THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND MAGAZINE.

UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF CLERGYMEN		OF THE UNITED CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND.
“HER FOUNDATIONS ARE UPON THE HOLY HILLS.”
Vol. X. No. 263.	JANUARY 9, 1841.	Price 1½d.

CONTENTS.

[Pg 17]

THE CHRISTIAN’S OBLIGATION TO SEEK
THE SPIRITUAL BENEFIT OF OTHERS.

By the Rev. Thomas Bissland, M.A.,
Rector of Hartley Maudytt, Hants.

There are some hearts little, if at all, impressed
by the solemn requirements of the
Almighty; so dead, in fact, to everything
which relates not to the objects of time and
sense, that they are unaffected by the scenes
of vice and of the misery which is its consequence,
every where presented to their notice.
It is not until the mind is under the gracious
influence of the Spirit of God, that men feel
any anxiety to stop the torrent of evil, and
endeavour to become the humble instruments
of converting the sinner and saving his soul.
Many, in fact, who feel deeply interested in
their neighbours’ temporal comforts and prosperity,
feel little anxious to supply their
spiritual wants; and to this may be traced
the opposition which is not unfrequently
made, even by professing Christians, to institutions
which have a direct tendency to improve
the moral and spiritual condition of
the human race.

Now there are many reasons which induce
a truly converted man to labour for the
spiritual benefit of others. First, there is
the dishonour which men, in an unconverted
state, cast upon God. This feeling operated
on the mind of the psalmist, when he exclaimed
(Ps. cxix. 53), “Horror hath taken
hold of me, because of the wicked who forsake
thy law.” For when men forsake God’s
law, they declare that they are little impressed
with a sense of the divine majesty
and infinite goodness of the Almighty; that
they are not anxious to know his will; that
his threatenings alarm them not; that his
promises in no way affect their hearts; that,
in fact, they are not desirous of that favour
which rests upon those only who walk in the
path of his commandments. The psalmist’s
zeal and jealousy for the glory of God were
fully manifested by his anxiety to erect a
house, in some respects suitable for the divine
worship; by his earnest expressions, that the
divine glory should be made known throughout
the world, as when he exclaims “Tell
it out among the heathen, that the Lord
reigneth;” and this holy desire rendered every
action, by which there was the most slight
appearance of dishonour being cast upon
Jehovah, abominable in his sight. When
he reflected on his own departure from the
law of his God, on those acts which had
caused the enemies of the truth to blaspheme,
he was indeed filled with horror. The
language uttered, when from the depths he
supplicated the divine forgiveness, powerfully
demonstrates the agony of his soul—convinces
us that his repentance was sincere, and that
he was anxious that in every action of his
life he might for the future glorify that
Being whose gracious hand had conducted
him through his earthly pilgrimage—whose
favour had raised him to the throne of Israel—the
light of whose countenance had cheered
him in many a dark and dreary hour—and
whose comforts had refreshed his soul, when
in the multitude of the thoughts within him
he became dispirited and perplexed. The
first and great commandment is, “Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.”
The psalmist loved God, and on this account
he was desirous that he should be had in
[Pg 18]
reverence of all his intelligent creatures. He
loved God; he was seized with horror
when he beheld myriads uninfluenced by this
principle, living in disobedience to this first
commandment.

Sin is too often viewed by us merely with
respect to its baneful influence on the happiness
of society. It is condemned by us, and
it is punished by us, not so much as it is the
transgression of the law of God, as it has a
tendency to produce evil in the world. And
hence there are many offenders in God’s
sight who by their conduct cast dishonour
upon his name, who yet maintain a fair and
respectable character when weighed in the
world’s balance, nay, even are regarded with
reverence and esteem. We punish the
murderer, the thief, the robber, the perjured
person. It is right that we should do so.
The welfare of society demands it. But do
we punish the man who lives in adultery, in
drunkenness, in sensuality? Do we punish
the man who is a swearer, a gambler, a
blasphemer, who habitually neglects the sanctuary
of the Lord, and does his own pleasure
on the sabbath-day? Human laws take no
cognizance of these crimes. They are, however,
as dishonourable to God as others
which are punished by man. They are quite
as detrimental to man’s best interests; and
fearful must be the account rendered for their
commission before that equitable tribunal,
where the children of men must answer for all
their offences against the majesty of heaven.

But there is a second reason why the true
Christian will labour for the conversion of
others, namely, the reflection that the sinner
is ensuring his own destruction while he is at
enmity against God; and this induced Jeremiah
to exclaim (ix. 1), “O that my head
were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night for the slain
of the daughter of my people.” How strong
is the expression—“the slain.” The prophet
knew full well the misery of transgressing
God’s law. Tremendous, indeed, is the
reflection, that the path of sin inevitably
leads to the regions of darkness—those
regions where there is “weeping and gnashing
of teeth,” where “their worm dieth not,
and the fire is not quenched.” Whence is
it, then, that, without any apparent concern,
we behold myriads of immortal creatures fast
hastening to these regions of destruction?
Whence is it that there is so much apathy,
lukewarmness, and indifference to a brother’s
eternal welfare. Is it not too often, perhaps,
that there is a latent scepticism which induces
us to disbelieve the solemn declaration
of the Omnipotent—even when he swears
by himself—that every jot and tittle of
his threatenings shall be accomplished?
Surely were it not for some such spirit, we
should never rest satisfied with the feeble
efforts we may have made to lead the sinner
back to his offended God; we should esteem
no sacrifice too great, whether of time, or
influence, or money, or talent, which could
in any way promote a brother’s spiritual
welfare. But we are too apt to forget, if not
to disbelieve, the solemn declarations of the
bible; and forgetfulness to all practical
results is as pernicious as downright infidelity.
The man who forgets God is as little
influenced by his law as the fool, who in his
heart says there is no God at all. Now, this
forgetfulness paralyzes our energies, damps
our zeal, checks our benevolence. We do not
consider that sinners are heaping up wrath
against the day of wrath; and, though they
may now enjoy an unhallowed prosperity, and
now in an unbridled licentiousness derive
happiness from the indulgence of fleshly lusts,
yet that these war against the soul, against
its present peace, and its ultimate felicity,
and that ruin and destruction inevitably
await them. Were our spirit that of the
psalmist, or that of the prophet referred to,
our feelings would be more lively, our endeavours
to promote the good of mankind be
more energetic. Looking not every one to
his own, but on his brothers’ good, we should
be anxious to direct their feet into the way of
peace.

How beautifully was this spirit manifested
by St. Paul, when he exhorted the converts
of Philippi to be followers of himself—“For
many walk,” says he, “of whom I have told
you often, and now tell you even weeping,
that they are the enemies of the cross of
Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God
is their belly, and whose glory is in their
shame; who mind earthly things.” The
apostle, indeed, appears to have been influenced
by the same anxiety as the psalmist
and the prophet; for the glory of the Redeemer,
as well as the eternal welfare of
their souls, was dear to his heart, and he
could not refrain from weeping when
he viewed the dishonour cast upon his
adorable Lord by these enemies of his cross;
when he beheld them following divers lusts
and pleasures, even boasting of their recklessness
of God’s judgments; and when he carried
his thoughts forward to that day when the
terrors of the Lord would fall on all the
children of disobedience, or those who neglected
the great salvation. This spirit is, in
fact, no bad test whereby we may try the
state of our hearts and affections. If we are
really desirous for the advancement of God’s
glory, and deeply interested in the welfare of
our fellow-creatures, our feelings will be
very similar to those of the holy men of
[Pg 19]
God referred to. We shall not view, without
the very deepest concern, that inattention
which is everywhere paid to the solemn
requirements of the Almighty; we shall at
least make the attempt to stop the sinner in
his career of guilt and folly, that his soul
may be saved from destruction in the day of
the Lord.

Melancholy is the reflection, indeed, that
neither God’s invitations on the one hand, nor
his threatenings on the other, appear to affect
their hearts; they are neither constrained by
love nor fear. “Wide is the gate, and broad
is the way that leadeth to destruction, and
many there be that go in thereat.”

There was one that wept over the rebellion
of man, and one infinitely greater than David,
or Jeremiah, or St. Paul—and that one was
the ever-adorable Saviour; who, beholding
the guilty race of man altogether gone out
of the way, descended from the mansions of
glory, became a partaker of human impurity,
and opened through his blood a new and
living way, whereby the guilty sinner might
return in peace to his God. How touching
the description of the evangelist—“And
when he came near, he beheld the city and
wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known,
even thou, at least in this thy day, the things
which belong unto thy peace, but now they
are hid from thine eyes.” Jesus wept at the
grave of Lazarus, for Lazarus was his friend;
he sympathised deeply with Martha and
Mary, for he loved them as he did their brother;
but far more bitter were the tears he shed,
when he reflected on the waywardness of
that people whom he would have gathered
to himself; the guilt of that city which had
killed the prophets; when he thought of
those days of divine vengeance, when its
enemies should cast a trench about it, and
compass it round, and keep it in on every
side, and should lay it even with the ground,
and its children within it. And did not this
feeling operate when, even amidst the agonies
of a crucifixion, his mind rested on the
sufferings of others, and not on his own?
“Daughters of Jerusalem! weep not for me,
but weep for yourselves and for your children.”
And shall we not, in this as in every other
respect, seek to imitate our adorable Lord?
Shall we not feel deeply interested in the
spiritual welfare of our fellow-men? If we
do not, it is, alas! a fearful, a decisive proof,
that the flame of holy love, of devoted zeal,
has not been kindled in our bosom; that
we do not feel the importance of that salvation
which is offered us so freely in the
gospel; that we are not duly impressed
with a dread of that woe unspeakable, that
shall be the portion of those whose souls shall
be for ever lost.

Sacred Philosophy.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE NATURAL THEOLOGY OF
THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.

By Robert Dickson, M.D., F.L.S.

No. XI. Pt. 1.

While the actions which lead to the various effects
on the external appearance of a tree, described in the
former paper, are going on, many important changes
occur in the internal parts, producing alterations not
less admirable, whether in respect of the tree itself,
or of the ends to which it may be rendered subservient.
The base of an exogenous tree is not merely
widened by the superposition of annual layers of
wood over the first shoot, by which it gains greater
mechanical power to support the extending head of
wide-spreading branches, but the central portion is,
in most cases, progressively rendered more and more
solid by the deposition in it of various secretions prepared
by the leaves, and transmitted from them
through the medullary rays into this part as their ultimate
resting-place.

The fibres descending from the developing buds on
the stem, and passing between the plates of cellular
tissue, which constitute the medullary rays, and the
cells of which have a horizontal direction, are but the
basis of the vegetable fabric. The stem of an exogenous
plant has been compared to a piece of linen, of
which the weft is composed of cellular tissue, and
the warp of fibrous and vascular tissue—crossing each
other. Now, after the portion is once formed, which
is woven every year by the wondrous machinery set
to work for this purpose, it receives no fresh texture,
yet each fibre remains a conducting tube to transmit
the sap upwards, or, in the course of time, becomes
charged with various principles, prepared, as already
stated, by the leaves, and returned to the central part
by that apparatus or system of canals for their transit
inwards, the medullary rays, and at last are obstructed,
so that no passage of fluid is effected through
the inner layers of wood. But for every layer that is
thus blocked up, a new one, which will continue pervious,
is formed exterior to those already existing, so
that a constant provision is made for carrying on the
vital processes; to accomplish which, a free channel
from the points of the roots to the surface of the leaves
is absolutely necessary. The outer strata, produced by
a tree of considerable age, are observed to be thinner
than those formed at an earlier period, and become successively
thinner and thinner, so that ultimately, if accident
should not have previously caused it, the death
of the tree is inevitable. The portions which are obstructed
constitute the duramen or heartwood, the
pervious portion the alburnum or sapwood. The original
tissue is colourless; but according to the nature
of the secretions deposited in it, the heartwood is
either of a deeper colour, sometimes party-coloured,
or at least of a much greater specific gravity than the
sapwood. The removal of the juices by any solvent
restores the wood to its primitive hue, and renders it
again light. The difference of weight of a cubic foot
of wood depends not merely on the different quantity
of vegetable tissue compressed into a given space, in
the first construction of the tree, but also on the quantity
and quality of the secretions ultimately lodged in
it. The same species of tree will present a difference
in this respect, according to the country or situation
where it grew, and also according to the character of
the seasons during the time it flourished. According
to the nature of the tree, if placed in favourable circumstances
in reference to soil and weather, it
[Pg 20]
invariably prepares and lodges in the stem those principles
which it was designed to elaborate—the oak preparing
tannin—the sugar-maple preparing its saccharine
juice. That the primary object of these was some
advantage to the tree itself can scarcely be doubted,
but the secondary applications of which they are capable,
give reason to suppose that these also were contemplated
in their formation. The consideration of
the means by which they are formed, and the direct
consequences of their formation on the air, by abstracting
certain elements from it, and supplying
others, belong to the subject of leaves; it is the object
of the present paper to view them as formed, and to
show their amazing utility.

The mechanical properties of the stems of trees,
both exogenous and endogenous, render them extremely
serviceable to mankind. The uses to which a
single species of plant may be put are numerous and
important, of which the reed (arundo phragmites) is
an example, for after the root has assisted in binding
and consolidating the soil, the stem is susceptible of
the most varied applications[A].

In a low state of civilization the palm, or a palm-like
grass, supplies all that man requires; of the former
of which, the Mauritia flexuosa, or sago-palm of
the Oronooko, and still more the cocos nucifera, or
cocoa-nut palm; and of the latter, the bamboo (bambusa
arundinacea, and other species) are proofs. The
bamboo suffices for all the needs of the humbler
Chinese; even their paper, as well as their abodes, are
made of it; and from the materials furnished by the
cocoa-nut tree, not merely food, as shall be afterwards
noticed, but larger and more elegant houses, with all
their appurtenances, are constructed at Goa and other
places. The obligations of the Guaraons to the Mauritia
flexuosa cannot be expressed[B]. In proportion
as man rises in civilization, the importance of timber
becomes greater, being a material for which no adequate
substitute can be found. It combines lightness
with strength, elasticity with firmness, and possesses
in many instances a durability rivalling, or even surpassing,
that of the rocks yielded to us by the solid
substance of the globe. The adaptation of timber to
the numerous wants of civil life is too familiar to require
exposition; but in addition to all the ends it
serves in these points, we have an interesting view
presented to us in considering what a vast quantity of
timber is required for the construction of our shipping,
from the countless boats and small craft employed in
our coasting trade up to the larger ships, which are
so many floating towns or communities. These conduce
to the accomplishment of objects of the most
momentous nature. Were it not for our shipping we
should still be in the condition described by the Romans,
as Britons cut off from the rest of the world.—But
by their means we now visit without restraint,

and though, in times past, they have been too often
used as engines fraught with destruction, directed by
man against his fellow man, let us hope that they may
be required in future only to convey in amicable interchange
the produce of one country to another,
or to bear to his destination the missionary bent on
extending the blessings of that religion whose spirit is
“peace on earth, good will among the children of
men[D].”

As a means of supplying fuel, without which man
must remain constantly in the savage state, wood is
of inestimable value. In the process of combustion,
[Pg 21]
the elements of the trees enter into new combinations,
evolving both light and heat, which at once maintain
life and render it a state of enjoyment and usefulness.
For this purpose in Britain, we chiefly employ fossil
fuel, stored up in the secret places of the earth, and,
therefore, we attach less importance to recent wood;
but other parts of the world are not so favourably
situated, and to the inhabitants of these places fresh,
or but lately felled, wood is necessary for their existence.
Even in France, though partially possessed of
coal, it is estimated that the quantity of wood employed
to supply heat, whether for comfort, cooking,
or in manufactures which require a high temperature,
amounts to seven-tenths of the entire consumption.
The superiority of wood fuel, whether fossil or recent,
over every other material resorted to with a like intention,
shall be shown in a subsequent part of this
paper. I therefore pass on at present to demonstrate
the utility of vegetable substances in affording the
means of subsistence to man and animals.

In the observations I am about to make, it is impossible
to avoid anticipating some of the remarks
which belong to the subject of fruits and seeds as
articles of food, since the same principles of nutriment
are found in the stems of certain plants as are deposited
in the fruits or seeds of others.

Though man is omnivorous, and can subsist either
on animal or vegetable food—an arrangement which
fits him to dwell in any part of the habitable globe,—yet
he is subject, with regard to the actual material
of his diet, in a remarkable manner, to the influence
of climate, since a particular kind of aliment, which
is very appropriate in one country is improper in another;
thus, as we advance from the equator towards
the poles, the necessity for animal food becomes
greater, till, in the very north, it is the sole article of
subsistence. Animal food, from containing nitrogen,
is more stimulating, and, therefore, less suitable for
hot climates, where, on the contrary, saccharine, mucilaginous,
and starchy materials are preferred;
hence, in the zone of the tropics, we find produced in
abundance rice, maize, millet, sago, salep, arrowroot,
potatoes, the bread-fruit, banana, and other watery,
or mucilaginous fruits. Quitting this zone, we enter
that which produces wheat, and here, where the temperature
is lower, providence has united with the
starch of this grain a peculiar principle (gluten), possessing
all the properties of animal matter, and yielding
nitrogen and ammonia in its decomposition[E].
Thus, by a gradual and almost insensible transition,
nature furnishes to man the food which is most appropriate
for him in each region. In the subtropical zone
vegetable diet is still preferred, but, in chemical constitution,
the favourite articles approximate animal
substances. This holds also in the temperate zone,
not only in respect of wheat, but also in the chesnut,
which is almost the sole means of subsistence in some
of the mountainous regions of France, Italy, and
Spain, though, instead of the gluten of wheat, this
seed contains albumen, the relation of which to animal
food is even closer than that of gluten. In reviewing
the geographical distribution of the cereal grains[F],
we find that starch nearly pure is produced in the
greatest abundance in the hottest parts of the world,
particularly in rice and maize; it becomes associated
in the subtropical regions with an equivalent for
animal food; and in still colder regions, where wheat
fails, oats and barley take its place. These, though
possessed of less gluten than wheat, are, nevertheless,
more heating, and, therefore, better calculated for
northern latitudes. The inhabitants of Scotland and
Lapland, with their oaten and barley or rye bread,
are thus as thoroughly provided with the best food,
as the Hindoo with his rice or Indian corn[G].

It would be impossible to enumerate the plants
which furnish starch in large proportion, but a few
may be given as illustrative of the above positions.
The chemical analysis of those proximate principles
of plants which are mere combinations of water with
carbon (hydro-carbonates or hydrates of carbon) has
been already given, but must here be repeated:—

These are so many mutually convertible products, of
which gum may be looked upon as the basis; indeed
gum is that organizable product which exists most
universally in the proper juices of plants. “There
are some instances in which sugar appears to be the
first organic compound formed by the combination of
the external elements, as when abundantly existing
in the ascending sap of trees—the maple, for example.
Starch may be considered as little else than gum
divided into minute portions, each of which is enclosed
in a membraneous cell (and containing some
incidental particles, which, when starch is burnt,
leave about .23 per cent. of residuum, consisting entirely
of phosphates); and, in this state, it appears to
answer very important ends in the vegetable economy.
It is remarked by Decandolle, that, ‘while gum itself
may be considered the nutrient principle of vegetation,
diffused freely through the structure of the plant,
and constantly in action, starch is apparently the
same substance, stored up in such a manner as not to
be readily soluble in the circulating fluids,’ thus forming
a reservoir of nutritious matter, which is to be
consumed, like the fat of animals (which it closely
resembles in structure), in supporting the plant at
particular periods[H].”

This view explains the fact of starch being found
accumulated in amazing quantity in some plants,
more particularly at certain periods of their existence,
as in the cases I am now to cite. The fertility of
some palm-trees is very great, and to furnish nutriment
to the flowers, fruit, and seeds, an enormous
supply of starch is needed; accordingly, in these we
find the stem a complete storehouse of this essential
principle. Thus the several palms and palm-like
plants, which yield sago, such as the sagus Rumphii,
cycas circinalis, C. revoluta, corypha umbraculifera,
[Pg 22]
caryota urens, and phœnix farinifera—trees which
are mostly confined within the tropics, at the moment
when the spadices or sheaths containing the bunches
of flowers are visible but not unfolded, furnish an immense
portion of the food of the natives. The sagus
Rumphii, which abounds in the islands of the Indian
Archipelago, and though one of the humblest of the
palm tribe, seldom exceeding thirty feet in height, is
yet, except the gomuto, the thickest and largest,
alone yields a quantity of nutritious matter far exceeding
that of all other cultivated plants, inasmuch
as a tree in its fifteenth year produces 600 lbs. of
sago, which word, in the language of the Papuas, signifies
bread, being the staple food of the islanders.
To obtain it, the tree must be cut down, and the stem
divided into pieces, from which the flour is beaten
and washed out[I]. After being cut down, the vegetative
power still remains in the root, which again
forms a trunk, and this proceeds through its different
stages, until it is again subjected to the axe, and
made to yield its alimentary contents for the service of
man. Nor is the extraordinary productiveness of
a single tree the only point worthy of notice, for,
being endogenous plants, devoid of branches, an unusual
number of them can grow in a small space.
Mr. Craufurd calculates that an English acre could
contain four hundred and thirty-five sago trees, which
would yield one hundred and twenty thousand five
hundred pounds avoirdupois of starch, being at the
rate of more than eight thousand pounds yearly.
Besides the farina or meal, every tree cut down furnishes,
in its terminal bud, a luxury which is as much
prized as that of the areca oleracea, or cabbage palm
of the West Indies, and which is eaten either raw as a
salad, or cooked. Further, the leaves afford so excellent
a material for covering houses, that even in those
hot and humid parts of the world, where decomposition
goes on so rapidly, it does not require to be renewed
oftener than once in seven years.

The Mauritia flexuosa, or fan palm of the Oronooco,
is of still greater utility to the natives of South
America. It is a social palm, abounding in the
marshes, and having a geographical range of very vast
extent. The whole northern portion of South America,
east of the Cordilleras, appears to be possessed
of this gorgeous palm; from the mouth of the Oronooco
to the river Amazon, and through the whole of
Guiana, through Surinam and the northern part of
Brazil, and in very various places along the river
Amazon, even to its source on the eastern declivity of
the Cordilleras, this palm is found, constituting
forests of greater or less extent. Its smooth grey
stem rising often 100 feet, forms groups that, in the
northern part of Brazil, resemble the pallisades of
some gigantic fortress. The produce of these lofty
cylinders is very great, not merely of sago, which is
procured only when the process of flowering is about
to occur, but many trees being cut down before this
event, a juice is obtained from them, which forms, by
fermentation, a sweet wine; while those that flower,
after which no good sago can be got, furnish an extraordinary
quantity of fruit, hanging in bunches many
feet in length, which is as agreeable as ripe apples,
the taste of which it resembles. The other products
of this tree are numerous[J].

It would lead beyond just limits, were we to notice in
detail, the plants which yield starch suitable for food,
only after undergoing a process of art, by which an
acrid principle is driven off, and a bland, wholesome
substance remains behind. Such is the Janipha (or
Jatropha) Manihot, which yields the Mandiocca, Tapioca,
or Cassava, an article not only of great consumption
in, but also of considerable export from,
Brazil (see Spix and Martius’ Travels, and Lib. of
Enter. Knowledge, Vegt. Sub. Food of Man, p. 152),
which, when raw, is poisonous both to man and cattle,
though it becomes safe and agreeable by the application
of heat. So likewise the large tubers of
several Arums, such as A. Macrorhizon, A. Colocasia,
Caladium acre, and which are cultivated with great
care in tropical and subtropical countries, particularly
in the Sandwich and South Sea islands. All of these
excite inflammation and swelling of the mouth and
tongue, even to the danger of suffocation, but which
are disarmed of their virulence, and converted into an
article of daily consumption, by fire. Even yams
and sweet potatoes, which are naturally mild, are
less articles of consumption in the south sea islands,
than the Tarro, as these tubers of the arums are designated.

I omit all other plants to fix attention on the potatoe,
which is not only the source of the purest starch
of all, but has many interesting points connected with
its history and habitudes, peculiarly connected with
my subject. No plant has contributed more to banish
those famines which were formerly of so frequent occurrence
in Europe, and all the dire train of suffering
and disease consequent upon them. Yet did it, in
many instances, require royal edicts to induce some
nations to cultivate what is now regarded as one of
the prime blessings of Providence, from nearly one
end of the earth to the other; the potatoe being raised
from Hammerfest, in Lapland, lat. 71° north, through
all Europe, the plains of India, in China, Japan, the
south-sea islands, New Holland, even to New Zealand.
What renders it so peculiarly valuable is, that
in the seasons when the corn crop fails, that of potatoes
is generally more abundant; thus furnishing a
substitute for the other, which proves defective from
atmospheric conditions, which have little influence
over the potatoe, placed as it is underground, and secure
against extremes of temperature. The potatoe
is not a root, as commonly supposed, but an underground
collection of buds, having a quantity of starch
accumulated around them, for their nourishment when
they begin to grow. The quantity of starch varies
greatly with the kind of potatoe cultivated, the mode
of cultivation, the time of setting, and above all, with
the season of the year when the analysis is made. Potatoes
in general, afford from one-fifth to one-seventh
their weight of dry starch[K]; besides some other
[Pg 23]
nutritive materials. The quantity of starch seems to
be at its maximum in the winter months; as 100
pounds of potatoes yield in August about 10 lbs., in
October nearly 15 lbs., in November to March 17 lbs.,
in April 13¾ lbs., and in May 10 lbs. Nor is the quantity
of starch alone diminished in spring, but the nitrogen
which belongs to some of the other nutritive
principles, likewise suffers a deduction; as fresh, not
dried potatoes, contain 0.0037 per cent. of azote, while
potatoes ten months old contain only 0.0028, causing
a sensible difference in their power of imparting nourishment.
The starch is withdrawn from the tubers
of the potatoe, precisely in the same way that it is
transferred from the root, stem, or seeds of other
plants, for the service of the young shoot; but the
mode in which it is accomplished is but of recent discovery,
and constitutes one of the most beautiful instances
of design which the whole vegetable kingdom
can unfold; “that man’s scepticism must be incurable
who does not perceive, and acknowledge, that the
means now to be detailed were created for the express
accomplishment of the ends[L].”

Starch has been described above as consisting of a
multitude of little cells or vesicles, having an envelope,
insoluble in water, formed of a kind of organized
membrane, and containing within it a substance
which is soluble in water, termed amidin.
This soluble material is the nutritive element on
which the young shoot, proceeding from every
eye or bud of the potatoes, is to subsist, till it
has developed roots, and unfolded its leaves to
prepare additional alimentary substance. But if
this soluble material be enclosed in an insoluble
membrane, how are the contents to be made available
for the growth of the plant? It is true, indeed, that
water of the temperature of 160° Fahr. can rupture
this tegument, as occurs in the process of boiling potatoes;
but the water diffused through the earth in
the neighbourhood of the growing tuber, never reaches
such a height. How then is the difficulty obviated?
This is effected by a secretion called diastase which
is found in the tubers in the immediate vicinity of
the eyes or buds. “It is stored up in that situation
for the purpose of being conveyed, by the vessels
connected with the bud, into the substance of the
tuber, when the demand for nutrition is occasioned by
the development of the shoot. It is probable that the
secretion of diastase takes place in every instance in
which starch previously deposited is to be re-absorbed[M].”
It is not to be found before grains or tubers
begin to sprout, yet, “such is its energy, that one part
of it is sufficient to render soluble the interior portion
of two thousand parts of starch, and to convert it into
sugar[N].” Strong as is the analogy between starch and
gum, yet diastase does not convert gum into sugar;
the one being as completely soluble as the other, its
intervention is clearly unnecessary. Neither does it
act on sugar. It is found, and exerts its powers, only
where it is required. Nor does it come into play one
moment before the necessity for it occurs. While the
potatoe is in its state of winter repose, and no vegetative
process going on, the elements of which the
diastase is formed, are equally quiescent, but no sooner
does the season recur when an augmented temperature
rouses the slumbering energy of the tuber, than
this potent principle exhibits its efficacy, and changes
the insoluble starch into the nutritious sugar. Who,
that can read, or reading reflect and ponder on these
things, but must conclude that the laws which regulate
the whole actions were impressed upon their subjects
by a Creator infinite in design, in wisdom, and
in power? If such insight into his doings are permitted
to us now, what may we not hope for when
we no longer “see as through a glass darkly[O]?”

The insolubility of the starch in cold water, affords
a convenient means of separating the flour from the
other materials, by which it may be abstracted from
the tubers when in the greatest abundance, and be
preserved unchanged for the use of man. This is
done by simply rasping down the potatoes over a
seirce, and passing a current of water over the raspings.
The water passes through the seirce milky from
the starch suspended in it. The starch is allowed to
fall to the bottom, and is two or three times washed
with pure water; it is then allowed to dry[P]. If this
process be followed in the winter months, when the
quantity of starch is greatest, the result is, a sixth
portion of the weight of the potatoes employed, in a
condition fit not only for immediate use, but capable
of preservation for years. “To those who live solely,
or even principally, on potatoes, it must be of immense
importance to have the nutritious part preserved
when in its greatest perfection, instead of
leaving it exposed to injury, decomposition, or
decay[Q].”

It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the sources of
starch and its obvious utility to mankind. Previous
to its being consumed by the plant in which it is
amassed, it is by various means, but chiefly by diastase,
transformed into sugar. Following this natural
transition, I shall next consider sugar as an article of
diet. In temperate climates, sugar is regarded as a
luxury, one indeed which is nearly indispensable, but
in tropical countries it is a universal article of subsistence,
partly as real sugar, and partly, and more
generally, as it occurs in the cane. It is inconceivable
what enormous quantities of the sugar-cane is
consumed in this way; vast ship-loads arrive daily in
the market at Manilla, and in Rio Janiero; in the
Sandwich Islands and other places, every child is seen
going about with a portion of sugar-cane in the hand.
It has been called “the most perfect alimentary
substance in nature,” and the results, in the appearance
of the negroes, during the cane-harvest, notwithstanding
the increased severe toils of that season,
seem to confirm the statement. They almost invariably
become plump, and sleek, and scarcely take
any other food while the harvest lasts; even the
sickly revive, and often recover their health.

The chief source of sugar is large grass (saccharum
officinarum), of which there are several varieties,
differing essentially in productiveness, but the best of
which is the Otaheita cane, the stem of which is
higher, thicker, and more succulent than the Creole
cane, and which yields not only one-third more of
juice than the Creolian cane on the same space of
land; but from the thickness of its stem, and the
tenacity of its ligneous fibres, it furnishes much more
fuel. One variety was known in India, in China, and
all the islands of the Pacific ocean, from the most
remote antiquity; it was planted in Persia, in Chorasan,
as early as the fifth century of our era, in order
to obtain from it solid sugar. The Arabs carried this
reed—so useful to the inhabitants of hot and temperate
countries—to the shores of the Mediterranean. In
[Pg 24]
1306, its cultivation was yet unknown in Sicily, but
was already common in the island of Cyprus, at
Rhodes, and in the Morea. A hundred years after it
enriched Calabria, Sicily, and the coasts of Spain.
From Sicily the Infant Henry transplanted the cane
to Madeira; and from Madeira it passed to the
Canary islands. It was thence transplanted to St.
Domingo, in 1513, and has since spread to the continent
of South America, and to the West Indies,
whence the chief supply for Europe is obtained.

The vast circuit which it has described in these
successive transplantations attest the sense which
mankind had of the benefits it bestowed in its course.
The introduction of the Otaheita cane is another
proof of the obligations which modern times are
under to navigation, as we owe this plant to the
voyages of Bougainville, Cook, and Bligh[R].

The sugar-cane requires for its perfection, a temperature
of considerable elevation, and succeeds best
where the mean temperature is 24° or 25° (of the
centigrade thermometer), yet it will prosper, though
with less produce, where it only reaches 19° or 20°
(centigrade). Its cultivation extends from the verge
of the ocean, where the canes are often washed by
the waves[S], to localities on the mountains 3,000 feet
above the sea; and even in the extensive plains of
Mexico and Colombia, where, from the reflection of
the sun’s rays the heat is greatly increased, to 4,000,
5,000, 6,000, though the mean temperature of the
city of Mexico be only 17° (centigrade), yet sugar is
procured at 6,600 feet.

The fertility and productiveness of the sugar-cane
is immense, second only to the sago-palms. “The
first sugar-canes planted with care on a virgin soil,
yield a harvest during twenty to twenty-five years,
after which they must be replanted every three
years.” In the island of Cuba, instances are known
of a sugar-plantation existing for forty-five years. To
procure new plants, the tedious process of sowing
seeds is not necessary. The practice is followed of
taking cuttings, and the stools, or scions, which
spring from the joints (nodi) of the old plant, are
fit to be separated in fourteen days; these, in the
course of a year, are so well grown that they may be
cut down, and submitted to the sugar-mill. An
English acre under culture for sugar, in Java,
yields 1285 pounds avoirdupois of refined sugar, and
the produce at Cuba is nearly the same.

Let not the thought arise, on the perusal of these
statements, that the gifts of Providence are distributed
with partiality, as nothing could be more unfounded.
Independent of the destruction of the
plantations which tropical hurricanes so often occasion,
an insect of the locust kind, more particularly
in the East Indies, produces such fearful devastation
as to realize the scene described by the prophet Joel—“A
fire devoureth before them, and behind them a
flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden
before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness;
yea, and nothing shall escape them[T].” From such visitations,
northern latitudes are generally exempt, and
the constant struggle which man has had to maintain
with the elements and a churlish soil, has so
whetted his faculties as to render the return for his
labour not only more certain, but even more abundant[U].

As if to shew that “the earth full of the riches
of the Lord,” in parts of the world where the low
temperature is an obstacle to the profitable cultivation
of the sugar-cane, a substitute is found for it in
the acer saccharinum, or sugar-maple, which presents
the great peculiarity of the ascending sap being
charged with sugar to such a degree as to be then fit
for the manufacture of this valuable substance. There
results from this circumstance a most important advantage
to the inhabitants of the northern regions,
where this tree grows, that the juice is extracted early
in spring, a time when the rigour of the season condemns
the labourer to inactivity. Besides, the sugar-maple
grows spontaneously, and requires no care, till
it is fit for tapping; and when deprived of its juice,
and incapable of yielding more sugar, its wood is
applicable to a far greater number and variety of
uses than the bruised cane, since as fuel the maple
is most valuable; and its ashes yield, from their
richness in the alkaline principle, four-fifths of the
potash exported to Europe from Boston and New
York. The timber of the sugar-maple is also highly
prized, both for common and ornamental purposes—as
the beautiful bird’s-eye maple is obtained from
this tree.

“The sugar-maple begins a little north of Lake St.
John, in Canada, near 48° of north lat., which, in the
rigour of its winter, corresponds to 68° of Europe.
It is nowhere more abundant than between 46° and
43° of north lat., which space comprises Canada, New
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the states of Vermont and
New Hampshire, and the district of Maine. Farther
south, it is common only in Genessee, in the state of
New York, and in the upper parts of Pennsylvania.
It is estimated by Dr. Rush, that in the northern part
of these two states, there are 10,000,000 acres which
produce these trees in the proportion of thirty to an
acre. The process of making maple-sugar is commonly
begun in February, or in the beginning of
March, while the cold continues intense, and the
ground is still covered with snow. The sap begins to
be in motion at this season, two months before the
general revival of vegetation. The sap continues to
flow for six weeks; after which it becomes less abundant,
less rich in saccharine matter, and sometimes
even incapable of crystallization. In this case it is
consumed in the state of molasses; or exposed for
three or four days to the sun, when it is converted
into vinegar by the acetous fermentation: a kind of
beer is also made of it. The amount of sugar produced
by each tree in a year varies from different
causes. The yearly product varies from 2 lbs. to 4 lbs.
for each tree[V].” The sap is most abundant from
young trees, but less charged with sugar. The average
produce is five per cent. of sugar. The richer the sap
is in saccharine matter, it is so much the more profitable
to extract it, as in such a case it is nearly pure
from all mucilaginous matter, or free acid, and may
be consolidated by the action of cold alone by merely
freezing it, thus rendering boiling unnecessary.

Sugar exists in many other plants, such as the
beet-root, from which it is extracted; and also the
[Pg 25]
stem of the maize, or Indian corn, is charged with an
extraordinary quantity of sugar, and it may either be
brought to the state of a honey-like sugar, or the
juice pressed out of the stalk, and fermented, forming
the pulque de mahio, or pulque de Flaolli, in Mexico[W].

Gum has been already stated to be the basis of all
the other organizable products, and it is found not only
in almost all plants, but in nearly all parts of them.
In a pure or nearly isolated state, it exists chiefly in
the inner bark of vascular and especially exogenous
trees, and is preserved in the interior with the greatest
care: its escape externally results either from disease,
as in the case of plum and cherry-trees, from
the puncture of insects, cracks in the bark, or by artificial
incisions. The death of the tree soon follows
the loss of this important juice, and thousands of
trees of the genus acacia are annually sacrificed in
different parts of Africa to procure the gum-arabic of
commerce. It is only in a few genera and tribes of
trees, that it exists in so concentrated a state as to
assume the solid form on exposure to the air, but in
some of these the quantity is amazing. Hot countries
are the chief abodes of such trees. Thus, besides the
immense quantity obtained from the acacias, the anacardium
occidentale (cashew-nut tree) in America,
has furnished from a single tree a mass weighing
forty-two pounds. Gum is mawkish, insipid, and
generally unpalatable, yet highly nutritive; and the
Africans, during the harvest of gum at Senegal, live
entirely upon it, eight ounces being the daily allowance
for each man. In general they become plump
on this fare; and such should be the result, if the calculation
be correct, which assigns as great nutritive
power to four ounces of gum as to one pound of
bread. This concentration of nourishment renders
gum a peculiarly suitable food for lengthened journeys
through the deserts, as it occupies small compass,
and a little suffices to stay the cravings of
hunger. Thus, upwards of a thousand persons may
occupy more than two months in a journey from
Abyssinia to Cairo without any other kind of food[X].
Its bland, demulcent properties fit it to correct the
acrimony of the secretions formed under the influence
of a tropical sun and torrid air, with a scanty and
irregular supply of water. Plants, likewise, are preserved
in a vegetative and living state, mid sandy and
arid wastes, by the quantity of gum stored up in
them. Hence succulent plants, such as cacti and
others, may be found in the steppes and sandy plains
of South America, verdant and healthy, though no
rain may fall to convey fresh sap into them for
months, or even a year. In the form of mucilage,
i. e., gum in a state of solution, it is found in a very
large number of plants, and thus contributes to the
maintenance of man and animals. In these it is
generally associated with some other principles,
which render it either more palatable or more easily
digested. A very large number of our esculent vegetables
owe their nutritive properties to the gummy
matters with which they abound, and the favour with
which they are regarded to the other matters united
with it. Those which have a bitter principle are
very excellent, when this is in small proportion; and
as, in most of them, the gummy matter is prepared
first, requiring for its formation only a moderate degree
of light and heat, while the bitter, or other principle,
is added at a later period, under the influence
of stronger light; such plants, when young, are tender
and agreeable; nay, even very poisonous plants,
when very young, are wholesome and pleasant, which,
at a more advanced season, are virose and disagreeable.
Thus, the peasantry of France and Piedmont
eat the young crowfoots (ranunculus) and
poppies, after boiling them, and find them safe and
nourishing. The same result follows exclusion of
light, as in the process of blanching, by which means
celery, sea-kale, and other vegetables, are rendered
esculent, which in the wild state are poisonous or
repulsive. In northern latitudes, the light being intense
for a short time only, many plants are used
there which, in the southern, are dangerous or destructive,
such as hemlock and monkshood. A moderate
degree of bitterness is a very useful accompaniment
of the gum, which alone is cloying and
even oppressive to the stomach. The presence of a
bitter principle in many lichens promotes their digestion,
and thus even the tough and leathery ones,
called tripe of the rocks, can be eaten, and sustain
life amid great privations and sufferings. The rein-deer
moss (cludonia rangiferina) is another lichen of
great utility: it is not much employed as human
food, but it is the main support of the rein-deer for a
great portion of the year, and thus renders Lapland a
fit abode for man.

A peculiar modification of gum constitutes pectine
or vegetable jelly; and this occurs in fruits, such as
the orange, currant, and gooseberry, &c., also in
many of the algae or sea-weeds, which are, or ought
to be, much employed as a delicate article of nourishment.
The edible swallow’s nest, so greatly esteemed
by the Chinese, is an alga, gathered by the
birds. The Ceylon moss (Gigartina lichenoides),
and the carrageen or Irish moss (Chondrus crispus),
with many others, might be made to contribute
largely to the subsistence of man. Not merely earth,
from its fruitful bosom, but the vast ocean, offer their
rich produce to nourish and sustain the only intelligent
occupant of the globe, who should ever remember the
declaration of the psalmist, “O Lord! how manifold
are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all:
the earth is full of thy riches; so is the great and
wide sea!” (Ps. civ.)

THE SECURITY OF GOD’S PEOPLE:

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.”

[Pg 26]
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 things really and essentially
good in 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 to
him by 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 to those that love God.”
There is, first, on the mind of the Christian
that secret influence in the very disposition of
love to God, which will of itself turn 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,
[Pg 27]
a full disposition on the part of our heavenly
Father so 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 a power 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 read his testimony
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 wholly
[Pg 28]
absent, 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. If he do not temper the
trials of his servants, how in truth shall they
overcome them? If he do 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 he
can be 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
things which shall thus work together for
good. Take the most unpromising and most
unfavourable case, for instance, that of great
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 that he has 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 of deep 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 for my good.”

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 of these must 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 opposed
[Pg 29]
to 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 very sins are 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 things work together for
good to them that love God.”

I conclude with a single word of remark
on the expression in the text, “We know
that all things work together for good.” It
expresses the personal experience of 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
“maketh ashamed, because the love of God is
not yet 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.”

THE GLORY OF THE SAVIOUR’S TRANSFIGURATION.[Y]

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. Jesus
[Pg 30]
never 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 for
[Pg 31]
his 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.”

The Cabinet.

No Salvation without an Atonement.—But
let me turn your attention to the sad effect
which a denial of the Saviour’s Deity has upon the
prospects of man for eternity. It is a truth written,
as with a sunbeam, upon every page of scripture, that
man is by nature a fallen, a guilty, a condemned
creature, obnoxious to the righteous judgment of God.
We are told, that “the heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked;”—that “all have
sinned, and come short of the glory of God:” Jehovah
himself is represented as looking down from heaven
upon the children of men, to investigate their
characters with that omniscient ken by which he explores
the utmost boundaries of the illimitable universe,
and pronouncing this solemn verdict—“There
is none righteous; no, not one:” and the apostle
Paul, when reminding the Ephesian church of their
past unregenerate condition, says that they were
“children of wrath, even as others.” If man, then,
be in a guilty and condemned state by nature, it is
an awful and important question, how shall he obtain
pardon and justification with God, on account of his
past transgressions? and how shall his sinful and
unholy nature be sanctified and prepared for admission
into the realms of everlasting glory? Can personal
repentance, on the part of the sinner, obliterate
the crime of which he has been guilty, so as to reinstate
him into the condition of a sinless and unfallen
being? Unquestionably not. For whatever act has
been performed by God, or angels, or by man, must
remain for ever written upon the pages of eternity,
never to be erased; and, therefore, no subsequent
repentance on the sinner’s part, no tears of sorrow or
contrition, can ever blot out his past transgressions;
nor even could the united tears of angels erase the record
of those offences for which man is brought in
guilty before God! Can, then, subsequent obedience
achieve the work of the sinner’s justification? This,
alas! will prove as ineffectual as repentance; for
though we should render to God a perfect obedience
for the remainder of our lives, still the sin we have
committed is sufficient to procure our conviction and
condemnation; for the wages of sin is death! Shall
we, then, have recourse to the abstract mercy of God,
as the foundation upon which to rest our hope of pardon?
This is the Unitarian’s plea: “I believe,” he
says, “that God is merciful; and I repose in his kindness,
and trust he will have compassion on me.” Alas,
my friends! it was bad enough that Mr. Porter should
have yesterday adopted the algebraic principle of neutralizing
one text of scripture by another; but to
carry up this principle to a contemplation of the character
of God, and to bring it into collision with the
attributes of Jehovah, and thus to set his mercy
against his justice—his compassion against his truth—his
grace against his holiness, and thereby to neutralize
and annihilate one class of attributes by another,
is a guilt that is direful, blasphemous, and indescribable.—From
speech of the Rev. Daniel Bagot,
at the Belfast Unitarian [Socinian] discussion.

[Pg 32]

Poetry.

LAYS OF PALESTINE.

No. IX.
(For the Church of England Magazine.)
By T. G. Nicholas.

Miscellaneous.

Influence of Religion on a State.—Religious
faith is necessarily and unavoidably political in
its influence and bearings, and eminently so. Christians
are generally well informed—and knowledge is
power. They have there in Christian countries, as
citizens and subjects, directly and indirectly, a large
share of influence in the state. In most Christian
states, if not in all—for a state could hardly be called
Christian, if it were not so—Christianity is made a
party of common law, and, when occasion demands,
is recognised as such by the judicial tribunals. It is
eminently so in Great Britain; it is so in America;
and generally throughout Europe. It is also, to a
great extent, established by constitutional law, and
thus incorporated with the political fabric, furnishing
occasion for an extended code of special statutes.
The great principles of Christianity pervade the
frame of society, and its morals are made the
standard. The second table of the decalogue is
adopted throughout as indispensable to the well-being
of the state; and a thousand forms of legislation are
attempted to secure the ends of the great and comprehensive
Christian precept—“Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself.” More especially is it deemed
the highest perfection of civilized life and manners, in
the code of conventional politeness, to exemplify this
latter divine injunction. Otherwise life would be
much less comfortable—hardly tolerable.—A Voice
from America to England.

Duty of Subjects.—We ought not only to
look at the queen’s duty, but recollect also what is
our own; for the prosperity of a nation consists,
not only in having a religious governor, but also
an obedient people. The events which have passed
before our eyes during the few last years, may
serve, I think, to convince us of the truth of such
an inference. Can we look back on the loss of
human lives, the almost paralyzing alarm excited
by the threats of an infuriated populace, and the
absolute destruction of property which took place
during the riots in the city of Bristol, and not see
that all those calamities sprung out of a want of obedience
to the existing authorities? Nor was that the
only occurrence of the kind which has taken place.
What repeated acts of incendiarism have we as a
nation suffered from, as well as from the still more
recent riots which have arisen in our south-western
and other counties? and may we not ask, whence
have those scenes of strife, discontent, and tumult,
sprang, but from the cause I have already referred to?—want
of subjection and obedience to the government
of our kingdom. What were the scenes of misery
and horror which broke out from time to time, when
internal wars and insurrections so greatly depopulated
our land? Cast your eye up and down our
country, and view the still remaining barrows—those
unsculptured, unlettered monuments, which cover
the slain of our people—and ask, are these Britons
slain in their own land, a Christian land, a land where
(to remind you of the present privileges of her constitution)
we have a national established church, of
sound scriptural and protestant faith, and a preached
gospel?[AB]

London: Published by JAMES BURNS, 17 Portman Street,
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