"For my part, I like to ramble on, just as it happens. But, mother, will you please to read us your plan?"

"You will see that it embraces all the particulars you have named, and many others. You know we began by asking whether a revelation from God to man was probable, and decided that it was so. The next question is, What marks or tokens might be expected in a revelation from God? And,

I. We might expect that it would harmonize with those revelations of himself which God has already made,-1. In nature; 2. In man; 3. With those which he is constantly making in his Providence.

II. We might expect that all its parts would harmonize with each other.

III. We might expect that it would be characterized by a sublimity and majesty not found in human compositions.

IV. We might expect that such a revelation would be specifically and exactly adapted to the wants of the beings to whom it is sent; that is, to the wants of men. These wants

are

1. Clearer knowledge-of himself—of God— and of duty.

2. Pardon-atonement.

3. Motives and aids to right-doing-regeneration.

If all these marks should be found in a book professing to be a revelation from God, we should have proof amounting to a moral demonstration that it was what it professed to be."

"This, then, includes the whole of the proof, the whole of what we are to talk about, does it?" asked Fanny.

"No, my dear; this includes only the internal evidences: there is another class of evidences, which I shall take up afterwards. But, according to this plan, we are to consider, this evening, whether the revelation respecting God, in the Bible, harmonizes with the revelation made of him in the works of nature. And first, as to the unity of God. The Bible, you know, teaches us that there is but one God, while the different systems of heathenism have a great many. Now, which should we conclude to be true, from nature?

After a pause of some length, James said he did not know. "I do not see, mother, how nature can teach anything about it. We know that the world must have been made; but

C

why might it not have been made by a great many beings, as well as by one?"

"Suppose you should be shown a vast and complicated piece of machinery, all the parts of which were nicely adapted and adjusted to each other, so that in all the intricate movements, and play of the parts, there was no confusion or jarring, but the whole worked harmoniously together to a single end. Should you suppose it to be contrived by one mind, or by many?" "By one, mother, certainly."

"In the same way we infer the unity of God from the works of creation. There is a correspondency, a harmony, between the parts, which proves that they were all the work of the same intelligence. The same mind which formed the eye also created light; the same being who created the atmosphere gave man lungs to breathe it, and blood to be purified by it."

"O yes! it seems very plain that the same being made everything, else they would not fit together so. But then, as to the perfections of God, it does not seem to me-I mean, James was saying-and it seems so to me, too, that it is no proof of the Bible being from God, that it gives such a representation of him. Because,

if people had invented the Bible, they would, of course, have made the character of God perfect."

"I beg your pardon, my dear. It is not so easy as you seem to think to invent a perfect and infinite Being. It is very difficult for a depraved heart to conceive of infinite excellence, even when it is revealed; and quite impossible for it to imagine and represent such a being as the infinite Jehovah, without a revelation. If you would be convinced of this, you have only to look at the deities of pagan nations."

"Yes, I remember I have read about Jupiter-he was a miserable kind of god certainly."

"Yet the Greeks were the most refined, polished, and learned nation of antiquity; and Jupiter was about the best of their gods. It has been said of the pagan deities, 'Some were vindictive and sanguinary, others were jealous, wrathful, or deceivers; and all of them were unchaste and adulterous. Not a few of them were monsters of the grossest Ivice and wickedness; and their rites were absurd, licentious, and cruel, and often consisted of mere unmixed crime.' Another writer says, 'Their deities were worse than

ordinary wicked men-full of ambition, malice, cruelty, lust, deceit. One was the god of thieves, another of war, a third of wine. Their histories are histories of crime and chicane, of pride and contention. Their supreme Jupiter is never introduced, but in the form of human folly, with human vices, and engaged in criminal human pursuits."

"But, mother, do you suppose people could really have approved and admired such things?" said James.

"No; that was probably out of the question. The philosophers ridiculed these gods; but the common people believed in them, and if they did not reverence them, had nothing to reverence. At any rate, we see what gods men invent for themselves, when they are left to their own folly."

"And yet the Greeks and Romans were the most civilized people in the world!" said James. "Yes, and as they went on advancing in civilization and refinement, they made no improvement whatever in the character of their deities. But now let us turn from these gods of the heathen, to contemplate the God of revelation. What a contrast between Jehovah and these contemptible, cruel, and