withstanding the diligence of many of the gardeners of the Lord in pruning and endeavouring to root it out. The abounding of false doctrine in such a time of gospel light is what has perplexed me, grieved me, and made me go heavily, and I doubt not many beside myself. But while the other day, (to use good John Bunyan's expression,) "I was musing in the midst of my dumps," a thought struck me that perchance these things were in answer to the prayers of the church: you may think me rather paradoxical, but I will go on to say how I think this may be. I think that of late years the eyes of the Christian church have been much drawn to the "times of the end," and more than at any previous period, the prayer has been put up, "Thy kingdom come." This is well, well that Christians should be looking for, and hasting to the coming of the Lord;-that the subject should form the ground of their earnest fervent prayer, and of their brightest fairest hopes. Before these things however, we are assured there shall be troubles; and I find it is the opinion of most of our best commentators and divines, that Popery shall once more be allowed to triumph; that before the mighty angel who is commissioned to destroy Babylon the Great, shall fulfil his appointed task, he shall raise her up as a great millstone, that her fall may be more conspicuous, that all the nations may say, verily the Lord hath done this. If this be the case, I again repeat that the spread of papistical doctrines may be in answer to the prayers of the saints; that our Lord would speedily "take to him his great power and come to reign." I say papistical doctrines, for such they assuredly are, and I believe that by them the church of England will be deeply polluted; I do not say this at random, but I know that in some parts of the country, nearly three fourths of the younger clergy are already infected with the pestilence, and all men know how such doctrines are suited to the natural bent of man's mind, ever more prone to trust to itself, or to a form of godliness than to conform itself to the spiritual demands of the gospel, or to receive freely the grace of God, retaining no plea from their own instrinsic worth: can we wonder then if in a few years popery shall again bear rule over us? The constant prayer of the Christian church should be that the Lord would shorten those days of trouble, rebuke, and blasphemy, which in the hand of the Great Husbandman may be as a threshing instrument to winnow his harvest, to try those which are his; but of which our Lord prophecies that unless those days be shortened no flesh shall be saved. Come, they must; if speedily, so much the sooner shall the trial be past, and the people be delivered out of the furnace of affliction, and brought into the glories which shall follow; so much the sooner shall God's own children Israel be brought back; and so much the sooner (all the enemies being overthrown) shall the "earth be covered with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Our work seems then to be to strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees of the brethren, and to spread abroad the knowledge of "Christ the end of the law for righteousness," that when the enemy cometh in like a flood, there may be prepared a band who, under the captainship of the spirit of God will lift up a banner against him. S. M. E. НОВАВ. MADAM, WILL you allow me to request the insertion in your valuable periodical, of the following remarks on what seems to me an inaccuracy in the part of the 'Female Biography of Scripture,' which appeared in your September number. The writer speaks of Hobab as the brother of Zipporah, when I think a slight investigation will prove him to have been her father. We find the father-in-law of Moses called "Reuel," (Exod. ii. 18;) "Jethro," (Exod. iii. 1;) and in (Judges iv. 11,)" Hobab." The verses to which the writer alludes, are as follows-" And Moses said unto Hobab, the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses father-in-law, We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you: come thou with us, and we will do thee good," &c. Numbers x. 29., and following verses. Now compare (Judges iv. xi.) "Now Heber the Kenite which was of the children of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, had severed himself," &c. I believe "Jethro" and "Hobab" to have been names applied indifferently to the individual in question: in the account of the first visit made by him to Moses in the wilderness, he is called Jethro, and we are told that "Moses let his father-in-law depart; and he went his way into his own land." Now it would appear that the verses in the 10th of Numbers, refer to a second entreaty addressed by Moses to his father-in-law, that he would accompany them on their journey through the wilderness. The great lawgiver of Israel having previously experienced the benefit of Jethro's wise counsels, it was natural that he should crave his aid and companionship, when on the eve of a long and perilous journey. The request appears to have been granted, and accordingly we find, (Judges i. 16.)"And the children of the Kenite, Moses' father-inlaw, went up out of the city of palm-trees, with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people." Also the passage before cited, (Judges iv. 11;) the ambiguity (in Numbers x. 29;) will be avoided if we thus take it—" And Moses said unto Hobab his father-in-law the son of Raguel the Midianite." The name of "Reuel" or "Raguel," is applied to Jethro himself, (Exod. ii. 18;) it was probably his patronymic. I trust Madam, you will excuse my trespassing on your space for the correction of what is merely an historical oversight; but in these days, when by a miscalled system of national education, garbled and imperfect extracts are substituted for the entire Word of Life, we cannot be too careful to preserve inviolate the sacred correctness of its text, in the minute, as well as the "weightier matters of the law." Hoping that your correspondent will not feel offended at my commenting on her writings, from which so many derive both pleasure and instruction. I remain, Madam, M. A. H.· A SIMPLE NARRATIVE OF FACTS. THE following simple narrative being taken from the private correspondence of a lady residing with a family of rank in the west of Ireland, must consequently be offered in a brief and imperfect form; nor will it present any unusual incidents to such as are intimately acquainted with the intolerance of the Church of Rome; yet it can scarcely be perused without feelings of interest at the present period when that power, united with infidelity in every varied form, threatens to cast a dark cloud over our spiritual horizon. Michael the subject of this brief history, at present in the service of the family already mentioned, was born of Irish parents who held different religious tenets, his father being sincerely attached to the Protestant religion, while his mother was an equally devoted Romanist. It was agreed that the sons should be educated in their father's faith, the daughters in that of their mother; but poor Michael having the misfortune to lose his kind parent in early youth, was thus left entirely under the control of his mother, by whom he was therefore carefully instructed in all the tenets of the Romish church, to which he attached himself till his twenty-fifth year, when circumstances arose which induced him to take up his abode with some Protestant members of his father's family |