dicts these great truths, and implies that the psychical natures which God put into the bodies of the originals were unsuited to those bodies, and so unsuited that the vast changes which Mr. D. holds have been wrought in them were requisite in order to their becoming matches for each other. For on no other supposition can such modifications be regarded as possible. If their psychical natures and their bodies were perfectly matched, they would infallibly have perpetuated themselves unaltered. They could not, from the law of their being, either have wrought any change in themselves by a direct volition, nor given birth to offspring differing from themselves. No animal can, by a mere volition, work a change in its nature. The supposition is absurd inasmuch as first, it can have no idea of any other than the nature of which it is conscious, to be an object of desire and volition; and next, because if it could, it has no power to alter its nature. The ground of its existence and all the peculiarities of its internal and external being lie out of itself, in the will of the Creator who gave it existence and upholds it; and it has no more power over them than it has over the nature of any other animal that is wholly disconnected with itself. Mr. Darwin, therefore, in maintaining that every race of animals has wrought a vast revolution in its own body, and made its organism quite unlike what the original from which it has descended was, virtually assumes that the psychical nature of its original was essentially unsuited to the body in which it was put. This is indeed directly indicated on his last page, in the intimation that perhaps all the psychical entities that were created, were originally placed in one and the same form. His theory accordingly is, that each perceptive, sensitive, and instinctive nature demanded fundamental changes in its body, and that the changes in it which he holds have taken place, have been wrought in order to bring its body to a more perfect adaptation to its interior nature. And had he openly given this as his theory, he would only have presented, in a more simple and direct form, the principle or postulate on which his whole speculation in fact proceeds. Let him admit that the psychical natures of the originals from which all present animals have descended, were put into bodies that were perfectly adapted to them, and he

will be obliged to admit that no reason can have existed to the animals for a change of their nature, and that no power has existed either in them or in the conditions in which they were placed, to work any modifications of their natures. The wolf would infallibly continue to be the wolf, and the lamb the lamb, the dove the dove, the vulture the vulture, and man man. His theory is thus a direct impeachment of the wisdom and goodness of God; as it charges that instead of making his creatures perfect, or good in their kinds, he made them all monsters, so ill-matched in the two parts of their being that they were obliged to work a radical modification of their bodies in order to adapt them to the necessities of their psychical natures! What can be more unworthy of a man endowed with the fine gifts of Mr. Darwin than to spend his life in endeavoring to build up a vast system of speculation on such a postulate, and dignify it with the name of science!

It misrepresents the creature also as grossly as it does God. No truth is more selfevident than that a being that is derived, the ground of whose existence accordingly does not lie in itself, but in an exterior cause, cannot alter its own substantive nature. For as its existence is the work of a cause exterior to itself, and thence its existing as such a substantive entity as it is must be the work of that cause, it is intuitively clear that its nature, at every stage of its existence, must be what that external cause wills it to be, and that it cannot itself have any power to modify or determine its psychical or bodily nature. They are as absolutely out of its jurisdiction as the natures of any other existences are; and are the work only of God, who upholds them from moment to moment, with identically the natures that belong to them. Of this great truth, however, Mr. Darwin takes no cognizance. Instead of contemplating the universe as in its minutest parts a resistless proof of the presence, every moment, and activity of the Creator, because, if left for an instant without his upholding power, it would sink into nonexistence; he sees in it nothing but dead or organized matter, and speculates about it as though it were a selfsubsistence, and especially as though its organized and living forms owed their nature and the perpetuation of their kinds from generation to generation altogether to powers that belong

independently to themselves. He is accordingly extremely irreligious and untheistic. He does not indeed directly attack or deny the revelation God has made in his word, nor does he recognise it, but he builds his system on postulates that imply the rejection of the Scriptures, and will naturally lead those who accede to his theory to their rejection. If the race from which man has descended has existed on the earth for millions of millions of ages, as he maintains, what can be more plain than that the sacred writings, which represent him as having subsisted here only about six thousand years, and trace his genealogy and history through that whole period, are a fiction? If man is but a metamorphosed animal, as he implies, perhaps an insect, a fish, a bird, a quadruped, what can be more certain than that he cannot from the beginning have been, as revelation represents, a subject of moral government, and fallen at the first stage of his life by a revolt from his Maker? What can be more certain than that the first progenitor cannot have been a representative of the whole race, differing, as the theory implies, most essentially in their nature at different periods, and involved them in sin and death by his fall? For what greater solecism can be conceived than that an insect, a fish, a bird, a four-footed beast, should, by its unintelligent and irresponsible act, give birth to such an infinite train of moral consequences? If the race were originally animals, and had no representative head, neither were under a moral government, nor fell, what can be more indubitable than that they cannot at least universally need redemption from sin; that the Son of God cannot have become their representative head, and died for their expiation? The whole revelation contained in the Scriptures, the work of redemption, the future existence of the mind, and all that faith in God cherishes, falls, on Mr. Darwin's theory, and vanishes from our grasp. Man is made a mere fellow of the brutes, with little else to distinguish him than that he is capable of perceiving that his nature is a mockery, and feeling the bitterness of foreseeing that his noblest gifts, his loftiest aspirations, his purest hopes, are in a few moments to sink into extinction, and nought but nothingness and oblivion remain for ever. Mr. D.'s work is accordingly as unfriendly to man as it is unjust to God. It can only darken and demoralize just in proportion as its principles are accepted and its doctrines prevail.

ART. VI.-DESIGNATION AND EXPOSITION OF THE FIGURES OF ISAIAH, CHAPTERS LIV. LV. LVI. AND LVII.

CHAPTER LIV. The prophecy of this chapter is intimately connected with that of chapter lii. 7-12, in which the advent of the Messiah at Jerusalem is foreshown, and the recall of the tribes from their dispersion to their national land. Having in chapter liii. predicted the humiliation, rejection, death, resurrection and exaltation of the Messiah, by which he is to unfold the way for the redemption of men, the prophet now returns to the blessings with which he is to crown the people of Israel after their restoration from exile. They are to become very numerous and require a larger territory than Palestine for their accommodation, vs. 1-3. They are to enjoy the presence and favor of Jehovah in such a measure, that they shall forget the dishonors and miseries of the long ages of their exile, vs. 4-6. The mercy God is now to show them, is to be eternal, vs. 7-10. He is to adorn them with the richest external gifts, vs. 11, 12. They are all to be his children, vs. 13. assailed by enemies, vs. 14-17.

They are never more to be

1, 2. Apostrophe. "Shout, O barren, that didst not bear: Break forth into a shout and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail (in child-birth). For more are the children of the desolate, than the children of the married (woman) saith Jehovah," vs. 1.

3. Elliptical metaphor in apostrophising a people, as though a woman. The persons here addressed, it is apparent from the context, and is expressly shown (Gal. iv. 27), are the redeemed Israelites, after their restoration from exile and re-adoption as God's chosen people. They are apostrophised as though a woman and a mother. The increase of offspring they are called to contemplate with such gladness and exultation, is to be then future. As Sarah's children, during their former residence in the promised land, were far more numerous than those of Hagar, so the multitudes that are to have their birth of the tribes restored from exile, and reinstated in their relations to God as his elect Israel, will immeasurably transcend the generations of former periods.

That will result, naturally, from the removal of the curse in all its forms, as is foreshown, chap. lxv. 17-25.

This is one among a great number of passages which foreshow that the race is to go on multiplying after Christ comes and commences his reign over the house of Jacob, that is, to continue for ever. Luke i. 33. The plots of Satan to wrench from his hands that people as his, are to be defeated. They are to be recalled from banishment, and raised to an intimacy and dignity of relation to him, a perfection of character, and an eminence of prosperity and blessedness altogether unparalleled during their first possession of Canaan, and wholly unknown to any other nation.

4, 5, 6, 7. Hypocatastases. "Enlarge the place of thy tent; and the curtains of thy dwellings stretch out: Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes." vs. 2. This is addressed to the restored and redeemed Israelites. Enlarging the curtains and cords of their tent, so as to enclose a larger space, and strengthening the stakes by which it was fastened, are put for providing ampler dwellings for their offspring; territories and habitations commensurate to their augmenting crowds. The dwellings and fields requisite for those who return from dispersion, are to be altogether inadequate for the teeming hosts that are to spring from them.

8. Metaphor in the use of break forth—to denote the rapidity and resistlessness with which they will spread over the neighboring regions. "For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left-and thy seed shall inherit nations, and re-people ruined cities." vs. 3.

9. Metonymy of nations for their territory. This bespeaks a rapid increase after their re-settlement. They will inherit all Philistia, all Tyre, all Syria, all the territories, probably, east of the Jordan, where many marble cities, deserted for centuries, still subsist, and extensive regions also at the south.

10, 11, 12. Metaphors in the use of youth, widowhood, and husband. "Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed, and be not abashed, for thou shalt not blush; for the shame of thy youth thou shalt forget, and the reproach of thy widowhood thou shalt not remember any more. For thy husband is thy Maker, Jehovah of hosts is his name, and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel, the God of all the