of him as a very careful and sober master, although somewhat eccentric; and when they found that he had put the ship back without any reason for so doing, the chief mate remonstrated with him, and endeavored to take charge of the ship, which the captain resisted by placing him in irons. The captain was examined, and he solemnly declared that after what had appeared to him, he could not go on. It was the vision of the LORD, and he was bid not to go on. The result of the inquiry was that his certificate was cancelled. A new master was appointed to the ship, and she sailed a second time on the voyage. On Saturday a dispatch was received from the British Consul at Coquimbo by the Secretary of the Board of Trade, announcing the destruction of the 'Usk' by fire, while on a voyage, from Swansea for Huasco. The mate, six of the crew, and a passenger arrived at Coquimbo on the twenty-first of November, having been picked up by a schooner; and the master and remainder of the crew reached Caldera on the twenty-fourth of the same month. The fire is supposed to have been caused by sponta neous combustion.' Our author's great dislike to the supernatural has, of course, led him to recount the birth of JESUS as merely an event in the course of nature. He states that He was one of a large family, having many brothers and sisters. But he offers no proofs to support an assertion which is contrary to the received opinion of the whole Christian Church in all ages. Now at the time JESUS lived in Judea, all family connections, including cousins of many removes, were commonly styled brethren. This M. Renan himself admits; therefore, as he himself has thrown a doubt on the subject, we will allow the Church the benefit of that doubt, and state that in all probability JESUS was the only son of His mother. 'With regard to the doctrine of the Incarnation,' says a learned and highly intellectual writer,* 'Christianity stands or falls, as stands or falls this doctrine; without it the Gospels are a tissue of incoherencies, the statements of its teach *Sermons by Rev. T. L. HARRIS. ers blasphemies, and the faith of the primitive church a chimera.' Nor is there any thing which militates philosophically against this fundamental doctrine of Christendom. The creation of the first man and woman, for instance, of our planet could not have been a whit less miraculous, but rather more so than the birth of the SAVIOUR. If the father of all mankind, whom we call Adam, in the beginning received the influx of life directly through the breath of the HOLY SPIRIT, why should not such a man as our author has painted JESUS of Nazareth, the regenerator of His race, the great originator of a new dispensation, the man who alone was perfect in His generation, why should He too not have received the divine element of His nature direct from God? Again, as it is now admitted by the highest science that the soul-germ of each individual precedes the natural orof archetypal ideas, or spiritual causes, ganization, and descends from a world to be inwrought into humanity; so, following the same analogy, may not the INFINITE archetypal form, through whom the miracles were made manifest, descend and be clothed with visible substance, thus to constitute a germ through which the Divine SPIRIT may be made known? 'Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and His name shall be called IMMANUEL GOD WITH US - GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH.' Not the second person in a Trinity nowhere mentioned or even alluded to in the SCRIPTURES, but the divine, mysterious being, perfect GoD and perfect man, receiving in consequence of His pure nature perpetual influx-'the SPIRIT without measure' - from the FATHER. Plato, though a heathen philosopher, was a more correct thinker than M. Rénan, for he too believed in the reality, and longed for the coming incarnation of the Divine Man. A most extraordinary and interesting work, 'The Arcana of Christianity,' by the author before alluded to the Rev. T. L. Harris — contains some remarkable and novel ideas transmitted only the HOLY SPIRIT, and was the unimpeded forth-going of the GODHEAD.' We must now permit our author to declare his own belief as to the divine character and mission of JESUS: 'A LOFTY idea of divinity, which he did not owe to Judaism and which seems to have been entirely the creation of His great soul, was the foundation of all His power.' Again, on page 104 is a most striking passage: 'JESUS has no visions; God does not speak to HIM from without; GOD is in HIM; HE feels that He is with GOD, and HE draws from His heart what He says of His FATHER. HE lives in the bosom of God by uninterrupted communication; He does not see HIM, but HE understands HIM without need of thunder and burning bush like MOSES, of a revealing tempest like JOB, of an oracle like the old Greek sages, of a familiar genius like SOCRATES, or of an angel GABRIEL like MOHAMMED. The imagination and hallucination of a ST. THERESA, for example, here go for nothing. The intoxication of the SOUFI proclaiming himself identical with GOD is also an entirely different thing. JESUS never for a moment enounces the sacrilegious idea that HE is GOD. HE believes that HE is in direct communion concerning the doctrines of the divine Trinity and Incarnation. On page 213, Mr. Harris says: FATHER, SON, and HOLY SPIRIT Esse, Existere, and Procedere. Divine Good, Divine Truth, and Divine Operation - Infinite Masculinity, Infinite Feminity, and Infinite Effectuality, denote one and the selfsame GOD, in His three Infinite, discrete degrees. There is but one true GoD in the universe, called JESUS in His humanity, and JESUS CHRIST in His Divine Humanity.' Speaking also of the Incarnation, Mr. Harris divides the life of JESUS into periods, and says that for a period of seven years, commencing with the descent of the Infinite soul-germ into the womb of the Virgin, the child JESUS was unconscious that He was the manifestation of GOD in ultimates.' He adds, that it was not till His twentyfirst year that JESUS knew that He was 'the Son of Man in an universal sense, bearing within HIM the Infinite soulgerm.' The subject is too vast and too lengthy to pursue further in this essay; we therefore shall content ourselves by recommending the perusal of this work to our thoughtful readers, especially those who have been frequently puzzled when denounced in Episcopal with GOD; He believes HIMSELF the SON OF churches as reprobates because they cannot and do not believe that there are three distinct individualities or personalities comprised in one BEING, a doctrine which is to be sought in vain in the BIBLE, though St. Athanasius appeared to think otherwise. One other authority I will cite on this subject, which has been made so much more obscure than needful. By assuming our nature,' says Sears in his admirable work on regeneration, 'CHRIST became conscious of all propensities to wrong which assail us, and by resisting them in His own person His nature was glorified till all its powers were the perfect media of the indwelling Divinity, so that when the conflict ceased He could say, 'I and MY FATHER are One.' Now is the SON OF MAN glorified, and GOD in HIM,' for then His humanity GOD. The highest consciousness of GOD which ever existed in the breast of humani ty was that of JESUS.' ་ 'It is probable that from the very first He looked to GoD in the relation of a son to a father. This is His great act of originality; in this HE is in no wise of His race.* Neither the Jew nor the Moslem has learned this delightful theology of love. The GOD of JESUS is not the hateful master who kills us when He pleases, damns us when HE pleases, saves us when He pleases. The GOD of JESUS is Our FATHER. We hear HIM when we listen to a low whisper within JESUS is not the partial despot who has us which says: 'FATHER.'t The GoD of chosen ISRAEL for His people and protects *THE beautiful soul of PHILO met here, as on so many other points, with that of JESUS. De confus. ling. § 14; De Migr. Abr. §1; De somniis, II, 41; De agric. Noe, 12; De mutatione nominum, § 4. But PHILO has hardly a Jewish mind. † Gal. 4: 6. it in the face of all and against all. He is manity will return to these words, as to the the God of humanity.' immortal expression of its faith and its hopes.' (Pp. 214–15.) THERE were then some months, perhaps a year, during which God really lived upon the earth. The voice of the young carpenter suddenly assumed extraordinary sweetInfinite charm exhaled from His person, and the companions of His youth no longer recognized HIM.'* (P. 107.) ness. 'AN idea absolutely new, the idea of a Aworship founded upon purity of heart and human fraternity, made through HIM its entrance into the world, an idea so elevated that the Christian Church was upon this point completely to betray His intentions, and that, in our days, but few souls are capable of comprehending it.' (P. 114.) 'JESUS responded to her: 'The hour cometh when ye shall worship neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem, but when the true worshippers shall worship the FATHER in spirit and in truth.' † Notwithstanding all the fulness of these passages, the author, moved by his rabid horror of the supernatural, actually condescends to insinuate that JESUS was but a sincere, self-deluded enthusiast, or worse, one who wilfully misled others. See, for example, page 164: 'SOMETIMES JESUS made use of an innocent artifice, which JOAN of Arc also employed. He would aver that He knew something intimately concerning him whom He wished to win, or He would recall to him some circumstance dear to his heart. It is thus that HE touched NATHANAEL, All PETER, and the Samaritan woman. ‡ DisI sembling the true cause of His power, mean His superiority over those around HIM, HE suffered them to believe, in order to satisfy the ideas of the times, ideas which were moreover entirely His own, that a revelation from on high discovered to HIM their secrets and opened their hearts. thought that He lived in a sphere superior to that of humanity. It was said that HE conversed upon the mountains with MOSES and ELIAS; § it was believed that, in His moments of solitude angels came to pay their homage to HIM, and established a supernatural intercourse between HIM and heaven.' I 'On the day when He pronounced these words, He was indeed the SON of GOD. HE for the first time gave utterance to the idea upon which shall rest the edifice of the everlasting religion. He founded the pure worship, of no age, of no clime, which shall be that of all lofty souls to the end of time. Not only was His religion, that day, the benign religion of humanity, but it was the absolute religion; and if other planets have inhabitants endowed with reason and morality, their religion cannot be different from that which JESUS proclaimed at JACOB's This is, after previous passages cited well. Man has not been able to abide by above, puerile and most uncandid. Had this worship; we attain the ideal only for a not JESUS been more than man, He was moment. The words of JESUS were a gleam a blasphemer, and deserved to die on in thick night; it has taken eighteen hun- the cross; and had His work been that dred years for the eyes of humanity (what do I say! of an infinitely small portion of of a mere mortal, it would not have humanity) to learn to abide it. But the stood the test of ages. The disciples, gleam shall become the full day, and, after too, who sealed their testimony with passing through all the circles of error, hu- their blood, could not have promulgated falsehood, nor could these illiterate men have invented a character of such ideal perfection as M. Rénan confesses to have been embodied in the person of CHRIST, for they indeed own to not hav * Matt. 13: 54 seqq.; Mark 6:2 seqq.; John 6: 42. + John 4: 21-23. Verse 22, at least the last clause, which expresses a thought opposed to that of verses 21-23, appears to have been interpolated. We cannot insist very strongly upon the historic value of such a conversation, since JESUS alone, or the woman could have related it. But the anecdote of chapter ing comprehended HIM till after HIS 4 of John certainly represents one of the most characteristic ideas of JESUS, and the greater part of the circumstances of the recital have a striking stamp of truth. *John 1: 48 seqq. † John 1:42. John 4:17 seqq. § Matt. 17:3; Mark 9:3; Luke 9: 30-81. Matt. 4: 11: Mark 1: 13. death. Still less could the sublime and philosophic teachings of the SAVIOURdoctrines unknown to the most learned sages of antiquity-have originated from a mere mortal, the unlettered son of a carpenter. No; the Regenerator of the human race must have been unlike our selves, without the taint of original sin, a Divine Man. Let us conclude this article by a quotation from the final paragraph of the twenty-fifth chapter of M. Rénan's work: 'REPOSE now in THY glory, noble Founder. THY work is finished; THY Divinity is established. Fear no more to see the edifice of THY labors fall by any fault. Henceforth, beyond the reach of frailty, THOU shalt witness from the heights of divine peace, the infinite result of THY acts. At the price of a few hours of suffering, which did not even reach THY grand soul, THOU hast bought the most complete immortality. For thousands of years, the world will de pend on THEE! Banner of our contests, THOU shalt be the standard about which the hottest battle will be given. A thousand times more alive, a thousand times more beloved, since THY death than during THY passage here below, THOU shalt become the corner-stone of humanity so entirely, that to tear THY name from this world would be to rend it to its foundations. Between THEE and GOD, there will no longer be any distinction. Complete conqueror of death, take possession of THY kingdom, whither shall follow THEE, by the royal road which Thou hast traced, ages of worshippers.' PEARLS BY CHARLES DICKINSON. WHEN Day her golden gates unbars, The Sun looks down through all the days, And thus I caught, in days of youth, } THE ISSUE BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH. IN the following pages, the terms North and South are used to represent the people of the several Northern and Southern States, who are now voluntarily opposed to each other in civil war. In regard to all other persons my argument will be silent. Morally; they are not committed to the war. They have taken none of its responsibilities. They volunteer nothing. They merely submit themselves, as in duty bound, to the authorities that are placed over them. They will, accordingly, be left out of this discussion; for I propose to treat the subject-THE ISSUE BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH - only in the lights of moral government as reflected from the word and providence of GOD. This subject has, as yet, been discussed, almost exclusively, on political grounds, and after a mixed political, philosophical, and religious method. The ethical element has been mainly overlooked. By such a method right conclusions are impossible; and all reasoning from such intangible and equivocal data serve only to multiply confusions. We want a starting-point that is unquestionable. We find it only by reference to the everlasting law revealed from heaven. States are related, as really as individuals, though differently, to moral government. They hold by the providential ordering of GOD, and are answerable at His tribunal. Wherefore it is that difficult questions arising between them can never be rightly weighed, or authoritatively judged, but by a Divine, in distinction from all technical, political, or speculative standards. I propose, accordingly, to examine the questions now before the country in their moral bearings. The secession of several of the United States, by ordinance of their people, from the general government, and their organization as an independent Confed eracy, on their own account, constitute the point from which all inquiries, backwards or forwards, must proceed, in judging morally between the parties. These acts indicate, somewhere, great and grievous wrong. I speak of wrong in distinction from technical and political mistakes, about which I do not inquire, because these, whether on this side or that, or on both sides, would not be decisive of the comparative moral delinquency of the parties. Technical mistakes are often committed in carrying out legitimate principles or ideas. On the other hand, moral wrong as frequently exists under forms of law. It is unsafe to judge between hostile parties till we look beyond the formalities - the social or political economies, or the philosophical ideasabout which they differ, to the prin cipia on which they respectively rest, the ends which they contemplate, and the animus that moves them. Logic itself is treacherous, in proportion to its exactness and severity, when it starts from false, partial, or doubtful premises. Our conclusions, in such cases, do but bind us more closely to the hypothetical or speculative errors from which we take our departure. In looking backwards, it is not to my purpose to inquire whether the common fathers of the country acted wisely or unwisely in organizing, as they did, the government of the United States; nor, prospectively, whether a change of their type of government might not, at some time, become useful, or necessary, from insensible changes taking place in the character, circumstances, or relations of the people. But, de facto, what was the organization which they actually formed? Integrity requires us to settle that preliminary. For, whatever be the constitution of government which they, in good faith, adopted, morality requires us to keep it inviolate, till we, equally in |