presence of mind necessary (as a means) to their deliverance or escape. In several parts of of our version the use and repetition of which' for who, greatly disfigures the text. It is even used where a noun substantive cannot be pretended as being understood: as "Thou which hast shewed me great and sore troubles: Ps. lxxi, 20.' Had it been God which hath shewed me,' it might have been made grammar of by admitting an elision, thus, God, which God, &c.' but at present it is incurably ungrammatical: and the passages abound which are under the like difficulty.

‹ Mark. ix, 11-13. And they asked him, saying, Why say the scribes that Elias must first come? And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man that he must suffer many things and be set at nought. But I say unto you, That Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.'

Holy Scripture is surely entitled to all the helps which we bestow on other writings, to make the sense clear in translating. Here are three or four of those blemishes, which, having been left without number in our authorized version, nobody seems to care to correct, otherwise than by proposing new versions on the authority and responsibility of individuals. It should stand thus-And they asked him a question, saying, Why say the scribes that Elias must first come? And he, answering, told them that Elias does indeed come first and restore all things—and how it is written of the Son of man that he must suffer many things and be set at nought. But, said he, I tell you, Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they would, as it is written of him.

Again, verse 22, 23: 'But if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said unto him, if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.' It should be thus in the reply, in two periods. If thou canst believe! [Italics are not admissible here, on account of the interpolated words being so printedotherwise, believe should be so marked, it being emphatical and a retortion]. All things are possible to him that believeth.

Again, verse 42, 43, 45, 47. It is better' should in every instance be, It were better,-seeing the drowning and maiming are conditional, not absolute.

In verse 31, we have shall for will, as usual. Verses 49, 50 are doubtful, as to their place here, the only sentiment relevant to the dispute is in the latter clause of verse 50. Are the three similar endings of verses 44, 46, 48 to be taken as indications that this whole passage about the hand, foot, &c., is a quotation from some piece of poetry then in use among the Jews? If Christ spake it not at that time, but quoted it at some other, the occurrence of the alternative described in v. 42 might suggest to a scribe the addition of those other dreadful alternatives also. Compare v. 50 with Matt. v. 13, from which it may have been taken, as Mark wrote last. Ed.

(To be continued)

ART. VI.-Sabbatical river.

Water tasting like wine.

Josephus (de bello Jud. Lib. 7, c. 5.) describes a river as flowing on the Sabbath, and leaving a dry channel the remaining six days of the week. But his text is rectified in a Note by Casaubon: who by a transposition, and some change in the punctuation, makes the sense to be, (what it is more likely the author would have written) that this river flows six days with a full stream, and rested on the seventh. He refers to Pliny, Nat. Hist. book 31, c. 11, which is not relevant : but c. 13 of the same book is. Vinum in tædium venire his, qui ex Clitorio lacu biberint, ait Eudoxus: Theopompus, inebriari fontibus iis quos diximus. Mucianus, Andri, e fonte Liberi patris, statis diebus septenis ejus dei, vinum fluere; si auferatur a conspectu templi, sapore in aquam transeunte.' Pliny here speaks, first of a natural water so grateful to the taste, that wine ceased to be preferred to it by those who drank it; then of intoxicating springs; and lastly of a fountain sacred to Bacchus, at Andros, which on the seven days sacred to the god flowed with wine: but that this liquor, taken out of the sight of the temple, became again in taste mere water!

With regard to the Sabbatical river, we are not obliged, if we admit the fact, to have recourse to a miraculous cause for it. Some operations of the antients were carried on, on a great scale-as for instance the search for grain gold, in the sands of auriferous streams. If we suppose the water of a moderately large brook turned off, for this purpose, at intervals, into another channel, it may have happened that the people worked six days, and rested on the seventh; or (which is more probable) left the sands to accumulate during six days, and then diverting the stream sifted them over on the seventh, with a great number of hands as usual in that business. In either case, a traveller crossing the bed of the stream in the country below, and kept out of the secret (as he would naturally be) by the peasants, might go away fully impressed with the belief of a miracle.

The water tasting like wine admits of two different explanations: First, the supposition of a highly äerated mineral spring; which sparkles like Champagne and tastes brisk, and may even intoxicate. Secondly, the tricks of the priests-who seem to have known how to make a person, who was really drinking water, taste the wine they held the while to their own lips. In this case the juggling process failed when the party drank out of their sight: yet with no detriment still, to the credit of the god, and his conjurors about the temple.— . Some may deem it, after all, only figurative account of the extreme plenty of wine on the spot, and the want of it as the parties went away! They had a trick in London of old, upon occasions of the highest rejoicing and festivity, to make the conduits run wine.'

Should any of my readers here inadvertently let in a doubt, from the perusal of this extract, about the reality of the miracle recorded in the second chapter of John, let them reflect: 1. That it is expressly said in the text, of the water, that it was made wine,' ver. 9: and Ch. iv. 46. 'where he made the water wine.' 2. That he who could multiply the

species (as we hear it expressed by the commentators) a thousand fold, in the case of bread, could not want power to do this of which we read, with water. 3. That Jesus, knowing that the priests were accustomed to support their declining authority, and lessened influence with the people, by pious frauds of the kind above-stated, might with great reason choose to work this real change by recourse to Almighty power, on purpose to bring down their confidence and confound them. Ed.

ART. VII.

FABLES, &C. IN VERSE AND PROSE.-CONTINUED.

Of birds, the similar in feather
Proverbially flock together:

Our kind conforms to the same rule,
With lack of here and there a fool.
The sober man will not sit down
With such, as never fail to drown
Discretion; modest breeding sorts
Not well with coarse athletic sports;
And he who knows his make at all
Loves not the plumage of a ball:
The serious still the wise affect,
Whom fops and libertines neglect.
A silly Daw delighted found
Some peacock's feathers on the ground,
Soon, robed in adventitious plumes,
A gait majestic he assumes,
Among the poultry lifts his head,
And struts, and cackles to be fed.
The jealous favourites at first view
Detect th' impostor, and with due
Contempt dismiss him, pluck'd and plain,
To seek his former friends again.
By these received with equal scorn,
He sits, neglected and forlorn,
Save while a speaker garrulous,
Sent from the flock, harangues him thus.

Learn, foolish bird, content to be

With homely clothes and liberty;
And know, who thus deserts the sphere
Allotted to his character,

Shall ever find the envied station,
Of war, on both sides, an occasion:

This, at his scorn takes just offence,
That, spurns his insolent pretence.

Communications may be addressed, POST-PAID, "For the Editor of the Yorkshireman, " at the Printer's, Pontefract; at Longman and Co.'s, London; John Baines and Co.'s Leeds; and W. Simpson's, York.

CHARLES ELCOCK, PRINTER, PONTEFRACT.

THE

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A

RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY JOURNAL

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No. XVII. SEVENTH DAY, 16th THIRD Mo. 1833.

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ART. I.-A Chronological Summary of events and circumstances connected with the origin and progress of the doctrine and practices of the Quakers.

(Continued from p. 246.)

The controversy between Geo. Fox and the priests seems to have turned at first much upon the call to the ministry. In 1652, at Swarthmore, being in discourse with four or five priests, I asked them' says George' whether any one of them could say he ever had the word of the Lord to go and speak to such or such a people.-None of them durst say he had: but one of them burst into a passion, and said he could speak his experience as well as I. I told him, experience was one thing-but to receive and go with a message, and to have a word from the Lord, as the prophets and apostles had, and as I had to them, was another thing. And therefore I put it to them again, could any of them say he ever had a command or word from the Lord immediately at any time? But none of them could say so.

Then I told them, the false prophets, false apostles and Anti-christs could use the words of the true prophets, true apostles, and of Christ, and would speak of other men's experiences, though themselves never knew or heard the voice of God and of Christ: and such as they might get the good words and experiences of others. This puzzled them much, and laid them open.' (0)

Here we have the founder of our society not merely laying clain to the immediate Gospel call and revelation in himself, but refusing to admit the claim of some others, who yet had been outwardly ordained

(0) Journal, page 76.

to the ministry. In acknowledging the immediate mission of George Fox, we must be careful, first, not to deny the like call, and endowment of power from on high, to all others his cotemporaries or successors, not being quakers: secondly, not to attribute it in the way of constant unerring guidance and infallibility to himself. This thing, of a man's being called of God, or in other terms inwardly moved of the Holy Ghost' (for no one, I suppose, insists here, on an outward voice, audible to others) to take on him the office of a minister of Christ, is one-and a prominent one-among the many things applicable to particulars and individuals, and most needful to be known by them, which are in no wise to be found in Scripture' (See p. 244 of No. XVI, in Note). It is plain that George could never have got from his Bible the certain truth that he (such an one by name) was called by Christ to be his minister, in services not committed to believers at large: and in asserting this for himself, he does not any where ascribe his call to a voice outwardly heard from heaven; which would have made it (if true and from God) to be miraculous as well as Divine.

In treating this question we need not, I think, in any case admit the minor part, which is the particular message at any time pleaded by the preacher, and exclude the major; which is the general impression, considered by good men as resulting from the movings of the Holy Spirit upon the mind, of a duty to preach the Gospel; or declare the things of God to others. A man may be firmly persuaded of the major, and may so give up to it as to be a useful instrument in God's hand for good, who never dares (even if he have some secret experience of special inward guidance) to make pretensions in his discourses to the minor call. And with regard to both, we have no better rule, after all, whereby to judge respecting them, than that of our Saviour, Matt. vii, 16, Ye shall know them [the teachers] by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? This, as to the moral effect of their discourses (which about this time our honourable elder had found to be rude and tumultuous opposition from the priests' favourers, often attended with grevious personal abuse): as to the spiritual or doctrinal, we have a right to bring all to the test of Holy scripture, since whatever (either in the delivery, or in its effects on the mind of the hearer) contradicts, or falsifies, or disfigures, or degrades the doctrine there found, is not to be received as the fruit of true and sound ministry. To this standard I believe Friends are willing to have all their declarations brought. Would they were more uniformly careful strictly to adhere to it in uttering them!

"Let none run, in their own wills, to disturb or interrupt any people in their worship; or presume to prophesy in their own spirits, against any nation, city, town, people or person." Yearly Meeting Extracts, p. 150, Advices to Ministers and Elders. In framing this piece of advice, the society has left open a door for some to evade the prohibition, by pretending it is not in their own spirits that they move, but that a necessity is laid upon them, and they dare not but prophesy as they do. But, admitting the fact that the party is under a strong impulse