self to the soul, are common to good men of all times. these desires can only be realized in heaven.

The fulness of

The motive which prompted a desire like this may be contemplated in various aspects, all according with a devout spirit. It was so in Moses, and it is so in us. One aspect of this desire was, that he might know more of God. This, as we have already intimated, was a natural desire both to Moses and to all devout men. Favoured with some considerable knowledge of God, of his manifestations and perfections, they feel that the subject is vast and illimitable. The knowledge of God is most excellent knowledge, and to desire to have more of it-higher views of his glory, and wider and juster conceptions of his nature and perfections, is natural and proper. And this can only be obtained and realized by the help of God and his Spirit, and by God's own gracious condescension. Another part of this motive was, that he might feel more of God. The desire of Moses was not a merely intellectual gratification. He did not wish that his imagination only might be filled with lofty and noble conceptions of God; but that these conceptions should affect and influence his heart, that every right emotion and feeling toward God might be deepened, strengthened, and perfected. "Let me know more of thy majesty, thy power, and thy purity, that I may reverence thee more. Let me see more of thy beneficence and excellence, that I may love thee more. Thou art infinite: as far as may be, help me to grasp thy infinity: as far as may be, shew me the glory of thy name, that my soul, filled with thee, may be the subject of all the high, holy, and reverent emotions due to so great a Being." Is not this a suitable desire for good men? Another part of his motive was, that he might enjoy more of God. The highest, noblest, and most refined enjoyment of which the soul is capable, is that which arises from communion with God, and a sense of his favour to us. To this the Psalmist alludes; "Whom have I in heaven but thee?" &c. Having once sipped at the stream, he desires to plunge into it. Having once tasted of this, earthly joys become valueless and insipid as the chief end of being. So the good man, having enjoyed a sense of Divine favour, desires its increase and continuance. "There be many that say, who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us." That Moses might serve God better, more constantly, and fully, was another part of his motive. The principle of obedience is intimately connected with knowledge. We must know God before we can serve him; and, other things being equal, the more perfectly we know, the more perfectly we shall serve God. The majesty, power, excellence, goodness, and authority of God, in proportion as they are impressed on the man's heart, induce the spirit of obedience. Moses was a faithful servant. wished always to be so, and hence his request for this display of God, that an obedient spirit might always be present to him. "Shew me thy glory," that I may never wander, falter, or hesitate in my obedience to thy will. So with the devout Christian. Moses, lastly, desired this gracious manifestation of God, that he might have a kind of pledge of God's continual favour and of his guidance through life. Moses had just felt that he himself and his people were in a position of danger. He asked for this favour as if in confirmation of all God's gracious promises to him. Let there be some signal revelation

He

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of thyself to me in this time of extremity. So, in times of peculiar danger and trial, the Christian, by special supplications, seeks for special grace, for some peculiar and gracious manifestation of God, that he may have strength, light, and favour given him. God is faithful, and he who teaches us to pray, has promised to manifest himself to his people as he does not to the world.

The manner and spirit of the prayer of Moses must not be forgotten. He offered it when he was in the best frame of mind. He had been some time in converse with God. He was near to God, and had received gracious answers. Lifted up in his heart to God, filled with high and holy thoughts of his excellence, majesty, and goodness, he uttered the prayer, "I beseech thee, shew me thy glory." The Christian too, at the best seasons, when nearest to God, will most cherish this desire. It was an earnest prayer. The terms and the circumstances show this. "Shew me, I beseech thee." Above all things I desire this, that I may know, love, serve, and enjoy thee. True Christians are importunate in their desires after God. It was an humble prayer. Moses felt his own littleness. His prayer was submissive. I desire to know more of thee, if it please thee. God will be "had in reverence by all them that are round about him." It was a believing prayer. Moses knew and had evidence that God was "the hearer of prayer." He prayed with confidence that God would now in some way meet his desires. courages his people "to ask, believing." "He that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him." "Let us draw near, with a true heart, in full assurance of faith." It was a successful prayer. God did, as far as might be, and in a wonderful and gracious way, answer the prayer of Moses. velopment of this we reserve for another exercise. But, it may be remarked generally, that true and sincere prayers, offered to God, all receive answers, if not as we expect, yet as God pleases, and as he sees best.

God en

The de

From this subject we learn to estimate the limited knowledge we have of God in the present state. Here, at best, "we see in part." Our capacities are but unfolding. After every display God gives of himself, in his works, or his word, we know him but imperfectly. "Canst thou,

by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is high as heaven: what canst thou do? deeper than hades what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." How glorious is heaven! There all shadows and imperfections will be removed. God will be near. His glory will then be revealed. Bound to his throne by the display of his glory, and by infinite and eternal obligations, his people will love and glorify him for ever. How important the object of Moses' prayer-to know, enjoy, and serve God more- -to have God nearer to us. Fix your desires on this end, and seek after God that he may be with you, and that you may serve him in holiness and righteousness all the days of your life. Let us examine ourselves by this test. Do we follow hard after God? Do we desire him? Do we pray that we may know him more? Is our religion in the heart, or is it only in form? 'Delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart." Amen.

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THE TWO ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF PICTURE WRITING.

THESE are the Egyptian and the Chinese, and although each may claim precedence, we will begin with the former. This was divided into four distinct classes. In the first division are placed those signs which set forth an object by a precise image of it. These were very simple and natural, and were frequently combined with others in determining their peculiar sense or import, in such a manner that the Egyptian scholar could give different shades of meaning to one and the same thing. As a rule, a near approach was given to visible objects themselves, but when so familiar as not to need it, a part was given which readily suggested the whole. These have been called, conventional hieroglyphics.

The second division consisted of pure symbols. The use of metaphorical language is common in every early age, and materially assists the mind in dealing with abstractions. The very first literary efforts resolve themselves into symbols. The poet defines what may either be old or uncommon by vigorous images drawn from the universe around; by a lion, he expresses boldness; by a king, nobility; by a maiden, purity. Still he is but the singer of the people. He is in advance of them it is true, but as his ideal is only a collection of all human graces, so he is himself but the embodiment of many human attributes, informed with a fire and power of his own. All men are naturally poets, creators and centres of imagery-it may be of a homely proverbial sort, but still it is not the less imagery-only he who has a larger nature, a brighter soul, and a manlier life leaping in his heart, can sing and paint for humanity at large, and show the spirituality of man gleaming through the ragged robes of his earthliness, and what a race of kingly poet-men would have lifted their broad brows to heaven, if sin had never dimmed, bespattered, and dwarfed our natural glory. The picture-writing of the Egyptians clothed this nascent poetry in a visible form, and gave it a lively expression. Their inscriptions and memorials were bright and fragmentary poems, revered and loved by child-like minds. Mentally in their boyhood, they had the boys' attachment for pictorial scenes and things for this huge, unrhymed, unworded poetry of theirs, which moved and exalted without the sweep of a harp or the venerable presence of a bard.

As pure metaphors, the bee communicated the idea of an obedient, king-loving people; a hawk on the wing, signified the wind; an asp, power of life and death; and a crocodile, rapacity. There are instances of the use of other figures of speech. The synedoche is shewn, where two arms stretching up to heaven indicate the word offering; a stream of water flowing from a jug, libation; a censer with some grains of incense, adoration; and a man throwing arrows, tumult. The metonymy is seen in a crescent with its horn bent down for the word month; a pencil and a palette, or reed and inkstand, for writer, writing, or a letter. Several of the gods are represented by the animals sacred to them. Thus the figure of a man, surmounted with a ram's head, was Jupiter Ammon; with a hawk's head, Phre, and a jackal's, Anubis. But these were compound, some were even simpler. Thus the simple hawk with a circle round its head, signified Phre; a ram with a circle round its

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horns, Chnubis. The ibis, or sacred bird of the Egyptians, worshipped as the household deity, thus represented the god Thoth, or Taut. "By this metaphor," writes Plutarch, "the Egyptians ascribe to this most wise Deity, care, watchfulness, and discernment, as Plato says." In more modern times, the use of animals as symbolical of saints was very common in painting, and as an hieroglyphical representation of the triune God, a triangle, with an eye in the centre to express omniscience, is still found on the organs and over the altars of most of the continental European churches.

Of the third, or phonetic class of signs, we have already spoken. A fourth class have been called by Champollion enigmatical. This division includes the allegorical and mythical sculptures which fill the Egyptian temples, the key to them being zealously preserved as one of the mysteries of the priesthood. These are now undecipherable, but are commonly supposed to embody some of the higher and grander truths of the ancient religion. The colossal sphinxes which looked down from the cemetery over the city of Memphis, and the huge rows of them leading to the entrances of the temple of the bull Apis, seem naturally to group themselves into these sacred enigmas. These four forms of writing were all combined in general use, and hence the difficulty of deciphering them, and the many versions and amusing tilts of learned and enthusiastic men. The figures were, in the earliest instances, placed one under the other in columns, but afterwards they are found to be horizontal, or otherwise, as circumstances required, and whether read from the right or the left hand, the figures were always made to face in those directions.

We come now to the Chinese. The two emperors, Fo-hi, and Hwan-ti, have both the honour attributed them of substituting painted characters for the knotted strings, already mentioned as in use amongst them in an early age. We cannot pretend, since of other than celestial origin, to determine their relative claims, but the fact of both flourishing 3,000 B.C. (about the time of Noah) will give some idea of the antiquity of their system. Their first pictures were marked by the same rude simplicity which everywhere characterizes early art, and an analysis of their language at once indicates the successive stages of its growth. First, then, we have the elementary signs, or images (Sy-ang-hing). These, some two hundred in number, mostly consist of natural objects, and, served for scenical representation, but little else. The eye immediately recognized in them the originals, but the immense labour and space required in depicting a lengthy narrative, the great number of signs necessary where each object had a distinct symbol, and the effort of mind demanded to fuse and interpret the whole, led them to devise a very clever remedy. Giving a large representative power to some of the more important signs, the addition of other slight marks enabled them at once to detect their different shades of meaning. Thus a copious supply of compound signs were manufactured, capable of expressing ideas, abstractions, and sounds, and multiplying their elementary list until it reached as many as forty thousand characters. The second class exhibits the first step in this rapid improvement. It was called, hwei-i, meaning combinations. In this class are abstract nouns, general ideas made pertinent by peculiar signs, and examples of one or two kinds of

metaphor. Thus, a bird and a mouth signified a song; a man on mountain tops, a hermit; a woman, hand, and broom, the mother of a family; the sun and moon, light; and drops of water near an eye, tears, weeping, and sorrow. Chi-se, the third class, indicates the position of objects not expressible by a figure of the objects themselves. For instance, a dot on the top of the line, means above; at the bottom, below; and a straight line through the figure of an ancient harp, the middle. The fourth class, chwan-chu, contains inverted forms of known and common signs used in the modification of ideas. A staved threepronged fork-one wonders how many fingers the celestials originally had-specified left or right as it curved inwards like a human arm from its appropriate side; and two upright legs, and two partially recumbent ones, were intended to set forth the two opposites, living and dead men. In the fifth class we have some admirable specimens of Chinese wit. Its figures were called kyd-tsyei, borrowed, or devised, from their nonresemblance to the objects, except by some remote link of association. A house thus designates a man, and a single room, a woman; a hand, an artificer; two men, face to face, salutation; back to back, separation; one behind the other, the verb, follow, and perhaps, subjection, and imitation. A heart beneath a slave denotes passion, and two pearls side by side very beautifully symbolize a friend, or the abstract noun, friendship. The sixth and last class exhibits the acme of Chinese picture-writing. This undertook by means of compounds, to give a sign implying the nature of the object, and an independent symbol which should convey the sound, or pronunciation of its name. The figure of a fish, yu, followed by another representing the Chinese li, an itinerary measure, serves phonetically to indicate Li, or the fish called carp; and a cypress-tree, Pe, is expressed by the outline of a tree, and a figure which means white, (i.e.) pe.

All these forms are now in use in the Chinese language, although so abridged and altered as to require much assiduity and learning to trace in them any resemblance to natural things, much less make out the radicals of the multitudinous combinations. As a rule, however, the radical is placed to the left hand, and written larger than the rest of the compounds; but the Chinese habit of writing with camel-hair pencils, and their utter carelessness in disconnecting the various characters, render their separation a matter of persevering labour. But those who, interested in what has been here given, would study the picture-writing in an interesting form, cannot do better than make a study of an empty willow-pattern dinner-plate. Bystanders may deem you a dyspeptic, glaring at an aerial meal in perspective, or the ghost of one that has been: but heed them. There is a pathos and a moral in the story which shall enable you to bear all manner of puns, gibes, and laughter. Chang and Koong-see shall look upon you with the dewy eyes of doves, and you may learn a truth which faces alike rich and poor, preaching the same love and constancy. Here is a poem in its pure elementary form, as born in the brain of a poet-painter, and he who wills and cons it best may give to it the highest and noblest interpretation. E.