used to sacrifice a man to procure their recovery, or promise so to do when restored. He describes the nation as scarcely clothed at all, and living all together in a promiscuous herd, much like the wild cattle of their own plains.

I must not conclude without a glance at Ireland. Druidism was established there; at least the oak was worshipped, and the soothsayers were called Druids. The sun appears to have been the chief deity of this people, and was called Grian and Beal. He was propitiated with human sacrifices, and the moon and stars shared his honours.

The worship of artificial gods was introduced by Tighermas, who reigned about A.M. 2820, as Keating informs us, in his curious and somewhat romantic History of Ireland. This king's idol was called Crom Cruacti; it was, doubtless, a symbol of the sun, and consisted of a stone having a golden top, with twelve smaller stones ranged around it. All the first-born both of man and beast, were sacrificed to this deity, and his rites inflicted great bodily pain on the worshippers. During these senseless and impious ceremonies, the king and many of his fellow devotees are said to have been struck dead by lightning.

It is foreign, however, to our present purpose to investigate farther the ancient history of these islands. We see cruelty, barbarism, and misery, all in close relation to each other; and we can trace all to those perverted systems of worship that drew the people away from the true knowledge of God. The history of Europe differs, however, from that of Asia, in one material point; we miss the national destruction. The Scandinavian, the Scythian, the ancient Britain, still exist, in their descendants, however they may have

been brought under Roman or other conquest, at various times. The introduction of Christianity is the great secret of this preservation. The faint light received from afar, or the broader ray that illumined some happier portions, prevailed to save these lands from the stagnation that succeeds darkness. The "salt of the earth," in however small a quantity it existed, preserved the mass from putrefaction and decay. But this refers to more modern times; darkness, darkness, still darkness, brooded over Ancient Europe in her Western and Northern provinces. Was there light in the East? In Greece and Rome?-We shall see.

A. F.

THE BIBLE OUR STRONGHOLD.

THE language which describes Zion (Psalm xlviii.) may fitly be applied to the Scriptures-"Walk about Zion, and go round about her; tell the towers thereof-mark ye well her bulwarks-consider her palaces: " for what do we find in the Bible but "towers," and "bulwarks,” so strong, that they who flee into them are safe-so fortified, as to resist the fiercest enemy, and to defy the most combined attack. And when we go round about her," do we not find great reason to "consider the palaces we meet with, which the Lord has so richly furnished, not only with necessaries, but as we proceed in the examination, how do comforts upon comforts lie in heaps around us?

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In the way of example, how well are we defended, for we see sin bringing upon itself punishment, either signal or open, or else by a forcible blow on the conscience-a bitter remorse, a quickened recollection— telling us that an evil thing indeed it is, and a bitter, to sin against God; sin and sorrow are inseparable, their union dates back to the sad day when the sentence went forth which begins with a 'because,' and sends us back to the first scene of guilt and folly. Look at Jonah-he fled from the duty which was allotted him to perform, and to all human probability, he is left to perish in the sea. And when another prophet evinces

his weakness of faith, distrusting God, forgetting that the angel of the Lord encampeth about his people and delivereth them, and showing himself unsupported by the truth, that if God was on his side he need not fear, but fled from the persecuting Jezebel, and wished for himself that he might die. But the Lord's eye was over him, he left him not a prey to himself. And how must the prophet have been smote by the reproof so gently conveyed in the voice which came unto him and said, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" (1 Kings xix.) And what was the end of him who was charged with a 'message to Bethel, and commanded not to eat or to drink there, nor to return by the way he came? We find him resisting the temptations of a court, and the promise of a reward; and then in a few verses we read of his awful fall,-temptation presented itself in another form, and he was seduced,‚—a lion met him by the way and slew him.

The fourteenth of Numbers contains another relation of disobedience, and its consequence. Some of the children of Israel transgressed the command of the Lord, and presumed to go up to the hill top, although the ark and Moses departed not out of the camp-and the result was, that they found in themselves the accomplishment of the prediction by which they had been warned-"Go not up, for the Lord is not among you, that ye be not smitten before your enemies, for the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword because ye are turned away from the Lord, therefore the Lord will not be with you." Here how plainly are we shewn in what safety consists, even in obeying implicitly the word of God, doing nothing without his authority, or without his presence, and doing it also in the manner prescribed,

that we may expect success by insuring his blessing. And when we reflect upon the character of God, that he hath said and he will also do it, we must certainly look for the fulfilment of those threatenings which are suspended over those who rebel and refuse to attend to the voice of the Lord our God-the punishment merited by transgressors. When therefore we are tempted to sin, the examples and the precepts of Scripture must rise before us as a mighty bulwark, to defend us from the successful attacks of our adversaries. St. Paul

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would so speak of them, for he says, "These things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted." These things happened unto them for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition. 1 Cor. x. They are towers," in which we may be safe from pride, and boasting, and presumption, and self-dependence, and while their walls screen us from attack, they bear the inscriptions, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed, lest he fall.” "Be not high-minded but fear." "Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of us should seem to come short of it." 1 Cor. x. Rom. xi. Heb. iv.

Thus looking upon ourselves by the light of Scripture, as weak and ready to sink and fall, we shall be led to the only source of strength "the rock that is higher than us," whereon we may lean and build our hopes, and which will defy all the storms of earth, and resist the warrings of hell. secure than when by grace cast on him our every care. shewn himself in inviting us to bring our burdens unto him—our sins even are not to keep us back, for Jesus will bear them away, and clothe us with his righteous

Nothing can render us more we commune with God, and How gracious has the Lord