people, which might have been effected by so much of that ex'ertion as he deems to have been wasted.' Mr. Foster then adverts, with high satisfaction, to, the encouraging signs of the times, which seem to indicate that a great moral revolution is beginning, a revolution in men's ideas, in the manner of their estimating the souls of the people, and consequently in the judgment of what should be done for their welfare. We have read with particular pleasure the expostulation which he addresses to that class of Reformers who are weak enough to imagine, or dishonest enough to pretend, that any political changes, however salutary, would of themselves avail to raise the people to respectability and happiness. And he then warns persons against making the criminal negligence or delinquency of the body politic, an excuse for having omitted to perform their individual share of national duty. In all probability,' it is remarked, 'the im provement of mankind is destined, under Divine Providence, to advance just in proportion as good men feel the responsibility for it resting on themselves as individuals.' But good men are beginning thus to feel. Through many ages, the immense multitude of human souls that make up the aggregate of society, had been but obscurely presented to view in the character of rational, improvable creatures.

But now, it is as if a mist were rising and dispersing from the field of contemplation, and leaving this mighty assemblage of spiritual beings exhibited in such a light from heaven as they were never beheld in before, except by the eyes of Apostles, and of a small number that in every age have resembled them. It is true, that manifes tation forms so melancholy a vision, that if we had only to behold it as a spectacle, we might well desire that the misty obscurity might descend upon it again, to shroud it from sight; while we should be left to indulge and elate our imaginations by dwelling on the pomps and splendours of the terrestrial scene,-the mighty empires, the heroes, the victories, the triumphs; the refinements and enjoyments of the most highly cultivated of the race; the brilliant performances of genius, and the astonishing reach of science. So the tempter would have beguiled our Lord into a complacent contemplation of the kingdoms and glories of the world. But he was come to look on a different aspect of it! Nor could he be withdrawn from the gloomy view of its degradation and misery. And a good reason why. For the sole object for which he had appeared in the only world where temptation could even in form approach him, was to begin in operation, and finish in virtue, a design for changing that state of degradation and misery. In the prosecution of such a design, and in the spirit of that divine benevolence in which it sprung, he could endure to fix on the melancholy and odious character of the scene, the contemplation which was vainly attempted to be diverted to any other of its aspects. What, indeed, could sublunary pomps and glories be to him in any case; but emphatically what, when his object was to redeem the people from darkness and destruction?

Those who, actuated by a spirit in some remote resemblance to His, have entered deeply into the state of the people, such as it is found in our own nation, have often been appalled at the spectacle disclosed to them. They have been astonished to think what can have been the direction, while successive ages have passed away, of so many thousands of acute and vigilant mental eyes, that so dreadful a sight should scarcely have been described. They have been aware that in describ ing it, as they actually saw it, they would be regarded by some as gloomy fanatics, tinctured with insanity by the influence of some austere creed; and that others, of kinder nature, but whose sensibility has more of self-indulging refinement than tendency to active benevolence, would almost wish that so revolting an exhibition had never been made, though the fact be actually so. There may have been moments, when even they themselves have experienced a temporary recoil of their benevolent zeal, under the impression at once of the immensity of the evil and its grievously offensive quality. At times, the rudeness of the subjects, and perhaps the ungracious reception and thankless requital, of their philanthropic labours, aggravating the general feeling of the miserableness, (so to express it,) of seeing so much misery, have lent seduction to the temptations to ease and selfindulgence. Why should they, just they of all men, condemn themselves to dwell so much in the most dreary climate of the moral world, when they could perhaps have taken their almost constant abode in a little elysium of elegant knowledge, taste, and refined society? Then was the time to revert to the example of Him who, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor.'

In conclusion, the Author vindicates from the charge of extravagance or enthusiasm, the expectations of the friends of popular education as to the results of such means and exertions; and then, perhaps rather unnecessarily, turns off to shew why he leaves undefinable the measure of knowledge proper for the people to be put in possession of,' because it cannot, and, if it could, ought not to be limited. If it was advisable to go so much into detail in noticing this part of the subject, we could have wished that the Author had found some place for his remarks in the body of his Essay. It should by all means have terminated at p. 292, just after the encouraging view had been taken of that brighter era to which the Christian is looking forward, when success in every department of beneficent instrumentality will be far greater in proportion to the measure of exertion.

We cherish this confidence, not on the strength of any pretension to be able to resolve prophetic emblems and numbers into precise dates and events of the present and approaching times. We rest it on a much more general mode of combining the very extraordinary indications of the period we live in, with the substantial purport of the divine predictions. There unquestionably gleams forth, through the plainer lines and through the mystical imagery of prophecy, the vision of a better age, in which the application of the truths of

religion to men's minds will be irresistible. And what should more naturally be interpreted as one of the dawning signs of its approach, than a sudden wide movement at once to clear their intellects and bring the heavenly light to shine close upon them; accompanied by a prodigious breaking up in the old system of the world, which hardly recognized in the inferior millions the very existence of souls to need such an illumination?

The labourers in the institutions for instructing the young descendants of those millions, may often regret to perceive how little the process is as yet informed with the energy which is thus to pervade the world. But let them regard as one great undivided economy and train of operation, these initiatory efforts and all that is to follow, till that time" when all shall know the Lord;" and take by anticipation, as in fraternity with the happier future labourers, their just share of that ultimate triumph. Those active spirits, in the happier stages, will look back with this sentiment of kindred and complacency to those who sustained the earlier toils of the good cause, and did not suffer their zeal to languish under the comparative smallness of their success.' pp. 291-2.

We have had something much better in view in this extended analysis of a volume of moderate compass, than to point out its merits as a literary production, or to do such honour as we may to its Author. It will be at once perceived that, as we deem the subject of the Essay transcendently important, so, we attach no ordinary value to the manner in which it has been in the present instance so fully and so powerfully illustrated. Mr. Foster is not, as respects his style, a popular writer; he seldom furnishes us with what can be considered as light reading. We do not object this against him as a fault, for his style is evidently natural to him; it forms part of his intellectual identity; and of whatever slight improvements it may be susceptible, it could not accommodate itself to the prevailing taste of the day, but at the expense of its vigour and majesty, as well as of the integrity of the thoughts themselves. But this being the case, the persons upon whom Mr. Foster's writings will have their full impression, must be comparatively few; persons of more patient habits of thinking, and of a more intellectual character, than the generality. The immediate operation of his influence will be confined to a small circle; but then, within this circle, it will be powerful and lasting; and there will be a strong re-action. The impulse imparted in the first instance to the minds of a small number of persons, will be propagated, by a sort of re-production, far more extensively; and thousands who never heard of his name, or at least never read a page of his writings, will thus eventually come into possession of the fruits of his solitary mental exertions. This elastic and diffusible property of Mind, is the triumph of individual energy, the solace and the reward of the meditative recluse in the midst of his patient and thankless labours.

Art. II. A New Version of the First Three Chapters of Genesis; accompanied with Dissertations illustrative of the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Principle of Evil, and the Plagues of Egypt. To which are annexed, Strictures on Mr. Bellamy's Translation. By Essenus. 8vo. pp. 160. Price 6s. 1819.

THE Author of this work, (who, we learn from an advertisement, is no other than Dr. John Jones,) having been urged by a friend, to examine Mr. Bellamy's Translation of the Bible, and to give to the public his unbiassed opinion of its merits, found, in the progress of his undertaking, so much reason for dissatisfaction with the version and notes of that gentleman, as to induce him not only to abandon the favourable expectations he had formed of Mr. Bellamy's qualifications, but also to take a decided part with his opponents. From the disappointment thus experienced, has arisen the present volume, which professes to contain specimens of a more faithful version than the defec'tive and erroneous' translation which Dr. Jones had been examining, and to unfold truths hitherto unknown to biblical ' critics truths so new, and at the same time so much in unison 'with the dictates of reason, with the character of God, and with the Divine authority of the Scriptures, as to entitle them to the notice, and I trust,' adds Dr. Jones, to the sanction of the wise and learned.' This is sufficiently explicit as to the Author's opinion of the qualities and importance of his present publication. We further learn, however, from the concluding sentence of the preface, that theological literature has probably yet to receive from Dr. John Jones, productions of no mean character.

'However obscure or unknown in my own age, I hope to bequeath to those who succeed me, such a portion of the Scriptures translated and explained as shall render future ages not indifferent to the name of Essenus!!

Surely this flourish might have been spared.

The first chapter of the work contains the Author's version of the Mosaic account of the Creation, and of the Fall of Man; in which the first striking deviation from the common reading, is the translation of the word 872, created, by planned-" God "planned the heavens and the earth." This Hebrew word,' says Dr. Jones, is a term of science, and expresses the operation of the understanding while planning, scheming, or inventing, it means to plan, to model, to devise.' As proofs that such is the meaning of the word, we are referred to Numb. xvi. 30; 1 Kings xii. 38. (33.); and Nehem. vi. 8. In the last two of these examples, however, the word does not occur: Dr. Jones has mistaken the Daleth for a Resh. And in the first passage, it is very evident that the reference is to the execution of a pur

pose, and that the common translation is unexceptionable. It is singular that the learned Author should have overlooked the circumstance that his rendering the word in this manner, has struck out of his version the account of the creation of man, as may be seen from the following paragraph.

"26-28. And God said, Let us make man after our image, in our own likeness, and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every reptile that creepeth upon the ground. And God planned man after his own image, after the image of God planned he him; male and female planned he them. And God blessed them; and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fishes of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over every reptile that creepeth upon the ground."

Here, then, we have an account of the planning, or scheming, or modelling of man in the Divine intellect, an operation merely of the understanding, but no account of the actual production of man, of his actually being brought into being, and receiving real existence. The command to multiply, and to subdue, and rule, is given while, according to the text, there is no existing being to receive the command. This instance, therefore, would seem to be decisive against the sense Dr. J. would attribute to the Hebrew word, which is also entirely at variance with the definition he has himself adopted at p. 144. He there informs us that the word means to adorn and fashion a matter already 'existing;' which is certainly distinct from planning.

The Author assumes it as probable, that the magicians of Egypt, who were its priests and philosophers, had, before the Mosaic system of the Creation was announced, published their sentiments respecting the creation of the world; and that their main object must have been, to explain the phenomena of nature, as the sole effects of matter and motion, or to represent them as the works of a malevolent author.

The prevalence of this system in Egypt, in Chaldea, and Persia, and the danger there was of the Jews themselves being infected with it, as they were ever prone to idolatry, must have been among the causes that called forth the writings of Moses. We may therefore reasonably expect that, in drawing up his own account of the creation, he should have an immediate and pointed reference to his adversaries. Thus, when he asserts that an Almighty Being planned the heavens and the earth, he must have intended to set aside the false notions of those who maintained that the heavens either had no beginning, or began to exist by natural causes.

The advocates of atheism endeavoured to throw a veil over the evidences of design in the works of nature, as proving, if admitted, a designing cause, and that by denying all previous ideas or models of material things in the supreme mind. They knew that nothing was