tainty; and he can only exclaim, with a celebrated Roman Emperor (Adrian) on his death-bed, "O my poor, wandering, trembling, fluttering soul! whither art thou going? and to what unknown region art thou about to take thy flight?

| ing, which is so general among the interesting inhabitants of that distant region; and the endeared familiarity of intercourse is cemented by the soothing salutations of aged piety-"The Lord bless thee;" to which the young are ever ready to respond, "Peace be unto thee." The gift which patriotism and piety have conferred on Iceland, we would wish to impart, in a still loftier measure, to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland; and in this "work of faith and labour of love," the Gaelic School Society of Edinburgh, with its auxiliaries, here and elsewhere, have for forty years successfully laboured; and many thousands of old and young have been taught to "read in their own tongue the wonderful works of God."

Can a scene of moral wretchedness be conceived more gloomy and disheartening than this? and where can you find an argument, from experience and from fact, that is more affectingly strong, in favour of the necessity and excellence of real religion? Its truths are the only subjects on which the mind of an aged man can rest with placid complacence. Its treasures of knowledge open up to him resources of constant delight, when all others are about to fail. Amid the scantiness of his temporal board, he finds a supply to the wants You admire the native scenery of northern and of nature in the rich feast which the favour of his western Caledonia-her islands and her glensGod, the fellowship of Christian friends, and the her lofty mountains and her expansive lakes-ob! good hope through grace, supplies. And in him but there is a moral scenery that is still more the Christian paradox, as it is justly termed, is beautiful; and the eye of Christian sensibility deamply verified: "As sorrowful, yet always re- lights to linger amid the interesting economy of a joicing; as poor, but making many rich; as Gaelic school. I enter one on the distant shores having nothing, and yet possessing all things." of Lochaber, and there is the goodly number of three score and ten, fathers and mothers with their children, listening to the instructions of an aged female, who had learned to appreciate, from experience, the blessings of religious knowledge. Her name, Margaret Sinclair, deserves a place in the "short and simple annals of the poor." I pass on to the school at Glencairn, in the parish of Kincardine, Ross-shire, and there, at the head of seventy scholars, of all ages, I descry the hoary head of the old veteran, (Iverach,) who in 1715 fought the battles of loyalty, and in 1815, just a century thereafter, began to learn the letters of the alphabet! and whose progress was only arrested by the loss of sight, and, in the winter of 1816, by the grasp of death. At the threshold of another school, nearer to our own view, I see an aged woman of seventy-eight, leaning on crutches, and carrying her spelling-book in her hand. In the Report of the Society we mark this interesting notice :-"The great number of adults who attend the Gaelic schools is in the highest degree interesting and encouraging, and forms a peculiar feature in the system of teaching. Some of these poor people are so far advanced in life, that the committee have found it necessary, during the past year, to introduce a new article into their depository, namely, spectacles for the use of their schools. Such an appendage, it is believed, has never before been found necessary by an education society; but it serves to illustrate, in a very strik

Those who have been accustomed to visit, on a tour of mercy, the streets, and lanes, and garrets of our crowded home-population, can paint the contrast that there is between the dreariness of the winter of age, when destitute of the resources of piety, and when lighted and cheered by the grace of the Gospel. The stare of vacancy is exchanged for the sparkling eye of Christian sensibility; the dark chambers of a darkened and perverted mind are exchanged for those hallowed abodes on which heaven has shed its selectest radiance. And did the sons and the daughters of benevolence know the full value that is affixed, in the catalogue of the pilgrim's comforts, to the weekly or the occasional call of Christian sympathy and love, the calls, I am persuaded, would be still more frequent-the hallowed intercourse still more endeared.

The love which seeks to enlarge the real comforts of age, will not overlook, in its visits of mercy, those whose peculiar locality exposes them to still more painful deprivations. Amid the streets and lanes of our own cities and towns, the activity of our Christian agents may do much to lighten the pressure of the winter of age; but there are scenes of poverty which even angels' visits" do not cheer-there are aged men and aged women, whose minds are shut up amid all the shades of religious ignorance; there are islands, and there are remote districts, seldom, if ever, visited by the "feet of those who bringing manner, the eagerness of our too long neglected good tidings of good, and who publish salvation;" there are cabins whose thresholds are never crossed by the messengers of peace, to whose inhabitants the Bible has not yet unfolded its ample treasures, and for the comfort of whose aged sires no spiritual provision has been made.

countrymen to learn to read the Word of God in their native language." In all this there is a moral beauty, to delight the eye and the heart of the Christian observer; and the persons benefited by the privilege, are duly sensible of its value.

Among the more pious part of our Highland We are told by Dr Henderson, a truly Chris- population, the schools of the Gaelic Society are tian traveller and missionary, that in Iceland the known by the name of Sgoilean Chroisd; that long and dark nights of winter are pleasantly be- is to say, The Schools of Christ." They are guiled away by the capacity and the habit of read-schools for training up disciples; and the provi

That proceeded from his side
When in darkest night he died,
In our souls thy graces glow,
Making earth a heaven below!

v.

Intercessor, Spirit! pray,
Teach our darken'd souls the way;
Prompting words and holy feeling,
And the mind of Christ revealing;
In us raise the pure desire,
Like the altar's quenchless fire,
Ever burning, pure, and bright,
Full of warmth, and full of light;
While, the heavenly veil within,
Our High Priest that died for sin,
With his glorious breastplate on,
Pleads before the eternal throne.

VI.

Everlasting Spirit! come,
Teach us life's imperfect sum:
All on earth is dark and drear,
Changeful as the changing year;
All is dark, without a ray,
Like one hideous Golgotha:

Breathe, oh! breathe; thine influence give:
Spirit! come, and we shall live;
Raise our souls from things of earth,
Subjects of a better birth,

And our song shall be of Thee,
Through a blest eternity!

principle of malice and indignation, which is altogether contradictory to his recognised character for meekness, or, through a constraining and delegated power from heaven, he caused instant and summary punishment to be inflicted on the Egyptian, either by his own hands, or by the retributive instrumentality of the nearly conquered Hebrew, causing the latter to be the minister and avenger of justice. And even in the latter case, it may still be said, in one sense, that "he slew him." And is not the hint drawn from the peculiar use of the Hebrew term, as denoting the prin ciple or nature of Moses' action, in some measure corroborated by the expression of the conflicting and wrong-doing Israelite on "the second day," "who made thee a prince and a judge over us?"—an expression which may be made without much violence, if any, to a legitimate deduction, to imply that Moses was vested with a recognised authority, though the irritated Hebrew, like every other person placed in similar circumstances of wrong-doing, was unwilling to own a constituted authority, or ironically and tauntingly called it in question, and especially when he thought that he had Moses completely in his power, in consequence of having done an action which would expose him to the vengeance of Pharaoh. But however plausible and legitimate the hypothesis drawn from the construction we have put on the Hebrew terms may be, yet we may be certain that nothing but an express

ON THE CRIME OF THE SMITING EGYPTIAN, AND authority from heaven, or some dire imperious necessity,

THE VINDICATION OF MOSES FOR SLAYING HIM.

BY THE REV. GEORGE A. SIMPSON,
Minister of Tyrie, Aberdeenshire.
PART II.

WAS Moses to be at once the accuser, the jury, judge,
and executioner of the Egyptian? Some have alleged,
that he was even then vested by a special commission
from heaven, with extraordinary power or authority;
and they justify the action, extraordinary as it was, not
by the common right of avenging the oppressed, which |
belongs not to private persons (Rom. xii. 19), but
only by his divine and special vocation to be the ruler
and deliverer of Israel; which call of his, however
manifested, whether by his father, as Josephus says, or
immediately to himself, was evident to his own con-
science; and he gave this as a signal to make it evi-
dent to his people."-(See Poole's Annotations on the
passage in question.) Let us examine into this state-
ment, in order to ascertain whether it is borne out by
facts and statements of Scripture, sufficient to furnish
a triumphant justification of Moses' conduet. It is,
indeed, to be observed, that the Scripture speaks only
of his warrant to act as the ruler and defender of Israel
being issued when he dwelt in Midian, and publicly
proclaimed among the Israelites when he returned to
Egypt, forty years after this transaction occurred. It
is however to be carefully noted, that there are certain
expressions in the original which would lead us to infer,
that even at that time he was vested by heaven with
special judicial power, that he was authorised to act
as the avenger of blood,-to punish a malicious and
blood-thirsty malefactor; for the word translated "he
slew," belongs to that conjugation (hiphil) which im-
plies causation, and therefore Moses at the time must
have caused it to be done, either from an actuating

from whatever cause arising, could have induced a man of such notoriously mild, humane, and meek a temper as Moses afterwards showed himself to be, to imbrue his hands in the blood of his bitterest foe, if he could have otherwise prevented it, and yet secured the safety of himself, or of others. The plea of having dealt an accidentally mortal blow in self-defence, or even the necessity of self-defence, will not justify him, because, though he must have been fiercely assailed by the furious Egyptian, and his life placed in imminent jeopardy, though he would require all his skill, activity, and prowess, to repel the onslaught of his assailant, yet the same dexterity and prowess which conquered and slew his antagonist, could have easily enabled him to smite, so as merely to disarm or disable him, could have easily vanquished and bound him as a harmless captive, while his rank and position in Pharaoh's court, if he was then an inmate of the royal palace, would have effectually protected him from all future danger from the conquered Egyptian. Or, if Pharaoh had resented his interference in the cause of the oppressed Hebrews, as contradictory to the line of policy he had adopted towards the children of Israel, yet would not the intercession of his royal benefactress, whether she was the daughter of the Pharaoh then upon the throne, or whether she was any other near relative, have afforded the hopes of easily procuring his pardon, and rescuing him from the peril incurred by thwarting the measures of the monarch. But had he been acting under the authority of heaven as a judge and a ruler, why did be

The Jews, in their love for the marvellous, give an easy solu tion to the difficulties attendant on the whole of this subject; for their priests (says Clemens Alexandrinus) declared that Moses slew the Egyptian with a word,-thus giving them a miracle to prove his mission, and so then he must be killed by him who is the Lord of life and death.-See Whitby Annotations on Acts vii. 25.

He

Josephus mentions a dream of Amram, which he implies led to the faith of Moses. This species of revelation, (if vouchsafed to him), so common in the early ages of the world, would give birth to the assurance of the parents of Moses, that their infant child about to be born, was to be the future deliverer of Israel, and would lead them to adopt the dangerous line of conduct for his preservation in the full assurance of the realization in due time of the divine adoption into the family, and his careful education, for his future promises. And the miraculous preservation of Moses and his

not punish with equal severity the culpable and quar- | hurry them into a rash and unsuccessful rebellion, and relsome Hebrew, especially the man who was in the thus draw down upon them the still more oppressing wrong, whom he saw on "the second day," smiting and even exterminating vengeance of Pharaoh. (still the same verb of the same conjugation, but feared, that in openly espousing the cause of the afflicted in a different tense) his fellow? This man was to all | Hebrews, he would be interdicted from all intercourse appearance, though not altogether from the same mo- with them, and thus be prevented from secretly endeative, committing the same offence as the Egyptian had vouring to mitigate their burdens, by the performance been doing, and equally deserved to die. But still of all those kind offices which sympathy and generosity Moses, so far as we can gather from the history, did know so well to do, and delight in doing in the most not equally punish him as he had the former criminal. endearing, encouraging, and efficacious manner. He One would imagine that he would have undoubtedly dreaded the useless periling of his life, by the open inflicted the same summary punishment on the Hebrew slaughter of one of the native subjects of the realm of culprit, if he had been commissioned by heaven to be a Egypt, and thus placing himself under the ban of the judge and a ruler over Israel at the time. But though empire, which he was assured would be instantly put in no mitigating circumstances had occurred in the case of force against him. For he knew, if we may believe the latter culprit, and from the silence of the his. Josephus, that Pharaoh viewed him with a jealous eye, tory we are not warranted to say that there were in consequence of a prophecy current among the licany mitigating circumstances, and, in fact, there brews, and also among the Egyptians, a prophecy pronever can be mitigating circumstances in the case of bably originating in some revelation made to Amram, * a deliberate murderer, yet might not Moses have been and laid hold of by the Egyptian priest to answer some ordered by heaven,-if in the one case he had acted by sinister purpose of his own, that Moses was to be the the authority of heaven,-to leave in this case the cul- future ruler and deliverer of Israel; and he was aware prit to the retributive justice of God, to be punished that Pharaoh would readily, and gladly avail himself of in due season, in God's own time and way. Perhaps, the occurrence of the slaughter of one of his native subtoo, the horror of having shed blood even in selfdefence, or in a judicial capacity, might have weighed with Moses in not again doing so, but induced him to try other measures to prevent the wrong-doing Hebrew from slaying his brother, to employ, as he did, on this occasion, as he had done on the former, the weight of affectionate and mild expostulations and remonstrances, seconded by the authority of his recognised rank and power, and by the remembrance of the former deed, and his consequent determined spirit to punish every deliberate murderous assault. His object was to prevent murder, and he would seem to have effectually done so. Had he indeed slain the Hebrew, he might have imagined that he would have weakened the effect of the evidence he gave, and intended to give, by the slaughter of the Egyptian, that he was to be the future ruler and deliverer of Israel. He would no doubt have vindicated his authority as a ruler and a judge, but could they have looked upon him as their deliverer? Worldly policy, therefore, though that could be no justification, might have prevented him from inflicting the same summary justice on the Hebrew. There is, indeed, one circumstance which, at first sight, would seem to militate, not merely against the character of Moses, as implying that he was actuated by the principles of worldly policy and prudence, and arguing that he could have easily spared the life of the Egyptian, but also against the supposition of his being then invested with judicial and executive power; for if he had been so invested, might it not be imagined, that he would have fearlessly and openly executed it, without any dread of prospective evil consequences to himself? It is said, that he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand." But surely a due regard to the dictates of prudence is not incompatible with the right and efficient discharge of duty. Moses was undoubtedly contrymen; and though that of itself can be no confirmation actuated by the dictates of prudence; but it was a prudence which had respect, not so much perhaps to his own safety, as to the weal of his countrymen. He expressions of Scripture, and the deductions of reason upon them,

dreaded, by an open vindication of their wrongs, to

office, under the eye of the implacable enemy of the house of Israel, were a sort of corroboratory evidence to them of the care of heaven over their child, and of the accomplishment in due season of their anticipated and authorised hopes respecting him, and thus would keep alive their expectations, and cheer their minds under their long and complicated and oppressive burdens in the house of their bondage. A faith without a ground or object to rest upon is a nonentity, and would never be a subject of commendation by the Scripture; and as the faith of the parents of Moses is celebrated by the apostle in the 11th chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, we would inter, that some revelationary statement of some kind or other was made to them with regard to the fate and office of their infant son. It is, indeed, true, that they had no grounds or objects of their faith, the general promises of God, with respect to the deliverance of their nation, and they could calculate, that the predicted period of four hundred years was rapidly, though not very near, verging to its close. And every father and mother in Israel might hope, that they might be the happy parents of their destined deliverer. But still they must have been aware, that forty years were yet to elapse, (for wise and important purposes, though they could not foresee it, it was destined to extend to other forty years more.) And how could they calculate, that so long before its termination, they were to be the parents of the ruler and deliverer of their nation? And yet it is said of them, that they had faith-faith in what? a faith, acording to the plain meaning of the apostle's words, not merely in the miraculous preservation of their child, but also in the reality of his future office. For it is evident, that the faith which the apostle celebrates, was that which actuated them, as well as Moses, to bear up in common with the other saints of God, under their allotted trials, but to the faithful and office. And hence we would infer, that they must have had some

successful discharge of the duties of his public character and
specific revelation or evidence of some kind or other, for the guid-
ance and support of their faith in reference to his public character
and office. These grounds or objects of their faith, they would
unquestionably communicate, in the course of their permitted inter-
course with him, when they were initiating him into all the ele
ments of Hebrew lore, and training him up in the principles and
promises of the holy religion, for the honourable discharge of his
future important and interesting office. Reasoning on the same
principles, we would also infer, that as his own faith is celebrated
in the same 11th chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, he must
have had some certain, or indefinite revelation confirmatory of that
vouchsafed to his parents, and carrying firm conviction to his mind,
that he was to be the deliverer of Israel, and leading him to

adopt the self-denying and high-minded resolution to abandon
the court of Pharaoh, in order to identify himself with the
people of God, and to enter on the immediate execution
of that office for which he believed he had a divine commis-
sion.
From the expressions, too, of the wrong doing Israelite
"on the second day," we know that such a belief was current among

of the supposed fact, yet taken in conjunction with other evidences
it may help to lead to the inference, that such an opinion may have
originated in some authenticated revelation. In short, from the
we would infer that God had made it known that Moses had a divine
commission at the time when he slew the smiting Egyptian,

Such a

put on perfection; the image of God is so far completed in them, that nothing contrary to the divine nature remains in all their frame; for they see God in all the fairest beauties of his holiness, and they adore and love. the same image from glory to glory.-REV. DR WATTS. They behold him without a veil, and are changed into

jects, and that, too, of one of his officials, when in the supposed discharge of his duties as a task-master, and of the indication thus afforded of his wish and endeavour to excite the Israelites to rebellion, and thus deprive him of the benefit of their services, in building his treasure cities, and carrying on the public works for the embellishment and advantage of his kingdom, as a plausible and legal Faith. In the experience of Christians, we find they pretext for summarily cutting him off; and thus grati- too often show more regard to the actings of faith, than fying his jealousy,* indulging his avarice, extinguishing The Scriptures principally direct our attention to the to the object of faith. This is an error in experience. his fears, and justifying himself in the eyes of the Egyp- testimony of God-the report of God by his messengers tian populace, with many of whom Moses might have the record which he hath given of his Son. They been a favourite, in consequence of the splendid vic- testify of him, in his wonderful person, his perfect tories, if we may credit Josephus, he had gained over character, his mediatorial offices, his saving power, his a neighbouring and hostile nation, or in consequence of great salvation, his faithful promises, his inconceivable his humane, generous, and popular manners. love, his all-sufficient grace. They invite, exhort, enconstruction Moses had every reason to believe would pardon, justification, holiness, peace, and eternal life treat, and urge sinners to believe in him; and promise be put on his conduct; and such a fate he had every to all that believe. They dwell rather on what we cause to dread, notwithstanding the powerful interces- believe, than how we believe; the truth believed, sion that would be made in his favour by his adopting rather than the manner of believing it. They make no mother and benefactress-an intercession which had promise to a "feigned faith," a dead faith-that is, to formerly secured him from peril, but which would now a heart destitute of real faith; but to a believing unbe utterly unavailing in his favour; feignedly, with the heart, in the Son of God. There and therefore are differences of this faith, both in degree and in effects, Moses, not so much through any dastardly motives of but the quality of the principle is the same. It is a fear for his own personal safety, not through any doubt "like precious faith" in all believers-in its object, of the actual reality of his commission, or of the pro- warrant, kind, and effects. Instead, therefore, of priety of shedding the blood of the murderous-inten-making distinctions on the nature of faith, as to its tioned Egyptian, but through motives of prudential and actings, we shall be more profitably employed in conpatriotic regard for the safety and weal of others, he sidering the truth, the Gospel, the glad tidings of God; and, on the evidence of Revelation, endeavour, in deavailed himself of the opportunity furnished by the soli-pendence on the Holy Spirit, to believe" the faithful tariness of the place, having no eye to detect him, but a friendly and a kinsman's eye, to execute the duties of his office as ruler and judge-to execute the sentence that "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."

CHRISTIAN TREASURY

The Saints in Heaven.-Temptation and sin have no place in those happy regions. These are the evils that belong to earth and hell; but within the gates of heaven nothing must enter that tempteth, nothing that defileth. It is the mixture of sinful thoughts and idle words, sinful actions and irregular affections, that makes our state of holiness so imperfect here below. We groan within ourselves, being burdened; we would be rid of these criminal weaknesses, these guilty attendants of our lives; but the spirits above are under a sweet necessity of being for ever holy; their natures have

Josephus says, that when Moses was nourished in Pharaoh's palace, he was appointed general of the army against the Ethiopians, and conquered them, when he married the king's daughter; be. cause, out of affection for him, she had delivered up the city to him. But the Egyptians, after they had been preserved by him in the Ethiopian war, entertained a hatred towards him, and were very eager in compassing their evil designs against him, suspecting that he would take occasion, from his good success, to raise a sedition, and bring innovations into Egypt, and told the king that he ought to be slain. The king had also some intention of himself to the same purpose; and this as well out of envy at his glorious expedition at the head of his army, as out of fear of being brought low by him; and being instigated by the sacred scribes, he was ready to undertake to kill Moses. But when he had learned beforehand what plots there were against him, he went away privately; and because the public roads were watched, he took his flight through the desert, and where his enemies could not suspect he would travel; and though he was destitute of bread, he went on, and despised that difficulty courageously. (See Whiston's translation of Josephus.) Whatever truth there may have been in the general outlines of the story about Moses' military achievements and victories in the supposed Ethiopian expedition, and the consequent war, and ungenerous jealousy and resentment of Pharaoh and his subjects, yet we know that a variety of other causes contributed to excite the jealousy and fears of the Egyptian monarch and nation; and that it was in consequence of another action of Moses, even his open and decisive interference with the cruel line of policy adopted, for crushing the spirits and exterminating the nation of Israel, and his judicially punishing with death one of the officials of Pharaoh, that roused, at last, the vengeance of that monarch, and he was compelled to flee to the land of Midian.

saying." The truth, really believed, will produce its effects, corresponding to its own nature.-REV. JOHN COOKE. (Select Remains.)

The Love of God in Christ.-Herein is love, here is the highest expression of God's love to the creature, not only that ever was, but that ever can be made: for, in love only God acteth to the uttermost ;-whatever his power hath done, it can do more: but for his love, it can go no higher he hath no greater thing to give than his Christ. It is true, in giving us a being, and that in the noblest rank and order of creatures on earth,herein was love; in feeding us all our life long, by his assiduous tender providence, herein is love; in protecting us under his wings from innumerable dangers and mischiefs,-herein is love, much love; and yet set all this by his redeeming love in Christ, and it seems nothing. When we have said all, herein is the love of God, that he sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. This was free love to undeserving, to ill-deserving sinners. Preventing love; not that we loved him, but that he loved us. Just as an image in the glass that is imprinted there by the face looking into it, the image does not look back upon the face, except the face look forward upon the image, and in that, the image does seem to see the face, it is nothing else but that the face does see the image. O! the inexpressible glory of the love of God in Christ. REV. J. FLAVEL.

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