lily; He fashions the infant in the darkness of the mother's womb; He inspires dead matter with the active principle of life; in man He unites an ethereal spirit to a lump of clay-wonders these which have perplexed the wisest men, and remain as incomprehensible to philosophers as to fools. Yet, as if there was no mystery in these but what our understanding could fathom, as if there was nothing in these to teach proud man humility and rouse his admiration-as if there was indeed no wonder but Christ himself in all this great and glorious universe, He is called by way of eminence the Wonderful. And why? Because, as the stars cease to shine in presence of the sun, quenched by the effulgence and drowned in the flood of his brighter beams, these lose all their wonders beside this little Child. To a meditative man it is curious to stand over any cradle where an infant sleeps; and, as we look on the face so calm, and the little arms gently folded on the placid breast, to think of the mighty powers and passions which are slumbering there; to think that this feeble nursling has heaven or hell before it; that an immortal in a mortal form is allied to angels; that the life which it has begun shall last when the sun is quenched, enduring throughout all eternity. Much more wonderful the spectacle the manger offers, where shepherds bend their knees, and angels bend their eyes! Here is present, not the immortal, but the eternal; here is not one kind of matter united to another, or a spiritual to an earthly element, but the Creator to a creature, divine Omnipotence to human weakness, the Ancient of Days to the infant of a day. What deep secrets of divine wisdom, power, and love lie here, wrapped up in these poor swaddling clothes! Mary holds in her arms, in this manger with its straw, what draws the wondering eyes, and inspires the loftiest songs of angels. If that be not God's greatest, and therefore most glorifying work, where are we to seek it? in what else is it found?" The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not in me!" Were we to range the vast universe to find its rival, we should return, like the dove to its ark, to the stable door, and the swaddled babe, there to mingle human voices with the heavenly choir-singing, Glory to God in the highest! lions of millions of times, so, by immensely magnifying the age, the power, the wisdom, the holiness of an angel, we could form some dim conception of God. Not that we would not have still to ask, "Who can, by searching, find out God, who can find out the Almighty to perfection ?"-not that when we had exclaimed, in the sublime words of Job, "Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth on nothing. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds. He holdeth back the face of his throne. The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof. He divideth the sea with his power. By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens ;". -we would not have to add with the patriarch, "These are parts of his ways; but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?" Study Him, for example, in the angels who sung this birth-song! They are holy, and we may conclude that their Maker is infinitely holy; they are wise, and He who made them must possess infinite wisdom; they are powerful, and He must be omnipotent; the God of good angels must be infinitely good, as the avenger of sin and evil ones must be infinitely just. This is sound reasoning-for, as David says, "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?" Still, however lofty and worthy were the conceptions which we thus formed of God, He had never been discovered in the full glory of his gracious character by this or any corresponding process. Unspeakable honour to man and unspeakable grace in God, the fulness of his character is revealed not by seraphs but by saints—in redeemed and ransomed sinners. And so Mary Magdalene as reflecting his attributes more fully than angels, wears in heaven a brighter glory than crowns their unfallen heads. She, and all with her, who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, are trophies of free, saving mercy; monuments of that love which, when stern justice had dragged us to the mouth of the pit, and angels, who had seen their The fact that redemption yields God the highest fellows punished by one awful act of vengeance, stood glory will appear also if we look at The Redeemed.-It is in them, in sinners saved, not in the happy and holy angels, that God stands out fally revealed as in a mirror; long and broad enough, if I may say so, to show forth all his attributes. To vary the figure; the cross of Christ is the focus in which all the beams of divinity, all the attributes of the Godhead, are gathered into one bright, burning spot, with power to warm the coldest and melt the stoniest heart. No man hath seen God at any time, otherwise than in his works; and though created things are immeasurably inferior to their Creator, they may still help us to form some conception of his cha raeter. A drop of water is an ocean, a spark of fire is a sin, every grain of sand on the sea-shore is a world in miniature; and as those who have never seen ocean, er sun, or world, may form some idea of their apparance by magnifying these their miniatures, mil in dread and silent expectation of another, graciously interposed, saying, "Deliver from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom." Then, blessed Son of God, thou didst step forward to say, And I am that ransom! From that day Heaven was happier. It found a new joy. Angels tuned their golden harps to higher strains; and now, these blessed spirits, above the mean jealousies of earth's elder brothers, whenever they see Christ born anew in a soul-a sinner born again, called, converted, apparelled in Jesus' righteousness, rejoicing in his arms, or even weeping at his feet, wake up the old, grand birthsong, singing, "Glory to God in the highest !" "There is joy," said Jesus, "in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth-joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." PART II. No man hath seen God at any time; so saith the Scriptures. He who is confined to no bounds of space cannot in the nature of things have any visible form. God has however occasionally made revelations of himself; and such are described in language which seems opposed alike to the declarations of Scripture, and the deductions of reason. It is said, for instance, of Moses and Aaron, when they ascended Mount Sinai, that "they saw the God of Israel;" and Isaiah tells how he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." Believing with the Jews that if any man saw God he could not survive, but would die as by a flash of lightning, the prophet was struck with terror, and cried, in expectation of immediate death, "I am undone, for mine eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts." The object seen in these and also other cases was no doubt the Schekinah—that holy and mysterious flame whereby God made his presence known in the days of old. We know little concerning it beyond this, that it was of the nature of light. The fairest, purest, oldest of created things, passing untainted through pollution, turning gloomy night into day, and imparting their varied beauties to earth and air and ocean, this of all material elements was the fittest symbol of God. A circumstance this to which we probably owe the ancient practice of worshipping the Divinity by fire, and certainly such figures as these: "God is light;""He clothes himself with light as with a garment;""He dwelleth in light that is inaccessible and full of glory." This light, said to have been intensely luminous, brighter than a hundred suns, was not always nor even usually visible; although like a lamp placed behind a curtain, it may have usually imparted to the cloud which concealed it, a tempered and dusky glow. There were occasions when the veil of this temple was rent asunder; and then the light shone out with intense splendour-dazzling all eyes; and convincing sceptics that this cloud, now resting on the tabernacle, and now, signal for the host to march, floating upward in the morning air, was not akin to such as are born of swamps or sea; and which, as emblems of our mortality, after changing from rosy beauty into leaden dulness, melt into air, leaving the place that once knew them to know them no more for ever. This symbol and token of the divine presence was of all the types and figures of Jesus Christ in some respects both the most apposite and glorious: a cloud with God within, and speaking from it—going before to guide the host-placing himself for their protection between them and their enemies-by day their grateful shade from scorching heat, by night their sun amid surrounding darkness. It was one, and not the least singular of its aspects, that this cloud always grew light when the world grew dark-the cloudy pillar of the day blazing forth at night as a pillar of fire. So shone the divinity in Him who was "Emmanuel, God with us," his darkest circumstances, his deepest humiliations being the occasions of his greatest glory. He was buried, and being 80 was greatly humbled; but angels attended his funeral, and guarded his tomb. He was crucified, condemned to the death of the vilest criminal, and being so was greatly humbled; but those heavens and earth which are as little moved by the death of the greatest monarch as by the fall of a withered leaf, expressed their sympathy with the august Suffererthe sun hid his face, and went into mourning, the earth trembled with horror at the deed. He was born, and in like manner He was greatly humbled, and had been, though his birth had happened in a palace and his mother had been a queen; but with a poor woman for his mother, a stable for his birthplace, a manger for his cradle, and straw for his bed, these meannesses, like its spots on the face of the sun, were lost in a blaze of glory. Earth did not celebrate his advent, but Heaven did. Illumining her skies, she sent herald angels to proclaim the news, and lighted up a new star to guide the feet which sought the place where man's best hopes were cradled. The most joyful birth that ever happened, it was meet that it should be sung by angel lips, and all the more because, 2. Redemption glorifies God in the sight of Holy They take a lively interest in the affairs of our world, as the Scriptures show, and as Jacob saw in his vision; for what else means that ladder where they appeared to his dreaming eye ascending and descending between earth and heaven? To the care of John our dying Lord committed his mother; but God when he sent his Son into the world committed Him to their care,—“He hath given his angels charge over thee that thou dash not thy foot against a stone." The care which their Head enjoyed is extended to all the members. How happy are the people that are in such a case! Think of the poor saint who has none to wait on him, or the pious domestic who serves a table and humbly waits on others, having angels to wait on her! Are they not said in Scripture to be "ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who are heirs of salvation?"—however the world may despise them, "this honour have all his saints.” However lowly their earthly state, the saints are a kingly race; and as our highest nobles deem it an honour to wait on the princes of the blood, accepting and soliciting offices at court, the angels are happy to serve such as through their union with his incarnate Son stand nearer the throne of God than they do themselves. Unseen by him, these celestials guard the good man's bed; watch his progress; wait on his person; guide his steps; and ward off many a blow the devil aims at his head and heart. They are the nurses of Christ's babes; the tutors and teachers of his children. A belief in guardian saints is a silly Popish superstition; but we have good authority in Scripture for believing that in this our state of pupilage and probation, along all the way to Sion, in the conflicts with temptation, and amid the thick battle, God commits his saints to angels' care; and that, as it is in their loving arms that the soul of aged saint is borne away to glory, every child of God has its own celestial guardian, and sleeps in its little of an cradle beneath the feathers of an angel's wing. What said our Lord? On setting a child before the people as a pattern for them to copy, "Take heed," He said, "that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." But whether we are, or are not, the happier for angels, there is no question that they are the happier for us. They always loved God; but since man's redemption they love Him more, and employ higher strains and loftier raptures to praise his wisdom, power, holiness, justice, and love. 'It has disclosed to them new views of God, and opened up in Heaven new springs of pleasure. Heaven has grown more heavenly; and though they might have deemed it impossible to add one drop to their happiness, they are holier and happier angels. There is joy among the angels of heaven over every sinner that repenteth; and to the joyful cry, My son that was dead is alive again, they respond, as they receive the returned penitent from the Father's arms into their own, My brother that was dead is alive again, that was lost is found! Never from surf-beaten shore or rocky headland do spectators watch with such anxious interest the life-boat as, now seen and now lost, now breasting the waves and now hurled back on the foaming crest of a giant billow, she makes for the wreck, as they watch those who, with the Bible in their hearts and hands, go forth to save the lost. And when the poor perishing sinner throws himself into Jesus' arms, what gratulations among these happy spirits! "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons. The event is one which I can fancy was in the prophet's eye when, fired with rapture, he cried, "Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it; shout, ye lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest and every tree therein, for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel!" And the heavens do sing. While the saints, descending from their thrones, cast their sparkling crowns at Jesus' feet, and ten times ten thousand harps sound, and ten times ten thousand angels sing, 66 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." 3. Redemption glorifies God throughout all the Uniberse. With a small band of fishermen at his side, and no place on earth where to lay his head, Jesus pointed to the sun, riding high in heaven or rising over the hill-tops to bathe the scene in golden splendour, and said "I am the Light of the world." A bold saying; yet the day is coming, however distant it appears, when the tidings of salvation carried to the ends of the earth, and Jesus worshipped of all nations, shall justify the speech; and the wishes shall be gratified, and the prayers answered, and the prophecies fulfilled so beautifully expressed in these lines of Heber: But shall our world be the limits of the wondrous tale? Though ever and deeply interesting as the scene of redemption, just as to patriots is the barest moor where a people fought and conquered for their freedom, our earth holds in other respects but a very insignificant place in creation. In a space of the sky no larger than a tenth part of the moon's disc, the telescope discovers many thousands of stars, each a sun attended probably by a group of planets like our own their number indeed is such that many parts of the heavens appear as if they were sprinkled with gold-dust; and probably there are as many suns and worlds in the universe as there are leaves in a forest or, rather, sands on the ocean shore. Boldly venturing out into the regions of speculation, some have thought that, if sin defile any of these worlds, its inhabitants may share in the benefits of the atonement which Christ offered in ours; and that beings further removed than we from the scenes of Calvary, and differing more from us than we from the Jews of whom the Messiah came, may, as well as we, find a Saviour by faith in Jesus; and that for this end the work of redemption has perhaps been revealed to such as, removed from our earth many millions of miles, never even saw the planet that was its theatre and scene. There may be nothing in this. I dare not say it is impossible; but these speculations touch the deep things of God, and we would not attempt to be wise above that which is written. Still, Scripture affords ground for believing, for hoping at least, that the story of redemption has been told in other worlds than ours, and that the love of God in Christ-that fairest, fullest manifestation of our Father's heartlinks all parts of creation together, and links all more closely to the throne of God. "He that hath seen me, Philip," said our Lord to that disciple, "hath seen the Father also ;" and as I believe that He who delights to bless all his unfallen creatures would not withhold from the inhabitants of other spheres the happiness of knowing Him in his most adorable, gracious, and glorious character, I can fancy them eagerly searching their skies for a sight of our world,-the scene of that story which has conveyed to them the fullest knowledge of Him they love, their deepest sense of his ineffable holiness and unspeakable mercy. Not from pole to pole, but from planet to planet and from star to star, the love of Christ deserves to be proclaimed ; and it is a thought as grand as it is probable, that the story of Calvary, not yet translated into all the tongues of earth, is told in the ten times ten thousand tongues of other worlds, and that the Name which is above every name-the blessed Name which dwells in life in a believer's heart and trembles in death on his lips-is known in spheres which his foot never trod and his eye never saw. Such honours crown the Head man once crowned with thorns; and therefore did David, with the eye of a seer and the fire of a poet, while calling for praise from kings of the earth and all people, princes and all judges, young men and children, rise to a loftier flight, exclaiming "Praise him in the heights; praise ye him, all ye angels; praise ye him, all his hosts; praise ye him, sun and moon; praise him, all ye stars of light." : 4. The Redeemer and Redemption are worthy of our highest praise. "Glory and death no relief, and the grave no rest. If language cannot express the love and gratitude we owe to the Saviour, let our lives do so. Shallow streams run brawling over their pebbly beds, but the broad deep river pursues its course in silence to the sea; and so is it with our strongest, deepest feelings. Great joy like great sorrow, great gladness like great grief, Let us bend the head, and, in company of the shepherds, enter the stable. Heard above the champing of bits, the stroke of hoofs, the rattling of chains, and the lowing of oxen, the feeble wail of an infant turns our steps to a particular stall: here a woman lies stretched on a bed of straw, and her new-born child, hastily wrapped in some part of her dress, finds a cradle in the manger. A pitiful sight!-such a fortune as occasionally befalls the Arabs of society-great admiration like great detestation, take breath such an incident as may occur in the history of one of those vagrant, vagabond, outcast families who, their country's shame, tent in woods and sleep under hedges, when no barn or stable offers a covering to their houseless heads. Yet princes on their way to the crown, brides on their way to the marriage, bannered armies on their way to the battle, and highest angels in their flight from star to star, might stop to say of this sight, as Moses of the burning bush, "Let me turn aside, and see this great sight!” The prophet foretells a time when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and bound in the same stall, and fed at the same manger, the lion shall eat straw with the ox. Here is a greater wonder! This stable is the House of God, the very gate of heaven: under this dusty roof, inside those narrow walls, He lodges whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain: the tenant of this manger is the Son who, leaving the bosom of his Father to save us, here pillows his head on straw; of this feeble babe the hands are to hurl Satan from his throne, and wrench asunder the strong bars of death; this one tender life, this single corn-seed is to become the prolific parent of a thousand harvests, and fill the garners of glory with the fruits of salvation. Mean as it looks, yet more splendid than marble palaces,—more sacred than the most venerable and hallowed temples, here the Son of God was born, and with Him were born Faith, Hope, and Charity -our Peace, our Liberty, and our Eternal Life. Had He not been born, we had never been born again; had He not lain in a manger, we had never lain in Abraham's bosom; had He not been wrapped in swaddling clothes, we had been wrapped in everlasting flames; had his head in infancy not been pillowed on straw and in death on thorns, ours had never been crowned with glory. But that He was born, better we had never been; life had been a misfortune to which time had brought no change, I and speech away. On first seeing Mont Blanc as the (To be continued.) A PEEP INTO A WALDENSIAN VALLEY. BY A SUMMER TOURIST. THEY are a noble-looking people, the Italians. The fire darting from their black eyes, combined with the dark-brownish shades of their complexion, imparts to them a graceful mixture of juvenile liveliness and manly dignity. There is something knightly, nay princely, in their bearing, expressive of a deep feeling of liberty, which seems to proclaim, "We are a free people; we may have been an oppressed people, but we never were slaves, and never shall be." Such were the thoughts that crossed my mind as I stood one afternoon at the corner of the Via Carlo Alberto and the Corso del Rè at Turin. I was looking at the stream of people who were promenading under the magnificent avenue of chestnut-trees, enjoying the cool shade and the fresh air, and obtaining glimpses of the splendid cafés, which, lining the road on both sides, teemed with crowds of visitors, who took their sorbet in-doors and out, and moved to and fro as bees move in and out of their hives. "A noble set of people," I thought; "worthy to rank among the foremost of the free nations." My meditation was interrupted by a monotonous noise that seemed to come in the direction of the Via Carlo Alberto. It sounded like the humming of an immense swarm of bees. I turned round; it was a procession. Under a canopy, supported by four men 1 clad in white linen, a priest was carrying the monstrans or some other idol. A boy, dressed as a chorister, walked in front, ringing a shrill-toned bell. Its piercing notes were accompanied by the continuous buzz of the Paternosters and Ave-Marias which the priests and a few poor people in their rear kept mumbling as they passed. Every one, rich as well as poor, noble as well as vulgar, took off his hat and bowed reverentially but before it had occurred to me to do so, the procession had passed, and all went on as before. "And yet a poor enslaved people," I sighed. "No knowledge of true liberty can dwell in their souls so long as a piece of wood or stone can command their obeisance." A hand was gently pressed on my shoulder, and a well-known voice whispered in French, "I congratulate you on the happy escape of your hat, Mr. I turned round. "William! is it you ?" Of course we cordially shook hands. It was my Waldensian friend, William- whom I had become acquainted with two years ago at Berlin, where he was tutor in a family with which I was staying. "And where are you going?" he asked. "To Milan, and then back to Switzerland, round by the Simplon." "Of course," he said, with a slight shade of bitterness in his smile. "That's like all you tourists. When far away you speak of us, you pray for us, you collect money for us; but when in our immediate neighbourhood you seem to forget all about us, and not one in a thousand of you thinks of looking in upon us in the valleys. The cathedral of Milan is honoured with the visits of more Protestants in one year, than our valleys, which are the head-quarters of Italian Protestantism, are in ten." I must confess that I was not prepared for such an onslaught. But I felt that his remark was but too true, and I was ashamed of myself and all my Protestant fellow-travellers who, in the prospect of seeing a temple made by man, and teeming with idols, allow ourselves to forget the magnificent temple which the hand of God has reared in the midst of the Piedmontese Alps, and where thousands worship Him in spirit and truth. "Could you not go with me?" my friend said, "and stay at least one day with us? It is only a short journey from here to Pomaret. We shall arrive there before it is dark, if we take the three o'clock train." That How little man is master of his own plans! morning I awoke with the purpose of spending my afternoon on the top of the Superga, and lo, before the clock struck three, I found myself at the station taking a ticket for Pignerol. "And do you really mean to say that my hat was in danger?" I said to William, when we were comfortably seated in our railway carriage and moving on at the rate of twenty miles an hour. "You happened to be standing pretty far back, and so escaped unnoticed; but, if you had been in a conspicuous place, I am afraid some one would have smashed it over your eyes. I daresay you have heard of the story of General Beckwith and his hat?" "I have not." "Some thirty years since, when at La Tour, his hat was roughly knocked off on the occasion of a procession passing by. Not content with this insult, the priests also charged him before the authorities with having treated the religion of the country with disrespect. The judge asked him if he did not know that he must take off his hat to the religious processions? The general stood before the judge, his head uncovered, but no sooner was this question put to him than he immediately put on his hat again, and, pressing it tightly on his head, said, 'Never, Monsieur le préfet ; never shall I take off my hat to a procession! No, never!' The judge thereupon applied all the rigour of the law to this bold champion of liberty, and had the English ambassador at Turin not interfered, the general would have got into endless vexations, and hardly have escaped imprisonment. I must add, however, that things have greatly changed since then. The Constitution of 1848 has cancelled those tyrannical laws, and secured equal rights to all religious denominations. According to the law of the country, you are not at all bound to take off your hat to a procession. You could even give the person into custody who knocked it off, and the judge would be obliged to give a verdict in your favour. But what laws are powerful enough to control the spirit of Popish fanaticism? Even if capital punishment were the |