should be celebrated, and that the whole history should be read aloud in the hearing of the assembly, it would, no doubt, have added to the clearness and to the certainty of our recollections; but just as they stand, our history and our anniversaries will save us from any material mistake concerning the facts of "76, perhaps as long as we remain together as a people.

The Egyptians, without written history, seemed long to remember the night when the angel did not pass over their houses; and when they arose at midnight, and did weep until morning. The Israelites observed the night in a way that was to remind them that the angel did pass over their houses, and did not destroy their first-born; also that they were in readiness to march immediately and to depart from Egypt.

But in addition to this annual feast, a history of all the circumstances was written, (they believed at the command of the God whose presence was visible in the cloudy pillar,) and they were ordered to have it read, for the sake of the unlearned, in the hearing of all the people, without omission and without neglect.

I could see that during any one year, it would be a difficult matter to persuade a nation into a falsehood connected with the celebration of the preceding year; and the same difficulty belonged to the year before this, and the year before that again, until we reach the origin of the feast, or the event which gave rise to the celebration. I could not have wished to be in the condition of one whose task it was to persuade himself that our fathers believed they had, at a given time, declared themselves independent, when they really had not. I could not wish to be under the necessity of fixing upon the year when this national belief, joyous, and without foundation, had its rise. Political revolutions are plain occur

rences. Opinions, false, universal, and triumphant, are not commonly found to exist, concerning the change of empires. The removal of a nation from its residence to its distant habitation, an entire nation, is a very plain transaction to the eyes of those who are there, and to their children for many years. When my companions attempted to account for the origin of the passover, and other Jewish observances, in a way differing from their own history of these feasts; or to suppose that the nation thought their fathers had passed through the sea, and through the desert, when it was not so; I could see that they had a task as difficult and as toilsome as it would be to quietly believe the Israelitish records.

There were impediments in the road which few would surmount, unless they had a strong natural inclination to walk in the path of infidelity.

CHAPTER LXIV.

Means of Rescue.-I had heard it stated, or I had read, that the famously profligate Earl of Rochester was much surprised after reading the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. This wicked man was not destitute of education, and he knew that if the book of Isaiah had been no older than the Greek translation of it made for the Alexandrian library, still it had been read two hundred years before the birth of the Saviour; and this was as striking as though it had a thousand. It was said that this earl avowed, in pale astonishment, that the twelve verses contained an accurate account of the life, reception, character, trial, manner of trial, death, manner of death, resurrec

tion, &c., of the crucified Saviour. He thought it as plain as the history of him given in Matthew. My curiosity was excited. I wished to judge for myself, and I opened the book and read, "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed."

I thought that if this was a complaint of the apostles that so few of our race had listened to their message, or received their doctrines, it was perhaps not destitute of accuracy thus far. I read again, "He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground."

I asked a minister what he understood by this. He replied, that plants that grow from a dry soil are tender, and that they require more watering, and more the watchful care of the gardener than others. He said that he had read of the Redeemer when he was waited upon by angels, when he was strengthened; and that he supposed the Saviour had as much the care of his heavenly Father as the attentive husbandman ever bestows upon the tenderest plant. I could not controvert his opinion, but I read on without deciding as yet, in my own mind, on its correctness.

"He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." I did not find this very hard to understand, for I had known before that the Jews, having expected a splendid prince for their Messiah, one who would make them very wealthy and very powerful, did not see much beauty in the poverty of the reputed son of Joseph, who was poor. Neither did the next verse require any interpreter.

"He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed

him not,

"Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.

"But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

I could see that the doctrine of substitution, which I had heard preached all my life, was surely in these verses; but I was not so much surprised as I have since been, to see how often it is repeated and varied in mode of expression in this short chapter. The next two verses began to awaken my attention.

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.

"He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation; for he was cut off, out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he stricken."

I remembered his singular silence before Pilate, but this did not seem to be the only item mentioned concerning his trial. Criminals mostly when taken into custody are confined in the jail until the sitting of the court, which is often not sooner than some weeks or months. If he is tried and condemned, he is thrown again into prison, and after a time executed. I had heard that the word prison, in many languages, often meant no more than custody; therefore, when I read, "he was taken from prison and from judgment," I remembered that Christ was taken into custody, and hurried directly before

the judgment-seat; his trial hurried on by shouts of impatience, and as soon as condemned, he was taken from judgment immediately to execution. These circumtial details began to strike me with much interest, which was not diminished by the succeeding verse.

"And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.”

It was plain enough that he lay in the tomb of the rich man of Arimathea, whilst the wicked soldiers surrounded it; but one who understood the Hebrew informed me that the original text stated more directly what is related in the New Testament, viz. that they designed his grave with the wicked; but God ordered it otherwise, because he had done no violence; because he was not a malefactor, he was not permitted to be buried with malefactors, where his enemies certainly were about to bury him, if no one had asked Pilate for his body.

"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, when he hath put him to grief, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand."

I had read just before that he was to be cut off out of the land of the living, and buried; of course when I found it declared that his days were yet to be prolonged, I was nesarily reminded of his resurrection. I could see without assistance from any commentary, that with his resurrection announced in this verse, was also connected the prosperity of his cause. In the Bible, and by the church in every age, the converted, or those born again, are, and have been called the children of God. I was aware of this, and could understand of course that if he saw his