Dr. Payne, in his preliminary lecture, discusses the question of sovereignty, and endeavours to show that there is a difference between supremacy and sovereignty. By the former punishment is inflicted, by the latter good. If by sovereingty we mean that God has absolute power to do whatsoever He pleases, then it will comprehend the penalty of transgression, as well as the bestowment of good. And this, as we apprehend, is the correct view of the case. The Divine sovereignty being one of the main pillars of his system, Dr. Payne gives various illustrations of it. (1.) He instances the varied mental powers bestowed on men. He says, "The mind of one man is marked by infantile weakness, of another by a giant's strength. Nothing can elevate the former, nothing permanently depress and overpower the latter. . . . In the case of certain persons, the reasoning powers preponderate; in that of others, the imagination. One man has little judgment, but an exuberant fancy. Another has received the gift of a piercing intellect; but if it be clear as a frosty night, it is also as cold. A third is all impetuosity and fire, but it is a fire that scorches and consumes everything that comes in its way. We can account for these diversities by the principle of sovereignty alone. God 'divideth to every man severally as He will,' 'He giveth none account of these matters,' 'He has a right to do what He will with His own.'" Now, we do not question God's right to do what He will with His own, but is this difference in mental calibre purely an arbitrary act? Has brain, nerve, habit, nothing to do with the case? and marriage? and education? Look at the biographies of prominent men, and what do we find? Much depends evidently on the mother, as in the case of Bacon, Erskine, Brougham, Cromwell, Canning, Byron. The last-mentioned, writing of himself, says, that his "springs of life were poisoned." His mother was a most passionate woman, and is reported to have died of a fit of ill-nature at the sight of her upholsterer's bills. The possession, then, of talent is not purely arbitrary, but dependent on parentage, training, surroundings. There was one question, indeed, which would have upset the whole of these illustrations. It was this:--Whence comes insanity? It would never be contended that God made some individuals insane and others sane, by a merely arbitrary act. We find, in hundreds of instances, that it is hereditary. One observer considers that six-sevenths of the cases arise from this one cause. When, then, Dr. Payne quotes the words, "He giveth none account of these things," we ask, is it so? Has He not written His mind in the providence around us? Let certain habits be encouraged, certain marriages entered into, and we require no ghost to rise and tell us what the issue will be. God is telling it to us every day. Departure on the part of parents from organic laws entails misery, even to imbecility, on the children. We do not,