scenes of civilization and philosophy, (for they fearlessly propounded their claims before the tribunals of the strictest science and keenest research), — though we behold them multiplying accessions to the Church from Corinth and Ephesus, Athens and Rome,—yet must we follow them to more inhospitable regions and to coarser hordes. No stress is laid by us on the term Barbarian, because in this contemptuous proscription the Greek classed all but those of Hellenic descent.* But we may collect intimations sufficient to our purpose. Paul calls himself "a debtor to the unwise." He enjoins on all believers to "condescend to men of low estate." He declares that in the regeneration of the heart there is no national distinction: "Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all, and in all." When he preached "round about unto Illyricum," what fiercer bands could he have encountered than among the swamps of Dacia and the mouths of the Danube? Shipwrecked on the rocks of Melita, he found himself among a "barbarous people," a phrase evidently used in the common sense. Can we believe that he only "healed" the diseases of the island, without preaching that gospel for whose confirmation miracles could alone be wrought?† The Getulæ and the Sarmatians early yielded to the truth. The Briton, wild and ferocious, * Herodotus: Terpsichore, 186. "Likewise, that whensoever God doth transcend the law of nature by miracles, which may ever seem as new creations, he never cometh to that point or pass, but in regard of the work of redemption, which is the greater, and whereto all God's signs and miracles do refer."-Lord Bacon's Confession of Faith. bowed before the Cross. "The inhabitants of the rock sung: they shouted from the top of the mountains." It is with us no longer controversy. We cannot "destroy the work of God." That work in the South Seas, in Sierra Leone, in New Zealand,among the Buriats, the Esquimaux, the Caffres,-has demonstrated it. "God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." 66 Solicitous to avoid the Baptismal question,-we shall only observe that it has been contended that this rite has not been so freely administered in our Missions, as by the first Christians; and that it has not been sufficiently employed as a means in the conversion of the world. We simply reply, that the caution of all parties in this instance is, at least, conclusive of their abstinence from a merely nominal proselytism, that we believe there to be as close an imitation of the primitive model as different circumstances will allow,-and that very few members of our evangelic bodies hold the ordinance to be a means of conversion, save as it symbolically teaches the gospel, but only a seal of the Divine covenant and the badge of the Christian profession. MISSIONS, ILLUSTRATED BY PROPHECY. It will seem only proper and grateful, if God has "showed to his servants things which must be hereafter," that we should study these predictions with care it is most desirable to do so, for a blessing is ensured to all who meekly and devoutly engage in this research. Our attempt, at present, must be to give a little conspectus of those chief events which Prophecy embraces, and of those final results in which the present system of things is foretold to have its termination. A few canons may be necessary to guide us to a sound interpretation. Frequently the prediction may employ double images. God thus often, in impressing the minds of men, discovered a twofold emblem. "The dream is one." It is not If it be a A general consistency of scope must be expected where we think that there is a prediction. enough that the passage appears like one. prediction, it will not, most probably, be set amidst perfect incongruities of text and connection. The equal intervals of time, in the different Prophets, will generally be found to relate to the same events. Such synchronisms often furnish the most valuable assistance. Prophecies should be collated and compared: "no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation,”—that is, it is not to be judged of simply by itself. No whole book of prophecy can be decyphered by the order of events. We shall soon see the necessity of introducing the anticipative and retrocessive rules of exposition. Whatever expresses the religious people and worship of the Dispensation under which a Prophecy is spoken, may denote those of another Dispensation under which it is fulfilled. Names of places, persons, and things, are employed to adumbrate such as are most remote and different; but always with some one point or more to give a naturalness and fidelity to the allusion. It will be generally discovered that individual men are not figures in the prophetic groups. Principles are personified; and where we seem to behold the individual men themselves, they are introduced, not for their personal qualities, but to fix some epoch or illustrate some event. As Prophecy is intended, when unfulfilled, to excite our hope, and when accomplished, to confirm our faith, so will it be proper to decide, with the greatest diffidence, whether we can distinguish our own passing period and history reflected in it. Nothing can so certainly establish the evangelical tenour of an Old Testament prediction, as its applica tion by the New. They are but one scheme of Prophecy. The Apocalypse is divided into two parts: its visions conclude with the eleventh chapter: it then recapitulates them, only with stronger figures and in more expanded forms, until it ends. Two great defections have taken place from Christian truth and purity. We believe that there is a dim representation of, at least, one of them in the earlier Prophets. But it is in the writings of Daniel that both are first made evident. His vision of the four Beasts is not only parallel to that of the partiform Colossus beheld by Nebuchadnezzar, but is an enlargement of it. For, from the fourth monster of the ten horns, we are led much farther into futurity than by the intimations of the legs of iron, and the feet of iron and clay, on which the Image stood. We might expect a deeper insight, from the fact that these are not compound lifeless materials, but animal beings, that they are multiplied into separate existences, that they are instinct with sentience and voluntary action, and that they are subsequent to the other type. In the midst of those ten horns, there arises "another little horn." It need scarcely be said that this is the emblem of power. It "speaks great things." "It wears out the saints of the Most High." "It thinks to change times and laws." "In it are eyes like the eyes of man." We are now constrained to enquire, when this was fulfilled? But, turning to the Apocalypse, we find the same hieroglyphic carried on; and, therefore, we infer, that when the former |