rian host as not literally an angel from the Lord, but a destructive wind of the desert, this is a refinement of criticism in which we cannot acquiesce. It introduces a principle of criticism and interpretation which we believe has done much injury to religion, and encourages the disposition of attributing to natural causes what ought to be traced directly to the hand of God, and of explaining as a figure what ought to be received as literal. Besides by comparing the passage with other parallel places that speak of the appearance and interference of an angel from the Lord, we conceive, that to understand it in that place figuratively, is an unsound interpretation. With this exception, however, the volume has our hearty recommendation; nor will our readers, we are persuaded, differ from us when they have perused the paper with which we now present them, and which we give entire, without change, comment, or interruption, because it is so just, and withal so beautiful, that we would not incur the charge of mutilating it :

"JEHOVAH IN THE PESTILENCE.

"But who discerns him there? The heathen behold in it the workings of malignant demons, and strive to propitiate them by rites of blood. In regions more enlightened, men of medical skill and science attempt to account for its rise and progress by natural causes; but their theories are refuted by facts, and the more candid of them admit, that its path is covered with mystery. To this subject the attention of every one in the land is now turned in anxiety and awe. "The Lord's voice crieth unto our country, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name; hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it.' We vainly imagined that our insular situation should be our protection, or, that if the pestilence came among us, it would be so modified by the climate, and by the habits of the people, as to have little malignity; but how awfully have we been disappointed! Already it has slain its hundreds, and has thus given an earnest of what it can effect in a wider sphere than the places it has visited.

"There are circumstances attending it which are peculiarly adapted to strike the mind. Such as the rapid prostration of strength which follows its attack, the livid hue it gives to the countenance, the speed with which it accomplishes the work of death, its infectious nature, rendering the ministrations of duty and of kindness so trying and so painful; and that hasty sepulture it demands for its victims, without any of those fune

ral rites which are so suitable a tribute to the worth of the 'dead, and so fit an expression of the feelings of the living. Instead of friends being allowed to cling to the dead, from whom, even when the sad results of mortality are becoming apparent, love finds it so difficult to part, and those musings and tears by which the house of mourning is sanctified and soothed, corpses must be quickly surrendered to the hardy menials of duty, and hurried away to some receptacle where they are laid in heaps, to tell to after times, the horrors of the pestilence, and how consideration for the dead was sacrificed to the safety of the living.

"But what of God is to be seen in this frightful malady? We trace in its course the power of the Almighty. Human power accomplishes the work of destruction, in the most of cases, slowly, and on a limited scale; but how fatal is the breath, and how wide the devastations of this minister of God's vengeance! In the land of Egypt the Angel of the Lord, or the pestilence, smote at midnight, all the first-born in that land, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of cattle. It was the pestilential wind of the desert by which a hundred and eighty-five thousand men were destroyed in one night in the camp of the Assyrians. It carries along with it, travellers tell us, fleaks of fire like threads of silk, instantly strikes dead those that breathe it, and consumes them inwardly to ashes, the flesh soon becoming black as a coal, and dropping off the bones. That the disease now raging in our land, has not had such horrible results in Europe, as in other regions, must be ascribed to the restraints which God has imposed on its energy; but enough it has done to humble the most confident, and to intimidate the most secure. The breath of the Lord, which can make the dry bones live, can, at his pleasure, waste the beauty like a moth, dry up the strength like a potsherd, and melt the heart like wax in the midst of the bowels. Let it not be thought, that its victims will be only the decayed, the incautious, and the unprovided, for against its fury the munition of rocks may be no defence, and the wisdom of the world no security. Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord, for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.

"We mark his sovereignty in the pestilence. This is to be seen in the seasons of its appearance, and the course which it takes. Every one has been struck by its passing by places and districts, and fixing on others at a distance; and who can

account for its seizing some, and not others in the same street, and in similar circumstances, but by the pleasure of Him who will have mercy on whom he will have mercy! With what terrible sublimity is this truth expressed by the Prophet Habakkuk, Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals, or rather diseases went forth at his feet. They were at his feet waiting his orders when, and where to go. It has often perplexed the inconsiderate, that in public calamities, they are sometimes the victims who were thought most likely to escape, and that they remained safe who seemed, from their habits and their condition, to be vessels of wrath fitted for destruction; but the procedure of the Almighty, however mysterious to us, is guided by perfect wisdom; and while we see that his ways are not like our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts, let us believe that God is light, and that in him is no darkness at all.

"We mark in the pestilence God's wrath going forth against a guilty people. In various passages of the prophets we find it threatened as the punishment of a sinful nation. Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, surely because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with thine abominations, pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; a third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee.' It was after David's pride and vain-glory in numbering the people, that the pestilence slew of the Israelites, in three days, 70,000 men. His guilt occasioned the judgment; but it was the wickedness of the people which caused the calamity. And what serious mind has not felt, in contemplating for many years past, the state of our land as to impiety and profligacy, how much reason there was for God's saying, 'Shall not I visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?' God has punished us by wars, bloody and expensive, yet he so remembered mercy in wrath, that no hostile bands were permitted to enter our land; by political dissension, which he suffered not to rise to open tumult and rebellion; by scarcity, and yet our bread was given us, and our water was sure. Now he is sending among us sore and fatal sickness, and yet the people turneth not to him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts. A general consternation has been excited, and the means of precaution and safety have been eagerly and carefully provided; but has this visitation of heaven humbled us at the throne of mercy? has it checked the career of folly or dissipation, softened the ran

cour of political contention, and made the wickedness of the wicked come to an end? Sad is the reply which must be given to these questions. How tardy and reluctant has been the call given from high places to sanctify a fast; how powerful in its workings is the spirit of the world and the pride of life; and how prevalent is intemperance, even though the pestilence has everywhere marked drunkards as its first victims? What murders have been committed, even on those for whom age claimed compassion, or the closest bonds of humanity demanded care and kindness? Where are the evidences of increasing care to sanctify the Sabbath? or where do we see a concern excited about fleeing from the wrath to come? Let us stir up our own hearts and excite each other to humble ourselves under God's hand, and to turn in contrition and amendment to him who wills not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. It is one of the mournful symptoms of the impiety of the age, that a proposal for a day of national humiliation and prayer, at such a crisis, should have been received by any with scorn, and commented on in our public papers, with ridicule and abuse; and it is to be regretted that some by whom it has been urged, should have brought discredit on it by the servility of their politics, the rancour of their bigotry, or the wildness of their enthusiasm.

"We may trace in it Jehovah's mercy, To some this may appear a strange assertion, and yet it is true, that though the roll is written within and without with lamentation, mourning, and woe-grace, mercy, and peace, may be traced in it. There is mercy to be seen that its appearance is so rare; in the warnings given of its approach, that precautions may be taken to prevent its coming, or to mitigate its severity; in its destroying only some, and not all, or even the greater part of the people of a district; in its permitting some to recover from its influence; and in the alleviations provided by the care and kindness which he calls forth, and maintains. It is delightful to mark, even in these times of difficulty and distress, such active exertions made for the comfort of the poor, and that into no corner of our cities and villages can the destroying Angel come but he will find the preservatives of mercy sprinkled on its walls and floors, and the needy better fed and clothed than at former periods.

"In the pestilence God's justice may sometimes be seen avenging the wrongs of the oppressed. It is,' says a beautiful writer, 'from the pool by the side of the poor man's hovel,

which has been robbed of its current by some caprice of luxury, that the epidemic plague will issue, which devours the lordly inhabitants of some neighbouring castle. Egypt, by the pestilence arising out of its canals, avenges herself of the oppression of the Turks, who prevent her inhabitants from keeping them in repair. America, sinking under the stroke of European tyranny, exhales from her bosom a thousand maladies fatal to Europe, and drags down with her the haughty Spaniard expiring on her ruins. Human policy fastens one end of the chain to the ankle of the slave, but divine justice rivets the other round the neck of the tyrant.'

"I may add, that in the pestilence may be seen God's faithfulness to his promises of protection and safety to his people at such a crisis, Thou shalt not be afraid for the terrors by night: nor for the arrow that flieth by day: nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness: nor for the destruction that wasteth at noon-day. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.' The word rendered pestilence here,' says Bishop Horsely, 'signifies the putrid plague fever, which usually makes its fatal progress in the dead of night, when the patient is in sleep. The word translated destruction refers to the solstitial disease, which, in the tropical climates, in the heat of harvest kills suddenly. They are the words which are used by the prophet Hosea, to exhibit the redemption which God will accomplish for his people from the ruins of mortality, "O death I will be thy pestilence, O grave I will be thy burning plague,' and to this Paul alludes when he says, 'O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory? It is not the import of such a promise as that which I have quoted from the Psalms, that the righteous shall never be victims in such a season of deadly disease; but it intimates that, from their virtuous habits, their trust in God, which renders them superior to enervating agitation and disquietude, their caution, and the watchful care Providence over them, they often are kept free from its fatal influence, and that, when they do fall, they have such gracious support from on high, and such a speedy translation to everlasting rest, that the outward horror of the scene is lost in the impression of their holy peace, and their happy end.

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"But what should God see in us in the approach, or in the course, of such a visitation? We should cherish and manifest a meek submission to God's will, and acknowledge that the Lord is righteous in all his ways, and that just are his judgments. To fret against the Lord, in such circumstances,