| there is a threefold division of its inmates, somewhat similar, yet, in some respects, widely different. It is from this variation, however, that I intend to draw an argument that will display the wisdom of their Maker. Different though they are, they are the same in this, that they fully obtain the purposes they were meant to serve; different purposes require different means. The difference to which I allude is, that in the hive there is no class of soldiers, none solely intended for defence, while there is a race unknown in termite colonies, I mean the wax-workers. of perfection, we cannot but conclude that kindness de-charge its own duties, but these alone. In the hive vised, wisdom planned, power created and sustains it. So plainly are these characters stamped upon the face of nature, that "he who runs may read." None need shrink back alarmed from the fullest inquiries into the secrets of nature. The volume of God's works is as perfect as the volume of his Word. They bear testimony the one to the other. The book of revelation contradiets not the book of nature. It contains more, but it contains nothing that is contrary to the lessons of nature. It may appear a needless task to add any farther testimony to the character of God, since so much has already been said to display it in the works of his hands. I by no means think that what has been advanced by Paley and others is inconclusive or insufficient, "Were there no example in the world of contrivance, except that of the eye, it would alone be sufficient to convince us that its Creator was wise and skilful. It could never be got rid of; because its mechanism could not be accounted for by any other supposition." It is not because one example is insufficient to prove the wisdom of God that I would call your attention to others, but to exalt your ideas of his wisdom by showing the almost infinite variety of his contrivances, contrivances widely different in the objects they are designed to attain, and as different in the means employed, yet the same in wisdom, for none are faulty, all are perfect and complete. Every instance, we add, serves to heighten our conceptions of Him who planned them in his counsels, spake, and they were. I purpose directing your attention to perhaps the most trifling of all the branches of creation. I should rather say, the least important. I do so for many reasons. First, because the examples I shall bring forward are not so generally known as those of the other orders of being, but more especially because I think it the best suited to illustrate the object in hand. It is so, for it shows the condescension and care of God, since he has so strangely provided this (to us) most despicable race, with forms and instincts as much adapted to their condition as our forms are suited to ours. Again, it shows the skill and the handiwork of God more fully, because of its "insatiable variety." Among the four hundred thousand insects said to exist, we find each species fitted for its condition, not one fault in a work in which, if God were ever careless, he might have been so without great loss or injury to the rest of his creation. Without any other remark, I merely state that I shall endeavour to lay before you some of the contrivances which enable insects to discharge the varied duties for which they are appointed. My first example is taken from the economy of the hive bee. Among insect communities there exists a certain degree of resemblance, in so far as their general economy is concerned. Unlike all the rest of creation they are divided into separate classes, males, females, and workers, and in some soldiers, a race solely occupied in defending the colony. But while they thus agree in their general features they are widely different in the particular forms and proportional numbers. This would scarcely have been worthy of remark, had it not been found that they vary only as their habits or mode of life are different, and are similar when these are similar. Their form, their outward members, and their internal organs, vary more or less as their habits or their food is different. It would occupy more space than my limits permit to establish the truth of this assertion by a comparative view of all insect communities, I shall, therefore, content myself with shortly alluding to the difference existing between the termites or white ants of Africa and the hive bee. In a society of termites there are three separate classes, workers, soldiers, and a class for generation. Each individual is provided with organs adapted to dis What lesson do we draw from this? Simply, the wisdom of Him who ordered it. Had it been otherwise, had this arrangement been reversed, how useless, how foolish would it have appeared to us! The termite needs not to store its food. Living on wood, no winter can wither up the interminable forests around it, Its food is always nigh, summer or winter makes no change. Far different is the condition of the bee, its food lasts but a season, it needs a store-house to preserve its liquid diet. Its waxen cells can do so, but would prove a fragile keeping-place for ragged fragments torn from the weather-beaten trees of the forest, a useless cavity to those who need no store. When I come to describe the strange formation of the wax, the marvellous construction of the cells, you will see more fully the wisdom that hath bestowed this class upon a community who require it; the folly that would have given it to another. Equally wise is it that a separate class for defence has not been given to bees. In the case of the termites it is useful because the community strayed not from their city, but carried on their ravages beneath the galleries or covered ways which they erected. The soldiers had merely to defend a fort against the inroads of an enemy, to station sentinels at the gates of their city. A plan somewhat similar is adopted by the inhabitants of the hive. Two or three sentinels are stationed at the entrance of the hive each night ready to warn the inhabitants of the approach of danger. So surely do we know that this is their appointed duty, that, we read, if these are surprised and removed before they give the alarm, no other noise will disturb the inhabitants. But the smallest or the feeblest blast from their little trumpet awakens the warlike race, and thousands issue ready for the battle. Thus far, therefore, there is a resemblance between the termites and the bee, because thus far their condition is similar. But the bees are not always beneath the shelter of the hive. With the morning's sun they issue forth on their solitary labours, wandering far from their home, perhaps distant from any of their race, they collect their little store. The termite, secure beneath its cover, dreads not the approach of foes, but the bee may mee its enemy on every flower-an enemy that would gladly rifle it of its hard-won sweets. If, then, the bee were unarmed like the termite, how few would return to their little homes. Or, if a class of soldiers were appointed to protect them, each bee would require its respective attendant, and thus its hours of labour would be doubled to provide for its protector's nourishment. How much more wisely is it ordered! Each is prepared with a powerful and envenomed sting, so that it makes effectual resistance or undaunted pursues its labours. Without pursuing this view of the subject any farther, I would ask you to consider, how admirably the bee is adapted for obtaining honey from flowers! Its slender proboscis is the only means by which it could reach the recesses in which it is hidden. Persons have thought that the form of the bee has led it to seek out the only food it could obtain. This is obviously a perversion of facts. But let it be so. Is the wisdom of the Creator in any way obscured? Far from it. Sup pose that the termite had been provided with a proboscis like the bee; this might have led it to seek for some liquid, like honey. But how could it do so? Wingless, it must have crept along from flower to flower. It could not, like the bee, visit every heath, and every valley. A few yards around its dwelling would be its utmost journey. Far from finding, within such narrow bounds, a sufficient supply for the dreary months of winter, it could not obtain enough for its daily wants. The community would be broken up, and each solitary worker must wander alone, gathering an uncertain pittance in the height of summer, with the certainty of death in winter. Against such an evil as this bees are amply provided. Their Maker knowing that their food is scattered far and wide, has not forgotten them, but given them power to traverse rapidly a wide expanse of country. But, again, say that the termite was able to seek out and obtain an abundance of honey, and was provided with an organ that could drink it in, still how would it be the better of it, unless its stomach were able to digest, and draw nourishment from it? It would not, it could not live on it. The internal organs must be so adapted to the outward organs, that what the one takes in, the other must be able to receive and digest. To take an instance from another branch of creation. The teeth of the rabbit are formed to devour the vegetable productions of the earth; the tiger's teeth for tearing the flesh of the beasts of the field. Not more different is the shape of these organs, than the powers and the construction of their internal organs. The one, lengthened and complicated, is fitted for the digestion of vegetation; the other, short and simple, can digest flesh alone. The same distinction is found to exist between the termite and the bee. The powerful jaws of the one are fitted for tearing to fragments the hardest woods; its stomach fitted to digest them. The lengthened proboscis of the other is fitted to try every corner of varied flowers; its stomach fitted to digest their sweets. Who that reads of these things can deny, that a designing mind arranged their forms arranged them well and wisely? It is a common, but a mistaken idea, that bees collect the wax from flowers. The little yellow burdens with which they load their thighs, is not used in the formation of wax. It is formed into what naturalists call "bee bread." Wax is a substance secreted, not gathered. It is formed by certain organs in the body of the wax-workers alone. The method in which this is done, is very interesting in itself; but I shall only allude to it, so far as it serves my purpose. The wax-workers are not only employed in forming the wax; their duty extends also to provisioning the hive. When cells are required for receiving honey, the wax-workers having no place into which they can disgorge the little store they have collected that day, retain it in their stomachs, clustering together the honey as it were like curtains, for the space of four-and-twenty hours. By some strange process, the honey is converted into wax, and, transpiring through their bodies, is received into certain vessels called wax secretors; as the wax is formed, they leave their fellows, and commence the work. When one has exhausted his little store, another takes his place; and so on, till the task is complete. After this has been accomplished, instead of retaining the honey which they collect, they disgorge it into the new made cells. In this simple fact, how clearly is the finger of Providence displayed! It is not any forethought of the bee that leads it to retain the honey-it is not any skill that it possesses of the laws of chemistry, by which it can change its burden into wax-but it is the hand of its Creator which has planted the organ, and given it so useful, so strange a power. Suppose that the swallow was provided with an organ, by which its food was converted into clay, and transpiring through its body, was received into appropriate vessels situate beneath its wings, now strange would it appear to us! But, in reality, not more strange than the fact now mentioned. In the one case it is not required; and while its strangeness would not be lessened, we would scarce admire its wisdom. But in the other, it is absolutely necessary, and therefore stands before us not more strange than wise. The shape of the cells may also serve to illustrate the same great truth. From what has already been said, it is evident that the wax-workers secrete only a limited quantity of wax, and that while employed in that task, the storing of honey is interrupted. As this is the great business of the hive, it is necessary that as little wax as possible should be used in building the cells. It must be laid out to the best advantage, and none of it wasted. Whatever shape these cells may be, it is plain that the bees act more or less wisely as they attend to this. In like manner, as they build in narrow holes and cavities, their cells should be so constructed as to occupy the least possible room. They have to solve the following problem: "From a given quantity of wax to form as many cells as possible, of a certain size, and to place them in such a manner as to occupy the least possible space in the hive." The cylindrical or circular form would best have suited the young larva to be reared in them. But the bees, as if they foresaw that these, when applied to each other, would leave vacant and useless spaces between each cell, have not adopted this shape. In like manner, as if they knew that, while triangular or square cells would have occupied all the space, they would require a vast deal of wax in their construction, and after all prove inconvenient to the larva, as if they knew these things, they have adopted another shape. The six-sided figure, which they use, obviates all these difficulties. The smallest quantity of wax is used, no vacant space is left, and the larva finds it as well suited to his form as the cylindrical could be. The exactness with which this six-sided figure is formed by the bee is still more amazing. It is not merely composed of six sides of equal dimensions, but the relative size of these sides is so adjusted, that the terms of the problem I already mentioned are strictly fulfilled. It was once proposed to a celebrated mathematician (Koenig) to determine, by calculation, “what ought to be the angles of a six-sided cell with a concave pyramidal base formed of three similar and rhomboid plates, so that the least possible matter should enter into its composition?" His answer was, that the angles should be 109° 26', and for the smaller 70° 34'. These, when compared with the cells existing in the hive, give a difference almost nominal. They are in reality 109° 28', and for the smaller 70° 32'. Here is an instance of such minute, such perfect provision for wants, such complete attainment of a good end, that I cannot enforce my argument more plainly than merely to state the fact. Need I say that the bees have not adopted this peculiar exactitude of building from a perception of the benefits arising from it. They are led to begin and complete their task by an impulse, a blind instinct implanted by the hand of Him who formed them, and purposed they should live. He who doubts this will doubt every thing; he who believes it to be the result of chance may believe any thing. I have stated that, in the building of the cell, it is necessary that no space should be left unoccupied, and also that as little of the wax should be expended as possible, and have shown some of the means used to husband space and material. Wonderful as these undoubtedly are, such as science can scarce improve,there are two other contrivances to which I would direct your attention. The one is a contrivance to husband their materials, the other to husband their scanty space for building. First, with regard to space, we find not only the cells Creator of the universe? He who represents him in the plenitude of his power, directing the formation of suns and planets, and guiding the revolutions of worlds? or he who discovers him regulating the economy of a hive of bees, or deeply engaged in folding the wings of a gnat?" In reply, I may ask, "Who gives us the most cheering view of the Judge and the Director of men? He who represents him as wholly engaged in the great and transcendental operations of nature, so wrapt in these mighty schemes that he neglects all of lesser importance? or he who discovers him condescending to things of a day, ordering and arranging the form and the habits of microscopic animalcules? Whether is it more cheering to learn that God guides the orbs of heaven or to know that not a sparrow falleth to the ground without his knowledge?"" are so arranged as to leave no space uselessly unoccu- | gives us the grandest and most magnificent ideas of the pied, the same feature may be seen in the arrangement of the combs. There must be passages, by which access may be had to each cell. If you view the interior of a well planned church, you will find that the lobbies give entrance to two rows of seats,-to the right hand and to the left. The pews are so arranged that one lobby serves for two tiers. It is the same in the hive. But I would particularly call upon you to observe the width of these passages. They are in all cases, with exceptions to be mentioned, about one-third of an inch wide; that is to say, sufficient to admit two bees on the opposite combs easily to pass each other. In other and less densely populated communities this might not be necessary, but in the busy habitation of bees, where, to an unskilled observer, all appears turmoil and con. fusion, it is absolutely needful. More space might have afforded freer and more rapid communication, but it would have entailed a greater evil. A certain degree of warmth is necessary for the well-being of the young bees or larvæ, and it is only by the proximity of the combs that an equable and temperate heat is retained. There is an exception to this general rule, but it only serves to confirm my argument. As the winter approaches, the bustle of the hive begins to relax, and the colds penetrate the hive. The streets or passages may now be narrowed without causing inconvenience to the busy crowd; nay, this would prove a blessing in two respects: first, larger cells to store their food; secondly, an increase of warmth. Accordingly, we find that, as autumn advances, the cells are elongated, and the passages narrowed in proportion. This, I say, is a striking testimony to the wisdom of their Creator. The bees are not guided by forethought, it is a blind impulse that guides them, and that impulse is the gift of God. It cannot be otherwise. The bees cannot know the purpose or the advantage of their labours. Born in spring or summer, they know nothing of the colds or the duration of winter. When spring again comes round, giving token of warmth and bustle, the first labour of the bees is to reduce the cells to their former size. But, again, with regard to their economizing the materials for building, the wax, I call you to observe the skilful methods which are taken to make a feeble wall strong and lasting. The sides of the cells yield support the one to the other; but regarding the base, there is a striking contrivance. The cells are not placed directly above each other, the sides of the one corresponding to the sides of the other. But care is taken that the junction of three cells on the one side shall be directly in the centre of one on the other side; thus affording, as it were, the support of rafters to the thin flooring of the other. The position of the cells. The base of one supported by the juncture of three cells on the under side of the comb. Were it not for this, the base of each cell to be strong enough, would require two or three times as much wax as is now employed. Much more remains to be said; but let this suffice as a sample of the whole. Buffon, the celebrated naturalist inquires, "Who But, never can we feel the omnipotence of God more deeply than when we find all creation acknowledging his sway. When we see that the mighty schemes of eternity could not exhaust his powers, the guidance of unnumbered worlds clog or retard his steps, but that He bears them all so lightly as to find time to care for the insects we despise, let us say one to another, "Fear not, ye are of more value than many such." CHRISTIAN TREASURY. The Gospel. The Gospel is intended to make us blessed, because He, in whose will it has originated, is full of compassion, and announces that here his compassion has had its richest and most determinate exercise. It is fitted to make us blessed; for the same God, whose compassion prompted it, has also contrived all its arrangements and operations, and the infinite wisdom which belongs to him must have so adapted the means to the end, as effectually to secure whatsoever it designs. It is sure to make us blessed; its machinery being moved, and its effects being produced, by the power to which all opposition is feeble, and before which all difficulties vanish away. And it is known to make us blessed; for we have only to appeal to the experience of the Church in every successive age, and in every variety of its features, in proof of the fact, that the Gospel has done for its disciples what nothing else has been able to accomplish, has put a joy into their hearts, and shed a brightness over their prospects, beyond all that worldly minds have experienced or conceived. And with respect to such of you now hearing me, as have been made glad by deliverance from the evils and the fears of sin, and by restoration to divine favour and to heavenly hope, were I to ask you, to what source you trace all this happiness, there is not one of you who would not instantaneously lay his hand upon the Gospel, and say, It is this, and this alone, which has made me what I am, which has converted my troubles into peace, and, in the midst of all my calamities, has taught me to rejoice with a joy that unspeakable and full of glory.”—REV. DR ANDREW THOMSON. (Discourses.) The Christian's Happiness.-It is a privilege to live, if God make us the instruments of showing forth his glory in shedding one ray of heavenly light across the darkness of heathenism. But O it is a greater privilege to die, for then we shall serve God in freedom from sin. We shall be like him as he is, and we shall see clearly in the light of heaven, and feel the gladdening beams of divine presence ever animating and brightening our souls. Memoirs of Mrs Wilson. THE SCOTTISH CHRISTIAN HERALD, CONDUCTED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF MINISTERS AND MEMBERS OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. THE INTRODUCTION OF PRELACY INTO THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. BY THE REV. THOMAS M'CRIE, EDINBURGH. WE need not dwell on the events which led to tinues the legal charter of the Church of Scotland, the re-establishment of the Presbyterian discip- has been always regarded by Presbyterians as a line in the year 1592. Suffice it to say, that the great step in the national reformation. It was signal overthrow of the Spanish Armada, the never indeed viewed as the basis of her ecclesiasinvasion of which discovered the hostile intentions tical constitution, which is to be found in her of the Popish princes of the continent, the pru- Confession of Faith and Books of Discipline, bur dent councils of Chancellor Maitland, who sup- it was a civil recognition and ratification of that planted the king's unworthy favourites,-and the constitution, giving her the advantage of occupyblessing of God on the faithful warnings and con- ing legal ground, sanctioning her liberties, and tendings of the ministers, led to the happiest reducing within proper bounds the prerogatives results. James was persuaded to desist from of the crown; and had the Church been remiss attempting to impose upon the nation a hierarchy in exertions to obtain such a settlement, or dewhich nobody desired but himself; nay, he pro- clined to accept of it, she would, in our opinion, fessed to have become a convert to Presbyte- have acted a part equally foolish and criminal. rianism. At a meeting of the General Assembly The question was, whether Presbytery or Prelacy in 1590, he pronounced a high panegyric on the should be the established form? and a refusal on Church of Scotland. He "praised God that he the part of the Presbyterians to accept of an was born in such a place as to be king in such a establishment, crippled as it was with certain conKirk, the purest Kirk in the world. The Kirk of ditions from which they were resolved to seek Geneva (continued his majesty) keepeth Pasch deliverance, would have been equivalent, at that and Yule. What have they for them? They have time, with surrendering their liberties into the no institution. As for our neighbour Kirk in hands of a despotic and overbearing monarch. England, their service is an ill-said mass in Eng-As it was, this important act was not obtained lish they want nothing of the mass but the liftings. I charge you, my good people, ministers, elders, nobles, gentlemen, and barons, to stand to your purity; and I, forsooth, as long as I brook my life and crown, shall maintain the same against all deadly." The future behaviour of James furnishes us with an awkward commentary on this speech, and leaves too much room to question its sincerity; but at the time it was delivered, the Assembly received it with every demonstration of joy; "there was nothing heard for a quarter of an hour, but praising God and praying for the king." Shortly after this, in June 1592, the Parliament formally restored Presbytery, having passed an act ratifying the government of the Church by Sessions, Presbyteries, provincial Synods, and national Assemblies. This act, which still conNo. 17. APRIL 27, 1839.-1d.] without a struggle; the royal consent was given with reluctance; and the representatives of the Church, who were waiting for it with trembling anxiety, were not relieved from their fears till they heard it proclaimed at the cross of Edinburgh. The advantages of a legal settlement in favour of religion are not to be despised, because, like all other human securities, they are liable to be abused on the one hand, or perfidiously violated on the other. The Church of Scotland did not long enjoy in peace her civil establishment. She soon became involved in troubles arising from the dnbious and vacillating policy of the king. Although a desperate Popish plot for the extirpation of the Protestant religion, concerted by the King of Spain, and headed in Scotland by the Earls of Huntly, Angus, and Errol, had been discovered in the be[SECOND SERIES. VOL. I. ginning of 1593,-though Jesuits were flocking | your majesty in public; but since we have this. into the country, and murders had been committed on some eminent Protestants, James, either from motives of policy, or from personal fear, because, as he used to say, "the Papists were dexterous king-killers," could not be prevailed upon to act a decided part against the traitors. The Popish lords were no sooner proclaimed rebels, than the declaration was withdrawn, and some of them even admitted to court. Against these proceedings the clergy remonstrated with the utmost boldness both in the pulpit and ecclesiastical assemblies. "The king," says Sir James Balfour, "was tossed like a tinnes ball betuix the preceisse ministers and the treacherous Papists. Mr Robert Bruce told him to his face out of the pulpit, that God would raise more Bothwells against him nor one, gif he did not revenge God's quarrel against the Papists, befor his awen particular,' referring to the insurrection of the Earl of Bothwell, against whom he supposed the king to be more zealous than against his more dangerous enemies. Mr Patrick Simpson was still more plain, for, preaching before his majesty on the words, "Where is Abel thy brother?" he openly rebuked him for not prosecuting Huntly, the murderer of "the bonnie Earl of Murray." "Sir," said the preacher, "I assure you, the Lord will ask at you, where is the Earl of Murray your brother?" "Mr Patrick," replied the king before all the people, "my chalmer door was never steeked upon you; ye night have told me any thing you thought in secret." "Sir," said Simpson, "the scandal was publick."* But perhaps the most singular exhibition of boldness on the part of the ministers at this period was that made by Andrew Melville. In 1596, when the design of recalling the Popish lords was ascertained, Melville accompanied a deputation of the clergy to Falkland, for the purpose of remonstrating against a measure which they judged to be fraught with danger to the country. They were admitted to a private audience; and James Melville, whose temper was the reverse of that of his uncle, and who was employed to speak for the rest, because, as he says himself, "I could propone the mater in a mild and smooth maner, quhilk the king lyked best of," was beginning to open the case, when he was interrupted by his majesty, who accused them, "in maist crabbit and coleric maner," of holding seditious meetings, and of alarming the country without any reason. This was too much for Andrew Melville, who could no longer keep silence. He took the king by the sleeve, and calling him "God's sillie vassal," he proceeded to address him in the following strain, "perhaps," says his biographer, "the most singular, in point of freedom, that ever saluted royal ears, or that ever proceeded from the mouth of a loyal subject, who would have spilt his blood in defence of the person and honour of his prince."† Sir," he said, "we will always humbly reverence Balfour's Annals of Scotland, i. 395. Row's MS. Hist. p. 100. ↑ Dr M'Crie's Life of Melville, i. 391. 66 occasion to be with your majesty in private, and since you are brought into extreme danger both of your life and crown, and along with you the country and the Church of God are like to go to wreck, for not telling you the truth and giving you faithful counsel, we must discharge our duty, or else be traitors both to Christ and you. Therefore, Sir, as diverse times before I have told you, so now again I must tell you, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: there is King James, the head of this commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus, the King of the Church, whose subject James the Sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. We will yield to you your place, and give you all due obedience; but again I say, you are not the head of the Church: you cannot give us that eternal life which we seek for even in this world, and you cannot deprive us of it. Permit us then freely to meet in the name of Christ, and to attend to the interests of that Church of which you are a chief member. Sir, when you were in your swaddling-clothes, Christ Jesus reigned freely in this land in spite of all his enemies; his officers and ministers convened for the ruling and welfare of his Church, which was ever for your welfare, when these same enemies were seeking your destruction. And now, when there is more than extreme necessity for the continuance of that duty, will you hinder and dishearten Christ's servants and your most faithful subjects, quarrelling them for their convening, when you should rather commend and countenance them, as the godly kings and emperors did ?" During the delivery of this confounding lecture, his majesty's passion, which was very high at its commencement, gradually subsided; and the ministers were dismissed with fair promises. Different opinions will, no doubt, be formed of the conduct pursued by these undaunted presbyters. Those who are accustomed to regard the interests of truth as of paramount, because eternal, importance, will admire it as moral heroism; while others, judging of it by an inferior standard, may denounce it as officious insolence. It is no doubt perfectly easy for us, at this distance, to sit down in great tranquillity, and sagely to pronounce that this or the other measure was too precipitate, and that the zeal of certain persons was quite irregular. But, as it has been well remarked, "if we look backwards, and impartially consider the state of things at that period, and the different circumstances affecting it, our censure must needs be more modest; and we shall probably find ourselves inclined to admit of an apology for that which cannot obtain our approbation. In the midst of a storm at sea, it is not surely to be expected that things should be managed so calmly and prudently as in moderate weather and an easy voyage." "However," says a modern historian, "from our being placed under happier circum * Dr Macqueen's Letters on Mr Hume's History of Great Bri⚫ tain, p. 83. |