Verse 25. "These are the sons of Bilhah, and she bare these unto Jacob; all the souls were seven".

Total...........

7

70

Mark the precision of the language used, (verse 27 :)—" All the souls of the house (or family) of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore-and-ten.” But, in verse 26, "All the souls that came with Jacob, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore-and-six.” Now, observe: this last number includes only Jacob's lineal descendants; and, of them, none but those "who came with him into Egypt." Therefore Joseph and his two sons, who were already in Egypt, and Jacob himself, (who did not "come out of his own loins,") must be deducted from the preceding total, and leaves precisely THREESCORE-AND-SIX.

Again: Stephen says, in Acts vii. 14, "Then sent Joseph and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred,-threescore-and-fifteen souls.”

This number evidently includes "Jacob's sons' wives," for they were "of his kindred," and were expressly sent for. Gen. xlv. 18, 19. How many of them were then living in Canaan we have no means of determining. Joseph's wife was already in Egypt; Judah's wife, we are informed, was dead, (Gen. xxxviii. 12,) and probably others. If, then, to the previous number of sixty-six we add nine, we have the exact number stated by Stephenseventy-five, (" threescore-and-fifteen.")

Surely the man who can refer to these several statements for discrepancies must be sadly at a loss for employment or exceedingly hard pushed for objections against the Sacred Scriptures.

But there is another consideration that adds force to the preceding demonstration. Though the Scriptures were written by many different hands, at long intervals of time, and frequently refer to the same facts, yet they manifest no solicitude to make their statements agree; and here is a case in point. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, in his dying speech refers to a fact that had been recorded more than fifteen hundred years before; and he states a number that differs from any one on record, which, upon being examined and compared with the phraseology he uses, is found to agree to a unit with statements made by another writer so long before. The more of such apparent discrepancies that can be found in any book, the more reliance may be placed on its statements.-New York Observer.

NOW.

WHAT is it? That point in duration which links the two eternities; that flitting moment which, as it emerges into the present, vanishes into the past. A beat of the pulse measures it-a heart-throb-a breath. While one utters

the word, it comes, is gone.

What of it? Especially this:-It is the accepted time-the day of salvation. As it flies, God waits to be gracious. Listen! Divine love speaks:-"Unto you, O men, I call. The great expiation has been made. The fountain is open. That blood is sufficient. Whosoever will may live, from death in sin rise to glory. I am a just God, and yet a Saviour. But delay not. Now-not to-morrow. Time rushes; life ebbs; death hastens. What men are at that last, now they are forever. Its moral hue colours the illimitable ages."

Will you waste it? What! this breath into which such interests crowd? on which hangs eternity? Waste it? Are you mad? Must truth be unheeded, love rejected, heaven lost? Waste it? Ease, pleasure, gold, famethrow them all away, if need be,-not moments. Seize them, hold them! That undying soul is to be saved, if ever, now.-Presbyterian.

CHRIST CARING FOR US.

"For he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."-Heb. xiii. 5.

[The following lines recently afforded great comfort to an aged Christian lady on her deathbed. She had cut them some months before her death from a religious newspaper, and almost wore out the copy with continual using.-Eds. N. Y. Observer.]

THE

PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE.

APRIL, 1856.

Miscellaneous Articles.

"OH, IF I COULD ONLY REMEMBER THAT PRAYER!” "WHAT WAS THAT PRAYER HE TAUGHT ME?"

ON the first of January, 1855, as I was walking through the village of my residence upon pastoral duties, I met a young man twenty-two years of age, whose pale countenance and feeble step showed the destroyer had been at work with him. He had not been out before for two months, and now, when he endeavoured to persuade himself that he was really better, his new strength was but the excitement of the day. It was the holiday of his childhood; and a sad smile passed over his countenance as he looked at the children scrambling for nuts and candy, that fell in showers before the confectioner's door;-it was but a shadow, showing that the sunshine was not yet entirely gone from his heart.

I turned away from him with a sigh. Poor man! His mother, a sweet Christian, ended her pilgrimage when he was yet a boy, and left him to the care of a godless father, with the legacy of her prayers and pious example.

He was a dear boy, and the whole neighbourhood had marked his devotion to his suffering mother, especially during her last illness. He had always accompanied her to church, and regularly attended his Sabbath-class; but, very soon after the guardian of his childhood had been called away, he began, with his Christless parent, to depart from the sanctuary and forget the Sabbath.

His companions were those who stood "in the way of sinners" and walked "in the counsel of the ungodly." They "enticed," and he "consented," and so ran the whole round of careless indifference to the claims of God and the gospel. There was no apparent change in his disposition; quiet and inoffensive, he talked VOL. VI.-NO. 4.,

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but little, and, though he learned to lounge and squander away many precious hours in the bar-room and the grocery, yet he never learned either to smoke or to drink. Sometimes, indeed, he took the name of God in vain, and it would have been strange if he had not, for many a time have I heard his wicked father, in his own house, cursing his children as a madman; but an oath was always awkward in his mouth, as any approach to God, save by the "swearer's prayer," is in the mouth of the blasphemer.

He was the eldest of four children, and his father was a daylabourer, with a comfortable home and a good Christian education.

After the death of his mother he remained at home four or five years as the guardian of his little brothers and sister, while his father want forth to his daily labour; and many a neighbour praised his prudence, his kindness, and his industry. At length his father married a respectable, industrious, and kind-hearted woman, but one "having no hope and without God in the world;" and this boy, now on the verge of manhood, went forth to hew out his own fortune. He started upon a dark path, without lamp or light, for he left his Bible behind him. He had neglected it so long that it was not strange he should have forgotten it. He did not "waste his substance," as did the prodigal, nor take the reward of iniquity, as did Balaam: he was prudent, and his calling honourable; he only went "into a far country," strayed into the wilderness, and closed his ear to the voice of the Good Shepherd. Often had he heard that divine entreaty-"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not;" but, like thousands of young men, he thought the "evil days" were yet afar off.

At length God's providence overtook him. Far from home, he fell under the power of a wasting disease; and now, forsaken of friends, he tossed through the terrible fever, and, two months before the day I met him on the street, he arrived at his father's door, a wreck, and ready to go down. One disease had yielded only to give place to another more fearful and fatal. Day after day could he be seen walking slowly from room to room of his father's house, or watching the tide of humanity as it swept up and down the street. One day only did he venture forth from the door,-the holiday of the year, and soon paid the penalty of his imprudence. An hour after his return he lay struggling for breath, and his parents, fearful of his approaching end, sent for me to pray with him, for none in that house knew how to pray. Here was my first acquaintance with his religious history.

For three months I visited him regularly, frequently, and always found him respectful and ready to converse upon the awful realities of eternity just at hand. His disease soon presented fatal symptoms, and none saw them sooner than himself. He gave up all hope of recovery, and knew that at any moment he was liable to be called to judgment. The hammer of time was striking heavily upon the "golden bowl" beside "the fountain," and the rapid

whirl of the "wheel" at "the cistern" assured him that all would soon be still. He knew his condition; he felt that he was without preparation for death and judgment. He confessed an unshaken confidence in the gospel and the absolute necessity of a personal interest in the blood of Jesus, and never for a single moment did he try to persuade himself that he had such an interest. I prayed with him day after day, at his own request. I read the Bible to him, and presented, in conversation, again and again, the plan of salvation in every light of which I could conceive. I sought out all the precious promises of God to lost sinners that weeks of study could suggest. I marked verses and chapters in the Bible to be read to him in my absence, and procured one exposition of the way of salvation after another, for his perusal. His step-mother, now fully interested in his salvation, read to him all that I left. Bunyan and Baxter, Doddridge and James, preached the gospel in his ears; and he listened, he tried to listen, with prayer, and yet day after day found him in the same quiet, thoughtful insensibility, -Jesus no nearer-the way of salvation no clearer-the coming night without a star-and the doom of the lost as real as awful.

Reader, what think you was his difficulty? Had God become unmindful of his grace and turned away from his covenant? "Let God be true and every man a liar." "Had God forgotten to be gracious?" Oh no; "his tender mercies are over all his works," and "he has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth." The fault was in himself alone, and, down to the grave, like Job, he did not charge God foolishly. Did some terrible transgression rise up as a shield of blackness to shut out the heavenly light and house his soul to its everlasting doom? He was never an outbreaking sinner, and knew of no crime he had committed against his fellowman. Was his understanding darkened? As every sinner's is, until illuminated by the Holy Ghost-no more so. He could readily understand the Bible and books enforcing and explaining it. Was it in his stubborn will, "exalting itself against the knowledge of God," and seeking to establish the righteousness which is of the Law"? He was docile and teachable, willing to be guided in every thing. Was it in a heart hardened by sin and given up to vile lusts and affections? He wept as a child, and "desire" had long since "failed."

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Reader, the difficulty was not found specifically in either his intellect, his will, or his affections; it seemed to be all in his MEMORY. His doom was an exposition and an enforcing of that word of God-"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." His memory of gospel truth failed him utterly. Verses of Scripture, read in his hearing, he could never repeat a minute after the sound of the words died upon his ear. And though he had learned scores of chapters in the Sabbath-school, I never succeeded in getting him to repeat from memory a single verse. He felt the necessity of praying himself, and desired to pray, but could