the same illumination and authority as the apostolic writings. Referring to the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, the writer makes this striking application of the subject: "Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the moving of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” 1 The prophecy to which the writer refers is contained in the second chapter of Haggai and the sixth verse, and is a striking illustration of the intense style of imagery common to the prophets, as pointed out in the second section of this essay. Whatever language, evidently derived from the same source, occurs in other parts of the Epistles respecting the Second Coming, we may certainly take this text in the Hebrews as the right key to the whole. We read in Jeremiah2 of the two covenants, the first written on tables of stone, the second "in the hearts." What a stupendous change is involved in two dispensations so opposite. If you destroy the physical globe a thousand times, it would by no means accomplish this grand moral change; but that which is needed is a still more difficult work. Creation was for the sake of Redemption; the latter is a spiritual creation, hence the prophet declares, "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth."3 In illustration of

this new earth he says, "I create Jerusalem a rejoicing." Further, of this new earth he says, "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,

and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat." And in illustration of this the Lord says to His disciples, "I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves."4 No change in the condition of the earth could be so great as this spiritualmoral change in the state of mankind. And we see that the Prophets, the Gospels, and the Epistles all unite in the certainty of its accomplishment. But what an idle task it is to try to infuse into the new wine of Christianity the dead lees of old Judaic conceit !

Yet the apostolic exhortations to live in constant heed of the day of the Lord are not of temporary significance. "Look to the end" is the voice alike of religion and philosophy. Most people are carried heedlessly along with the stream. The last day with all is the day which transports them for ever from this world. That event will be speedily followed by judgment; a judgment unerring and final, confirming the real and unalterable character formed in the world! If our knowledge at the present day is so much increased both as regards the Divine Word and the Divine works, the examples of Christians should assume a pre-eminence more resembling the character of their great Teacher.

1 Heb. xii. 26, 27.

2 Jer. xxxi.

3 Isa. lxv.

4 Matt. x. 16.

Possibly a difficulty may still present itself to some, arising from the apostolic argument in 1 Cor. xv. concerning the resurrection. It is but right that such a difficulty should be faced. My only reason for not entering into it here is that my paper has already reached its limits for the present number of the Repository. All being well, however, I shall have an opportunity of considering the matter in a future section on the Last Judgment. There are also several other topics touching the subject of this essay which I propose to discuss; and I hope, through the courtesy of the Editor, shortly to resume my papers. ROBERT ABBOTT.

Reviews.

LETTERS FROM AMERICA. By the Rev. J. F. Ports, B.A.
London: James Speirs.

THIS is a charming book, although the effect of it upon the reader on this side the Atlantic must be to make him unhappy, or at least discontented. America, as described by the author, not in inflated language or studied word-painting, but in the graceful simplicity of an unaffected style, as being, in almost every respect, so much superior to the old country, that everything here seems, in comparison, stale, flat, and unprofitable. Letters which have but recently appeared in a journal to which our readers generally have access do not admit of being largely quoted from, but we cannot resist making some extracts.

Lovers of nature will find much in these pages to gratify them, both of the sublime and the beautiful, the wild and the cultivated. The letters in which the author describes his visit to the White Mountains are very interesting. Of the numerous elevations of this group, Mount Carrigain is 4401 feet high, and among them is a pass several thousand feet deep, the whole of which, from the bottom of the pass to the mountain-tops, are covered with wood. After a toilsome ascent through the dense forest that clothes its sides, he says:

On reaching the summit we found ourselves on a long narrow ridge, which for a breadth of a few yards was devoid of trees. And what a view it was that there broke suddenly upon us! Never as long as I live shall I forget it. I once stood on the top of Ben Lomond on a clear frosty day in early spring and counted 127 distinct snowclad peaks. It was a similar view to that which broke upon me now, with this very great difference, that here every peak and every intervening glen was covered with unbroken forests. Wherever you looked, there were the interminable woods. A trackless wilderness of trees! Near at hand, all round at our feet, ranged a series of great pathless glens, one opening into another, but all alike filled with trees. We looked down into a host of these sylvan solitudes, where the foot of man has never trodden, or if it has, has left no trace of its passage or its presence behind. Deep, silent, and deserted, there they sweep and there they Îie, a veritable arborescent wilderness.

Mount Washington is between six and seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. But here American energy and enterprise save the tourist the labour of ascent; he is conveyed to the top of the mountain by rail, and finds on the very summit comfortable accommodation in a spacious hotel. And thus, as the writer remarks, "any lady, child, old or feeble person, can visit this grandest mountain-summit without the slightest fatigue, privation, or discomfort." We give a part of the author's description of the scene which he beheld from this commanding elevation:

At four o'clock in the morning that followed my arrival at the summit, I issued forth upon the long wooden platform that traverses the front of the hotel, and in twenty minutes afterwards the sun rose from behind the distant mountains of Maine on my left. It rose perfectly clear and cloudless. There was one sharply-defined pyramid on the very verge of the horizon, and the sun rose immediately behind it. Out of a mass of intensely luminous purple, with crimson clouds poised high in the heavens above, it rose, and lighted up the whole of the vast panorama around. And what a panorama! We English have very little idea what a mountainous country New England is. It would do us all a great deal of good to stand for a few minutes on the summit of Mount Washington. We should there learn more about the real character of America in five minutes than we usually do in our whole lives. On every side, far as the eye can reach, stretches a world of mountains. To the north-east, in the direction where the sun rose, lies the great mountainous state of Maine. Many large lakes shine there amid the endless ranges. The same kind of a prospect appears on the east and south-east, for there the same great state sweeps round and covers the horizon. There, too, are the same endless ranges of hills and the same intervening lakes, only the country in these directions is about half cleared. To the north-east the forests are unbroken, except in the beautiful intervale of Gorham, which, however, lies close at our feet. All beyond that, to the north-east, is mountain and forest and lake, whereas hereaway to the east and south-east, the whole vast extent of surface is patched over with bright-green squares, the clearings of an army of pioneers.

Mr. Potts also visited the state of Vermont, which is hilly but not mountainous, and he gives a graphic description of its lakes, especially of Lake Winnepesaukee, which is "like a score of Loch Katrines rolled into one. He remained two days at this loveliest of New England lakes, and deeply enjoyed its calm and ever-varied beauties. Its water is the clearest he ever saw. Its numerous islands are covered with trees. He gazed for hours upon the varied and magnificent scene. Those who take a still deeper interest in humanity than in the outer world which was created to sustain, represent, and educate it, will find much in Mr. Potts' book that shows American life, on its natural plane at least, to be, in many respects, brighter and happier than our own. And yet there are, as we must expect in every community, festering sores under the surface. The author says:

The general appearance of respectability among the inhabitants of New England is very pleasing to an Englishman. There are almost no untidy. looking or low people to be seen. During the whole time I was in America, I saw only two drunken men. The Americans keep their evils more out of sight than we do. I more than suspect that what is called the social evil

prevails there, in secret, to a fearful extent, far more even than it does in this country. America is the great stronghold of teetotalism, but I greatly doubt that it is any better for it. Mere teetotalism is but a washing of the outside of the cup and of the platter. Without regeneration, the evil still remains within, and finds some other outlet.

Another and rather long extract contains more of what we wish to present to the reader. The author is writing of Providence, the second largest city of New England, and one of the largest manufacturing cities in the States:

The atmosphere is like crystal, and every object and every colour is seen through it with startling vividness. You don't notice it so much in the streets, where everything is close at hand, but as you come to some open place, and one of the many pretty views of which this charming city is full breaks upon you, you are positively startled by the exquisite beauty and brightness of the scene. Many a time as I have stood spellbound by some such sudden surprise, I have wished that my friends at home could see at that moment through my eyes what I was seeing. I have no doubt that if they didn't know what and where it was, their first idea would be that their spiritual sight was open, and they were looking, if not actually into heaven, into some bright and heavenward region of the world of spirits. The long lines of pretty white houses crowning the low hills, the masses of bright green foliage on each side, the locomotive rushing through the valley all aglow with colour and glittering like a steel and brazen mirror in the sunshine, and over all that deep, deep blue sky; if such a picture as this, intense and clear-cut, could suddenly and without any preparation be presented to the eyes of friends at home, and then they were told that that was a view in a great manufacturing city, they would find the statement the hardest to believe of any statement they ever heard. Such, however, is Providence on a fine day, and the pretty white houses in the picture are inhabited by no spirits more or less happy than the working classes of America. I need not attempt to describe the thoughts and emotions raised by such a picture in the mind of one who has lived thirteen years in Glasgow, and a greater number of years than that in Manchester, and seen the way in which the people are there housed and the kind of scenery by which they are surrounded. When I say the people, I mean the great mass of the people; of course there are a favoured few there who are well enough off. I don't speak of them, but of the miles and miles of dulness and dismalness, and gloom and ugliness, where the teeming thousands live, and which it has been my lot to perambulate with a bleeding heart for so many years. How often since I came to America have I stood to watch the children of the working people playing in the sunny tree-shaded streets and pretty little green gardens of Providence, and said to myself, "Happy little working-class children of America! Little do you dream of the state of millions of other children, children as good as you, and worth quite as much. Little do you dream, with your clean faces and clean and neat clothes, of their grimy and lost condition, of the dark and ugly places which they have to haunt-closes and stairs and entries and backyards. Little do you dream of their pale faces, crooked legs, and stunted forms. It is well to be you, and would to God all those dear little children of England and Scotland could be brought over here to play beside you!"

The longer I stay here the greater the wonder becomes to me that any working people can be got to remain in our country. Certain it is, that if something does not occur to improve their condition, the time will come, and that not very long hence, when we shall have none but the scum of

them left. Only those who are too ignorant to know of anything better, or too vicious and low to desire it, will remain.

There can be no doubt that in all that relates to material comfort, the masses in America are in a much better condition than those of our own country, which is the wealthiest in the world. Wealth there is more equally distributed. The working people themselves are a superior class. They are better educated, have higher tastes and more orderly habits, and therefore have more improved dwellings and happier homes. The school system in America is excellent, a subject to which Mr. Potts devotes a letter. Every child is educated by the State free of expense to the parent. We have begun to imitate them so far as to make education compulsory, which we may expect slowly to bear its fruits. We wish our American friends would imitate us in one respect in which we are in advance of them, which would help considerably to improve the condition of our industrial classes. We give them what they deny to us, the benefit of Free Trade. Their cotton, grain, and beef we admit into our ports duty free. They have a tariff so high that it virtually closes their ports against almost everything which our working population produce. This is not a mere financial question; it has a moral and religious side. Christian nations, like Christian men, should be guided by something higher than unreciprocating self-interest.

Mr. Potts gives an account of the New Church in New England so far as a flying visit to many of its Societies enabled him; and everything he says of it gives a favourable idea of its state.

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THOMAS WORCESTER, D.D. By SAMPSON REID, Boston (America).

1880.

DR. WORCESTER was a remarkable man. One simple fact is sufficient evidence of this. He raised the Boston Society from twelve to eight hundred members. Yet he had nothing of the popular orator about him, and he never attempted to popularize the doctrines; he never preached a missionary sermon; he never addressed himself to those outside his own Society. He delivered the simplest discourses in the simplest manner. His sermons were purely didactic. He did not reason, he taught. Those who are old enough to remember his visit to this country in 1850-51, and heard him preach, will indorse what we have said. At the Accrington Conference, which he attended, he refused to take his place on the platform, at the Thursday evening meeting, and deliver a speech, on the ground that he had never done such a thing in his life. Such was Dr. Worcester as a preacher. does not appear that he was what is commonly understood to be a pastor. He did not do much in visiting the members of his flock. But he had his modes of intercourse with them. "It was determined at a very early period to have only one public service on the Sabbath. This left the afternoon free for church meetings, which were held at the pastor's house, for the study of the doctrines, and for other purposes."

R

It