is a constitution actually formed, liberal in its provisions, and, though not precisely what they wanted, yet capable of being amended. But what is their determination now? They make all possible opposition to it. We call attention to this circumstance, as another fact decisive upon the question of the necessity of civil war. Admit, if you please, that there was oppression in Rhode Island to justify a war, if it could not be otherwise removed. But here it is actually removed. The first step had already been taken by them towards war it is true; but we may overlook that, we may say the probability of a peaceful redress was too small to wait for the attempt; but now, when what was before conjecture is fact, when a constitution is made substantially removing the evils, what shall we say of those, who instead of renouncing violent measures when they are proved to be unnecessary, actually defeat the peaceful remedy. For they caused the rejection of the legal constitution, since they had to their own constitution, as they claim, an actual majority of freemen; or if they did not, the smallness of the majority against it was full proof under the circumstances that a legal and peaceful removal of every wrong and grievance was in their reach.

The proceedings of the suffrage party, in forming and adopting their constitution, were revolutionary. It was a revolution for which there was no sufficient justification in the wrongs to be redressed. And more than all, they go on with it, even af

ter redress has been obtained, and rush into the calamities of war, at the very time when they might with honor and with the applause of the whole country, have given a glorious example of the supremacy of the people, acting under government, in executing peacefully their own will. This unwise course placed the government of Rhode Island on high ground. It is no longer a government with wrongs and grievances unredressed-it is a government, first setting itself right before the people, and then, with firmness and dignity, maintaining its own authority and the supremacy of law. The signal of war, from an armed body in the very midst of the city of Providence, though it came with horror, in the silence of night, upon every household, struck no terror, but found the citizen soldier at his post ready to defend his home. But some good providence defeated the rash act, which would have been as the knell of death to many. And, when cheered on by men in other cities, who, themselves in peace and out of danger, could devote a sister city to the flames and involve a state in war, the insurgents make another attempt, they find no longer a city but a whole state in arms against them. The people come from every quarter, and when the forces are collected, instead of a tenderly nurtured aristocracy, they turn out to be the sturdy yeomanry of the land, whom nothing can resist. But the contest was bloodless. Honor to the state of Rhode Island for her maintenance of law, and equal honor for her new constitution.

Ir an Index Expurgatorius were ever needed, it is in the department of prophetic interpretation. If the If the books in the Alexandrian library were all as worthless as is a great proportion of modern works on the predictions of the Bible, the name of the Caliph would have been immortalized with another kind of renown than that which now attaches to it. Our libraries are overrun with books which ought to be given to the trunk-makers. Many of them are of no more use than the vaticinations of the astrologer, or the calculations in Lilly's Almanac. In England, if we are rightly advised, this passion for religious soothsaying has been more rife than in our country. The adherents of the 'personal reign,' and of the literal return,' have not ceased with the life of Edward Irving. It is only the other day that we saw an elaborate effort to demonstrate that Isaiah had in mind the realm of Albert and Victoria, when he wrote in his 18th chapter, "Ho! land with rustling wings, beyond the streams of Ethiopia.' Every great event in civil history, has been the terminus ad quem of a herd of writers. The knell of every demolished dynasty was rung by inspired seers centuries before. The current of divine prediction has been made to flow continuously and parallel with the current of man's affairs in successive

ages.

We need not search far for the causes of these misdirected efforts. One of the most influential is the passion, so natural to man, which incites him to lift up the curtain that hides the future. We are dissatis

Hints on the Interpretation of Prophecy. By M. STUART, Prof. Theol. Sem. Andover. Second edition, with additions and corrections. Andover: Allen, Morrill & Wardwell, 1842. pp. 194.

fied with the past; we loathe the present; we long to gaze upon the secrets of the future. There is a restless desire to know that, of which the Son of God is ignorant, and which the Father has put with. in his own power. The manifesta. tions of this original tendency in man's nature, are seen in all the pages of his history. It is alike revealed in the nearly incoherent jargon of the West African, in the Sagas of the Northmen, in the pol ished literature of the Augustan age, and in the Christian rhapsodies so much in vogue now. There is a passionate yearning, of which we are all more or less conscious, 'to pry between the folded leaves.' If this tendency is left to grow unchecked, it breaks out into all the luxuriance of the spiritualizing Pa pias or Cocceius. The entire future is peopled with images beautiful or fantastic, according to the genius of the conjurer. Again, we like to try our skill at a hard problem. It is an honor to fail, where thousands have set us the example. would run the risk of being devoured by the monster, rather than not attempt to solve the enigma. The unraveling of the prophecies is confessedly a hard work. Thousands of acute men have exhausted their arithmetic, their historical knowledge, and their fancies, upon Daniel and the Apocalypse. But their lamentable failures serve only as a stimulant to succeeding adven. turers. Though others may have been foiled, we shall not be. We have the advantage of their errors. We can avoid the rock upon which they split. We have a key which no other student of hieroglyphics has grasped. The most intricate wards will answer to its touch. Another cause, which has been very influential, is piety, mistaken indeed

We

in some important respects, but sincere and estimable. Many enthusiastic students of the prophetical Scriptures have been animated with cordial love to the word of God. They have been afraid lest they should lose the apocalyptic blessing that alights upon "him who reads, and upon them who hear, the prophecies of this book." They have pored over the sacred symbols by night and by day. The visions of coming glory have passed before them in the midnight watch. Their lack of zeal in investigating the pages of the holy seer, they have mourned over as a sin almost mortal. While others hesitate before they plunge into the dark waters, these walk joyfully in, as if they were the river of life. Many Christians find their spiritual nutriment in the devotional Psalms, and in the discourses of our Lord; these draw water out of the deep wells of the evangelical prophet, or from the rocks of Patmos. The mass of believers are willing to wait, till the great Revelator shall make known the events of the "latter day;" these continually turn their spiritual telescope into the blue heavens, and imagine that they descry worlds hitherto unseen. It is no sinister motive which causes them thus to keep lonely watch. It is reverence for the word of God; the desire of drawing nourishment from its darker pages; and real regard, though mingled with much alloy, for the glory of God.

It becomes, therefore, an important question, What are the indispensable qualifications for an interpreter of the prophetic portions of the Bible? When may one take upon himself the office of an expounder of these heavenly oracles? What are the essential elements in his training?

1. He must be possessed of a competent knowledge of the original Scriptures. We entertain nothing but feelings of respect for our ven

erable English translation. It is a noble monument, not so much to the learning and piety of James' translators, as to their good sense in adhering to the earlier versions by Coverdale, Tyndal, and others. Like the tunes composed by Luther, like the "Dies Ira" of the Catholic church, like the best lyrics of Watts, Doddridge and Cowper, it is consecrated in our deepest and holiest affections. Its noble Saxon cadences are hallowed sounds, wherever in the wide world, an English ear is found. But however great are the excellencies of this version, however accurately it gives the sense in the historical and didactic parts of the Bible, yet, in the poetic and prophetic portions, it labors under serious disadvantages. Take, for example, the book of Nahum, characterized for the extreme abruptness of its transitions, for the life-like and wild energy of its delineations, for the impetuosity of its entire movement. The mere English reader, we venture to say, cannot feel half the force of this admirable poem, while there are some verses which are unintelligible. The same remarks are applicable to a passage like the 18th chapter of Isaiah, which, in the English version, is as destitute of sense as any thing can well be. The case is precisely similar in relation to the Apocalypse. In order to interpret that book, the knowledge of Hebrew is almost as necessary as that of Greek. It is essentially a Hebrew poem. The writer drew his life from the old prophets. He wears the same venerable costume. His tones and idioms are those of Isaiah and Ezekiel.* He collects, as it were, the spoils of both Testa

"The modes of thinking, feeling, speaking, threatening, used by the ancient prophets, and all their poetical apparatus and ornaments, are so familiar to

the writer of the Apocalypse, they are so ploys their illustrations and diction very present to him by long use, that he emfelicitously, on any occasion and in any

ments. His drama has the gorgeousness of the old dispensation, and the simplicity of the new. It is truly the song of Moses and the Lamb. It must have been written by a Jew. How, then, can it be interpreted except by one who is at home in the Jewish Scriptures? Who can point out the various objects in this splendid panorama, except he who is familiar with the visions of Daniel and Zechariah? Besides, not a little minute criticism is necessary. The interpretation of important points in the rival theories, sometimes depends on the use of a connective, on the meaning of a numeral, or the prevalent usage in regard to the Hebrew article. Indeed, there is scarcely any part of the Scriptures, where the drift of the argument turns so much on the signification of a small number of words, as in the latter part of Daniel and the Apocalypse. Who would venture, therefore, to pronounce an opinion on the testimony of any version, however good? It is a case where we must resort to the source. No one is competent to judge who is in his novitiate. Something of that critical tact, that nice appreciation of the use of language, is wanted, which cannot be possessed without faithful study. We do not affirm that no one is to try to understand the prophecies, till he has become a profound student in languages. The mere English reader may derive much benefit from the perusal of them. What we mean is, that he who would expound this part of the Bible satisfactorily, must be acquainted with the original terms employed. The mere private reader, also, would find this to be the wisest course.

2. For the same reasons, accurate acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Orientals is

manner; using the same or similar, more or less, words, with fuller or with less or

nament, inverted, modified, or amplified." Eichhorn in Apocalypsin.

Vol. I.

14

necessary. The more thoroughly versed one is with the mind of the East, with the passion for figurative language, and, also, for visible and tangible illustrations, and with the disrelish which prevails for philosophical statement and exact definitions, the more readily will he see the pertinence of inspired symbols and metaphors. The neologist sometimes makes himself merry with the homely illustrations of the prophet Ezekiel. But were they not significant? Were they not fitted to the rude and hardened company of exiles on the banks of the Chebar? Did he not thus convey to them exactly his meaning? What more could be desired? He was not writing for occidental rhetoricians. The hatred which he aroused, showed that his weapons were of good temper, and adroitly used. The obscurity of the oracles of Zechariah, has been the subject of complaint both among Jews and Christians. This is partly owing to the great prevalence in his writings of symbolical and figurative language. In order to encourage the disheartened Jews, he presented before them a series of symbols, fitted to awaken their attention and animate their hopes-a method of instruction analogous, doubtless, to that with which they had been familiar in their banishment in the East. Brief and abrupt instruction of this nature is common at the present day in the Arabian consessus and in the Persian bazar. He, therefore, who would be an apt interpreter of the Hebrew prophets, must be "filled"-in a sense indeed dif ferent from that of Isaiah-" with the East." He must divest himself, for the time being, of his occidental logic. He must travel awhile with the Bedaween. He must look into such books as Lane's Egypt, the Arabian Nights, and Burckhardt's Journals. He will best obtain a

key to the treasure in the land

where it was first collected.