JEWISH BELIEF IN GOD, AND EXPOSITION OF THE

"ANGEL" OF SCRIPTURE.

(Concluded from page 500.)

BERKELEY'S opinion is, that sensations can never be even copies of the real objects which produce them. An affection of the mind cannot be a copy of anything resembling mind. He inquires, Can a picture in the mind and a material landscape be the same, or even a likeness of the landscape? Nothing can be perceived but ideas, and how can that which is sensible be like that which is insensible? And how can a real outward thing, which is invisible, be like the sensation of color, or any real thing not perceived, be like the sensation of sound; can anything be like a sensation, but a sensation?

Hume insists, that impressions made by the senses, and ideas, which are permanent copies of these impressions, constitute the whole with which we are acquainted. The slightest philosophy teaches, that nothing can be present to the mind but an image, or perception; and that the senses are only inlets through which the images of things are conveyed, and by which perception is originated. All philosophers agree that we do not see the external body, and that the immediate object of perception must be some image present to the mind.

Dugald Stuart contends, that all must agree we do not perceive externals immediately and of themselves. What is present to the soul, the soul only knows; the soul needs no ideas for perceiving these; and with regard to things without the soul, we cannot perceive them but by ideas. Ideas do not make bodies visible, nor does the perception of ideas represent or make known anything as the physical cause of our ideas. Perception is the first and most simple art of the mind, whereby it perceives its own ideas.

Rohault is of opinion, that all a man knows is within himself. All knowledge comes to us by the senses, and exists only within us; it consists in our own sensations, and these comprise everything we know, and which are altogether but sensible effects. Bare perception is not sufficient to convince us the thing itself exists. Our reasoning proves no more than that things without us may possibly exist.

Gassendi and Hobbes lay it down as fundamentally true, that there is not a single object of the understanding, but what is resolvable into sensible effects.

Kant denies that the mind is capable of knowing anything of what outward bodies really are. All we imagine to be, is not really so; we make it so.

Richerand observes, in vain were the organs of sense laid open to impressions of surrounding objects, in vain were the nerves fitted for their office of transmission-these impressions were to us useless, or as if they had never been, if there were not provided a seat of consciousness in the brain. It is there the sensation is felt. Light, sound, odor, and taste, are not felt by the organs of sense. The sensitive centre it is which sees and hears, smells and tastes. Sensations, in which all our perception of objects consists, are but modifications of our being. Doctor Clarke maintains, that without being present to the mind, even the images of things could not be perceived.

Sir Isaac Newton asks, Is not the sensorium the place where the sentient subject is present, and to which the sensible species of things is brought through the nerves and brain to be perceived by the mind in that place.

Such are the opinions of some of the most exalted characters of the Gentiles, who have made the philosophy on perception their noble study through life. They all agree, that the mind alone perceives as it is excited by the senses; that its perceptions are of its own nature; and consequently, such as externals of a material nature cannot resemble.

On the authority, moreover, of the above great luminaries of mankind, we are led to the conclusion, that besides the infinite difference which exists between the perfection of God the Creator, and that of all created beings, there is still a more essential difference between the nature of His and of their existence. The former is self-sufficient for its reality, and needs not to be perceived by another being to be true; but is real for all beings, even when not perceived by them, as their existence depends entirely on His; whereas, all other beings, material and immaterial, have a real existence for those beings only who are able to perceive them.

XXI. After the above preliminary demonstrations, we are now enabled briefly to illustrate the manner of the communication of God to all prophets, Moses excepted, and clearly to show the meaning of the word "The angel of the Lord," occurring in numerous pas

sages of the Bible; from which it seems that not only the prophets, to whom the angel of the Lord appeared, have styled Him by the name of God and worshiped Him as such, but even the Scripture itself calls that angel by the name ". These passages of the Bible are the chief armory from which the believers of a plurality in the Godhead have, for ages long gone by, selected their weapons to fight the battle of error against the believers in the unity of God. We have not, they still say (sometimes with a real belief in the Bible), any other guide in religion but the unerring Word of God; and this expressly tells us that the "Messenger" is God; now, as the Messenger must have been sent by another person, it is evident that there is in the Godhead more than one person; and as there are surely two, there may as well be three persons. These passages will now, we trust, be satisfactorily explained to all those who sincerely wish to know the truth. XXII. I have above demonstrated, that the perception of all proph ets, Moses excepted, and their communion with God, was by means of their natural senses; I have also shown that no impossibilities can come under the denomination of religious belief, even if such a belief should be demanded of a man by God Himself. Now, as the Supreme Being in His infinity and perfection can by no means be perceived by the senses of man, his communion with Him could not possibly be otherwise effected, than by the Almighty in His power descending from His height, to accommodate Himself to man with whom He deigned to commune, as a medium fitted to his senses, and to convey to his mind the idea and consciousness of His Divine presence. This was not done by the Almighty undergoing any change or metamorphosis, either in place (since He is everywhere Himself) or in His formless being, by taking upon Himself a similitude of a finite corporeal being which must be extended or limited in space in order to be perceived; for this is as little possible for the Almighty to do as to annihilate His own being; but the medium by which God conveyed to the prophet the idea of His presence, was the image of a person visible to the senses of the prophet, standing before him, and imparting to him a prophetic conviction of the presence of God. The person thus seen by the prophet is called "The Messenger, or delegate of the Lord," of whom God says, "My name is in him;" that is, he represents myself. Let us consider, what idea the prophet had on perceiving that 5. Convinced on the one hand of the impossibility of the Almighty becoming so metamorphosed as to be limited in space, or incarnate in shape and form; and, on the other hand, by a prophetic

sense also fully convinced, that the person visible to him, stood there in the capacity of God; he could not reconcile these opposing convictions otherwise than by the conclusion, that the person before his senses was a delegate of the Supreme Being, with full authority to be believed, obeyed, and even worshiped as God Himself. Now this Angel was a real being to the prophet who perceived him, as long as that perception lasted; but the Angel was no real being to any one else, because to all other creatures he had no existence, but was by the power of God only a momentary creation and means of communion with the prophet. It is moreover obvious, that although the prophet had reason to worship that being whom he perceived in the capacity of a delegate from God (and in so doing worshiped nobody else but God Himself); yet, for us that Angel not only is no God, but has even no existence at all.

XXIII. From the above remarks, it will be clearly perceived that there is no other revelation from God to men, except that which was vouchsafed to Israel "by the hand of Moses," whose basis is the belief in one personal God, made known by the name ". And as surely as there is a God, so surely will this doctrine ultimately become the belief of all men, who, with Isreal, will in sincerity and truth worship the one only God.

"O that I may die the death of the righteous, and that my last end may be like his" (Israel's).

H. H.

THUMPING WON'T MAKE A GENTLEMAN.

Two eminent members of the Irish bar, Doyle and Yelverton, quarreled one day so violently that from words they came to blows. Doyle, the more powerful man (at the fists at least), knocked down his adversary twice, exclaiming most vehemently, "You scroundrel, I'll make you behave yourself like a gentleman." To which, Yelverton rising, answered with equal indignation, "No, sir, never; I defy you! I defy you! you can't do it.”

WHAT I DID WITH A SHILLING.

BY WILLIAM GILBERT.

ONE foggy evening at the commencement of November, 1871, I was returning hurriedly home, when, passing a flaring gin-shop, I noticed coming out of it a laboring man and woman. From the few words of conversation I heard passing between them, it appeared that the man, after receiving his wages, instead of going directly homeward, had entered a public house, and his wife, having found him in it, was scolding him severely for wasting his money in so useless a manner. The husband, who appeared half-drunk, endeavored to exculpate himself to his better-half. The last words I heard him utter before he and his wife were lost in the fog were, "Well, come now, I've only spent a shilling, so it's not much loss-what can a fellow do with a shilling?"

Possibly from the half-drunken, mock-dignified tone he made use of when he uttered the words, "What can a fellow do with a shilling?" they remained persistently on my mind during the evening, and when I awoke the next morning they were still fresh in my memory. On taking my seat at the breakfast-table the words again occurred to me, and on putting the question to myself, I replied—“I'll try."

I opened the teacaddy, and from it took, perhaps, half an ounce of tea, which I placed in the tea-pot, and, having poured on the boiling water, left it to draw, turning over the while in my mind the history and adventures of the half-ounce of tea, from its first starting into life on the plantations of Assam till it came into my possession, and the cost it had incurred.

I began by watching an imaginary coolie plucking the leaf in a tea-garden some twenty miles from Gowhatty, the capital of the province. It occupied the coolie but a few moments, and he placed it in a basket with some other leaves he had collected. When the basket was filled it was taken by another coolie to the tea-house, where each separate petal was rolled up between the fingers of an Assamese woman, and then placed on an iron drying-stove. There it was kept till the drying process was over, and then it was put into a bag, carried to the elephant-cart, and taken to Gowhatty. There had been some heavy rain, and the journey occupied two days. My half-ounce of tea was then carried to the packing-house, where some