in the Bible, which we shall have to notice very briefly. One is, that a considerable time often intervenes between the punishment and the offence. We are told, in the Bible, that a day is coming in which God will judge the world. But, meantime, sinners go on as they please, and mock, saying, Where is the promise of his coming? Now, it is the same in Providence. A man commits a murder, we will suppose, and it is not known. He lives on for years, without detection; but at last the moment of detection arrives. In some unexpected and surprising manner, his crime is brought to light, and he gives up his life on the gallows.

"Another point of analogy is this: we find from the Bible, that repentance, alone, has no power to atone for sin. If Christ had not died, and by his death made an atonement for sin, our repentance would have done no good; God could not have pardoned us.”

"But why not?" said Fanny; "that seems strange."

"Reflect a moment: suppose that the Queen of England, or the Congress of the United States, makes a law-a law forbidding murder, for instance-and annexes death as the penalty;

suppose that, instead of inflicting this penalty, they pardon every murderer as soon as he professes repentance for his crime; what do you suppose would be the consequence ?"

"O, I see that it would never do; nobody would be afraid to kill another then; and besides, they would see that the law-maker had not kept his word."

"Very well; the same consequences would have followed if God had remitted the penalty threatened against sin, on repentance. But what I was going to say is, that the same fact is exhibited in the daily course of Providence. If a man injures his health, for example, by misconduct in youth, no matter how sincerely he may repent afterwards, he cannot avert the consequences. A man may, by a single act, entail upon himself suffering and disgrace for all the rest of his life, without any possibility of escape."

"How dreadful that seems!" said Fanny.

"Yes; and how it harmonizes with another dreadful fact, revealed in the Bible,-that a man may make sure the loss of his soul, so that nothing can avert it! Another point of harmony between the course of Providence and revealed religion may be found in the

fact that the same conduct which is enjoined by one, as necessary to secure our temporal interests, is inculcated by the other, as tending to our eternal happiness. For instance, the Bible requires sobriety, temperance, mo. deration, self-control, justice, honesty, and charity. Now, on considering human life, and the history of mankind, we find that these are the very qualities which a man must possess and exhibit, in order to secure competence, health, tranquillity and honour, in this life. And there cannot be a single thing named which enlightened self-interest requires of men, which is not also inculcated in the Bible."

"That is very curious and interesting," said James; "I should like to think more about that."

"I advise you to think about it, and also more about the general subject of our conversation, for it is not half exhausted; and yet we must stop here. When you are older, you will read a work in

which you will find

all these points, and others of a similar kind, fully illustrated. It is Butler's 'Analogy of Religion to the Course of Nature.' Our next inquiry will be, whether all the parts of the Bible harmonize with each other."

CHAPTER VII.

THE HARMONY BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE

SACRED WRITINGS IS A STRONG EVIDENCE OF THEIR

CREDIBILITY.

FANNY began the conversation by remarking that it did not seem to her that much of an argument for the truth of the Bible could be drawn from this source.

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Why not?" asked her mother.

"O, because, mother, if the Bible had been invented by men, you know they would have had sense enough to make the different parts hang together."

"Sense enough!" echoed her mother. "It takes more sense than you are aware of, I suspect. If you had lived a few years longer, you would have known better. Why, my dear child, it is the most difficult thing in the world, for one man, writing a single history, to keep from contradicting himself. But the Bible was the work of many different authors, living in different countries and successive ages-"

"But, mother, I beg pardon for interrupting you, but could not the later writers have

taken care to make their writings consistent with the first, and so on?"

"Truly, my dear Fanny, you demand more miracles than are recorded in the Bible itself. In the first place, it could not have been done, had it been attempted. But in the second place, what is to put it into the heads of so many men, in successive ages, to keep up such an imposture? Even if a man could have been found to originate it, why should another man, who lived a century after, attempt to carry it on? You must suppose a Moses to write a fabulous account of the creation, the deluge, the call of Abraham, and the origin and wanderings of the Jews. Another man, who lives later, takes up the scheme, con. Jews in a minute

tinues the history of the and circumstantial manner, and gives further predictions of a great Prophet and Deliverer to come, who has been already prophesied of by his predecessor. Others succeed him, and take up the same purpose; historians, poets, and prophets, follow each other, writing with the greatest apparent candour and truth, and in the most sublime and exalted strains; and here, too, the same wonderful harmony subsists; history, prophecy, types and institutions,