they would have, in such circumstances, that he "had been with Jesus." There is a strange fascination produced by the character and ministrations of one who holds communion, with the skies. He carries with him an interest that can be accounted for only on the supposition that the nature of man is susceptible to the influence of the divine magnetism of a genuine, heaven-nourished devotion.

An increase of piety inclines the mind more and more to contemplate the truths which are so grateful to the soul. The preferences of the heart command the intellect. Thus there is not only an increased mental activity, but it is of such a kind, and goes in such a direction, as is best calculated to promote the end under consideration.

There can be no doubt, also, that ardent piety gives its possessor a more intimate acquaintance with human nature. It reveals his own heart to his view, and in doing so brings to light the otherwise hidden, secret elements that give form and character to the inclinations. And in thus becoming acquainted with himself, he becomes acquainted with others, for " as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.” Thus piety in the minister enables him to adapt his instructions to the wants of his audience, and to vary them according to the demands of the ever-shifting moral phases that occur in their history.

It can hardly admit of a question, that, in many cases, piety supplies, to a very great extent, the want of superior talents. and of large intellectual attainments. Many a man has been eminently useful in the ministry, and has ably and profitably served the same people, through a long course of years, who could boast neither of splendid abilities, nor of rich scholarship. He has had the important requisite of a holy heart and character, which have so governed his mind and ministrations as to secure noble ends in spite of the deficiences alluded to. His exhibitions of divine truth may not have been so comprehensive and profound; the light which his mind shed upon God's word may not have been so clear and brilliant, intellectually; but he has made up, in great part, by those peculiar compensations which, as we have seen, are the product of a warm devoted piety.

But, without undervaluing eminent religious attainments, the importance of which we have just been considering, we are constrained to affirm that the great means of obtaining variety in pulpit instruction consists in mental culture and application, for it is the mind that is primarily employed in preaching. There must be study-intellectual effort. The minister cannot expect that God will help him in this work if he do not help himself. Indolence, in this respect, involves a violation of a law of the divine government, and no blessing can be reasonably looked for while it is indulged in. It is where mental exertion is found that piety comes in and affords the aid of her experiences, and renders more intense the efforts of the intellect. She calms, soothes and equalizes one's whole nature, and thus surrounds the mind with a clear atmosphere, through which its eye can gaze forth upon the field of truth. So that, other things being equal, that mind which is associated with, and under the influence of, ardent piety, is safest, clearest, and mightiest in its workings. The epistles of Paul, inspired though they were, give evidence not only that piety glowed like a fire in his soul, and thus administered an unwonted energy to the movements of his intellect, but that he had enjoyed a large culture, and that he by no means allowed his powers to run to waste. He doubtless practised himself what he recommended to Timothy, and studied "to show himself approved of God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." In other words, he made it a matter of thought, solicitude and study, how he could, in the most effectual manner, exhibit the truths which he had been commissioned by Christ to teach. He knew that the science of religion was, in many respects, like every other science, and that he who bestowed the most thought and attention upon it, in connection with the best aids at his command, would unquestionably have the most copious and comprehensive views of it. So those who have since been most successful in the ministry, especially in the pastoral office, have been characterized by a similar application of the mind to the great themes of religion. Jonathan Edwards was re

markable in this respect; and while his piety did much for him, the world would never have been blessed by his immortal theological treatises had he not directed his mind to the elucidation of divine truth by a rigid devotion to study. The same may be affirmed of Fuller, Hall, Chalmers, Emmons, and a host of others. Indeed, every man who has occupied the same pulpit for a long series of years, has been obliged to have recourse to mental application. This has, in every such instance, been one secret of his maintaining his position, for it would have been impossible for him to have done so, on any other terms. The variety in his instructions which enabled him to retain the respect of his people, and his hold upon their minds and hearts, has been secured only by keeping the brain actively employed.

We are disposed to lay stress upon this point; but, we trust, not an undue one. Notwithstanding the high moral aims of the preacher, and that divine assistance which is promised him, his work is emphatically an intellectual work, and demands the earnest employment of the mind. In this way one can range through the broad field of religious truth, and present every variety of interesting combination. Mental discipline and fruitfulness of conception, especially if coupled with ardent piety, place a man upon a lofty eminence, from which he sees a bright sun shining with an eternal splendor and shedding its light upon the vast landscape spread out before him in its innumerable and diversified parts. They give him an eagle eye, so that from his proud elevation he can not only behold the great, the fundamental, the strongly-marked features of the prospect, but he can also see the nicer, the more delicate and the more remote objects, which conspire to give fulness and beauty to the spectacle. Such qualifications enable the Christian minister to dwell in a world of thought, in which there shall ever be new beauties to please the eye, and new pleasures to delight the soul.

ARTICLE VII.-BISHOP COLENS O.

The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically considered. By the RIGHT REV. JOHN WILLIAM COLENSO, D. D., Bishop of Natal. New York D. Appleton & Co. 1863.

[BY REV. O. S. STEARNS, NEWTON CENTRE, MASS.]

WE doubt whether any book has appeared in the theological world during the last century, which has awakened so much discussion, and produced so many replies, as the little work of Colenso, Bishop of Natal, upon the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua. Already it has received more than fifty elaborate answers. Undoubtedly his position as a missionary from the Established Church of England to the Zulus in South Africa had much to do with giving it a precocious notoriety. Station, though short-lived in the realm of literature, always commands an immediate attention. Undoubtedly, the spirit of candid inquiry, which breathes through the preface of the book, incited to a candid and earnest perusal of it. Man, at his best, is a being of doubt and darkness, and welcomes any thread which promises to guide him in a right path. But we believe that neither the Bishop's position nor his ostensible frankness has given so much celebrity to his hasty conclusions as the moral state of the auditory to which he designed to address himself. In England, during the last twenty-five years, there has been generated, by a variety of

causes, a large class of men who glory in the "nom de plume" of free thinkers. Many of them are in the Church, and yet not of the Church. Having no sympathy with evangelical religion; desiring to live by the gospel while sapping its foundations; ambitious for benefices as places for ease, but not as positions for the promotion of spiritual well-being; they are ready to hail with a flourish of trumpets any co-worker who will risk his own reputation for consistency in the promotion of their choicest desires. They do not wish to be deposed from the sacred office of a bishop, nor to be silenced as Bishop Colenso has been. They are not prepared for such a sacrifice; but they are willing he should beat the bush, provided that they can catch the birds. Their entire animus is the animus of the destructive, and like boys shouting over the burning building, they join in the cry of joy over every fire which threatens the overthrow of that blessed revelation in which is reposed the Christian's hope. The book found a ready market, because the market was all prepared for it. The Essays and Reviews, begotten by men of like passions with himself, to whom he was ready to bow with supreme reverence, and from whom he has stolen much of his thunder, had gone before him to herald his coming. The learning of Oxford, the power of bishops and curates, the leading writers of the Westminster Review, the rationalism of country and city pulpits, and the speculative tendency of the laity in high and low positions, were all pledged to give it a free pass, as soon as it passed out of the hands of the printer and binder. Speculators were on the alert to coin money by the sale of it; and bookworms, filled with a kindred virus, brought out from the dust works of a similar spirit to act as its body guard. Scarcely was the book dry before Spinoza's work upon the Old Testament, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, which had been doomed "to dumb forgetfulness a prey," by being shut up to the Latin, and refused a birth in any other language, because of its injurious influence, found a translator, and was sent forth on its errand of destruction; and already we hear that a lady of England has become so enamored with the Bishop's endeavors, as to assume the responsibility of editing