ought not to do, as when he says in these words, "Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness." Now you will readily perceive, that "old leaven" is first mentioned here, as being something different from the leaven of malice and wickedness, which may be quite fresh and recent. The "old leaven" is different-its age or staleness being its most peculiar, and here exceptionable, property. By such figurative language, the apostle very clearly reminds us, first of all, of old habits, which, as I premised with observing, you have at such a time as the present thoroughly to overhaul, so that none of them shall escape you. And it is not merely the new leaven of malice and of wickedness," the recent acting irritation of to-day, or of yesterday, or of the by-past twelvemonth even, that we must seek to be humbled for. A man must make diligent search for the "old leaven" which hath fallen past, as well as for the new leaven which he might more readily come upon. There must be, in other words, at such a time a zealous awakening for the thorough reformation | of a man's whole life; and he must set about finding out his old sins thus timeously, if he would make himself the least assured that they shall not find him out another day, when, the enemies of his soul being all upon him, he can ill afford to be haunted by them. Every memorable fault, or egregious mistake in life, each of us should sit down and think upon, repenting of his repentance, and softening his heart and conscience still more than ever, by the busy application of all generous and warm emollients. And when he has thus leisurely retraced life's journey, and gone back, step by step as it were, with his eyes upon the ground, seeking diligently to observe, as it were, by the print of his earliest footsteps, when, and where, and how it was that he stopped or turned aside from the narrow path of salvation,-then, indeed, though not till then, that man hath accomplished the better half of his preparation for our great Christian passover; and, as I shall presently show you, he hath but little more to desire or labour for, ere, ever, at the Lord's table, he hear the Lord himself assuring him as a child, and saying, "Be of good cheer, thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven thee." Let us be very sure just of doing this; for, so far as I have observed, the most of us are too secure and self-satisfied, or too thoughtless, or too timid, or too indolent and slothful, or too secular and unbelieving, to bestow any such pains and labour even about our salvation. And to make sure of our doing so, if really any consideration be sufficient to move us, let us advert again for a moment to this argument of our apostle. Suppose, then, for a moment-as his figurative language puts us directly upon supposing-suppose, just, that among the thousands of Israel who were to sit down at any of her ancient and venerable passovers, there had been so much as one man discovered, who had been scarce at any pains to set his own house in order, by searching for the "leaven" as God had commanded him;

and suppose the officiating priests, in the knowledge of such carelessness, to desire to bring that man to think, and to refrain, at least, from going forward so very unworthily-what more had they to do, than just to stop him upon the way, and demand whether really he was venturing on such a deliberate contempt of God, as to profess to hold communion with him and with his sins at one and the same time. They had only thus to fix such a sinner's attention on the passover as a season of peculiarly close and intimate communion with a holy God; and if they failed even by that solemn appeal to shake his resolution, or decisively arrest his purpose, they were sure to leave him, at least, aware of his danger, and utterly without comfort in observing the ordinance, unless in as far as he might harden his heart even there, and succeed in forgetting God even in these solemn circumstances, and so render his recovery out of backslidings, and his ultimate salvation, many times more heavy and more hopeless than ever. And just in like manner, brethren, now that we are brought, in the good providence of God, to ask seriously the question, let us ask, in good earnest, whether we be neither seeking nor caring very materially to put, by repentance, all our bypast sins away, and purpose really to commemorate Christ's so awful crucifixion with those very sins reserved which occasioned him to be crucified, not surely that we might retain them, but that both his terrors and his mercies might decide us to renounce them all. You may be conscious of having long allowed yourself to indulge in some sinful habit which you suspect, at least, to be questionable.— or of conforming to some worldly practice, which you feel to be a hindrance in the way of salvation, or of having dealt hitherto so tenderly and superficially with some one or other of your old transgressions, that, to this very day and hour, you cannot say that it is truly and distinctly repented of. Or it may be that you are distinctly conscious of particular malice, or of recent grudges and heartburnings, or of some besetting propensity, which you would be constantly pleading for, and, which though clearly against conscience, you will not distinctly dismiss. Or it may be (and perhaps it much more frequently is) that, without any so specific conviction regarding either past guilt, or still reigning propensities, you feel a general reluctance to examine yourself at all, or to examine more narrowly, lest it lead to such discoveries respecting your state as a sinner, which you are not willing to look upon. And if this, or any thing like this, is now the posture of the mind of any intending communicant, I just implore him to consider what he purposes to do. You may go to the Sacrament in that reckless, unready mind; but if so, you shall have worse than no communion there with the Father of your spirit, through a crucified Redeemer. For certainly you cannot mean to lay open that heart to him which you are yourself either afraid to look into, or in which you know yourself to be

by the unaided efforts of human reason. Familiar as we all are from our infancy with the doctrines of revelation, we find it difficult to believe that this knowledge is not impressed by the Creator on every human mind. To us, who have been accustomed to trace in the universe the operation of its Almighty Framer, his existence and some of his attributes are so plainly legible in the works which he has made, that it appears impossible for any human being to be insensible to the great truth which they proclaim. Yet it is far from being improbable, that men might have continued till the consummation of all things amidst those works himself the most wonderful of them all,-without being ever led to mark the mighty hand that formed, sustains, and regulates the whole, had not that hand itself drawn aside the veil by which it was concealed. For how was the knowledge of God to be acquired? If from any innate ideas in the human mind, is it not obvious that this knowledge would be universal and unvarying; that all men, from the philosopher to the peasant, would be enlightened by it in the same degree; and that any farther revelation on this important subject would be altogether superfluous? If it was to be derived from the works of creation, it is true that these works afford numerous and irresistible proofs of the existence of a Deity, when once revealed; and yet it may be equally true, that, without revelation, they could never have imparted the knowledge of this grand truth. For let us suppose that we were left to explore, by unaided reason, our own origin, and that of the world in which we are placed. We should probably set out with the principle, that every thing that exists must have sprung from some producing cause. In the course of our investigations, we might trace a long succession of causes, till we arrived at length at some general principle, extensive, uniform, and simple in its operation, in which we should be disposed to confide, as a fixed and primary law of nature. But beyond this our most diligent researches might never have carried us; and we might still have been as far removed as ever from the discovery of the Great First Cause. Nay, the discovery of these secondary causes would only thicken the veil, behind which the Almighty Agent conceals himself from mortal view; for, by seeming to explain the appearances of nature, they would lead us to believe that we had succeeded in tracing them to their origin. A historical survey of human opinions would prove that this is no imaginary supposition; but that many of the boasted philosophers of ancient (and I am sorry to add, of modern) times, have thus bewildered and perplexed themselves in this most interesting of all inquiries. But, granting that men might have been conducted, by the mere light of reason, to the discovery of a Creator, how were they to acquire a knowledge of his attributes? When they looked into the natural world, they would perceive many indications of attributes apparently incompatible. While the calm and the sunshine invited them to rejoice in the benignity of their Creator, the storm and the whirlwind would appal them with the terror of his wrath. While his bounty seemed to shine forth in the luxuriance of summer, and the fertile beauty of the plain-the desolation of winter, the rugged mountain, and the barren desert, would appear totally irreconcilable with parental care for the welfare and sustenance of his creatures. The baneful poison would be found entwined around the nutritive plant. The animal which seemed now to exult in the happiness of existence, would be seen the next moment bleeding under the fang of the beast of prey, or falling a victim to the feller rapacity of When they looked into the moral world, their perplexity would still be increased. If conscience reminded them of the superintendence of their Heavenly Sovereign, the apparently promiscuous distribution of good and evil would stagger their belief in his justice.

man.

If, reasoning from the analogy of human feelings, they cherished the belief that piety and devotion must be acceptable to their Maker, that belief would neces sarily be weakened by the prosperity of the impious and profane: and, while they saw all things happening alike to all the virtues sometimes persecuted and despised, while the wicked flourished like the green bay-tree,they might be tempted to exclaim in the language d despair: "What reward is there in serving the Lord? Surely in vain have I cleansed my heart, and washed my hands in innocence."-REV. ALEXANDER STEWART (Discourses.)

The Rainbow-The rainbow is typical of the Gos pel covenant. It is a bow without a string; a bow without an arrow, and in its bosom peace: God has levelled his vindictive bow at his own Son.-HOWELS

Forgiveness of Sin.-God pardons once and for ever as a judge, but daily as a father.-HOWELS.

On Prayer. How much are we encouraged to ask for! Why, then, do we receive so little, but because our hearts are not sufficiently enlarged? We are wante ing in faith. We do not expect enough from God. We are straitened in ourselves. We are not straitenet in God. How much more would we receive if we “continued instant in prayer," and "prayed without ceasing!" We are like the king of Israel who, whea commanded by Elisha to smite on the ground, provoked the wrath of the man of God by smiting thrice, and then staying. Whereas, had he smitten five or six times, he would not only have gained a temporary ad vantage over his enemies, but would have utterly de stroyed them. Thus in our prayers we are contented with small success. We do not continue enough in the exercise. Even when our hearts have been somewhat enlarged, we have been too ready to desist, and rest satisfied without persevering till we had received yet larger supplies of divine grace.-MARY JANE GRAHAM. (Memoir.)

ON THE OREB OF THE SACRED WRITINGS, COMMONLY RENDERED THE RAVEN.

BY THE LATE REV. DAVID SCor, M.D., Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of St. Andrews. THE raven belongs to that family of birds which includes the carrion crow, the royston crow, the rook, the jackdaw, and others. It is the largest bird of its family, being twenty-five inches long from the point ef the bill to the end of the tail, and forty-eight inches broad when the wings are expanded. The prevailing colour is black, mixed with violet in the back, with ash in the throat, and green in the belly, as well as under the large pinions of the wings. It is thought to live to a very great age, perhaps to a hundred years, or many more. It is called the cornix annosa by Horace, or the crow full of years. Few ravens, however, die of mere old age, or indeed any wild animals. They are either killed by enemies, or starved to death, before extreme old age comes on.

The raven does not confine itself to a particular spot, but ranges from one district to another. It prefers sea coasts to inland tracts, haunts precipitous cliffs beat by the tempests and lashed by the billows, loves mountainous ridges intersected by deep ravines, and resorts to dreary eminences, surrounded by parks of grass of enclosures of wood.

The colour of the raven often embellishes the works of the poets. Sir Walter Scott, in the first canto of the Lady of the Lake, uses these words:

"And seldom was a snood amid
Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid.
Whose glossy black to shame might bring
The plumage of the raven's wing."

And Milton, in his Comus, thus speaks of the notes music:

"How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty vaulted night;
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled."

Kirk White thus begins one of his sonnets:

"Let the sublimer muse who, wrapped in night,
Rides on the raven pennons of the storm."

And, not to multiply quotations, Young, on one ocsion, expresses himself in these words:

"O majestic night! a starry crown thy raven brow adorns." It is therefore no common praise when, in Cant. v. the locks of the bridegroom are said to be black d bushy as a raven, or more literally, his pendulous cks to be black as a raven.

Black, as a colour, was held in high estimation by e ancients. In proof that black eyes, not to speak black locks, were reckoned an ingredient of feinale veliness, as well as of masculine beauty, we need ly refer to the heroines and heroes of Homer. The female raven builds her nest on trees or rocks, 78 five or six bluish green eggs, spotted with brown, d sits upon them twenty days. She is furnished with od by the male, who supplies her place when she ves the nest. With what perseverance she executes is task, we learn from a story of White. In the atre of a grove, near Selborne, stood a large oak, in ich a pair of ravens had built their nest for a series years. At length the saw was applied to the butt, e wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods boed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the e nodded to its fall; but still the dam sat on. When gave way, the bird was flung from her nest; and, ough her parental affection deserved a better fate, e was whipped down by the twigs, which brought r dead to the ground.

For a time at least, the parent ravens cannot be said be hard hearted towards their young. No animal, wever savage, seems to be destitute of the affection cessary for rearing its offspring. Like the young triches, however, the young ravens seem often to be stressed for want of food. Either they are so voraous that the old ones are unable to satisfy them, or e old ones flee to so great a distance from their nest search of food, that they forget to return; or, soon sing all sympathy, drive the young ones from their sts before they are able to provide for themselves. However the fact may be accounted for, the satisfyg of their hunger, by the supply of food, is repeatedly luded to by the inspired writers as a proof of the care Providence for every living thing. "The Lord veth to the beast his food," says the Psalmist, exlvii. "and to the young ravens which cry." When the estion is asked, in Job xxxviii. 41, Who provideth r the raven his food, when his young ones cry unto od, wandering for want of meat?" the answer intiateth that God alone provides for them. From this care of God for ravens, our Saviour calls oon human beings, who are of a far nobler nature, to ust to his providence for the supply of their wants. Consider the ravens; for they neither sow nor reap, hich neither have storehouse hor barn, and God edeth them. How much more are ye better than the wls?" Luke xii. 4. By this declaration, our Lord Des not mean to throw an obstacle in the way of inustry. He only means to discourage unreasonable xiety about the supplies of to-morrow. While we estir ourselves in securing these, we discharge an imortant duty, but excessive anxiety concerning them cuses God of negligence in providing for our wants, weakness in the control of those events on which pplies depend.

If ravens at any time forget their offspring, they ere once at least serviceable in supplying with food

an eminent servant of heaven. In the seventeenth chapter of 1 Kings, we are told that Elijah the Tishbite received a command from the God of Israel, after prophesying a drought of three years, as a punishment of that people for apostasy, to hide himself from Ahab by the Brook Cherith, which is before Jordan, and to drink of the brook, and the ravens should feed him with bread and flesh morning and evening.

Some have supposed that the orebim of the original, which we translate ravens, were inhabitants of the town of Oreb, bordering on the cave in which Elijah was concealed; but though this interpretation is supported by the opinions of Chaldee, Arabic, and Jewish writers, yet it is triumphantly confuted by Reland, and that which is commonly received ably supported by Scheuchzer. We may readily conceive that if the orebim were not ravens, but inhabitants of the town of Oreb, the hiding-place of Elijah would soon have been discovered. The whole country round about, and of course Ahab, his powerful enemy, would soon have become master of the secret, and the prophet's life been in danger, instead of being safe, as his almighty protector intended. No one can succeed in his interpretation of the sacred writings if he is wholly inattentive to their real character.

The events which these writers relate are chiefly miraculous; and this peculiarity of the events is ever to be kept in view by those who undertake to explain them. There would be no interference of God in behalf of his prophet, if they were not real ravens by which he was fed morning and evening. It would be one of those ordinary occurrences by which a persecuted and destitute person, whether a prophet or not, might have been indebted to the good offices of the Orebites.

But whether the people of any town near Jordan were called orebim or not, certainly individuals got the name of oreb or raven. Thus a king of the Midianites was called Oreb, a name either adopted by himself, or given him by others, to inspire confidence into his friends, and strike terror into his enemies; because, like a raven, if he did not kill his adversaries, he preyed on their goods; as a brother king of his was called Zeeb or wolf, for similar reasons. Both, however, were defeated in battle by Gideon, and, when they fled, pursued and taken.

No bird, or even beast, deserves more to be called omnivorous than the raven. It refuses no kind of food, when hunger prompts, but prefers flesh, whether alive or dead, fresh or putrid. It preys on lambs and weakly sheep, leverets, and young ducks, shore fish and shell fish. Shell fish it lifts up into the air and drops, that the shell may be broken and the fish obtained. When it assails dead or living bodies, it always begins with their eyes. These it reckons a delicious morsel, and picks them out before it proceed to any other part. This fact is mentioned by Solomon, Prov. xxx. 17, "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it."

The young eagles are very ravenous, and, when they have it not in their power to prey on living bodies, they content themselves with dead ones, and in particular they pick out and eat the eye. The nomenclature of birds in Scripture, however, is not very accurate, and by eagles vultures may be intended. These, whether young or old, feed on carrion; and when they light upon a carcass, they first pick out and eat the eye. Our Lord seems to understand vultures when he says, "Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together."

"

Other authors besides Solomon have mentioned the attack on the eye by the raven. Isidore, xii. 7, "he first seeks the eye of dead carcasses; Epictetus, "the ravens devour the eyes of the dead;" and Catullus, cv. 5, “the raven devours eyes, which it picks out."

:

We have said that ravens delight in mountainous situations; and it may be asked, why does Solomon call such birds ravens of the valley? The answer is plain all valleys are in the neighbourhood of mountains; and while they seek these for security, they descend to the valleys for prey, either to attack the weak animals, who are unable to leave them after they come into them, or to feast on their carcasses after they die. When Solomon speaks of the valley which the ravens frequent, some suppose that he alludes to Tophet, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, into which all the filth of Jerusalem was thrown, where criminals were executed, and carcasses left to rot. A disobedient son among the Jews committed a capital crime, and if the parents complained, the law took effect. The dead body lay in the valley of Tophet, and thither the ravens flocked to devour.

The raven is accused of lighting on the back of the larger beasts, of piercing into the flesh with its beak, and of not quitting it till it be eaten to death. Vultures can kill an ox in this manner, if they be provoked to an attack by a wound on its back; but we hardly think ravens would dare to attack an ox, however the back might be wounded. They show the utmost eagerness, however, to attack a dead animal. From whatever cause they get intelligence, whether from acuteness of smell, or some other faculty, whenever at Hudson's Bay, an animal dies or is killed, though at the moment not a raven is to be seen, yet in less than half an hour there are dozens or scores upon the carcass. In the arctic regions, they prey with the white bear, the fox, and the vulture; and in tropical climates with the vulture and hyæna.

While the raven is dangerous to the weak or young quadrupeds within that range which it infests, it is very bold in assailing the smaller birds, though, as far as we know, is not itself persecuted or destroyed by the larger. When it comes upon them in their nests, it both kills the dam, and feasts on the brood. The puffin, however, repels this aggression. Unless the raven, at the first onset, gets hold of the puffin's throat, she catches him under the beak, and sticks her claws in his breast; and, whilst he screams out with pain, and tries to get off, she holds him fast, and tumbles him about; and if this struggle be on a cliff, bordering on the sea, both tumble into it; and, while the raven is drowned, the puffin returns in triumph to her nest. After this detail of the food of the raven, and its diligence in procuring it, whatever waste of life it may occasion, we cannot wonder that it has been placed among unclean birds by the Mosaic law. Its foul feeding, and its determination to kill every animal weaker than itself are sufficient to account for that pre-emi

nence.

We hear of this bird as early as the time of Noah, when he went into the ark, to preserve himself and family from the deluge of waters brought upon the earth; and after the ark had been tossed about on the waters for many days, he sent out a raven to ascertain whether they were abated. According to the Samaritan, Chaldee, and Arabic interpreters, it flew to some distance from the ark, but finding no resting-place, it returned; and, after it had rested upon it for a little, flew anew over the surrounding waters, supporting itself by the carrion floating on their surface; and continued to go and come, till they retired from the earth; but, according to the Syrian, Greek, and Latin interpreters, and all the ancient fathers and commentators, it did not return, but went to and fro, till the waters subsided. The unadulterated words of Moses authorise us to say, that the raven, after it was sent out, and flew for many miles from the ark, could find no spot on which it could rest, and was forced to return; but, as it was not taken into the ark, and Noah did not know what had become of it, he found it convenient to send

out a dove, which gave him such information as he wanted.

Like the stork, the raven carries things not eatable to its nest; and it is not easy to decide from what mo tive this desire of amassing arises. At any rate, it shows a strong disposition to pilfer, and has a marked predilection for things glittering; such as money, rings, and silver spoons. The butler of a genteel family, we are told, missed some silver spoons, and was a long time unable to account for their disappearance. At length he perceived one in the mouth of a tame raven, which was kept about the house, and, watching its motions, he found more than a dozen in its hidingplace.

When young this bird is easily tamed; and, when tamed, it walks through the house, or about the doors, with much dignity, and enjoys the triumph of purting the hens and ducks to flight. Its cry is very particular. It resembles the word croak, which is repeated three or four times in succession, and followed by a short interval. When uttering its cry, as it comes through the air, we conclude that it is lured by the scent of carrion, and that it is hastening to a banquet of that kind in the neighbourhood. Even ravens seem to foreknow the death of an animal, gather round the spot where it is expected to die, and seldom are disappointed of that repast which they so wonderfully anticipate. From this extraordinary anticipation, perhaps, the cre dulous have reckoned them messengers of the will of heaven; and, while this divine office, as it has been conceived, has recommended them to the veneration of the weak, it has infused a dread of calamity into the minds of the superstitious.

Among the ancients, the utmost importance was attached to the raven as a bird of augury. The various changes of its voice were judged to be prophetic of good or bad fortune, and studied with the utmost care by those who interpreted omens. Its croak is even thought to be ominous by the moderns. This idea at least is implicitly credited by the vulgar, and, as is natural, it has been eagerly seized upon by the poets. The raven himself is hoarse, That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements.

other.

SHAKSPEARE's Macbeth.

The dog howls dismal on the heath, The raven croaks the dirge of death. Ah me! disaster's in the sound, The terrors of the night are round. A sad mischance my fears forebode, The demon of the dark's abroad.

LOGAN'S Lovers.

Like most animals of prey, the raven is of a solitary disposition. Never more than two of them are seen together, though pairs may be found not far from cach Thus one or two pairs frequent Arthur's Seat, south-east from Edinburgh. Those, at least, who walk round its base, either see or hear them, as they come and go, in the direction of the mountain.

All animals of prey are of a solitary turn; such as the lion and the tiger, the panther and the hyæna, the eagle, the vulture, and the hawk. All these are found together, as well as the raven, when a carcass is to be devoured; but, as soon as their appetite for prey is sa tisfied, they retire each to its den or roost.

From this disposition in the raven, it may be expected to inhabit desolate buildings and forsaken ruins. Thes the prophet Isaiah makes it frequent the abandoned cities and demolished houses of Edom, along with the pelican and the ostrich.

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