FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[A]The Greeks used to say that reeds had contributed to subjugate a people, by furnishing arrows; to soften their manner, by the charm of music; and to develop their intelligence, by offering them the instruments proper for the formation of letters.—Humboldt’s Personal Narrative.“The reed presents itself as an object of peculiar veneration, when we reflect that it formed the earliest instrument by which human ideas, and all the charms of literature and science were communicated, and which has handed down to us the light of religion and the glow of genius from the remotest ages.”—Drummond’s First Steps to Botany.[B]“The Guaraons, a free and independent people, dispersed in the Delta of the Oronooko, owe their independence to the nature of their country; for it is well known that, in order to raise their abodes above the surface of the waters, at the period of the great inundations, they support them on the cut trunks of the mangrove tree, and of theMauritia flexuosa.”—Humboldt, Personal Narrative, vol. iii. p. 277. The same people make bread of the medullary flour of this palm, which it yields in great abundance, if cut down just before going to flower.—Ibid., vol. iii. p. 278. To these circumstances Thomson alludes:—“Wide o’er his isles the branching OronooqueRolls a brown deluge, and the native drivenTo dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees,At once his home, his robe, his food, his arms.”[C]The connection of navigation with the progress of civilization is most intimate, as may be understood from the following passage:—“Among the circumstances which have contributed to retard the progress of civilization in Africa, one of the most important and influential is the compact and undivided form of the African continent, and the natural barriers which render access to the greater regions of the interior so remarkably difficult. It has been observed by Professor Ritter, that the civilization of countries is greatly influenced by their geographical forms, and by the relation which their interior spaces bear to the extent of coast. While all Asia is five times as large as Europe, and Africa more than three times as large, the littoral margins of these larger continents bear no similar proportion to their respective areas. Asia has seven thousand seven hundred geographical miles of coast; Europe four thousand three hundred, and Africa only three thousand five hundred. To every thirty-seven square miles of continent in Europe, there is one mile of coast; in Africa, only one mile of coast to one hundred and fifty square miles of continent. Therefore the relative extension of coast is four times as great in Europe as in Africa. Asia is in the middle between these two extremes. To every one hundred and five square miles, it has one mile of coast. The calculation of geographical spaces occupied by different parts of the two last-mentioned continents, is still more striking. The ramifications of Asia, excluded from the continental trapezium, make about one hundred and fifty-five thousand square miles of that whole quarter, or about one-fifth part. The ramifications of the continental triangle of Europe form one-third part of the whole, or even more. In Asia the stock is much greater in proportion to the branches, and thence the more highly advanced culture of the branches has remained, for the most part, excluded from the interior spaces. In Europe, on the other hand, from the different relation of its spaces, the condition of the external parts had much greater influence on that of the interior. Hence the higher culture of Greece and Italy penetrated more easily into the interior, and gave to the whole continent one harmonious character of civilization, while Asia contains many separate regions which may be compared, individually, to Europe, and each of which could receive only its peculiar kind of culture from its own branches. Africa, deficient in these endowments of nature, and wanting both separating gulfs, and inland seas, could obtain no share in the expansion of that fruitful tree, which, having driven its roots deeply in the heart of Asia, spread its branches and blossoms over the western and southern tracts of the same continent, and expanded its crown over Europe. In Egypt alone it possessed a river-system, so formed as to favor the development of similar productions. Die Erdkunde von Aslen, von Carl Ritter. 2. Band. Einleitung. §24, 25. Berlin, 1832.”—Pritchard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind. Third Edit.Vol. ii., p. 354.[D]“Was it not for the manifestation of this brighter era, and the realization of its promised blessings, that all else which preceded it was overruled by divine Providence, as subservient and preparatory? All things being now ready, there began to spring up in the bosom of the British churches, a wide and simultaneous sense of the solemn responsibility under which they had been laid by the events of Providence, to avail themselves of so favorable an opening for the diffusion of the gospel throughout the eastern world. Men, qualified to undertake the high commission, must be sent across the ocean—and have not the toils, and perils, and successes, of Vasco de Gama, and other navigators, opened up a safe and easy passage? That their labours might pervade the country, and strike a deep and permanent root into the soil, they must be delivered from the caprices of savage tyranny, and the ebullitions of heathen rage; and have not our Clives and our Wellingtons wrested the rod of power from every wilful despot; and our Hastings and our Wellesleys thrown the broad shield of British justice and British protection alike over all? In order that they might the more effectually adapt their communications to the peculiarities of the people, they must become acquainted with the learned language of the country, and through it, with the real and original sources of all the prevailing opinions and observances, sacred and civil. And have not our Joneses and our Colebrookes unfolded the whole, to prove subservient to the cause of the Christian philanthropist? In this way have our navigators, our warriors, our statesmen, and our literati, been unconsciously employed, under an over-ruling Providence, as so many pioneers, to prepare the way for our Swartzes, our Buchanans, our Martins, and our Careys.”—Duff’s India and India Missions.[E]The relative proportions of starch and gluten in rice, wheat, and other seeds, not only confirm the views respecting design, in determining their geographical distribution, but merit notice, as influencing their nutritive qualities, and fitness or unfitness as food in different countries.Starch.Gluten.Wheat,according toProust74.512.5———Vogel68.024.0Winter wheat—Davy77.019.0Spring wheat70.024.0Spelt—Vogel74.022.0Barley—Davy79.06.0Rye—Do.61.05.0Oats—Do.59.06.0Rice Carolina—Vogel85.073.60Maize—Bizio80.920.Tartarian buckwheat52.2910.47Not only do the relative proportions of starch and gluten vary in the same seed when grown in different countries, but even when grown in the same country, according to the kind of manure put on the soil, a point of great importance to agriculturists, when known and attended to.[F]See “Church of England Magazine,” vol. vii. p. 52-3-4.[G]“I have been informed by Sir Joseph Banks, that the Derbyshire miners, in winter, prefer oat-cakes to wheaten bread, finding that this kind of nourishment enables them to support their strength and perform their labour better. In summer they say oat-cake heats them, and they then consume the finest wheaten bread they can procure.”—Sir H. Dacy’s Agricultural Chemistry, 5th edit., p. 143.The propriety and advantage of this practice is established by the recent investigations of Boussingault, who found that oats contain more than double the quantity of nitrogen which exists in any of the other cereal grains.—See Annales de Chimie et de Physique, tom.lxvii.p. 408-21.[H]Carpenter’s “General and Comparative Physiology,” p. 272 and Dr. Prout’s “Bridgewater Treatise,” book iii.[I]See Forrest’s “Voyage to the Moluccas;” Craufurd’s “Indian Archipelago, or Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Vegetable Substances, Food of Man,” p. 171.[J]“In the season of inundations, these clumps of theMauritia, with their leaves in the form of a fan, have the appearance of a forest rising from the bosom of the waters. The navigator in proceeding along the channel of the delta of the Oronooco at night, sees with surprize the summits of the palm-trees illuminated by large fires. These are the habitations of the Guaraons (see Sir W. Raleigh’s Brevis Descript. Guianæ, 1594, tab. 4), which are suspended from the trunks of trees. These tribes hang up mats in the air, which they fill with earth, and kindle on a layer of moist clay the fire necessary for their household wants. They have owed their liberty and their political independence for ages, to the quaking and swampy soil which they pass over in the time of drought, and on which they alone know how to walk in security to their solitude in the delta of the Oronooco, to their abodes on the trees, where religious enthusiasm will probably never lead any American Stylites (seeMosheim’s Church History). This tree, the tree of life of the missionaries, not only affords the Guaraons a safe dwelling during the risings of the Oronooco, but its shelly fruit, its farinaceous pith, its juice, abounding in saccharine matter, and the fibres of its leaves, furnish them with food, wine, and thread proper for making cords and weaving hammocks. It is curious to observe in the lowest degree of human civilization, the existence of a whole tribe depending on one single species of palm-tree, similar to those insects which feed on one and the same flower, or on one and the same part of a plant.”—Humboldt, Person. Narrative, vol. v. p. 728.[K]Davy’s Agricultural Chemistry, p. 133.—According to Mr. Knight the best potatoes, such as the Irish apple, possess much greater specific gravity than the inferior sorts, and this variety yields nearly 20 per cent. of starch; while five pounds of the variety called Captain Hart, yields 12 ounces of starch, and the Moulton White nearly as much, the Purple Red give only 8½, the Ox Noble 8¼. There is much more profit in cultivating the former than the latter sorts; but even the best kinds degenerate, and new sorts must be procured, as if to stimulate the ingenuity of man, by preventing his enjoying the gifts of God, without constant exertion, and observation of the laws which the Creator has impressed upon his productions. See the Observations of Thomas Andrew Knight, and the experiments now making by Mr. Maund, of Bromsgrove.[L]Duncan. Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons.[M]Carpenter’s Physiology.[N]Thomson’s Chemistry of Organic Bodies: Vegetables, p. 667.[O]Vere magna et longe pulcherrima sunt etiam illa profundissimâ sapientiâ hic exstructa opera tua, O Jehovah! quæ non nisi bene armatis nostris oculis patent! Qualia autem erunt denique illa, quæ sublato hoc speculo, remotâ mortalitatis caligine daturus es tuis Te vere sincero Pectore colentibus? Eheu qualia! Hedwig.[P]Thomson’s Chemistry. Vegetables, p. 630.[Q]On the Culture and Uses of Potatoes, by sir John Sinclair, bart. This is a subject becoming every year of greater moment, and attention to it a national benefit. The reduction of bulk alone, facilitating the transport from one place to another, is an essential gain. The produce, from a certain number of acres of this valuable esculent, may be greatly augmented by planting the potatoes whole, at a great distance between each, and hoeing freely between them—See Knight’s Papers in Horticultural Transactions, and Payen et Chevalier, Traité de la Pomme de Terre. Paris, 1826,p.17.[R]Humboldt. Personal Narrative, vol. iv. p. 84.[S]“Among the plants cultivated by man, the sugar-cane, the plantain (musa), the mammee-apple (mammea), and alligator-pear-tree (laurus persea) alone have the property of the cocoa-nut-tree, that of being watered alike with fresh and salt water. This circumstance is favorable to their migrations; and if the sugar-cane of the shore yield a syrup that is a little brackish, it is believed at the same time to be better fitted for the distillation of spirit, than the juice produced from the canes of the interior.”—Humboldt.[T]“The quantity of these insects is incredible to all who have not themselves witnessed their astonishing numbers; the whole earth is covered with them for the space of several leagues. The noise they make in browsing on the trees and herbage may be heard at a great distance, and resembles that of an army in secret. The Tartars themselves are a less destructive enemy than these little animals. One would imagine that fire had followed their progress. Wherever their myriads spread, the verdure of the country disappears; trees and plants stripped of their leaves and reduced to their naked boughs and stems cause the dreary image of winter to succeed in an instant to the rich scenery of spring. When these clouds of locusts take their flight, to surmount any obstacles, or to traverse more rapidly a desert soil, the heavens may literally be said to be obscured by them.”[U]“As the native of a northern country, little favoured by nature, I shall observe that the Marche of Brandebourg, for the most part sandy, nourishes, under an administration favourable to the progress of agricultural industry, on a surface only one-third that of Cuba, a population nearly double.”—Humboldt, P. N., vol. vii. p. 156.[V]Loudon’s Arboretum Britannicum, vol. i., p. 412.[W]For an interesting account of sugar, see Humboldt, Nova Genera et Species Plantarum, vol. i., p. 243.[X]Haselquist’s Voyage.

[A]The Greeks used to say that reeds had contributed to subjugate a people, by furnishing arrows; to soften their manner, by the charm of music; and to develop their intelligence, by offering them the instruments proper for the formation of letters.—Humboldt’s Personal Narrative.“The reed presents itself as an object of peculiar veneration, when we reflect that it formed the earliest instrument by which human ideas, and all the charms of literature and science were communicated, and which has handed down to us the light of religion and the glow of genius from the remotest ages.”—Drummond’s First Steps to Botany.

“The reed presents itself as an object of peculiar veneration, when we reflect that it formed the earliest instrument by which human ideas, and all the charms of literature and science were communicated, and which has handed down to us the light of religion and the glow of genius from the remotest ages.”—Drummond’s First Steps to Botany.

[B]“The Guaraons, a free and independent people, dispersed in the Delta of the Oronooko, owe their independence to the nature of their country; for it is well known that, in order to raise their abodes above the surface of the waters, at the period of the great inundations, they support them on the cut trunks of the mangrove tree, and of theMauritia flexuosa.”—Humboldt, Personal Narrative, vol. iii. p. 277. The same people make bread of the medullary flour of this palm, which it yields in great abundance, if cut down just before going to flower.—Ibid., vol. iii. p. 278. To these circumstances Thomson alludes:—“Wide o’er his isles the branching OronooqueRolls a brown deluge, and the native drivenTo dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees,At once his home, his robe, his food, his arms.”

“Wide o’er his isles the branching OronooqueRolls a brown deluge, and the native drivenTo dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees,At once his home, his robe, his food, his arms.”

[C]The connection of navigation with the progress of civilization is most intimate, as may be understood from the following passage:—“Among the circumstances which have contributed to retard the progress of civilization in Africa, one of the most important and influential is the compact and undivided form of the African continent, and the natural barriers which render access to the greater regions of the interior so remarkably difficult. It has been observed by Professor Ritter, that the civilization of countries is greatly influenced by their geographical forms, and by the relation which their interior spaces bear to the extent of coast. While all Asia is five times as large as Europe, and Africa more than three times as large, the littoral margins of these larger continents bear no similar proportion to their respective areas. Asia has seven thousand seven hundred geographical miles of coast; Europe four thousand three hundred, and Africa only three thousand five hundred. To every thirty-seven square miles of continent in Europe, there is one mile of coast; in Africa, only one mile of coast to one hundred and fifty square miles of continent. Therefore the relative extension of coast is four times as great in Europe as in Africa. Asia is in the middle between these two extremes. To every one hundred and five square miles, it has one mile of coast. The calculation of geographical spaces occupied by different parts of the two last-mentioned continents, is still more striking. The ramifications of Asia, excluded from the continental trapezium, make about one hundred and fifty-five thousand square miles of that whole quarter, or about one-fifth part. The ramifications of the continental triangle of Europe form one-third part of the whole, or even more. In Asia the stock is much greater in proportion to the branches, and thence the more highly advanced culture of the branches has remained, for the most part, excluded from the interior spaces. In Europe, on the other hand, from the different relation of its spaces, the condition of the external parts had much greater influence on that of the interior. Hence the higher culture of Greece and Italy penetrated more easily into the interior, and gave to the whole continent one harmonious character of civilization, while Asia contains many separate regions which may be compared, individually, to Europe, and each of which could receive only its peculiar kind of culture from its own branches. Africa, deficient in these endowments of nature, and wanting both separating gulfs, and inland seas, could obtain no share in the expansion of that fruitful tree, which, having driven its roots deeply in the heart of Asia, spread its branches and blossoms over the western and southern tracts of the same continent, and expanded its crown over Europe. In Egypt alone it possessed a river-system, so formed as to favor the development of similar productions. Die Erdkunde von Aslen, von Carl Ritter. 2. Band. Einleitung. §24, 25. Berlin, 1832.”—Pritchard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind. Third Edit.Vol. ii., p. 354.

[C]The connection of navigation with the progress of civilization is most intimate, as may be understood from the following passage:—

“Among the circumstances which have contributed to retard the progress of civilization in Africa, one of the most important and influential is the compact and undivided form of the African continent, and the natural barriers which render access to the greater regions of the interior so remarkably difficult. It has been observed by Professor Ritter, that the civilization of countries is greatly influenced by their geographical forms, and by the relation which their interior spaces bear to the extent of coast. While all Asia is five times as large as Europe, and Africa more than three times as large, the littoral margins of these larger continents bear no similar proportion to their respective areas. Asia has seven thousand seven hundred geographical miles of coast; Europe four thousand three hundred, and Africa only three thousand five hundred. To every thirty-seven square miles of continent in Europe, there is one mile of coast; in Africa, only one mile of coast to one hundred and fifty square miles of continent. Therefore the relative extension of coast is four times as great in Europe as in Africa. Asia is in the middle between these two extremes. To every one hundred and five square miles, it has one mile of coast. The calculation of geographical spaces occupied by different parts of the two last-mentioned continents, is still more striking. The ramifications of Asia, excluded from the continental trapezium, make about one hundred and fifty-five thousand square miles of that whole quarter, or about one-fifth part. The ramifications of the continental triangle of Europe form one-third part of the whole, or even more. In Asia the stock is much greater in proportion to the branches, and thence the more highly advanced culture of the branches has remained, for the most part, excluded from the interior spaces. In Europe, on the other hand, from the different relation of its spaces, the condition of the external parts had much greater influence on that of the interior. Hence the higher culture of Greece and Italy penetrated more easily into the interior, and gave to the whole continent one harmonious character of civilization, while Asia contains many separate regions which may be compared, individually, to Europe, and each of which could receive only its peculiar kind of culture from its own branches. Africa, deficient in these endowments of nature, and wanting both separating gulfs, and inland seas, could obtain no share in the expansion of that fruitful tree, which, having driven its roots deeply in the heart of Asia, spread its branches and blossoms over the western and southern tracts of the same continent, and expanded its crown over Europe. In Egypt alone it possessed a river-system, so formed as to favor the development of similar productions. Die Erdkunde von Aslen, von Carl Ritter. 2. Band. Einleitung. §24, 25. Berlin, 1832.”—Pritchard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind. Third Edit.Vol. ii., p. 354.

[D]“Was it not for the manifestation of this brighter era, and the realization of its promised blessings, that all else which preceded it was overruled by divine Providence, as subservient and preparatory? All things being now ready, there began to spring up in the bosom of the British churches, a wide and simultaneous sense of the solemn responsibility under which they had been laid by the events of Providence, to avail themselves of so favorable an opening for the diffusion of the gospel throughout the eastern world. Men, qualified to undertake the high commission, must be sent across the ocean—and have not the toils, and perils, and successes, of Vasco de Gama, and other navigators, opened up a safe and easy passage? That their labours might pervade the country, and strike a deep and permanent root into the soil, they must be delivered from the caprices of savage tyranny, and the ebullitions of heathen rage; and have not our Clives and our Wellingtons wrested the rod of power from every wilful despot; and our Hastings and our Wellesleys thrown the broad shield of British justice and British protection alike over all? In order that they might the more effectually adapt their communications to the peculiarities of the people, they must become acquainted with the learned language of the country, and through it, with the real and original sources of all the prevailing opinions and observances, sacred and civil. And have not our Joneses and our Colebrookes unfolded the whole, to prove subservient to the cause of the Christian philanthropist? In this way have our navigators, our warriors, our statesmen, and our literati, been unconsciously employed, under an over-ruling Providence, as so many pioneers, to prepare the way for our Swartzes, our Buchanans, our Martins, and our Careys.”—Duff’s India and India Missions.

[E]The relative proportions of starch and gluten in rice, wheat, and other seeds, not only confirm the views respecting design, in determining their geographical distribution, but merit notice, as influencing their nutritive qualities, and fitness or unfitness as food in different countries.Starch.Gluten.Wheat,according toProust74.512.5———Vogel68.024.0Winter wheat—Davy77.019.0Spring wheat70.024.0Spelt—Vogel74.022.0Barley—Davy79.06.0Rye—Do.61.05.0Oats—Do.59.06.0Rice Carolina—Vogel85.073.60Maize—Bizio80.920.Tartarian buckwheat52.2910.47Not only do the relative proportions of starch and gluten vary in the same seed when grown in different countries, but even when grown in the same country, according to the kind of manure put on the soil, a point of great importance to agriculturists, when known and attended to.

Not only do the relative proportions of starch and gluten vary in the same seed when grown in different countries, but even when grown in the same country, according to the kind of manure put on the soil, a point of great importance to agriculturists, when known and attended to.

[F]See “Church of England Magazine,” vol. vii. p. 52-3-4.

[G]“I have been informed by Sir Joseph Banks, that the Derbyshire miners, in winter, prefer oat-cakes to wheaten bread, finding that this kind of nourishment enables them to support their strength and perform their labour better. In summer they say oat-cake heats them, and they then consume the finest wheaten bread they can procure.”—Sir H. Dacy’s Agricultural Chemistry, 5th edit., p. 143.The propriety and advantage of this practice is established by the recent investigations of Boussingault, who found that oats contain more than double the quantity of nitrogen which exists in any of the other cereal grains.—See Annales de Chimie et de Physique, tom.lxvii.p. 408-21.

The propriety and advantage of this practice is established by the recent investigations of Boussingault, who found that oats contain more than double the quantity of nitrogen which exists in any of the other cereal grains.—See Annales de Chimie et de Physique, tom.lxvii.p. 408-21.

[H]Carpenter’s “General and Comparative Physiology,” p. 272 and Dr. Prout’s “Bridgewater Treatise,” book iii.

[I]See Forrest’s “Voyage to the Moluccas;” Craufurd’s “Indian Archipelago, or Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Vegetable Substances, Food of Man,” p. 171.

[J]“In the season of inundations, these clumps of theMauritia, with their leaves in the form of a fan, have the appearance of a forest rising from the bosom of the waters. The navigator in proceeding along the channel of the delta of the Oronooco at night, sees with surprize the summits of the palm-trees illuminated by large fires. These are the habitations of the Guaraons (see Sir W. Raleigh’s Brevis Descript. Guianæ, 1594, tab. 4), which are suspended from the trunks of trees. These tribes hang up mats in the air, which they fill with earth, and kindle on a layer of moist clay the fire necessary for their household wants. They have owed their liberty and their political independence for ages, to the quaking and swampy soil which they pass over in the time of drought, and on which they alone know how to walk in security to their solitude in the delta of the Oronooco, to their abodes on the trees, where religious enthusiasm will probably never lead any American Stylites (seeMosheim’s Church History). This tree, the tree of life of the missionaries, not only affords the Guaraons a safe dwelling during the risings of the Oronooco, but its shelly fruit, its farinaceous pith, its juice, abounding in saccharine matter, and the fibres of its leaves, furnish them with food, wine, and thread proper for making cords and weaving hammocks. It is curious to observe in the lowest degree of human civilization, the existence of a whole tribe depending on one single species of palm-tree, similar to those insects which feed on one and the same flower, or on one and the same part of a plant.”—Humboldt, Person. Narrative, vol. v. p. 728.

[K]Davy’s Agricultural Chemistry, p. 133.—According to Mr. Knight the best potatoes, such as the Irish apple, possess much greater specific gravity than the inferior sorts, and this variety yields nearly 20 per cent. of starch; while five pounds of the variety called Captain Hart, yields 12 ounces of starch, and the Moulton White nearly as much, the Purple Red give only 8½, the Ox Noble 8¼. There is much more profit in cultivating the former than the latter sorts; but even the best kinds degenerate, and new sorts must be procured, as if to stimulate the ingenuity of man, by preventing his enjoying the gifts of God, without constant exertion, and observation of the laws which the Creator has impressed upon his productions. See the Observations of Thomas Andrew Knight, and the experiments now making by Mr. Maund, of Bromsgrove.

[L]Duncan. Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons.

[M]Carpenter’s Physiology.

[N]Thomson’s Chemistry of Organic Bodies: Vegetables, p. 667.

[O]Vere magna et longe pulcherrima sunt etiam illa profundissimâ sapientiâ hic exstructa opera tua, O Jehovah! quæ non nisi bene armatis nostris oculis patent! Qualia autem erunt denique illa, quæ sublato hoc speculo, remotâ mortalitatis caligine daturus es tuis Te vere sincero Pectore colentibus? Eheu qualia! Hedwig.

[P]Thomson’s Chemistry. Vegetables, p. 630.

[Q]On the Culture and Uses of Potatoes, by sir John Sinclair, bart. This is a subject becoming every year of greater moment, and attention to it a national benefit. The reduction of bulk alone, facilitating the transport from one place to another, is an essential gain. The produce, from a certain number of acres of this valuable esculent, may be greatly augmented by planting the potatoes whole, at a great distance between each, and hoeing freely between them—See Knight’s Papers in Horticultural Transactions, and Payen et Chevalier, Traité de la Pomme de Terre. Paris, 1826,p.17.

[R]Humboldt. Personal Narrative, vol. iv. p. 84.

[S]“Among the plants cultivated by man, the sugar-cane, the plantain (musa), the mammee-apple (mammea), and alligator-pear-tree (laurus persea) alone have the property of the cocoa-nut-tree, that of being watered alike with fresh and salt water. This circumstance is favorable to their migrations; and if the sugar-cane of the shore yield a syrup that is a little brackish, it is believed at the same time to be better fitted for the distillation of spirit, than the juice produced from the canes of the interior.”—Humboldt.

[T]“The quantity of these insects is incredible to all who have not themselves witnessed their astonishing numbers; the whole earth is covered with them for the space of several leagues. The noise they make in browsing on the trees and herbage may be heard at a great distance, and resembles that of an army in secret. The Tartars themselves are a less destructive enemy than these little animals. One would imagine that fire had followed their progress. Wherever their myriads spread, the verdure of the country disappears; trees and plants stripped of their leaves and reduced to their naked boughs and stems cause the dreary image of winter to succeed in an instant to the rich scenery of spring. When these clouds of locusts take their flight, to surmount any obstacles, or to traverse more rapidly a desert soil, the heavens may literally be said to be obscured by them.”

[U]“As the native of a northern country, little favoured by nature, I shall observe that the Marche of Brandebourg, for the most part sandy, nourishes, under an administration favourable to the progress of agricultural industry, on a surface only one-third that of Cuba, a population nearly double.”—Humboldt, P. N., vol. vii. p. 156.

[V]Loudon’s Arboretum Britannicum, vol. i., p. 412.

[W]For an interesting account of sugar, see Humboldt, Nova Genera et Species Plantarum, vol. i., p. 243.

[X]Haselquist’s Voyage.

A Sermon,

By the Venerable C. J. Hoare, M.A.,Archdeacon and Prebendary of Winchester.

Romans viii. 28.

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.”

Amongst the observations most frequently heard in the world, is that made on the undeserved prosperity of the wicked, and the many seemingly uncalled-for trials of the righteous. Experience will indeed tell us, that neither of these opposite conditions is uninterrupted; neither is it all sunshine in the most prosperous worldly lot; nor is it all gloom—far from it—in the Christian’s portion on earth. Experience will also go further, and will abundantly prove the saying of the wise man, that “the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.” Such success has a tendency first to deceive, then to corrupt, and lastly to betray men into utter destruction. But the text will lead us still further; it will teach us, that the trials of the righteous preserve them—yea, work for good; and that “all things,” and, therefore, even the greatest trials, “work together for good to them that love God.”

The text represents them as workmen. They work together for good; they are constantly at work for that purpose, whether as instruments in God’s hands, or as in a degree self-moving for that end; they are constructing as it were a building, or they are laying a foundation; and that which they lay—that which all things befalling a Christian are ever laying for him—is a ground for his substantial, necessary, and eternal benefit. “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.”

This, then, it will be, with God’s blessing, my humble endeavour to show in the following discourse: first, premising the sense of the word “good,” in all just and reasonable acceptation; next, showing more fully how all things may be thus said to “work for good to them that love God;” finally, pointing out some of the many things which will be found by experience to work in this very manner.

I. The term “good,” it must be said in the first place, is very different, both in the language of the bible and in the estimation of the truly wise, from what it usually represents in the language and opinion of the world. The bible teaches us to view all things in their consequences, and in their real and essential nature. View things in their consequences, in their final end and issue, if you would view them at all justly or wisely. Ease, and health, and worldly wealth, and success may be good, just as the plentiful feast is good, provided a man has temperance and soundness of constitution properly to partake of it; but, if he is likely to indulge to a surfeit, or if every morsel is food to some mortal disorder, and every cup adds strength to a fever that is raging in his veins, no one in reason would call such an entertainment good to such a man. And just so with the good things of this present life: the Christian does not unreasonably deny that prosperity is pleasing, health desirable, friends and relations deeply attaching to us, and the smiles of social endearment or public favour greatly captivating; but neither does he, like the world, consider them to be necessarily all they seem to be, good to all persons, and under all circumstances; he does not forget that earthly and bodily good is just what it becomes in the use of it; that many times the use can hardly be separated from the abuse; that lawful things, when unlawfully or idolatrously used, are just as evil as unlawful ones—nay, rather, that for a few comparatively who have perished from a hardened course of forbidden pleasure, multitudes have been for ever lost by allowed indulgences. Till he sees, then, the application made, and the resulting consequences of any worldly boon, he does not call the possessor happy, nor the possession good, nor very eagerly or supremely does he desire it either for himself or others.

But, again, the thingsreally and essentially goodin their very nature and inseparable qualities are those which, in the estimation of the mere world, are held in no account whatsoever. What the bible chiefly esteems, and the world wholly neglects, are spiritual blessings,—the good things of the soul of man, “the precious things of heaven, even of the everlasting hills.” Those precious things, the goodwill of him who is the great I AM—the peace of God which passeth all understanding—the luxury of promoting the good of man and the glory of God;—still more, the pardon of sin, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ—a gradual advancement in true holiness—a growing fitness and longing desire for the future blessedness of the saints, and a final admission and “abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour,” the “inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away;”—these are truly to the world but as a dream, a fancy, a cunningly-devised fable; but, to the mind of the Christian, stand for everything truly and substantially good. They are in all his plans first and foremost, and nearest and dearest to his heart. They are as necessary to him in his calculation and account of human happiness, as profit and pleasure are to his neighbours around. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart conceived, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” But God hath revealed tohimby his Spirit, these very things, as his chief good, his measure of all true happiness. Wealth may be good, health still better, kindly affections and attached friends the best of earthly boons; but the favour of God, the acquisition of his image, the means of grace, and the hope of glory, are to him sovereign and above all. While many ask, amidst the increase of their corn, and wine, and oil, “Who will show us any good?” he exclaims, “Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me”—“in thy presence is the fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.” He weighs well the nature, and “remembers the end” of all that is called good, and so “does not amiss.”

II. For, secondly, he finds that, while we so do, and so consider, “all things work together for good tothose that love God.” There is, first, on the mind of the Christian that secret influence in the very disposition of love to God, which willof itselfturn to good every thing that comes from the God whom we love, and the Saviour on whom we fully and implicitly rely. And there is, secondly,a full disposition on the part ofour heavenly Fatherso to order and direct every event which befals his loving and attached children, as shall be found at last to have answered the ends of sovereign wisdom and divine mercy.

In the first instance, the tendency,on our own part, of love to the great and good God will be this, namely, to turn all that befals us to an instrument of good. As, in the healthy body, food of very different descriptions may yet all turn to nourishment, and minister to health and bodily strength; so, in the healthy mind, purified and strengthened by the grace of God’s Holy Spirit, every thing that meets it is converted to its advantage, and adds in some way to its improvement and its happiness. There is ever a colour cast upon outward circumstances from the complexion of the inward soul. The vain man, on his part, the ambitious, the sensual, the gainful, well know how to turn all to the advancement of their sinful objects; and no less does the good man turn all to the enlargement of his goodness, and the lover of his God to the increase and exercise of that love. Viewing every thing in the glass, or by the lamp of God’s word, he ingeniously, so to speak, finds in every thing a reason for loving and fearing, serving and obeying God. Every event works for his good, because he is resolved it shall do so; and every result satisfies, pleases, rejoices him, because he is persuaded it ought to do so. Loving God, he has a confidence that he is beloved of God; and then, feeling himself in a world made by God, and proceeding forward under his guidance and permission, he never will believe that any thing falls out in it but what is intended to make him both good and happy. Happy then he will be, if God intends he should be so; and holy he will be encouraged to become, under the consciousness that God intends his holiness.

Dispositions like these will indeed work for their possessor even upon the hardest materials, and will, by the very force of a new and spiritual nature, convert all into “servants to righteousness unto holiness.” Faith will be a hand, bringing together the events of life and the framer and guide of all life and all existence; and the result will be a solemn and heart-satisfying conviction, that “all things work together for good to them that love God.”

Nor, next, will such a faith prove to be groundless; for surely there is apower engaged, there is a pledge in the gospel, a sure word of promise, and even of covenant, that all things shall be ours;—“All are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” The trial of our faith lies indeed very much upon this one point. Can we, for a moment, believe that God permits all the disorder and confusion which appears to us in the world—the prosperity of wickedness, the trials and adversity of the righteous, in order to raise a doubt on our minds whether he be not absent all the while—whether he bears or not any share in the world he created, or in all those moving causes that owe their activity and life to himself alone? God is surely present; he is powerfully operating; he is the supreme controller, and the almighty director; he is fully aware of those adverse appearances, and is no less deeply engaged in the final issue of all events, to render them consistent with the ends of justice and mercy, than as if we saw him at work with our bodily eyes: or, as if we then could fully know the mind of the Lord, or be his counsellors to instruct him.

The expressions of scripture are too strong, and too agreeable to the very nature of God and of his works, to make us doubt for a moment of his providential care and unceasing watchfulness. “He is not far from every one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being.” To the true disciple saith Christ himself, “The very hairs of your head are all numbered;” and yet more strongly, “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” Promises, these, which have been ever realized in the history of the saints in all ages who have walked with God—Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and the patriarch Jacob—none more tried than he—yet we readhistestimony to “the God, which fed me all my life-long unto this day; the angel which redeemed me from all evil.”

Keeping in view the notion of what is truly good for this state of trial, and for the soul as well as for the body, there is no time and no extent to which we shall not find the promise sure, and the fulfilment exact, where God is pledged for the supply of his servants that trust in him: his eye is ever open, his ear ever attentive unto them. The petition he denies is able to operate as powerfully and as favourably on their behalf as that which he grants; merciful alike in the gift which he bestows and which he withholds, and wise alike in the evil which he permits, and which he restrains.

There is nothing more important to the believer’s faith, than to apprehend that there is no uncertainty, nothing imperfect or weak in the dispensations of God, as they respect the final issue of the Christian’s trials. Either God is wholly absent and forgetful of his daily wants, or else he is wholly and for ever at work on his behalf. If he were whollyabsent, well might his servants doubt that, after all their endeavours to that end, they should be able to turn to good all the events of this mortal life. Ifhedo not temper the trials of his servants, how in truth shall they overcome them? Ifhedo not controul their enemies, how shall they ever escape them? Figure to yourself any place, or time, or circumstance, where God is not, or where hecanbe spared from the concerns of his people, either temporal or spiritual: but, if none can be imagined or assigned, then is it but justly and essentially true, that, by his especial order and his immediate appointment, “all things work together for good to them that love God.”

III. But we may proceed, lastly, to show, in a practical manner,some of those very thingswhich shall thus work together for good. Take the most unpromising and most unfavourable case, for instance, that ofgreat prosperity. None will deny it to be a case of many others the most trying to the graces of the true Christian. Yet even shall the temptations arising from worldly honours and successes, to a man armed with the love of God, work together for good. Graces rarely exercised in exalted stations, shall be found to shine the more conspicuously in his instance. The grace of humility, and tenderness of spirit, shall be the more eminently illustrated in that station, where, too often, there is only pride and hardness of heart. If he be found, in a sober, self-denying spirit, setting little value on those things so commonly called good amongst mankind—using this world without abusing it—shall not the grace of God be more abundantly magnified? When not overcome, as Agar feared he might be, saying, “lest I be full, and say, who is the Lord?”—but rather, when led by fulness to more gratitude, and by a lofty station to deeper humility, and to a more lowly submission to God, and meekness to man—how will he by such prosperity as this testify to the reality of Christian principles: how will he, in giving freely where he has freely received, esteeming even his highest gains as loss for Christ’s sake, and returning upon others all that mercy which has been exercised towards himself, prove thathehas not received the grace of God in vain; but that even prosperity has “worked together for good to them that love God.”

Or, suppose the case ofdeep adversity—suppose the Christian stripped, like Job, of great honours and possessions at a single stroke; betrayed and sold like Joseph, even by brethren, into bondage and exile; or lying like Lazarus at the gate of the rich man, diseased in body, and suing for the crumbs from off his table; or suppose him, as St. Paul himself, in peril of foes, and even doubtful of friends; in weariness and painfulness oft, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness. These last were exactly the circumstances under which the very text was indited by the apostle himself: he saw, what you may see, that trials like these, when tempered by the presence of the God he loved, were good, not, I would say, in proportion to their weight, but according to the patience which they exercised, the faith they strengthened, the experience of divine support they afforded, the hope they brightened, the crown they were preparing; yea, the exceeding and eternal weight of glory which they must eventually be working out. The apostle had “heard of the patience of Job,” and had “seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” The trials of Joseph had even led that servant of God, by degrees of painful progress, to the honour of a prince, and a chain of gold. The “evil things” of Lazarus—good they might have been called—had led him to still higher honours, and had prepared him to be carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom. Every individual circumstance of this nature, as it passed in review before the apostle in the text, had led irresistibly to the conclusion he so strongly expresses. Could he distrust the same arm, disbelieve the same promises; or rather saying with David—“Our fathers trusted in thee, and were delivered,” would he not add—I will trust as they did; I will be “in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?” Let me feel only the “profit, that I may be partaker of his holiness;” and then, “though no affliction for the present is joyous, but grievous,” it shall surely hereafter yield the peaceable fruit of true righteousness; and “all things,” adversity itself, “shall work together formygood.”

Temptation, verily, shall be among the “things working together for good to them that love God.” Such indeed is our state of trial upon earth, that every successive arrival at our doors comes to us in some shape or other of temptation to sin. But take the strongest and most pressing incitements to the corruptions of the heart, and the evil of our nature. Even ofthesemust it not be said, that the temptation, and the tempter himself, may be turned into a worker for good, when that promise is brought forward, and brought home to the heart, “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it?” Another apostle had a like meaning when he said, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” Every enemy opposedto the Christian warrior affords him fresh opportunity for a sure victory in the strength of Christ. Every obstacle in his path is that which faith regards as a trial prepared for his soul; but hope and joy carry him over, to the glory of his sovereign Upholder. In evil company, which he seeks not, his courage is honourably put to the test, and abides it; amidst a world of licentiousness and excess, which he desires not to approach, he still trusts, through grace, that he shall not be found wanting. In a season of provocation his meekness is tried, and it prevails; and in the moment of fear, and the threats of alarm, “his heart standeth fast, trusting in the Lord;” “nay, in all these things he is more than conqueror through him that loved him.”

If his verysinsare in one sense his shame, and the source of his bitter tears and saddest recollections, still those tears and recollections shall prove among the workers for his good, if they lead him more closely to the throne of mercy, and to the fountain of eternal strength. If any experiences of past weakness make him more watchful, sober, and diligent for the future—if they direct him to the vulnerable points in his armour, to the “sin that easily besets him”—if, in the very moment of his conscious frailty and heart-overwhelming struggle, he is enabled to exclaim, “Rejoice not over me, O mine enemy; though I fall I shall arise; though I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me:” then shall he know that “all thingswork together for good to them that love God.”

I conclude with a single word of remark on the expression in the text, “Weknowthat all things work together for good.” It expresses thepersonal experienceof the Christian. It answers to a similar expression of the same apostle to the Philippians—“I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ.” But to whom is this knowledge vouchsafed? To whom is it a safe and a sure conviction—an “earnest expectation and hope,” so “that in nothing we shall be ashamed?” Truly, to those only who “love God”—to those who are “the called according to his purpose.” His purpose is our sanctification, and that we should be “conformed to the image of his Son.” To such truly, to such only does that blessing apply, so frequently indeed, and but too rashly, appropriated by many others, “All is for the best.”

Let the careless rather tremble, those as yet not effectually called into the gospel vineyard, at such an appropriation of the text. To them it may be only a savour of death unto death, a deadly security, a hope that “makethashamed, because the love of God isnotyet shed abroad in their hearts.”

Gain rather in prayer, in secret meditation and much retirement from the presence and the love of this world, the true love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Then being first transformed yourself, you will be enabled, by a divine power, to transform everything around you; you will receive all things as from the hand of the Father whom you love, the Benefactor and Friend whom you wish and aim to serve. Your willing and noble obedience to him will render, then, prosperity a new advantage to you by awakening your gratitude, and adversity a blessing, by exercising and perfecting your patience. You will have a fence around you, an armour of divine temper to fortify you in the presence of every temptation, and to turn the very weapons of your adversaries into your own instruments of victory, the trophies of your triumph. Sin will have its struggles within you, but will not gain dominion over you, while every deviation from God’s righteous will is mourned in secret, and restored through grace; and while it brings you the more urgently and constantly to the foot of the cross, where hung the Saviour whom you love, whose favour and forgiveness you implore; and you shall be enabled to close the volume of your experience in the concluding words of the chapter, and with the apostle himself: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?... I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“And was transfigured before them, and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.”

There never existed in this world a person in whose life there was a greater variety of incident than in the life of Jesus. He passed through scenes of the most peculiar and diversified description, to which we can find no parallel in the history of man, the effect of which no ordinary mind could have borne. These were, in general, connected with that lowliness and debasement to which he submitted for the benefit of our sinful race; but occasionally, as at his birth, his baptism, and transfiguration, there burst forth some bright rays of glory from behind the dark cloud of his humanity, which proved his possession of a nature that was divine.

It may have a good effect in strengthening our gratitude for the Saviour’s mercy, to remember that every complexion of circumstance was freely and voluntarily submitted to, not merely for his own satisfaction or benefit, but principally for the good of man. Jesusnever lost sight of his representative character. He always remembered those whose cause he had espoused: and, whether he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil—or into the garden of Gethsemane, to sustain his more fierce and violent assaults—or to the mountain, to put on for a season the habiliments of light and glory—his chief object and desire was to effect the redemption, and to revive the hopes of weak and fallen man.

We are now supplied by the Holy Spirit with a very brief account of the transfiguration itself. Before, however, we make any remark upon this description, or refer, as we desire to do, to the uses which this transaction was intended to serve, we must direct our attention for a few moments to the important preparation which the Saviour made for it. And here there are, perhaps, many who may be disposed to ask, had there not been sufficient preparation already? had not the Saviour endured much physical fatigue in accomplishing the wearisome ascent of the mountain? and had not the time, the place, and the spectators, been carefully selected by himself? Let it however be remembered, that in addition to all this, there was a necessary and absolutely indispensable preliminary, not to be omitted even by the Son of God, and that was prayer. It is said, by St. Luke, in the twenty-ninth verse of his ninth chapter, that “as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.” Let us learn from this, that not all the labour, mental or physical, which we can possibly exert, can ever bring us into the enjoyment of one momentary smile of God’s countenance, if we neglect prayer. We may diligently peruse the records of redeeming mercy which the sacred page of scripture contains; we may place ourselves under the pastoral care of some faithful and devoted minister of Jesus; we may enjoy the high advantage of intercourse and communion with many spiritually-minded followers of the Saviour; yet, after all, we shall find no benefit from these distinguished privileges if we neglect to pray. How many Christians there are, who often wish they had a Luther for their minister, because they feel dissatisfied with their spiritual progress under him to whose charge they may have been entrusted by the great Head of the church! And yet the cause of this may be traced to their own want of constant and of earnest prayer. Prayer is the key that unlocks the holy place where Jesus meets his people at the mercy-seat, to dispense the gifts which have been purchased by his precious blood. And when the united petitions of ministers and people ascend in an unceasing stream of sacred incense to a throne of grace, blessings may be expected to descend in rich abundance on the church.

But perhaps it may be considered that we have digressed from our subject. We return, then, to the circumstance which more immediately claims our attention. We are informed that Jesus was praying when he was transfigured; nay, it is remarkable that St. Luke represents his special object of ascending the mountain to have been in order to devote himself to this sacred engagement. “It came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter, and John, and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.” Prayer was as much the Saviour’s duty, as it is the duty of any of his people. He had been expressly commanded by his Father to ask of him to give him the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. All his works, whilst he was tabernacling in the flesh, were accompanied with prayer; and his present exaltation at the right hand of his heavenly Father, instead of suspending, rather imparts a more sublime intensity of fervour to his petitions. In vain had he shed his blood without this; for his prayers are as essential for the salvation of sinners, as his sufferings on the cross for their redemption; and therefore the apostle, in the twenty-fifth verse of the seventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, connects the unlimited ability of Jesus to save, not only with his having offered himself as a sacrifice, but also with his ever living to make intercession for us. O! how welcome and delightful must be the accents of supplication to the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth, when he withholds blessings, even from his well-beloved Son, until he ask for them! And how necessary is prayer, when Jesus cannot obtain blessings without it! There is a reserve manifested by the Holy Spirit in this, as in other instances, as to the contents of our Saviour’s petitions. Most probably they had some reference to that splendid scene in his earthly history, into which he was about to enter. We may imagine him to have addressed his heavenly Father in language somewhat similar to that which he employed when he was about to devote himself as a spotless victim on the cross: “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”

But we must pass on to the description which is given of the transfiguration of Jesus. “His face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.” On this we can say but little, for no imagination can conceive, nor can words express the exact nature of that splendid scene which is here so slightly glanced at. The Holy Spirit has employed the most concise mode of description in order to restrain our fancy within proper limits. We are, therefore, altogether incompetent to expatiate on a subject so sublime, for we know nothing, beyond what is written, of the glory which is associated with spiritual bodies. When Paul was led to speak of a state of future enjoyment, he could only express himself in the language of conjecture, and say, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.” And when, on another occasion, he was anxious to comfort the church by a description of the resurrection-body into which the Saviour shall change the vile bodies of his people, he could only describe it by the use of words which merely implied a direct contrast between what we now are and what we shall be. Our present bodies are earthly, natural, mortal, and corruptible; our resurrection bodies shall be celestial, spiritual, immortal, incorruptible: but these latter expressions are only negations of the former; as to any positive apprehension of the nature of glorified bodies, “it doth not yet appear what we shall be.” And there is much wisdom in this reserve: there is enough told us upon the subject to encourage us to persevere in our endeavours to attain to the joy that is set before us, but not as much as would, in the meantime, render us too much discontented with our present state.

We must, however, carefully note that the Holy Spirit, in so far describing the Saviour’s transfiguration, has given a literal account of a real transaction. There is no cunningly-devised fable here. There was nothing visionary in the exhibition itself; there is nothing fanciful in the description of it. Jesus was actually metamorphosed; “his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light,” and, as on all ordinary occasions in the days of his flesh he was God manifest in the nature of man, so, during the continuance of this splendid scene, he exhibited his human nature manifested in and encompassed by the brightness and glory of his Godhead.

But it may be profitable to inquire into some of the uses of this great transaction, for such an occurrence could not have taken place without some important object. It was intended to prepare the Saviour forhis approaching sufferings; to shew the interest which heaven took in his sacrifice; to be a source of strength and comfort to the church, by giving a type and specimen of that high degree of glory to which the nature of man is destined to be exalted in consequence of the Saviour’s dying love. But the leading object of this event was to give a representation of his second coming in majesty at the last day. It is not by any gratuitous assumption that we maintain this, but on the sure ground of strong scriptural testimony. We find St. Matthew representing the Saviour as promising some of his disciples that they should not taste of death till they saw him “coming in his kingdom;” and in the parallel passage in the ninth chapter of St. Mark, he is represented as saying that there were some standing with him who should not see death until they had seen the kingdom of God “come with power.” Now the apostle Peter combines the substance of these two declarations, in a manner which distinctly shews that he considered them as having a reference to the future advent of the Redeemer. “We have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ;” and he speaks of “majesty,” “honour,” and “glory,” which are the appendages of a kingdom, and are to be the characteristics of the second advent of Jesus, in contrast with the meanness, poverty, and degradation of his first appearance in our world. Those, therefore, who say that the transfiguration had a typical reference either to the effusion of the Spirit on the day of pentecost, or to the destruction of Jerusalem, are greatly in error. It was meant to be a specimen and earnest of our Lord’s appearance hereafter in glory, when he shall come to be admired in all them that believe, and to establish his everlasting kingdom of righteousness and peace in the earth. The use of a type is to arrest and embody in a kind of visible indication the prominent features of its antitype; and, accordingly, if we examine the leading circumstances of the transfiguration, we shall find such a resemblance between it and the second coming of our Saviour, as will clearly establish such a relationship between these two events. Jesus appeared in literal human nature on the mountain; so shall he come again, as the Son of man, possessing the same nature with his people; for the apostles were informed when he ascended, that the very same Jesus who had been taken up from them into heaven should even so come in like manner as they had seen him ascend into heaven. He appeared in glory, and not in humility; such as he shall descend hereafter, when he shall come with all his holy angels and sit upon the throne of his glory. As he was visible on the mountain, so, when he shall come again, every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. As he was encompassed by a cloud on the summit of Tabor, so shall he come hereafter in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. As he stood in majesty upon the mountain, so according to the declaration of the prophet, his feet shall stand, when he comes again, upon the mount of Olives. And as Moses and Elias appeared in glory with the Saviour, so shall he bring his people with him on his return to our world, for, when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory.

Such we believe to have been the great primary object of this interesting event. How full of consolation and encouragement must it appear in this important view to every believer who is still struggling with the infirmities and trials of his earthly pilgrimage. It directs the attention of such to the crown of righteousness that awaits him, and says, “Be ye stedfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord; forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”

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