CONCLUSION.

RELIGIOUS biography is the footstep in the desert, which the traveller, doubtful of his way, recognizes with delight, and follows the track with an increased feeling of security and pleasure. The doubts, the fears, the conflicts of another's mind, shew us our way has been trodden before, and encourage us to proceed, in the hope that it leads to the same happiness at last. Although the experience of those whose path we have been following, beginning in the darkness of rabbinical Judaism, is in most respects different from that of persons in ordinary life, and although the light of religious truth dawns with different circumstances upon different individuals, yet in the Christian course there are always certain great points of resemblance; "As he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled;" an awful sense of the immortality and accountability of man affected his understanding; Almost," exclaimed King Agrippa, "thou persuadest me to be a Christian!" his heart had caught a glow from the fervent

appeal of the apostle; though we have no reason to believe that either of these men were converted, yet the cases serve as illustrations of the different manner in which divine truth acts upon the soul; sometimes its first ray above the horizon darts upon the altar of the heart, and kindles up the affections to ascend in grateful incense to the Lord; sometimes it rises far higher in its course, enlightening the intellect, and informing the conscience, before it warms the feelings; still notwithstanding these and other differences, the memorials of those who have gone before, will ever prove sources of interest and instruction to the Christian; and if the paths thus traced should lead, as indeed they do often lead, through scenes of suffering and distress, yet if such suffering can be looked upon as the blindness of him concerning whom the Lord said, "neither hath this man sinned nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him;" or, as the sickness of the beloved friend, of which He also declared, "this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby," who is there that loves the Lord, that would not desire to be made willing to bear an equal weight of affliction in the same cause, and who would not take pleasure in examples of constancy and patience in suffering? Neither, if we believe the martyr's reading of Samson's riddle, is affliction itself altogether a painful experience: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong come forth sweetness;" 'to mitigate your sorrow which you take for me,' said a

noble soldier of the noble army of martyrs,* in writing to his friends, I cannot but impart unto you some portion of my delectation and joys which I feel and find; to the intent that you may rejoice with me and sing before the Lord. I have found a nest of honey and honey-comb in the entrails of a lion. Behold, He who was once far off from me is now present with me. He doth comfort me, and heapeth me up with gladness. He ministereth strength and courage: he healeth me, refresheth, advanceth, and comforteth me.' As his afflictions abounded for Christ,' says Bunyan, commenting upon this passage, so did his consolations by Him: so, did I say? they abounded much more.' 'We bless thy Holy Name for all Thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear: beseeching Thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of Thy heavenly kingdom.'

The history of the Jews as a nation, ever since the close of the inspired records, is highly instructive. We cannot but be deeply impressed with the accomplishment of the will of God, as declared in scripture concerning them, when contrasted fully with their modern history. Would that it might awaken Chris

* Pomponius Algerius, a student of Padua. He is mentioned in the book of martyrs, and in Southey's life of Bunyan, from whence the above extract is taken.

Micah v. 1.-" They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek." The Jews about the year A.D. 763 were accused of conspiring with the Saracens, who at that time ravaged Languedoc. Charlemagne having defeated the Saracens and retaken Toulouse, resolved to punish the Jews. He put to death

tians collectively to a sense of the guilt that has been incurred by European nations, in their conduct towards Israel! God hath granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life; we are come in from the highways and the hedges, it may almost be said from every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, and His table is crowded with guests; yet are the greater part of this vast multitude totally forgetful of those people of the Lord whose inheritance He has in part bestowed upon them; the adopted stranger has evil-entreated the child of the family; although it stands upon record as God's unalterable purpose, that Israel should never be finally cast out, (Rom. xi. 2,) nay, more, although the fulness of the Messiah's kingdom is promised in connection with His rule over his repentant people, the house of Jacob. Luke i. 32, 33. In the early ages, the Church besought the Lord for the continuance of the Roman empire; believing from prophecy, that when it should fall, the man of sin would be revealed; in these latter days, surely she is equally bound to pray for the restoration of Israel, in the desire of seeing the "glory that shall be revealed." As the blossoming

the principal among them, and the others who inhabited the city, were condemned to receive a box on the ear, thrice every year at the gates of one of the churches, which should be named by the Bishop. They were allowed however, to suffer this penalty in the person of their Syndic, who alone received the blow. Charlemagne was ordinarily very favourable to the Jews. As a different interpretation is sometimes given of the text, I have a little hesitation in putting it and this historical fact together. How far the one is, or is not, the fulfilment of the other, I leave to those better able to determine.

rod of Aaron when placed before the mercy-seat, though its existence was known to all the people, was seen by the high-priest alone, confirming to him in its miraculous bloom, the charter of his own glorious privileges, and those of his favoured family; so does the life of Israel as a nation, without a country, a ruler, laws or government, subsisting like a branch cut off from the tree, unsupported by a trunk, unnourished by sap or root, while it is evident to all the world, confirm in a peculiar manner to the Christian by an evidence visible to his mortal senses, the truth of that word, that covenant of the Lord, on which rest his own hopes of being for ever a king and a priest unto God, and of reigning on the earth. Rev. v. 10. "There is no God," said an ignorant scoffer, to a poor wandering Jew; I,' replied the latter, am a living proof that there is.'

In the active energetic spirit of the Jews, and the manner in which they acquired and maintained during the middle ages, their position among the nations of Europe, an enemy sufficiently rich and important to awaken the animosity and cupidity of the barbarous princes of that time, we may see a portion of the fulfilment of the promise, that there should not be a full end of the house of Israel. Had it been permitted by the Lord, why might they not have sunk into the abject poverty, ignorance, and vice, which distinguish the gypsies?

Their sufferings from age to age are the plain accomplishment of the woes so repeatedly threatened, from the time they were first pronounced on the borders of