ened negatively when there is an apparent absence of motives to untruthfulness; when the subject evidently testifies unwillingly, or contrary to his interests, or accidentally, or is opposed to the conclusions to which his testimony leads; or when there is great likelihood of contradiction if he deceive; etc. a. 2. The second requisite is that the subject of testimony should be competent. By the absence of this requisite, it is plain that testimony may be proved absolutely worthless, since a professed witness might be proved to have been absent, or asleep, or intoxicated, or insane, at the time. Competency is to be allowed in proportion as there is Ability to observe. A blind man would be incompetent as a witness of things seen, but might be competent as a witness of things heard. In like manner, some men have very small powers of observation and might be proportionately unconscious of events passing directly before their their eyes. Other men see everything, and their value as witnesses is correspondingly great. b. Opportunity to observe; for how ever great a witness's powers of observation may be, his opportunities may have been so few and poor that his testimony is comparatively unimportant. c. Actual observation; for a witness who has both ability and opportunity may intentionally neglect to observe or be very much pre-occupied at the moment. the words and thoughts of others by an unconscious assimilation of them with their own ideas. For example, many Biblical scholars agree that the words of Jesus suffered more change in passing through the mind of John, than in passing through the minds of the other evangelists; some even view them as essentially opposed in purpose, character and spirit. * e. Apparent freedom from prejudices, passions, etc., calculated to warp the judgment. That kind of competency which arises from skill and knowledge in the special department under examination, is of very great importance and adds to the value of the testimony the weight of authority. 3. The third requisite is that the subject of testimony should be known. Anonymous testimony is worth nothing whatever, because, evidently, the conditions of trustworthiness above mentioned cannot be applied. But this anonymous character and its consequences, cannot be escaped by the simple presence of a name. It may be an assumed name; and moreover if it be the true one, it helps us in no respect to a critical knowledge of the character and circumstances of the witness. If nothing is known of a man but his name, it never can be *"I dare defy any one to compose an intelligible life of Jesus, if he takes account of the discourses which John borrows from Jesus. That fashion of recommending and preaching up himself without ceasing; that perpetual those long reasonings after each miracle, whose tone is so often ungenuine and far from uniform, would not be endured by a man of taste by the side of the delicious sentences of the synoptics. There are here evidently artificial pieces, which give us the preaching of Jesus in such a manner as the dialogues of Plato give us the conversation of Socrates. They are, as it were, the variations of a musician improvising on his own account upon a given theme. The theme cannot be without some d. Ability to relate understandingly argumentation; that artificial mise en scene; and simply; for testimony is the conveying of knowledge by some kind of language, and the ability to employ language perspicuously and to relate simply, is nearly as important as the fact of observation. Many men have extreme difficulty in telling a simple story, just as it occurred; they change the order of the incidents, confuse their own interpretations and reflections with the events, narrate their own inferences as facts, and pervert authority; but in the execution, the fancy of the artist is allowed full sweep." Renan, Introd. to the Vie de Jesus; c. the whole passage of several pages. shown that he was a witness at all. He may have collected traditions, written down the accounts of others, compiled from lost works; nay, he may not even have been an immediate contemporary, if he lived before the style, traits, and manners of the time had passed away. But there may be more than one witness, and then they must agree or disagree. The testimony of many witnesses is, of cour, valuable in proportion to their sub.tantial agreement. The disagreement of witnesses is negative or positive; negative, when one testifies to more than another; this may not affect the credibility of either, or it may do so in proportion to the proof that the silent witness must have known the fact if it existed, and would have been sure to mention it. The disagreement is positive when the accounts are directly contradictory or inconsistent. Such disagreement must invalidate one; it may invalidate both practically, because perhaps no reason can be shown for preferring one to the other. Here is the proper place to make a distinction of importance. Prevalence of belief in anything cannot be regarded as substantiating it, and considered as testimony, it is altogether worthless. Indeed, it cannot in any proper sense be called Testimony. The popular voice is anonymous, in the first place; but of far more importance is the consideration that the facts to which it testifies are almost always taken upon trust, passed from mouth to mouth, and rapidly elaborated into tradition; and with regard to it, the first requisite of testimony, the fact of personal presence and observ We ation, can rarely be established. do not say that tradition is entitled to no weight as evidence, we must insist that it is not testimony in any case; and how small in some cases may be its valid pretensions to consideration as evidence, is plain enough to any one willing to call to mind the multitude of unauthenticated rumors, impossible stories and strange beliefs, which have been obstinately cherished in the popular heart for generations. Men have persevered for centuries in reiterating as undoubted facts the most extravagant and fantastic things admitting of easy test by experiment. "Permit me to ask you," says Bayle in his "Pensees sur les Cometes" (quoted by George Cornwall Lewis), "if you have ever paid attention to the multitude of authors who have said, one after another, that a man weighs more when fasting than after a meal,' that a drum of sheepskin bursts at the sound of a drum of wolfskin,' that vipers kill their mothers at their birth and their fathers at the moment when they are formed,' and several other things of the same nature. Not only have these been repeated as ascertained facts, but attempts have been made to determine their cause; they have been the object of wonder; moral laws have been deduced from them; advocates have referred to them at the bar; preachers have drawn multitudes of comparisons from them; endless themes on these subjects have been proposed in the classes of the schools." (c. Sir Thomas Browne's "Vulgar Errors.") 6 In the next article, we shall discuss the conditions affecting the object of testimony. ELIAS HICKS ON THE BIBLE. HE society of Friends in its origin most other professedly religious sects on account of what was regarded as being the rationalistic tendency of its creedless profession. It was creedless because it was progressive and rationalistic. While most other religious professions though nominally retaining their creeds unchanged have modified their meaning by interpreting them into something which to some extent at least appeals to reason for its support, this once denounced body is now found contending against the very principie for the support of which it then suffered persecution. But In 1828 the society in this country was rent asunder through the adherence of a part of it to its old-fashioned rationally enforced doctrines as enunciated by Elias Hicks, and the adoption by another part of what they held to be more orthodox views. At that time they resolved to separate. their forty years experience, and the present orthodoxy of the Hicksite branch would now prove this to have been a mistake if while the Hicksites were relapsing into their orthodoxy, the other branch had not braced themselves into something very much more orthodox than they had been. At the time of the separation above referred to Nicholas Hallock was an acknowledged minister of the society, and in the freedom of religious discussion when urging the Quaker doctrine that it is the light within us and not any thing which is without us which should be our guide, he would sometimes refer to what are called the Holy Scriptures, as being "the musty records of a by-gone age," and not the only evidence unto us of Divine Truth. These were perhaps his most object In approvingly listened to declarations from Elias Hicks to the effect that the Bible, unless it could be understood by us as it was by the writers of it, and he believed much of it was not, could be of no more use to us than old Almanacs or other waste paper. 1830 Elias Hicks was withdrawn by death from his labors among his brethen, and a change has since been gradually in progress among them until in 1847 it had so ripened that Nicholas Hallock, and others of his stamp, were displaced from being ministers, and disowned by the society, though at the cost of laying down and discontinuing a Quarterly, Monthly, and Preparative meeting, and an established meeting for worship, none of which have ever been restored to the society. Evidence of the continued progress of the same spirit is furnished in the threat which was some time since made that unless it was yielded unto, a similar fate was awaiting the large and flourishing meeting of Brooklyn, as also in the late disownment of John J. Merritt by the monthly meeting of New York upon a false report of the committee in his case. The following extracts from a letter by Elias Hicks to Nicholas Hallock will indicate the unity of sentiment and feeling which existed between them, and will be read with interest by those who are watching the progress of events among the Friends of to-day. The letter commences with assurances of "that mutual affection and Christian fellowship, witnessed in the last opportunities we had in each other's company, and which has formed a friendship between us, I trust, that time and distance will never be able to separate. Thy view of the state of Christendom is undoubtedly correct; the trials of the present day are making it more and more manifest, showing that abundance of the high professors who are reading the sayings of Christ, but do them not, and their works clearly prove, that they will be numbered among the foolish builders, who are laying their foundations on the sand, and when the wind and floods of temptations and trials beat upon them, they will all fall, and great will be the fall thereof; and even many who seem to have run well for a time, and shone as bright lights in the world, among their friends, have by giving way to a spirit of exaltation, by which the cross of Christ has become an offence to them, they have lost their first love, and so far departed from the meekness and simplicity of Jesus, by endeavoring to lord it over the consciences of their friends, and if any oppose them in the exercise of this domineering spirit, they immediately prepare war against them, and by stiring up discord, break the unity and harmony of society. These are wells without water, dark clouds that gather blackness without rain, that evaporate in smoke only, having begun in the spirit, and run well for a time, but for want of watching and walking steadily in the light that can only manifest the works of darkness, they have turned back to the letter that killeth, and are striving to be made perfect by the flesh. But disappointment and woe will be the lot of all those, unless they repent, and return to their first love. I find by letters and other reports that my friends who were at a distance from Philadelphia, where I was in ill health for a time, had by incorrect accounts, been much more alarmed than would have been the case, had they known just how I was; for my friends about me, as well as myself, considered my case but little alarming, as I discovered, so far from that, I considered it all under the direction of best wisdom, as I believe all has worked together for good, and while I was con fined to the house, I felt myself as much in my place, as though I was traveling and attending meetings, as my mind was all the time clothed with sweet peace. And I apprehend it must have had some good effect on some of the worst of my opposers, for, it was, I believe, by the means of some of them, that reports were exaggerated, who I fear, had become so hardy as to wish a final separation from me. There is certainly a very great inconsistency in the professed belief of far the greater part of the inhabitants of christendom, and indeed many in our Society, all which has been produced through blind tradition, in which they have been driven to believe that not one sentence in the book called the Bible, however inconsistent with reason and truth, is to be called in question, but to be taken on trust, right or wrong, although if rightly examined, under the guidance of truth, and right reason, many incongruities and errors would be discovered, and many very fatal ones, as it respects the true interests of mankind. For if it is not so, from whence has risen all the strife, different sentiments and opinions, animosities, quarrels, wars, bloodshed, and a flood of other evils, all which arise principally from the different views and opinions that men have about what is contained in the history of the Bible, and which disturbances will never come to an end, until the Bible is brought down to its right standard, as all other books, a mere history of passing events, and which every man has a right to read, and consider and judge of as he does other histories, and when this comes to be the case, the Bible will be more generally read, and become more useful than it ever has yet been." LINES FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. 'T's See thousands now approach yon mighty pile. IS Sabbath morn, lo! to the house of prayer Art Thou my Father, God Almighty there? Yes, Thou art there, and man may for awhile Thy courts with blasphemy; for when the heart Of Mockery, Religion masked, 'tis but man's art. I quit the noisy Synagogue and turn My wandering steps to where the torrents roar, Her temple is the same as 'twas of yore; 'Tis here amid the rocks alone that I Pour forth in silence on the lonely shore; In silence, Thou canst hear me when I cry For Thou art Lord of Heaven, of Earth, the Sea and Sky. Richmond Ind. B. BAAL-WORSHIP IN AMERICA. "If the Lord be God, follow him, but if Baal, follow him.-1 Kings xvIII. 21. HERE is a right and a wrong, a good and a bad side generally to every cause or question which divides the people or mankind. And there is a strife of principles, there is an irrepressible conflict" or war going on in every nation and government under the sun. We see it everywhere in our day, the strife, the conflict is right around us here, and in far-off Italy it is the same, whether a Garibaldi is beaten by that Satan of European politics, the French emperor, or liberty in America is met by disfranchisement, and truth is defeated by lip-loyalty, and temperance retires from the field, while license is let loose among the youth of our country like flames of fire in shocks of dried corn. “I am gratified but not surprised," writes the Autocrat of the White House, "at the result of the recent elections.” But there is a good deal in the saying of somebody, that the people, in the main, are honest and have good intentions, though, at times, how like the devil they do act! Washington said, "It is one of the evils of Democratical Governments, that the people, not always seeing, and frequently misled, must often feel, before they can act; but then, evils of this kind seldom fail to work their own cure,” which is taking a philosophical view of it. The politics of this country are a kind of swindle, or a doing of business under false pretences. saw a flag stretched across the main street of one of our inland cities a few days before the election, on which I |