an excuse in his behalf. His misrepresentation of Baillie must be attributed to his ardent zeal for the suppression of infidelity, and the advancement of pure and undefiled religion. He might have addressed his unlearned readers on this subject with great propriety, in the language of Paul, "Being crafty, I caught you with guile !!!""

THE HARMONIES OF BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY.

St. Pierre wrote three trashy volumes on the harmonies of nature,-why should not I write three pages on the harmonies of Biblical chronology?

"THE nations of the east," observes Sir William Drummond,* "with the exception of the Jews and Arabians, appear always to have vied with each other in their extravagant claims to a remote antiquity. The pretensions of the Chaldeans were more modest than those of the Persians and the Indians; and yet we know that Berosus, according to some,† reckoned a period of one hundred and fifty thousand years from the establishment of the Babylonian monarchy to the time of Alexander the Great; and that this writer, according to others, extended the period in question to four hundred and thirty-two thousand years. We may also observe, without referring to a disputed passage in Pliny, that Cicero reprehended, and Diodorus Siculus rejected, the claims of the Chaldeans to an antiquity of four hundred and seventy thousand or four hundred and seventy-three thousand years."

The Christian priesthood oppose the claims of eastern nations to such a remote antiquity, because their chronology does not accord with the chronology + Euseb. Chron., lib. i.

• Origines, vol. i, p. 1.

of Moses. Chronology is the eye and soul of history, and ought to be in a state of perfection, at least in the blessed scriptures. Surely the Deity could not err, neither could people under his influence; yet, strange to say, the chronology of the Bible is in terrible confusion. This is absolutely inexplicable on the supposition that it is the word of God; but on any other hypothesis the anachronisms may be got rid of by criticism. If it be said that the prophets, writing under the influence of inspiration, could not err, but that copyists may have done so-I ask, what reason have we to suppose that they have not erred in other respects-in matters affecting the most prominent doctrines? "Chronology itself," observes Hales, "ought to be correct and accurate, otherwise it will fail to discharge properly its important functions. It will propagate error, and render confusion worse confounded; it will form strongholds and fortresses of scepticism and infidelity: and some of the most specious weapons, the most mischievous shafts, that have been levelled against the veracity and credibility of sacred history, have been supplied from this quarter to Voltaire, Baillie, and their associates; and those misregulators of time, the Bible chronologists, are subjects of the pointed ridicule of that witling, Paine."

Very well, Mr. Hales; and here goes to launch another shaft, drawn from your own quiver, against the credibility of the sacred book. To quote your own words "In every system of chronology, sacred and profane, the two grand eras of the creation of the world and of the nativity of Christ have been usually adopted as standards by reference to which all subordinate epochs, eras, and periods, have been adjusted; such as the exode of the Israelites from Egypt, the reign of Sesostris, the destruction of Troy, the foundation of Solomon's Temple, the foundation of Rome, the era of the Olympiads, the eclipse of Thales, the time of Cyrus," the voyage of the Argonauts, &c. &c. But the confusion which reigns among chronologers relative to the time when the world was created will best appear by the following list, taken from Hales' chronology, vol. i., p. 3.

SOCIALISM CONSIDERED AS THE MORAL REGENERATOR OF MODERN SOCIETY.

(Continued from page 24.)

Ir may be further objected that the inferences we have drawn do not flow from the premises, that though the reasoning is sound, it by no means involves the conclusions at which we have arrived; in short, that the system of individualism does not produce the deplorable effects we have mentioned. To all which we answer, Man is a being formed for associating with his kind. He is only happy when gregariousness constitutes one of the most striking characteristics of his condition. He is also endowed with lofty powers and capacious desires. He can ascend on the wings of contemplation far beyond the extreme verge of the eagle's most adventurous flight, and scan with philosophic eye the mighty orbs which roll through immensity. He can climb with untiring footstep mountains of difficulty, and wander in thought over the arid waste, the snowclad mountain, and the sleepless waste of waters. The desire of knowledge, the aspiration after the "sublime, the beautiful, and the true," forms one of the component principles of his mental constitution. This desire urges him onward in the pursuit of truth, and would form a noble stimulant to action were the arrangements under which he exists of an elevating character. Now, if man be the production of an infinitely wise, benevolent, and powerful being, can it be supposed, for a moment, that his Creator would endow him with powers which he intended to lie dormant, and create in him desires which were not to be gratified? But the principle of individualism, by the party distinctions and inequality of circumstances which it has originated, controls the operations of men in this respect, and prevents the majority of the population from properly expanding their intellectual powers.

It has also been frequently asserted, by dbblers in