Nemesis or Retribution.

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quiries, Philological and Critical," in which the general conclusions arrived at are thus expressed:

That the afflictions of this life, however they may be overruled in favour of the good, so as to become the instruments of eternal blessedness, are primarily chastisement for sin, agreeably to that famous maxim, Nisi peccata non flagella."

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That retribution is not less apparent in the New Testament than in the Old, among pagans than the believers in revelation.

That probably every transgression, whether committed by the righteous or the wicked, the penitent or the impenitent, is punished in a greater or less degree in this life, whether by the positive infliction of evil, or the negation of good. At least, there is no record in Scripture of any grave offence against the law, moral or divine, without the record also of its chastisement. But if there were many, the mere omission would not impugn the truth of the doctrine; for as the holiness of God cannot change, his judicial administration must be in constant activity. That according to the magnitude of the transgression, so varies the punishment, from the tremendous penalty of excision in the midst of sin to the mildest forms of visitation, but that since both generally fall within the ordinary course of human experience, they pass unobserved.

That in public visitations, while the impenitent are crushed, an opening is made for the escape of the righteous and those disposed to become righteous; or at any rate, the evil is in some way overruled in their favour.

That when chastisement is not thus overruled, but is permitted to afflict the penitent, that permission is for a gracious purpose. Thus it led David to repentance, and perfected the holiness of Job; it became salvation to Manasseh, and equally so to Nebuchadnezzar; while to the impenitent, it is not merely a judgment, but a curse, often involving utter destruction. Thus it proved to Pharaoh and to Ahab, to Ahaziah and Belshazzar. Afflictions, therefore, being to the former evidence of the Divine love,-designed to purify from the remaining corruptions within, and to render meet for "the inheritance of the saints in light," -should be welcomed not only with gratitude but with joy. In many cases they are a privilege as well as a blessing: "For unto you it is given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake."

That there are afflictions which bring with them more joy than sorrow. What Christian deserving of the name has not felt the keen thorns of repentance? And who that has felt them, would exchange them for the most exquisite of worldly pleasures?

That though we read much in the New Testament of the sufferings of Christ's followers, as if they were inseparable from the profession of Christianity, by far the greater portion of them must be attributed to times of peculiar trial, when the Jews passed from country to country to move the Gentiles against the new converts, rather than to the inevitable lot of the Christian in every age and country. In ordinary times, he has all the advantages of the worldling, and many of which the worldling never dreamed. Eternal truth assures us that "godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come."

That unless we could read the heart, and comprehend in all its details the moral state of a man-whether affliction is likely to harden or improve him-we cannot tell whether any special manifestation of it be designed in judgment or in mercy. Owing, however, to the mixed

N

character of every human being, we may safely assume that it generally partakes in a greater or less degree of both. We have sinned, and therefore we are punished: we often sigh after greater purity, and therefore the very chastisement is made instrumental to that effect.

It should, however, be added that although the author of the above work has exhibited in it much learning and critical acumen, his reasoning is, in many cases, based upon bold alterations of the authorized version of the Scriptures which will be much questioned by scholars.

Nemesis, in the Greek mythology, is a female divinity, who appears to have been regarded as the personification of the righteous anger of the gods. Herodotus was deeply impressed with an ever-present Nemesis, which allows no man to be very happy, or long happy with impunity. It has also been described as a degree of good fortune sure to draw down ultimately corresponding intensity of suffering from the hands of the envious gods. Or, in other words, it is that every-day presentiment which forebodes suffering or evil as sure to follow any piece of good fortune.

Mr. J. A. St. John, in his able work, The Nemesis of Power, interprets Nemesis as "the personification of Justice, and as, therefore, engaged equally in rewarding and in punishing. Her movements are slow, but irresistible; and she is ever at work in human society, ensuring ultimate triumph to the Good, and perdition to the Wicked. She may be regarded, therefore, as the inseparable attendant on Power, to uphold and encourage it when exercised for the benefit of mankind, to repress and chastise it when perverted to their injury or destruction."

REPRESENTATIONS OF "THE DEVIL."

The devil, as he has been commonly depicted, is a form of a composite character, chiefly derived from the classical superstitions of Greece and Rome.

The devil, as usually described, and still in magic lantern exhibitions portrayed, is cloven-footed and horned, tailed and black, and carries a pitchfork which corresponds with the two-pronged sceptre of Pluto, King of Hell. Mythologists make the important distinction, that the sceptre of Neptune, indeed, was a trident, or had three teeth; but the sceptre of Pluto had only two. Not only his pitchfork but his blackness, the devil owes to Pluto; who, from his disadvantageous position beneath the surface, is named Jupiter niger, the black Jupiter. (Sen.) Cf. “ atri janua Ditis," (Virg.), "nigri regia cæca dei,” (Ov.)

The tail, horns, and cloven feet of the evil one are due to the Greek satyri, and to their equivalents, the Roman fauni. These, as we all know, had horns, and tails, and cloven feet. But be it

Picture of Hell.-Utter Darkness.

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borne in mind, as a connecting link, that the word rendered "satyrs," in the Old Testament, has by some been understood to signify demons or devils. (Is. xiii. 21'; xxxiv. 13.) Hence the confusion of the attributes.

Considering the many fearful representations of Satanic power which we find in Scripture, does it not signally indicate the influence of folk-lore, and the abiding operation of popular tradition, when we thus find our worst enemy known vernacularly to this day rather as the embodiment of bygone superstitions, than as a spiritual adversary, not to be combatted save by weapons drawn from the Christian armoury ?-Notes and Queries, 2nd S. No. 201. In the year 1739, there appeared in England a translation from the French of a Jesuit, Bougeant, entitled A Philosophical Amusement upon the Language of Beasts. Bougeant was sent to the prison of La Flèche for publishing this work, but was soon released. His theory is, that the soul of every living animal, man excepted, is a devil: every fly, every locust, every oyster, every infusorium, is animated by a devil. He admits transmigration, or the number of evil spirits in his system would be perfectly bewildering,

The personality and existing power of Satan seem to be very much lost sight of in the present day, though plainly declared in Scripture, which always represents him as being now at large, as Prince of the power of the air," while the current tradition has him now bound in Hell, into which he is to be cast at a time yet future, according to the testimony of all Scripture. People are thus put off their guard against his wiles, and led captive by him at his will.-See, on this subject, generally, a very valuable lecture delivered to a Society in Cork, by the Rev. M. Chester, Vicar of Ballyclough, Mallow-and an Essay by Mr. Maitland, of Gloucester, on the same subject.-Note to Truths for the Times: On the Intermediate State. By the Rector of Clonmore. 1860.

PICTURE OF HELL.-UTTER DARKNESS.

Cowley, in his Davideis, book i. sings:

Beneath the silent chambers of the earth,
Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth,
Where he the growth of fatal gold does see,
Gold which above more influence has than he;
Beneath the dens where unfletcht tempests lie,
And infant winds their tender voices try,
Beneath the mighty ocean's wealthy caves,
Beneath the eternal fountain of all waves,

Where their vast court the mother-waters keep,
And undisturb'd by moons in silence sleep,"

*To give a probable reason of the perpetual supply of waters to fountains, it is necessary to establish an abyss or deep gulf of waters,

There is a place deep, wondrous deep, below,
Which genuine night and horror does o'erflow;
No bound controls th' unwearied space, but Hell,
Endless as those dire pains that in it dwell.*
Here no clear glimpse of the Sun's lovely face
Strikes through the solid darkness of the place;
No dawning morn does her kind reds display;

One slight weak beam would here be thought the day.

In a previous Ode-The Plagues of Egypt-Cowley has this passage upon the fate of Pharaoh :

What blindness or what darkness did there e'er
Like this undocil King's appear?

What e'er but that which now does represent,
And paint the crime out in the punishment.
From the deep baleful caves of hell below,+
Where the old mother Night does grow,

into which the sea discharges itself, as rivers do into the sea, all which maintain a perpetual circulation of water, like that of blood in a man's body; for to refer the originality of all fountains to condensation, and afterwards dissolution of vapours upon the earth, is one of the most unphilosophical opinions in all Aristotle. And this abyss of waters is very agreeable to the Scriptures. Jacob blesses Joseph with the blessings of the heavens above, and with the blessings of the deep beneath; that is, with the dew and rain of heaven, and with the fountains and rivers that arise from the deep; and Esdras, conformably to this, asks, what habitations are in the heart of the sea, and what veins in the root of the abyss? So at the end of the Deluge, Moses says that God stopt the windows of heaven, and the fountains of the abyss.

And undisturb'd by moons in silence sleep. For I suppose the moon to be the principal if not the sole cause of the ebbing and flowing of the sea, but to have no effect upon the waters that are beneath the sea itself.

* This must be taken in a poetical sense; for else, making Hell to be in the centre of the earth, it is far from infinitely large or deep; yet, on my conscience, wherever it be, it is not so strait, as that crowding and sweating should be one of the torments of it, as is pleasantly fancied by Bellarmin. Lessius, in his book De Morib. Divinis, as if he had been there to survey it, determines the diameter to be just a Dutch mile. But Ribera, (upon and out of the Apocalypse,) allows Pluto a little more elbow-room, and extends it to 1,600 furlongs, that is 200 Italian miles. Virgil, (as good a divine for this matter as either of them,) says, it is twice as deep as the distance betwixt heaven and earth. Hesiod is more moderate. Statius puts it very low, but he is not so punctual in the distance: he finds out a hell beneath the vulgar one, which Eschylus mentions also. The Scripture terms it Utter Darkness. The room in St. James's Palace, formerly appropriated to the game of Hazard, was remarkably dark, and conventionally called by the inmates of the palace, "Hell"; whence, and not as generally supposed, from their own demerits, the term became applied to gaming-houses generally.

Chap. v. 21. Even darkness that may be felt. The Vulgar, Tam densa (tenebra) ut palpari queant. Whether this darkness was really in the air, or only in their eyes, which might be blinded for the time;

The Wheel of Eternal Punishment.

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Substantial Night, that does declaim

Privation's empty name,

Through secret conduits monstrous shapes arose,
Such as the Sun's whole force could not oppose,
They with a solid cloud

All heaven's eclipsed face did shroud.

Seem'd with large wings spread o'er the sea and earth,
To brood up a new chaos his deformed birth.

And every lamp and every fire,

Did at the dreadful sight wink and expire,

To the empyrean source all streams of light seem'd to retire.
The living men were in their standard houses buried;

But the long night no slumber knows,
But the short death finds no repose.

Ten thousand terrors through the darkness fled,
And ghosts complain'd, and spirits murmured;
And fancie's multiplying sight

View'd all the scenes invisible of night.

THE WHEEL OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT.

As the wicked (says Drexelius,) delight to consume their days in a circle of pleasure, God will appoint them a circle, but it shall be a circle of torments, which will never have an end. This was foretold by holy David: “Thine arrows," says he, "went abroad; the voice of thunder was heard round about." (Ps. lxxvii. 17, 18.) Famine, war, pestilence, disease, calamities, death, and all other afflictions, under which we often languish in this life, are the arrows of the Lord; these, however, soon fly over us; they swiftly pass from one another; but the voice of His thunder, the voice of His anger and heavy displeasure, like a wheel that is always in motion, shall sound about the infernal regions from everlasting to everlasting.*

or whether a suspension of light from the act of illumination in that country; or whether it were by some black, thick, and damp vapour which possessed the air; it is impossible to determine. I fancy that the darkness of hell below, which is called Utter Darkness, arose, and overshadowed the land; and I am authorised by the Wisdom of Solomon, chap. xvii. v. 14, where he calls it as Night that came upon them out of the bottom of inevitable hell; and, therefore, was the more proper to be (as he says after) as an image of that darkness which should afterwards receive them.

Hence the mythological fable of the punishment of Ixion, the son of Phlegyas, King of Thessaly, who treacherously murdered his fatherin-law. For this crime he was abhorred and shunned by the neighbouring princes, when Jupiter, from pity, took him up to heaven. Provoked at his ingratitude and criminality, the sovereign of Olympus struck him to Tartarus by lightning, and ordered Mercury to tie him with serpents to a wheel, which, turning continually round, rendered his punishment eternal:

Ixion and Pirithous I could name,

And more Thessalian chiefs of mighty fame.
Dryden's Virgil.