THE BOOK OF BANK NOTES.

The Bible has been styled by one, who well knew its value, "The Book of bank notes;" every page of it being infinitely more precious than its weight in gold. Yet, this very volume, illustrated by the best commentary ever written, is now publishing,* in weekly numbers, at one penny, and monthly parts at fourpence-half-penny each. Six of these parts are now before us, containing nearly two hundred pages, not merely honestly filled, but actually crowded with matter of the most absorbing interest. The sacred text itself is in a bold and beautiful character; and the notes (though printed in a type, which appears by the contrast, smaller than it is) in a very distinct and well-cut letter: the paper is good, and many of the wood-cuts, amongst which we may particularly specify mounts Ararat and Sinai, are in a superior style of art, and what is still more rare, carefully thrown off; we give a specimen on the opposite page. Such is "The Original Illustrated Penny edition of Matthew Henry's Commentary."

To say anything in praise of good old Matthew Henry, would be "to gild refined gold, or paint the diamond." Yet, conversant as we are with his Commentary, a glance at the present edition has originated fresh trains of thought and feeling in our mind. Although little influenced by the philosophy of his age, and knowing of course nothing of those discoveries in science, of which our own day is so apt to boast, we have been struck with the fact that so much of his argument, like the Truth itself on which he is remarking, should be entirely untouched by the researches of our more philosophic contemporaries. But his chief excellence consists in the sound, safe, healthy, practical tone of his observations, and the deep but simple character of his own religious experience. He has so explored the treasuries of Scripture as to get at the very marrow of its divinity—the choice honey of its great and precious promises. The Sampson of Biblical critics, he has brought forth bread from the eater, and sweetness from the strong. He has made the bare facts of Scripture history to preach the truth as it is in Jesus; and has endowed every incident, however apparently unimportant, with a voice profitable for doctrine, for reproof, or for instruction in

London: Partridge and Oakey, 34, Paternoster Row. Glasgow: William Collins.

righteousness. There is an excellence in this kind of writing which belongs to no other: it builds up within us the comfortable assurance that Christianity is an undoubted reality, which has moulded the minds, regulated the feelings, ministered to the necessities, and fed and satisfied the souls of God's children in

all ages. Every Christian, though wanting, perhaps, the quickened perception of Henry, to discover the varied truths which he opens to us in every page of Scripture, can appropriate thankfully and with keenest relish, the things new, and yet old, which he brings out from this exhaustless treasury. We all feel that his mind and ours are one, and can only explain this oneness by the light of the apostle's declaration, “We have the mind of Christ."

The quaint homeliness, the simplicity, and godly sincerity of Matthew Henry, are combined with a business-like and methodical style that makes him pre-eminently readable. He tabulates and systematizes without anything like statistical dryness. How lucidly, for example, does he proceed when opening out his great subject in the introduction to the Book of Genesis. He first deals with the whole Bible, "the Book of books, shining like the sun in the firmament of learning; other valuable and useful books, like the moon and stars (planets) borrowing their light from it;" a truth, which every accession to human knowledge, tends more strikingly to confirm. He then characterizes the Old Testament; then the Pentateuch, and lastly the Book of Genesis, describing each and all briefly, but completely in his own inimitable manner. As we should naturally expect, too, from one who had no peculiar opinions of his own to uphold, his comments on the Mosaic account of the creation, have none of that intolerance or special pleading which modern theorists are so desirous to thrust upon us, sometimes in the very face of facts. He does not insist, for example, that the phrase, In the beginning," must necessarily mean, "about six thousand years ago;" and when speaking of the moon, he is less anxious to insist on such a literal adherence to the text, as would make it larger than the earth, the planets, or the fixed stars,* than to

How many purblind Christians have trembled for the ark of God's word, when assured that modern astronomy proved the moon to be of insignificant dimensions compared with these. Yet, the Bible no where says that the moon is a large body: it describes it simply as a large light and astronomy has no wish or power to shew us that, as a light, it is not larger than all the stars put together.

graft this beautiful commentary on the passage, (Gen. i. 16.) "The moon is a lesser light, and yet is here reckoned one of the greater lights; because, though in regard of its magnitude and borrowed light, it is inferior to many of the stars, yet, by virtue of its office as ruler of the night, and in respect of its usefulness to the earth, it is more excellent than they. Those are most valuable that are most serviceable; and they are the greater lights, not that have the best gifts, but that humbly and faithfully do the most good with them."

The Commentary of Matthew Henry, being, as we have remarked, chiefly valuable as a doctrinal and experimental work, does not admit of pictorial illustration to any great extent; but by means of additional notes compiled from the works of subsequent writers and travellers, appended to each book, and not in any way interfering with the integrity of the original work, the present publishers have contrived to supply this desideratum, many wood-cuts being also interspersed wherever the sacred text itself allowed of such additions.

Miriam and her attendants, after the overthrow of the host of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, a subject referred to in our volume for 1843, page 300. "The prophetess, the sister of Aaron," is represented with a cotemporary timbrel in her hand, and costume of Egyptian caste, but with a gracefulness unknown upon the monuments of that country, as taking up the echo of the sublime song of Moses, to be re-echoed by the women of her company:

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Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously;

The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea."

Apropos of singing, it should be mentioned, as an additional recommendation of this cheap and beautiful edition, that the poetical books and passages are printed in a metrical form.

A LADDER TO WORLDS UNDERGROUND.

From Harris' Pre-Adamite Earth.

Turning to the Inspired Record, to ascertain the origin of things as they now are, we learn of our earth, that it assumed its present state, a few thousands of years ago, in consequence of a eative process, or a series of creative acts, concluding with the creation of man, which extended through a period of six ordinary, or natural days. Possessed of this fact respecting the date of man's introduction on the earth, we proceed to examine the globe itself. And here we find that the mere shell of the earth takes us back through an unknown series of ages in which creation appears to have followed creation at the distance of mighty intervals between.

But though in the progress of our enquiries we soon find that we have cleared the bounds of historic time (the period embraced by written history) and are moving far back among the periods of an unmeasured and immeasurable antiquity, the geologist can demonstrate that the crust of the earth has a natural history.

That he cannot determine the chronology of its successive strata is quite immaterial. We only ask him to prove the order of their position from the newest deposit to the lowest step of the series; and this he can do. For nature itself, by a force calculable only by the God of nature, lifting up in places the