affecting anecdotes from the patriarch times. He replenished it with stately argument and thrilling verse, and sprinkled it over with sententious wisdom and proverbial pungency. He made it a book of lofty thoughts and noble images, a book of heavenly doctrine, but withal of earthly adaptation. In preparing a guide to immortality, Infinite Wisdom gave, not a dictionary, nor a grammar, but a Bible-a book which, in trying to reach the heart of man, should captivate his taste; and which, in transforming his affections, should also expand his intellect. The pearl is of great price; but even the casket is of exquisite beauty. The sword is of ethereal temper, and nothing cuts so keen as its double edge; but there are jewels on the hilt, an exquisite inlaying on the scabbard. The shekels are of the purest ore; but even the scrip which contains them is of a texture more curious than any which the artists of earth can fashion. The apples are gold; but even the basket is silver.

Remembering then that the Bible contains no ornamental passages, nothing written for mere display, that its steadfast purpose is, "Glory to God in the highest," and the truest blessedness of man,—we repeat that that Bible abounds in passages of the purest beauty and stateliest grandeur, all the grander and all the more beautiful because they are casual and unsought. The fire which flashes from the iron hoof of the Tartar steed as he scours the midnight path is grander than the artificial firework; for it is the casual effect of speed and power. The clang

of ocean as he booms his billows on the rock, and the echoing caves give chorus, is more soul-filling and sublime than all the music of the orchestra; for it is the music of that main so mighty that there is a grandeur in all it does,-in its sleep a melody, and in its march a stately psalm. And in the bow which paints the melting cloud there is a beauty which the stained glass or gorgeous drapery emulates in vain; for it is the glory which gilds beneficence, the brightness which bespeaks a double boon, the flush which cannot but come forth when both the sun and shower are there. The style of Scripture has all this glory. It has the gracefulness of a high utility; it has the majesty of intrinsic power; it has the charm of its own sanctity; it never labours, never strives, but, instinct

with great realities and bent on blessed ends, it has all the translucent beauty and unstudied power which you might expect from its lofty object and all-wise Author.

A Total Eclipse.

Dr. Hamilton.

ONE of the most sublime and awe-inspiring sights I ever witnessed—and yet one of the most difficult to describe-was the total eclipse of the sun, as we beheld it here on Saturday afternoon.

At four o'clock we stood in the door-yard of my friend, with smoked glass in hand; and, as one of us was watching the blazing sun, he exclaimed, "There she comes!" When a boy, I had read of this very eclipse, and of the moment it should begin. It did begin at the precise second predicted forty years ago! Such is the punctuality of the truth-keeping God. And will He not be equally faithful in keeping His spiritual promises? "Wherefore dost thou doubt?" The shadow came over the sun gradually-even as I have seen the shadow of a growing sin creep over a bright Christian character. The landscape around us began to look yellowish and ghastly. The grass seemed to be getting sick. Over the trees played a weird, lurid light, and every leaf hung perfectly motionless. "Oh! see how queer those flowers look! And those currant bushes! It looks as if nature was getting the jaundice!" An odd thought; and yet I do not know of any other idea that would more truly describe Nature's ghastly hue.

"See who'll catch the first star," said one of our group. The shadow deepened, the devouring moon pushed on, until the helpless sun was nearly smothered. "Therelook! look! See-see-it is almost gone!" Only a minute more, and it is total! "Yonder is a star!" exclaimed one of our company. It was Regulus, blazing away close by the bed of the dying sun. (But Venus had been shining for full five minutes, without our discovering her golden locks.) "Only a few seconds more." But, ah! what a transformation do those few seconds work! Even as in a human history, the deed of a moment suffices to darken a destiny for life; and, still worse, it flings its total eclipse over eternity!

"TOTAL!" we all exclaimed together. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, came down an awful shadow, as of a black wing, filling the whole heavens. It was ineffably frightful. Coleridge's lines flashed into my mind in a moment.

"The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out;

With one stride comes the dark."

The mighty pall of darkness hung over us for almost three minutes! During that time every one in our group had a death-like hue. So might have looked the face of the universe to the apostle John in some of his apocalyptic visions. At two minutes after five, as we stood gazing at the black orb, with its magnificent corona, a sudden flash of golden light burst forth from the northern limb. It was the most thrilling instant I ever knew, and the most splendid spectacle I ever witnessed. As if God said, "Let there be light!" a sheaf of dazzling rays burst forth in a twinkling! The whole sky lightened instantaneously. Methought that the " sons of God" must have seen something like this

when on Creation's morn the first flood of radiance broke on black chaos at the almighty Voice. He spake and it was done! "THOU makest darkness, and it is night!" "THOU COverest thyself with light as with a garment!" Dr. Cuyler.

The Light to the Path.

BUT if a sincere and strenuous Theism be thus important such natural faith in God as upbore the wing of Plato in his long and ethereal flights, or bulged the Saxon thews of Shakespeare in his mightiest efforts, incomparably more prevalent is that intellectual prowess which a scriptural faith produces. He is no Unknown God whom the believer in Jesus worships, and it is no ordinary inspiration which that God of light and love supplies to His servants. It would be easy to enumerate one genius after another which the gospel kindled if it did not create. That gospel, beyond all controversy, was our own Milton's poetic might. It was the struggling energy which, after years of deep musing and rapt devotion, after years of mysterious muttering and anxious omen, sent its pyramid

of flame into old England's dingy hemisphere, and poured its molten wealth-its lava of gold and gems, fetched deep from classic and patriarchal times, adown the russet steep of Puritan theology. It was the fabled foot which struck from the sward of Cowper's mild and silent life a joyous Castalia-a fountain deep as Milton's fire, and like it tinctured with each learned and sacred thing it touched in rising, but soft and full as Siloah's fount, which "flowed fast by the oracle of God." And that gospel was the torch which, on the hills of Renfrewshire, fired a young spirit,-himself both sacrifice and altar-pile,-till Britain spied the light, and wondered at the brief but brilliant beacon. But why name the individual instances? What is modern learning, and the march of intellect, and the reading million, but one great monument of the gospel's quickening power? Three or four hundred years ago the classics were revived; at the same time the gospel was restored. Digging in the Pompeii of the middle age, Lorenzo and Leo found the lamps in which the old classic fires had burned; but there was no oil in the lamps, and they had long since gone out. For models of candelabra and burners there could not be better than Livy, and Horace, and Plato, and Pindar; but the faith which once filled them the old Pagan fervour-was long since extinct, and the lamps were only fit for the shelf of the antiquary. But it was then that, in the crypt of the convent, Luther, and Zuingle, and Melancthon, observed a line of supernatural light, and with lever and mattock lifted the gravestone, and found the gospel which had been buried. There it had flamed, "a light shining in a dark place," through unsuspected ages-unquenchable in its own immortality-the long-lost lamp in the sepulchre. Jupiter was dead, and Minerva had melted into ether, and Apollo was grey with eld, and the most elegant idols of antiquity had gone to the moles and the bats. But there is One who cannot die and does not change-and the Fountain of Scriptural Learning is He who is also the Fountain of Life-the Alpha and the Omega-Jesus the Son of God. From His gospel it was that the old classic lamps, when filled with fresh oil, were kindled again; and at that gospel it was that Bacon, and Locke, and Milton, and Newton, and all the mighty spirits of modern Europe,

caught the fire which made them blaze, the meteors of our firmament, the marvels of our favoured time.

Catharine de Medicis.

Dr. Hamilton.

Ir is humiliating to our common nature to dwell upon the portraiture, which, if history says sooth, must be drawn of this remarkable woman. Her character is a study. Remorseless without cruelty, and sensual without passion-a diplomatist without principle, and a dreamer without faith-a wife without affection, and a mother without feeling-we look in vain for her parallel. She stands "grand and gloomy, in the solitude of her own originality." See her in her oratory! devouter Catholic never told his beads. See her in the cabinet of Ruggieri the astrologer! never glared fiercer eye into Elfland's glamour and mystery-never were philter and potion (alas! not all for healing) mixed with firmer hand. See her in the council-room! royal caprice yielded to her commanding will; soldiers faltered beneath her falcon. glance who never cowered from sheen of spears, nor blenched at flashing steel; and hoary-headed statesmen who had made politics their study, confessed that she outmatched them in her cool and crafty wisdom. See her in disaster! more philosophical resignation never mastered suffering; braver heroism never bared its breast to storm. Strange contradictions are presented by her, which the uninitiated cannot possibly unravel. Power was her early and her life-long idol, but when within her grasp she let it pass away, enamoured rather of the intrigue than of the possession; a mighty huntress, who flung the game in largess to her followers, finding her own royal satisfactions in the excitement of the chase. scanty sensibilities, and without natural affection, there were times when she laboured to make young lives happy -episodes in her romantic life, during which the woman's nature leaped into the day. Toiling constantly for the advancement of her sons, she shed no tear at their departure, and sat intriguing in her cabinet, while an old blind bishop and two aged domestics were the only mourners who followed her son Francis to the tomb.

Of