it either is, or it springs from, evil seed. Depend upon it, good seed will, in one form or another,—for every seed has its own body,-produce good, and every evil seed will produce evil and only evil continually. Thirdly: Whenever this chain of cause and effect is broken in our favour, and it never was, and never will be broken to our injury, though our short-sighted view may sometimes apprehend it is, we should see and acknowledge the interposition of divine mercy. Let any man, capable of thought, (for multitudes have by neglect lost the power of any thought deserving the name); let any man, capable of thought, look backward and look inward, and he must acknowledge that if the chain of sin, which circumstances have woven around him, has been broken, it has been by some cause which he could not command. Some event, some casualty, as it is called, has perhaps given a new turn to his mind, or to the course of events; or some impression has forced itself, unsought for, on his mind, but always something not the natural fruit of the course he has been pursuing. Fourthly: If man be thus woven round and round in chains he cannot break, we should hence learn the necessity of a Saviour, even such a Saviour as the Lord Jesus Christ, who was, from the beginning, the Word, by which all things were created, and "by whom all things do consist;" since none but He who planned the course of nature, who holds in His hands the beginning and the ending, the spring and the result of all things and all events, can break, or turn aside the course He first ordained; which course, while man adhered to God and good, was an immutable security to him of never-ending, ever-growing good; and which is so still to all of the fallen race, who embrace the Saviour, the only means offered to repair, or in the nature of things capable of repairing, the mischiefs incurred by his departure from them. 14-20. In the fourth day of the world the sun appeared : in the fourth millennium the Sun of Righteousness appeared, and God, the Light of the world, was made manifest in the flesh. 26. I have been told that in this, and some other places, there is in the original language an intermixture of the plural and singular, by which an idea of more Persons than one in the Deity is conveyed. Of this and of all other remarks respecting the original languages of scripture, I hope you will one day be competent to judge for yourself; of all my observations of every kind I hope you will endeavour to judge by the only unerring rule, their agreement with the word of God. It is natural you should read, with partial tenderness, the opinions of a fond mother, written for your use; but this partiality must not influence your judgment on matters of religion, or you will be in danger of building your faith on my word, and not on the word of God. 27. God created man in His own image-impressed on him a similitude of His own natural and moral powers. While man walked with God, those powers were necessarily filled with good from the only Source of good. But when, by disobedience, he turned away from God, all the good with which he had been filled was necessarily withdrawn, as your image is withdrawn from a mirror when it is turned away from you. 30. Every green herb is given for meat, consequently there were none noxious in their first crea tion. While man was innocent all was pure and innocent around him. Ferocious and venomous animals are attributed to the power of the enemy. Luke x. 19. M. POMPEII. O THOU! Whose guilt-to other realms a sign- : O'er the sunk cities rolls the Dead Sea's wave, And here, 'mid desert shrines, behold Pompeii's grave! Latrobe's Solace of Song.' LETTERS TO A FRIEND. II. IRELAND'S first name, in the native language, was Inis na bhfiodkbhuidhe, which signifies The Woody Isle. It was also called Inis Alga, The Noble Isle, and was inhabited by a race of people called Firbolgs, which claimed the same descent as the Scythians or Gadelians, originally from Magog, the son of Japhet, This wandering tribe (the sons of Nemedius) were driven from their former settlement in Greece by harsh treatment. In order to keep down their growing power, they were compelled to carry earth in leathern bags from the vallies to the tops of the highest mountains and craggy rocks, that those places which nature had made bare and barren might become fertile. From this employment their name is derived. Fir signifies men; Bolg, bag. Ireland became their refuge, and resting-place from hard labours and tyranny, until they were again made to feel that they had no abiding city here.' New settlers arrived from Greece, by whom these older inhabitants were overcome, and mostly slain. Of these the ancient records state A hundred and ninety-seven years complete The Irish sceptre sway'd.' I shall give you their history in Keating's lines: 'The Tuatha de Danaus, By force of potent spells and wicked magic, And conjurations horrible to hear, Could set the ministers of hell at work, And raise a slaughtered army from the earth, Of servitude; a fleet prepared, and wandering Four men, well read in hellish wickedness, And subtle Erus, Arias skill'd in charms, And Semias fam'd for spells-these four presided In the four towns, to educate the youth. At length these strolling necromancers sail'd From Norway, and landed on the northern shore Of Scotland; but perfidiously conveyed Four monuments of choice antiquity, From the four cities given them by the Danes: From Falias, the stone of destiny; From Gorias, they brought the well-try'd sword From Murias, a cauldron.' They spent seven years in Scotland, and then re moved to Ireland, and being resolved to fix them |