One of Israel.” And again, chapter xxxv. 5,6: "Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing." And our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ applied these prophecies to himself, when in the synagogue at Nazareth he found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor: he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised."*

The performance of well-attested miracles has ever been considered a proof of intercourse with heaven; and the proof seems perfect when the performance of those miracles has been previously predicted. For it may be well assumed that the laws of nature cannot be changed unless by the permission of the God of

*Luke iv. 18.

nature, and that it would be impossible to predict that an event should take place at a particular time, in a peculiar manner, unless he who knows and rules all things had enabled the mind to foresee it.

The evidence of the truth of Christianity, as derived from prophecy and miracles, has on other occasions engaged our attention. We shall at the We shall at the present time rather consider the peculiar characteristic of Christianity as described in the text. "The poor have the gospel preached to them."

The slightest acquaintance with the history of the past shows us that in all ages mankind have been divided into the great classses of the rich and the poor: the rich, possessing all the privileges of the state under which they have lived; the poor, unprivileged, and the majority of them doing little more than vegetating upon the soil they cultivated. The earliest records place man in the two-fold situation of the rulers and the ruled: a single individual with his few favourites,

or a privileged class of nobles holding the rest of mankind under the most grinding and oppressive tyranny, and considering them only as the slaves of their dominion, or the ministers of their pleasures. And if the government was divided amongst a greater number of individuals, and was what in these days would be called more liberal, it was only the exchange of masters with a new name, and the tyranny became more severe as there were more to exercise it, and more obnoxious because it assumed the name of liberty. Neither was the case much improved when the learned had influence in the government, for the learning they possessed served in a great measure to darken knowledge; and however much the priest and the philosopher might themselves be inclined to investigate the truth, and enabled, in some cases to obtain a glimmering of light, their light and knowledge were employed only to obscure the minds of others; and while they professed in their

ries to be acquainted with the true

character of the Deity, they misled the minds of the multitude by the delusions of a false mythology, and made the truths of religion a mere tool for the promotion of political subservience. The schools of the philosophers were only opened to the rich who were enabled to pay for their instruction, or, which amounted to the same thing, to those whose time was sufficiently disengaged from the duties of life to be able to attend them. The poor man, who had his daily bread to procure by the sweat of his brow, could not possibly be numbered amongst either of these classes, and, therefore, the knowledge of that day was excluded from his attainment.

The Jewish dispensation had provided, in some measure, for the instruction of the poor, by the appointment of the sabbath, in which, as it was forbidden for man to work, the poorest had leisure given him for the duties of religion; and by the institution of the three solemn festivals, in which every man had to

appear at Jerusalem, it was impossible that the knowledge of the Divine Being could be altogether obliterated. Nevertheless, from the numerous sacrifices which were enjoined to be offered, the distance of the temple from many of their abodes, the corruptions which in latter times crept into their church, when the scribes and pharisees, instead of setting an example of humility and good feeling, chose for themselves the uppermost places in the synagogues, and disregarded the feelings and welfare of any but themselves, the poor were but too little cared for, and it is consequently to be feared, the instructions of the Jewish teachers had but little effect upon their principles and upon their general conduct.

It was left for the last glorious dispensation which the Divine Being has chosen to institute, to afford to the poor, from its commencement, the grand and glorious privileges of the sons of God. It was among the poor that God himself chose to make his first appearance; and although