is anything in the original text with which this exposition will not harmonize. “CHRISTMAS EVANS.” This letter led to some unsympathetic criticism, and reply. Christmas Evans wrote a vindication of his former views, which may be not uninteresting to our readers, as illustrating a phase of his intellectual character. It appeared in the _Seren Gomer_ for 1822:— “MR. GOMER,—If you please, publish the following, in defence of my former letter on Romans ix. 3, and in reply to your correspondent, _Pen Tafar_. “It is admitted, on all hands, that the words in the question express the highest degree of love to the Jews. Let us, now, put the different expositions before the reader, and then let him judge which of them contains the greatest harmony and fitness; _i.e._, first, to express love to the Jews; second, the best adapted to bring about their salvation; third, the most consistent with supreme love to Christ; and fourth, within the confines of sinlessness. “1. Many learned men set forth the Apostle as having formed this desire when he was an enemy to Christ. This they maintain by tracing the word _anathema_ throughout the Greek Scriptures, and the Hebrew word _cherem_, of which it is the synonym. _Anathema_, they say, always signifies ‘without an exception,’ a separation, or devotement of a beast, a city, or something else, to irredeemable destruction (Lev. xxvii. 29). The devoted thing was not to be redeemed, but certainly to be put to death (Gal. i. 9). ‘_Let him be accursed_,’ says Paul of the angel that would preach another gospel. ‘If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be _anathema maranatha_,’ ‘accursed when the Lord cometh.’ But who _can_ believe that this is the meaning of the word in the passage before us? I say, with Dr. Gill, ‘This never can be the signification.’ What probability is there that Paul would swear, calling Jesus Christ to witness, to his ancient enmity against Him? This was notorious enough throughout the whole country. No asseveration was necessary to prove _Paul’s persecuting spirit_. “Again, how could that which he formerly had been, prove, he now having denied himself, his old persecuting spirit, and, being deeply ashamed on the account, prove his present love to the Jews? How did his former love to Satan prove his present love to the Jews?