Classical Theology. —V.

prevent him from partaking of ifc . But Ad am , with his eyes su . pernalurally opened , had beheld ifc ; and we know in what way ifc has been typified as "the branch ; " "tho vine ; " and the " bread of life ; " our first par ents , to their sorrow , gained a full knowledge of ifc . There were three influential sects among the Jews—the

Sadducees , who believed in no spirit or resurrection ; the Pharisees , who professed the doctrine of spirits , and the last day ' s rising again and judgment ; and lastly , the Essenes , of which persuasion ive feel assured the apostles were , and almost all those Jews who early embraced Christianity . These believed in the immortality of the souland of the

, resurrection of the dead , ofthe unjust as well of the just , in like manner as does the Christian . Essenism and Christianit y have become , in fact , united—for Christ himself was an Essene , in his conformity to their ordinances as a Jew . He wished all Jews and all mankind to be like what he

was with respect to his commandments ; even as a Son of God . Is it human nature for one brother to forgive another brother seventy times seven , if ho says he repents 1 Or if we are smitten on one cheek do we give the other ? Nay , do we unto others what wo would they should do unto us 1 If we have not done so , why should wc grumble that this state of things has not come to pass—or expect any other

state of things so promised , so to happen as if wc had done those things 1- Some may sneer , but this state of things is devoutly to be wished for . Nearly two thousand years has it taken to Immunize us with the leaven of Christiauism , and to make us a little better than we were ; but we may gratefully say , that at

length we can show some evidence of progress . It is but a few years back that human beings were imbrutalized at the demoralizing halberts , by the sentence of five thousand lashes —a blood-bestained immolation—while , for a pennyworth of purloined cabbage sprouts , Q-nstar omnium , ) they were hung up by the neck , at the rate of a round dozen per week . Hanging also may lie condemned altogether , under the hypothesis ,

( fanciful or well founded ) that the soul of a murderer is an unclean spirit , that will find somewhere , ( who can tell where ?) a " garnished " habitation for itself . Here , say the advocates of this hypothesis , wo perceive that the ego , or ille i pse , by which is meant the idiosyncrasy , or personal identit y , in the spirit , is no other than an evil thing , which has never

been purified by repentance , or otherwise ameliorated by the spirit of prayer , nor by any exorcism , modified or corrected . So foul and unwashed a tenant savours of soot and damage . I-Iowbeit , let none faint ; we are glad to agree with those ancient brethren in their investigation of the fathers , who said . that " the greater the saint tho more haunted by the devil But this

. " , even were wo to add , " from the time of the righteous Job pleading his cause , to that of the hol y St . Peter weeping for his offence , " would still be too paradoxical an anomaly , did it not include ,-i meaning of an aimgogetical nature and foreshadow an Almi ghty precognition . As the high priest for over after the order of Melchizedec- , Christ ivas a Freemason , we know b y his symbols as well as by his words . Our glorious brotherhood can understand these things ; but there arc those with the Bible before them

—those pages they dare not gainsay—who will indirectl y assert that the age of supernatural occurrences has passed ; there is no longer such a dispensation as hearing by the ear , and seeing with the eye , what is not palpable . ' By most people such ideas are termed hallucinations . Now , with regard to heaven , our view is not the old Greek idea of El what is

ysium ; nor so much like ifc as almost to be mistaken for the same , the idea of paradise , wliich too many Europeans conceive . Wc pray , "Thy kingdom come on earth ns it is in heaven "—that heaven wherein the morninostars sang together , and all the Sons of God shouted for joy " to see the foundations of the earth laid , or the comer stone thereof ;'' literally ours is the starry heaven . It has been thought b y some that until the . Sabaoth ... f

Classical Theology. —V.

salvation or day of judgment , when there will be no more souls to save , and we shall all rest from our labours , the angelic host themselves will not be free from care , anxiety and toil . We are told in Zechariah , that the angel or tho Lord had to contend with Satan over the body of Joshua , and likewiseas it is written in the epistle of Judethe

Arch-, , angel Michael had to dispute with the devil about the bod y of Moses . All through the Scriptures , from the time of Lot at his threshold to the blood sweat hour of the Passion , there is the relation of the painful and terrible work ofthe angels . The personage called Satan is described as having his work ; but where his work is he knows like Sisyphus he is

condemned to labour in vain ; so be it—the brand is not for our burning . This Satan we are told has contended with the Most Holy from the creation of the world with God to tho ending thereof with Christ . Some men there are , it cannot be doubted , who do not like social morality and who see nothing but puerile weakness

in religious belief . We are instructed by the famous Phrygian philosopher iEsop , who rendered histories into fables because he dared not write iu plainer language— " The frogs , under the government of a gracious ruler , wished to be thought more than frogs—full of peace and pride they forgot what they were and the careful watch over them of

King Log : in fine , they petitioned Jupiter for another sort of king . " We all know how justly he sent them a crane ivhieh swallowed them up alive . But , we must return from this long digression , and endeavouring to make ourselves clearly ancl truthfully understoodwe will consider the origin of Jupiter ancl the first

, cause of idolatry in connection with what we believe to be the truthful record of the history of Cain and his sons , and of Ham and his sons ; which of course comprises the subject of the first and second peopling of the world . ( To be continued . )

Eikon Baeiaikh.

EIKON BAEIAIKH .

IT has been shown that fche rise of architecture was coincident with the earliest wants of the human race . The period however embraced between the decline of the nomadic habits of the first tribes and the settlement of men in communities within walled towns , comprised an inconceivable variety of changeswhichthough contributing largely to a final result ,

, , were themselves short lived . If a tribe or tribes migrated towards the equator , it is likely that the forms which nature presented to their eye , and by its means impressed vividly upon the mind , would be those with which they would adorn their abodes , and from which they would take their standard of the beautiful or the sublime . As men penetrated

northwards , the outlines of nature suggested combinations altogether different ; and between these extremes lay the sources of inexhaustible modifications . We can imagine the thoug ht's of an inhabitant of the desert who comes into an oriental grove abounding in palms , tamarind and orange trees , through wliich peer gorgeous flowers , interlaced in wonderful wood

fantastic yet graceful fashion , as by the hand of a nymph , and to whose touch falls the ripe fruit , whose jmce is like nectar to his parched tongue . Nor is ifc more difficult to realize the feelings of liini who , fresh from tin ' tents ancl flocks of his people , lias ventured due north . To him the black mountaintopped b thousand innacles far

, y a p , as the eye can discern , and through which glitter the countless gems of the aurora borcalis ; the lake upon whose frozen border the solitary reindeer browses , and in whose bosom the glory of the northern heavens are reproduced , the scream of tiie engle , the bark of the wild dog , and the melancholy voice of the bittern—must bo things and sounds to take n

form and shape in the mind . There can be little doubt that the spirit which directs fcho emio-ration in either of these cases , is indicative of the em which Avil ! in cither case bo attained . The reveller in his