and the miserable and helpless state to which the opposers of Christian missions must be reduced, before they could welcome a production which, to say the least of it, discovers the most unaccountable ignorance of that religion, which the writer went from Europe to India professedly to promulgate.

As I must necessarily limit myself to some of his principal reasons for concluding that the attempt to christianize India is vain, I

shall attend to his sentiments rather than his words.

Not only is the Abbé opposed to missions, but he strongly objects to the circulation of the word of God, and concludes, that it is a most unlikely thing that the Bible will ever be received by the natives as a divine revelation. He objects, as a chief difficulty, the accounts which it contains of the offering of different kinds of animals in sacrifice. The statement of the offerings under the law would so shock the nerves of the tender-hearted Hindoo, that he would instantly throw down the book with disgust and horrorThe slaughter of thousands of animals which it mentions as having been offered to God at the dedication of Solomon's temple, would instantly lead him to view God as the abettor of cruelty and sin.

Need I say any thing to show the gross absurdity and childishness of such a reason, as urged against the reception of the Bible. I can hardly believe that the writer meant what he said. What are these prejudices of the Hindoos in favour of animal life, compared with the prejudices of men in all countries in favour of sin? Aye, or even of the Hindoos themselves in favour of the grossest obscenities, and which the Abbé himself, in a former work, has detailed with the most disgusting minuteness? Can that word of truth, which grappled with and triumphantly overcame the most inveterate prejudices of Jews and Gentiles, though sanctioned by the usage of ages, fail before the prejudices of the inhabitants of India.

Another reason which the Abbé states, as rendering the cause of Christianity in India hopeless, is, that there is not now above one third of the number of Christians that existed 70 years ago, and that the number is daily decreasing.

It would be no loss to India, or to Christianity, if this third also