indifference and folly, I would now seriously attempt a reformation. To this purpose I would resolve: 1. "That I will carefully examine into my own soul, that I may know its constitution, and its particular weakness and distempers. 2. I would apply to Christ, as my physician, to heal these distempers and restore me to greater vigour in the service of God. 3. I would remember that he heals by the Spirit: and would therefore pray for his influences to produce in me greater devotion, humility, diligence, gravity, purity, and steadiness of resolution. 4. I would wait upon him in the use of appointed means for this purpose; . especially prayer, the study of the Scriptures, and the Lord's Supper. Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Pronounce the word, thou great Physician, and save me for thy mercy's sake.”

"Nov. 12, 1727. I preached this day from those words, I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.' I endeavoured to fix upon unconverted sinners the charge of not loving God, and described at large the character of the Christian in the several expressions of that affection. My own heart condemned me of being deficient in many of them. I humbled myself deeply before God, and do now, in the divine strength, renew my resolutions as to the following particulars. 1. I will endeavour to think of God more frequently than I have done, and to make the thought of him familiar to my mind in seasons of leisure and solitude. 2. I will labour after communion with him, especially in every act of devotion through this week. For this purpose, I would recollect my thoughts before I begin; watch over my heart in the duty, and consider afterwards how I have succeeded. 3. I will pray for conformity to God, and endeavour to imitate him in wisdom, justice, truth, faithfulness, and goodness- -". "Thus careful was he," adds his biogra

IN the Christian Remembrancer for April, your correspondent Cantab, enquires what is "the true state of the case?" with respect to Polycarp's death-this is a question which has much perplexed ecclesiastical historians; without citing all the champions of the different dates which have been assigned, it may be sufficient to mention, that Bishop Pearson insists upon 147, (which Lardner by mistake calls 148) that Tillemont and others following the Chronicon Alexandrinum give 167, or thereabouts; that Usher relying upon the authority of Ægidius Bucherius, adopts 169; that Sozomene makes him contemporary with Victor Bishop of Rome, at the close of the second century, and Socrates having brought him down to the reign of Gordian, the author of the acts of Pionius has made him suffer in the Decian persecution; setting aside however the palpable errors of these later Greek historians, the authentic evidence upon which the question is to be decided is reduced to this, we have the testimony of Eusebius and Jerome in the fourth

century, that Polycarp suffered martyrdom at Smyrna in the reign of Marcus Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus; on the other hand in the epistle written by the Church of Smyrna, soon after his martyrdom in which all the circumstances of it are minutely detailed, it is stated to have happened on the great Sabbath (σαββάτω μεγάλῳ) on the seventh Calend of April, on the second day of the month Xanthicus, when Statius Quadratus was Pro. consul. Now the great Sabbath was an expression used both by the Jews and by the primitive Christians to denote the Saturday before Easter-day, and the seventh Calend of April corresponds to the 26th day of March, therefore Easter Sunday on that year, fell on the 27th of March; but in the year 167, the date assigned by those who follow Eusebius, the 27th of March would not have been on a Sunday, therefore that was not the year of Polycarp's death; it is true indeed that by our mode of computation, Easter-day would have fallen on the 3rd of April, but the Church of Smyrna in common with the other Churches of the East at that time, kept their Easter on the day of the Jewish Passover, and that day, which was the 14th of the month Nisan, is computed to coincide with the 2d of April 147, and therefore the Saturday preceding that, being the 26th of March, would be the great Sabbath; the truth of this date receives additional confirmation from the succeeding clause, for the Macedonian month Xanthicus, commenced on the 25th of March; lastly Statius Quadratus was Con sul, anno 142, and since it was usual to hold the Proconsulate for five years afterwards, it follows that he would be Proconsul in the year 147; upon this internal evidence, Pearson founds his argument for determining in opposition to Eusebius and Jerome that Polycarp was put to

death in the ninth year of Antoninus Pius.

The candid Lardner though not disposed at first to admit the force of this argument yet acknowledges in his second edition, that it is much favoured by the discovery of an ancient inscription; assuming this then to be the true state of the case and supposing that Polycarp dated from his birth, and not from his conversion to Christianity, when he told the Proconsul that he had served Christ eighty and six years, it is evident that he was nearly thirty nine years old before St. John died, and therefore though I know not what good authority there is for the opinion commonly entertained, that he was the angel of the Church of Smyrna mentioned in the Revelations, yet certainly it is not an improbable opinion, and is greatly countenanced by the testimony of Irenæus; for that writer, who had seen Polycarp, affirms that he was taught by the Apostles and by them ordained Bishop of the Church of Smyrna; in like manner Eusebius says, that he received the Bishopric from the eye-witnesses and servants of the Lord. Jerome calls him the disciple of St. John, but that does not necessarily infer his conversion; the eighty six years have been generally supposed to include his whole life; indeed if he was converted it must have been at a very tender age, for in his Epistle to the Philippians, he plainly intimates that he was not alive when St. Paul visited that Church; they therefore, who refer the eighty six years to his conversion, must adopt the later date of his martyrdom; and even in that case the length of time he presided over the Church of Smyrna, will not be singular, for Remigius was Bishop of Rheims more than seventy six years.

To the Editor of the Remembrancer.

SIR,

THE observations of a correspondent in your Number for April last, on the inconsistencies of certain notes in the Family Bible, on a passage in the second chapter of Revelations, have induced me to refer to Cave's Lives of the Fathers for the dates of the birth, ministry, and martyrdom of St. Polycarp.

True it is, that the method adopted by the distinguished Editors of that highly useful work, necessarily leads to the occasional introduction of conflicting opinions on speculative points, but, if I am not mistaken, the danger, that the reader will be misled, is but very small, and is clearly overbalanced by the advantage, that the most valuable comments of the most eminent writers of our Church are embodied in a popular form.

Dr. Cave consulted, with much critical acumen, the original authorities relating to the lives of the Primitive Fathers, and his biographical memoirs are drawn up on close examination and careful scrutiny of the most authentic records. This author, then, concurring generally with the great chronologist Archbishop Usher, whose attention had been particularly drawn to the life and writings of St. Polycarp, fixes his birth towards the latter end of the reign of Nero, or perhaps,_a little earlier. Now Nero died A. D. 68: St. Polycarp, therefore, was born A. D. 67, or it may be A. D. 65. St. Polycarp is allowed by the most ancient and best authorities to have been the disciple of St. John, to have been taught by the Apostles, and to have conversed with many, who had seen our Lord upon earth. Let us suppose him, then, to have been converted by St. John at the age of sixteen, that is, A. D. 83, or A. D. 81. Antiquity in like manner testifies, that he was constituted Bishop of Smyrna by

St. John, and the best commentators concur with Archbishop Usher in understanding him to be the angel of the Church of Smyrna, or the Bishop of that city addressed in Rev. ii.

Now the date of the Apocalypse is A. D. 96; but it is reasonable to suppose, that he had holden the Episcopal dignity there some time previously; say, that he was ap pointed A. D. 93. Then if he was born A. D. 67, he was raised to the Episcopal Office at the age of twenty six, or if born A. D. 65, at the age of twenty eight; but if appointed Bishop A. D. 96, he was, if born A. D. 67, twenty nine years old, and if born A. D. 65, thirty one years old. Dr. Cave fixes his martyrdom A. D. 167; accordingly he was one hundred years old, if born A. D. 67; or one hundred and two, if born A. D. 65. The interesting contemporary account of his martyrdom relates the expression quoted by your correspondent: Fourscore and six years, exclaimed the dying saint, I have served him, and he never did me any harm; how then shall I now blaspheme my King and my Saviour? But Cave most reasonably refers these eighty six years not to the period of his natural, but of his spiritual birth, to his regeneration by baptism, whieh, as was stated above, probably took place A. D. 83, or A. D. 81. If in A. D. 81, then the eighty six years concur with the date of his martyrdom A. D. 167

It is very plain that Dr. Wall's statement, that St. Polycarp died at the age of eighty six, arose from a misconception of the emphatic words of the dying martyr.

If the above dates be calculated with tolerable acuracy, St. Polycarp held the See of Smyrna more than seventy years; seventy four years, if appointed A. D. 93: seventy one years, if appointed A. D. 96: and Dr. Cave alleges an instance on record of a Bishop of Rheims, who held that See seventy four years.

Nor, indeed is at all improbable, that the Divine wisdom should see fit to prolong, for the most obvious purpose, the years of those early confessors of Christianity, whose intercourse with the Apostles and whose shining examples, eminently qualified them to edify the Church, and resist gainsayers, whether from within or from without. We have the evidence of Quadratus, who wrote his Apology for Christianity, about A. D. 124, that there were persons alive even in his days, upon whom Christ had wrought miracles; what wonder then, if so bright a luminary as St. Polycarp, the disciple of St. John, who had conversed with many, who had seen our Lord on earth, should be preserved by Providence to extreme old age?

I am,

Sir,

Your obedient servant, CLER. GLOC.

BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. (Continued from page 395.) "Let me be weighed in an even balance." Job xxxi. 6.

"Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” Daniel v. 27. "When the archi-magies or any one of the beloved old men (whose title is still hereditary in one particular family) is persuading the people at their religious solemnities to a strict observance of the old be

loved or divine speech, he always calls them the beloved or holy people, agreeing to the Hebrew Epithet Ammi, during the theocracy of Israel. I have heard the speaker on these occasions, after quoting the war actions of their distinguished chieftains who fell in battle, urging them as a copy of imitation to the living. Then to soften the thoughts of death, he tells them, they who died in battle are only gone to sleep with their beloved forefathers; (for they always collect the bones) and

mentions a common proverb they have, Neetak Intàhàh The days appointed, or allowed him were finished.' And this is their firm belief; for they affirm, that there is a certain fixed time and place, when and where, every one must die, without any possibility of averting it. They frequently say, such a one was weighed on the path and made to be light.' Ascribing life and death to God's unerring and particular providence, and again when if after having held a council upon war or peace, should the former be determined upon, they say of their enemies-it is finished, they are found wanting." Adair's North American Indian, p. 33, 380.

"Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook?" Job. xli. 1.

The Leviathan of the Scriptures bears in most points so strong a re semblance to the crocodile, that it is difficult to imagine what other animal could be meant-there are, however, someallusions which would leadusto suppose that it must have been one of the whale species. If so, it must no doubt be the grampus (Delphinus Orca of Linnæus) which is the largest of the tribe met with in the Mediterranean, arriving at the length of 25 feet, and is of an extremely fierce and predacious disposition, feeding on the larger fishes, and even on the dolphin and porpus which vary from 6 to 10 feet in length. Chandler in his voyage to the Levant, p. 2, says

we here saw a grampus, or whale, spouting up water, which in falling formed a mist not unlike the smoke from a flash of gunpowder; and again, p. 3, he describes the bot tled-nosed sharks about 12 feet long hovering round the vessel and blowing out water accompanied with a puff audible at a distance. In letters from Canada, by Hugh Gray, the author, after giving a very in teresting account of a contest be tween the thresher and the swordfish, with the whale, describes the latter after being galled on all sides