dwindle into insignificance, or altogether disappear. The force of our plea could scarcely present itself more strongly. The Scriptures themselves constitute the great battle-field of the argument affecting a Divine Revelation. The question is decided in the minds of thousands, on considerations drawn from _the Scriptures themselves_,—in virtue, that is, of their own credentials, and not on the elaborate speculations or ingenious apologies of (assumed) interested advocates. A more direct and forcible evidence is required for men in no ecclesiastical position to forestall opinion, and with little time or ability to enter into abstruse and recondite arguments. The ordinary books of evidences, however effective _concurrently_ with the evidence furnished by Scripture itself (and in this way they are—many of them—doubtless exceedingly useful), are not _alone_, and, in the absence of such corroboration, calculated to produce the evidence that is desired to rebut the counter arguments to which human nature in its infirmity is assailed. It requires the re-assuring voice of God himself to give the requisite confidence and satisfaction. Hence we have sufficiently indicated the field to which our labours may be most successfully directed while endeavouring to establish and diffuse, in their most telling and cogent form, the evidences of the Christian faith. Moreover, a competent knowledge of Biblical erudition would, under the new conditions of the Holy Books, be no longer so costly or onerous as at present. Truly, this is a great desideratum. The mass of reading now required to peruse Scripture with due edification and interest is altogether beyond the leisure of the busy, or the means of the less affluent: and to be doomed to hopeless ignorance of so much enlightenment as is symbolized in the goodly tomes that meet the eye on every side, devoted to the elucidation of Holy Writ, is by no means satisfactory. With this partial distribution of spiritual advantages, the Christian Church seems drifting away from its fundamental basis of _universality_, and,—in the very spirit and wake of heathenism,—abetting and consecrating the principle of an esoteric and exoteric school—a pet and a common class of disciples—the one furnished with all the erudition—the prime secrets and witcheries of knowledge—the other abandoned to the merest generalities, a sorry heap of prejudices, or at best a dubious and insufficient light. But however this be, certain it is there is now available a vast amount of Biblical lore of no mean value, and which no good Christian would willingly forego, that is all but sealed to the bulk of the Christian world. {30} The publication of Scripture on the principles we advocate would go far to remedy the evil. The beautiful emendations of the Sacred text that are now scattered over a wide waste of territory, and all but lost, would be garnered up, and made available for common use. The occasional criticisms of Archbishop Whately, for