strengthened as they were by the speaker's evil smile, struck on his ear with the force of a death knell. Then he was gone.

It took but two minutes to get from one office to the other. But those who have experienced some sharp, sudden shock-some sudden revelation, meaning for them something as dreaded as death itself, can guess how much fearful agony can be compressed into that infinitesimal space of time. Such alone can imagine what crowds of thoughts will throng through the brain in that interval, and they only can guess the feelings of Fred Johnson as he went to what seemed his doom. Those few words recalled, in a flash, a day, not long ago, when he was still one with those who now hated him, when, seeing Mr. Weatherby's pocket book on the floor of the office, he had picked it up and, being driven to extremities by betting and drinking and other excesses, had extracted therefrom some bank-notes to the value of twenty pounds. No one knew of this—not even Mr. Weatherby himself, for he had not missed the money, as the pocket-book had been left where it lay. But also in that flash of thought came to Fred the memory of his having, in a moment when drink made him reckless, made a confidant of Houghton in the matter. Till now he had forgotten this, though he would never have believed anyone so utterly cowardly as to inform against him. In that flash, too, came the many promptings he had felt, since being a Christian, to go like a man to Mr. Weatherby, confess what he had done, and undertake, if allowed, to pay back the money. And at the heels of these recalled promptings came, like jeering spectres, his irresolution and fear and procrastination. It was a moment of agony. What should he do?

The question burned itself into his throbbing brain. There was no reply to it. All he could understand in that horrible moment was that his bright, sweet dream, so lately built up, was to be dashed ruthlessly to the ground. Minnie! How that name cut his heart! Could he take her could he allow her to take him, with that fearful brand upon his forehead, "thief"? Never! Would he go insane? Would this be

too much for him?

But at that instant came a beam of hope. "Where was the proof of his having done this thing? Who could accuse him and bear out the charge with evidence? None. There was no evidence. He had only to deny it, and all was well. Yes! This once-one sin, to save him— could make no difference

He did not stop to think further, but opened the door and stood before Mr. Weatherby.

If he had had any doubt about the object of his being sent for, it would have been instantly dispelled by a glance at the merchant's face, which was black as a thunder-cloud.

"Read that, Johnson, and tell me if it is true."

Fred read the short note handed to him. It was addressed to Mr. Weatherby in confidence, and had no signature. The contents did not surprise him at all, as they did but disclose the incident of the pocketbook.

When he had done, the young man looked up, trying to gaze into the keen, determined grey eyes of his master with a glance which should be

A DEADLY TRIAL.

11

as much like innocent wonder as possible. The denial was formed in his brain. But there the Devil's power stopped-his tongue refused to act.

Like a glimpse of a glorious world all but forfeited, came before Fred's mind's eye a vision of the pure and sinless world in which he had elected to live, and he said, with a deep grief, "Lord Jesus, forgive me-help me!"

I

And there and then he was helped. Like the face of a conqueror new from the victory seemed the face of Fred as he mastered his temptations, and it was with fixed resolve to face everything that he answered, "To my shame, sir, I confess it is too true. I came here with the wish to deny it, but, thank God, He has helped me to be true to Him. became a Christian since I did that, and have often half-resolved to tell you all, but I had made myself poor by excesses, and knew not how to repay the money, which I intended to do. I have suffered more than I can tell, but if, sir"-he went on, seeing that the other quietly waited for him to finish—"you will forgive me and grant me time I will repay all, and you shall have no cause to regret your mercy."

Mr. Weatherby was a man of few words. When Fred had done speaking he said, the frown on his brow a shade less black, "Go back to your desk, Johnson, and come here to me at this time to-morrow."

If I tried to describe the young man's feelings as he obeyed I should fail. All sense of fear had vanished from his breast, and he instinctively felt that all would be well. He trembled to think of the terrible gulf on the brink of which he had so lately stood; but his heart rose rejoicing at the help that had been given him in his moment of danger, and with this rejoicing came the sweet exultation that follows the Christian's victory in a battle for God and truth.

That day was one of strange looks and whispers on Houghton's and Harry's part. Adams seemed to know nothing. But it was a day of comparative peace for Fred; though, like a wounded snake, it dragged its slow length along. But it passed at length; and the next came, bringing Houghton, as well as Fred, before Mr. Weatherby.

"I accept your offer, Johnson," was all he said to that individual. Then, turning to the other, he continued, "You will find another situation, Houghton, in a week. When next you write anonymous letters disguise your handwriting more effectually. You are both at liberty."

Fred Johnson afterwards had the extra delight of knowing that Mr. Weatherby and Will Adams had both been studying him, and, through finding him to be true grit-a genuine epistle of Christ-had learned to read the truth in him, and, what was better, to love it.

BAPTIST NEWSPAPERS.

WE are glad to note signs of progress in Baptist Literature. Our old friend, the Freeman, is coming down to a penny with the new year; but we have no doubt this will be an ascent in interest, in sales, and in usefulness. Our readers who know it, and they are numerous, will not fail to make it more widely known.

The Baptist, the original penny Baptist paper, promises several new features for the coming year, which will render it more than ever welcome to those who have been acquainted with it from the first, and will give a capital opportunity to introduce it to strangers. Baptists will find it their interest every way to care for their own newspapers.

The Silence of Moses Concerning Man after

Death.

WHY is it that the student of human destiny finds so scant a store of materials on the momentous theme of Man's Future in the life and work of Moses, the man of God?

As a prophet, he was one of the most original and profound; as a legislator he has never been equalled; as a man he holds a conspicuous place for his sublime self-denial, heroic choice, grand self-control, and conquering faith. His impress is on all the ages. His power still throbs and thrills in the heart of the civilized nations. His influence is destined to immortality; and yet he has designedly omitted, from his religious teaching, all reference to man's survival after the shock of death; has restricted his doctrine of reward and punishment to this life and to this earth; and has reared his own magnificent and superlative excellence on the simple basis of a faith in God, and without any expressed faith in " the recompense of reward" for his personal and conscious self after death.

This is a striking, if not a bewildering phenomenon in the history of religious thought and religious "edification." The silence of such a man on such a theme, in such circumstances, is itself distressingly eloquent. And yet not wholly so. For it might, perchance, quiet our feverish anxiety to settle "off hand," and for all time, the profoundly mysterious problem of man's hereafter if we were to welcome the tranquilizing influences that proceed from a life so unselfishly absorbed in present duty, and so grandly oblivious of the morrow. It might, indeed, make us more tolerant towards those who differ from our cherished conclusions to see this builder of the fair city of Mosaism, as he proceeds from foundation upwards, course by course, without any "theory" of the "immortality of the soul," without any articulate enunciation of a future state. Nay more, might not men who tell us "life is not worth living" without faith in such a theory, and try to goad us into Roman Catholicism on the spear-head of the difficulty they thus create, see a rebuke of the shallowness of their reasoning, and of the folly of their direction? But our present work is rather to account for this omission than to utilize it, and therefore to this we address ourselves.

And, first, this silence is by no means due to any ignorance of the theory of the immortality of the soul. That is undeniable. Moses was trained in all the wisdom and learning of the Egyptians; the key of every department in the lofty and spacious edifice of Egyptian knowledge hung on his girdle. Every advantage that wealth and position could give was in the grasp of the brave and capable student who was known as the Son of Pharaoh's daughter. The foundling of the Nile was the diligent pupil of Egypt's priests: and had within sight all that could gratify his ambition, enlarge his information, and discipline his faculties. And it is notorious that the life beyond the grave was both a conspicuous and an absorbing topic of Egyptian belief; so absorbing that it dominated the entire realm of life,* and must have formed as Cf. Ewald's History of Israel, I., p. 557, first edition. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, by Lepsius. Wilkinson's Manners and Customs, II., second series, 1841, p. 381.

SILENCE OF MOSES ON MAN AFTER DEATH.

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essential a part of the education of Moses in Egypt as the multiplication table in the education of Board Schools, or "Euclid" in the curriculum of a modern university. Moses would be more conversant with the themes centring in human destiny beyond the grave than if he had read the religious newspapers, and engaged in the religious controversies of England for the last ten years. Hence it is impossible that he should have omitted the subject from his legislation, his teaching, and his songs, either from accident or from ignorance. It must have been from strong and sufficient reason.

What was that reason?

M. Th. Henry Martin* says the silence of Moses concerning the doctrine of a future life was due to his fear that its inculcation would produce amongst the Hebrews a worship of the dead. There is so little to support this position that we may dismiss it.

The answer usually given is well stated by Bersier, a French preacher,† in a Sermon on the Eternal Life. In effect it is that the law of Moses was addressed to the people in their civil or political character; and that the solemn sanctions of immortality, not being needed for purely legal enactments, are not given. The most Christian legislation would not think of placing the idea of eternity in the list of its rewards and punishments for civil and political actions. Yea, says Bersier, we have two fine examples, one in the sixteenth, and another in the seventeenth century, of peoples legislating for themselves under the influence of a mighty religious movement, powerfully penetrated with the idea of eternity; and yet neither the people of Geneva, led by Calvin, nor the young and rising States of America, led by the Pilgrim Fathers, gave any place to the belief in immortality, even once, in their legislation; and this notwithstanding they enacted laws on the subject of offences regarded as religious, such as blasphemy and unbelief. These analogous facts are solid arguments. Dare any one argue from the absence of reference to man after death in the laws of Geneva and of the United States, that the lawmakers believed in annihilation, or lacked faith in the immortality of man? Certainly not. No more ought any one to construe the silence of the Hebrew legislator into a proof of his want of a belief in a life beyond the grave. Such a belief was not wanted in his legal system, and therefore it was not inserted.

But Moses is more than a legislator. He is also the religious teacher and guide of the Hebrew people. He is their prophet sent by God and therefore Bersier's reasoning, though invincible as far as it goes, does not cover the whole ground. There must be a deeper reason for this positive recoil from the subject of man's future, this absolute and unchecked dominion given to the interests of the nation in time. What is that deeper reason? Can we find it? Let us see.

No one will question that the teaching and work of Moses are strongly marked by sharp and persistent, and even vehement antagonism to Egyptian ideas, beliefs, practices, and influences. He lives in a white heat of righteous indignation against everything Egyptian. Two religions are in deadly conflict; and the Hebrew champion is bent on

*La vie future suivant la foi et suivant la raison.

+ Sermons par Eug. Bersier, Tome IV., Quatrième Edition, pp. 241, 242.

giving no quarter. His brave and original spirit saw through the hollowness and falsehood of Egyptian civilization. He loathed their effeminacy, spurned their luxuries, dreaded their moral corruptions, and battled against their religion as the source of all their weakness and depravity. His familiarity with their amazing culture did not blind him to their appalling iniquity;* and holding, as he did, the responsible position of Saviour and Leader of the people chosen of God, his soul was fired with relentless determination against the incursion of Egyptian ideas of God and the future into their minds.

He proclaims the Unity, the Spirituality, the Eternity of God. This is the pith of his Revelation. God is all and in all. God is above all. He is the Unseen Holy. No image can represent Him-represent Him! images degrade Him, and those who use them. Not one shall be allowed for a moment. The golden calf, made in an hour of effeminate return to the animal worship of Egypt, is an unutterable folly. "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image" of God.

Egypt's twin error was its exaggerated treatment of the FUTURE LIFE. Its priests had "matured into a system, and interwoven with the whole life of the Egyptians," the most gross conceptions concerning man after death. They represented man as brought after death before Osiris, and questioned by forty-two assessors as to some forty-two sins. If guiltless, he took the form of Osiris after many ordeals and transformations; if guilty he was changed into the form of some base animal, and consigned to a fiery place of punishment and perpetual night. Living was made into an intolerable burden by the arrangements with regard to death. Embalming was an art of infinite elaboration, and a business requiring such a care that if an unfortunate incisor made a wound he was in danger of being pelted to death. The pomp of burial was inconceivably grand and imposing, hugely wasteful, and altogether injurious. In short, the religion of Egypt was "a religion of death and not of life;" its centre of gravity was wholly in the future and not in the present; it was a consecrated apparatus of mischief; and its two chief instruments of destruction were its false conceptions of God, and its equally false treatment of the future of men.

Moses was the divinely-commissioned foe of both of these fundamental and inveterate errors; and he conquered the first by forbidding all images of God, and the second by making living rightly so engrossing and so absorbing a business that it became possible to men to find their chief concern in the individual, social, and civil duties of the day, their grandest enthusiasm in the growing prosperity and extending and enduring greatness of their own race, and their strong consolation in death, from the assurance of the perpetuity of their people and nation. He put the centre of gravity of the religious life in the fact of a God present here and now-and he kept it there. Living became the supreme solemnity, the master-problem, the sphere of retribution, the all in all, and dying shrunk, as it always will under such

* As to the culture of the Egyptians, cf. Ewald History of Israel, i. 431. Alexander's Kitto, subject, Egypt. Smith's Dictionary, subject, Egypt.

+ See Egypt's Book of the Dead. Also, Bishop Alexander's Bampton Lectures, p. 86; and Ewald History, i. 577, et. seq. Much information conveyed in an interesting manner concerning this subject will be found in the PILLAR OF FIRE, by Dr. Ingraham, in chaps. xiv., xv.

Ewald History, i. 557.