the seed of Abraham continue the acknowledged and undoubted descendants of those who occupied the Holy Land eighteen hundred years ago; thus verifying the prediction, Though I make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee.' The most powerful nations of antiquity have disappeared and are now known only in history, while the Jewish nation lives in the persons of its scattered children, waiting for that national revivification which he has promised who is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent.

"It is a remarkable fact, that whenever the judgment of God has been on the Jewish people for their sins, his curse has also been on their land, especially the curse of barrenness; so that it has been an unproductive country to whomsoever has occupied it. But when his blessing returns to them, it shall also return to the land. The prophet Ezekiel, chap. xxxvi. 28-36, says: 'Ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and I will call for the corn and increase it, and lay no famine upon you; and the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all the heathens that passed by ;' and they shall say: This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, and desolate, and ruined cities are become fenced and inhabited.' Surprising change! which will not be owing to natural or artificial causes only, but chiefly to providential agencies; for the prophet declares that the Gentiles shall acknowledge it to be the work of Jehovah."

"Their restoration shall not (as some suppose) be the result of political combinations, or arrangements among the great powers of the earth, delivering their country first from foreign dominion, and then inviting them to reoccupy it. Something of this kind, may, and probably will be attempted, and partially succeed for a time, but in the end will fail, when God's own right hand and stretched out arm will accomplish the work by agencies such as men at present little dream of. So that the deliverance from Egypt, great and marvellous as it was, shall be so far outdone, as to be entirely cast into the shade, as the prophet Jeremiah teaches, chap. xxiii. 7, 8. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt; but the Lord liveth who brought up, and who led the seed of the house of Israel from the north country, and from all the countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell

in their own land; that is, their final restoration shall be attended with so many more signal displays of divine power, than their first deliverance from Egypt, that the latter shall no longer be referred to as a proof that he is their God. As the ten tribes have been so long hid from the knowledge of mankind, their return will probably occasion more astonishment to the world than that of the two tribes, who have always been in view of the nations, and have had frequent communication with the Holy Land."-Pp. 32-38.

We have not space to indicate all the points in Mr. Labagh's constructions which we regard as exceptionable. We shall only refer to his views of the two witnesses, in which it will be seen he treats the whole series of the symbols as a literal exemplification in vision of that which they foreshow.

Thus, from the fact that Jerusalem is the scene of the symbolic martyrdom of the witnesses, he assumes that that city is the place in which the martyrdom that is predicted is to take place. The exhibition of a temple in the vision, and direction of the prophet to measure it, he regards as equivalent to a prediction that there is to be a temple in Jerusalem at the time when the events foreshown in respect to the martyred witnesses are to be accomplished. That two witnesses only were seen in the vision, he interprets as denoting that only two persons are to appear at the time to which the prophecy refers, and fill the office and meet the death which are predicted of them. That the witnesses call down fire from heaven and destroy their enemies, he regards as denoting that those whom they represent are literally to call fire from the skies; and he holds that twelve hundred and sixty days are the exact period of their testimony. He proceeds accordingly through his whole construction on the assumption that the places, objects, actors, and events presented in a symbolic vision, are exact examples or copies of those which they represent; and thence that a symbolic is in fact nothing else than a mere language prophecy, with the difference that that which is described in the past tense, is to be interpreted in the future; and that the place, agents, objects, and events denoted by the language are defined and determined by a visionary exhibition of them in the identical form, conditions, and agencies in which they are to appear when the prediction meets its accomplishment.

But this is wholly to mistake the principle on which symbols are used. The medium through which the symbol indicates that which it foreshows, is not exact sameness, but a general

resemblance, in sphere and agency, while differing in nature. The only symbols that denote what they themselves are, are the divine-God and Christ-and they represent themselves, because no created being can properly symbolize them. The only symbols that are employed to denote agents of exactly the same class as themselves, are Satan, men, and animals, and they are employed in those cases, because no other symbols could properly represent them in their peculiar conditions and acts. Such are men affrighted at the presence of the avenging Lamb, and slain at the great battle against him; the horses that are slain with them, and the birds that feed on their flesh, Rev. vi. 15-17; xix. 19-21; Satan on being bound, and the dead in being raised and judged, Rev. xx. 1-3, 4-6, 12-15. But far the largest part of the symbols are wholly different in kind from the agents, objects, and events which they represent, and are used on the ground of analogy, or a general resemblance in sphere, agency, and effects. Such are the image, the tree, and the wild beasts of Daniel; and the dragon, the wild beasts, the serpent-tailed horses, the locusts, the bloody rain, the burning mountain, the wormwood star, and most others of the Apocalypse. On the principle on which Mr. Labagh proceeds in his views of the witnesses and the symbols of several other visions, these must be taken as denoting agents exactly like themselves in form and agency; which is not only against nature, but against the interpretations which the revealing Spirit has given of many of these symbols.

Thus the image and the beasts of Daniel are expressly interpreted in the prophecy as symbols of men, and the tree as the representative of Nebuchadnezzar. The horns of the sevenheaded beast of the Apocalypse are expounded as symbols of kings, and the beast itself in its last form as the symbol of a single king; a candlestick as the representative of a church; a star the teacher of a church, and a white robe as a symbol of righteousness.

All the symbols accordingly, whose nature and conditions admit it, are to be interpreted as used in this relation.

The fact then, that Jerusalem is the scene of the death and resurrection of the witnesses in the vision, is no proof that it is to be the place of the death and resurrection which theirs foreshows. Instead, the symbol city not only may naturally represent places bearing an analogous relation to the Christian church, in the western Roman empire; but it is indubitable that that is the scene of the testimony and death of those whom

the witnesses denote, from the consideration that the period during which they are to prophecy-a thousand two hundred and three score days-is the period, forty-two months, during which the wild beast of ten horns is to exercise its power, and make war with the saints, chap. xiii. 5-7; and that we know, both from the law of symbolization, and from the long career of the rulers denoted by the beast--is the symbol not of twelve hundred and sixty days, but of twelve hundred and sixty years. The two witnesses, therefore, cannot be mere representatives of two individuals whose ministry is to extend through but three years and a half; but are symbols of a succession of men whose testimony has continued through the whole persecuting career of the powers denoted by the beast: which is at least near twelve hundred and sixty years; and that makes it equally certain that the scene of their testimony is, not Jerusalem, but the western Roman empire, where alone the beast had authority through that long period, and persecuted and slaughtered the ministers of Jesus. The persons accordingly who are to be put to death, are not, as Mr. Labagh imagines, Moses and Elias, nor merely two individuals,-but a large number of faithful preachers of the word. As the beast itself represents not only a long succession, but at every stage a great number of individuals-the whole combination of persons who exercise the civil government of the western Roman empireso on the same principle the two witnesses who symbolize a long succession must also be taken as representing a great number— and those generally indeed, who, at the period of their slaughter, fill the office of faithful ministers of Christ, in testifying against the unjust arrogations of power by the wild beast, and the false church it sustains, and the idolatrous worship they endeavor to enforce on their subjects.

12. THE BRITISH PERIODICALS. Republished by L. Scott & Co. THE Westminster for January has an article on recent inquiries into the effects of alcohol on the human body, that have issued in satisfactory proofs that it neither contributes to the nourishment of the system, nor becomes a fixed element in it, but passes off rapidly through the lungs and other channels. Entering the blood, it is immediately diffused through the frame, and its function ends with the deleterious excitement it produces. The notion had previously prevailed that it passes through a process of combustion in the body, and is an aliment as well as a stimulative. In an article on Biblical Infallibility, a passionate

attack is made on the revised edition, by Mr. Ayre, of Horne's Introduction to the Old Testament, lately issued in place of Dr. Davidson's volume, which was rejected because of its rationalism. The view of contemporary literature is, as usual, highly interesting.

The London Quarterly has a very attractive essay on the iron manufacture, its rapid growth, the vast improvements that have been introduced into it, the difficulties with which it has to struggle, and the important place it holds in the national industry and wealth. The article on Italy is anti-Sardinian in its sympathies, and querulous. The most important article, and the best that has appeared abroad on the theme, is an exposure of the errors and absurdities of the recent Oxford volume of Essays and Reviews, from the pens of Powell, Jowett, Williams, and others of the rationalistic school.

All the

The Edinburgh opens with a Review of a long series of publications on the revision of the prayer-book, and a freer intercourse, especially in the colonies, between Episcopalians and Dissenters, in which the writer urges a modification of the Liturgy, and of the assent which is required to the creed, by which a wider diversity of opinions shall be tolerated. Reviews of much ability and interest follow on Japan, Canada, and Ocean Telegraphy. The latter gives a very discouraging view of the obstacles that are yet to be overcome, ere lines of any considerable length can be successfully laid beneath the sea. lines the British Government has guaranteed have failed. No adequate coating has yet been found to protect the electric wire. All thus far employed chafe by the action of currents, and the surfaces if rough on which they lie, corrode, decay, or are expanded and broken, by the action of the electric force; and when the line is to be laid in deep water, the strain from the weight breaks it, or stretches and weakens the sheath in such a manner that the electric charge, instead of transmission, passes off into the sea. Methods may at length be found of obviating these difficulties; but very formidable, perhaps insuperable, obstacles are likely still to exist to an effective and rapid transmission of messages through lines of more than three, four, or five hundred miles in length. A review of recent books, and theories of the glaciers of the Alps, is of much interest. The number closes with a scathing exposure of the inefficiency and confusion of the British Admiralty administration.

The North British, in an article on Large Farms and the Peasantry of the Scottish Lowlands, presents a sad picture of