to the memory of my dear and ever honored father, Thomas Dudley, who deceased July 31st, 1633, at the age of 77," is full of natural expression and feeling. In this Elegy her mind and verse flow free and unshackled. It begins thus :

"By duty bound, and not by custom led,

To celebrate the praises of the dead,

My mournful mind, sore press'd, in trembling verse
Presents my lamentations at his hearse,
Who was my father, guide, instructer too;
To whom I owe whatever I could do;
Nor is 't relation near my hand shall tie;
For who more cause to boast his worth than I?
Who heard, or saw, observed, or knew him better,
Or who alive, than I, a greater debtor?

Let malice bite, and envy take its fill,

He was my father and I'll praise him still."

The best specimen of her powers of mind is a poem containing over thirty stanzas, entitled "Contemplations." We shall finish this article with selecting a few of the verses.

"Some time now past, in the autumnal tide,
When Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed,
The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride,
Were gilded o'er by his rich golden head;
Their leaves and fruits seemed painted, but were true,
Of green, of red, of yellow mixed hue;
Wrapt were my thoughts at this delightful view.

I wist not what to wish, yet sure, thought I,

If so much excellence abide below,

How excellent is He that dwells on high,

Whose power and beauty by his works we know.

Sure he is goodness, wisdom, glory, light,

That hath this under world so richly dight,

More heaven than earth is here, no winter and no night.

Then on a stately oak I cast mine eye,
Whose top unto the clouds seem'd to aspire ;
How long since thou wast in thy infancy?
Thy strength and stature sure we must admire.

Hath hundred winters past since thou wert born,
Or thousand since thou brak'st thy shell of horn?
All these as nought eternity doth scorn.

Then higher on the glittering sun I gaz'd,
Whose beams were shaded by the leafy tree,
The more I look'd the more I grew amaz'd,
And softly said, what glory's like to thee?
Soul of this world, this universe's eye!
No wonder some made thee a deity;

Had I not better known, alas! the same had I.

Art thou so full of glory, that no eye

Hath strength thy shining rays once to behold?
And is thy splendid throne erect so high,
As to approach it can no earthly mould?
How full of glory then must thy Creator be?
Who gave this brightest lustre unto thee:
Admired, ador'd, forever be that majesty!

When 1 behold the heavens as in their prime,
And then the earth, though old, still clad in green,
The trees and stones insensible of time,

Nor age nor wrinkle in their front are seen;

If winter come and greenness then do fade,

A spring returns and they're more youthful made,

But man grows old, lies down, remains where once he's laid.

Shall I then praise the heavens, the trees, the earth,
Because their beauty and their strength last longer?
And think they boast to man superior birth,
Because they're bigger, and their bodies stronger?
Nay, they shall darken, perish, fade and die,
And when they perish so shall ever lie;

But man was made for endless immortality."

There are many verses containing as much poetical thought as these, which are necessarily omitted. That they were written two centuries ago gives them a claim to antiquity in our new world.

THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES.

Ar the close of our former article on this subject (page 218) we said, that to the question, why in this connexion we urged such acknowledged truths, we had an answer ready;-which we now proceed to give.

To us, then, it seems, that for all practical purposes of Christian faith, the reality of the miracles is denied by many who profess to believe them. In our judgement, this is done either by attributing to them only a subjective reality; or by accounting for them as natural facts, explicable by known principles of physics; or by admitting them only as traditions current in the Church, but resting on no historical basis. Whereas our conviction is, that the interpretation, which supposes the occurrence of the resurrection, for instance, an indubitable matter of fact-a true objective reality, is the only interpretation that is adapted to the general faith of Christians, or can satisfactorily account for the existence of the Church. Can we believe, that such remarkable effects could have been produced by the preaching of fables? Or that honest men could have preached for miracles what they knew were only the results of the natural laws of the world? Such must have been their conduct, had they known, that the transfiguration, for instance, was but the occurrence of a thunder storm, that awakened the disciples from a dream in which they had seen Moses and Elias talking with Christ; or that at Cana, Christ coming unexpectedly with his friends and finding the wine insufficient for the company thus enlarged, supplied the deficiency by sending privately and purchasing more; or that the healing of the sick was but the effect of an excited imagination; or that the cure of the blind man was effected by the spittle with which his eyes were anointed, assisted by a lively faith in Christ; or that the resurrection of Christ was nothing but his awakening from a long, heavy sleep,-an effect produced perhaps by the warmth of his grave, and the aroma of the spices with which he was embalmed; or, to mention no more, that the story of his ascension originated in the circumstance, that after his last interview with the disciples he went up into a mountain amidst a tempest of thunder and lightning, and returned to them no more. To this length have some modern critics gone, to avoid the difficulties which are supposed to press upon the theory of a literal resurrection and ascension; and one

expresses himself to this effect,-if Christ rose from the grave, then he was not really dead; if he was really dead, then he did not rise. And such critics profess to be Christians, although if there be such a thing as a fundamental truth in the Gospel, it is here expressly denied and contradicted. We suppose that few Christians will be edified by such criticisms, or be able to understand how the preaching of fables, not to say falsehoods, could have been the foundation of the Church, and have sustained the faith of its members through the afflictive scenes in which their discipleship was proved. What is the religious significance of the resurrection? Besides the attestation which it furnishes to the divinity of Christ's mission, it shows us the victory of the true, spiritual life over death, and thus confirms our hope of immortality. But unless Jesus really died, and was raised from the dead by the power of the Father, the religious character of the alleged miracle and its connection with faith in another life are irrecoverably lost. It teaches no divine interposition; it confirms no faith; it says nothing of a life to come. For practical purposes-for the invigoration of hope and the support of the spiritual life, it has no value.

Farther, the Apostles preached the death of Christ as the middlepoint, the great, central truth of the whole doctrine of human salvation, as that without which the plan of redemption through Christ has no consistency or efficiency. No natural explanation, no traditional or mythical fables, can make good the want of faith in the literal occurrence of this event. Without the death of Christ the peculiarity of the Christian system disappears. And were not his death followed by an equally literal resurrection, it would be no longer true, that he was "the first-born" of those who slept-the leader of many sons to glory;—that he "brought life and immortality to light," and gave the pledge of man's destination to an eternal existence. If this be wanting, we cannot realize from the Scripture the complete idea of a Redeemer, authorised and empowered to remove the sins of our race for all succeeding ages.

It is not denied that the natural exposition of miracles professes to retain the essential truth of the events narrated in the Gospel history, and to differ from the popular exposition only in regard to the manner of their occurrence and the instrumentality employed. But may we not here propose an inquiry often made before;-" How can the New Testament miracles remain everlasting truths,-for example, those of

Christ's resurrection and ascension,-if their reality as historical facts be denied?" that is-if it be denied that they are facts! How can they be true at all, if they never really occurred? Or how, in this case, can they exert a spiritually exciting and sanctifying power upon the hearts of men? If the true, historical basis of facts be removed, or if they be subjected to an interpretation which destroys their objective character, and places them upon a level with the fabulous traditions of Romulus and Remus, what a change takes place in the whole impression which the Gospel history makes upon our minds. Or if doubts in regard to this basis effect a permanent lodgement in our thoughts, how weak and undecided is this impression. Instead of literal truth-revelation from God, we have only a pious fraud,-the invention of men who wished to reform the world from its vices, and began by deceiving the world! Instead of a Church founded by a living head, who manifested in himself the fulness of the divine life, as the living root of a mighty tree beneath the shadow of whose branches the nations should repose, we have a traditionary, fabulous Christ, of whom we cannot positively affirm, that he ever existed, otherwise than in the thoughts of his disciples, as the representative of their idea of the unity of the human race with God! Instead of Jesus of Nazareth, "mighty in deed and word," who manifested the divinity of his mission by signs and miracles which God did by him, we have the poor substitute of an hypothesis which reduces everything to the dead level of every-day occurrences,—or, at least, what might be every-day occurrences, if men would only take pains to develope their natural powers! "The honest, true-hearted disposition of Christ, everywhere evident in the record of his life,-all our knowledge of the moral and religious condition of the early disciples,-the joyful martyrdom, which many of them endured for the honour and truth of the Gospel, the irresistible power of Christianity, even in its earliest age, upon the whole spiritual developement of mankind, and all its blessed influences upon the world's history,-these all present an incomprehensible mystery, nay, a tormenting contradiction; the divine image of the Redeemer no longer appears as a light to illumine the world's darkness, but a false, glimmering meteor kindled by deception and unbridled enthusiasm."

If we adhere to the view, which represents Christianity as a truly miraculous dispensation, we shall find it not only indispensable to the introduction of God's visible kingdom into the world, but perfectly