ON THE CHARACTER OF JONAH.

THE biography of the Holy Scriptures contributes materially to the proof of their inspired authenticity. While those characters which it exhibits as religious, are, generally speaking, worthy of the religion of the Bible, there is, both amongst them and all others, that vast and singular variety which all true history exhibits, and which precisely corresponds with the varieties of the existing generation at the same time, most of the scripture characters bear strong internal marks of genuineness.

Writers of fiction are reluctant to attribute to their favourite personages mean or flagitious actions; and hence, the fabricated origin of their characters is often betrayed by nothing more than a consistency too uniform to be real. But there are few of the scripture characters that are not sometimes very inconsistent with themselves; and we know that anomalies are nowhere so abundant as in the human character. Modern history attests this: a Bacon is charged with venality and corruption; a Milton, with indevotion; a Cranmer, with cruelty; and even martyrs in prison, awaiting the sentence of burning, are said to have been betrayed into fierce contentions among themseves about minor points in theology. Hence the instances of prevarication in Abraham, of perfidy in Jacob, of cruelty and lust in David, should even add to our conviction of the truth of the Bible; because such occasional moral aberrations even in good men, are not only rendered probable by the deep and universal depravity of human nature, but they accord with all experience and all religious history.

There are in the world some persons whose real characters are but very superficially known, whose actions are an uncertain index to their principles. As the precious metals are sometimes imposingly imitated by a skilful combination of the baser; in like manner, dexterous hypocrisy, aided by favouring circumstances, enables many a corrupt character to impose himself upon the world as a man of virtue. On the other hand, sterling worth may be unnoticed, through want of opportunities for its development; it may be disfigured by ignorance, superstition, and rugged manners; or it may be so weak in itself, and associated with so many defects, as to lead us even to doubt its existence. These facts shew the necessity of caution in the judgments we form of human characters, and particularly of many of those mentioned in Scripture, the notices of whom are often extremely brief and incidental.

The piety and morality of most of the Jewish prophets were, in general, highly creditable to the religion they professed, and the office they bore, and as much superior to those of surrounding heathens, as the doctrines of the Bible are superior in truth and dignity to the wretched dreams of pagan superstition. Nevertheless, in this class of men we discover the usual variation in moral excellence that is every where to be found. While the piety of some was evidently of the most exalted and blameless description, of that of others we not unreasonably doubt the very existence, or, at best, believe it to be of the most imperfect kind. How very different, for instance, is the aspect in which the characters of the prophets Daniel and Jonah appear :-the former receives our unmingled admiration; the latter provokes only our pity or disgust. Daniel displays the courage of a hero, Jonah the pusillanimity of a coward.

The remarkable transaction in which Jonah bore so conspicuous a part, brings into view several features of his character, but in every view he appears to disadvantage.

But, notwithstanding the disadvantageous light in which the character of this prophet is presented to us, the charitable reader will pardon us for entertaining a belief that he was not wholly destitute of piety-that he was overpowered by strong temptation, rather than disobedient from irreligious feeling. The honour of religion requires us to believe that Jonah's piety, if he was pious, was of a very superficial kind, and that he manifested dispositions utterly at variance with the spirit of religion; at the same time common justice forbids us to consider his conduct, on one single and eminently trying occasion, as a proper specimen of his general conduct, or an adequate expression of the principle by which he was generally actuated. If many characters in scripture history, of whom we only just obtain a glance, had been more fully developed, it is probable they would present a different aspect to that which they now exhibit; some would stand higher and others lower in our esteem than they do at present.

Many, no doubt, are faultless, merely because their faults are not recorded; while others are apparently destitute of moral excellence, only because it has not fallen within the province of the inspired writer to notice their virtues. This we may hope is the misfortune of Jonah. The faults of this individual, glaring as they are, are unfortunately not uncommon ones, even amongst christian ministers; they are, in

fact, the easily besetting sins of all whose piety is superficial. Such persons might, therefore, find that the most edifying method of contemplating the conduct of Jonah, would be, to view it in comparison with their own, and thus make it subservient to the oft-neglected duty of self-examination. By this means, they would at once improve their humility and candour: it would suggest topics of self-condemnation, and reasons for moderating their censures of the prophet.

When Jonah received the divine commission, to proceed to Nineveh, and an. nounce to the inhabitants its approaching destruction, he took ship, we are told, with the intention of going to Tarshish, and of thus fleeing from the presence of the Lord, and escaping from the task imposed upon him. Here Jonah betrayed a base submission to the fear of man, and a lamentable want of confidence in God. Why did he not consider, that the Almighty Being, who had called him to the work, could easily preserve him in the performance of it, from all personal injury-that the Ninevites could not kill him without the permission of God—that a glorious death was preferable to an ignominious and miserable life-and that no danger ought to be so alarming to a mortal as that which attends disobedience to the divine commands? Perhaps Jonah did consider all this; but, alas, the finest moral sentiments, even when intrenched in conviction, are powerless until the breath of divine love gives them life.

But it would be unjust to condemn the pusillanimity of Jonah, without recollecting the very hazardous service to which he was appointed. It was no light matter, humanly speaking, for an unknown, obscure, and friendless individual, to enter the streets of a city, the cry of whose wickedness had reached to heaven, and to proclaim that in forty days it should be overthrown. Worldly prudence, if it had for a moment been listened to, would have suggested, that the only effect of such a message, insulting and unwelcome as it would seem to them, would be to procure for the messenger ignominious banishment, or a violent death.

Let us inquire whether our faith and courage would have been equal to such a dangerous service. Perhaps, if we scrutinize our past conduct, we shall not find it difficult to discover, that, on more occasions than one, we have betrayed even baser pusillanimity than Jonah. Probably we have too often suffered the fear of man to overpower the clearest convictions of duty.

Perhaps to escape, not personal dangerfor that we did not dread; nor loss of property-that we could not apprehend; nor even general contempt for to that we were not exposed; but to escape the scoffs and indignation of those whose anger could do us no harm, and whose favour was of no value, we have dared to desert our duty, and brave the frown of an offended God. Surely, if such be the case, we ought deeply to repent ourselves, before we pass a single censure upon the cowardice of Jonah.

We have no means of knowing to what extent Jonah was employed in his prophetic capacity; it is scarcely probable that his mission to the Ninevites was the only official service in which he was ever engaged; and yet it might possibly be the only one in which any considerable unfaithfulness could be charged upon him. Perhaps many pious and heroic deeds of benevolence, unremembered and unrecorded by man, will appear in his behalf in the great day of retribution.

His conduct, even in this instance of cowardly dereliction, has in it some redeeming circumstances. He, at least, deserves commendation for the honest confession of his guilt to the ship's crew, and his magnanimous readiness to devote himself to destruction for their preservation. Nor must it be forgotten that he repented; and verified the sincerity of his penitence, by entering upon the work from which he in the first instance had shrunk.

It does not appear that any explicit exhortation to repentance, or promise of the remission of their doom thereupon, accompanied the denunciation of the prophet to the Ninevites; nevertheless, they did "repent at the preaching of Jonah;" the awful announcement was credited; and though uninformed as to its conditionality, they naturally conjectured that as wickedness was the cause of their approaching ruin, a contrite abandonment of it would be the only way, if there was a way, to arrest its progress.

Nor were they deceived or disappointed. The infinitely gracious God, in accordance with one of the established laws of his moral government, was moved by their penitence to defer the manifestation of his anger, and give them further opportunity for amendment. And was not this event a matter of great joy to the prophet? Such it certainly would have been, if he had possessed the views and the spirit suitable to his office. So far from this, however, it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord

and said, "I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I know that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil." So it appears that Jonah would rather have witnessed the destruction of this vast city, than be exposed to the imputation of a deceiver, and a false prophet. Every one must be shocked at the immeasurable selfishness and cruelty of the prophet; and we confess it merits unmitigated condemnation and abhorrence: it was the very spirit of Satan, who rejoices in the ruin, and repines at the happiness, of mankind.

But charity, and even justice, requires the greatest crimes to be contemplated in connexion with all their extenuating circumstances. Let us not refuse this justice to Jonah, which conscience informs us we so frequently need ourselves.

Some persons may think that he could not labour under any very powerful temptation to indulge so wretchedly unfeeling a spirit as he here manifested. But if these individuals could imagine themselves in the situation of the prophet, their views on that point would probably undergo a change. Let them suppose that they had received a special call from Heaven to perform some extremely arduous and dangerous service, without being permitted to expect any temporal reward, either in the shape of honour or gain, but, on the contrary, that the work was as profitless as laborious, and as humiliating as dangerous; probably it would require all the grace they possess, if not more, to prevent them from shrinking, like Jonah, from the task. Suppose the individual who is most disposed to think hardly of this prophet, should receive a divine commission, the validity of which he could not dispute, to go to some exceedingly wicked city or town, and proclaim in its streets, that at the expiration of six weeks it should be destroyed. Perhaps that individual would venture to expostulate thus with the Almighty: "Ah, Lord, the work thou hast assigned me is exceedingly degrading and perilous. I shall be placed in a painful dilemma: if the people disbelieve my announcement, they will despise and persecute me as an impostor; if they believe, and repent, then thou wilt pardon them, and recall thy threatening, for I know that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil; and when the evil day is past, then I fear that many of them will relapse into unbelief

and sin, and regard me as one that has mocked them."

Now, in some such way as this Jonah, it appears, had expostulated with God, before he entered upon his mission. Such expostulations we do not undertake to defend, nor are we attempting to vindicate any part of Jonah's conduct; we wish merely to shew, that from the evils into which he fell, we should not be secure, if placed in his circumstances; that, detestable as were the dispositions which he manifested, they are not uncommon even in persons who rank far above the worst of inankind. To compose or deliver a sermon, with a more direct intention of pleasing our hearers, and securing their applause, than of imparting spiritual benefit to them; or to shun a valuable opportunity of benefiting the souls of some of our fellow-creatures, merely because we cannot do it without debasing ourselves in the view of the carnal; would be to exemplify the very same spirit which induced Jonah to grieve that the Ninevites were spared--and that is, a preference of our own reputation to the salvation of souls.

We observe in the conduct of Jonah a very natural consistency. It was to be expected, that a man who had so little inward comfort, should overrate outward conveniences; and accordingly Jonah was ex ceeding glad of the gourd." Every one perceives the weakness and folly of being so excessively delighted with so trivial a object. All will acknowledge that an immoderate delight in merely earthly comforts, if it do not necessarily imply the want of religious joy, will assuredly end in the want of it. He who would be happy must "delight himself in the Lord,' and be moderate in all his earthly attachments and joys. The deeper we drink of the fountain of religious joy, the purer and sweeter it becomes; but "when we dip too deeply in carnal pleasure, we stir a sediment that renders it impure and noxious."

But "the gourd withered," and the gladness of the prophet withered with it; and such is always the termination of earthly blessings, and of the happiness that is solely founded upon them. Those things to which men are immoderately attached, often prove the occasion of bitter disappointment and vexation the Almighty thus punishes idolatry by means of the objects that are idolized.

If we are disposed to accuse Jonah of excessive fondness for a paltry object, and unreasonable grief for its loss, it becomes us to remember, that if we are destitute of the happiness of religion, we shall commit the

In a village about one hundred and fifty miles from London, in the west of England, there lived a gentleman of independent fortune, which, though small, was so ably managed, that a great part of his income was consumed year by year in charitable purposes. He bore a character very similar to that of the Man of Ross, so beautifully described by the poet Pope. He was accustomed to devote the former part of every day to visiting the poor of his neighbourhood; and, by his assiduous attentions, he in a great measure supplied the place of the negligent minister of the parish: for a long time he had borne the title of father of the poor, who gave him the name of "The good man."

It was in one of his walks into a distant part of the parish, which was but thinly peopled, though full of the most romantic scenery, and of exuberant fertility, that the circumstance occurred which forms the burden of this tale. The good man left his home one morning; and it was on a blessed errand-to bear the message of a Saviour's love to a dying cottager. The sun shone in a cloudless heaven. It was in the latter part of the spring; and his way lay through a glen, which was formed by two high hills, that were so steep, as nearly to rise perpendicularly the sides were clothed with verdure of the most luxuriant green; and through the glen rushed a stream, by the side of which the narrow pathway wound. Such scenes are common in that part of the country, and therefore but little admired by the inhabitants, though the romantic nature of the scenery, almost a Switzerland in miniature, invites many a stranger from the fashionable world to drink of the pleasure it affords.

The good man was an enthusiastic admirer of nature; and its face at present well accorded with the feelings of his soul: all was peace, perfect peace; his mind was

stayed on his God; and his imagination rose above the lovely scene around him, to one far lovelier, to a country far fairer and a peace more pure than that of which he was now tasting. "Yes, lovely mountains," said he, "fair glens, and sweet falling waters-beautiful as ye are, you are far surpassed by another country, to which I am bound :

"The world to which I'm going,

Has fairer fruits than thine;
Life's rivers ever flowing,

And skies that ever shine."

There all is peerless; roses without thorns, pleasures without pain, love without sorrow: hasten thy kingdom, O Lord, when thy glory "shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the seas.'

He walked on, meditating thus, till, on turning the angle of a projecting rock, he suddenly came upon an interesting group, seated upon a large flat stone, under the shelter of the steep side of the hill. They were four in number, the cheerless children of poverty; a father, a mother, a fine little boy about seven years of age, and an infant at the breast. The mother was gazing upon it with intense interest, in which there mingled sorrow such as none but a mother can feel; and tears fell fast from her eyes upon her threadbare garments. The father sat close by; his hands joined together before him, and his eyes fixed on the same dear object as those of the mother: but he watched it" in all the silent manliness of grief." No outward signs of sorrow were visible; but care, that sat upon his brow, indicated a deep contest within. The little boy had strayed from his parents, and was leaning down over a bed of rich moss, and hunting for snailshells. Whatever was the cause of the deep grief of his parents, he seemed to partake but little of it: the sorrows of childhood, like the dews of the morning, are exhaled by the first ray of the warm sun; and, except now and then a solitary instance to the contrary, the deeper evils of life pass over their heads like the tempest, that spares the tender plant, but lays in the dust the mighty oak. Such was the scene which broke in a moment upon the eye of the good man. He advanced towards them, and in a kind tone inquired the cause of their distress.

"Our poor babe, Sir," said the father, "is very ill; and its weary mother is unable to proceed farther." "What is the matter with the infant ?" inquired the other, stepping up to the cold hard seat on which the woman was sitting, and just about to lay his hand upon the little dimpled arm of the infant. 66 Amy," "said the father, advancing with him, "this kind gentleman