shown that the work which contained it was the Word of God, and that there could be no mistake as to the meaning of the passage-the evidence, however, for each of these facts, must not be of a doubtful description. Granted this is an odd illustration; but the gulp of these believers in "the Bible alone," is greater than would be required for such an "act of faith ;" and they have not the evidence I contract for to sustain them. It is true, that, with Granville Penn, we may suppose it not only possible, but very probable, that the rocks which some calculate were so many years in forming, might be formed at once, in full perfection, by the fiat of the Creator-even as animals and vegetables were produced in full maturity. But what are we to do with such fossil remains as the deluge will not, under any conceivable hypothesis, account for? Are these to be considered as enigmas placed in the rocks to puzzle man's brains, and try his faith by tempting him to disbelieve the truth? If our credulity is strong enough to believe this, and we turn Geology out of Court, as an impudent falsifier, who ought to be indicted for perjury, what is our gain? Shall we end the trial by so doing, and obtain the verdict against Science? Far from it. She has another witness to examine, whose eyes are too bright to admit of her being looked out of countenance,—one whose name is Astronomy; and she gives her testimony, with mathematical demonstration to back it, that such an idea of the age of the Universe is no better than a dream. There is a spot, for example, in, or rather behind, the sword-belt of the Constellation Orion, a nebulous spot which can be distinctly seen with the naked eye, whose light has been discovered to proceed from the commingled rays of another galaxy of suns and systems, the nearest orb of which is at such a distance from our earth, that its light has taken full thirty thousand years to travel over the intermediate space, at the rate of nearly twelve million miles a minute. That light has reached us, the thirty thousand years, therefore, have passed, and who shall say, in answer to such evidence, that it has not been created six thousand years? Will some new contender for old notions arise to assure us that light, like the rocks, was created in full maturity; and at the time of its creation had

already sent its rays over portions of space equivalent to the passage of twenty-five thousand years?

As I remarked above, God's Word and God's Works cannot contradict each other; but man may gather erroneous notions from either or from both of them. The impatience that rejects what it cannot understand, is as sure a mark of littleness of mind, as the credulity that swallows everything. The wise can afford to wait for farther discoveries to reconcile seeming contradictions: because the wise are most perfectly aware how little they do really know. And instead of opposing the advance of Science, and throwing it, as is too often the case, into the hands of the Sceptic, to be used as a weapon against them-it would be a far wiser course for Christian men, and especially for Christian Ministers, to hail with gladness every true step "forward ;" and while the various sciences, taken in their isolation, give out different and somewhat contradictory hues; show how, when united, they are but the prismatic colours which blend together to form the bright clear light that beams from the sun of heaven to irradiate the earth.

What has Science done that we should discard her? She has narrowed the controversy between us and the Infidel in an almost incredible degree. Let any one who wants proof of this, read through those monuments of human learning, and logical acumen, "Cudworth's Intellectual System of the Universe," and "King's Essay on Evil,"-works of gigantic power, a great portion of whose pages have become little better than waste paper, except as records of what men once thought, and that merely because what they, a priori, contended for, Science a posteriori, has demonstrated. Who, for example, will now talk of the eternal existence of the human race, when the stony records of the earth, which, according to the old adage, "as they cannot speak, cannot lie," testify to his recent origin? Or who will speak of the infinitude of the Universe, and its occupancy of all space, when Lord Rosse's telescope has penetrated into regions untold millions of miles beyond its borders-our system being situated near to one of its outer shores? I grant that Science has had her dreams. reason why Christian men should let her,

But is that any

undisturbed,

dream on? Is it not rather an inducement to bid them watch her closely, and keep her wide awake? Looking forth at the period of morning twilight, she has pictured in the mists strange forms, creations of her fancy. But the sun advanced, the light increased, and those strange forms dispersed as she looked again forth in clearer day. Forming a back ground to Heaven's rolling orbs, around the circle of the Milky Way, and far, far off, in other portions of the hemisphere, she once saw streams of milky, hazy light. Turning the telescope upon them, she beheld them clearer; and deemed them worlds in process of formation, nebulosities gradually hardening and cooling down into suns and planets. Then theories sprang to birth, how a world, or a Universe might form itself out of these clusters of nebulous matter, without the unnecessary aid of a Creator. This was a dream of Science. Lord Rosse, with a few demesmerising passes, woke her from her somnolent state, and bade her look at them again, by the aid of his mightier instrument, at Parsonstown. She looked, and her dream vanished. She saw that instead of worlds in the process of formation, the nebula were worlds already, cumulations of suns and systems, whose distance hid from us all but the milky stream of their bright rays commingled.

I might point to the dreams of Science and her more sober waking thoughts in other departments, especially in those of chemistry and physiology; but I feel that this paper is quite long enough already. I will only, in conclusion, express my joy and satisfaction that Science has got her carriages upon "the line," and will make progress, in spite of all efforts to prevent her. On, then, ye patient, investigating, and exploring men. On, Adams and Leverrier on, Herschell, Rosse, and Arago! on, Lyell, and Murchison! on, Faraday, and Smee,-Fownes, Playfair, and Murray! On, Carpenter, Reichenbach, and Richtie, with a host of others less known to fame, but not less earnest in pursuit of Science! aye, and maugre the sneers of the Lancet, on Gregory, and Haddock, and Darling! Gather your facts for future ages to digest; and let none fear a result so impossible as that God's Word and God's Works should contradict each other.

Magyar Bards.

BY BETA.

LATTER circumstances have directed the attention of Europe, and that of the whole world-an attention either of censure or praise, -upon the small yet manly band, the descendants of the Asiatic colony which has possessed itself of that small portion of the “undivided Germany" known to us by the name of Hungary or Magyarland. We deemed it therefore a not unworthy endeavour to draw something out of the common object of interest, which should be viewed with unanimity by all: something apart from the fratricidal questions of political liberty. In fulfilment of this it is purposed to give a hasty sketch of the principal Bards of the Magyar race, and a few short examples of their various styles; adopting for the most part the able translations of a contemporary. This subject will allow of many divisions; under the first head, in treating of the literature of a people so intensely national as the Hungarians, will naturally fall those men who have zealously fanned that nationality into a fury by the feather of their pens; and in whose minds the love of fatherland and kindred, appears to be the spirit which has wrought them into song.

At the head of the first division,-at least if an unbounded popularity of, and a devoted admiration among the masses for the writings of any one, may be esteemed as the criterion of poetical greatness, stands undoubtedly, the warm and the passionate, the appeal-breathing Berszenyi, who appears to rejoice in the love and deference of his countrymen, as fully, and to exercise over them as much influence, as our own Moore over his unfortunate and noble hearted race. Possessing in a higher degree the ingredients of the grand and the lofty, he is nearly, if not quite equal to the Irishman in the elegancies and the varieties of verse; unfortunately however for him, the critics of his country less indulgent than those of our own, object strongly to his provincialisms, and have charged him bitterly with having perverted the spirit of poetry and pressed it into the service of a party. Against all this