A word or two more, and I have done.  The Bible would, as it seems to me probable, be a sort of double book; for the righteous, and for the wicked:  to one class, a decoy, baited to allure all sorts of generous dispositions:  to the other, a trap, set to catch all kinds of evil inclinations.  In these two senses, it would address the whole family man:  and every one should find in it something to his liking.  Purity should there perceive green pastures and still waters, and a tender Shepherd for its innocent steps:  and carnal appetite should here and there discover some darker spot, which the honesty of heaven had filled with memories of its chiefest servants’ sins; some record of adultery or murder wherewith to feast his maw for condemnation.  While the good man should find in it meat divine for every earthly need, the sneerer should proclaim it the very easiest manual for his jests and lewd profanities.  The unlettered should not lack humble, nay vulgar, images and words, to keep himself in countenance:  neither should the learned look in vain for reasonings; the poet for sublimities; the curious mind for mystery; nor the sorrowing heart for prayer.  I do discern, in that great book, a wondrous adaptability to minds of every calibre:  and it is just what might antecedently have been expected of a volume writ by many men at many different eras, yet all superintended by one master mind; of a volume meant for every age, and nation, and country, and tongue, and people; of a volume which, as a two-edged sword, wounds the good man’s heart with deep conviction, and cuts down “the hoary head of him who goeth on still in his wickedness.”

On the whole, respecting faults, or incongruities, or objectionable parts in Scripture, however to have been expected, we must recollect that the more they are viewed, the more the blemishes fade, and are altered into beauties.

A little child had picked up an old stone, defaced with time-stains:  the child said the stone was dirty, covered with blotches and all colours:  but his father brings a microscope, and shows to his astonished glance that what the child thought dirt, is a forest of beautiful lichens, fruited mosses, and strange lilliputian plants with shapely animalcules hiding in the leaves, and rejoicing in their tiny shadow.  Every blemish, justly seen, had turned to be a beauty:  and Nature’s works are vindicated good, even as the Word of Grace is wise.

HEAVEN AND HELL.

Probably enough, the light which I expect to throw upon this important subject will, upon a cursory criticism, be judged fanciful, erroneous, and absurd; in parts, quite open to ridicule, and in all liable to the objection of being wise, or foolish, beyond what is written.  Nevertheless, and as it seems to me of no small consequence to reach something more definite on the subject than the Anywhere or Nowhere of common apprehensions, I judge it not amiss to put out a few thoughts, fancies,