hieroglyphics of the Supreme Deity, but they came at length themselves to be thought divine, till animals and plants of all kinds were adored as true divinities, and the Roman satirist could mock the worshippers, by saying that they grew their gods in their gardens; and one of the early fathers could tell us how he went into a magnificent Egyptian temple, where, after much bowing and many solemnities on the part of the priest, he was led through rich curtains and veils to the holy place, and told he was in the presence of the god, whom he discovered in the person of an ape on the capital of one of the gorgeous pillars. In Greece and Rome the philosophers were always ready to say that they did not worship the statues of the gods, but the hidden presence of the divinity which dwelt in :hem after consecration; and even in Madagascar there is a ceremony called Prashta Paranu, which is supposed to fit an image for worship by bringing down the deity it represents to dwell in it. Yet, invariably, all this airy philosophizing is lost on the multitude, who take that to be a god which is spoken of as such, and worship the likeness as heartily as they could the reality. Antiquity is as full of miracles wrought by idols, and of their winking, sweating, and weeping on suitable occasions, as Popery used to be in England before the Reformation, and as it is still on the Continent. In the Greek church, the pictures intended at first only to teach the eye, have for ages been substituted for the faith they sought to embody, and are as much gods to the peasantry of Russia as images have been to others elsewhere. The panic that all but ruined the Russian campaign of 1812, when it was thought the French had captured the sacred picture of Smolensko, and the mad delight with which it was hailed, when carried before the army to quell the excitement, could not have been greater had the canvas been a visible appearance of God Himself. Even in the time of the Apostles, the tendency to materialize the objects of faith seems to have shown itself in its germ, in the fondness with which those who had been taught by the personal followers of our Lord appear to have cherished whatever they had learned from their teachers of His unwritten earthly life, which was but the first step towards a worship of the merely human and non-essential. The spirit of St. Paul, who had apparently seen Christ only in His glory, was wholly opposed to setting a value on these traditions of His earthly life, and led him to announce that it was not Christ after the flesh, but the risen and glorified Saviour to whom his thoughts would be directed. The first traces of likenesses of Christ are to be found among the Carpocratians, an obscure Egyptian sect of the second century, whose doctrines were so gross as to make it natural that they should seek such additions. Jesus was with them only the child of Joseph and Mary, although acknowledged as the Saviour of mankind-if, indeed, that could well be called salvation, which not only permitted, but inculcated licentiousness as the fulfilment of the laws of our nature. Tertullian tells us that Tiberius, who died only four years after the crucifixion, had already wished to put the statue of Christ among those of the deities of Rome, but was opposed by the Senate, but the story is so improbable, on many grounds, that it has no value. A truer instance of intended honour to Him, from a pagan, was that shown by the Emperor Alexander Severus, who set up His image in his private chapel, along with those of Abraham, Orpheus, and Apollonius, taking them all alike as his household gods. In the catacomb of Calixtus, on the Appian Way, at Rome, there is a well-known portrait in a large medallion, which is generally considered to represent our Lord. And in the Pontian catacombs on the Via Portuensis, there is another picture of a similar kind. Both agree with the description given in the letter of Lentulus. In this letter by Lentulus, who (though contrary to history) has been called the predecessor to Pontius Pilate in the government of Palestine, Christ is described as "a man of lofty stature, of serious and imposing countenance, in was once in existence, having been granted to the Emperor Nicephorus, who brought it from Edessa to Constantinople in the year 968. But where it is now no one knows, nor is it known whether any one below an emperor ever had a duplicate made for his benefit. spiring love as well as fear in those who | which both assert its possession. A behold Him. His hair is the colour of miraculous copy of it, made on a brick, wine (meaning, probably of a dark colour), straight, and without lustre as low as the ears, but thence glossy and curly, flowing upon the shoulders, and divided down the centre of the head, after the manner of the Nazarenes. The forehead is smooth and serene, the face without blemish, of a pleasant, slightly ruddy colour. The expression noble and engaging. Nose and mouth of perfect form; the beard abundant, and of the same colour as the hair, parted in the middle. The eyes blue and brilliant. | He is the most beautiful among the children of men." Of similar character is the description given about the middle of the eighth century, by John of Damascus, taken, as he avers, from ancient writers. "Jesus," he says, of stately height, with eyebrows that met together, beautiful eyes, regular nose, the hair of his head somewhat curling, and of a beautiful colour, with black beard and corn-yellow complexion, like his mother (on which circumstance the greatest stress is laid), with long fingers," &c. Later descriptions are more embellished, and evidently follow, in some particulars, that type of the Saviour's countenance which painters had meanwhile adopted. Augustine, how-found out in the darker ages of the ever, tells us, that in his day (A.D. 410) there were innumerable likenesses according to the fancy of those who made them, but that there was an utter ignorance of what Christ's features really had been. "was It was not to be expected, however, that the church in its growing corruption would give up an object so fitted to meet its degraded aspirations, and hence what could not be got by human means was speedily obtained by miracle. Images not made with hands began to come into vogue. In the great image controversy which began to distract the churches in the eighth century, constant reference was made to one which had been sent to King Abgarus, "an image formed by God, which the hands of men had not made." It still survives, but unfortunately it is impossible to decide between the rival claims of Genoa and Rome, Once begun, this new source of honour and profit to the church was not likely to stop. In the thirteenth century, at its commencement, Europe rang with the announcement of a likeness of Christ miraculously imprinted on the handkerchief of an ancient nun, who was hence called Veronica, that is-by a little transposition of letters-the true image. It has since still more miraculously increased to three, which are now at Iden, in Andalusia, at Milan, and Rome. St. Veronica was one of the primitive martyrs, but her handkerchief lay hidden for centuries before its treasures were discovered, and they had already been outshone by the discovery of two of the napkins of Christ that, we presume, which was at the tomb-which are now at Besançon and Turin, respectively, with Christ's portrait on them. But these miraculous likenesses were not the only memorials of the Saviour church. Strange to say, they lighted on images and paintings of Him made by his contemporaries. St. Luke, it seems, was a great painter as well as a physician. There is a picture of Christ as a boy of thirteen, by the Apostle, in the church of St. John Lateran, at Rome. At Lucca they show another, cut out of cedar wood by Nicodemus; and an account of a third, painted by no humbler a personage than the devil, and reproduced by Dupuy, in Paris, for circulation in thousands by the priests, is given in the April number of the "News of the Churches" in the last year. Like its asserted author, it bears a lie on its face, in painting Him who saw no corruption as a peeled and half-decayed corpse. It was wrested-as the letter-press beneath it avers-from the devil, by the name of Jesus having been uttered in his hearing when he had brought it as the price of a young man's soul. At the sacred sound he dropped it, and fled back without the soul to hell! Maclaurin, in his grand sermon on "Glorying in the Cross of Christ," pours over the whole subject of likenesses of Christ the light of his finished eloquence. It is surely little worth for us, who have the risen Lord, to crave a sight of His humiliation-little worth for us to wish that which we would forthwith abuse to our own injury. It was well for the Israelites when the serpent that had once saved their forefathers was bruised to | powder, when they had come to worship the brass, and forgot that it was the power of God, and not the brazen image, that had been so mighty; and it is well for us that the body is for ever veiled to us here in which our Lord lived and died, since it was not the dying human frame, but the indwelling holiness and the union with the Godhead that made Him our Redeemer. Protestants may well afford the Church of Rome all the advantage she can derive from what degrades the worshipper as much as it dishonours Christ. Admonitory Thoughts in commencing the Year. I. "WHEN I consider that yesterday was the conclusion of the last year, and that I am now entered on another, it is seasonable to reflect on the mutable condition and short duration of all things in this world which are measured by time; that, as they have their beginning, so they have their end; and that the distance or space of time between the one and the other is very little. Let me not, then, O my soul, rejoice and please myself too much in new enjoyments, remembering that a change may be at hand, and that the end is certain."-John Shower. II. "It often occurs to me, when thinking of and regretting not being permitted to see the striking scenes of this globe, how soon I shall be summoned to see things inexpressibly more striking and awful in the unknown world to which departing spirits will take their flight. May what remains of life be, above all things, devoted to the great concern of being prepared for that inevitable and marvellous flight and vision! Which of us is to go first remains yet to be seen. The one of our number that had the longest dwelt on this earth has taken the lead, and has now beheld what is infinitely beyond all mortal conception."-John Foster, to his mother. III. "There can be no greater folly than to neglect the present only season of preparing for an unavoidable time of extremity. Our Lord in the parable calls the five negligent virgins foolish. If a man throw away his estate in folly and vanity, the world will brand him with the name of a fool, and justly. If a man throw away his health and life, there is folly in that, too; but for a man to throw away his soul, and all his hopes of well-being for eternity, is the rankest of all folly; yet is the world so full of such fools, that very few give it its true name. He must be greatly plagued with blindness and stupidity that is not convinced that that is the greatest folly that shuts a man eternally out of heaven and locks him up in hell."-Trail. IV. "Stir up, O my soul, thy sincere desires and all thy faculties, to do the remnant of the work of Christ appointed thee on earth, and then joyfully wait for the heavenly perfection, in God's own time. Thou canst truly say, 'For me to live is Christ.' It is His work for which thou livest. Thou hast no other business of such moment in the world. But thou doest this work with a mixture of many oversights and imperfections, and too much troublest thy thoughts with distrust If about God's part, who never fails. thy work be done, be thankful for what is past, and that thou art come so near the port of rest. If God will add any more to thy days, serve Him with double alacrity. The prize is almost within sight. Time is swift and short. Dream not, because Christ's righteousness was perfect, that God will save the wicked, or equally reward the slothful and the diligent. As sin is its own punishment, holiness is much of its own reward. Whatever God appointeth thee to do, see that thou do t sincerely, and with all thy might."— Baxter. V. "What is past ought not to interfere with our progress, since all we have to do is to repent of our faults; and what is to come ought to affect us still less, because, with regard to us, it is not, and perhaps never will be. The present is the only time which is properly ours, and this we ought to employ according to the will of God. Here, therefore, our thoughts should principally be engaged. Yet the world is so restless, that men scarcely ever think upon the present moment, but of those which they are to live hereafter. Thus we are always living for the future, never for the present. Our Lord has cautioned us to take no thought beyond the present day. These are the limits which we ought to observe, for the sake both of our spiritual welfare and of our natural repose."-Pascal. and once the disheartening accumulations of the past are overtaken, let not that mountain of difficulty rise again."—Dr. Hamilton. VII. "One object of life should be to accumulate a great number of grand questions to be asked and resolved in eternity. We now ask the sage, the genius, the philosopher, the divine,-none can tell; but we will open our series to other respondents; we will ask angels-God."-John Foster. VIII. "The main thing in the work of God this, and every year, is devotedness. Let there be fixedness of purpose, simplicity and purity of aim, concentration of the energies. The whole soul must be engaged in the work, and interested in it. This would at once settle many irksome questions and disputed points. It would put all right instantly, and render all labour easy, pleasant, and delightful. Without this devotedness in the service of God, everything will be seriously affected, and, indeed, be radically wrong."-Anon. IX. "I must not make this too much, and too soon, a home. My cry must be, ‘Forwards, forwards!' This is not the time or place for rest, but energy."—Arnold. X. The It was a ruling principle with Dr. Arnold, that all educational and literary pursuits, as well as every other, must be subordinated by us to a clearly perceived and well-defined Christian end. house is spiritually empty so long as "the pearl of great price" is not there, though it may be hung with all the decorations of earthly knowledge. Let each reader, whatever his intellectual pursuits or his varied and incumbent engagements, remember this at the commencement, and during the progress of the current year. XI. "Delight in anything you do for God. If you take delight in your work, you will feel as a thorough gardener does in looking at his flowers. You will be enraptured with the beauty of one and the fragrance of another; with the budding of one and the unfolding of another -all that you see of progress will be a delight to you, and this feeling will lessen your labour. If teaching the young, it will help you to bear with the dulness, the obstinacy, the frivolity, and the carelessness, which you may see in some of them, and induce you to use the best efforts you can to impart instruction to them, and to fasten it on their minds. In every work of usefulness, then, delight in your work."-T. S. Guyer. XII. "How useful," remarked Lady Wortley Montague, "is early experience! without it, half of life is dissipated in correcting the errors that we have been taught to receive as indisputable truths." Every year our experience of what is excellent and valuable should be enlarging, and it should be our solicitude and prayer that all may be improved, wisely applied, and Divinely sanctified. XIII. must be efficient workmen. Ignorant, How imperfect is our present condition! What is the body now, but a dormitory for the soul to sleep in, rather than a mansion in which it may live? What is our present state, but a kind of night scene? Much of our life now, in the view of angels, must be judged as vain and unmeaning as dreams, and will appear to ourselves hereafter like the vagaries of sleep. Nothing reviewed from eternity will be deemed solid and truly valuable, but what has been connected with the service and enjoyment of God. XV. "Are you a teacher, a minister, an "My religion," observed a great man, agent in any holy and important service?"not only mounts up with wings as then be an efficient workman. Nothing the eagle, but, like that noble bird, seeks will compensate the loss of efficiency. the sun." Let that be the motto and the That any organization may accomplish its ruling sentiment of every Christian proposed results, no matter whether it reader during the current year, and every relate to a manufactory, a valuable in- succeeding one. stitution secular or religious — there Witney. T. W. Pages for the Little Ones. EMBLEMS. ARE you, my little friends, tired of emblems? If not, get your Bibles and turn to Rev. v. 5, and we will tell you what Miss Minton, Mary Jane, and Bertie found there to talk about. "Two emblems here, I think," said Mary Jane; "which shall we have this morning, Miss Minton ?" "Oh, the Lion! the Lion!" said Bertie. "Please, let us have the Lion." "Yes, we will take the Lion, because it forms such a beautiful contrast to the last emblem we had." "Ah, I remember!" said Mary Jane; "that was the Lamb, and a contrast means just the very opposite, does it not? But, Miss Minton, how can Jesus, so kind, so good, be like a cruel, savage lion ?" "You are not right to call the lion a cruel creature, my dear Mary Jane. I have read, and I believe it is true, that while the tiger will kill everything that comes in its way, the lion rarely kills unless he is hungry; and that is not being cruel. Then remember, when we use an emblem, the person or thing to which it is likened will not be like it in every point; and if we try to find out more points of resemblance than there really are, we spoil the emblem. For instance, we might say your dear grandpapa's hair is like snow, it is so beauti |