ters, on whose behalf the information was filed, in the northern district, over which the benefits of the charity extended, was upwards of 3000 in number, while the individuals in the same district who were ministers of the Kirk of Scotland were 59, and those belonging to the Secession Church only 40."

On the other hand it was claimed, that "the accidental predominance of numbers" had nothing to do with the question; and that neither had "the Seceders who had petitioned any connexion except in unity of faith with the United Secession Church of Scotland," nor were "the orthodox Presbyterian Dissenters who had also petitioned any farther identified or connected with the Establishment of Scotland than holding a communion of faith and general system of church government with her, but deriving no emolument from, and subject to none of her control." Our readers would feel little interest, though they might find entertainment, in the arguments of the several parties. The Court deferred a decision till after a more careful examination of the merits of the case.

IRISH UNITARIANS.-In a late number (Miscellany viii. 128) we noticed the decision of the Irish Court of Chancery, excluding Unitarians of the South of Ireland from the benefit of certain trust funds which they had enjoyed for many years. From a paragraph in the Bible Christian it appears that similar proceedings have been productive of like results in the North of Ireland, in depriving Unitarians of church property which they had held for a long period. We admire the spiri: which the members of the deprived congregation manifested, in the erection of another house of worship in a single week.

"In consequence of the recent decision of the Court of Exchequer, the congregation occupying the Killinchy Presbyterian meeting-house for nearly one hundred and fifty years, have been compelled to quit it, and to construct a temporary wooden building for their accommodation, until they can procure means of erecting a suitable edifice. This place of worship was opened on Sunday, 29th January, and a most eloquent and impressive sermon was preached on the occasion by the Rev. Dr. Montgomery. The collection, which was made to defray the expense incurred in the formation of the new structure, amounted to upwards of seventy pounds. A great many gentlemen were present-among whom were many Orthodox Presbyterians and Roman Catholics--from Belfast, and the towns in the neighborhood of Killinchy. A number of the respectable Unitarian farmers residing in the district entertained, at dinner-parties, many of the strangers who had come from a distance. The building, which is capable of accommodating seven hundred persons, was erected in one week; a fact which is attributable to the enthusias tic exertions of the congregation, Several donations were received from members of the established and other churches, who were unable to attend."

OUR faith in immortality will be clear and satisfactory, or uncertain and vague, according to the view we have of the spiritual world. Faith sometimes has almost the assurance of vision; it is when the objects and images of the future life stand out with boldness and clearness of outline, when we not only believe in immortality, but know something of its modes of being and the laws of spiritual existence. The world to come lies before us" like a realm a-glow," and we live perpetually under the influences which come stealing over our souls from those blessed domains, filling the bosom with tranquillity and joy, giving peace to the dying man whose brow seems already to be fanned with the airs of Paradise. The Christian world, it may be feared, have as yet the grossest conceptions concerning the resurrection of the dead and the scenes of retribution that lie beyond. We are surprised to find in a work so popular as The Great Teacher the notion of a material resurrection insisted on, and the final judgment described in all the turgid language and false imagery which we supposed had ceased to act on the minds of reflecting men. It is of vast consequence that the common idea upon this subject be elevated and spiritualized, for gross conceptions of the nature of atonement, of

heaven and hell, of the laws of retribution, are intimately connected with degrading errors respecting the resurrection of the dead. Let me ask the reader's attention to the following inquiries. In what is the spiritual state after death distinguished from the material state before death?

How and when are human beings changed from one state to the other?

Mere speculation on such questions as these would be of little avail. The subject presents itself simply as a matter of interpretation;-what is the spiritual philosophy set forth by the writers of the New Testament? The object of this article will be to educe their meaning by careful and fair exposition.

It must be obvious however that these questions, pertaining as they do rather to the philosophy of Christianity, than to Christianity as a system of morals, are not to be solved from the New Testament records with the directness which belongs to questions of practical duty or general doctrine. They may be answered nevertheless not less surely, but by a more extended comparison of Scripture with Scripture. The general doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is taught directly and explicitly, and we have only to quote chapter and verse in order to prove it; but how the dead are raised, is a question of spiritual philosophy and requires a careful collation of texts. The general doctrine of a future judgment appears in the whole current of Scripture testimony; but how the laws of retribution are to operate, is a question which brings us into a higher region of inquiry. Here we must search the whole Scripture in connexion, and reason must have a freer range.

There are only three possible conceptions of the future state; only three possible theories which can be applied to it. The first is that of materialism, and is maintained in common by Orthodox writers and by Unitarians of the Priestleyan school. At some future crisis which shall determine the destinies of the human race the bodies of all mankind—according to this theory-will be raised from their literal graves. As described in Orthodox creeds this material resurrection is preceded by the outward coming of the Son of Man, and followed by the conflagration of the world and the destruction of the wicked in everlasting fire.

Waiving all objections to this theory on the score of reason and philosophy, we ask simply, is it taught in the Bible? We say at once, it is not. We read here and there of a resurrection of the dead, but we never read of a resurrection of the body.* We say there is not a particle of evidence in support of doctrines which have been urged with so much terrific declamation upon the minds of men. There is a singular absence of any word to express the idea of a material resurrection in the texts which are usually quoted to prove it. Even the text in Daniel xii. 2 (which we think has no reference to this subject) says nothing of a resurrection of the body: nor does the Saviour in the celebrated passage, John v. 28, 29. In the absence of all such testimony we dismiss the theory for the present.

There are some who reject this theory of the future life as gross and sensual, but who nevertheless have nothing positive and substantial to substitute in its place. They deny the existence of an outward hell or a material heaven, and this is about all. True, they speak of a troubled conscience or a heaven of moral purity. But farther than this they have nothing to affirm; all is doubt and speculation. There will be something after death which is called retribution but what will be its mode of existence, is a question, which they answer only by saying it will not be material.

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Of this theory of negations it is sufficient now to say, that it leaves nothing clear and definite in reference to the spiritual world. Futurity, if not a blank, is only a realm of shadow and twilight. All is dim and unsubstantial, as to the Heathen imagination were those ghostly regions of the dead where the shades of heroes wandered and flitted like shapes of air. Yea, more so. For talk as much as we may about conscience and love and reason, this theory can give them no impersonation, and they exist only abstractedly as general principles of spiritual being. Christianity is left without a Pneumatology. Faith cannot lay hold upon the life to come, for it has nothing to represent it. It has only a dim perception of disembodied feelings and ideas. Philosophize as we will, neither the heart nor the intellect can ever be satisfied with this. The imagination, interdict it as you may, will have something to rest upon,

* Our friend will pardon us for asking the reader to take this language in the sense required by the subsequent remarks. ED. MISC.

unless the future be conceived of as void of all conscious being. Indeed I believe a cold skepticism as to all spiritual realities is the legitimate result to which this theory is constantly tending. One of three things we must do,-cease to think of the future life altogether, or suffer the imagination to run wild amidst the sensualities of an outward paradise, or rise to conceptions more bold and clear on the one hand and more pure and spiritual on the other.

It is quite easy for the mind to apprehend that matter is not the only species of body-that there are other kinds of substance than earthly substance, and a higher organization than the material. It is quite easy for the imagination to present to itself a world of realities more bright and substantial than this, yet not to be perceived by the bodily senses, any more than sound is to be heard by the touch or light perceived by the tongue. Nay, farther, we may conceive that this world of higher realities is in the very midst of this world of matter, and that the latter is but the garment and outshadowing of the former. Just as the blind man on receiving his sight is introduced without locomotion into a new world of beauty and glory, so we may have within us a faculty, though not yet opened and brought into exercise, which shall one day give a new realm of existence to our higher vision.

This is revelation. It is precisely what Paul labors through a whole chapter (1 Corinth. xv.) to enforce. "There are bodies celestial, and bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." As terrestrial bodies differ from each other, some excelling the rest in beauty and glory, so is there another kind of body more excellent than them all. God's energies are not exhausted in creating one kind of substance. "All flesh is not the same flesh; but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. * * * There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars." Then carry forward the analogy so as to include substances such as we have not yet known" so also is the resurrection of the dead. * *It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body."

Paul labors from the 35th verse to the end of the chapter to establish this philosophy of the future life, and to prove a kind of body belonging to that life which cannot be asserted of this.