do not thereby mar the unity of the Spirit of love and peace. But with the Jew, the case is essentially different; the commands of their heavenly King and Father, are to them determinate, and cannot be annulled. The Messiah was a prophet like unto Moses, in that he spake the words which God before spake from Sinai. He came not to abolish his own holy and righteous law, which shall yet (as the sceptre of his power) go forth from Sion, his seat of universal empire, and that not only to govern righteously his people Israel, but to rule all nations; who shall be compelled to terminate that strife and violence which their evil passions originate and occasion, and learn to value that peace which is the "fruit of righteousness."'

B.

[WE have omitted some passages from the foregoing, not directly bearing on the subject in hand; but in reference to the point disputed between Jerom and Augustine, or rather between Jerom and Paul, our correspondent's remarks deserve serious consideration. This subject is mystified among us just as is that which specially touches our own case,—the distinction so clearly seen by some, so utterly invisible to others, between the law as a covenant of works, and the law as a rule of life. We would not presume to dogmatize; but to investigate this matter according to the light of scripture alone, is our duty, our privilege, and our determination.]

SEA ANEMONE AND CORALLINA.

(From "Sketches of Nature," by Jane L. Guinness.)

HAST thou beheld the Zoophyte flowers,
Their wondrous living blossoms wave;

That, crested o'er with foamy showers,
Hung in the deep sea's sparry cave;
Shrinking from rays

That pour their blaze

Of trembling lustre through the deep,
Then slowly o'er

The low-browed shore

Wandering to fold their rosy limbs in sleep?

Or, where a milder sunshine beams
From the dark rock's embow'ring gloom,
Steal gently forth to court the gleams
Of dawn, and ope their golden bloom,-
A disk of light,

Whose petals bright

Play sportive with the ocean's spray,

Then swift emerge

From snowy surge,

And lightly dash the sparkling drops away.

Oh! can emotion,-sympathy,

Can eager hope, or strong desire,

Or simplest trace of memory

This mystic flow'ret's frame inspire?
Can even that beam

Whose deathless gleam

Pierces creation's gloomiest shade,

Can aught of love

To gladness move,

Though all but this sweet light in darkness fade?

Where is the page whose word reveals
The secret path-the mazes wild,
Where labyrinthine being steals,

And works unseen? With ardour filled,
My soul would track

Those mazes back

To heaven, where erst their course began,
And o'er yon bound

Of death profound

Still trace untired the vast omnific plan!

Or hast thou seen, 'neath southern skies,
At summer morning's placid hours,
'Mid the still depth of waters rise
Bright stems of glowing coral bowers?
Like pendant vine

The sea-weeds twine

Around their sprays in wreaths of green,
And insects rove

Along the grove

Clustering, the wild fantastic boughs between.

Behold these lowliest insects raise
Gigantic towers and islands steep,-

Temples-where the Almighty's praise
Is echoing through the shoreless deep!
For nature still,

Nor tunes a rill

To music soft-nor paints a rose,

But to proclaim

Immanuel's name,

And bid creation's light His love disclose.

NOTE ON DANIEL V. 25.

Mene, mene, TEKEL, UPHARSIN-These words, and the interpretation of them given by the holy Daniel, have caused some difficulty to the English reader.

The inscription is in the Chaldaic language, spoken Why by Belshazzar, his court and his wise men. then, it has been asked, could not these learned sages "read the writing," (ver. 8.) or indeed, why could not the king read it for himself?

Again, it is couched in three words, for the second word is merely a repetition of the first, and yet Daniel makes of it three full sentences. Is then the Chaldee language so very comprehensive as to convey these whole sentences of our own tongue, each in a single word! On the contrary it is a poor and paraphrastic language, as compared with the Hebrew, bearing much the same relation to it that the modern Italian does to the original Latin. We cannot wonder that, amid these contending difficulties, some devout but unlearned students of Scripture have concluded these awful words to be a kind of mystic charm, some incantation in an unknown tongue, which Daniel was miraculously enabled to read, as well as to interpret.

Such, however, is not the fact. The words are only Chaldee, the common language of the whole assembly who looked upon them; and, as to the mere letters, they must have known them well enough; but the